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And by "these services", I mean cloud services in general. I have several of these accounts. All of which were something like, get a free 50GB account when you buy this gadget. Even with 100"s of GBs of cloud space available to me, I find I don"t use any of it. Sure, I will upload some large files from time to time if I know I want to transfer them to another PC at work for example.
I never put anything on these services that I cannot afford to lose. I cannot say exactly the main reason, but basically,
1. I want direct control over my data
2. The US government has said, if it is in the cloud, you do not own it, and they can look all they want. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57552225-38/senate-bill-rewrite-lets-feds-read-your-e-mail-without-warrants/
3. Who else is looking? Are they selling the jist of the information to target markers?
4. When they go out of business, what happens to my data?
5. If I upload all my music, can I expect a visit from the RIAA to examine receipts of purchase?
6. What if my connection drops or is really really slow?

In my point of view, data services are oversold. My Internet provider, like many others has way over sold its capacity. As such, most providers are doing what ever they can to discourage using the product they sell. Whether it be caps or increased pricing for a reasonable DL/UP speed. This goes double for mobile data services.
With this trend become more and more common, in my eyes, these cloud services which require massive amounts of data transfer, become less and less viable.

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-noise-canceling-headphones/

Ya but how much longer is Samsung going to run android? What will all the android users buy when Samsung no longer make android phones?

Can't read the article?

There are few reasons because of which third party browsers are not so comfortable with the iOS environment. First and foremost may be the hurdle of not able to carry their rendering techniques and javascript engines over to iOS

Can't use Google?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57439936-93/browser-choice-a-thing-of-the-past/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/the-problem-with-chrome-for-ios

http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/945460

It's like you're not even trying. I don't think a "rogue" mod is responsible for your karma.

correction to my borked link above, that fourth link really should be : http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10441374-75.html
.
I don't know how that "politics.slashdot.org/" snuck in front of that URL.

Microsoft used to not spend any money on political campaigns. Then, after a while, they figured out enough to post political contributions on both sides and then to hire a lobbyist to advocate for them.

Another older example

Jun 30, 2003 Â CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh explains why the software maker has quietly given marching orders to its phalanx of lobbyists to get the government to ...

Of course, Google couldn't be left behind

It's not as if this is anything new. Industry boards have long written laws: not just outlines, not just drafts, but the entire full set and exact wording just as they want it to be. That you can search for yourself. There are thousands of examples of that.

On Linux, things are somewhat easy when you walk on the paved road, then they can become somewhat troublesome when you step out of it.
On the Mac, things are very easy when you do what the OS designers planned you to do, but then they can become impossible when you want to do something else.

Oh and by the way, speaking of children and unicorns, certain tools one might buy at a computer shop could really have been built by underage workers being exploited in sweatshops. With globalization, it happens (at least Apple take measures when they find that it happened to their products).

Didn't they let one of their domains, passport.com, expire as well

http://news.cnet.com/Good-Samaritan-squashes-Hotmail-lapse/2100-1023_3-234907.html

Some of us remember when they forgot to renew hotmail.com. I'd say that might be worse...

"I asked Microsoft for comment Saturday when I was writing this, in particular as to how the rest of its cloud might differ from the Danger set up. Microsoft said Sunday that its the fabric controller that manages the Azure service is built with redundancy in mind. "

It may be built with redundancy in mind, but apparently it still has at least one single point of failure.

Sure the parents have heard of Facebook by now. And the grandparents, too. That's why some teens are using other things now instead. Teens do not want their parents and grandparents to know what they are up to: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57572154-93/why-teens-are-tiring-of-facebook/

People like to brag they have no TV, but the reality is that the keyboard-less tablets are just the latest incarnation of consume-only-produce-nothing started by TV.

Having been an early adopter of smartphones, getting an Audiovox 6700 Spring PocketPC in 2004 with slide-out tactile QWERTY keyboard, I avoided the current crop (everything post-iPhone) for as long as I could, even after my beloved PocketPC gave out in 2009. I recently got a Galaxy S3, and while it looks nice, I'm continually frustrated at the short messages it effectively limits me to tapping out.

I realize I'm in the minority, and, sorry, don't know any other way to say this, but that's what scares me. No one has given up TV -- they've just moved on to the next TV.

