Sorry, but if that's what it's meant to mean, it's a pretty opaque and obnoxiously PR-ish choice of words. Whether or not it's come (or is coming) into common currency doesn't change the fact that it's recent enough that most people using it probably chose to do so, or did so under the influence of too much PR bullshit.

There may be a case for a short and snappy phrase intended to concisely convey the meaning you describe, but f*****g "reaching out" sure as hell aren't the words I'd have chosen to do so.

Urgh... this makes me think of that famous bash.org quote. Seriously, why the **** are Engadget using this obnoxious phrase instead of simply saying "we've contacted Netflix" or something similar?

It's the current favoured stock weasel-worded pseudo-touchy-feely (but in fact, insultingly off-the-shelf) bullshit phrase corporate PR use to sound like they *suddenly* give a f*** about a pissed-off customer they're having to contact, er... "reach out to" in response to some massive PR disaster they didn't expect.

But why would a "proper" news source feel the need to use the same irritating phrase when *they're* not the putative offending party on the defensive, but rather the people investigating the problem?

Unless this is an example of the phrase "if you lie down with dogs [i.e. hang around too many PR weasels], you get up with fleas".

If someone can create an app that itself accurately determines whether any given app will terminate (or not) for any given input... I'll be more than impressed.

Other than that, I think every damn app possible has already been written. :-)

Given that almost every first-generation iMac I saw had an external floppy drive attached anyway, it suggests that "the very few people who actually needed" floppy drives when Apple dropped them (circa 1998) was "just about everyone" and that Apple jumped the gun.

This is hardly surprising. The intended use of the Internet to transfer files wasn't a sufficient replacement as- back then- not everyone had Internet connectivity and those that did were mostly on dial-up. The optical drive was only a reader, presumably due to the fact that back then writers were getting cheaper but still nowhere near cheap enough to be added to all lower end models without significantly increasing the price. And USB flash drives wouldn't get "no brainer" cheap for another several years.

So, no. The much vaunted "Apple showed their foresight by ditching floppies" was a red herring if everyone needed to rush out and hang an external drive off the USB port anyway.

I can quite believe that; from my (brief) memories of the Model M, the resistance was noticable (and disconcerting in its positioning) for me anyway.

I suspect that if- like you- one learned to type on a mechanical typewriter, the Model M will feel better and more natural. I didn't, and that's possibly why I didn't like it (and- I suspect- most people used to lighter computer keyboards probably won't like it either).

Speaking as someone who *does* own (and am typing this on) a mechanical keyboard, I'll still say that membrane keyboards get unfairly disparaged, and that some are very nice to type on.

Some (emphasis "some") of the cheapest models are ******* horrible, true, but the one I have at work is actually pretty good even though that itself is a cheap one.

The best membrane keyboards I've used are miles better than the worst mechanical ones. And the scissor/membrane job on my old Compaq Armada laptop had a very pleasant, low-travel feel to them.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of it's what you're used to.

The mechanical keyboard I bought almost ten years ago has Cherry MX Black switches apparently. It's certainly lasted, but although I'm still using it to type this message on, I've always felt that the spring resistance was just a *little* too stiff to be truly pleasurable to touch-type on. (Something I've since read elsewhere).

The Cherry MX Red has the same "linear" key action I bought the Black-based keyboard for, but with less resistance, and having used a Red-based keyboard, it's closer to what I had in mind when I bought the Black one (mail order). Mind you, the Red switches apparently weren't around back then anyway.

Cherry MX Reds are supposedly too sensitive for touch-typing, and intended for gaming keyboards, but I (as a non-gamer) am still considering buying one.

Of course, all the above is a matter of personal preference; if possible, you should always try out a mechanical keyboard- or at least one based on the same technology- if the feel of it is important. (And you probably wouldn't be bothering to buy a mechanical one if it wasn't!)

FWIW, while I was researching new keyboards a couple of months back, I came across these, both of which are useful in explaining the different types of Cherry switch:-

An introduction to Cherry MX mechanical switches

Cherry MX overview

Note that these colour codings only apply to official Cherry switches, not unofficial clones derived from their patent-expired design. For example, Razer commissioned a custom "green" switch from another manufacturer, which is apparently similar to the official Cherry MX Blue (rather than the Cherry MX Green).

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but Model Ms- and the "clicky" style mechanism aren't the be all and end all of mechanical keyboards, and I'm sure that the endless raving about them is due to the fact that the people who *do* like them seem to be disproportionately vocal about it! As I commented a couple of months back:-

Addendum; More seriously, Kodak appears to have quietly discontinued *all* its slide films around three years ago:-

http://www.thephoblographer.co...

It wasn't immediately obvious, especially as they'd been discontinuing variants and paring down the range for years prior, but it appears that the slide films they discontinued that time were *the only ones remaining*, "I’m confirming that we did send a notice to dealers today that we will be discontinuing our three slide films" (not simply "discontinuing three slide films").

Given that there's no mention of slide films on their site any more (go there and see if you can find any (*)) and no sign of new stock available through retailers, it's pretty clear that they managed something far more significant than the discontinuation of Kodachrome itself with far, *far* fewer people noticing.

Huge irony is that Fujifilm- who were much more willing to move into the digital age and thus prospered whereas Kodak didn't- still sells slide film, along with traditional colour and black-and-white negative and instant (Polaroid-style) film.

