What we really need is faster hard drives. I've got a "mere" 100 Mbps symmetrical fiber optic Internet connection to my house here in Japan, and my computer can't handle the speed. In other words, uTorrent forcibly slows down the speed because the hard drive can't write fast enough and the cache runs out so it gives me a "disk overloaded" message and slows down. Granted, I'm using a laptop, but still the fastest I got (at least on uTorrent) sustained speed was only 4MBytes/s, and I know the connection can easily go to 10MBytes/s. So start giving us faster hard drives so we can actually USE our connections to their full potential.

Hmm.. this story leads me to believe that many people in Japan leave their cell phones on even at night (that's when the fire alert notification would be most useful; after all if I'm awake I think I would figure it out on my own that the building's on fire)... I guess I'm in the minority then, by turning off my phone when I go to sleep? Then again even though I live here in Japan, I'm not Japanese.. I'm a yankee ^_^

There will never be an "all in one" device. Sure, it's technically possible, but people will never be happy with an all-in-one device.

Case in point: I just picked up a SoftBank 705SC yesterday. This thing is awesome, besides the 2MP camera and a ton of features, it's got a viewer for Adobe PDF, MS Word, Powerpoint, and Excel files. I tested it, and it works. But, for obvious reasons, it's impossible for me to read an ebook when I'm on the subway on this thing. Yes you can zoom in on the PDF as much as you want, but you would have to constantly zoom out, scroll to the side, then zoom back in to try and read just a single page of something. It's frustrating, that it would never replace a device that can properly display computer files (such as a real laptop).

The 2MP camera on it works fine, but does it compare anywhere to a real digital camera set at 2MP? Heck NO!! I have to admit it's nice for a cell phone camera, but it comes nowhere near the quality of an equivalent sized pic (1600x1200) on my Sony Cybershot. Not even close!

Then listening to mp3's isn't as practical as it is on my iPod nano, and the battery on the cell phone doesn't last long at all if you listen to music.

Bottom line - there will always be multiple devices...

I contributed to the problem - just switched to Softbank yesterday :-)

got myself a shiny new 12.3mm 706SC, and it came with a free iPod nano too... so far so good Softbank. My old DoCoMo phone just had to go, it was 3 years old, lol

This thing is awesome.. I would love to get a ride on that thing. The G forces of going from standstill to 100 KM/h would be absolutely incredible. The only comparable feeling I've had to this is riding the "Dodonpa" ride at Fujikyu Highland, southwest of Tokyo. It goes from zero to 172KM/h (106mph for the only people in the world who still don't use kilometers) in like a second and a half or so. But, it was a rollercoaster.. not a car.

Oh yeah, my comment to those complaining... I thought Engadget readers were only guys? I mean that was my assumption anyway. I guess there are some fruitcakes in the crowd? That's ok, nothing wrong with that. I'm open-minded - but keep your pussy comments to yourself pleaze...

LOLLLLLLL

Hmm.. 14 terabits.. well, my 100Mbit/s fiber optic connection with Yahoo BB Hikari Japan (100M upstream and downstream) is starting to get stale anyway, so this might be a good thing... bring on the bandwidth! :-)

I was in Yokohama yesterday at a computer shop and I saw the Blu-Ray burners, readers, laptops with blu-ray drives, and the blu-ray discs themselves.. damn they were expensive! They had Panasonic BD-R 25GB discs for 1700 yen (15 bucks) and the 50GB BD-R's were ridiculous - 4200 yen (38 bucks). I think it's going to be a while before these things go mainstream, although in tech-crazy Japan, I saw that people were already buying them (laptops with blu-ray drives inside, I mean)

Damn.... my poor Alienware m5700 which I just picked up a few months ago isn't core duo.. I guess I should've waited... I could've probably benefitted from core-duo since I'm an extreme multi-tasker... oh well.

Heck, the problem isn't that people aren't interested, the problem is that it's not available!!! I've been wanting this service for years and years, and I fly a few times every year on long haul flights - Europe/US, Japan/Europe, US/Japan etc. and I have NEVER, ONCE, seen Internet available. I bring my laptop just in case and the service is never available. I'd glady shell out 27 bucks to kill time on my 12 hour flights!!