McPhee

Money moves North at the moment because Scotland's economy can't support itself. Should the Union break apart though this will change. There's $3 Trillion worth of oil in the waters of the North Sea around Scotland, currently owned by the UK (and therefore London). By the rules set down in 1958 by the UK, Norway, Denmark, Holland and Germany the oil would belong to Scotland if the union ever ended (They didn't specifically discuss this, but they decided ownership is based on geographic location. Under the rules they agreed on this would make most of the Oil property of the Scottish government.). Ownership moving to Edinburgh would vastly increase the wealth of everyone north of the border. Why do you think the Scots want independance? There'll be more money to go around (currently the GDP PP in Scotland is FAR lower than in England), they'll have greater political control and their own place on the World stage. To be frank i find the attitudes of people in this thread disgusting and insulting. You know nothing about the situation so instead you throw about insults. Oh, and Pooki, have an infraction for that first comment you made. Twat.

I've fallen out of love with it now too. Once you get over the initial fun of changing interfaces every week it gets pretty dull. There's barely any apps worth buying for it. I'm waiting to see what sim-free 3G S prices are like. If i can afford one i'll make the swap. If not then i'll wait for the Pre or a good Android handset.

He's American. They get decent DVT broadcasts, mostly over cable rather than using our shitty converted analogue equipment.

Um, that's exactly what the guy is saying he's trying to weigh up. Are PS3 titles actually making money for Activision? Or are they costing them money? If PS3 titles are making negative profit (i.e. a loss) for Activision then how would dropping the titles be a big blow for the company? Likewise, if they are making profit from PS3 titles then why would they stop producing them? I really don't think you're in any kind of position to answer these questions, unless you have insider info on the cost vs sales on Activision's PS3 titles?

After I dropped out of Uni i was unemployed for about 6 months (never signed on though, wish i had now) before I landed my current job. It was only meant to be a stop-gap but two and a half years later i'm still there. There's nothing about! I want to start my own catering company, working at festivals, motor racing etc. but to do that i need a business loan from the bank. To get the loan i need more qualifications (understandable, i wouldn't want to do it without being qualified anyhow) and to start the college/uni course i need relevant work experience. I've spent the past 18 months trying to get the sort of job i need, now i'm getting a bit fed-up. OK, i'm not unemployed. It is bloody frustrating though! There's no way i'll have the experience to get in to my course this year meaning even if i got the right job tomorrow i'd be looking at a Sept 2010 start. It'll be at least summer 2011 before i'm up and running If i'm still in the same place in another year's time i might sod off to another country and see what things are like there. No idea where but I really don't want to stay in my current job (done a good job of pissing the management off, ruining ANY promotional prospects).

Welsh independance? Not a chance. It's a daydream thought up by nationalists, it's not in the slightest bit viable. Scottish independance on the other hand is very much possible though other than the Scottish Parliament having more control and it's place on the world stage i'm really not sure what advantages it'll give. Scotland's economy is strong enough for it to support itself and in theory it *might* result in better public spending, it all depends on how successful they are at broadening their economy once independant. To be honest i've never quite understood why it's only the Scots who want Scotland to be independant. Thanks the the awkward way the Union is set up Scotland has a lot of power over England. More money goes in to Scotland than goes out of it (to the extent where Scotland isn't actually in recession, unlike the rest of the UK) and Scotish MPs sitting in Westminster have power over English laws but not the other way around (the West Lothian Question, the MP of West Lothian can vote on matters affecting (as an example) Blackburn, Lancashire, but the MP of Lancashire can't vote on matters concerning Blackburn, West Lothian). If it does happen i feel sorry for England and Wales really. It'll be England that foots the rather costly bill to brake up the Union (the Scottish parliament is in control of matters of Union, it regained this right in 1707 when the countries merged. I somehow doubt Scotland will be paying much and anything they do pay will be from stockpiled English money). Not quite how it went about. James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne and then brought about the "Union of the Crowns", forever sealing England (by 'England' I mean what we now know as England, Wales and Ireland) and Scotland under one Monarch. The nations remained seperate, they just had the same Monarch. The union came about a long while after. Scotland was desperate to be able to compete with Europe's great trade Empires of England, France, Spain and Austria but they didn't have the resources to do so. There were very few valuable exports from the country and they had no colonies worth mentioning. They came up with the hair brained scheme of creating a canal through Panama (brilliant idea but too early, it took another few hundred years before it was managed successfully) to give them a fast trade route between Europe and Asia. It failed badly, losing them £400,000 (a fifth of the county's GDP). In a worse state than ever they went to England with the 'Acts of Union' and somehow persuaded them to sign. The result? Scotland got to rape England financially and politically for hundreds of years afterwards. England only signed up because Queen Anne was Scottish, meaning Scotland had the power to choose her successor. England was simply worried that Scotland might try and whore the position to other contries for money and other priveliges.

