Then why were public executions (often preceded by torture) so popular throughout Ancient, Medieval and even Early Modern times? Surely, not everyone attended them, but similarly not everyone enjoys watching horror movies now.
I suppose that some people are just more violent than others.

I for one welcome our new intelligent rat overlords

I know some former PC gamers who turned to smartphone games. Actually, I'm one of them. I wouldn't even consider consoles as an alternative to PC gaming, but smartphone games are another story. PC games market is largily dominated by a few big players, who release big titles for broad audience to maximize their ROI. Naturally, their games are developed for the lowest common denominator. However, in smartphone game dev there's still a place for indie developers, who can afford to develop a game they'd play themselves, sell it for a small niche and still be profitable.
Not all of smartphone games are timewasters (well, no more than any other computer games); there are even some complex RPGs, like Zenonia for iPhone. While not as deep as the legendary Fallout, it is still much more of an RPG than many "RPG"s, released for PC nowadays.

The funny thing is, most "social games" developers prefer playing FPS, strategies or RPGs themselves, but design their social games as dumbed down as possible, so that they're accessible by the stupid masses. Why? Cause that's where the money is.
I didn't believe the statistics until I developed a couple of social games as a side projects. The most profitable players are mid-aged women. This holds true even for games where the vast majority (over 80%) of active players are male. It's not uncommon for a mid-aged woman to spend ridiculous amounts of money on a social game, so that she can click the shiny buttons all week long. I still don't know the reason of this phenomenon. Maybe, they have a lot of free time and rich husbands...

I've used it on Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Android and will definitely try it on iPhone OS later this day. So, with Opera Mini you may get consistent browsing experience no matter what smartphone (or featurephone) you choose.

I prefer the keyboard. It's still the most effective input method and the fastest way to manage your computer and smartphone (provided you learned the hotkeys and commands).

Based on article's title, I thought they've found dark matter and dark energy!

Unfortunately for Google, totalitarian systems are very effective under some circumstances. For example, totalitarianism proved to be the most effective system during large-scaled wars and other dire conditions. Today's growth of Chinese GDP proves that it is more effective in current economical situation than either US or EU.
Don't forget, during the last twenty centuries, China had the largest economy on Earth for 18 centuries, and it always was totalitarian. Like it or not, it will soon regain its position as the largest economy on the planet. So, under the circumstances, it is Google who needs China to stay relevant in future, not vice-versa.

When speaking about power consumption, I was referring to the screen. As for overall power consumption, right you are: most of the eBook readers have Linux within, and this beast has a well-known appetite for power.

Just read from E-Ink screen to feel the difference. I was skeptical about E-Ink too before having tried it out. It looks almost exactly like the real paper. So, now I can't imagine using LCD for prolonged reading when you can use E-Ink device or (even better!) good old paper book.

By the way, another key advantage of E-Ink is energy consumption: it doesn't use battery when static, and uses quite a small amount of energy to redraw the page. Due to this feature, eBooks can run for weeks or even months on a single charge.

It's because people tend to think of their passwords as words, not phrases. It's much easier to remember a simple pass phrase (e.g. "Quick_brown_fox"), than a shorter, but completely senseless random symbol combination (e.g. "gsf12mU&*").

One unit per tile system will certainly add some realism, as you (and your enemies) can't achieve infinite troops concentration any more. Hope the new Civilization combat system will be well-thought, or it risk turning into micromanagement hell.

It's one of the world's most ambitious projects. Not surprisingly, its construction and operation can be problematic from time to time.