"While moving to our new house last week a friend who was helping us accidentally spilt beer on my son's DS lite and it stopped working. I knew that his DS was still under warranty, but I also knew that I would not cover physical damage caused by neglect. After checking Nintendo's website, and confirming that spilling liquid on it would not be covered and that I would have to pay for the repair."

Well if you have a child (mine is 4) you know having a portable gaming system can make things like Doctor visits and trips to the DMV a lot less fidgety, so I called up Nintendo with Visa in hand ready to shell out at least 80 or 90 dollars. After being on hold for all of 20 seconds a very nice gentleman answered, and asked why I was calling. I explained that my son's DS would not power on and before I could go any further he asked me to provide me with the serial number and after looking up my information (I register all my Nintendo products online) he told me that they would be sending me a replacement DS and all I had to do was ship the old one back to them, they even provided a shipping label. Already happy beyond belief I was even more surprised when they sent it 2 day UPS air!!!! GO NINTENDO! I have had returned my Xbox 360 7 times for repair and never received treatment anywhere near that nice.Nintendo went out of its way to keep reader Mike happy. Sure, Nintendo could have claimed that the sloshed Nintendo was abused and neglected - but rather than prate about rules and warranties, Nintendo treated their customer with compassion and empathy. That is how you earn loyalty.

(Photo: Okay, we'll say it, and understand that we're writing this post on an old iBook: the iPod line is starting to look tired. Sure, that Touch is elegant in the same way as the iPhone—but its capacity is similar to the Nano, and what if don't want to carry around a Kubrick-style slab of minimalism? There are now some Today Microsoft unveiled "Health Vault," a "search-engine" supported service that will organize your health records, should you decide to allow your doctors to share them with Microsoft.

The free service will be supported by consumer searches, which will be anonymous and not tied to the patient's medical records, says Microsoft.

From BusinessWeek:
Microsoft is hoping it can make money on the service--which is free to patients--with help from a little box inside HealthVault's page, where consumers can search the Web. The box connects customers to a health-care search engine created by Medstory, a Foster City (Calif.) company that Microsoft acquired in February. Unlike the traditional list of links produced by general-interest search engines such as Google or Microsoft's Live.com, Medstory queries generate health-specific information, grouped together under topics such as clinical studies, nutrition, and medication.

There's also a spot for sponsored links. And that's where Microsoft is betting it can make money. A recent Harris Interactive (HPOL) poll found that 76% of adults over 55 use the Web to help diagnose their medical conditions. Those queries generate $500 million to $1 billion in advertising a year, according to Microsoft's estimates. "It's all about search," says Neupert, who sees the market growing to $5 billion in five to seven years.

Of course, the entire project hinges on whether or not you'll allow Microsoft to have your medical records. Here's the privacy information they toss at you the second you enter the site:
1. The Microsoft HealthVault record you create is controlled by you.
2. You decide what goes into your HealthVault record.
3. You decide who can see and use your information on a case-by-case basis.
4. We do not use your health information for commercial purposes unless we ask and you clearly tell us we may. As Mr. Greenberg-Berger says: "I wouldn't even give my health records to Apple."

So true.

It seems people aren't taking to Vista as quickly as Microsoft would have liked. The result? XP will remain available through June 30, 2008.

Good news for all the readers who've been complaining about the general lack of XP availability. Though we were unable to copies conjure XP out of thin air, it does seem that rumble from the XP faithful is getting louder.
From Ars:
In many ways, the success of Windows XP is also working against Microsoft. At this point, Windows XP SP2 is a very stable OS with known security strengths and weaknesses. In comparison, Vista is still an unknown quantity in some enterprise settings. Windows XP will also run well on older hardware. Myths that Vista needs high-end hardware to run adequately do not help Microsoft's cause, either.

Microsoft is now saying they were "little ambitious" in giving XP only a year to live.

Amid disappointing Vista uptake, Microsoft relents on XP execution [Ars Technica]
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