"No. Bad boy/girl!"

Actually, yes.

Over the years, I've bought hundreds of CDs that I've listened to once or twice and then sold to recover a few bucks. (Much of this before I was ripping CD music to my computer.) I now often purge my music collection both of CD media, as well as digital copies.

Now if I buy a song as a digital download, I no longer have that option.

"Also, what the hell are you going to do with a CD once you have it but rip it?"

Sell it used.

Wel, if yer buyin' fancy store-bought likker, mebbe

Seriously.
All of the important advances in Internet technology have been driven in some part by better access to pornography:

"Sir, with the new multi-widgeted-gigaplexing in the new Roto-Router2k, you'll have greater compliance with IETF standards and fewer packet-collision-related neck and back injuries."

"Ummm... I dunno."

"Oh, you'll also be able to anonymously download pr0n 1000x faster and get immediate access to young hotties in your neighborhood who are looking to Hook Up Tonight."

"I'll take it, whatever the cost."
Later that night...
"Honey, I upgraded the Interweb thing so you can watch your cat videos and Ice Dancing on YouTube in Holographic HD..."

I'm really looking forward to going back to having every PC with a globally routable IP address

You really think having every *Windows* machine out there having a globally-routable IP address would be a Good Thing?

While of course it's possible to run a clean Windows box if you have half a brain, millions of people don't. The idea of having them all directly on the Internet scares me.

Thank you.

A proper "English" keyboard? For Japanese text?
Because Japanese input is complex, the predictive input on a Japanese numerical keyboard is quite sophisticated. Typing texts all in romaji is far less efficient, actually.

It's because the Japanese hate your freedom. ;-)

More likely, it's because the West too often fails to design products specifically for Japan, rather than try to retrofit existing products or even worse, merely "market" Western products in Japan.

Japanese companies are designing products for Japanese people who live in Japan.

For example, written Japanese is a lot more "dense" than English. One character can convey a meaning that it would take many letters to express. For that reason, they are not bothered by screens so small as to be considered unusable by most Westerners. The iPhone's bigger screen becomes less important. Japanese input on a Japanese phone has a steeper learning curve, but everyone learned it years ago. The iPhone requires learning a new one, I suspect. (Haven't really tried it.)

"Personally I just want a fucking eyetap built into some Oakley M-frames with photo-gray tint, and a discreet wearable computer so I don't look like a total tard at all times..."

Actually, wearing M-Frames all the time will make you look like a "tard," even if there's no computer attached.

I think most critical fatal mistake Apple made when releasing this thing in Japan is that they didn't add a hole for attaching a wrist strap.

Without that, if you want to hang dozens of little charms on your phone, you need a third-party case of some sort.

Other than that, people here don't keep a phone very long or use many of the features. Lately I've been seeing a phone advertised on the basis of having some little piano keyboard app that looks suspiciously like the "Band" app for the iPhone. Who is really going to use that for more than a few minutes?

Other than the TV tuners, I doubt many people actually use the clever features that are so touted when they bring out a phone here.

I have all of Wikipedia, all of Google, all of YouTube, in fact all of the data available on the Internet here in my pocket on a device about the size and shape of about 30 playing cards.
It's constantly updated and refreshed in almost real time.

It's my iPod. I get all of this as long as I have an Internet connection somewhere nearby.

In practice, that's really good enough for me. Why would I want to carry around terabytes of data that I couldn't trust to have not gone stale since it was committed to memory, 99.99% of which I have no need for?

It's industry jargon.

Photographers use the term and understand it.
That would make it a real word, wouldn't it?

You've seen this, right?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7665747.stm

I can't help but thing Gary Larson was somehow involved.