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My comment had nothing to do with giving Google "credit".

It had to do with BSI's decision to cite Chrome's bundling of Flash as a reason for recommendation.
A true security organization would not make that a reason for a recommendation, rather they would cite it as a detriment, a blemish, (even for Flash in a sandbox given Adobe's history).

As for people wanting flash, its value is negative in most people's eyes. People hate it more than you know.

Its nothing but an advertising tool to most people. A source of daily irritation when reading almost any web page due to disruptive graphics dancing around while you try to read. Apple dropped flash both from OSx and iOS , and nobody cared. Even Android users find it mostly an annoyance.

You're right. That's what I get for trusting my memory and the first result from Google. Made me think that IE 6 was released with tabs.

http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-offers-tabbed-browsing--in-IE-6/2100-1032_3-5738037.html

It didn't have tabs, but MS brought tabs into it by creating a toolbar that few people probably used. IE 7 was the one that they revved up and kicked out the door flush with fancy features like tabs, to compete with upstart browsers like Firefox and Opera.

If malicious code or behavior is detected, the app is flagged for manual confirmation that it is malware. The app could be blocked from being uploaded if it is blatantly malicious or will be removed quickly thereafter if it gets flagged by the scanning process. "It won't get uploaded at all if it is an instance of known malware," Lockheimer said.

From CNet article on this subject.

Sorta like this?

It's not currently available though, and I'm not sure how long it was really available for...

"Even though they would probably never admit it..."

Oh it gets admitted all right, even at the very top. Here are just two examples:

As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade. , said back in 1998

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not" said in 2007

When you have a monopoly the most valuable thing to protect is the monopoly itself. If they are running pirated software, then they are not using the competition.

Show a picture of the side or rear of the device and it ceases to look anything like an iPad. Samsung has a long history of ripping off designs from other companies. RIM previously sued Samsung over a BlackBerry knockoff that Samsung endearingly called the BlackJack. Whether or not you agree such copying is wrong, legally or morally, there's no denying that Samsung borrows quite heavily from the designs of other companies and has done so for quite some time.

Why do you single out Republicans?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20023108-281.html "Senate Democrats back TSA 'virtual strip searches"

Foes of ... "virtual strip searches," had hoped that today's Senate hearing would lead to a privacy outcry on Capitol Hill.

Not quite. The hearing quickly cleaved along partisan lines, with Democratic senators applauding the Obama administration [for the xray machines] and Republicans offering only modest criticism.

"Mr. Pistole, you're doing a great job," Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate committee overseeing air travel, told TSA chief John Pistole ... For emphasis, Rockefeller added a few minutes later: "I think you're doing a terrific job."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, admitted right away that "I have been a fan of the advanced imaging technology." American air travelers, she said, "have to understand that this is being done for their best interests and their safety."

***

Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, suggested that the public outcry was a problem of education: if Americans learned more about the TSA's new procedures, they wouldn't object to the new searches.

$17 a day? http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=20006559&cid=null&bcid=&bid=-37 suggests salary is about $170 per month so more like $5 a day, and how many hours do they work? 100 hours a week would not be unusual for Chinese factory labor. So hourly rate is many times less than US equivalent.

Posted a link on this thread from a NYT article. It quoted an Apple executive for the $17 number and that iPods built paying US wages would only be $68 more.

$17 a day? http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=20006559&cid=null&bcid=&bid=-37 suggests salary is about $170 per month so more like $5 a day, and how many hours do they work? 100 hours a week would not be unusual for Chinese factory labor. So hourly rate is many times less than US equivalent.

Did Google-run computers taint rival mapping project?

Who did it:

Google had this to say about the OpenStreetMap incident:

        The two people who made these changes were contractors acting on their own behalf while on the Google network. They are no longer working on Google projects.

And about those OSM claims...

Tom Hughes, OSM's system administrator, pointed a finger at the OSM representatives: "As the person who (in my role as an OpenStreetMap system administrator) first discovered this 'incident' let me start by saying that I consider this post to be grossly irresponsible and wholly inappropriate," Hughes said in a comment to the post. He added that the authors.. are making mountains out of tiny pimples here. It seems that they want this to be some sort of organized corporate malfeasance on the part of Google which is why they have tried to link it to the recent Mocality incident where there was indeed clear evidence of such behavior.

