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Mr. Dollar Ton observed:

We (and they, too) have known this for years, if not for decades.

What "we" have known for years is anecdotal and inferential in nature. This, by contrast, is a formal study. As in "science?"

Okay, "statistics."

Either way, it's a non-anecdotal, evidence-based study. And, yes, there are other such studies, including one from 2014 that concluded, depending on when unauthorized copies appear on torrent sites, piracy can actually help box office revenues. Others - primarily ones sponsored by and paid for by the MPAA - have concluded that piracy mostly hurts international (i.e. - non-USA) box office tallies. However, that damage disappears if the film's international release coincides with its U.S. rollout, so its negative effect is likely due to impatience on the part of foreign audiences.

The point is that independent researchers who are not beholden to the industry for their financing have concluded that (again, depending on when in a film's release cycle pirate copies begin to appear) piracy's effects on box office receipts can be negligible to mildly positive. That, in turn, should be taken as evidence that delaying a movie's release in international markets is a losing strategy for movie production companies seeking to maximize their theatrical revenue - but it probably won't be, because the study's conclusion is not a straighforward "piracy==bad" ...

Let's compare apples to apples, shall we? (Pardon the expression).

You can't compare Apple's sales to the ENTIRE REST OF THE PC INDUSTRY and say they're niche.

In the top 5, Apple sells fewer machines than Dell, Lenovo, and HP but more than Acer.

They're competing quite well thank you!

Well yes if you want to nitpick, I wasn't literally correct to say "no safety" if you compare the safety of a person installing any random app from inside vs. outside the app store, although that's not something a person will normally do. Similarly in my analogies, of course you'd be in more danger inside the lion cage or strapped to the outside of the submarine. If you assume a person would be stupid enough to go there, which they generally aren't.

Title nitpicking aside, you'd have a good argument if you had the scale of the malware problem in app stores correct. Which you didn't...you were at least a couple of orders of magnitude low:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/...

https://www.express.co.uk/life...

https://bgr.com/2015/09/21/ios... (In which a piece of software used by over half a billion people was infected, among many others).

So yes, there is a helluva lot of water getting through that submarine hull.

Amazon-owned Ring has reportedly been spying on customer camera feeds

Well, if it's a choice between F-Droid and Google Play, F-Droid has had exactly zero cases of malware slipping into its repository. How many has Google had?

Now, what I would just looooove to know are statistics on what proportion of malware got onto Android phones via Google Play versus side-loading. That would be an interesting statistic to see.

I trust Google about as far as I trust the NSA to protect my interests. I have a tougher vetting process for Google Play apps that I go through than I do for F-Droid. And for good reason. And so should you.

First, as to your last paragraph, I have no doubt that EVs will be more than 50% of new passenger vehicles (minus trucks) by end of 2022/3. We will see more EVs sold in America/Europe, than ICE (again, minus trucks). Ppl can see this coming a mile away. EVs are cheaper to own, lower maintenance, faster, more room in same volume, etc. etc. Tesla is the only EV that is actually cheaper than its competition, but, they will force legacy car makers to follow. Even now, the luxury car makers are moving to decent luxury EVs because they are losing huge numbers of sales to Tesla (according to Porsche, BMW, Audi, Volvo, Caddy). Interestingly, Lexus and infiniti have dropped sales a great deal over the last 2 years, but, they are not saying anything, except still focusing on H2 cars.

Range anxiety. Ok. Where do you live? I am going to assume that you are American. There are a FEW spots left in America that does not have decent coverage, but will be covered before end of next year. Here is what is being looked at for Tesla over the next month or so

As to paying more for the larger battery, it gives us the ability to driver further on occasion when needed, but otherwise, it makes sure that my battery will outlast me and my kids. But if you think that gas is cheaper than electricity, you have to be kidding. Here, lets get a perspective. Our car does 250 MPC when full. That is 85 KWH, but we are going to assume 100 kWh (easier calcs). Now, we pay $.08/kWh in the summer and $.0459/kWh for winter (xcel TOU). We will simply use $.08. So, that means to drive 250 miles, we will pay $8.00 or .032 / mile.
In a comparable car, say a class S, the owner will get 15-20 MPG. Let say that gas is at $2.00 / gal (in Denver, it is $2.5-2.80, but we will go your way). To drive 250 miles, you will have 12.5-16 gal. Lets assume 14 gals, so, $28 to drive 250 miles. That makes it $.112 / mile. Now, I have been weighed all of this your way, and it still turns out that gas will be 4x what electricity will costs. And notice that the MB's Class S that competes against our Model S, are slow, high maintenance, and will actually costs a great deal more to get less luxury in the car.
In addition, resale values on Luxury ICE vehicles are plummeting. OTOH Tesla are holding their values (note that most EVS drop at same rate as ICE, but the Tesla does not).
This page is Oct, but in Nov, EV sales are now over 2.5% of car sales in America. I will guess that EVs are over 3% for Dec.