Now, tablets do have their use-case, and that is as clipboard substitute in business environments where the only input on those clipboards needed is checkboxes and signatures. The advantage of a tablet over a clipboard, of course, is instant and total recording of data into a central database.

And BTW, 1024x768 is XGA, not SVGA, which is 800x600.

I'm not sure why crime in NYC is being advertised so much. Is there something magical about that cities crime. Is is the usual Tax or New laws or draconian spying on the *ordinary people*...or something else.

I'm no expert but last time NYC was trolling with http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57561160-37/nyc-mayor-blames-theft-of-apple-devices-for-uptick-in-crime/ Apple iPhone crime, ironically nothing as exciting as international *hacking* related involved in these crimes, that are apparently so frequent they skew statistics..its just your good old fashioned stealing.

My guess is *tracking* everyone by their phones...My second guess would be firewall NYC.

1 TB Flash drives for storage?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57562725-93/kingston-behold-the-1-terabyte-flash-drive/#!

"Based on a [December] survey of 2,400 consumer electronics stores in Japan, Google's Nexus 7 tablet had 44.4 percent of the market versus the iPad's 40.1 percent, according to Nikkei, Japan's largest business daily."[1]

[1] Brooke Crothers. "Google Nexus 7 tops iPad in Japan: Is this a trend?" CNET, January 16, 2013.

So how did I fail?

Army to Gates: Halt the free software
I think MS was trying to insinuate their incompatible file formats (2003 vs 98) into the army and therby "force" them to adopt the newer version of Office.
The first sample is free, then you gotta pay. So saith the drug dealer.

Not quite true - phone vibration when you touch a control on the screen is the very definition of tactile feedback

But is it useful tactile feedback? Physical buttons have edges that the thumb's touch sensors feel in order to know where the thumb is positioned relative to the button so that the user can recenter the thumb over the button before actually pressing it. It's the same reason that your PC's keyboard has bumps on the F and J, so that a typist can identify the home row while looking at the display, and gaps between keys or beveled edges on the keys, so that the fingers can feel where one key ends and the next begins. A flat sheet of glass lacks this, and devices with key bumps powered by a Tactus touch screen (as seen in this article, this video, and this video) are still a year or two from mass production.

Many tablet/phone games already do this, mimicking "standard" console controls (for example, directional control on left, other buttons on right).

I have Nesoid, an NES emulator using such an on-screen gamepad, on my Nexus 7 tablet. Too often, in the heat of action, I end up pressing the wrong button or "whiffing" and pressing no button at all because my thumbs have drifted from where I expected them to be relative to the pictures of buttons.

Not quite true - phone vibration when you touch a control on the screen is the very definition of tactile feedback

But is it useful tactile feedback? Physical buttons have edges that the thumb's touch sensors feel in order to know where the thumb is positioned relative to the button so that the user can recenter the thumb over the button before actually pressing it. It's the same reason that your PC's keyboard has bumps on the F and J, so that a typist can identify the home row while looking at the display, and gaps between keys or beveled edges on the keys, so that the fingers can feel where one key ends and the next begins. A flat sheet of glass lacks this, and devices with key bumps powered by a Tactus touch screen (as seen in this article, this video, and this video) are still a year or two from mass production.

Many tablet/phone games already do this, mimicking "standard" console controls (for example, directional control on left, other buttons on right).

I have Nesoid, an NES emulator using such an on-screen gamepad, on my Nexus 7 tablet. Too often, in the heat of action, I end up pressing the wrong button or "whiffing" and pressing no button at all because my thumbs have drifted from where I expected them to be relative to the pictures of buttons.

http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-57567014-85/what-it-really-takes-to-make-a-flexible-phone-smartphones-unlocked/

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/rubbery-battery-stretches-300-percent

Forget the clickbait question posed. As the one (!) commenter on the Slashdot Business Intelligence post asked,

What advantage does QuickOffice have over the existing Google Docs?

Google Docs already runs in the browser that's the central focus of Chromebooks/ChromeOS. Offline Google Drive/Google Docs editing has been available on any computer running Chrome since version 20 last year and works well,

So why is Google screwing around with Native Client (which will never run in other browsers), developing a separate codebase and another UI? There's a part of Google that believes in the open web, and then there are all the groups doing Android and Native Client and Dart and whatever. Either upper management is too weak to corral all the divisions, or they're happy to develop proprietary ecosystems just in case one succeeds the way Android did.