The Techgoss reward seems be a furtherance of the OSM's claims of Google malfeasance.

contradicts nearly ever other web survey

If by "nearly every" you mean "NetApplications'", then yes. Otherwise, not quite so "dominating".

Many Android sales are to budget buyers who don't use their phones like smartphones.

Myth and unability to understand that "iOS generates more mobile traffic" != "Android users don't browse web".

If there's a hundred of iOS devices and a hundred of Android devices in the world, and every Android owner reads 10 webpages a day, while iOS owners read 20, you'll still get 66% to 33%, though every device visits the internet.

If you look at apps usage and web share in relation to market share, you'll see they fit pretty closely. Here's a bunch of statistics. ComScore, for example, gives Android market share as 34.1% and 31.9% web share, with 43.1% and 58.5% for Apple. RIM, for comparison, is 15% of market to just 5% of web traffic.

According to this article, the source code for PCANywhere was stolen from Symantec's network in 2006. That's right . . . . 2006. Good work Symantec. It only took you 6 years.

THAT did save Apple to some extent as Steve's said that they were days away from bankruptcy.

No, not according to news reports at the time. Apple had 1.2 B in cash on hand. The 150M was nice but was nothing that would save them from any bankruptcy. The bigger help was Office for Mac and other cross licensing deals.

> You can charge a subscription
You mean like online newspapers?

you can charge for live performances
Yes, I should've thought about performing software and movies sooner.

you can charge for merchandise
We're going to fund my next romantic comedy movie by selling action figures!

you can rely on people paying because it's the right thing to do (a la that one radiohead album).
You mean that one stunt that they said they're never going to repeat again? http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9932361-7.html

Or you can do something like a patronage system, or work as a commercial artist.
Please mister, will you fund the next big videogame / movie? It'll cost millions of dollars, but you'll be providing society with free entertainment. Surely you don't have anything better to do with that money.

I don't know the real numbers, but Android could still be winning. It's not as if all of the different manufacturers have one joint financial statement.

More than half of Verizon smartphone sales in Q4 were iPhones
Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-57365200-233/more-than-half-of-verizon-smartphone-sales-in-q4-were-iphones/#ixzz1kQco5gZ4

And the rest is shared between all the numerous Android manufacturers, not to mention RIM (which is still hanging in there), the smattering of Windows Phone manufacturers and a hodge-podge of low end smart phones still running Samsung's Bada or Nokia's Symbian.

You are correct... Android is not a company with its own income statement. The Android handset manufactures compete among themselves as much as they compete against the iPhone. And the thing that is rarely ever said out loud (only whispered in dark tech filled corners) is that the majority of the Android registrations that Google cites in its numbers are cheap low end hand sets that most people pick up for free on a two year contract...

The Android standard bearers such as the Galaxy S2 and some of the HTC models are easily as good as or better than the iPhone... but so many people are entering the smartphone world at the bottom end; and that space is filled with so many so-so Android devices, it is understandable why some (39% according to the latest research) make the switch to an iPhone as soon as they can.

Probably not volunteers, but he probably already has an IT staff that is well versed in UNIX. You need no extra staff or equipment to convert to Linux. Hell, Ernie Ball had very little trouble converting to Linux after Microsoft pissed its CEO and founder's son off.

It's been nine years and more money than budgeted and they've converted 65% of the computers.

On the bright side: they have migrated 100% of systems to Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, and ODF.

more money than budgeted

Yes, but this would almost certainly have also been the case if they were migrating all their systems to a more recent release of Windows. They were running enterprise wide NT4. The comparison point should not be against the pre-existing TCO, but against the alternative cost of migrating to a more recent Windows. "We do not have a goal to compare total cost of ownership. Microsoft stopped supporting NT 4.0, so we must migrate." limux project leader. How much do you think a government migration of 15,000 NT4 desktops, plus Office and other software to a recent release of Windows would cost? Due to increased hardware requirements of new Windows, such a migration would also certainly require new PCs, which would further increase costs. Maybe the cost of migration would be the same, less, or more, but in the long term freeing themselves of costly vendor lock-in and the Microsoft upgrade treadmill should result in substantial cost savings

I find it funny that a quick search on the subject yielded an article from the same site, with the opposite finding.

