http://www.xamarin.com/

The Prizes were intended to be his atonement for that.

That depends. Perfecting that process was not free (R&D, manufacturing ramp up etc.) so chances are the widget will cost more than before. It may even cost more than 12x more. If it doesn't, that extra money would go toward other goods. Or maybe it gets saved.

In either case, that money would not go to the original widget making industry and as a result, money might flow somewhere else causing that sector to contract. Or maybe they end up selling a ton more of their durable widgets and hire more people with the increased revenues.

Just a random comment, but if Windows Phone uses the NT Kernel, I would find it hard to imagine it not having low latency recording given the presence of massive amounts of pro-audio apps for Windows. Or is that a function of DirectX or some other add-on which isn't present in the Windows Phone version of the kernel?

I have a T420s and while I don't doubt you have experience what you describe, I haven't had most of these problems. I have seen the issue where it doesn't turn off when the lid is closed (maybe four times) and I'm not a huge fan of the screen. The software is weak to me too but I wiped it and installed stock Windows 8 and it works well.

I'll tell you what I do like about it:
- 3.5 lbs weight
- The keyboard (of course)
- The ability to add another battery via UltraBay
- The ability to add another SSD via the mSATA port
- The Ultranav setup is better than most with the larger trackpad. I don't normally use the trackpad but in Windows 8 it has increased utility (opening charms bar, switching apps) that I appreciate.

I just got a 15.4 Retina Macbook Pro and, outside of the screen of course, the T420s outclasses it in every way. I've been a ThinkPad guy since the late 90s myself and I've definitely seen changes that I don't like but, even in the current state of the line, I don't know that there is any other vendor that I would choose.

I'm curious to hear your explanation of why the iPhone 4 can't run Siri in iOS5 and how is that different from the Lumia 900 getting the most obvious new feature from WP 8 (the new Start Screen) but not the other - mainly hardware dependent - features?

Sounds like you haven't been paying attention to the obvious iOSification of OS X.

The Start screen will not take up both monitors, it will take up one at most. I've used multiple monitors for at least 10 years (I'm a developer FWIW) and nomally my "off" monitor - which is normally a lower resolution than my main one - is running an app full screen like a web browser or OneNote. In using Windows 8 and Metro I haven't noticed much of a difference in practice but obviously YMMV. Even still, you can have two apps - including a desktop app - running on the Metro screen. It has quirks but I have found it far from frustrating.

Certainly more accountability in the form of being on the hook to the sponsor and compliance authorities if things go to hell. But with great grant money comes great independence.

I'm confused about #3. The Win8 Start screen displays way more apps than the Win7 Start menu. If anything, the Win8 screen greatly increases the chances of the app you want being right there and not requiring a click of All Programs so I don't see how it is any less efficient. From what I have seen, the only advantage the Start menu has over the Start screen is easier location of recently installed applications.

Though I have to also say that in Win7 (and XP and Vista) I start programs either from a taskbar shortcut or by using Window-R to bring up the "Run" dialog which is analagous to the Quake console. Fortunately I can do the same thing in Win8.

On number 1 I haven't had a remote desktop session where my Windows key isn't forwarded in a long time. I think the newer rdp clients - which I'm sure Windows 8 ships with - have that problem licked.

A shortcut on the taskbar or desktop should take care of number 2.

I'm not saying there has been no cool stuff, I'm just saying that these OSes are just making relatively small enhancements compared to what was happening between releases during the 90s. That, I believe, makes the fundamental impetus to upgrade much less urgent.

I am a Mac user, the only true technical reason to upgrade the Mac OS since 2000 or so was when they switched to the x86 platform. They incentivize upgrades more by by outright dropping support for old hardware than the relatively minor features they add in what basically amounts to a yearly service pack. I just upgraded to Mountain Lion for the hell of it and I wouldn't know I had upgraded if I didn't know what to look for.

The majority of what you listed in OS X has been implemented in some fashion in Windows (task bar upgrades, task switcher upgrades, voice dictation), maybe not as an OS release but as a free download (e.g. Skydrive / live as opposed to iCloud).

Also, as far as I can tell, there was not much to "fix" in Vista. Most of Vista's problems were due to terrible drivers which improved over time. Outside of that, the only other real issue I remember was UAC so I doubt much time was spent on that.

As for Windows 98 vs XP, it's like I said. Windows XP was 100x more stable than Windows 98 because it ran on the NT kernel and businesses knew there were huge productivity incentives to upgrade - similar to the OS9 vs OS X update. Neither OS has seen an update that had near the quality impact since.

Finally, I'm on Windows 8 now and I have to disagree about Metro. I don't think it's anything revolutionary but it adds much more value than it takes away. Exponentially more useful than half-hearted stuff like Launchpad.

Before January of this year my last two laptops were tablets and they were by no means slow compared to full sized laptops. My last one (a Lenovo x220t) had a dual-core i7 processor and ran every bit as fast as a desktop.

The thing is that the Windows tablets were never designed to be full on touch - or even pen - driven devices. You could exclusively use the pen if you wanted, but the real utility is in using the pen digitizer with MS Office. Once you start using it, that one feature justifies the added cost of the device. It's a completely different product from the iPad aimed at a completely different market.

Also, I'm typing this on a Windows 8 machine and I have no problem navigating the Metro Interface with a keyboard and mouse. If you've used Windows in the past, it's pretty easy to get used to.

I don't think you can adequately compare looking back 10 years ago to looking back now. Windows got pretty much everything it needed in February of 1999 with Windows 2000. However, Windows 2000 did not get a consumer release until they added 3 features and called it Windows XP. After that, there haven't been any huge functionality holes in Windows from a general consumer standpoint since the critical XP SP2 update. As best as I can tell, that pretty much puts it in similar territory as OS X over the last decade. In 2002 there were still a ton of computers running Windows 95/98 and there were massive reasons to upgrade from those to XP.

Having said that, I am pretty sure that Windows 7 sales numbers have eclipsed XP. This is probably because the size of the PC market has expanded since XP was in vogue, but chances are that the majority of those XP licenses will at least turn into Windows 7 licenses.