Been using avast! ever since I moved to 64bit XP and discovered AVG didn't work with the 64bit OS and haven't looked back. It's been rock solid, been very resource light, has very frequent virus database updates, and most important of all barely ever requires a reboot of my machine (doing so is only needed when the core program itself is updated - which isn't very often). I got very bored having to reboot every time certain other AV products just needed to update the virus database. Having to re-register every year (which involves filling in a couple of boxes on a website and then just copying and pasting the code which is emailed into the program) is a small price to pay for an AV solution that "just works".

Visual voicemail was only ever available from O2 on the dedicated iPhone tariffs - this isn't news! Moving to the Simplicity tariff (the cheapo one you can switch to once out of contract) has always meant loss of visual voicemail - but it's hardly a killer feature that would bother most people.

It's worth noting that in several countries you don't get visual voicemail at all - even from the official carriers!

Well some bloke who claims an iPhone was propelled 10 ft up in the air claims that Apple offered him a replacement in return for keeping quiet. Sounds like a load of bull on both counts to me! Why on earth would Apple even consider that a replacement iPhone would be offset by signing a non-disclosure agreement? The whole thing makes no sense at all! Wouldn't suprise me if the bloke had dreamt the whole thing up. At worst it was probably a malfunctioning battery that caused some damage to the iPhone and when taken into a store some spotty dimwit said he could have a replacement and jokingly said "please don't go advertising it".

Also I'm pretty sure at least one or two of the other so called incidents had involved users mucking around with the innards of the device, which is generally not a good idea if you start damaging a lithium-based battery.

"What distance can be travelled on a single charge, and how much does a complete charge cost in terms of electricity consumption?"

Well according to the Tesla website it's about 220 miles on a single charge. They also say that after a 100 mile trip it should only take about 2 hours to top up the charge using the home charge unit (which they state operates at 70 amps - which I presume is based on a standard US 120v supply). So that's basically 2 hours at 8.4 kW, which for a typical UK supplier would be charged at around 5p per kWh if on a dual rate tariff (and charged during the night) - so you would be looking at about £0.84 per 100 miles in terms of charging costs.

They also say the battery pack will be good for 100,000 miles or 5 years (after which it will degrade rather than be completely dead) - and if the quote above of a replacement cost being $12,000 (~£7,220) is accurate, then the cost of that spread over 5 years and 52 weeks per year is about £27 / week. That still works out considerably cheaper than my weekly fuel bill!

Well I upgraded from the original iPhone to the 3G this time last year thanks to O2's offer of being able to replace the original 18 month contract with a fresh one (which from what I can gather was purely down to the fact the original iPhone wasn't subsidised). I was on (and remained with) the £35 18 month package which offered the iPhone 3G for either £99 (8GB) or £159 (16GB) - which was roughly equivalent to the $199 and $299 price points for the US (with a bit of variation due to taxes and subsidies I imagine).

This time around the 3GS is being offered in the US for $199 and $299 again, this time for 16GB and 32GB models respectively, while the 8GB 3G has dropped to $99. Here in the UK, ignoring the temporary VAT decrease for a moment, the £35 18 month contract will now get you the 3G 8GB for £99 (no reduction), the 3GS 16GB for £189, or the 3GS 32GB for £280!!

While the US gets the 16GB 3GS for what the 8GB 3G cost last year, we get stuffed with it costing even more than last year's 16GB model! And the 32GB model is right up with what the original unsubsidised iPhone cost! What gives? I was under the impression that memory was dirt cheap at the moment, so why on earth is a) the memory jump commanding such a huge premium, and b) the UK prices so insane compared to the US ones? I don't buy that it is just down to the weaker pound as up until yesterday the iPhone 3G was still priced at a sensible level compared to the US. Furthermore the difference in £:$ from summer last year (~2) to now (~1.6) would put the prices closer to £120 for the 16GB 3GS and £190 for the 32GB 3GS.

It's like Apple & O2 haven't noticed there is a recession going on and thinks people have money to burn. They clearly aren't interested in having people upgrade from the iPhone 3G to the 3GS as they are insisting on having people pay up the remainder of their contract before being able to upgrade (and if those people do wait until January 2010 and beyond they will probably be just as likely to either wait till the next iPhone comes out in June/July next year and not bother with the 3GS at all, or just ditch O2 and go somewhere else). At these prices I'm pretty sure they won't exactly be inundated with new customers either. I imagine the only ones they may get will be owners of the original iPhone who for whatever reason didn't upgrade to the 3G last year, assuming they aren't completely put off by the price.