Article in 2007: Judge: Man can't be forced to divulge encryption passphrase
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html

Article in 2012: Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57364330-281/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-their-laptops/

I'm fine with them breaking your encryption if they have probable cause; however, forcing you to give the password does seem to have a pretty straight-forward logical path to incriminating yourself (Especially if you are guilty and a subsequent search will yield something on the device).

I find it funny that a quick search on the subject yielded an article from the same site, with the opposite finding.

Article in 2007: Judge: Man can't be forced to divulge encryption passphrase
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html

Article in 2012: Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57364330-281/judge-americans-can-be-forced-to-decrypt-their-laptops/

I'm fine with them breaking your encryption if they have probable cause; however, forcing you to give the password does seem to have a pretty straight-forward logical path to incriminating yourself (Especially if you are guilty and a subsequent search will yield something on the device).

Don't forget the other place Apple places its profits: a massive bonuses for top executives.

The article even notes that most of that $60M is restricted stock, they don't fully vest for over 4 years, and they're contingent on the execs remaining at Apple. Most of these execs have been at Apple many years and therefore demonstrated loyalty and commitment to the company's success.

While it's still a tidy sum even if Apple were to fall to half its value by the time they cash it all in, it ensures the execs have a literal "vested" interest in the continued performance of the company and its stock price--a far better incentive than the annual injections of straight "performance bonus" cash that the under-performing, revolving-door execs at other big companies receive, or multi-million severance packages if they're fired. See HP's fired CEO, Leo Apotheker, who got $7.2 M as a cash "bonus" for getting fired, as well as $18M in stock--on top of the $1.2M salary, $4M signing bonus, and $4M relocation expenses when he got hired. Not bad for someone who nearly burned HP to the ground.

Don't forget the other place Apple places its profits: a massive bonuses for top executives.

Firstly, it breaks the fundamental incentive underlying our entire economy: you have to produce value to earn money before you can enjoy value produced by other people when you spend that money.

I have two problems with this line of reasoning (not mocking yo, sorry if it sounds that way).

First, as I said before, old ways of thinking don't necessarily apply to the new digital world, where distribution and/or manufacturing costs can be 0, or negligible.

Secondly, Our society does not necessarily reward producing value with money. lottery winners, heirs, people on welfare etc. Having money by no means you have produced or contributed something useful.

Secondly, we have only someone's word for it that they would never really have paid for something even if there was no other way to enjoy it. I find that claim preposterous in many cases.

Well, that's much harder to prove. I know that a lot of the movies I downloaded there is no way in hell I would have paid for. I got them because I was curious or simply wanted to pass the time. I I couldn't download then I would do something else. There is simply no way in hell a lot of the stuff I choose to waste my time with is even worth renting for $1 from redbox. Likewise with some games I play, I have absolutely zero interest on playing online. When a game is $70 with a focus on multiplayer and I only want to play the single player campaign that is about 5 hours long, there is no chance I will ever pay for that. If they offered the campaign separately then I would.

If piracy is decriminalised, then surely there is no such thing as piracy any more by definition, so I don't know what you mean here.

It isn't that simple. If Switzerland decriminalized piracy that doesn't mean corporations in the US don't consider it piracy. You can still infringe copyright without permission from the copyright holder, even if you can't be held accountable for doing so.

You've made similar claims several times in this discussion. There are more than 150 members of the World Trade Organisation, including pretty much the entire developed world, and under TRIPS all of those have basic minimum standards for things like legal copyright protections. There are only 200 or so countries in the world. So where is it that you claim piracy is legal, and how do their creative and consumption economies look compared to places like the US and Europe?

