Some of Lock's routine-based material is the best around, but the overall performance seemed to try to cover a variety of areas - linking in with the Wikipedia-esque tour title "Lockipedia" - some are successful and others not so.

BBC: By Jeff Allum

Conceptually, the system appears to be very similar to the Social Bicycles model that we wrote about earlier this summer as part of our Insert Coin series, though that US-based prototype includes a u-style lock, for securing the bike to a post or tree.

ENGADGET: NTT DoCoMo Shared Bicycle Initiative hands-on (video)

The most popular game, we've found, in one called Air Lock, which is a text-based adventure set in space.

BBC: Playing games with Wap

Cloud-based offerings provide some freedom from these platform wars (although, even they present new lock-in scenarios).

FORBES: Forget About Devices! Why IT Execs Should Focus On Content

In the operating-system business, expanding the market the first rationale for less-than-monopoly prices might be wise because the high costs of switching from Windows and Windows-based applications to any putative competing suite of products tends to lock new users in.

ECONOMIST: Big friendly giant | The

"Once the first big brick-and-mortar companies do it, they're all going to lock up deals to compete, " says Charles Katz, chief executive of San Francisco-based 1stUp, whose 70 free-Web clients include Seventeen magazine, The Rocky Mountain News and the Fox network's dysfunctional family, The Simpsons.

FORBES: Free For All

Oracle has stated that it will use standards based technology, so customers can transfer their data between systems easily without any lock-in.

FORBES: Larry Learns To Love The Cloud, Oracle Stock Going To $40

For starters, the Russians will surely try to lock us into a "first phase NMD" along the lines of the single, ground-based site President Clinton ultimately chose not to start building in Alaska.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy