Crave

(Credit: Joi Ito, via Flickr)

There are a handful of topics guaranteed to get readers all ginned up and at each others' throats in the comments section of any Web site. While PS3 vs. Xbox or AT&T vs. Verizon are solid go-to choices, anything that gives Apple and Microsoft fans a chance to vent at each other is on another level entirely.

Not that we don't enjoy pouring a little lighter fluid on the fire occasionally, but in the spirit of the holiday season, we have a proposal for peace between PC and Mac laptop users--or at least finding some middle ground both sides can agree with.

With that in mind, we offer the following modest proposal for a détente in the war between Mac and PC fanboys.

>PC Makers will agree:
To adopt the large multitouch touchpad that has become so popular on MacBook laptops. Once you get the hang of using two fingers to scroll down a page or flipping four fingers up to hide all your active windows, there's really no going back.

Yes, we acknowledge that many Windows laptops now support some kind of multitouch gestures. But we have yet to find a single PC that implements them particularly well--the worst offenders being touchpads that require your fingers to be lined up on a mathematically precise plane to activate simple two-finger scrolling. Even worse, they shoehorn gestures into the same tiny touchpads we've been cramping our fingers on for years.

Additionally, when you close the lid on a MacBook, it goes into a low-power sleep state, and then wakes up in a few seconds when you open the lid. It works the same every time, like clockwork. No matter what kind of sleep, hibernate, or other lid-close function we set up on a Windows laptop, the result is always a roll of the dice--yes, even in Windows 7. We particularly like the one where the machine wakes up, but the screen doesn't, requiring us to open the close the lid repeatedly until it randomly starts working.

Therefore, PC makers will agree to work with Microsoft to come up with a sleep mode that actually works the same way every single time.

>Apple will agree:
To turn touchpad tapping and click-dragging on by default, and not make us dig around in the menus for this very basic functionality. Secondly, Apple will agree to finally acknowledge the concept of two mouse buttons once and for all. That means second buttons on all mice (although the two-finger touchpad tap really works quite well), and no more pretending to be a one-button OS while actually including right-click functions for just about everything.

Finally, Apple will agree to ditch (or augment) its mini-DVI ports with plain old HDMI. It carries HD video, plus audio, and it's built into pretty much every other AV device known to man. Heaven forbid we should want to watch HD iTunes videos on a TV by plugging our laptops directly in, instead of buying an Apple TV unit.

We all know the cost of a phone is more than just the price of the device. There are also monthly costs to deal with, whether you're going for the cheapest plan possible or for the expensive all-in-one bundle. This is especially a concern when it comes to smartphones, as data and messaging costs can add up to quite a hefty monthly bill.

In light of recent Android smartphone releases, we decided it might be good to compare the voice, messaging, and data plans of some of these phones across all four nationwide carriers to see which is the cheapest and which is the most expensive. Since AT&T does not yet have an Android phone, we used the Apple iPhone 3GS for comparison. We assumed that customers would be buying these phones with a new contract, so to keep things fair, we did not include T-Mobile's no-contract price plan in the chart (see note below). For Verizon, we did not compare the Connect or Premium plans because they aren't available for the Droid.

We also did not include the pricing for corporate and family plans. For example, Verizon's corporate data plans will cost $45 a month instead of $30 a month (despite claims to the contrary), which is the same for AT&T's iPhone.

We calculated the cheapest plans by adding up the cheapest of all the voice, messaging, and data options (we assumed that most smartphone users will want at least a basic messaging plan rather than no messaging plan at all). Conversely, we calculated the most expensive plans by adding up the most expensive of all three options. Typically, the costliest plans include unlimited voice, messaging, and data. We also know a lot of smartphone users don't use a lot of talk minutes, but are ardent users of text and data, so we also added up monthly plans with the lowest minutes but with unlimited text and data usage.

Today's featured band is Family of the Year.

(Credit: Family of the Year)

TGIF!TGIF!TGIF!TGIF!TGIF! Before you take off for the weekend, be sure to check out today's episode of The 404 Webcast, where we're reintroducing the Semi-weekly Beck's Beer Audio Draft! Today's featured artist is Family of the Year, an up-and-rocking folk(ish) band from Los Angeles. The sextet mix together Fleetwood Mac-style rock guitars with a tinge of country that make for a perfect end of summer soundtrack, and we're very psyched to help them promote their new EP release called "Where's the Sun."