It's It's legal in Switzerland

It's It's legal in Canada

It's It's legal in The Netherlands

Their creative and consumption economies are not impacted by piracy, as that was often the reason to make it legal in the first place.

The trouble is, as any researcher can tell you, what people say and what they do are frequently different things, whether intentionally or otherwise.

Oh, sure. Except we have overwhelming evidence that people will still pay for stuff when it is offered for free. Look at the various games or CDs released for free or without any DRM, people still pay for it. They have a choice not to and still chose to do so, to the point that the content creator can make a nice profit.

The only way to know for sure what people consider worth paying for is to give them no choice but to pay for it if they want it and see who pays. That will tell you, by definition, who really thinks it's worth the asking price.

Done and done.

They're only making those millions because of all the people who actually pay to see the movie or play the game. The pir

when the excuse was always "child porn"? You don't hear it as much recently because they have the magic word "terrorist" to brut about now

Nah, they just shout loudly about terrorism to distract you while they quietly pass the "think of the children" laws like the "Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011"

oh yeah ? and then where is that self-perpetuating, end-of-hollywood idea ? it has been more than a decade since internet has entered living rooms. where is that idea ?

apple does not have the means to catalogue all spendings of almost every western citizen on the planet, and link those spending directly to their identity. if they had it, maybe they could do it.

There's apparently more truth than I realized to the saying "never argue with an idiot, they'll only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience". Rather than acknowledge any of the actual trends that are occurring around you, you instead shoot from the hip of your wonderfully insightful gut and instead respond with "oh yeah? prove it!" ?

Well, after this post I guess it's up to the mods, because I'm done with this bullshit you're trying to perpetuate.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/9/2693228/ubuntu-tv-has-unity-inspired-ui-will-ship-on-televisions-by-end-of
Unity, on TV sets, by the end of this very year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV#Second_generation
Apple TV second generation sales (Good thing SOPA blackout is over)
http://reviews.cnet.com/apple-tv-review
Apple TV Reviews

http://www.google.com/tv/
http://googletv.blogspot.com/2011/01/samsung-and-google-tv.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/from_ces_a_few_hints_about_the_future_of_tv.php
CES 2010: Apps on smart TV's, "The Future of TV"

You're on the fucking internet for god sake, use it to get learned.

If they ignore you, the sense of the law erodes. If they arrest you, you become a martyr. Either way you win.

Or maybe you just go to jail when the Dotcom bubble bursts.

A conviction against Kim Schmitz (or one of the other listed MegaUpload associates) means that more than $175 million stashed away in 64 bank accounts around the world becomes U.S. government property.

Some of the automobiles listed for forfeiture include an amazing mix of exotic vehicles:

2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Head Coupe
2010 Maserati GranCabrio
16 various modern Mercedes-Benz vehicles
(including many CLK and CL series)
1989 Lamborghini LM002
1959 Cadillac Series 62 convertible
1957 Cadillac El Dorado
Harley Davidson motorcycle
Von Dutch Kustom motor bike
Two 2010 Mini Cooper S coupes
2010 Sea-Doo GTX jet ski

What MegaUpload founders stand to lose

Oh yeah, they invent stuff...

http://news.cnet.com/Kodak-wins-Java-patent-suit/2100-1014_3-5394765.html

A federal jury on Friday ruled in favor of Kodak, and the photography giant is now seeking damages of $1 billion from Sun.

The case has outraged some opponents of software patents, who claim it is a textbook example of why software should not be patentable.

Kodak's case centered on three patents that it bought from Wang Laboratories in 1997, several years after Java was created. These patents--numbers 5,206,951, 5,421,012, and 5,226,161--referred to the integration of data between object managers, and between data managers, and to the integration of different programs that were manipulating data of different types.

The lawsuit was filed in February 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

Kodak argued in court that these patents covered the method where an application "asked for help" from another application--such as in Java's object-oriented programming language.

Yeah, it seems like Kodak really spent a lot of time sitting around, inventing useful stuff. Or, you could realize that Kodak purchased an overly broad patent that should have never been granted in the first place, and then used it as a weapon of extortion against one of the largest innovators in the tech world.

