I think it's a function of any collective that requires no membership; it merely requires someone to self-identify as part of it. I could claim to be muslim and commit horrible acts, but I'm simply a microcosm of the overall collective. Even condemning the individual through some unofficial hierarchy isn't a powerful enough message to separate the self-identifying member from the collective. A loose collective's behavior/perspective then is only in context as a whole, and is not reliant on single individual or relative small group sample size.

...so you've used it? I mean you clearly have experienced this lag in the games you've been playing in Onlive. Otherwise this is just speculation contrary to my actual experience and that of numerous journalists. I feel as a network engineer, a netcode debugger for multiplayer games, and a former pro CS player; I have a unique perspective on this particular claimed issue. Round trip latency, for me, falls within a 50ms to 100ms. It's noticeable to only the most competitive players, a large majority of FPS players will not be able to notice any input lag at all. With latency continually trending downwards, it will only be a short time before it's completely unnoticeable. I'd say that, while Steve Perlman's projects haven't been misleading to investors, they are simply a victim of timing. No matter how savy the CEO, you can't predict the future. WebTV's spectacular failure was largely due to the technology bubble leading up to the early 2000's. Perlman, however, was not at the company when things went south, but like many other tech companies, experienced fantastic success up till that point. WebTV was purchased by Microsoft in 1999 after Perlman personally met with Gates and described his vision. In my opinion. He may be ahead of his time, but his ideas are still relevant. Especially with the transition to XaaS, consumer grade solutions are becoming more cost-effective every day. When is that break-even point? Steve Perlman is still trying to get it, but he'll let us know when he does.

My phone has a hard enough time staying charged running its wireless connection and camera simultaneously. Placing additional power demands on mobile devices doesn't make sense at the moment as an end-user, but as power becomes less of a concern (whether due to improved battery technology or more efficient processor design) these devices become more like PCs and less like phones. I'm just waiting for Folding@Anywhere to run when I have my phone plugged in.

The first two CoD's did use an iD engine. They switched to one of Treyarch's engines with CoD3, and haven't looked back. Why are they still paying per-unit royalties to iD? iD is complaining, hence Carmack has cited their inability to get publishers behind them as one of the reasons for selling. If you think they enjoy being marginalized back to an "engine-only" company I think you're missing the point of the sale.

I agree. They can't compete in their traditional market due to capital. Look at the kind of money Activison can put behind a Call of Duty production, let alone the marketing. iD, being a fairly independent developer and thus capable of paying for their own development, doesn't really stand a chance when it's competing against a publisher funded project where the publishers have a vested financial interest in the title's success. iD didn't leverage their projects enough so competing with the likes of Inifinity Ward, who used the traditional "publisher funded" approach, just isn't possible. Their publishers simply didn't make enough money off iD's "niche" titles and self-funded approach. iD's previous organic growth provided immense stability and financial independence, but it severely limited how quickly they could expand and thus compete in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Their situation was very similar to Valve's before Steam became a viable platform. (ie: struggles with EA/Sierra) But the two roads diverged: We see that Valve's initially puzzling move of developing their own distribution channels has lead to a period of unbridled growth and creativity. iD's decision to innovate only on their core competencies (graphics,graphics,graphics) has lead to the events of today.

I still haven't seen a battery life comparison between the 1.5Gbit/sec and 3.0Gbit/sec options. Does their marketing still hold true, and if not, what's the total change in battery life?