The two tracks on today's show are titled "Let's Go Down" and "Psyche or Like Scope," both available as a streaming preview on their MySpace page.You can buy it on their Web site at a sliding scale, meaning you can throw down however much you want. Give $1, $5, whatever you can afford, but keep in mind that all the earnings will be put toward the expenses of their upcoming CMJ tour. You can also buy a signed postcard from the road with a personalized inscription from the members themselves! Give them a listen, buy the album, and check them out in a city near you. Who knows, they might even stop by The 404 studio the next time they're in town...*hint* *hint* *nudge* *nudge*

Plenty of stories to get to today as well, including a story about some fool trying to extort money from David Letterman for a little fling he had several years ago with his assistant. In our eyes, the king of late night can do no wrong. It's not like he's, oh I don't know, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES; can we all just let the guy live? Keep doing what you're doing, Dave, and if you want to come on The 404 for an exclusive interview, we'll be more than happy to oblige.

We also have a quick story about 3.4 million or so phallic pictures crashing AT&T's servers last week, but there are also a ton of movie-related news stories to get to, including a list of 8 movie franchises that must die, a "Kill Bill 3" in the works, a Spore adaptation, and ugh- a new "A-Team" movie. Can we run through all these stories in time and still not bust over the 45-minute mark? Check it out and find out!

Have a great weekend everyone!

The iPhone, of course, is more than the sum of its parts, but the cost of individual components adds up--to $178.96, to be exact.

A new analysis by iSuppli details the cost of the iPhone 3GS and the motley collection of chips inside.

The entry-level (16GB) version of the iPhone 3GS carries a BOM (bill of materials) cost of $172.46 and a manufacturing expense of $6.50, for a total of $178.96, said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst, teardown services, for iSuppli, in a statement.

Apple iPhone 3GS major components and cost drivers

(Credit: iSuppli)

Service providers are paying more for the low-end iPhone 3G S than the original iPhone 3G, according to Rassweiler. "Although the retail price of the 16GB iPhone 3GS is $199, the same as for the 8GB version of the original iPhone 3G, the actual price of the phone paid by the service provider is considerably higher, reflecting the common wireless industry practice of subsidizing the upfront cost of a mobile phone and then making a profit on subscriptions," he said.

And what are the major cost drivers? The 16GB flash memory chip is the priciest at $24--and reflects the rising cost of flash chips due to supply constraints, according to iSuppli. This part is also available from Samsung. So there could be some second-sourcing (sourcing the part from a second chip supplier) in the future.

The next rung in the cost ladder is the 3.5-inch display module and touch-screen assembly, at $19.95 and $16, respectively.

Below this, is the main Samsung applications processor. Priced at $14.46, it is the fourth most costly component in the iPhone 3GS. ... Read more

Delayed for years, a high-profile game originally to be published by Sierra and now in the hands of Atari has finally become reality: a Ghostbusters video game for the Xbox 360 and PS3 that's actually billed as a sequel to the movies.

Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and voiced by nearly the entire cast of both films, it's not lacking in official Ghostbusters cred. The question is, how does it play? Reviews have been generally solid, but our intra-office discussions among the CNET editors' gaming roundtable have been just this side of heated. We're presenting our sometimes-conflicting views, and leaving it up to you to sort out who's right. Give us your opinion in the comments section below. Also, be sure to check out our exclusive trailer featuring many of the phantasms you'll encounter in the game! ... Read more

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

We're getting close to the day when a major artist or group releases a download-only album. Maybe it'll be the next Rolling Stones or Sufjan Stevens album. That'll be a dark day.

Just last week, I went to my local record store to pick up "Hemispheres," the new release of Bill Frisell and Jim Hall, a jazz guitar duo. I left the store empty-handed.

Next, I checked on Amazon.com. It stocked the album in MP3 format only. Great, but I refuse to pay $17.98 for a crappy-sounding MP3.

Next, I checked the record label's site, and yes, you can buy the CD there, but I wasn't in the mood to navigate the trials and tribulations of its order form. I already own a lot of Frisell and Hall CDs; I guess I don't need another one.

Tower Records shuttered its doors a few years ago, and now another big record chain, Virgin Megastores, is closing down, so there are fewer and fewer places that sell CDs.

These days, I'm buying more and more CDs from Amazon.com, but even Amazon may not move enough product to justify the labels pressing CDs. And local record shops are an endangered species; here in New York, the better ones are barely hanging on.

Still, the fact is that people buy more CDs than downloads, and download sales aren't expected to surpass those of CDs for another couple of years. There's a lot of conflicting information floating around.

Then again, LP sales are on the rise, so maybe we'll wind up with the choice of low-quality iTunes, MP3s, or vinyl. That would be strange.