I for one will be sticking with the free 3.0 OS upgrade and then thinking very seriously come January whether I want to stick with O2 or not. It's even making me think of moving away from the iPhone next time I get a new phone too if Apple & O2 continue to think they can get away with trying to rip us off like this...

The hover pit is to simulate hovering in free air - it's not what they will actually be landing on. The 1% excess is what the engine produces over and above a performance requirement - it isn't a 1% margin for normal operations.

Also, as Lewis reported back in mid-Feb, the intention will be for the F35B to use a short rolling vertical landing as a standard procedure for the RN carriers as it will allow it to land with more stores.

As for other comments about spending money on improving Harrier instead, well that happens anyway. Doesn't mean we shouldn't also be thinking about replacing them with something faster, stealthier, and newer; there's only so much you can do with a 40 year old airframe that will be closer to 50 years old when the F35 enters service! There's still plenty of Brit know-how going into the F35 - Lockheed may be the lead, but BAE Systems are still a major partner. On a project this big (the largest military aircraft project ever), you get plenty of economies of scale, and therefore more bang for yer buck.

Oh and the lift fan is actually a pretty effective means of delivering a STOVL capability while maintaining decent conventional performance. When you have a highly specialist engine as you have with the Pegasus in the Harrier you sacrifice a lot of wingborne performance due to the arduous path the jet exhaust takes through the nozzles. The beauty of the lift fan method is that when it isn't required the jet operates pretty much as a conventional one and hence allows the jet to get much closer to conventional aircraft performance. The F35 jet obviously has considerable specialisation due to the rotating rear nozzle, but in conventional mode it is much closer to a conventional jet than a Pegasus. Yes there is a fair amount of "wasted space" when in conventional mode as the lift fan is just dead weight, but when you consider the other options it actually ends up being one of the more efficient solutions. The main issue is sorting out the gearing so the jet can cope with a huge great fan suddenly needing to be spun up mid flight.

You don't need to do anything unofficial to get an mp3 as a ringtone, though admittedly you do have to jump through some hoops. It can all be done using iTunes - just right click the mp3 you want and use Get Info to set the start/stop times for the (up to) 30 secs you want and then export it as AAC. Find the file in the iTunes music folder and copy it to the desktop, then back in iTunes delete the AAC version from the library. Back to the desktop rename the .m4a file to .m4r and then simply double click it to add it to iTunes library as a ringtone and sync up your phone (you can then remove the .m4r file from the desktop as it has been copied to the itunes directory).

Seems the UK Apple store is running this one day sale too - though the savings don't seem to be exactly earth-shattering. A whopping 4-6% off MacBooks!

"I'm probably guilty of over-simplification, sorry for any confusion."

Nice try, but no cigar.

While it appears there may be some isolated cases of push email having some issues (which is just as likely to be a fault with the MobileMe service as it is with the iPhone), you stated in the article that "Also waiting for version 2.2 are iPhone users wanting push email to work in the background, a feature that was removed with version 2.1 of the iPhone firmware." The only feature that was pulled from the 2.1 firmware was the push notification for 3rd party app's - and that was simply pulled from the last beta release and so was never released to the general iPhone userbase in the first place. It is not over-simplification to talk about two completely different features as the same thing just because they share a word - it's just inaccurate and plain wrong!

Push email has always worked in the background since it was introduced in firmware 2.0 - that's the whole point of push! Does it work flawlessly? Apparently not (at least not for some) - but that is a million miles away from stating that the feature has been removed. Lrn2Jrn!

Firstly I think Paul Chapman has made some very good points - his evolutionary vs revolutionary remark in particular.

Personally I haven't looked back since getting my PS3 and buying my first few Blu-Ray movies. I've mostly just bought new titles that I didn't already have, though there were some titles I already had on DVD that I really wanted to be able to watch in the best possible quality so I got those on BD and sold the DVDs on eBay for a couple of quid. Oh and I don't think I've bought a single Blu-ray from the high street as they are massively more expensive than online - and that's before considering imports from the US which can be cheaper still (remember only a small fraction of Blu-rays are actually region locked - most are region free).