I voted "good" but that's just on resolution alone. If i put my new TV next to my old TV i'd say the difference is incredible. It's about more than just the resolution, the colours are especially phenominal! Always found Pure is a cracking game to show off a good set on, really shows what a good set is capable of.

They come and go. Some of the other cutom build websites have them available (PCOption.co.uk for example).

Seems good value to me, wouldn't be much cheaper to build it yourself. The only changes i'd make are the GPU and the case and even then it's just personal preference. The 4870 X2 is very power hungry, i'd go for a pair of 4770s and upgrade them to something more powerful when the next generation of GPUs ticks round. On the case front i've owned an Antec 900. While it's not bad i definitely wouldn't buy another. The case fans aren't all that quiet, the case lighting can't be switched off, there's no dust filters and the inside could do with a lick of black paint.

I do early mornings, 7/7:30am til 3/3:30pm at the moment. Used to do 6:30am til 2:30pm. Can definitely say i'm grateful of the extra hour of sleep as i'm rarely in bed before midnight. Wouldn't trade it for 9-5 for anything though, i get home about 4pm at the moment which gives me a good 8 or 9 hours to myself before bed. Full time work can be hard at first but you get used to it. I started out part time and moved to full-time last year. When i was only doing 24 hours a week i was bored out of my mind. Four days off a week is too many. After a year of full time i've come to the conclusion that 4 days a week is the right balance, trying to get my days changed to 7:30-5:30 four days a week now. The only catch is i'll have to give up weekends to get it

I understand why it exists Charlie. I just think it's a good £150 out on what it should be (or £200 for the more expensive model). I'm even including the usual "Apple Tax" on that figure. If this was a Windows machine i wouldn't pay more than £250-£300 for it. Getting a bit off topic, but here's the rig i spec'd for my brother; Phenom II 940 3GHz Quad Core CPU Biostar 790GX Crossfire Mobo 4GB DDR2-800 RAM ATi 4770 GPU 1TB Samsung F1 Hard Drive Samsung DVD-RW The £55 Coolermaster case/PSU combo on eBuyer Comes out at £455 in total. Or if i was matching the £500 figure i'd probably go mATX and pop it in the Antec cube case for a £485 total. You really do have to wonder sometimes...

I wouldn't touch a Mac Mini with a barge pole, there can't be many things in life that are more of a rip-off. I could put together a smaller, faster Windows machine for less than that. Heck, i could probably do two for the price of the 320GB model. Might sound like a bit of a rant, but i genuinely never realised they were that much until I went to take a look just now. The Mac Books are pretty nice though, definitely worth a buy. Supposed to be some of the best built laptops you can get and certainly better than most stuff in the price range.

Can you imagine the Daily Mail headline? 'Microsoft develop Neo-Nazi camera, say it indicates the future!' So you simply scale it at something like 1:2. The getting up to get a drink thing wouldn't be an issue presuming you don't teleport between the kitchen and your Xbox. Natal would see you walk away. It would also see you walk back. It wouldn't be that hard to adjust the positioning accordingly. Keeping your head perfectly still? It's not an issue in TrackIR so i really can't see how it would be an issue here. Presumably they'd just set the sensitivity so that the software doesn't translate small head movements in to on-screen movements. You lot need an imagination and to stop wanting this to fail. It's like every single time there's an idea there's some lame-assed (and usually wrong) reason why it wouldn't work.