Nokia started making profits with Windows Phone 8.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/10/nokia-sold-4-4-million-lumia-smartphones-in-solid-q4-2012-results-exceeded-expectations/

Googorola continues to make losses making Android phones.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57565253-94/motorolas-$353m-q4-loss-weighs-on-google-results/

Go figure, and get a clue.

Not only this, but the ST:TNG UIs had tactile feedback, just like mechanical buttons. They did it with miniaturized force fields or somesuch; it's in the TNG Technical Manual.

Was it some sort of technobabble like "microfluidics"? Oh wait, that's not technobabble; that's real (article, video).

Not only this, but the ST:TNG UIs had tactile feedback, just like mechanical buttons. They did it with miniaturized force fields or somesuch; it's in the TNG Technical Manual.

Was it some sort of technobabble like "microfluidics"? Oh wait, that's not technobabble; that's real (article, video).

I don't mean to be the dark figure in this conversation, but I think it's inevitable that robots will be used on the battlefield, just like people are going to continue to use cluster bombs, land mines, dum-dum bullets and other horrible devices. The reason is that they're effective.

War is a measurement of who is most effective at holding territory. It is often fought between uneven sides, for example the Iraqi army in their 40-year-old tanks going out against the American Apaches who promptly slaughtered them. Sometimes, there are seeming upsets but often there's an uneven balance behind the scenes there as well.

Robots are going to make it to the battlefield because they are effective not as killing machines, but as defensive machines. They're an improvement over land mines, actually. The reason for this is that you can programmatically define "defense" where offense is going to require more complexity.

Already South Korean is deploying robotic machine gun-equipped sentries on its border. Why put a human out there to die from sniper fire when you can have armored robots watching the whole border?

Eventually, robots may make it to offensive roles. I think this is more dubious because avoiding friendly fire is difficult, and using transponders just gives the enemy homing beacons. In the meantime, they'll make it to the battlefield, no matter how many teary people sign petitions and throw flowers at them.

I've seen some research showing how fascinating real guns are to kids - making it very very very challenging to train them to not play with ones they find. Many (albeit not all) ittle kids who have been extensively taught proper gun safety very often do not exhibit it when not being supervised, both by gun owning families and non-gun owning families. Thus my thoughts that pink guns probably wouldn't make it much worse.

Of course criminals could paint their illegal guns pink, but that wouldn't help them much if they got caught doing a crime anyway, and it would make them look less cool when hanging out in the crime-clubhouse. This is not really a proposal to directly address criminal activities, but rather one designed to influence the way firearms are perceived - both by gun owners and by non-gun owners.

As a tool for putting holes in things, a firearm works just as well regardless of its colour. If it is the "right tool for the right job" it would work just as well if it were neon pink. Making it less aesthetically pleasing without changing its functional aspects would certainly make it less marketable without limiting its usefulness for those with an actual need. We as a society mandate safety design issues in a lot of products, and it is certainly true that firearms can be quite dangerous. Making them less attractive would seem to be a viable strategy. If there were 30,000 electric drill related deaths in the USA, I suspect that there would be a lot more thought on ways to make them safer while still allowing them to be used for their useful ability to make holes in things.

Anyhow, here's a Hello Kitty Assault Rifle:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9852603-1.html

Google itself has already provided detailed instructions for how to dual-boot Linux Mint on the thing on launch day. So that's one worry cleared up. Since there is Chrome for Linux, and you can do anything in Chrome on Linux that you can do in ChromeOS there's no reason not to default boot to Linux when that option gets sussed out. Should only be a few weeks, and Google will cooperate.

I'll bet Linux Mint is a wonder to behold on a 2560 x 1700 at 239 PPI display. Imagine the field photography review potential. The world of professional video editors is probably doing their best to deplete the supply. Of course Mint is a media focused distro so it's got all the goodies available.

Document edit pros can probably use the thing as it is. Google docs gives the power of live collaborative documents that can't be had as well anywhere else, and this device gives the glory of seeing it in full quality with art as it would print, from wherever you happen to be. Add a second 30" 2560×1600 with mini DisplayPort or through an adapter HDMI to an arbitrarily large bigscreen available everywhere. With 3G even, so you don't have to rely on local network.

