It happened to me. I have an original 60GB PS3. One day it says there is a system update, just like all the previous ones. Press a button to download it, start it off, it gets halfway through, then the screen goes black, and game over. Nothing would revive it, not switching hard disks, not the service menu options, nothing. I do believe it broke something in the hard disk interface somehow. I ended up buying a new slim PS3, but I am very upset since my old PS3 had hardware backward compatibility, one of the main reasons I bought the thing, as I have many PS2 games.

No physical keyboard. A pad, not a book. Apple has DynaBook and Knowledge Navigator in its blood, remember. Thickness of an iPhone. Beefed up iPhone OS, not a slimmed down OSX. Support for a Bluetooth keyboard. Support for Bluetooth mouse. Support for stylus. Finger and stylus can use "Ink" technology to write on screen. Possible 3G card. Voice I/O enhanced from 3GS version.

I can see Apple selling a separate Bluetooth keyboard that can clip to the NetPad, making it look like a closed NetBook, protecting screen and keys. Possible removable hinge arrangement to allow for those who insist on a "book".

The proper price is $499 without optional keyboard or 3G card. But this is Apple. I hope for $599.

There is something called NetPad already. But there was something called iPhone already too.

I loved CompuServe back in its peak. Pre-Internet, everyone was there. I wrote an app called CompuServe Navigator as shareware and they picked it up as a commercial product, and for a time it was the best way to surf the forums with your Mac and a 2400 baud modem. It was sort of a terminal emulator and looked to CompuServe as though a very, very fast typist was giving all the commands to read their favorite forums. It saved all this and hung up the phone, then you could read it all offline and queue up replies to be sent the next time you kicked it off. Yeah, I had the name before those browser people had it, but I didn't have it registered and who wants to fight over a stupid word so I just renamed it MacNav.

I wasn't an employee, but I could see CompuServe falling apart. From where I sat, they were just not listening to the customers any more. Membership fell and AOL got more popular. I sold MacNav to them and watched them evaporate soon after. It was kind of sad cause they didn't have to go - at least until the free, enormous Internet enveloped everything.

Illuminotum

"My sister said she didn't take any money" can have eight different meanings depending on which word is emphasized. There is a lot of information in someone's speech.

Wow, this is very close to something I blogged today, that Apple is talking to Verizon not about the iPhone, but about a tablet device I call the NetPad. This would use a data-only carrier connection that lets it, Kindle-like, transfer data across the Internet in spots where WiFi is not available. It is basically a bigger-screen iPhone without voice. There would be versions for GSM and CDMA. Users would sign on to a data-only carrier agreement, and this is what they are probably talking about.

Apple already restricts VOIP to WiFi. This would continue, But you can go surf your brains out! Halfway between an iPod Touch and an iPhone with (I predict) a 7.75" screen and finger + stylus + Bluetooth keyboard support, this thing will be another winner.

My blog articles on the NetPad and the Verizon talks are at http://www.myallo.com/blog

When I see an "up to" claim I always add the "down to"...

Up to 50% ,down to 0% off the full price. Up to 30% faster, down to 100% slower.

Really deflates most claims...