Way to run Nokia into the ground, Nokia. Along with every other handset maker pre-iPhone who did not immediately release an iPhone competitor (Microsoft, Blackberry, Palm, etc). They all failed, just some of them lasted longer than others did.
Microsoft put Nokia into the ground with a single speech that obsoleted all of the phones that they had in the wild (and were still trying to get people to buy) for a phone that they hadn't developed yet.
The N900 and N9 were better than the iPhone, although that's not saying much.
Of course our bodies handle HFCS and "sugar" differently. There are about a dozen types of common simple sugars and all of them are handled differently because they are different molecules.
Seriously though, some of the descriptions of culture of drinking soda in this thread make me think of that movie. For last 15 years I had soda maybe 10 times and it was usually like few sips. I just can't phantom a world where soda is what you drink when you are a thirsty or to meals. I don't remember people I eat out with ordering soda to their meals either. It's usually water, tea, coffee, sometimes fruit juice.
I drink far more Coke Vanilla Zero than could possibly be good for someone when at home, and yet when eating out I generally get iced tea with no sweetener. You may know a closet soda addict and not even realize it. :)
I think its generally understood that most artificial sweeteners are seen as sugar by the body, but don't actually get turned into sugar in the bloodstream. So it makes sense that it might contribute to diabetes (your body digests it like sugar), but not aging (which is accelerated by sugar in the bloodstream). I believe the whole point of coke 0 is that it doesn't use an artificial sweetener? But don't quote me on that last sentence.
Coke Zero for the US market still uses aspartame, the same sweetener used in Diet Coke.
Coke Zero is a more modern formulation which is supposed to taste more like "classic" Coke than Diet, which has its own distinctive "artificial" flavor which some customers have become accustomed to. It's also marketed very squarely towards young men: during the recent "Share a Coke with X" campaign, there was even a "Share a Coke Zero with a BRO" can, which made me laugh a bit.
As the others have said, Coke Zero contains aspartame. However, it also contains acesulfame potassium which is another sweetener, so it may have a little less aspartame than Diet Coke. (The effect of multiple sweeteners is generally greater than an equivalent larger dose of one... or so I have... read. Maybe. In something somewhere. No promises.)
They seem to have gone back and forth, and more it varies by country.
My experience in Sweden was that first they with big fanfare changed Coke Light (what they call Diet coke outside of English-speaking countries) to Sucralose, then introduced Coke Zero, which used Sucralose and silently changed Coke Light back to Aspartame, and then at some point silently also changed Coke Zero to Aspartame.
There's a version of Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda, but Coke Zero is sweetened with aspartame just like regular Diet Coke. The Splenda Diet Coke isn't bad, but it does taste a little different than normal Diet Coke or Coke Zero. Look for the Diet Coke cans with a yellow label to find the Splenda version.