Sales pros should be all over this too. If you can't carry your product with you because it's too large you need must have the finest portable display to show it on. For these folk price is not an issue. The best of them ask each month "what is the best today?" and then demand whatever that is - and get it. What's a few thousand dollars every few months to outfit a Sales Warrior with the sharp spears he uses to bring in millions in gross profits a year? Just asking him WHY he needs it is wasting his valuable time.

It has the finest display available of any mobile client compute device in the world. That alone commands a premium price. And it's a touchscreen! And it's smaller than a Macbook Air in every dimension. Also it's the Latest Thing all the Cool Kids have.

And then there are the lawyers, doctors, sports pros, the rich, those who want to appear to be rich, and on and on who don't care about this petty amount, to whom high cost is a plus, or will just charge their customers the cost before you even start to talk about why Joe the mechanic down the street would want one. We know why Joe wants one. Mobile HD porn. We don't have to be embarrassed by that. The Internet is for porn. Speaking of which, the devices will be highly in demand in the Internet porn industry as well - which is like most of the Internet.

Of course Mint opens up all the various remote machine management potentials and remote desktop options too. Remote into SIX 800x600 rez machines at the same time (some can be higher) without any of them overlapping on your screen on the device itself - and up to six more with an attached display for a total of TWELVE PCs on your display at the same time (probably at least one local and one VM). And room for other stuff on the screens also, without you even start counting multiple USB-attached slow-mo displays. And it has 3G. The thing's a mobile Nerd Command Center. Did I mention that it's got all of the latest Intel virtualization technologies present and enabled? It does.

Needs more storage. You can get a terabyte pen drive though. That pen drive will, by itself, cost more than this whole beautiful machine.

The Note is a phone that is also a tablet. This is a small professional notebook. Top end phones cost less than small professional notebooks. Although they exist in separate domains, I think the analogy is apt. Would you prefer a car analogy? I don't do those usually.

All this an a sainted device from Google

Except people [including myself have been incredibly impressed with having a high resolution; quad-core; small tablet running latest Android....and so are the reviews. Top searches on Google

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/tablets/google-nexus-7-1087040/review 4.5 stars
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/tablets/379261/nexus-7 3x 5 out of 6 and 1x6 out of 6
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/laptops/1297408/google-nexus-7 5 out of 5 User 5 out of 5 expert
http://reviews.cnet.com/google-nexus-7/ 4 out 5
http://www.wired.co.uk/reviews/tablets/2012-11/google-nexus-7 9 out of 10
http://www.theverge.com/products/nexus-7/5831 8.8 expert 9.1 User
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/tablets/google-nexus-7.aspx 4 out of 5
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406552,00.asp 4.5 out of 5

I know you love Apple but right now Apple need compelling products, priced competitively not fanatics spreading lies. It simply tarnishes the Apple brand more, and its been damaged enough just lately.

WIth the publicity on this, to inforce the tax on others, I could see this taking an Ernic Ball approach.

http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
And they haven't given in..
http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/11/12/ernie-ball-inc-still-rockin-11-years-without-microsoft/

Normally I'd agree with that sentiment, but there's a point where the publishing requirement becomes such a burden that it gets in the way of the research, or prevents it altogether. What qualifies as research? You opened a spreadsheet today and had it calculate the average of a series of numbers? Sorry, now you have to write a report about why you did that research, your results, and what they mean. And then someone has to review it. And you have to submit a form certifying that you did your mandated report. And someone has to read those and put together a report on the compliance rates of every agency. And then they have to publish that.

We're talking about the federal government, an entity that adds an extra page to a four-page form so it can print its congressionally-mandated one-paragraph statement about its compliance with the "Paperwork Reduction Act," which actually increases the amount of paperwork in the process. There has to be a threshold. Besides, $100 million doesn't buy as much as you'd think when hammers cost $436, pliers cost $748 and toilet seats cost $640.

Windows doesn't have it because Adobe didn't want MS to do it.

This is why MS made XPS

Stuart Parmenter wrote an extension for firefox after it started using Cairo (FF3) which would let you print pdf - since with Cairo that came pretty much free. It never made it into the default UI (as you say - it's not needed on Linux and Mac) and since the rendering architecture moved again to azure&skia I guess rendering to pdf wasn't free any more, and the extension no longer works.

