Eh, 2x2 spacing with Boreholes was always more effective over the long term than Forest and Forget. *idly wonders how many people reading this actually will get either of our references*

I'm sorry to say that the idea that regions are illegal in Australia is a popular misconception. The Copyright Amendment Act (2006) allows for the modification of DVD players to enable them to play DVDs from different countries, but does does not control the sale of DVD players, require region-free DVD players to be made available, or require an unlock to be made available. There was never a Supreme Court ruling on it. I suspect the Supreme Court case you're thinking of was specifically in relation to the game console chipping issue, but that one simply ruled that the consumers could legally break region coding with modifications (and that if it was impossible to break the region coding without also breaking stuff like the anti-piracy, then it was the console maker's own damn fault for linking the two in the first place).

Except the core of the issue here isn't with GPS....but with a map. Specifically, the flawed Apple Map. They looked at where the map indicated the city was (which was way off where it actually is), and attempted to navigate their way there through actual roadways.

That story talks about observers from the developing world, with very different circumstances for them back home. What about the observers from more developed nations?

I recall that several countries wanted to send election monitors to oversee the vote, and that at least one Republican AG was trying to prevent that happening. What happened with that?

A paperless office means more conservation of trees?

The sad thing is, there are going to be dozens of people reading your post whose first console was a PS1, who won't understand the joke you're making, and will take that as a serious reason to suggest the Wii U is weaker.

This is 2012, not 2006. We're not talking about the storage of the Wii, we're talking about the storage of the Wii U. So again...what makes you suggest they're not using a NAND flash memory based SSD here with the Wii U, which would have none of the kinds of speed problems you're talking about? In fact, it'd be significantly faster than the HDD's in the PS3 and 360, that's why they use them as boot drives in PC's.

What makes you say the internal memory isn't a SSD? Solid-state drives are generally made using NAND flash memory. When they say a "flash drive", that's exactly what they mean.

Might I ask what makes you think it won't be superior to the current generation of consoles? The HDD, I'll grant you, has significantly less space (though the fact it's a solid state drive does have a lot to do with that), but going by the spec sheets I'd estimate the WiiU is at least 1.5x the power of the PS3, probably much more (though I doubt we'll see all that power actually utilized in the launch titles). I mean seriously now, suggesting that it's not more powerful than the opposition is simply laughable. The RAM alone is way beyond what any of the current generation of consoles has.

Nintendo has said no such thing. Care to provide a citation for this load of bull?

I can't help be amused at this post. People have spent years attacking Nintendo for its console not being powerful enough. Now it builds the more powerful console people have demanded, one that should serve it well into this next console generation....and people attack it for being too powerful, and talk about how you can still have great game experiences with a less powerful console? Now where have I heard that argument before....oh yeah, that's exactly what Nintendo fans have been saying for years as people have continued to attack them. There's just no satisfying you guys, is there? Damned if you do, damned if you don't.