Because the movies mostly sucked. And I say that as someone with a Bender action figure on his desk.

. . .they just don't want the same thing as us.

True, and there are things about Japanese culture which make their cel phone market very different from ours. One of the biggest things is the way in which the Japanese commute to and from work: Japan has a much higher use of public transportation than does the U.S., and the Japanese are heavy users of rail travel. This means, according to the last figures I checked, the average Japanese working person has an hour commute to and from work which is, essentially, free time. Contrast this to the U.S., in which the majority of people drive to work.

To me, this explains a lot of the Japanese demand for the use of video and TV on the cel phones, and from the cel phone networks: they have the time and inclination to use those services. Contrast this to the U.S., in which people have to (supposedly) concentrate on their driving; we have lots of talk radio here, something to listen to during that commute which requires no hands.

Add to this all of the other commuting the Japanese do via rail and you have a market which just doesn't exist in the U.S. I think this holds true in Europe as well, which also has a higher incidence of public transportation use than the U.S. We drive here, a lot, and that niche just doesn't exist. Most Americans get their online TV and video either at work or at home. Which is to say that population and work patterns influence technology adoption and use as much as, or more than, GUI design and technical achievement.

At least that's my theory.

Saw the message on the install screen, clicked cancel, and I won't install it.

Yes most people on the east and west coasts have multiple options:

SOME people have options. I live in Manhattan, which means either Verizon or Time Warner owns all the infrastructure underneath me. Because of this I only really have two options for broadband. One is DSL through Verizon or through another provider which leases lines from Verizon and the other is cable through Time Warner or another provider which leases from Time Warner. And, remember, this isn't just a city on the east coast, this is the biggest, most densely populated city in the country in which two corporations control all of my broadband choices and make sure that no matter which one I choose, I will pay a premium for my service.

I actually get my DSL through Earthlink, as I've been with them forever and have had the same email address since ethernet packets were made of steam and pigeons. But I also know that I'm paying ~$40.00 a month for 3.0 Mbps, and that if there were true competition I would have a lot more choice for less money. Now, if I want to ditch my email address and go straight to Verizon I could probably pay less, but I like my email address. And, since there's no competition here my only other choice would be cable, and Time Warner is many things, but a good deal for consumers isn't one of them.

So, while I may agree with you in theory, in practice I know that corporations only give their customers a break when forced to by law.

By the way, if you want fast last mile here, your only choice is FiOS through Verizon. Their installation techs are horrible (I know someone who needed six visits just to get it working), you don't get anywhere near the speeds promised and it's very expensive.

USB 3 will do at least 200mb/s sustained.

And Vista is the fastest, easiest to use operating system ever, and 2009 is the year of Linux on the Desktop.

USB 2.0 was supposed to do 480 Mbps sustained, but you're lucky if you get 20 MB/s sustained. Given Intel's track record, I expect USB 3.0 to, maybe, be as fast as Firewire 400 for sustained transfers. There's a reason my TB backup drive is Firewire 800.

No.

None of the follow on series have been nearly as good as the original series. They've ranged from mediocre (TNG) to downright horrible (DS9). This movie doesn't seem to be raising the bar.

What people seem to forget is that the success of the original series was a fluke. No one will ever accuse Shatner of being a good actor, but he fit the role perfectly. Additionally, Roddenberry wasn't a genius sci fi writer, but Star Trek was his baby and he shepherded it well. And the original series wasn't a success at the time it was broadcast, finding its fans only later in syndication. Despite this the various people who have been working on the news ones are all trying to recreate something which was accidental at the time.

Which is impressive, considering the amount of crap the various creative teams have produced since the original series. I would day they should let the thing die with some dignity, but that time is long past.

This is why the iPod failed as an mp3 player and the iPhone is such a disaster for Apple: they lack features other phones have.

So long as the OSS community remains focused on features as the primary mover of products, so long will the OSS community remain single digit players in the desktop market.

I imagine many would assume that the cut icon is scissors because you are cutting something, not because there used to be an editing task involving cutting and pasting with typewriters.

People may understand what cutting is, and what pasting is -- both physically and electronically -- and still never know that people used to edit typewritten manuscripts using that process. (Or created fliers and quizzes doing the same.)