Why Microsoft's Xbox bill will rise to $3 billion

And on that note, sony should apologise for all the images it has taken of anything that may have offended anyone. Including, but not limited to, inanimate objects.

Once again we have religious extra sensitivity that must be taken into account. Why dont they just take a phat cheque and shut up. Would do more for their cause than this nonsense.

W00tseaker

Subject: Wiki versus Reality

If class nutcase and genuine apocalyptic screw ball... sorry DEAD class nutcase and genuine apocalyptic screw ball Klaus Wagner can have a Wiki entry then why not Everywhere Girl? Even I spotted her here...

http://www.londonstudentrental.com/img/LSR_home5.jpg .

Seems like p*ssing everybody off on usenet is "more important" than having your face plastered all over the western world.

Blimey she gets about.

It seems one should be careful of Friday the 13th.

Burnttoy

Subject: more iPhone issues

Some other features that are missing which are annoying.

1) Cannot send text message to more than one person.

2) Cannot search for a contact to call by type in name. The scroll down and alphabet on the right side of the page is much slower than just typing in contact name with the name appearing after you type three letters.

3) E-mail: All e-mails appear in phone inbox even if they are SPAM, Junk on the computer. Previous Treo with Sprint only showed e-mails that were in my Outlook inbox (not junk and SPAM e-mails). Apple said the phone can not filter between inbox, SPAM, and junk.

4) Camera can not record video. Only still pics. This should be able to record & send video clips recorded from phone.

5) YES, Speakerphone / earpiece is VERY DISAPPOINTING. Needs to go several levels louder, especially when using external speakerphone. Should be able to place on armrest in car (with windows up) and have conversation. Not even close. Have to hold phone right next to ear, which defeats purpose of external speakerphone.

D Fritts

Subject: the return of the sinclair

I actually had a spectrum. I wrote my first animations on it. They still linger on some VHS tapes somewhere. Great stuff.

But if the pc you outline actually came on the market I would immediatly buy three. One for me to browse the internet at ultralow power. One for my mother, and one for my sister. All they ever do with their pcs is browse the internet and store digital photos, refill their mp3 players. They always just leave it on too, sucking pointless amounts of power and generating an everpresent hum of fans.

I know plenty of people who have similar habits. They never play games. Just browsing the wibble. Such a machine really should sell like hotcakes. Even if you have a bog standard pc already you'll make the expense back in saved power the first year alone...

kudos

B

Subject: AT&T secretly releases $10 DSL

Dear Mr. Mike Magee, I had read this article: www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40430 and went looking for the package. Hunt as I may, I could not find the "Terms and Conditions" link.

The new scope:

On the High Speed Internet page, , the "Terms and Conditions" link is now phrased as "*See important details ." It is at the bottom of the page on the left. Trust me it took awhile to figure that out since I was looking for 'Terms and Conditions".

For the moment at least, if you click on any of the "Popular plans", the phrase "Terms and Conditions" is still used at the bottom of the corresponding page.

Maybe no one else has tried to hunt up this service, but if they have, it is harder to find then before.

Harlan Hullinger

Subject: XBox 360 failures

Nick,

I'm skeptical about the towel trick to revive a dead Xbox 360, but it actually seems to work for many people. It can't get hot enough to melt and reflow the solder balls on the BGAs, but there are a couple of other possibilities:

1) The solder is brittle RoHS-compliant crap. It fractures easily in normal use due to thermal cycling, causing hairline breaks. The towel trick warms and expands the joint sufficiently to allow a temporary contact, but it usually fails again after a few hours to days.

2) Tin or indium whiskers form between traces, due to improperly formulated solder, RoHS- compliant solder, humidity, etc. The towel trick warms the innards sufficiently to stretch and break the whisker(s). Eventually, they regrow and it fails again.

The bad solder theory kind of makes sense, because it has been manufactured in low-cost countries like Mexico, Hungary and China. It's highly plausible that they cut corners during reflow soldering, or use cheaper substitutes. This may be OK for typical consumer electronics stuff or even low-end PC add-on cards, because of relaxed tolerances, but fatal for the XBox 360 with its fine-pitched BGAs.

The interesting statistics are that the failure rate for the Nintendo Wii as well as the Sony PS3 are around 1% after a year - typical for high-quality consumer electronics manufactured in Japan. The number for the XBox 360, by contrast, is as high as 33% and climbing.

It's not likely that the suits at M$ are familiar with materials, metallurgy and reliability engineering - they're still probably groping blindly in the dark about the possible causes. The kind of labs that are required to analyse these kinds of things cost a large fraction of a billion dollars, and need to be staffed with a couple of hundred full-time PhDs in material science, backed up by a large number of trained lab-hands who're at home with SEMs, STMs and the like. Only the old IBM, HP and maybe DEC could afford to do that, and now maybe only Intel and TI do that in the US.

