The same thing happened in the Windows world. Windows 7 was faster than Vista, and Windows 8 was faster than Windows 7. Each new version got better with their use of resources, although the system requirements remained the same for the three versions (1 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM for 32bit, 2GB for 64bit) except for hard drive use with went up by 1GB per release.

When I first tried the beta of Windows 8, the only computer that I had spare was a 2GHZ Celeron with 1GB RAM and a slow hard drive (I think that it was from 2006). It was slow to boot, but once loaded I was astounded how well it worked. I wouldn't use it for day-to-day operations, but it wasn't too far out of the ball park for speed. It didn't stop me hating the user interface (and I still do), but the actual performance did surprise me having been used to the idea (like you were) that each version in the past had got slower and slower.

That is because it is simply wrong. Apple is not listed as a member of the Power Matters Alliance, which is the competing standard of wireless power that Starbucks used. Both Starbucks and Powermat are represented on the board of directors for the alliance, so it is unsurprising which technology they chose for their coffee shops.

First of all, this isn't SteamOS we are talking about, it is Windows. Secondly, I'm not suggesting that you can't load non-Steam games. But you won't be able to do it sitting on your couch holding your controller. Buying and playing Steam games on a Steam box will be much, much easier.

There are enough people on Windows computers who refuse to buy games that they can't load from the Steam client (and complain bitterly when games are offered on other services). Just imagine how receptive buyers of something called a Steam box will be to having to exit from Steam's Big Picture mode to run another launcher.

So while it might not be a technical locking to Steam, it will be a practical one.

And how many games run on those supercomputers? Those who would argue about whether Linux is the best OS to run games need to go over to Steam's Hardware & Software Survey, and look at the underwhelming minority of gaming computers that run Linux.

Linux games on Steam recently reached the 500 mark, which I think is excellent and highly encouraging for the platform. But your argument that Windows is a second rate OS for gaming is still laughable and demonstrably wrong.

Considering that it is still locking in the Steam service for all games, this is still a win for Valve.

But surely you had already blacklisted Alienware because they have sold Windows-based computers for many years. And frankly, if you are going to blacklist any company that sells Microsoft-powered computers then you must have very limited range from which to choose.

The alternative to mounting a vendetta against the company is to just to grow up and simply not buy the products that you don't want. Then when the Steam-OS systems finally arrive then you can happily buy it, knowing that you weren't forced at gunpoint to pay any evil Microsoft tax.

I think that 7 Nobel economists are more than enough to argue against the claim that "no serious economist supports the minimum wage", especially when that claim backed up by... nothing. And if you keep reading passed the headline, you will also see a reference to a survey of economists that shows that opinions on the effect of minimum wage is a lot more divided than you made it out to be.

The explanation is that Mavericks is a free upgrade, while Windows 8 is not. A correct analogy with Mavericks would be that the free Window 8.1 update has passed 50% within 3 months of release.

That is incorrect. The kernel can happily work without the UI, and you get the choice for this when installing Windows Server. It has two modes: Server Core Installation and Server with a GUI. With Server Core Installation, the server is configured be either a Powershell command prompt or using administration tools from a Windows computer. This is the default installation option.

The links to Internet Explorer were removed after they copped so much flak for it. This is why you can no longer customise the HTML of the folder view for specific folders among other missing features.

I always dissuade people from upgrading from Win7 to Win8. It is a half step forward, two steps back. Frankly, I would not even upgrade from Vista to Win8.

The producers should have known that there could be only one.

According to Steam's hardware survey, Windows 8 accounts for about a quarter of gamers. I think that Valve knows more gamers than you do.

How could they possibly pose the same threat level. Let's say (with simplified maths) that a particular vaccine is only 90% effective. That means that a vaccinated person has a 10% chance of becoming infected, while the unvaccinated person has 100% chance of infection. That means an unvaccinated person will be much more likely to act as a conduit for an outbreak simply because the disease will live longer in that individual.

No, but in this case the Transport Accident Commission would pay the medical costs.

Does Microsoft really control Apache now? Why wasn't this news splashed all over the news sites?

If I have it wrong, and it is not Apache that the company bought, which open source project did it take control of?

The only flaw in your premise is that we are now just four months away from the 25th birthday of *Microsoft Office for Mac*. This predates the Windows version by more than a year. Also, Word was first made for Xenix (Microsoft's brand of Unix) under the name *Multi-Tool Word* (along with an MS-DOS version).

There has never been a time when Office was only available for Windows. And this latest move to iOS does not mean that "Windows is out of the loop". There is still (and always will be) the Windows desktop version of Office, and it does have more features than the mobile version.