I'm not across the technical details but this would seem a great niche for wayland to develop a remoting protocol minus the chattiness of X you mention, using lessons learnt.
Backwards compatibility is the catchcry but are we still going to be debating X remoting 5 years from now if and when all the major distros have adopted 'something better'?

it's certainly a race to the bottom. The problem with the android handset I'd actually consider buying is that they're all on quite expensive plans, relative to nokia's flagships. At that price, you can see why iphones are so popular. If i wasn't concerned about the platform longevity, samsung's bada phone at $19/month plus data would be my choice if i needed a new phone today.

at least in australia, nokia is still doing ok. Apple dominates the smartphone sector here, with Symbian 'feature phones' keeping pace with Android devices. Though the pre-Christmas advertising blitz on Nokia handsets may well be Symbian's last throw of the dice.
Nokia's strategy is passable, only a couple of years late. Base everything on Qt and attract Linux hackers turned off by obj-c/dalvik and app-stores. Use the same technology as mainstream linux (wayland, as embraced by Ubuntu). Since Qt is cross platform they can offer a seamless UI common to the phone and Windows/Linux/OS X. Which means the end of that clunky PC Suite!

I just think the whole disposing of a companion's boyfriend, so she can get a little Doctor 'action' is a little too convenient and become something of a cliche.

Rose's fella Mickey fell victim to the Autons too. Then there's Donna's fiance being seduced by a Spiderwoman.

It's a cash cow for the people of Wales. I suspect Dr Who would otherwise be given a hiatus so that the writers could dream up some credible storylines.

I mean c'mon, killing off Rory and then bringing him back a few episodes later?

so don't buy a portable without a touchscreen!
By 2012, expect an avalanche of convertible touchscreen netbooks as MS and OEMs unite against the iPad.

consumer electronics devices like smartphones are 'always on', except for movie theatres and planes!
Applying this principle to a new class of Googly iPad-killers, boot times are irrelevant.

dude! For online banking, use ssh.

Research assistants and secretaries had flourescent pens long before web browsers existed!

so yes, it is shitty.
The concept that a feature in another piece of software is somehow novel and doesn't constitute prior art is absurd.

You're assuming these devices will be available for outright sale.

I'm assuming a locked-down 'cloud' device is targeted towards phone carriers. 100MB/month? Fat chance, your average slashdotter could go through that on a good day.

Hence it's possible ChromeOS devices will be generally available only on a 2 year plan, thus absorbing the true cost.

Apache should have known very well what it was getting into when it commenced the Harmony project. The TCK for the Java platform as a whole (excluding individual JSRs) was *never* free but rather licensed by IBM, Apple and others for a considerable sum. Apache maintains Sun changed the terms but I'm not convinced that beneath all the legal mumbo-jumbo regarding the JCP that there was clear agreement on a royalty-free TCK for Java SE.

I'm not condoning the actions of Sun/Oracle but the position should have been clarified and a specific perpetual binding agreement reached before a single line of code was written. Instead, development ploughed on *for several years* without an agreement - hoping Sun would 'come around' eventually.

Now the corporate backing has dried up, any independent contributors have the right to feel aggrieved. But aggrieved with whom? Did IBM and others ever negotiate with Sun on Apache's behalf for TCK-licensing before commencing development? If not, was it a wise decision for the Apache board to endorse a second clean-room implementation when GNU Classpath was well on the way, albeit with a non-Apache license?

Japan are making astonishing progress on the Cherry2000, however.

Android isn't striving for compliance, so Apache's spat with Sun about Java SE compatibility has absolutely no impact.