I predict that the cost of warranty replacement will keep climbing as the outline of the bathtub curve fills and climbs out, probably reaching 100% of all shipped units within 3 years. Let's watch the fun. It's not often that M$ is forced to eat a $3B meal of crow. Intel must be gleefully watching the fun - the original PIII-based XBox did not face as high a failure rate, partly because it used proven PC-grade components and manufacturing techniques, not experimental science-fair project SoCs shoe-horned into low-cost consumer-grade plastic boxes.

Siva

Subject: Not even Bill Gates wants to be Bill Gates any more

Again the letter from saschakrohn the 'i know everything but life has been cruel to me' ex AMD worker...Some people should be keep outside this section of the inq..

T

Subject: cheap PC

Brilliant idea. We use a Mac Mini as our main computer in the living room for the same reasons: very small, absolutely quiet, and still a full computer with everything you'll need for the usual, simple home-computing stuff. As you presumed, we use some usb hardware add-ons, like printer, DVD-writer and external hard-disk. If you find a manufacturer, I'll buy one, probably for the bedroom. I predict your sales could potentially be enormous with the right marketing and the right OS (NOT windows).

Chris.

Subject: I'll be more proud of wiki than me kids

heh.... WHAT F**KED up bitch. If I were one of her children(god forbid) and I got compared to a half baked pile of dog shit I would be steaming! to extend the analergy(if you can call it that), if the shit got been boiled in some mana then she could mold it into a baby and carry with her then end up in a aslym screaming "I love my wiki BABY!" then bite it's head off.

Afsafe Clene

P.s Sorry for the unintelligble and abstract email. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Subject: Inexpensive PCs

About time someone revisited this concept! The calls for OLPC are more about selling chips than providing capability to the economically disadvantaged.

Every now and then I see small form factor computers that fit on top of a standard 3-1/2" drive, but these are all fairly expensive, not enough volume.

I figure the PRC (China) might be interested, they certainly have the knowledge and manufacturing capacity, not to mention the labor and ready market. Problem is, free exchange of information is detrimental to a totalitarian state.

India? If only they could stop squabbling amongst their different (religious, social, ethnic) groups.

Nobody else needs such a capability, not any of the Western "democracies".

Ah well, nice to see someone is thinking.

Rich Wargo

Subject: More proud of Wikipedia

Well kudos, my dear. I'm sure your kids will remind you of this sentence for many a Christmas Dinner to come.

Way to go to ensure general hilarity in college and University as well (supposing your offspring actually makes it to Uni - if their education is Wiki-based, I have my doubts). Just imagine atmosphere on campus when somebody attaches the name Devouard to the wicked Wiki.

Way to go, Florence. I just hope the Wiki doesn't decide to delete you one day- that would matricide, then ? It happens so easily.

Pascal.

Subject: Verizon kills copper

While i can't argue they have done a great job of informing the public about the copper being shut down i've known for more then 6 months they have planned on switching off their standard copper phone system so the info has been around for awhile. I've heard estimates of march next year in some areas but i do question the wisdom of removing the copper from the roads and completely shutting off the system given as pointed out FiOS wouldn't function devoid of power. I live in washington state and trust me after several cities, including mine, spent upto a week without power last winter i can tell you exactly why it would be very bad removing it completely. Even if you have a cell phone it won't help you cause the cell towers can go down after a few days when the backup batteries die, same goes for the battery in the phone plus your odds of getting through are greatly deminished given everyone and their second cousin is trying to use the network at the same time. From a public relations and safety stand point they would be better off leaving the lines in place with the ability to switch them back on incase of emergency assigning whatever VoIP number you have to your copper line.

Also i believe washington is still the most recent state to get the fiber system and has some of the worst rates, take it from me it is not over double the money for the same bandwidth. Presently the prices here for DSL are $14.99 for 768 kbps down and 128 kbps up and $29.99 for 1.5-3 Mbps down and 768 kbps up where as FiOS is $39.99 for 5 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, $49.99 for 15 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up, and $179.99 for 30 Mpbs down and 5 Mbps up. Those numbers come directly from Verizon's site as of 12:17 am on July 9th '07 so they are very up to date. In other words Mr Farrell might want to check his facts a bit better given these numbers prove per FiOS actually gives you 40% more download and 64% more upload for only $10 more assuming you're actually getting the full 3 Mbps on DSL plus they never even listed bandwidths in the original story his links off to. Honestly i wonder if he even checked the numbers before making this claim given per dollar every FiOS option gives gives you better download and upload then DSL.

Daemeon