True. Gold's failure mode is jewellery. Failed BitCoins are just a vacuum in the information space. Having said that, good luck getting your savings if your bank goes bust.

Are you sure? BitCoin is a finite reserve of cash and, as the Welsh chap's story confirms, will be regularly lost down the back of the digital sofa as we go forward. The energy costs associated with mining the outlying end of the blockchain are also going up. What's the estimate of when we hit peak BitCoin, in terms of the number in circulation?

You're running your vacuum cleaner with them? Cool.

Currently using it with XBMC to watch BBC iPlayer - it's bridging the gap in the living room while I decide which 'proper' media box to buy (a Roku maybe). Once that's done I'll either re-purpose it into a print server to get the printer off the desk it's currently on or just have a play with Python with my 13 year old son. Once you've got one hanging around it'll fill any number of niches.

SMTP email is a postcard. If you send a postcard you expect that the postie has the ability to read the message if he or she so chooses.

Kinect isn't only for changing channel, the point is to collect audience data. Think about it: Kinect knows who's in front of the screen, their gender and approximate age (maybe even their race), who's awake, who's shuffling and bored, who leaves the room and at which point in whatever it is they're watching. If MS know who's signal is going through the box then there's a lot of valuable audience response data that production companies currently pay to research right there. If MS goes into production a la Netflix they'll have a lot of big data on tap to guide their commissioning. MS won't need to bother with focus groups any more.