TV sets are an incredibly slim margin market. Plus, they aren't going to be able to easily compete with larger set sizes and probably wouldn't want to. The distribution channel for larger devices in very high volumes is very different than for a handful of 27" iMacs and monitors as well

Instead, Apple could leverage their current position and just enhance the user experience with a nicer Apple TV (with video conferencing, camera, remote acess and other goodies thrown in.) They could even couple that with a centralized server and really low cost set top boxes at each set for a more consistent and compelling experience and even better margins. iOS games could also be integrated in.

It makes no sense for them to make sets.

Google purchased (not created) Android in 2005. The work on the product had actually been started by Android, inc in 2003.

The first iPhone didn't released until 2007 and featured Google prominently.

To have already figured out that Apple might cut them out of iOS in 2005 is astounding. If this is correct, then they have amazing foresight.

The $4B from AT&T represents 4.3x TM's last 4 quarters of earnings.

Deutsch Telekom desperately wants to unload them. With 4 years profits in the bag they should just firesale them off at this point and declare victory.

The alternative is to make massive investments to try and end the hemmoraging of subscribers and turn the company around. The odds of their management making that happen successfully are somewhere between slim and unlikely.

No one else in the cellular market is going to want to buy them in the shape they are in. This is the time that someone who wants to be in that space and has deep pockets (Amazon? Google? Facebook?) should buy them. They could transform them into something other than a mediocre mobile phone company.

Hopefully it will finally get ridiculous enough that public outrage will overcome intense funding of politicians by industry sources.

For some reason, when the STAN500100 appeared in Sept for $99 I jumped on it.

For once I am on the right side of a price change. The $99 with free shipping I got is looking pretty good now.

I've had service from all 4 of the major carriers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and TMo) and they all sucked. How much they sucked depended to some extent on where I happened to be physically at any point in time and how much I had to deal with their customer service. In the case of TMo, they sucked on coverage, but they /really/ sucked the most on customer service. People complain about AT&T and Verizon customer service but I've had far more success with them than I ever did with TMo. I am not sure that I ever had a successful interaction with them and I finally dumped them after about 3 years of that crap.

These companies aren't going to change. The mindset of the management teams and boards prohibits it. They will continue to screw their bases with bizarre pricing plans, poorly implemented limits and serious privacy issues. Maybe what we need is for them to continue to roll up into a couple of large, lumbering, unresponsive companies and then have someone nimble come in with new technology and decent plans and radically shift the playing field.

I wonder how different that is from the money spent on and the energy consumed by video games? Its been estimated that the 2011 spend on video games could be as high as $49B. How more is spent on the hardware and energy to play them? Plus there are the all of the societal costs associated with them. We can't afford alternative energy, but we can spend billions of dollars on video games that consume energy, waste time and accomplish nothing.

In baseball, the only thing deemed important to cover is the ball. There may not be as much politics associated with it but you don't really get to see the shifts; what the pitcher and catcher do on most plays, etc.. If you aren't in the ball park seeing it in person, its a pretty intellectually dull sport.

Agreed.

I do wonder though how they simulated the stress associated with the potentials of massive equipment failure, rupture of a compartment in space, collision with small, rapidly moving objects, etc... Space travelers, even those in the ISS have to maintain a certain level of alertness and be constantly prepared to deal with such incidents. 520 days of that small background stress is bound to add up and impact health and behavior.

Based on what Microsoft has that it can sell to consumers, they'd be a lot smarter to locate near a GameStop than an Apple store. They XBox line is really all that they have to sell directly to consumers.

Why is it not the responsibilty of the buyers who reside in CA to pay the use tax on their purchases? Are they a state full of criminals? We file detailed and thorough use tax filings every quarter.

The states (not to mention the counties and cities are starving for revenues.) This is a step onto the slippery slope of making all retailers file and pay sales tax in all jurisdictions where they have sales regardless of nexus. When the revenue from this grab isn't enough it will be interesting to see how the states go after retailers selling from abroad (particularly digital sales.)

This is great! Maybe we can custom design some lizards that eat only cockroaches and bedbugs and are litter box trained.

Should be a great revenue opportunity,

As one of the many faceless among the masses, I also offer my humble thanks for your work, Rob. I graduated HS in 1997, and between working between my first intern job and starting college, the sysadmin at my company suggested I start looking at a site called Slashdot. I followed the site ever since, mostly by directly visiting and in recent years by RSS feed. Over the years I've been exposed to countless meme's, in-jokes, hated authors, anonymous cowards, and definitely the most entertaining and pertinent technology opinions and articles that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. As a CS student, Slashdot encouraged me to get involved with Linux, PHP, and MySQL to create my own CMS, and I thank you for that inspiration. I'm glad to say that we did have a chance to at least meet briefly while the Atlanta area still hosted annual Linux user events (though most times we crossed paths it was when you greenlit my article submissions). Personally, I think you and Slashdot helped set the bar for many technologies and trends to come later: user-submitted and moderated stories (Reddit/Digg), you shared your life with us before it became the social norm (Facebook/Twitter), and produced a fanbase of techies hungry for emerging technologies (like Google, as you mentioned). There is so much more that I can ramble on about, but I'll stop there and just say thank you.