Now, be nice. Your acidic remarks are unecessary and uncalled-for.

We are currently one of the cheapest products in our marketplace. We do not sell hardware - and for people who really want touch screens, we recommend wall mounted all-in-ones that sit around U$900.

Oh, and by the way, your ~0.5kg is false.

iPad weight = 652 grams (here is a citation: http://www.apple.com/ipad/specs/). That's the lighter version.
iPad cover weight = 338 grams (citation: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/features/apple/3345046/best-cases-covers-for-new-ipad/)
Apple make lighter cases, but the lightest I've seen still comes in at about 180 grams.
Total weight 830 grams at best - though if you choose the 'recommended covers', it will be much closer to 1kg.

Also, subby wasn't talking about reading books. He was talking about reading stapled printouts. There is a big weight difference. If you want an eBook reader for bedtime or on a plane - then, sure, grab one. Please do your research before posting snippy responses in /.

My company makes software for allied health professionals, and a large number of our customers are chiropractors. They are starting to use tablets quite extensively for recording their medical notes, so I am perfectly positioned to offer a slightly tangential response. Full disclosure: I am not a chiropractor - I've just worked with thousands of them, so I know a bit about spines and posture.

Subby, you mentioned that your back isn't what it used to be. This is an important factor.

During our lab trials of tablets, we received a lot of feedback about the ergonomics of tablets - and one tester actually had to be excused from testing after a measly 15 minutes due to neck pain developing. Here's the problem:
- A tablet has a very small screen. Don't let anybody trick you into thinking that a 10.1" screen is big. Its not. You have to hold the tablet quite close to your face to be able to read it comfortably.
- Even the lightest tablets still have significant weight. You can safely anticipate that your tablet will weigh about a kilogram.
- When you hold a kilogram weight up in front of your face, it distorts your body's centre of balance. In order to compensate, your body transfers weight either resulting in you leaning backwards, or sticking your backside out. Either of these are posturally abnormal positions. For the first 5 minutes, no problems - but for extended periods, this can (and likely will) result in back pain, neck pain and headaches. Over weeks and months, it will damage your spine.
- The alternative is to sit in a relaxed position and hold the device in your lap. Sounds good until you realise that your entire body is falling into a C shape (when seen from the side). This is also an abnormal position for the spine - and creates the same problems. We see a lot of x-rays of children who spent excessive time with the iPod/PST/handheld device in their lap - their spine is worse than that of a 40 year old.

In the end, we published an official white paper advising our customers that A) tablets work fine; the technology is sound and reasonably mature; B) we DO NOT recommend that they use them.

I've received two calls in the last week so I'm not sure how the USFTC can claim to have 'shut them down'.

My strategy these days is to ask them to hang on 'for just a minute' and then go and leave my phone under a cushion for 20 minutes. I figure that wasting their time is the most effective way to fight back.

Whilst I feel some anger towards EA for this Exec's blatant greed ('this is not DRM' - yeah, right), I take a more 'market driven' approach towards this problem. Good games will always sell - and they'll make lots of money. Studios that cultivate good single-player games won't work with EA, and another publisher will win the profits. EA botched Mass Effect 3 (slowest boot up ever), but that wasn't bad enough to destroy the game. If/when they're inflexible business policy does destroy a game, it just won't sell. Simple.

Only the Sith deal in absolutes... lol

Do you not even understand the difference between oppression and 'video piracy'? I suppose that you would apply 'stand your ground' laws if someone tried to take your parking spot too?

What world do you live in?

Laws are intended to maintain a consistent environment within which people can carry out their lives. Laws define their rights and obligations as members of their society. The whole idea is that if people abide by the laws, the life experiences of those people will be better than if they did not (abide by the laws). Some societies have police forces to uphold and maintain the laws. People who refuse to abide by the laws are incarcerated in jails - to either be reformed so that they may re-enter society - or to protect society from them.

Your frustration with the laws is understandable. There are plenty of laws out there that I dislike (eg I am not allowed to go and beat up my partner's ex husband when he abuses their children). However, society as a whole have decided that if we act outside the law, society will put us in jail.

You mentioned Rosa Parks and Gandhi. They were people who were willing to go to jail to support their desire to change the laws. They were contesting substantive human rights violations.

By contrast, this thread is about 'not being able to download some old episode of The Kenny Everett Video Show'.

Now, I liked that show. I liked it heaps. I'm not prepared to go to jail over it. Are you?

Are you encouraging others to destroy the fabric of society over such an insignificant thing?

Do you genuinely believe that you can use Gandhi to validate video show piracy?

Get some perspective.

Sadly, this mentality is too prevalent in the Science/IT community. It goes like this:

If 'person X' can't prove to me that 'law Y' is 'beneficial/valid/just/whatever-polarised-measure-of-truth-I-like-at-the-time', then we should all just ignore it.

There was a time in the past when humanity largely lived by this philosophy. It was called the Stone Age.

As long as you perpetuate a Fight Club mentality, or encourage others to do so, you are effectively supporting anarchy. Whilst you may think that a little anarchy in copyright law is a good thing, you may not like a little anarchy in your daughter's classroom - or in your parents' retirement village.

The world is a complex place, and only children have the luxury of viewing it in black and white terms.

If the laws are wrong, change them. Carry on breaking them willfully, and I will continue to fight like hell to see you in prison where you belong.

In Australia (and most western countries I imagine), there is a distinction between Criminal matters (eg breaking the law), and Civil matters (eg breaking a contract). Generally speaking, Civil matters won't see you landed in jail, but could bankrupt you.

Anyway, the point is, anybody who sells anything (including software) is open to be sued in a Civil court. If you are negligent, and it can be proved that you are negligent, then you can be held accountable for it.

Interestingly, in Australia, the burden of proof is different for Civil matters. There is no 'beyond reasonable doubt' clause for Civil matters. It is generally decided by a judge (not a jury) on the basis of 'the balance of evidence'. But I digress...

The point is: We are already liable. Its not a criminal matter - and nor should it be, unless there are lives at stake. Admittedly, some software is life-critical, but there are already laws covering professional negligence in these cases.

IMHO, this academic has an axe to grind that has not yet come to light. Scratch and sniff, and something probably stinks...

I started my own business and now I employ others, you insensitive clod.

And for what its worth, I only ever hire through agencies. Mostly for risk mitigation reasons.

Rather than whitelist, I choose to blacklist - and I do so very discriminately.

In essence, I allow a website's ads to stream freely until they stream an ad that offends me. As soon as that happens, I adblock them.

I figure that this introduces a kind of moral/ethical gate in advertising. As long as the advertisers conduct themselves ethically, I will allow them space on my (browser) desktop. If an advertiser is unethical, they lose that right. Now, its up to them...

Bad news for /. - your advertisers have been blacklisted for bad behaviour. I don't bother to tick the box, as they're already blocked.

A 24TB NAS is not very hard to assemble. Relatively cheap, and basically transfers data at Gb speed - assuming that you populate it with fast disks. Set one up with RAID and you're away. Personally, I would do it with a low end server and a big-ass RAID array. That way, you can really control its behaviour via the OS. Linux is ferpect for this kind of thing.

+1
But it won't just be the USA. I'm in Oz, and just had my crazy father-in-law bounce in to the room announcing that this is proof that AGW is rubbish.

Come live in Oz for a while.

Admittedly, I go to the snow with my SO and kids, so I should be dividing that figure by 4, but it basically costs around $10k per week including accommodation, meals, lift passes and airfares. It gets a bit cheaper if you stay for 2 weeks or more - but that's one helluva big holiday. If only I were insanely rich.

You suck. I pay $1000 per day for that experience.