I watch on a 1080p 42" plasma and can most definitely tell the difference between upscaled DVD and full 1080p Blu-ray. In addition there is the lossless HD audio which is head and shoulders above Dolby Digital and dts on DVD. Interestingly though, one of the things I miss most about Blu-ray when going back to watch a DVD is having to stop the film to access chapter selection (or any other) menus - I'm so used to Blu-ray popup menus for that!

I updated to 2.1 without a hitch (as I have done with all previous firmware updates). Never had to do a restore on my handset (aside from when I first got the iPhone 3G as I was restoring my original iPhone's backup onto it rather than setting it up as a new phone - but that was thouroughly intentional and WAI). Oh and this is on a Vista 64bit PC.

Overall I am very pleased with the update - I've only ever occasionally been hit with the laggy keyboard bug but that seems to be fixed now. Also really liking the Genius playlist feature - much better than a regular shuffle mode and saves me having to trawl through my extensive music collection trying to think of songs that work well together. Quicker app installs is definitely noticeable, as is the speedier backup process when syncing with iTunes. I've not yet had a chance to determine how my battery life has been affected.

Looking forward to the next update too which will hopefully bring push notification for app's (a feature that was supposedly pulled/disabled/postponed from 2.1 in one of the latter beta candidates). I'd still like to see a cut/paste implentation at some point, as well as better SMS management (including an option to forward, selective deletion of messages, and being able to send contact information by SMS), but then again no phone is perfect and I still prefer my iPhone over previous handsets that have had those features.

"Anyone care to explain how an omnidirectional radio signal (3G) can be weakened by too many people receiving it? Your phone doesn't 'suck in' waves. A lighthouse isn't any less brighter with more ships in range..."

It's called Cell Breathing and it's a "feature" of how 3G works. As a 3G cell gets more users it will begin to shrink its effective range to ensure that those nearest the mast maintain a good connection, while those on the edge of coverage find themselves pushed from the cell. Not exactly the greatest idea ever, but certainly not a problem exclusive to the iPhone.

It actually quite surprises me by how much people underestimate the difference between SD and HD. Even Anon up there who makes the point that (UK) DVD is 576i seems to underestimate the situation. Yes it's a 25% increase to go from 576 lines to 720, but that is literally only half the picture. Since it is progressive, 720p is 720 lines 50 times a second, whereas interlaced 576i is 576 lines only 25 times a second (and that is a simplified version ignoring the weird defects interlacing can introduce). Also the increase in spatial resolution is massive - from 720 pixels wide in 576i to 1280 in 720p (over a 75% increase). It all adds up to nearly 4.5 times the amount of detail per second when you include the difference between interlaced and progressive. And of course that is just 720p... 1080p is even better. That's 1920x1080, 50 times a second. 5 times the h x v resolution of DVD and 10 times the detail when including p vs i.

Then of course there is the superior compression technology that is used in Blu-ray (MPEG-4/AVC vs MPEG-2) that makes the difference even bigger, and not to mention the difference HD audio can make (though admittedly even less people have hd-capable sound systems than have hd displays).

Naturally this all means a lot less if the viewer can't see all the detail in 1080p (or even 720p) - but larger screen TV's are definitely becoming more standard, and you certainly don't need a 42" TV to be able to appreciate the difference between SD and 720p (though for 1080p that does indeed seem to be about the benchmark "normal" viewing distances).

All the cool kids are uploading their pics via the Facebook app anyway (or just emailing). Unlimited inclusive data vs MMS charges? I know which one I like the sound of better.

I'm still on the original iPhone but the apps available with firmware 2.0 have already transformed the device for me - I can't wait for O2 to sort their stock out so I can upgrade to the 3G version (16GB) and enjoy 3G connectivity and GPS on top. And despite their faults O2 are being good enough to allow us original iPhone users to upgrade early without penalty, even though we are only a few months into our original 18 month contracts, and I can then flog my original one to someone else.

You'd better tell HERTI then (another BAE UAV project), which saw a successful operational front line debut in Afghanistan at the tail end of last year - that is also fully autonomous rather than remote piloted.

Fully autonomous is not a significant difference from remote piloted? Don't be daft. There is a quantum leap of difference between full autonomy and single / dual remote piloted, so no - Sky Warrior hasn't done this already by any stretch of the imagination.

Also fully autonomous does not mean that the UAV doesn't communicate back what it sees, it just means less two-way communication is required for it to do just the basic flying so the available satcom bandwidth can be dedicated to actually useful mission-specific data.