Note that next year, a number of REAL EVs will be released. Rivian has a truck and SUV coming. Porsche has Taycon. There are decent EVs coming from MB, Audi, Jag, volvo, etc. And these EVs will be cheaper than the competing ICE vehicles.

Alas, there are still some Facebook fanboys who seriously believe that we "value sensationalism over facts and reason"...

But more seriously, the phones will be coming when the networks start actully coming online, which will by and large be next year.

Wow, Apple fanboy much? Suckin' the big apple, eh? You are a fucking idiot if you think iOS is 100% open source. Why should anyone fight the vendor to service something they paid for? They make it intentionally difficult, speaking from the experience of actually replacing sealed-in batteries. It's cute (and ignorant) that you think Apple is an innocent lamb that doesn't spy. Of course, the rest of the ignorant Apple apologist blather in your post should have presaged that. Guess you've been living in a cave and you missed the zillions of news stories about them being a giant spying corporate asshole. Speaking of seeking great tools, I've already got that nailed (things like compilers and *real* tools that produce real results). So, that's why I didn't need to fork over $1000 and a bunch of personal liberty to Apple for an inferior, overpriced, spying, sealed-in battery, no headphone-jack, opaque OS, Chinese made, corporate ass-phone. If it means I don't have to put up with some asshole's horn-rimed glasses and Apple-latte attitude, then so much the better!

Will fakebook be around in 2022? Seriously.

https://bgr.com/2018/09/05/del...

Unless narcissism and mass stupidity suddenly become extinct, yes it will be around.

Will fakebook be around in 2022? Seriously.
https://bgr.com/2018/09/05/del...

Uh-huh.

Equifax is already facing the largest class-action lawsuit in US history
https://bgr.com/2017/09/08/equifax-hack-lawsuit-class-action-how-to-join/

Equifax's Massive Data Breach Has Cost the Company $4 Billion So Far
http://time.com/money/4936732/equifaxs-massive-data-breach-has-cost-the-company-4-billion-so-far/

How to Get In on a Class-Action Lawsuit Against Equifax
https://www.kiplinger.com/article/credit/T017-C000-S002-get-in-on-a-class-action-lawsuit-against-equifax.html

I won $8,000 from Equifax in Small Claims Court. Here’s how you can, too.
https://blog.legalist.com/i-won-8-000-from-equifax-in-small-claims-court-heres-how-you-can-too-f0ce6925c079?gi=f38cd2b5686f

Equifax will not survive fallout from massive breach, says technology attorney
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/equifax-will-not-survive-fallout-from-massive-breach-says-technology-attorney.html

There are 23 class-action lawsuits filed and a congressional investigation, as well as lawsuits that may be yet to come, Grossman said.

Sure, there's been little fallout.

"it’s calculated based on the profit the FTC estimates DirecTV made thanks to the false advertising." https://bgr.com/2017/08/18/att...

Since the RIAA can claim the number of **potential** dowlnoads by torrent users to determine damages for music downloads, the calculation used by the FTC seems to be a far BETTER for determining damages.

What's the problem judge or do you not know what your fellow judges accept.

People are getting tired of their hardware, and they know it.

Yeah, they're really getting tired, alright.

Liar.

https://bgr.com/2018/07/25/app...

"The “Beyond 0” apparently will be a 5.8-inch handset with a flat-screen and a single-lens camera."

Source: https://bgr.com/2018/06/25/gal...

And waterproofing doesn't have to preclude a headphone jack. My last 5 phones have had IP68 or better ratings and a headphone jack.

They may have had IP68 RATINGS; but they probably didn't have IP68 PERFORMANCE. IP68 isn't that hard to attain; but it isn't all that useful, either.

Apple doesn't actually publish the IP rating, they just exceed everyone else that does.

Here is a test with the iPhone 7 vs. the Galaxy Note 7 in 35 feet of water.

https://bgr.com/2016/09/19/iph...

