Have you actually *read* the iPhone contract? I'm surprised they didn't require blood.

When I got my iPhone, I asked to read the contract.
The store workers had never had anyone ask, so they didn't know where it was.
Took them a long time to find a copy.
It was pretty nasty, but from memory (they wouldn't let me keep their
only copy now that they knew where it was) the worst section was something of the form:

"if we suspect you may have altered your phone, you agree to let us cancel
your phone service, and you will keep paying out the rest of your term."

Suspicion (not proof, just if they felt like it) was enough to give them the right
to cancel my phone service (and reclaim the phone phone IIRC) and I had to
keep paying. the monthly fee. And there was no
appeal or ability to protest your innocence.

You are correct - Its the APPS.

If this is a business device, the killer app is OneNote. Sure tablets dont suit a lot of people, but if you want to take notes, do research, read and link information, be mobile etc... Onenote is it. Evernote is not. (right idea, wrong execution). There are also niche applications (medical etc), but from a general business focus... do Onenote.

If its a consumer device - create an open iPad. BUT you will also need to ensure that Music, Reading, Web browsing, Gaming, Sharing work brilliantly. Only Apple has really succeeded with that, as long as you live in their ecosystem. If you can made those apps work openly **and** get the media providers on board, then you stand a chance.

Definition of a geek: You are reading slashdot while at the pub with your friends. Probably on your iphone.

So photo software has been offering facial recognition for a while. When this all gets uploaded to google, you're going to be able to ask (where was X on the given date). Cool. Scary.

I worked in Houston for a few years - over off Nasa Road One.
I used to walk to work - wasn't that far. A mile or so...

Two things stand out:
a) every few days, someone would stop and ask if I was ok and whether I needed a lift.
On one hand, it was great to see so many caring people. But it just shows that they never
saw people walk before.

b) the path actually went up to people's front doors, so I had to either walk on the road, or follow the path into people's
property. Weird. Again - not built for pedestrians.

DARN: Slashcode stole the end of my post...

Can someone propose a cheap system (LESS THAN $300),
that uses low power (LESS THAN 40W full power) and actually move
GREATER THAN 20MB/sec (which of course requires Gbit LAN).

Ok - so we have had people proposing
- buffalo link station
- alix boards
- sheevaplug
- EPIA 5000
- WRT54G
- Mac Mini
among others. The thing these *all* have in common is
completely horrible LAN/IO performance. None (except for a mac mini
and perhaps the EPIA 5000) can come close to saturating a 100Mb LAN.
Certainly only the MacMini has half a chance at making use of a Gb LAN.
Remember this guy wants NFS, so one presumes he actually wants
to move reasonable files around at a reasonable rate.

I've got a low cost LAN drive, and get, at best, 2-3MB/s out of
it over a 100Mb LAN - about 1/6th what I expected. I turned it into
a remote backup drive where the ugly performance is ok.

So lets rephrase the question: can someone suggest a cheap system
( 20MB/sec (which of course requires Gbit LAN).

1) Whatever you do, kids will get around it. You can only do a good job of security a box if you have physical security. And you dont.
2) If you do something and it fails, you are liable. So if some kid gets porn all over his Laptop despite your best efforts, his parents are coming after you.
3) Spend your time protecting your severs and dealing with the fact that you are going to have a lot of worm/virus laden laptops coming into your LAN.