Personal-computer makers are counting on ultrabooks to challenge the MacBook Air, Apple's best-selling laptop, which is less than an inch thick. Still, Hewlett-Packard isn't trying to compete on price: The new Spectre is $100 more than a MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch screen. Hewlett-Packard is emphasizing the laptop's premium features and design, a bid to reach the "savvy fashionista" market, said Page Murray, a vice president of marketing at the company.

"There's always someone who wants to win the race to the bottom," Murray said. "It usually ends with a splat."

Did HP call Apple's pricing of the MacBook Air 'race to the bottom'?

My how the times have changed.

The studios are shooting themselves in the foot. They're trying to annoy their audience into paying more. It's always bad business to annoy your audience.

Eventually, the studios will have to give in to the new distribution channels and they'll be forced into giving their customers what they want. That way, they'll make more money eventually.

This opens a lot of possibilities to create things that makes the mind boggle.

However, this renders pictures and videos very untrustworthy. I mean you can insert anything into any photo and it would look like it really is part of the initial photo.

One of the main reasons we all have anti-piracy slogans embedded in our brains is because the music industry chose to try and protect its existing market and revenue streams at all costs and marginalise and vilify those who didn't want to conform to the harsh new rules being set.

I agree with most of what he says. Good read.

That's really creepy and gruesome.

Some clueless idiots pull numbers out of their collective asses and when Apple doesn't meet those arbitrary numbers, the market punishes it.

Does it feel like clueless betting by those 'Anal-ysts' to anybody else?

The subtle, pervasive lag that has characterized the Android UI since its inception is still there, which is not a heartening thing to hear when you’re talking about a super-powered dual-core device like the Galaxy Nexus.

So many pundits and tech journalists expressed their disappointment with this new phone one would think Apple released a brick instead of an actual phone.

1.3 Million phones per day! With an average price of $650 per phone that makes around $850 Million per day from iPhones only.

Holy Crap!

But, seeing how Steve Jobs worked for the last fourteen years, I don't believe they would promote something so much if it didn't live up to the hype.

So I believe that indeed, this one is history in the making.

Impressive

Samsung was not listed as one of the companies that bought this portfolio, so now Apple have more ammo in their fight with them.

For some reason I expected Apple, with their gigantic hoard of cash to be the winner of this auction.

"All six can appeal, and if they ask to pay more instead of (remaining in) prison then we shall see and take our decision."

Translation: The Somali government wants in on the pirates' action.

Ridiculous!

Hopefully, this will lead to reducing Type II diabetes..

If nobody stands up to them, then they'll bully everybody.

How we access our music after paying for it is none of their business and they shouldn't have a say in it.

What they mostly hate about this is that users of this service will be able to access their music collection from anywhere without the need to repurchase it. Plus, Amazon's cloud is very well backed up and users won't be losing their music collection anymore; not to theft, not to fire or none of the other reasons that caused people in the past to repurchase the same music again and again, benefitting those mobs over and over.

Some people have waaay too much time on their hands.

[Update: SOLD OUT. It took less than 10 hours!]

Google likes to dub its system as "Open", but it's only open as long as it works in Google's favour.

This is not true openness.

When something is truly open, then even development repositories are always accessible for the current version in development, let alone finished versions.

It's a good read and to keep in mind as we read how low the iPad's market share will shrink in 2011.

I'm with Apple on this.

Thunderbolt is a breakthrough technology.

Welcome to the future...

Google's justification doesn't really add up, and there's a strong chance that the decision will serve only to undermine the use of the <video> tag completely. This is not a move promoting the open web. If anything, it is quite the reverse.

As I see it, Google is doing Adobe a huge favour. This isn't about openness at all. It's all about proprietary stuff. Google is pushing WebM, which it owns. But this will result in more support for Flash, which Adobe owns.

This is major hypocrisy.

Scientists in the Netherlands have discovered that insects produce significantly less greenhouse gas per kilogram of meat than cattle or pigs. Their study, published in the online journal PLoS One, suggests that a move towards insect farming could result in a more sustainable - and affordable - form of meat production.

Roasted cockroaches! Yum!

The problem is that the vendors that lost this game failed because they listened to their customers. Like with PDAs or with the original mobile phones or first generation of PCs, early adopters are not the audience that should be consulted on how to improve the product.

Horace Dediu makes very good points. Must read.

But seriously, cross training is a must if you run

But Stallman is unimpressed. "I think that marketers like "cloud computing" because it is devoid of substantive meaning. The term's meaning is not substance, it's an attitude: 'Let any Tom, Dick and Harry hold your data, let any Tom, Dick and Harry do your computing for you (and control it).' Perhaps the term 'careless computing' would suit it better."

He sees a creeping problem: "I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute. The US government may try to encourage people to place their data where the US government can seize it without showing them a search warrant, rather than in their own property. However, as long as enough of us continue keeping our data under our own control, we can still do so. And we had better do so, or the option may disappear."

I completely agree. The more control you relinquish, the more control somebody else will have over your computing and your data.

Of course, the U.S. national security state has quite a different formula for engendering safety in America: fight the Afghan war until hell freezes over; keep the odd base or two in Iraq; dig into the Persian Gulf region; send U.S. Special Operations troops into any country where a terrorist might possibly lurk; and make sure the drones aren't far behind. In other words, reinforce our war state by ensuring that we're eternally in a state of war, and then scare the hell out of Americans by repeatedly insisting that we're in imminent danger, that shoe, underwear, and someday butt bombers will destroy our country, our lives, and our civilization. Insist that a single percent of risk is 1 percent too much when it comes to terror and American lives, and then demand that those who feel otherwise be dealt with punitively, if they won't shut up.

Powerful article. Must read.

Allowing brothels provides safety and removes much of the criminal elements from the environment.

Still very cool!

Things are finally getting interesting. Hopefully, they'll be good competition for the iPad. No single company should have a monopolistic position in any tech for the good of the market and the users.