Step 3: Install an antivirus on your Android phone. Run it before every use.

Funny...I've never needed antivirus on my phone in the nearly five years that I've been running Android phones. I don't even have antivirus on my Windows installs, and they've never been pwned either.

Just because you don't use protection does not mean you are clean. You need protection with android phones. 36,000,000+ infected in just 2017 https://bgr.com/2017/05/29/jud...

Using Android doesn't cause viruses or malware. It's downloading android apps that cause malware. Run antivirus every time you download a new app. Infected android phones = 36,000,000+. Infected iPhones = 0 https://bgr.com/2017/05/29/jud...

So I'm sure intelligence would prefer that Donald use a locked-down Android device. If ZTE want to restore trust in the US market, cosying up to the feds would be a start.

Wouldn't matter. Trump won't let anyone install security updates on his phones.

Trump is reportedly too lazy to have experts secure his iPhones
Trump's 'old, unsecured Android phone' poses major security threat, experts say
Trump’s cell phone use is security “nightmare” waiting to happen, lawmakers say

Trump is that boss that thinks security doesn't apply to him and blames the IT guys whenever he installed the next virus.

FWIW Tesla has approx. 5-10X more fatal crashes than do similar cars driven by similar drivers on similar roads.

Where does this factoid come from? Can you provide a citation?

Here are some citations that you're full of crap:
Tesla’s Autopilot makes driving much safer
Tesla's Model X is the safest SUV ever tested

Tesla's autopilot feature is neither an automated co-pilot nor does it have a track record better than humans.

You didn't post an an anonymous coward, I'm going to assume that you're saying this in good faith.

Let's take a look at your two assertions.

Not an "automated co-pilot". Well, it does steer the car, navigates, attempts to avoid pedestrians, vehicles and other hazards, stays in lane and controls speed. Can you elaborate why that does not qualify as driving the vehicle? (The co- part is because it does require the human to stay ready and keep their hands on the wheel - it's not doing it all by itself. I didn't think that was the bone of your contention.)

As for the track record, I was going off the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's findings. Here's one article about it:
http://bgr.com/2017/01/19/tesl...

However, I see that there are articles out there that look at other statistics and don't have the same conclusion, so I'll agree that's debatable.

Would you be satisfied if I changed that part to just "better than an uncontrolled car in motion" and cut out the part about a better safety record?

Wtf "track record better than humans" are you talking about? Are you making things up again?
Citations please!

You sure had an extreme reaction, have you already made up your mind? Posting an an Anonymous Coward makes thinks you have.

http://bgr.com/2017/01/19/tesl...

And even if you don't accept that it's better than a human, wouldn't you still say it's better than being uncontrolled?

Was the essential phone really first? Says it was available for preorder August 2017, just a month before iphone X came out, and even this article says they knew months in advance Apple was adding a notch so android was copying Apple before Apple was even released http://www.businessinsider.com...

This isn't the first time android copied apple's design based on rumors and rushed to market first. Rumors said the iPhone 6 would have a full sapphire display, so some android manufacturers rushed phones to market with sapphire displays https://bgr.com/2015/01/13/sma...

Lol, it's the first google hit for alphanumeric passcode ios11

I'm going to guess Apple pays $0 to SuperKendall, more likely actually checked the facts.

When you say Face ID was easily broken, do you mean easily broken with a $200 3D printed mask as long as the user turns off liveness detection?
Also not using just a photo but also a depth recording of your face

https://www.wired.com/story/ha...
http://bgr.com/2017/11/12/face...

I'm pretty damn sure Touch ID is way easier to crack than that.

I'm starting to think that Geekbench scores for the iPhone are bullshit. The A11 Bionic has 2 high performance cores, but somehow out performs chips with 4 high performance cores. Yet iPhones don't appear to be any faster than Android phones, and in fact they are often quite a bit slower in real world use due to having only 2GB of RAM.

Many have criticized the Geekbench processor benchmarks, unbelievably, even Linus Torvalds. But he relented with version 4.0, saying it looks much better. Version 4.2's GPU test fixes put it in line with OpenCL and CUDA results. I don't see any problem.

I've not tried either the SD845 nor the A11 Bionic processors. If you have, you're a better geek than me, which isn't saying very much. I'm sure you're right about the 2GB bottleneck. As I look over their different specs, there are two other things that stand out in the SD845's favor: the GPU, and the core\cache organization.

