I politely say, "that's nice". Please take a seat there by the Americans who have made the same demands. we'll see you after them. They've been waiting a few years, so you make want to bring a lunch and something to read. Really, the government is in a minority position (has been for a few years) and has plenty of real trouble to deal with... they also want to be elected with a majority some day so they are not apt to piss off the population too much.

How do you reconcile pro athletes who negotiate their salaries etc, but are still part of a union (player's association) and can still go on strike?

hacks and the like, such as jail-breaking etc, they are sure encouraging things that beg for it. One thing Apple should be learning is that their stuff is not as un-hackable etc as they would like to have people believe. Another thing they should be learning is that pissing people off is a poor business model.

Welcome to mass market! The growth of the iPod, iPhone etc has put Apple in a new position. They will adjust no doubt, but this is new territory for them. Hey, when you catch the attention of DVD Jon ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoubleTwist) you've made it...

all this really. That Apple wants to do this is not out of character as others are pointing out. Nor is this type of thing out of context for things like telecos, and other traditional purveyors of things such as music, movies etc. They are used to a take our stuff the way it is, like it or lump it. Now these companies have gone into areas where the savvy consumer doesn't have to, like it or lump it. On the computing side of the game, the hard core "I want it the way I want it" is served by Linux. Apple sells it as "have it our way", while Windows both to their folly and benefit has tried to walk both sides of the street with mixed results. They are all running into difficulty with their philosophies with all this new tech... Apple doesn't want you doing certain things... well, tough darts, jail breaking exists and they don't like it. I need not go into the RIAA philosophy of such things and the rocks they have smashed up on... MS, well, sure they have DRM, but there's a hack for that! Linux, well, those traditional industries call Linux communist for a reason (in their minds)... In their minds, convergence was never supposed to be like this... Let them patent it, who gives a flying f*ck... Like all attempts to try to curtail people from using tech for their own purposes, this is fail

is going to grow up (it really is still stumbling along, show up on more phones and spread because the shenanigans of companies like this... When Android hits that critical mass and these companies start crying and whining about the implosion of their market share, I am going to laugh my ass off. While Google has punted some developers off their site, it's no where near what the other companies have done.

Public stops buying DRM'ed music. RIAA cries piracy. Retirement homes across the coutry raided!

It probably won't, at least not to consumers. The questions is how will the netbooks equipped with it sell. And the answer to that is about as well as any windows netbook as once this is out, XP will probably not be offered. And as most people only use one or two apps at a time because of the nature and limitations of netbooks, the limit won't likely even be noticed.

Whether or not you are a mac, linux or windows user, I don't know how anyone can say their marketing backfired. Techies read tech press, others do not, so they are unlikely to even hear those voices. Marketing is about creating buzz for your product, and judging by the reactions to MS's latest campaign, it has done that. It's when people don't talk about you at all that you have a problem.

upgrades their OS without having new equipment first. Business will upgrade as they replace their machines. That has always been the way, so this is no surprise. When their XP machines crap out, they will replace them with whatever flavour of windows is available then... OS upgrade is a misnomer, they are generally new to accommodate new tech that becomes available over time since the release of the last OS. That tech is usually hardware-based and the new OS talks to it better. If you don't have it, the old OS will do just fine. Most realize that.

The extra money is for the blessings of Jobs that make your hard drives last longer as they are and also run soooooo cool

Actually, if your workplace is ISO certified, it would have had to document procedures and work instructions to get and maintain the certification. A procedure contains high level information, while a work instruction actually documents what steps it takes to do the job. The one thing ISO does is force (theoretically) a company to do what they say they are supposed to be doing, the other thing is does is generate tons of documentation. It just goes with the territory if you want the cert.

Like MS or not, bundling has made MS the company they are today, with more than enough money to pay fines from those who object... as for Mozilla becoming the next big monopoly, they are getting ahead of themselves. They need to keep doing their good work to keep growing the business... dream big, but keep doing the little things... they have along way to go

The thing is, I, for one don't want five browsers put on my machine by an OS. It's bad enough the clutter they do put on... One browser, let it be IE and then I will go download FF. I choose that way. I'm pissed enough that iTunes keeps trying to shove safari on my machine that I have blocked iTunes. More browsers... whoopie! Why not add everybody's tool bars to the OS too, and everyone's messenger service... and how about five or six calculators...

As for the argument that most people will only use what came with the machine, well, you can't legislate against stupidity. I doubt pre-bundling everybody's browser into the OS install package will help. This is just legislators trying to do something no one cares about so that they will look like they are doing something while taking no politcal risk.

Really, Volvo has made safety their marketing gimmick for years. Are they safer? I don't know, but they sell on it. For many reasons as people have already started to point out, there are flaws in this plan. The biggest flaw to me, seeing this as a marketing tactic, is outrageous claims are usually the end of the line for a gimmick. They need a new twist. And also, as for braking to avoid a collision, sometimes the answer is to speed around the hazard.