Exactly. Even if the lawsuit went ahead due to momentum, as leader in charge of the company, wouldn't you be willing to work to end the lawsuit through settlements and get back to business?

Yeah, if only Samsung didn't refuse to settle. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57549512-37/samsung-we-dont-intend-to-negotiate-with-apple/

In fact, this very scenario has happened a decade before, albet with Oracle instead of HP.

They wont work with hackers, they wont let hackers help them without threatening to ruin their lives or using harsh bullying tactics.

For certain arms of the US government, what you're saying is probably true. The Department of Justice is clearly taking a hard line. The Department of Defense, though, has shown some interest in recruiting hackers. This is an old story now, but Mudge is currently a program manager in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Mudge? That is one hacker and not even the hacker we would consider a popular choice. It's a start and I'm glad they are at least doing that but it looks like it's for PR. Like let's choose the hacker who is high profile so we can look like we are recruiting hackers. You're correct it's primarily the DOJ who hates hackers but I think the that a lot of what we see in the media is symbolic measures until it reaches a tipping point where we know a guy who was a hacker who now works for the government agency, more than just Mudge.

They wont work with hackers, they wont let hackers help them without threatening to ruin their lives or using harsh bullying tactics.

For certain arms of the US government, what you're saying is probably true. The Department of Justice is clearly taking a hard line. The Department of Defense, though, has shown some interest in recruiting hackers. This is an old story now, but Mudge is currently a program manager in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

I was about to post the exact same thing. they settled that lawsuit

Mesh networks can carry quite a load.

You are right or course, it needs to be installed and turned on over a significant number of devices. Some think this software should be mandatory.
Even if only for disasters or power failure, it would be worth while.

Theoretically, mesh networks, if done properly can manage bandwidth demands based on the number of working broadband connections. If not, text messages get through and voice becomes hopeless, but people adapt. In disasters, all you need is one working cable modem somewhere.

As for the guy sitting in the middle of nowhere, they are always screwed in a disaster, so no change there.

Back in the 90s the company owning the rights to the Archie comics went after "Veronica.org". A guy setup the site because he had a toddler named Veronica and he posted a couple pictures. It finally fell out in the guy's favor...
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-220240.html


If being named the same as a site gave you rights, could you imagine the dust-up for johnsmith.com?

How does the iPad tell the difference between a camera that implements USB mass storage and a hard drive that implements USB mass storage?

Usually hard drives don't adhere to the DCF standard

in fact the USB implementation is so constrained that articles and howtos like this have been written. Sad, really.

Yeah, that must be it. Oh wait...

Oh look heres one from 4 weeks ago.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57563567-263/new-malware-exploiting-java-7-in-windows-and-unix-systems/

Its worth noting that there have been 3 new iterations of Java in the last 4 weeks, each fixing security holes that the last left. All software has security flaws, but Im beginning to think that all security flaws had their genesis in JRE; it certainly seems like an endless source of them.

OK.

From Wikipedia:

SNES - 49m
Gameboy - 118m
Nintendo 64 - 33m
GameCube - 22m

Wii - 99m
Nintendo DS - 153m

Total for Nintendo - 474 million.

iPad - 84 million
iPhone - 250 million
iPod Touch - 46 million

Total for Apple - 380 million.

Now, should we praise Nintendo as one of the leaders in PC market?

Any time a company takes money from Microsoft, they die very soon thereafter.

Not always...

There are a lot of smartphones with FM tuners. Here is a review of several phones with tuners.

It isn't a feature that is important to most users, so the mobile providers and handset makers don't really emphasize it. If it matters to you, it isn't hard to track down a handset that has a tuner.

The fact that MSFT had to cut their Surface order in half [bgr.com] should be a surprise to nobody

I've seen you post this at least a dozen times. Every time you start a rant about Surface, you invariably bring up this unsubstantiated claim from unnamed Eastern component suppliers. After this "rumor" hit the web, Microsoft actually increased retail distribution, said they're increasing production, are increasing availability to more countries, and said they're expanding the product lineup. Together, these point to a completely different direction than your stale, 3 month old rumor.

You're starting to sound like a broken record.

Hell even with this, is it 23GB in base 2 like the OS, or is it base 10 like the manufacturers?