1) Snapdragon 845's has modest CPU improvements over the SD835, but the GPU upgrade is 32%-40% better, depending on the graphics test. And it beats the A11 in all but two of those tests.

2) The A11 does have a better CPU performance than the SD845, hands down, but there may be more to it than that. The A11 can use all six cores simultaneously, and has AI hardware called a "Neural Engine" that can perform 600 billion operations per second. Some or all of this may help explain why it's a speed demon at multi-core tasks. But not so much at single-core tasks. Just guessing, but maybe that's because it has discrete core clusters and caches. In contrast, the SD845 uses ARM's DynamiQ CPU cluster organization, letting different cores be hosted within the same cluster and cache hierarchy.

That's all I got, except the links below.

http://bgr.com/2017/09/14/iphone-x-vs-iphone-8-a11-bionic-benchmarks-macbook-pro/

https://www.neowin.net/news/qualcomms-snapdragon-845-benchmarks-show-massive-gains

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12420/snapdragon-845-performance-preview

https://www.geekbench.com/blog/2017/11/geekbench-42/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geekbench

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/263774-qualcomms-snapdragon-845-strong-gpu-performance-less-cpu-improvement-advertised

There is nothing to suggest that Apple are any different to Google, their terms and conditions are the same (and Google offer, in writing, EU-data promises that Apple simply don't... I know, I had to research it for work).

The only difference is that YOU DON'T KNOW who they're selling your data to. Because they don't tell you.

Also, they're quite happy to take billions to have Google as your default search on Apple devices:

http://bgr.com/2017/08/14/goog...

How averse to selling your data do you think they actually are?

You must be pretty forgiving - the keyboard is widely panned, and is very unreliable too https://theoutline.com/post/24... http://bgr.com/2017/10/19/macb... etc etc I'm a recidivist MacBook owner, and the Air is the least shit one at the moment. The regular MacBook is laughable, and new MBP has no ports, touchbar wank, and a poor and unreliable keyboard too.

Demand is dropping a lot faster than expected. And BGR is not an anti-Apple site at all.

Personally, I'm seeing a lot of my OEM/ODM clients forgoing Apple-specific features because of falling worldwide market share, and ever-increasing difficulties in working with them. For example, audio products. If you were making an Apple-targeted headphone in the last few years, well you're basically out of luck. Between Beats and their own Airpods, Apple is now your number one competitor.

Lightning port support? Great! The IAP2, Lightning connector, and LAM will set you back about $13, AAC licensing is another $0.50, and you must build your product at factories that are 100% certified by Apple (and typically will only do tens of thousands of products at a time - sucks to be a small guy). And then you have an audio device with worse audio performance than generic Android; Apple supports "up to" 24 bit/ 48 kHz. Android supports up to 32 bit / 384 kHz and DSD256 - basically any high-res format you want. And also supports AptX, AptX HD, Sony's LDAC, and all the other high quality formats.

Apple has shrinking market share, softening demand, is expensive to work with, and highly restrictive in your own selection of supply chain. And they show no remorse at all when they decide to move into your market space. Why would you go out of your way to support them?

I own two Samsung Galaxy S phones, the S3 and the S5, which both have OLED screens, and neither of them have any burn-in. A recent report noted iPhone X burn-in within 16 hours.

That's contrary to what this report says.

The habitual Apple doomsayers are claiming with zero proof that iPhone X sales are below expectation. Even if that iPhone sales are down, nobody but Apple knows how it is spread over their (currently uncharacteristically large) number of iPhone models. Apple currently sells the X, the 8+ the 8, the 7+, the 7, the 6+, the 6 and the SE. So who's to say which model production is below expectations?

http://bgr.com/2017/12/26/ipho...

Precisely.

And, BTW, I can't seem to find any sales figures in units for Galaxy Note 8 sales, yet everyone seems to say they are "trouncing" Sales of the iPhone 8. Can't find any stories about GN8 vs iPhone X sales.

Why?

The habitual Apple doomsayers are claiming with zero proof that iPhone X sales are below expectation. Even if that iPhone sales are down, nobody but Apple knows how it is spread over their (currently uncharacteristically large) number of iPhone models. Apple currently sells the X, the 8+ the 8, the 7+, the 7, the 6+, the 6 and the SE. So who's to say which model production is below expectations?

http://bgr.com/2017/12/26/ipho...

I think the problem if it exists, is that it just came out too soon.