Yeah, I'm pretty much hoping they go down in flames. The Kodak that Steve Jobs loved and admired has long been dead.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20021804-64.html

I see a lot of venting and ranting, but not a lot of info about what actually has or has not happened. No one seems to have noticed some of these Web sites are up and running.

copyright.gov is up
DOJ is up
RIAA seems to be down
MPAA is up
UMG is down
BMI is down

OK, now that we've got those facts sorted out, the next question is who cares?

This isn't like a DDOS attack against Amazon or Google. None of these organizations, government or otherwise, depend on their Web sites to transact business. Copyright.gov is an informational resource that contains reference material you can find in many other places. No one cares if it's down. Did you even know it existed before it allegedly went down? Justice.gov exists to inform the people about what the department is doing. That's it. If Anonymous wants to raise awareness about the DOJ's activities, taking their site down has the opposite effect, and does not hurt the DOJ. When was the last time you visited the MPAA or RIAA site? Is that where you're going to look to decide what movie you want to see tomorrow, or what music you're going to buy on iTunes? And UMG and BMI's businesses don't depend on their Web sites... their music is marketed and sold elsewhere.

We've known for about 12 years now that it's really not that hard in the scheme of things to DDOS even the biggest sites on the Web. Remember the shocking 3-hour attack on Yahoo in Feb 2000? The prevailing thought then was, "If they can shut down Yahoo, they can shut down anybody." This was a legitimate concern because with its site down, Yahoo's business does not exist. But these attacks are being directed at sites where it really doesn't matter. All it does it generate a scary-sounding news headline. Some of Anonymous's other antics have some real world implications for their targets... this does not.

Your new cancer and lack of presumed innocence are a small price to pay, in order to defeat statistically non-existant terrorists.

Police Commissioner Kelly said the scanner would only be used in reasonably suspicious circumstances and could cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street.

But the New York Civil Liberties Union is raising a red flag.
"It's worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you're doing nothing wrong," the NYCLU's Donna Lieberman said.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/17/nypd-testing-gun-scanning-technology/

After years of rebuffing health concerns over airport scanners, the Transportation Security Administration plans to conduct new tests on the potential radiation exposure from the machines at more than 100 airports nationwide.

But the TSA does not plan to retest the machines or passengers. Instead, the agency plans to test its airport security officers to see if they are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation while working with the scanners.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-20120116,0,7082529.story

"Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this," John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNET. Sedat has raised concerns about the health risks of X-ray scanners, and the European Commission in November prohibited their use in European airports.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57358146-281/dhs-x-ray-scanners-could-be-cancer-risk-to-border-crossers/

and now both NPD and Nielsen are saying that iOS has erased the market share lead that Android had.

Oh are you talking about this submission from bonch?

bonch writes
  "A Nielsen report states that the launch of the iPhone 4S helped Apple close the marketshare gap with Android, raising them to 44.5% compared to Android's 46.3% in December, coinciding with an earlier study by the NPD group. Apple sold 35 million iPhones last quarter, with the iPhone 4S making up 57% of those sales. RIM continued its decline but still outsold Windows Phone 7, which came in at a measly 1.6%."
  Link to Original Source

Come on bonch, we know it's you, there's no need to post anonymously.

Are they actually going to release this one? I remember one of the big features of Vista was to be their new filesystem Win FS. Although, I guess Microsoft had enough criticisms to deal with in Vista that it could have been even more of a disaster to release a new filesystem with it.

WinFS was ditched before Vista development was started. Yes, it was part of the original Longhorn project; but that project after 3 years was tossed, and a new Longhorn project was started that became Vista, and then reved and became Win7; but if I recall correctly, WinFS didn't make it into the second round of Longhorn (e.g. what was to become Vista).

You for got the Samsung Blackjack

http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-blackjack-sgh-i607/4505-6452_7-32143267.html

Are they actually going to release this one? I remember one of the big features of Vista was to be their new filesystem Win FS. Although, I guess Microsoft had enough criticisms to deal with in Vista that it could have been even more of a disaster to release a new filesystem with it.

