Nothing is wrong, it's a good thing. That was my point. Chronic care is expensive and insurance companies really don't want to provide it because they are almost guaranteed to lose. Once you have a chronic condition your premiums rocket and it becomes very difficult to change insurance providers.

That's why I don't bother with health insurance. They would blame pretty much anything on the chronic condition I have and refuse to pay up anyway.

It will be very interesting to see how long MS keeps Live going for the 360 before cutting off all the games that people thought they bought but were actually just renting. Is anything less than "forever" acceptable?

It will also be interesting to see if retro games are released for the XBOX One online service. Say you bought a classic NES game that was ported to the 360 and they release the same game for the One. Are you entitled to it for free? What about when they cut off Live for the 360 and you lose access to it? Will 360 games themselves become available this way? If you own Street Fighter 4 for the 360 will there be any kind of discount when they turn off the online matches and you need to buy the One version?

The great game rental apocalypse is nearly upon us. Sony and Nintendo are equally guilty.

Why would I want my friends to see what I am watching? Choosing to tweet "omg game of thrones boobs lol" is one thing but I don't really want my friends to see every random thing I watch on YouTube.

The will implement a Windows style shutdown requirement to discourage this behaviour.

Sounds like the old "x box" scam will work though - keep the console and just sell the box it came in.

Did you forget nVidia? They had Pb-free soldering issues as well. I fixed hundreds of laptops with failed nVidia chipsets using a hot air rework station back in the day. The PS3 had the Yellow Light of Death which was Pb related too.

MS were just the worst affected due to the design of their chip producing a lot of heat. Well, maybe apart from HP who had every single laptop they made for about 3 years affected by the nVidia bug, but they wriggled out of that and didn't do an extended warranty/replacement service.

I speak Japanese and find the Japanese very welcoming. They appreciate even a small amount of Japanese language and offer encouragement, even if you are not very good. The nice thing about Japanese is that it is fairly logical so you can often figure out how to say things even if it isn't the way a native speaker would say it.

I think that there is such a gulf between oriental and western cultures that people often feel they are not welcome or not being accepted simply because they don't understand the other person's reaction. I'm surprised you feel that way, being familiar with Chinese culture, but then again it did take me a while to get used to Chinese people even though I was familiar with the Japanese.

My ex was Japanese and my current girlfriend is Chinese, but I don't speak Chinese and she doesn't speak English so we both use Japanese or Google Translate :-) It is an interesting perspective though because we are both speaking a foreign language and both see Japan from a different perspective.

4 cores + HT is the most that Intel offers for desktops at the moment, and they outperform AMD. Clearly a top end CPU was out of the question anyway due to cost. 8GB is pretty healthy, remembering that until late last year Intel's mobile i7 CPUs didn't even support more than 4GB.

BluRay is the current generation and highest capacity optical drive available. What else is there for physical media? Or were you hoping for download-only, because I don't think many people would be happy with that.

500GB HDD... What were you planning to put on it? And how much do you want to pay? Keep in mind that it's not just the cost you as a consumer pay - MS gets bulk prices but that includes fewer rights to return faulty units (which cost them money to swap out at the service department anyway) so for them picking a single 500GB platter model that will be a bit cheaper and a few percent more reliable than a 1TB model is very much worth it.

Doubtless it will be behind the curve even at launch when compared to PCs, but this thing will be the current machine for at least 5 years so even if it was cutting edge it would only be for a fraction of its lifetime.

No, 15 minutes is a myth. Perhaps certain physiological effects only last that long (although I drink my coffee cool and it often takes more than 15 minutes just to get through one cup), but I find that the productivity effects last much longer. Perhaps it helps me get started and "into the zone", perhaps it just unsticks some gears somewhere. Whatever, it works, especially when I'm tired but need to keep going for another couple of hours.

Drink diet soda, you won't get fat.

There is the convenience factor too. I don't have to bring my own sodas to work. We don't have to run an employee milk buying scheme or try to manage a massive fridge full of individual cartons. It is a nice benefit and stops me wasting time on that stuff.

One other big thing. I don't know about the US but UK medical insurance only covers acute problems, not chronic illness. For chronic you either pay out of your own pocket or rely on the state healthcare (NHS).

Yes, but Sony has the most patents on the technology. Sure, they must be licensed under FRAND rules, but Sony still gets paid.

Just being part of the consortium doesn't get you a cut, just the ability to implement BluRay tech and pay the FRAND governed fees.

Will Amber be singing? Some of us have been waiting a long time for the debut album but will take what we can get.

Also what happens when more devices start to support voice control, or you have two XBOXs in proximity? You say "off" and and your XBOX, TV, hifi, laptop, phone, tablet, air conditioning and lights all turn off simultaneously.

Replying to myself, lame I know...

One other question came to mind after I hit submit. Does the XBOX do all the recognition itself, or is everything you (and every sound in the room) sent to Microsoft for decoding? If so how easy is it for interested parties to access that audio stream?