The habitual Apple doomsayers are claiming with zero proof that iPhone X sales are below expectation. Even if that iPhone sales are down, nobody but Apple knows how it is spread over their (currently uncharacteristically large) number of iPhone models. Apple currently sells the X, the 8+ the 8, the 7+, the 7, the 6+, the 6 and the SE. So who's to say which model production is below expectations?

http://bgr.com/2017/12/26/ipho...

you forgot the solar companies.

As for the so-called "affordable" model 3 being "a wonder", that's quite a stretch.

http://bgr.com/2017/11/13/tesl...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/0...
https://seekingalpha.com/artic...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/1...

Sure, it's Australia, but still...

Do you have any data? Because, from my understanding, government run ISPs commonly have a pretty high approval rating.

Yeah, Comcast is more hated than the IRS. Now, this isn't a perfect apples-to-apples comparison, but they are considerably less popular than what is likely the least popular government agency. I'm not sure why you are talking about government-run ISPs, because my point was that Comcast and AT&T manage to blow the enormous perceptual advantage they have as private companies, because they are so bad at their jobs.

And why would they care? How would it maximize their take home pay not to "blow this for everyone?" Ideally, back it up with a case where something actually happened, as opposed to conjecture based on first principles.

The Heritage foundation is not about "take home pay." It's about shaping public opinion to shift power from government to businesses. Unpopular businesses hurt that mission, because they demonstrate the need for government regulation, and that businesses can have the same kind of problems that are attributed to governments. They are about the worst possible PR for the concept of private businesses.

For a concrete example, look at the Great Recession. Because the financial sector shit the bed, more regulations were passed. Now, those regulations weren't all that strong because of the previous work they put in, but they were reactively punished for bad behavior. Had the recession not happened, they would have faced less regulation, which is the HF's end goal.

The Note 7 was the biggest disaster they've had. And why did it happen?

I'd say it's because they knew if they were trying to cram as large a battery in as they could and reduce the charging times as much as possible.

Why did they have to do that? Because they chose a non removable battery and they also knew that concerns about battery life rate pretty highly

http://bgr.com/2014/05/21/best...

It's getting much harder for smartphone companies to really differentiate their products, especially if they don't already have a loyal user base like the ones Apple and Samsung enjoy. In various marketing campaigns, HTC has tried pushing the high quality of its smartphones' hardware, Nokia has tried selling us on its killer camera and LG has tried hyping up buttons that live on the back, and not the front, of the smartphone. However, there's one spec that matters to users more than any other than many smartphone vendors have seemingly overlooked in their ad campaigns: Battery life.

The Guardian directs our attention to a new survey from U.K.-based research firm GMI that asked British smartphone users what features were important to them when it comes to deciding on a new smartphone. Fully 89% of them said that battery life was important to them, more than 20 percentage points higher than the number of people who said buying from a trusted brand was important to them. This suggests that there's a significant chunk of smartphone buyers out there who might conceivably jump at a phone from a relatively unknown vendor if it could give them top-notch battery life.

This new research gels with research released by IDC earlier this month that similarly showed that battery life has become the single most important factor for people who are buying smartphones. In that survey, 56% of Android buyers, 49% of iPhone buyers and 53% of Windows Phone buyers said that battery life was a key reason they bought their particular device, whereas just which 33% of Android users, 39% of iPhone users and 38% of Windows Phone users said ease of use was a key reason.

So here's a free piece of advice to any smartphone vendor that's struggling to gain traction in a market that's dominated by Apple and Samsung: Develop a phone of reasonable thinness that also boasts insanely great battery life and market its battery power to death.

If you can swap the battery with a fresh one off the charger, then charge time is less important. If the battery is non removable then it is important.

Samsung obviously pushed things too far and ended up with a phone that blew up.

Now if they'd have stuck to removable batteries they could have avoided that. Hell, just sell the phone, a spare battery and a charger as a bundle, as they apparently did with S2s for a while in Korea. They used to run ads mocking Apple devices for not having a removable battery too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Unfortunately it seems like they're going to keep pushing thinness, sleek aluminium and glass design, higher resolution displays and non removable batteries as features, even though there's no real evidence that people who actually buy their phones care about that stuff.

I.e. they've made a terrible mistake - their marketing pushed features that they knew people cared about. And then in later models they dropped those features and tried to convince everyone other stuff mattered more.