I recommend an article that has actual quotes from Darrell Issa (the person who is talking to the press about this). The bill is on hold until the wording is changed in the bill so more people agree with it.

Opening 2 paragraphs from the cnet article:

The latest string of setbacks for supporters of the bills came Saturday when Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Oversight committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, said that he was promised by Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) that a vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will not occur "unless there is consensus on the bill."

"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act [a similar bill to SOPA introduced into the Senate last year], I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House," Issa said in a statement, according to the blog The Hill. "Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any antipiracy legislation coming before the House for a vote."

Intel's new Medfield Atom will run Android phones and tablets, Tizen devices, Win 8 tablets and (if MSFT get's their head screwed on correctly) Win Phone. Since the underlying firmeware environment in the medfield platforms is driven by Intel's reference design, MSFT will not be able to dictate whether other OSes can boot any more than they can in the rest of the x86 world. (Assuming OEMs will be smart enough to let customers control UEFI authentication)

The whole point is that Microsoft is prohibiting customers from controlling UEFI authentication (though for now just on ARM tablets.)

Intel's new Medfield Atom will run Android phones and tablets, Tizen devices, Win 8 tablets and (if MSFT get's their head screwed on correctly) Win Phone. Since the underlying firmeware environment in the medfield platforms is driven by Intel's reference design, MSFT will not be able to dictate whether other OSes can boot any more than they can in the rest of the x86 world. (Assuming OEMs will be smart enough to let customers control UEFI authentication)

I didn't say it was wrong, however, there are 3 flaws with the advice to write down your password:

1. It based upon the premise that many/most systems are implemented using the currently in-vogue policies of complex, hard to remember passwords, and that you should/must use different passwords for each system. Both Schneier and the MS researcher (Jesper Johansson) whose comments at a conference inspired Schneier's blog post mention those limitations as the basis for writing them down.

2. Both of those posts are very light on the topic of actually securing the written down passwords. Something which some other security experts have stressed, but which is frequently overlooked.

3. People who do write down their passwords are not good at securing them.

Unless you give complete instructions, including tips on protecting the written down password, then writing down passwords is not materially more secure than choosing easy to guess passwords. A far better recommendation is to use a password manager such as 1Password, KeePass or LastPass with a long, but easy for THAT user to remember pass-phrase.

TL;DR: Writing down passwords is a recommendation about how to cope in a world of bad password policies, and it's an incomplete recommendation because users will leave their written passwords in easily found locations. A far better recommendation is to use a password manager such as 1Password, KeePass or LastPass with a long, but easy for THAT user to remember pass-phrase. Long term, we need sane password/pass-phrase policies.

It's better than that, too.

Oracle is responsible for delays which is jeopardizing its own case. If you read through the Groklaw articles about this case, it's pretty clear that Oracle's patents are being disintegrated by the Patent and Trademark Office's reexaminations.. They've already lost about half of their asserted claims in the case, and they run the risk of further invalidation of the patents they're asserting here if they delay any further.

It would be hilariously ironic if they finally come up with a credible damages assessment just about the same time all of their patents completely evaporate.

If you're wondering what jobs were beaten out by the joys of system engineering, well, second came physician assistant. Have you seen how much money these people make? Quite astounding. In third place was college professor. Yes, really. Followed by nurse practitioner, IT project manager, and--breathe now, breathe--CPA.

If you don't already have the formal qualifications, you are well equipped to get them. Go for it!

Perhaps you miss this?

Apropos overlay keyboard: am I the only one who remembers the Sony Ericsson P800? That came out TEN years ago and had this? I wonder, what is this "progress" you speak of (besides Moore's law)?

SOPA provides for deep packet inspection, so they can in fact block IP addresses.

Issa says he's planning to offer amendments to SOPA that would "reduce" the discretion of the U.S. attorney general, who under the legislation would be allowed to seek a court order to make allegedly piratical Web sites virtually vanish from the Internet, including through Internet Protocol address blocking and deep packet inspection. In a separate statement, Issa said SOPA v2.0 "retains the fundamental flaws of its predecessor." (See CNET's FAQ on SOPA.)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57342716-281/rep-issa-sopa-wont-be-approved-unless-fixed/

As the submitter of the original story, I'll be relieved if the leaked memo is a fake. It gives me an excuse to put off migrating from Mac OS X to Linux, which was going to be a good deal of work.