(*) Colour and black-and-white negative films listed, but no transparency:- http://wwwuk.kodak.com/global/...

Get over yourself. Kodachrome was an important product in its day, but it was never *ever* the be-all-and-end-all of Kodak.

I'm pretty sure that latterly the print films (Gold et al) massively outsold it, and the sad truth (from an apparent Kodak insider, "Rowland Mowrey") was that by the late-80s- even before Velvia came out, and long, *long* before digital was eating into it- photographers weren't interested in Kodachrome any more:-

None of what I (or he) said is to say that Kodachrome was a bad film, nor that Ektachrome was better- just that people didn't want it, and by the end clearly weren't buying it in quantities sufficient to justify manufacturing it and keeping even the final lab (for *all* Kodachrome processing worldwide) open.

Why? We all know by this point that such a thing would almost certainly consist of the "chickenhead" logo slapped on some otherwise generic middle-of-the-road smartphone hardware by a third-party licensor armed with a "Commodore is back!" press release (dumbly repeated by the mainstream press) and designed to exploit nostalgia as cheaply and with as little effort as possible.

They might even slap a cheap pastiche of the C64 case on the front if you're *very* lucky (cough).

As I've previously commented, the Commodore and Amiga brands and IP are a confusing mess, and many of the names have been exploited for very cheap nostalgic purposes. The same company that made the Commodore 64x- i.e. a PC in a case that at least *looked* like the computer it was meant to be "resurrecting"- also made new "Vic" all-in-one PCs that looked little to nothing like their namesake and even worse sold HTPC cases that didn't even resemble the original Amiga line under names of classic machines like Amiga 1000.

So, seriously. Commodore is long-dead, and while overpriced hardware is still sold to exploit the rabid diehards who want to run "Amiga OS" in 2014, anything likely to end up on a smartphone *will* be meaningless name whoring that has nothing to do with anything Commodore themselves did. Whoever "officially" owns the relevant fragment of the disputed rights this week means sod all.

If you want a "Commodore" smartphone, get a sticker from some guy on eBay, stick it on the phone of your choice, and it'll be as much a "Commodore" as anything produced by a licensor of a licensor of a guy who once knew the third owner of the rights to the "Commodore plus/4" brand after it was retrieved them from Gateway's dumpster in the late 1990s.

While it's true that this *is* what happened to Polaroid- that is, the original company is effectively dead and liquidated (*) and the post-2001 "Polaroid" is an unrelated company that bought the name (**) and some of the assets- it technically *isn't* what happened to Kodak.

The present-day Kodak is still the same company. They went into bankruptcy protection, were forced to sell some things off, (***) and then emerged from that about 18 months ago.

That's not to say that they won't be indulging in name licensing anyway, and in this case it's unclear how much- if any- involvement Kodak themselves will have in the manufacture of this phone, or its sale.

In fact, before the bankruptcy it was clear to me that Kodak's problem was that in order to stay afloat in the short term they were being forced to sell off everything that would enable them to survive in the long term (i.e. patents and technical assets). My guess was that- at best- Kodak would survive as a massively pared down shadow of its former self, and at worst would be entirely liquidated and its name sold off to be whored out for its recognition in rebranding cheap generic electronics made by anonymous manufacturers in the Far East (a la "Polaroid").

Then again, even if the core of the "original" Kodak survives with ownership of its name intact, it's open to question how meaningful this would be if most of what made it "Kodak" had been sold off and it had to become little more than a brand-licensing operation anyway.

(*) As far as I can tell, the original Polaroid still "exists", but only as a dormant (and renamed) legal entity that conducts no business and I'm assuming is kept on life support for purely legal reasons related to liabilities after the bankruptcy.

(**) Actually, AFAICT, the company that bought the Polaroid name (apparently quite dubious) themselves went bankrupt, so I'm not sure if the current owners are actually "Polaroid 3"(!!!) Not that it matters much. To be fair, the current owners do appear to be trying to use Polaroid's legacy more respectfully as far as cameras go (e.g. portable printers and cameras with that Lady Gaga tie-up a couple of years back), but they're still continuing the previous owner's model of licensing the name out to third-party distributors who use it to rebrand low-quality generic LCD TVs et al.

(***) I'm not entirely clear what was sold off. One report suggested (if I read it correctly) that they were going to give the film business to the UK pension fund to settle liabilities there, but from what I can tell that's not actually what happened in the end, and Kodak themselves still control the film business.

Speaking of "location", Beverley Hills 90210?! The guy's obviously a sell-out that betrayed his geek roots.

I'd have expected him to move to Lebanon, Missouri. Or- at a push- Plymouth, Florida.

If they dont have evidence they dont know they are criminals.

Hahaha.... I'm sure someone will point out that Kirk only went to a "stupid copy of earth" twice and LSD lights in space didn't feature that often... yet somehow you've managed to distill and exaggerate an already selective general perception into something that *sounds* like you hit the nail on the head. :-)

True... but you forgot the overuse of the holodeck, which, if you were to exaggerate it the same way you did TOS, would have every third episode involving Data dressing up as Holmes and chasing Moriarty who'd somehow overridden the safety settings. :-)

(Disclaimer: Still my favourite ST series).

Saw some of it, nowhere near as bad as some people claimed, but came across as too much like a rerun of TNG with weaker characters.

(And the TNG-style episodic "reset button" formula was more obviously contrived when there was an end goal (i.e. to get home) that had to be put back out of reach).