Got to wonder how the tires will hold up being frozen for that long...
unless they put some of those cool spring metal wheels on it...
http://bgr.com/2017/11/26/nasa-airless-tire-no-flat/

Well, the iPhone does take around 3 hours to fully charge with the supplied charger. So maybe this is Samsung - once again - bailing out Apple?

Unless it's using something like Android TV or an embedded Chromecast, which some recent TV offerings do, the answer is a definitive no.
If it's a Samsung TV, then it's an pretty blatant and obvious NO, all caps. Samsung, LG and Vizio were already caught red handed with active spying practices, and some of them are facing or faced lawsuits because of it.
Just unplug it. Without smart TV features, it's just a plain TV, which is the safest option as it always was.

https://www.pcworld.com/articl...
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
http://bgr.com/2014/10/31/smar...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo...
https://www.consumerreports.or...
https://www.cnet.com/news/sams...
http://bgr.com/2013/11/20/lg-s...

And no, it's not illogical to prevent some devices from connecting to the Internet. The reality of it is that the less stuff you have connected, the less chance you have of getting spied upon and your data being collected. This also applies to IoT devices and other Internet connected devices. If it does not make sense for a service to be connected to the Internet, it shouldn't be. You already have a proper dedicated device for all the "smart" needs, you don't need the often poorly updated with crappy hardware duplicate that came with the TV.

Basic principle of privacy and security standards, limit the stuff you have connected, always measure the convenience of devices versus the privacy risks they can bring. Something that it just seems that lots of people don't realize these days, which is why we'll soon miss the days we didn't have all details of our lives exposed to hackers, advertisers and big corporations.

A single smartphone and a computer is bad enough as is, adding security cameras, TVs, refrigerators, thermostats, smart bulbs, automated blinds, always listening assistants, and whatever more is out there is not simply wrong, it's just plain stupid. People barely have any knowledge or control of simple routers and their desktop computers, let alone all these smart home crap that most don't even really need. People and the tech industry in general are just marching towards a path of no return, we already have growing evidence on how damaging the move is, but people are usually blind to it because they still didn't face their first identity theft case, or something of the like. By the time most people realize the problem it'll already be too late. Data is out there, either publicly exposed or being sold in huge packages of information to be exploited on the dark web, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Unless it's using something like Android TV or an embedded Chromecast, which some recent TV offerings do, the answer is a definitive no.
If it's a Samsung TV, then it's an pretty blatant and obvious NO, all caps. Samsung, LG and Vizio were already caught red handed with active spying practices, and some of them are facing or faced lawsuits because of it.
Just unplug it. Without smart TV features, it's just a plain TV, which is the safest option as it always was.

https://www.pcworld.com/articl...
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
http://bgr.com/2014/10/31/smar...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo...
https://www.consumerreports.or...
https://www.cnet.com/news/sams...
http://bgr.com/2013/11/20/lg-s...

And no, it's not illogical to prevent some devices from connecting to the Internet. The reality of it is that the less stuff you have connected, the less chance you have of getting spied upon and your data being collected. This also applies to IoT devices and other Internet connected devices. If it does not make sense for a service to be connected to the Internet, it shouldn't be. You already have a proper dedicated device for all the "smart" needs, you don't need the often poorly updated with crappy hardware duplicate that came with the TV.

Basic principle of privacy and security standards, limit the stuff you have connected, always measure the convenience of devices versus the privacy risks they can bring. Something that it just seems that lots of people don't realize these days, which is why we'll soon miss the days we didn't have all details of our lives exposed to hackers, advertisers and big corporations.

A single smartphone and a computer is bad enough as is, adding security cameras, TVs, refrigerators, thermostats, smart bulbs, automated blinds, always listening assistants, and whatever more is out there is not simply wrong, it's just plain stupid. People barely have any knowledge or control of simple routers and their desktop computers, let alone all these smart home crap that most don't even really need. People and the tech industry in general are just marching towards a path of no return, we already have growing evidence on how damaging the move is, but people are usually blind to it because they still didn't face their first identity theft case, or something of the like. By the time most people realize the problem it'll already be too late. Data is out there, either publicly exposed or being sold in huge packages of information to be exploited on the dark web, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Aren't they going to the moon too?

With the Chinese, it's not precisely the same thing as when a tinpot dictator spouts off with some improbable future outcome, but it sure is reminiscent.

wireless charge is ...meh. I've got a phone with it, i'd rather plug it in. It charges faster plugged in, it charges cooler plugged in, and it takes less electricity to charge it plugged in.

wireless charging is pretty much a step backwards in every possible way... except a slight convenience.