It's base 2.

all those people getting home and finding none of the Windows software they've accumalated for years will run on the damned thing, THAT is what is gonna make this into a megaflop.

All the software they've accumulated over the years WILL run on the Surface Pro. That's the entire point of this device. It runs full Windows 8 on an Intel Core i5. You don't seem to know much about this product you constantly are blasting. Even 23GB is enough for any application I've come across, but this can be expanded to 30+ GB by removing the recovery partition. This is the same you'd get with a Macbook Air at 64GB. You can even expand storage easily with an SD card.

Wow plus starcraft, 36gb. your point?

The fact that MSFT had to cut their Surface order in half [bgr.com] should be a surprise to nobody

I've seen you post this at least a dozen times. Every time you start a rant about Surface, you invariably bring up this unsubstantiated claim from unnamed Eastern component suppliers. After this "rumor" hit the web, Microsoft actually increased retail distribution, said they're increasing production, are increasing availability to more countries, and said they're expanding the product lineup. Together, these point to a completely different direction than your stale, 3 month old rumor.

You're starting to sound like a broken record.

Hell even with this, is it 23GB in base 2 like the OS, or is it base 10 like the manufacturers?

It's base 2.

all those people getting home and finding none of the Windows software they've accumalated for years will run on the damned thing, THAT is what is gonna make this into a megaflop.

All the software they've accumulated over the years WILL run on the Surface Pro. That's the entire point of this device. It runs full Windows 8 on an Intel Core i5. You don't seem to know much about this product you constantly are blasting. Even 23GB is enough for any application I've come across, but this can be expanded to 30+ GB by removing the recovery partition. This is the same you'd get with a Macbook Air at 64GB. You can even expand storage easily with an SD card.

Wow plus starcraft, 36gb. your point?

Microsoft? Isn't their role to wait until WebRTC starts to catch on and then introduce their own version in a transparent attempt to undermine the standard?

They've already done that. CU-RTC-Web is their little spanner in the works of compatibility.

"I see that Microsoft decided to wait until the W3C and IETF [standards groups] were close to done before putting together a proposal that, if accepted, would explode most of the current works and create maximal delay on this work," said Cullen Jennings, a Cisco representative on the W3C's Web Real-Time Communications Working Group.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57494622-93/how-corporate-bickering-hobbled-better-web-audio/

Remote controls for the multi-button challenged:
http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20090304/simpleremote_500x375.jpg

[cough]iPhone snags its highest U.S. market share ever[/cough]

Hrmm... that's weird: Checks cnet article, "the research firm pegged Apple's U.S. smartphone share at 53.3 percent"
Ok where's that source: Follows to sub article, "Apple has achieved its highest ever share in the US (53.3%) in the latest 12 weeks"
Ok where's the actual data: No, link. Checks google. Oh here's the actual data, "This data is exclusively focused on the sales within this 12 week period rather than market share figures." http://www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/News/news-articles/US-iOS-Maintains-Lead-Among-US-Smartphone-OS-Sales
Checks dates: Ok so the 12 weeks directly after the iPhone 5 release saw 53% of smart phone sales being iPhones.

Ok so cnet is calling percentage of sales in a 12 week period directly after a the iPhone 5 launch 'market share', while the data it quotes from states that this is not market share. Aside from the dishonesty in cnets reporting that's still kinda impressive.

Apple has repeatedly said/claimed that they don't pay for product placement

You've got to be kidding me: Apple reigns supreme in product placement: "Apple is tops at product placement, appearing in 10 of the 33 movies that hit No. 1 at the box office in the U.S. last year"

One of the interesting aspects of movie product placement, is that virtually all the time, movie producers actively avoid having any logos in the scene (or product mentions), unless it's been paid for. In general, if you see a logo in a movie - it was paid for (there are very few exceptions to this) - for every logo, somewhere there was a meeting discussing the use of the logo in the movie and money changing hands for it. Modern movie and TV producers do not simply give free advertising to companies - that's a wasted revenue opportunity.

[cough]iPhone snags its highest U.S. market share ever[/cough]

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23916413#.UQte-5G3PGg *Worldwide* Q4 post earning release from a real market analyst. However you spin it Apples share of the pie is shrinking. In Larger markets than the US like China Apple have no market share...and don't have a competitive product in that market. You should reread my post, its pretty good.