I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that, y'all, collectively, are not the target audience for this thing. That said, we should be celebrating, rather than bitching. Here's why.

Raise your hands, please: those who've installed LogMeIn on their mothers' computers.

LogMeIn is a crutch, and you know it. You know damn well why you installed it, too. It's so you can support her when shit breaks every couple months, or when she can't figure something out.

The nice thing about the iPhone OS is that it's tight. My mom had never used a cell phone in her life, and figured out how to make a call with my iPhone in seconds. The OS is like an appliance, reliability-wise. The target audience is users, not the nerd herd, and the interface reflects that. It's basically a $500 ticket to never having to support Mother again (or really any user that "just needs the basics").

If you really think it's just a big iPhone, look at the iPad interface video (from about 1:00 - 3:00). It was the first time I actually was like, holy shit, it looks like one of those futuristic computers out of a Hollywood movie; except it actually makes logical sense, yet retains teh bling. Unlike every other OS, multitouch is "baked in" to the iPhone OS, and you can really see the level of refinement in that video. All that shit that Microsoft wishes it could do with multitouch, this thing actually does.

No, it doesn't have multitasking or an OLED display or a webcam or a fucking JTAG header; those people can vote with their ducats and get an HP Slate. Have fun troubleshooting your wireless network in Windows 7 or GNOME using your fingertips. Ugh.

OK, I actually R'd the FA - you know, the text part of it - and feel like I should amend my comment. Basically they made a hybrid Honda Cub-ish-looking bike for $900. Though hideous, that's pretty sweet!
To non-moto people: in a nutshell, the Cub is sort of the VW Bug of Asia, except it's unnaturally reliable. (Skip to 5:00 for the dropping-it-off-a-building part.)

Holy hell, that is ugly. Designers musta said, "we need to take a Honda Ruckus, slap a dirt-bike front end on it, and put an ammo box filled with batteries in the middle." Only thing missing is the duct tape!

For me, at least, "rebranding" has always had a certain stink of failure about it. (I like KDE, BTW, so don't lose your fucking minds.)

Witness:

• Palm, Inc. > PalmOne + PalmSource > Palm, Inc.
• Tropicana > Tropicana "generic crappy label" > Tropicana
• AOL > LOL "remedial art-school" logo

How did you feel while the respective companies were doing this? Is there anyone in the room that remembers reading the headline, "Palm splits into PalmSource and PalmOne," and thought, "Man, that's some sexy marketing right there. I need to get me a Treo but quick." No. We saw it and thought, "the shark has been jumped, the drain is being circled." Yes, you did.

While I'm on a roll, for shits and giggles, let's look at the bastard sibling of rebranding, "editions."

• Toothpaste. Now was that Crest Tartar Control plus Whitening, or Crest Whitening plus Tartar Control? And did you want that in paste or gel? I swear, we need meta-toothpaste, where it's formulated on the spot. You have a big board with all sorts of shit like "mint," "sparkly" (for the child or man-child in your household), "tartar control," and buzzword of the year, "whitening." Then you push a whole bunch and hit the MIX button, and get a toothpaste tube with all that shit custom-made. It'd be like ordering an HP server; it'd even warn you about compatibility issues! But I digress.
• Windows 98 > Windows XP. Then it hit the fan. Windows Vista Home Basic + Home Premium + Business + Ultimate. I won't get into Windows 7, but suffice to say there's an edition for everyone, even your crazy next-door neighbor that listens to Yanni all day, has an alpaca fetish, and taught his kids to communicate solely in Klingon. (Sorry if I've touched a nerve amongst anyone here.)
• Sun is particularly adept at this. You can almost taste the management schizophrenia: Solaris > Solaris Express Community Edition + OpenSolaris + Solaris > Solaris + OpenSolaris (not including Indiana, Nevada, et al. the distinctions between which I'm not sure anyone truly understands). Besides, half the stuff will be discontinued by the time you read this, so why bother itemizing it all?

The moral of the story, kids, is that rebranding is for the desperate, and editions are for suckers.

Peace out.

The thing that bugs me about Grado cans is that they're really chintzy. However, they are made in Brooklyn, which is kick-ass. I prefer the $70 Sony MDR-V6 headphones... the design is unchanged since the 80s and popular among musicians / recording studios. (It can't hurt to listen to the music on the same headphones they were edited with...) Very well-made, and have lasted me the last 6 years I've had 'em. The only downside is that they're fairly low impedance, which means if you're running them off a small device like an iPhone or iPod, you may want to use a headphone amp. But they're pretty good as-is, and if you hate 'em, people will buy them for close to what you paid.

If you can't get MDR-V6s, you can get the MDR-7506, which is basically the same thing with a gold plug. You don't really want to get anything else, though- like the V600 for example - which is designed for consumers and as such is very boomy and weird-sounding. Just use the EQ if you want bass.

Sounds like a neat idea. It's like a little career, before your real career. Maybe this would motivate some kids that are otherwise thinking, "why should I do well in school?" Sort of a sampler as to what could happen if you work hard.

Of course, there's the cheating/collusion/milking the system angle. One would have to put in some pretty intense safeguards. Anyone clever enough to get past them, well, heck, maybe they earned it.

Sooo... it's like Apple's iDisk, but almost 10 years later, and DRM'ed up the ass.

I am blown away. Technical tour de force, guys.

Can't wait to see your version of Spotlight- oh wait, I installed Windows Desktop Search, and uh, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

As per real world testing, the safest car is one that doesn't crash in the first place, and if you drive an SUV, accept the fact that if you get into a sticky situation, you're probably not going to be able to outdrive it.

Women could care less about your car. Insight follows. If a woman is with a guy that does the verbal equivalent of putting "I own an SUV." in front of everything, as you did above, then she'd make sure he knew how much his SUV meant to her, too. Even if it was a 3000 mile per year grocery-getter, she'd still let him know how sexy it was.