Yeah, and I only have to pay $99 for the privilege of being in the "Standard Program" so that I'm allowed to do Ad Hoc distribution.

Ah yes. It's completely unreasonable for anyone to expect Apple to make a version of their phones with a CDMA (ie. the "wrong standard") radio in it. It's not like any other phone manufacturers build handsets for both standards. Certainly not RIM, Samsung, Palm, Motorola, etc.... Oh wait.

I'm not saying that there's anything _wrong_ with Apple's decision to only address part of the market. If they had to pick only one technology, they'll obviously pick the one with the biggest customer base.

What I'm saying is that the AC's implication that it is somehow strange for DarthVain to expect a phone to support more than one network is kind of ridiculous. It's not strange at all. In fact, Apple is pretty much the only phone manufacturer that sells into North America that doesn't also make CDMA phones. This fact will cost them some sales from people like DarthVain. They obviously know this, and are apparently okay with it.

It is also fairly annoying that it's necessary to hack the phone (jailbreak, whatever) to make it work with an otherwise compatible GSM network though. Vendor lock-in is pretty much par for the course with Apple stuff, though. It's part of why I don't really own any.

But then so is the article.

What it should say is "iPhone Jailbreaking Could Hurt Providers' Profits".

As numerous posters have pointed out, most GSM handsets are not tied to a particular provider (which is one of the key points behind having a SIM card in the first place). Network armageddon hasn't happened yet.

The providers want this perception to spread though, because it helps them keep their precious lock-in (and allows them to exclude their competitors from getting a slice of the iPhone pie). If they can get some laws written to cement the lock-in, so much the better.

But why would Apple help perpetuate this? My guess is because they needed a provider's help to get the phone off the ground, so this is their end of the bargain. The current arrangement has allowed them to sell millions of handsets and tens of millions of apps, so they have no particular need to encourage competition -- the current model is working out just fine for them.

As a consumer, I'd obviously rather avoid the multi-year contracts and being tied to one provider. It's a large part of the reason I don't have an iPhone. Maybe one of the Android handset makers will eventually get this right.

"let the date slip and paint it red."

I'd typically be more than happy to paint it red, but management never seems too interested in letting the date slip.

> But if you also had a gun, they'd be a lot less likely to try to attack you.

How does that work? We've established that the individual with the gun plans to attack you. How would you also having a gun make them any less likely to do so? Because they fear being shot by you? Seems to me like more motivation for them to follow through with their aggressive intentions immediately to prevent you from doing that.

I really don't understand how a gun is supposed to defend you against someone else with a gun. Someone care to fill me in?

You picked a pretty poor example.

Flight duration from Los Angeles to Tokyo is around 12 hours. While it's true that you probably won't be using your computer 100% of the time, I think it's a stretch to say that in all cases there's at least 4h where you won't. Also, that's by no means the longest flight a person can take.

Furthermore, it's "up to" 8h. That usually means that if you have the screen brightness turned way down, have the wireless turned off, don't use the optical drive, avoid using the hard drive and don't do anything too processor-intensive, you might get 7h. Some of that could be true, but I'm going to bet that a really common use for a laptop on a long flight would be "watch a video". That will use one of the hard drive or optical drive, and definitely uses the CPU (possibly lots of it if the video is HD). So you probably don't actually get 8h of battery, even if you can amuse yourself some other way for the other 4h on the flight.

But your poor trans-pacific flight example aside, there are plenty of reasons a person might need more untethered time than that. Anyone who needs to be outdoors all day comes to mind. My company uses laptops for field testing of survey equipment (though we don't use apple laptops, but that's another story).

The reason that all of this is probably okay is that anyone who needs that sort of high-portability on a regular basis likely won't be buying a great big 17" laptop anyway. If I'm not mistaken, the more portable 15" ones *do* have a replaceable battery.

So yes, if you buy the new 17" MBP you're sacrificing some portability because the battery can't be replaced. Probably you already knew that you were sacrificing some portability because you are buying a 17" laptop.

Regardless, though, I can't really see how making it non-replaceable saves them that much space. Some space sure, but I have a feeling they're not being 100% truthful about the 40% savings nonsense. My suspicion is that the extra capacity gained is actually pretty negligible and they really did it for some other reason.

This comment also made me wonder about the cold-weather usefulness of this sort of device. As I write this, it's -20C outside in the middle of the day. Granted, this sort of weather isn't a problem for much of the world but it's quite common here and affects a nontrivial number of people.

The "inefficiency" of a IC engine gets put to some use in that some the "waste" heat is used to heat the inside of the car, and you don't really get that benefit in an electric car (and any hybrid I've been in ran the combustion engine constantly while the heater was on). This problem has existed in the past with air-cooled engines (old Volkswagens come to mind). At the time, it was common to have a separate heater that burned whatever fuel the vehicle ran on. I'm thinking that the same wouldn't work too well on an electric car -- running an electric heater would probably put a really big dent in your range, and it would be a real bummer to freeze to death on the side of the highway because your car's heater killed the "battery". This would be a problem with any sort of electric car, but probably not an insurmountable one.

Probably more serious than that, though, might be the impact on the function of the engine itself. Most IC engines will run fine in cold weather assuming you can get them started. A common problem is that the car's battery (particularly older ones) can't deliver enough power at low temperature to turn the engine. I am a long way from an expert in the effects of temperature on various battery chemistries, and even less of one on how low temperature would impact the capacitor-like devices described in the article. I do know that it would be a fairly serious end-user problem if your car just wouldn't work on a cold day.

Does anyone have any insight into the temperature sensitivity of this kind of scheme, and how it would stack up versus comparable battery-based technologies?

It sounds like a promising idea, but it would be a non-starter in many places if it doesn't perform well in very cold (or very hot) weather.

Wrong. The SkyTrain in Vancouver is NOT maglev.

MagLev = Magnetic Levitation

Being maglev *implies* the levitation, or "float cushion" as you describe it.

I think you are confusing maglev with linear induction motors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_motor
which the SkyTrain does use. While these type of motors are often (usually?) used in a maglev system, they are also used for more conventional railed systems like the SkyTrain.

Anectodally - Yes. Why else would they bother? The company is obviously not going to spend trillions of yen building a line that they know will be less profitable than the existing one.

More concretely, an earlier poster provided a link to the math, however I can't seem to find it just now. The point was that eliminating the friction is a very big deal.

I realize you're kidding, but just because they'd be invisible wouldn't make them silent. The air displacement alone would ensure that these trains would make a nontrivial amount of noise. Furthermore, placing pennies on the tracks wouldn't be too effective in flattening them since the train isn't touching the track. That being said, in the highly unlikely event that I'm ever asked for my opinion in the design of these sort of trains, I'll be sure to suggest that they keep "invisibility cloak" off the feature sheet.

The problem in North America is that the vast majority of it lacks the concentrated population centers in fairly close proximity to make this sort of thing even approach economically viable. There are some exceptions to this. In those cases, we're left with:

1. Lack of political will to foot the massive up-front cost for something that won't be completed until someone else's term.

2. Rampant NIMBYism which would make it next to impossible to come up with a viable route through a populated area without getting sued into oblivion.

3. An irrational societal addiction to the automobile despite higher cost and risk to life and limb.

Given enough time, #3 will probably be overcome for one reason or another. #1 might be overcome by some visionary. #2 is a tough one because it either pushes costs even higher, or forces you into a route that is far away from where it's needed. Anything is possible, I suppose.

Basically: I wouldn't hold your breath.