I think i'll be getting one SIM-Free, not liking the way the industry is going with their 24-month contracts and increasing handset prices. Then when my Voda contract expires i'll either take a line rental discount or go SIM-Only. Of course it all depends on how the 3rd party app situation comes along. If it's not out til December then the yanks will likely have filled it with plenty of useful stuff by then. If not then i guess it's an indication that Palm are done for and that the Prē wouldn't be a smart buy.

The HTC Touch Pro 2, Nokia N97 and iPhone are probably the top of the pile at the moment. There's also the Touch Diamond 2 (pretty much the same as the Pro but minus the hardware keyboard) and Nokia 5800 (same story as the Diamond). Then you have the HTC Magic, which is the better of the two Android handsets on the market (although again it does lack hardware keys, worth baring in mind if you're after a device with them). On the non-touchscreen front there's the Blackberry Bold and Nokia E71. Both are fantastic phones, very well built and pretty much equal. Read various comparisons on the two and nobody seems to be able to pick one of them as the overall winner. If it were me i'd buy an iPhone, wait for a Prē or wait until the next Android device launches. You could grab a Nokia 5800 or E71 on PAYG (both around £180) along with a SIM Only 30-Day contract to tide you over in the mean-time.

I didn't say the controls in Gears should be moved entirely to Natal. If it's sat there under the TV though then why not use it in situations where it'd do something fun? I'd like my games to stay on the controller but at the same time the odd bit of motion capture could be really cool.

It works by picking up the reflections of light off of objects. The reasons for this not yet being used in motion capture in films is because this tech isn't out there yet. Microsoft haven't bought a finished product, they've bought the development process from the company that had the most success developing it. Currently Natal is the most advanced of all of these devices, hence the fuss about it. I doubt movie studios will pick it up for a few years yet though. While it's accurate enough for home uses the studios will require something considerably more accurate.

Imagine playing Gears of War 3 and holding B to rev up the chain saw. The camera pans in close, tunneling your vision and then you have complete control over the movements of the chainsaw (until you let go of B). They could even allow you to side-step and dodge, bringing in some realy good chainsaw duels. This is the sort of thing i want to see and i do believe it should be possible.

They've lost their marbles. It works out at almost £54/month for the 32GB iPhone 3GS on an 18-month contract. I can't think of any other phone that can't be found for free on a £35/month contract. I understand that they want to charge a premium, but £19/month more than a Touch Pro 2? £24/month more than the HTC Magic? £29/month more (i.e. over double the price) of the T-Mobile G1? Get real...

Small bump. Was just browsing around some forums when i noticed reviews for this handset are out. Maybe something for the people annoyed at the iPhone's pricing? http://www.precentral.net/palm-pre-review http://gizmodo.com/5277499/palm-pre-review http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090603/palms-new-pre-takes-on-iphone/ Can't say i know quite what to make of it. The opinion on the OS seems universal, it completely shits all over the iPhone (even after today's update). People are also saying the screen is more responsive and picture quality is a tad higher. On the downside the build quality of the hardware isn't great. Really hoping this does well in the US, if it has decent App support by the time it hits these shores then it's definitely worth a look!

It was quite a bizarre and costly move for them to make last year though. They didn't make a massive amount of money off the 2G really when you consider that most people got to upgrade after less than 9 months. Only way you'd see it again is if Apple were prepared to foot most of the bill to keep people locked in to the iPhone (read 'iTunes') format.

There is someone over at What Mobile saying upgrades will be available to existing iPhone customers, but only upon signing up to a new 24-month contract. No idea if it's true or not.

lol Taking the piss much? They've gone from pushing their luck to blatantly taking the piss.

That's what i'd guess at, but wouldn't suprise me to see 24-month contracts as standard. Possibly with the 8GB for free, can't see them selling many at £50 when another £50 gets you double the memory, a better camera and better battery life.

Think i'll pick up a second hand 3G, depends how much they're trading for and if i can pick up a SIM-Free model (might be best looking at the French eBay site for that or sommat). The 3GS is nice but there's not that much added that wasn't in OS 3.0 really.