Not only are the numbers easy to change, but the parts, particularly Iphones, are worth good money, which is where I suspect most of them end up.

Not only that, but carriers don't work together to limit the transfer of phones. Sprint users often take stolen or bad esn phones over to Cricket anmd get them put right back in service. Recently the government took efforts to get them to finally start working together on this.

Once we get wireless displays in our phones (and cheaper storage, which is coming), that will mark the final straw, everything will be phone based.

Right now we try to bring the data to the phone, instead, reverse it, put everything on the phone and run everything from that. With this method, you always have your data, instead of always retrieving it from elsewhere. As the phone becomes more and more the primary device, this makes more and more sense. If you haven't seen it, take a look at Clambook. Now adapt that same system (wirelessly) to a desktop and tablet. They won't even be a thin client, they will simply be extensions of your phone.

This means less services to pay for since you only need internet on the phone, as well as fewer items to maintain. It ends up far cheaper and more efficient as you don't even need to buy a tower anymore. As it stands, the only thing really holding it back is a UI that works on a desktop, any guess as to where Microsoft and Ubuntu think we are heading?

Desktops will remain, but they will become more of a tool (like they were 30 years ago). Gamers, artists, etc, anything needing more power will stay on the desktop for at least a bit longer. Some things need the extra power, but the average store bought PC that is mostly for browsing the internet will be dead. The same applies to game consoles, they will go back to being just a game system for more hardcore gamer as most will play from their phone connected to whatever peripheral they choose.

Terrible employees, bad policies... Sure they have some things you might want, but you hate to go in. Both companies completely lost sight of their customers and became more like used car salesmen.

Best Buy doesn't get any of my money if I can help it. It's not just the prices, it's everything about how they operate. Look at Best buys website, looks more like a corporate back end and you NEVER find the lowest priced items like memory in stores. If I have to mail order it anyway, why would I bother with them? And why would I pay $30 for a 6 foot usb cable? Are you nuts? Just because you can take advantage of impulse buying, doesn't mean you can conduct highway robbery and expect no one to catch on.

We have a Microcenter an hour away, but otherwise it's a matter of figuring out what other store might carry what we need for a reasonable rate or we just simply mail order it.

I got rid of my dvd rom years ago, I almost never used it.

Ubuntu and MS both tell you how to install from a thumbstick and MS Office is even sold on them. In a year I would imagine you will be hard pressed to find a system with a rom drive. I do hook up a usb external on occasion to read or write a disk, but that's rare. Netflix, Hulu and alternatives take care of movies, Steam and similar handle games. USB sticks handle the rest.

I don't take dvd's on a plane, it's cumbersome and the drive eats batteries, copy the files to a folder and use VLC if you must.

You're kidding right?
It is NOT a free laptop

You have to send them your old one, even today, my laptop is worth 4 times the laptop they want to replace it with. Why on earth would I send it in only to get back a pile a of junk? If they wanted to send me the new laptop, great, I could sell it and fix mine, but there is no way I'm trading in my top of the line Sony for that pile of poo.

As always the real winners are the lawyers.

We already put a bunch of stuff into physical space, crashed probes into comets, and put a bunch of junk on the moon and mars. It only takes a few microbes to ruin an ecosystem. Nasa has implemented safeguards (after having put some into space), but will those safeguards be taken into account when privateers start heading out?

And what happens once we do colonize Mars or the moon, both of which we could technically do now if we wanted. We could be seen as spreading like a virus at that point, some already see us as such. Take a look at what we have done to this planet so far. You don't think if we had interstellar travel that we wouldn't exploit/trash any planet we came across?

All those movies like Independence Day where they come for our resources, we're it.

Ubisoft has created the perfect DRM system.
Combine horrible DRM with horrible gameplay and no one will pirate it. Of course no one will play it either, but hey, it's the perfect DRM system.

I almost feel as though I should be thanking them for all the time and money they are saving me.

Half of the problem is all of you thinking that all we play is casual games.

I have hundreds and hundreds of hours in Left 4 Dead, Battlefield and Call of Duty lines (plus others) and you would be amazed at how many women are there, you just don't see it because they don't make it known. Making it known creates a lot of issues, not just the smack talk, it often crosses the line into abuse, sexual harassment and stalking. It's a nice day when you can get online during peak hours and just be treated like "one of the guys". Instead we get berated upon entering, followed around and ganged up on.

Once I started gaming openly, I ended up quitting half the games I was playing online and almost completely stopped playing during peak hours.

According to my keyboard, 9.

You haven't seen Virgin Mobiles cell plans then.
$25 per month, 300 minutes with unlimited data. They do throttle you at 5gigs though, oh darn.

Don't lay Sony's stupidity on the rest of the industry.

Just because Sony was too stupid/in a rush/incompetent to encrypt everything like they should have, doesn't mean everyone is moving too fast.
It just means whoever decided not to waste time on encryption, should have their head sitting on a stake at Sony Software HQ as a warning to others.

"it’s also the direction in which these used game restrictions should be going."

So how much will you pay for the used game knowing you still have to pay another $15 for the content? Not much.
How about when they decide it isn't enough and want $20?

It effectively destroys the second hand value and they know it.

In the 70's, 80's and early 90's we shifted from raw power and speed to more efficient, but when the power and speed came back it was more efficient, faster and safer.

The Mustang , Camaro and Corvette are perfect examples, they went from a big honking gas guzzlers in the early 70's, to nearly commuter cars in the late 70's and early 80's, to what they are, now. Newer models are so much better in every way. The same is happening with airline industry, and when the industry rebounds it will be far better off.

This could also signal a technological shift. You can only go so fast in the confines of the earth's atmosphere before it becomes inefficient. An ICBM can get to Russia in 45 minutes by running on the edge of space, based on the number of space travel companies starting, they may end up replacing the airline industry for long distance travel. Planes may stick around for shorter distance travel and cheaper commutes, but by the time the industry rebounds it may be very different than it is.