The average annual cost of charging a smartphone is estimated at $0.25; about 1/16 of what it costs to run an LED lightbulb 10 hours/day for a year. If wireless charging is only half as efficient (my personal experience says it's not that bad, but it's not worth arguing), the cost goes up to a whopping half a buck. What will you do with all the money you save?

The convenience factor is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I'm much more likely to keep my phone's battery at or near fully charged while at work if I have a wireless charger on my desk than if I don't, and for me, a fully charged phone is a major convenience.

A person has to wonder if a Slashdot faction commenting on this story has an "agenda."

My only agenda is to hope that Tesla succeeds, because I like the advances they have made in the state of the art. (For example, Tesla "SuperCharger" is a better charging technology than anything else available.) I don't want to see them hurting their employees, but I don't really think they need to hurt their employees to succeed.

Everyone agrees that Tesla's production process had problems and needed to improve. Tesla claims they have improved.

Here's an article about that:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarquet/2017/06/04/elon-musk-safety-autopilot/#5d8a4b9a7a88

According to Tesla's official blog post, they went from having a worse-than-average safety record in their factory, to having a better-than-average record. I haven't heard anything about it getting worse again, and I'm pretty sure that would be widely reported news if it happened.

Also, one of their improvements was adding a third shift, so that work would happen 24 hours a day. This greatly reduced overtime, and was welcomed by the line workers. From the blog post: "Last year, we added a third shift to reduce the overtime burden on each team member and to improve safety. We did this because our employees asked for it, and because it was the right thing to do."

Parts were stacked high in contradiction of Lean Manufacturing dogma, and in contrast with the Maryville, Ohio Honda plant he had observed, the Tesla shop floor activity was frenetic. The Honda plant, by contrast, had its assembly line running so smoothly that the workers did not appear to be breaking a sweat.

Honda has been making cars since 1963 (and motorcycles before then). They have had just a bit more time to fine-tune their operations.

Tesla has spent big money on overhauling their production process. They are planning to crank out a very large number of Model 3 cars per year, and they can't do that with a labor-intensive process. Tesla says that the Model 3 has been designed to be easy to manufacture, using lessons learned while manufacturing their other cars.

Recently Tesla shared a video of the robots making Model 3 cars: http://bgr.com/2017/10/09/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-video-production-line/

There are over a half-million Model 3 cars on pre-order. If Tesla can sort out their production line and get those cars delivered in a timely fashion, they will be heroes. If not, they will be in huge trouble and possibly will go bankrupt.

The Tesla Model S is an incredible automobile, they tell me

It really is.

and maybe the problem with it is that it is incredible that Tesla is able to sell an automobile of that sophistication for the price they charge without it all being smoke-and-mirrors of burning out its workers and fleecing its investors to contribute the labor and money to in effect give away what are effectively hand-built quarter million-dollar cars?

From what I have read, a Model S costs Tesla about $30K to make, so no, they are not giving away effectively hand-built cars, they are making a solid profit on each car sold.

The stories of 70-hour work weeks of relentless pressure are just sour grapes from slackers who deserved to be cut loose?

Tesla says that since they added the third shift (sometime in 2016) that the average number of hours worked per week is 42. Do you have newer data that contradicts this?

here are just some "bottlenecks" to be worked out? While their "body" line tooling is still being put together in some undisclosed location in Southeast Michigan?

I had no idea what you were talking about here. Google found this for me:

I was hoping to find some numbers but didn't find anything about how people actually use computers at home. I'm thinking the most common uses are:

- social networking
- general web surfing
- email (among those who use email)
- video streaming
- gaming

A phone is obviously not suited for technically demanding games, so PC gamers will continue to have dedicated PCs. The rest of it could be (and is) powered by a phone just fine.

It's been a year since at least by some measures mobile web use exceeded PC: http://bgr.com/2016/11/02/inte...
That's a trend that will only continue, and more and more people won't have a PC at all.

Finally, the $600 phone. That isn't even a particularly expensive phone, and there are phones that cost almost twice that now.

None of this specifically addresses the overlap between the three groups, but I would be surprised if it were not very very large.

A widget is always there displaying your information or waiting for your interaction, while an app must be located, opened, and navigated through. Opening an app can take anywhere from almost no time, up to several seconds, depending on the app, and navigation can also be nontrivial.