But the earlier case of RIM agreeing to provide in-country servers to enable government surveillance in the UAE, India and Saudia Arabia shows the leverage that governments can wield over companies that operate within their territory. Vigilance is warranted.

How is this different

How is this different from when Google uses open source? There's a great article about the supposed openness by Google here

Some good points from it:

Where Google is losing you can count on them pushing the open label in order to build momentum & destroy the asymmetrical information advantages of existing market leaders. But where Google leads non-transparency is the norm.

- At the same time Google is trying to push social sites to offer transparent data, they decided to block some Google search referral data (unless you are paying for the clicks, then you get that data).

- When planning some of the features behind Google+ one of their employees wrote a book about the social circles concept with Google's blessings. Then, after he wrote the book, Google revoked permission to publish it!

- Android is open but internal Google emails revealed that carriers were getting wise to Google using compatibility as a club.

- The Panda update was needed to rid the web of garbage content. And yet Google is pre-paying Demand Media to post videos on YouTube. Since the Panda update downstream Google traffic to YouTube has more than doubled & YouTube is serving over a trillion streams per year!

- In spite of not having permission to do so, Google has been scanning books for nearly a decade now. Yet whenever Google goes to court they try to get the court documents sealed so that their statements couldn't be used against them.

If you only had to manage competing against other market competitors & staying inside Google's editorial guidelines then investment isn't that difficult, but if you have to stay within Google's guidelines in the short term yet try to build a business that is sustainable even after Google enters & destroys the market it is far more difficult.

A Self-serving Bias You Can Count On
When Google enters a market it might buy out a competitor, buy out a supplier, bundle, use predatory pricing, grant themselves superior search placement, adjust the relevancy algorithms and/or editorial guidelines, violate IP, scrape 3rd party content, work with sketchy advertisers & publishers to undermine competing business models, or any combination of the above.

They are rarely transparent with their interests when they enter a market. Almost everything is labeled as "a beta" and "just a test." They promise to "act appropriately" & you may not be aware of the steamroller until you are under it.

Google can bundle themselves into markets, but when others do the same it is a big no no:

A Google spokesman said "applications that are installed without clear disclosure, that are hard to remove and that modify users' experiences in unexpected ways are bad for users and the Web as a whole."

Google's founding research highlighted how bad ad-driven search engines were & then Google's core revenue engine of paid search was built on their violation of Overture's patent. They keep

Right now Intel has 60% + of the Windows CPU market (probably above 75%, but I dont have numbers on hand) and they dont dictate terms to MS.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9882376-37.html

"As far back as 2005, Microsoft executives knew that confusing hardware requirements for the Windows Vista Capable program might get them in trouble. But they did it anyway--over the objection of PC makers--at the behest of Intel, according to e-mails released as part of a class-action lawsuit pending against Microsoft."

Jerry Shen just Announced a Tegra 3 tablet with ICS for $250.

It would look something like this

Nope, that would be on Kepler-16b

They're certainly not the first company to make an All-in-one that was clearly a response to the iMac, and thus far none of those other (and there have been several) designs have faced lawsuits.

No lawsuits for responses to iMac? CNET disagrees, as does SFGate.

They tried that. They are currently trying to sue Apple and RIM for over one beeeellion dollars. Sun also paid them some money to get the Kodak lawsuit company off their backs after Kodak claimed to own a patent covering a program that gets help from another program.

My point about the claim that car manufacturers "almost" went bankrupt was that some actually DID.

BTW, Apple, as well as the car brands you mention - audi, lexus, infiniti - are all commodity mass-produced, mass-marketed products. Lexus is just a Toyota, same with Infiniti being mostly (or in some cases entirely) Nissan, Acura being just another Honda brand, and Jaguar literally being a Ford Taurus, right down to the cheap plastic faux-chrome trim.