Make election day a holiday for whatever jurisdiction (federal, state, county, etc) is on the ballot.

I wonder if they dangle.

PCs are both consumption and production devices.

Tablets are limited in what they can produce, both by the touch interface and by the landscape of available software. Sure, you can make a video on a tablet (if it has a camera) but doing anything more than remedial video editing is a no-go. Still graphics production is, even if there were equivalents to GIMP/Photoshop/Illustrator/etc, an exercise in masochism. Even working on a spreadsheet is infuriating. Playing any PC or console game? Forget about it, unless the game is ported to a tablet platform... and even then the UI will be hobbled/dumbed down.

Phones take the tablet limitations even further due to their reduced size, even though their processing power is for the most part equivalent.

So, if limited to one device: laptop, no question about it. Two devices: laptop and phone. After all, a tablet is either a weak PC without a keyboard attached, or an oversized phone that can't make cellular calls. There's nothing a tablet can do that the other two can't.

If this does happen and anyone is surprised by it since Elop took over, they're idiots.

The Nokia/WP7 partnership has already done damage to Nokia. MS knows (or or expected) that WP7 wouldn't gain traction, and that they'd have to buy a handset maker to make it competitive. Now that Nokia has submitted to their doom, MS can become an OEM for almost peanuts. I'm surprised that Ballmer didn't let Nokia bleed out longer.

The people within Nokia that have carrier relationships would be kept on and assimilated to doing sales the Microsoft way. Redmond may have their flaws, but sales really isn't one of them... they need to get their foot further in the door with the carriers.

Plus, none of the other OEMS really screamed when Google bought Motorola Mobility.

Finally, we know for sure which "major versions" are worthwhile: 10, 17, 24...

Since you have previous pro game dev experience, you should know the entire crew is divided up into teams by task. Assuming some sort of 3d platform, not all the kids will have equal interest in art, modeling, testing, coding, rigging, etc. Break them up into teams.

Also, don't dismiss the allure of 3d... it pretty much is the main reason we don't all spend countless hours playing sidescrollers anymore, but aside from phones its the only scenario these kids likely know. Even if you just recreated an old 80's Atari game with minimal 3d, it would seem cooler and engage the kids more.

Blender can be a pain to learn, but once you do it's actually a very efficient workflow. The 2.5/2.6 releases are capable of some pretty amazing effects.

Even better, all scripting in Blender is Python. Much easier to learn than Java or Android SDK.

My second suggestion would be Scratch, but high school kids might turn their noses up at how child-friendly it is.

Or maybe the 9/11 plot wasn't really carried out by jihadis.

Ding ding ding ding ding!

Simply put, that company, at least by name, will have to cease to exist.

Unfortunately for them the name Xe is already taken.

So how do Tesla Roadster buyers fit into that?

Look at how many software walled gardens have failed: IBM, DEC, SGI, and AOL, to name a few. If Microsoft ever had a walled garden (more likely poorly fenced), it is failing. Apple's garden walls, no matter how thick or high they are built, will eventually fail.

TFA is baseless paranoia and speculation.