Public APIs mean you have to sell/use a competitor's products before you can sell your product, and companies are just too greedy. Plus this would mean a way around the patent problem, which means less money for the greedy as well.

The iPad has a really small screen compared to my TV, and a lot of games I want to play just aren't available for it. Sometimes I want to use my iPad while I'm in the middle of gaming, and that would get really annoying, especially if it was connected to my TV to display the game (in an ideal scenario). What gamepad would I use to control it anyway? There are multiple bluetooth game controllers but not one standard, and most iPad games don't even support them at all. I don't game on my touch device as it is, I don't find myself drawn to any of the games, and I don't think that will change soon.

In addition, I also don't like the way many touch games display ads and promotions and offer upgrades, even if you have paid for the full versions. Some of this stuff is making its way into console games in certain ways and I don't appreciate the influence. I hope the touch experience stays far away from console gaming.

Different user interface configurations such as the standard Unity, Gnome, or KDE desktops, should be relegated to some sort of theme file that describes what assets to load and where to put them. Plugins should be used to supply the various functions. That way if you want a lightweight desktop that loads fast like XFCE, you can have one. If you want a more full featured desktop, or one designed to make the best use of screen real-estate for touch devices, you can have that too. I think E17 actually covers most of this, and it is highly optimized, and doesn't rely on 3D for fancy effects but can still take advantage of it.

But the important part is there will be one environment to target, and eccentricities/nuances won't vary like they do between the desktops we have now. The same should go for the file manager/Open dialog/etc that is used, it should be standardized and support plugins/theme descriptions as well. If I start typing a folder name in the window, and then enter a folder and back out of it, will I still be highlighting the folder name I started typing or will I be brought back to the top of the list again? As the directory is read, will the window dynamically display as it is loading in, and jump around when I am typing said folder/file name, or will I stay focused on that area?

I just want this to be the same on every desktop I use, so that I don't have to second guess myself if I'm using a QT or GTK or whatever else app. There can still be different toolkits, but if they are all targeting the same environment, they will behave the same and it will only be the developers that see the difference. If I want to open files with a single click, everything should pay attention to that preference, etc.

Maybe the solution is to extend the reach of the free desktop initiative. But we should be able to mix and match any desktop component, and every toolkit should pay attention to the preferences we set and be able to behave the same if it is specified.

That's an ancient practice!

Google has never been a fan of the patent wars. If Google sets up a search engine for prior art, they will be providing a resource with which many patents can be invalidated. Competitors will fear bias in that the prior art database may give results that are in Google's favor, and perhaps start providing resources that index prior art themselves. Hopefully the whole thing will snowball and show the failure of the current system. However if doubt would be cast on the quality and validity of the results then perhaps nobody will pay attention to this initiative.

So to be competitive, hardware manufacturers may have to provide their driver source? Perhaps at least to the developers. But that could be anyone really, and the next Minecraft may run better on Intel graphics hardware than any other because some amateur developer was able to wring performance out of it that much more easily.

But at the level that AMD/ATI and nVidia are competing with each other, perhaps the one to take the edge will be the one that provides open source drivers.

I'm still using my iFeel mouse that I got for $15 in a bargain bin 10 years ago. Too bad nothing actually makes use of the rumble feature.

Right, which forces developers to build MS's tablet app ecosystem for them. And you're right, they are fucking over businesses. But are businesses going to stop buying MS software and support? Not likely. Maybe the next version of Windows will come quickly and offer the option to allow you to boot to a traditional desktops. MS will still get their upgrade money, and they will still have their tablet app ecosystem. Or maybe once enough tablet-capable apps are built, MS will release a service pack that enables this. 3rd parties can even step in and offer stop-gap solutions. So where do they lose?

You're arguing that users are going to lose out in this, and you're right. But what are they going to do about it? Nothing. So again, I ask, why shouldn't MS do this? If you were to walk into a board meeting, what would you tell them that would actually make them agree with you?

The reason for the start page is to make the desktop look scary. Average users don't want to drop to the command line for any reason, the black box with cryptic commands looks scary and isn't intuitive to them. MS is introducing another layer on top of the desktop that really simplifies things. When an average user launches a traditional app, they will be dropped to the desktop, which will seem scary to them, the apps that run in that "mode" aren't as simple as they're used to, there's menus on top and tons of toolbar buttons instead of a dumbed down phone interface. This will force developers to adapt, because users will no longer want to run traditional desktop apps anymore, it'll seem too complicated.

Previously, users were forced to learn this stuff, but now that they know there's a simpler alternative, they won't want to, just like the command line. This benefits MS in that there will be a ton of new apps that work perfectly on their tablet. This gives an incentive to app developers; They will now have a reason to sell you the latest version. It benefits the Windows platform in general because the new users that are attracted won't be able to cope with a traditional desktop interface, and other OSes will look scary. More experienced users will know how to get around this stuff and run traditional apps, and won't be bothered too much.

Yeah, it seems really stupid to most of us, but we won't use it, but there are many business reasons for MS to force this start page and tablet interface onto users, it feeds into their new tablet strategy and throws developers a bone, and gives them a reason to focus on MS's tablet platform the way they do on iOS even without a large pre-existing userbase, simply because now average desktop users will be demanding apps in this format. So why shouldn't they do this?

The game does stand out. Its coin concept is great. Coins are used to lure you towards rewards, traps, secrets, many things trigger them and it just adds another goal on top of everything (gather 1,000,000 coins) that gives you an excuse to do a little more hunting in each level and have fun collecting something that was starting to get less and less important in the series. The coin block head never stops being fun, and Golden Mario lets you blow up tons of bricks and turn them into coins, very satisfying.

Apart from that, getting to use classic Raccoon Mario is great and really made me smile.

No, these players don't want to pay for and download additional content. They just want games to be longer in general, i.e. for the content to be included in the original release. I guess that means a significant group of people consider recent games to be incomplete or lacking in certain areas. But I guess they wouldn't want to spin it that way.