I guess we really operate differently. I unlock, look at mail, done. My home screen is organized to have the apps I'm interested in 1 tap away, so generally, unlock, tap, look, done. Home, tap, look for another app. As the phone is more than capable of appearing to be running all my apps all the time, it's not an issue. Oh, and background processing is turned off pretty much across the board.

Google basically did a "how fast can we rip off and write a clone of iOS with what we have" rush job, and they've been bandaiding it ever since.

Do you honestly believe that? Like, really? You think they put together a full operating system and hardware to run it on, build a handful of test units, got FCC approval, got it into manufacturing, and moved it onto store shelves in a matter of weeks? If they did, they should sell logistics as a service; just getting FCC approval for a device takes longer than people making that claim seem to think the entire R&D, testing, approval, manufacture, and shipping process took Google.

Actually, they did. They had a phone in development for a couple of years, and when they discovered what the iPhone really was, they scrapped their design and whipped up a clone as fast as they could.

What's the average, though, and did you have to buy them all at once? That was my point. With the exception of the $600 iPad Pro, the remaining $3900 outlay in Apple gear, just for web browsers, was all bought at once. You don't know pain, as it relates to testing gear, until you spend $2300 for a copy of Safari.

I guess a $400 mini wouldn't satisfy your Safari needs?

I never argued otherwise; but if you're buying a device for testing, you're going to buy the one that will be supported for the longest period of time, which means you're buying the newest device in most cases, so the $129 SE isn't really relevant here.

Actually, I had to buy an SE, and some lower level Android devices, specifically to ensure that our apps worked properly on them. It wasn't at all about whether the phones would be supported, but that our user base was supported.

A widget is always there displaying your information or waiting for your interaction, while an app must be located, opened, and navigated through. Opening an app can take anywhere from almost no time, up to several seconds, depending on the app, and navigation can also be nontrivial.

I guess we really operate differently. I unlock, look at mail, done. My home screen is organized to have the apps I'm interested in 1 tap away, so generally, unlock, tap, look, done. Home, tap, look for another app. As the phone is more than capable of appearing to be running all my apps all the time, it's not an issue. Oh, and background processing is turned off pretty much across the board.

Google basically did a "how fast can we rip off and write a clone of iOS with what we have" rush job, and they've been bandaiding it ever since.

Do you honestly believe that? Like, really? You think they put together a full operating system and hardware to run it on, build a handful of test units, got FCC approval, got it into manufacturing, and moved it onto store shelves in a matter of weeks? If they did, they should sell logistics as a service; just getting FCC approval for a device takes longer than people making that claim seem to think the entire R&D, testing, approval, manufacture, and shipping process took Google.

Actually, they did. They had a phone in development for a couple of years, and when they discovered what the iPhone really was, they scrapped their design and whipped up a clone as fast as they could.

What's the average, though, and did you have to buy them all at once? That was my point. With the exception of the $600 iPad Pro, the remaining $3900 outlay in Apple gear, just for web browsers, was all bought at once. You don't know pain, as it relates to testing gear, until you spend $2300 for a copy of Safari.

I guess a $400 mini wouldn't satisfy your Safari needs?

I never argued otherwise; but if you're buying a device for testing, you're going to buy the one that will be supported for the longest period of time, which means you're buying the newest device in most cases, so the $129 SE isn't really relevant here.

Actually, I had to buy an SE, and some lower level Android devices, specifically to ensure that our apps worked properly on them. It wasn't at all about whether the phones would be supported, but that our user base was supported.

Yeah, they're crap because it's closed source so that means it's harder for Samsung to cheat at the benchmark by detecting when it's running and tune itself to get an unrealistic score!

How dare they!

You have no evidence to back up your claim. It is entirely possible that the overall accident rate will increase because people will start to rely on autonomous
driving systems in situations where they are not safe or use them in ways that are unsafe

This isn't Nature or some other scientific journal. Demanding evidence that's easily found with your search engine of choice is often considered impolite.

Thus far, autonomous driving has had far fewer collisions per mile driven than human drivers. Tesla's AutoSteer reduced collisions by over 40%. It's a staggering improvement in overall safety.

Humans don't handle the corner cases autonomous systems struggle with very well either. The fact that the Tesla driver had 10 seconds to "notice" something was amiss doesn't mean much.

Even when we're "paying close attention", our brains will often ignore really important details. We even pay for the privilege when Magicians exploit it, because we respect the skill involved.

Actually it never left. Just one device stopped supporting it.

Google as well will ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack and nobody seems to care