If you couldn't buy CDs anymore, would you care?

Would you buy vinyl instead?

Do iTunes sound about the same as free downloads? If they do, why buy them?

Melinda Gates was recently interviewed in Vogue magazine and had some rather interesting things to say about her husband and the technology in her home.

According to Gates, both she and Bill have strict rules forbidding their children from having an iPod or iPhone.

"There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household," Gates tells Vogue. "But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids."

But it gets better. Gates went on to say that there is an "inevitable lure of forbidden fruit" and "every now and then" she looks at her friends and says, "'Ooh, I wouldn't mind having that iPhone.'"

Of course, the blogosphere has erupted, adding fuel to the Bill Gates fire that might never extinguish. In fact, commenters on David Carnoy's Crave article first reporting on this story have delivered some interesting takes on the issue.

"That is kind of a pathetic insecurity that demonstrates just how little confidence Gates and wife have in the products that built their lives," a commenter named ewlech wrote.

In Gates' defense, commenter David Dudley writes, "I don't think it's a confidence issue, they just don't see a point in using their own cash to increase market share of a competitor. You certainly would not espouse Apple to use Dell servers in their internal infrastructure despite opinions of what is 'superior' or otherwise, right?"

The argument could rage for hours. But I don't think it's as difficult an issue as some might think. If I were Bill Gates and I had three children running around my mansion, I'd ban all Apple products, Nintendo consoles and handhelds, Linux, and every single Zune competitor. There's something to be said about family loyalty.

A few tech blogs on Monday morning are highlighting some choice quotes from a Melinda Gates interview that appears in the most recent issue of Vogue.

According to the Vogue piece, Bill and Melinda Gates, in addition to making their home a no-iPhone/iPod zone, have forbidden their three children from using the devices (no word on rules for other Apple products).

The article's mainly about the Gates Foundation and how it's trying to solve "hunger in the world." We certainly appreciate that, but we'll stick with the inane superficial stuff here, thank you very much.

LG's LG-GM730 may be Melinda Gates' best option as an iPhone substitute.

(Credit: LG)

"There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household," Gates tells Vogue. "But iPods and iPhones are two things we don't get for our kids." The article goes on to add that "Gates acknowledges the inevitable lure of forbidden fruit." The Microsoft founder's wife also is quoted as saying, "Every now and then, I look at my friends and say, 'Ooh, I wouldn't mind having that iPhone.'"

Of course, if we were doing the interview, the obvious next question would be, "Just what cell phones do you and Bill use?"

With a big alliance in place with LG for Windows Mobile phones, I'm betting that they go with something like LG's upcoming LG-GM730. It certainly looks like an iPhone. On the outside, anyway.

Anybody else want to guess?

(Credit: Digeo)

Recently, Digeo began selling its new Moxi CableCard DVR at Amazon for a whopping $800. That got us thinking about the whole DVR category, and how the real prices of the products are often hidden with subsidies (from cable or satellite companies) or service fees (such as with TiVo).

If you're looking for a digital video recorder, your choices are limited by how you receive your TV signal--satellite, over-the-air antenna, or cable--and how much you're willing to pay a month. Satellite subscribers are shoehorned by their provider--Dish offers the excellent ViP722 (with the SlingLoaded ViP922 due later this year), and DirecTV offers the DirecTV Plus HD DVR HR21. Antenna-only folks were the most limited: previously, the only choice was TiVo (which, again, requires a monthly or lifetime fee for service), but the availability of the DTV Pal DVR offers the promise of a no-fee DVR with support for digital and HD TV signals--just pay for the hardware, and you're done. (CNET is currently evaluating the DTV Pal DVR, and will have a review later this month.)

For cable subscribers, things can be a bit more varied--and almost certainly more expensive. Nearly all cable companies now offer their subscribers an HD DVR option. They'll tout it as "free" (in that you don't have to buy the hardware), but your bill will undoubtedly include a rental charge for the hardware (and the remote!), as well as a "DVR service fee." Want to get a real TiVo instead? That may cut the rental charge and DVR service fee from your monthly cable bill, but then you're stuck paying a service fee straight to TiVo ($13 a month, $129 a year, or a flat $400 fee for the lifetime of the box). Meanwhile, your cable company still gets in on the action; they may still charge you for CableCard rental fees (needed for the TiVo to receive digital and premium channels), plus the normal service fee on top of that (the channel charges that make up the bulk of your bill). Going with the lifetime fee (just because it's easy), that brings the real-world cost of the cheapest high-def TiVo, the TiVo HD, to around $700.

Enter the Digeo Moxi. ... Read more