Thats all fine and dandy but in the American system this is a good deal and you can't argue that. But if you compare the American system to the European system even this would seem like a rip off because the cellular pricing in Europe is so good that even T-Mobile's $20 off per month for non-contract phone doesn't sound like all that good of a deal.

But since we aren't talking about Europe...you still have to give google/t-mobile for giving a pretty good deal that will hopefully be countered by other cell phone companies. Now if only I wasn't half-way through a contract with ATT and I could get a decent Android phone instead of having to settle for a windows mobile phone with ATT. But then again I'm on a family plan so I'm kind of stuck with ATT since the rest of my family travels abroad frequently.

And having an unlocked T-Mobile phone is meaningless...because T-Mobile phones can only use T-Mobile's 3G...although that still means you can travel abroad and use voice/SMS (I think).

Microsoft not wanting to support a competitor to its core product, particularly a competitor that is kicking their ass in the server market...how surprising.

The super bowl ads this year were horrible. I remember like 2 years ago the Super Bowl ads were these insane ads in which were hilarious and had great actors in them. This year they weren't much better than normal ads.

The Google ad however really stood out. Heck it even made me feel emotional.

I welcome our new Google overlords!

His family should be honored that a company as big as google decided to make a reference to one of their father/grandfather's books in the name of their flagship product. I mean this is ridiculous that the copyright machine representing the family would be trying to do this.

So what, now every time someone makes references to a character in a novel they can be sued.

Thirty Seconds to Mars has a song called Stranger In a Strange Land and I haven't seen the Heinlein foundation get upset over them using a trademarked (its the book's actual title) phrase.

Cmon, what these Sci-Fi writers really wanted was to make a lasting impression on the world and the foundations representing their estates should be more interested in that rather than just trying to make money on every little reference made.

I'm all for security but now this all nonsensical. Instead of actually making actual changes they just impose extremely annoying rules that have no actual security improvement. What does it matter whether or not it is the last hour...can't the terrorist just set off a bomb...I dunno before the last hour. I don't understand what the actual point of this rule is.

So if I want to pee, read a book, put something away, or so much as even flinch I'm gonna be threatened with an arrest. Simply inconveniencing people isn't gonna make security any better...

Backup your laptop before traveling overseas...you never know if customs might shoot it.

Youtube is most certainly an ISP. An ISP is any company that hosts content without having any sort of publishing arm or creating content themselves.

As much as I absolutely love Stranger in a Strange land I think I would go on a murderous rampage if some hollywood director made a crappy movie about it.

cmon how could you think "but in future countries" sounds okay.

it should be "but in the future countries"

great info though. I mean its nice to see that the internet is starting to become more international, especially as the US cuts mandatory ties to ICANN.

I completely agree with this article. We have a local free newspaper here in South Florida called the New Times that is incredibly popular. It usually has local news about corruption and hotspots in South Florida. In addition it has an occasional national article (it just had an article talking about how the government is doing nothing to the big wigs involved with the banking collapse) and it has some interesting movie reviews. Overall it has actually become more popular in South Florida and has gained more prominence and readership. Pretty much every single business has a New Times drop box in their waiting room and the community college I go to probably has more than 10 drop boxes which are always empty about a day after the papers are dropped off.

I mean if local newspapers just focused on good exciting journalism they would get plenty of readers. I mean I read a ton of news on online and I haven't picked up a national newspaper in years, yet every monday I sit down and read the New Times while sipping on a cafe con leche and having some rice and beans at lunch at my favorite Latin restaurant.

I remember actually siting geocities pages as a source on my middle school papers. In heinsight that was probably a bad idea.

I remember using freewebs.com to make webpages when I was in middle school...or even worse the free webpage that earthlink gave us.

Wow I was so proud of my stupid earthlink webpage...with its site counter, guest book, and all that crazy stuff. I learned html from that kind of stuff and damn was I proud of my incredibly dumb web pages. I remember having midi auto playing music and a stupid cursor effect.

low UID master ...I come here to pay homage to you.

Its things like this that make me really wish the FCC would hurry up and ban permanent exclusivity deals.

But that would only happen in a world where congress can actually get anything done and stand up to businesses.

The nook does look pretty snazzy if you ask me. Amazon really needs to step up there game or the good ol' invisible hand will smack amazon in the face :P

Was amazon really too stupid to contact vodafone or orange and get a plan from them. I mean really why would they actually pay roaming charges with AT&T. Its not like they bought the kindles from AT&T and AT&T locked them :D