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From everyone else's perspective, there's a constant stream of annoying drones flying overhead (and occasionally crashing into their neighborhood) destroying their ability to peacefully enjoy their backyards. I guess that's an externality that just doesn't need to be considered.

That's why Amazon is going to have their drones fly in at altitude, balloon down to complete the delivery and back up, out of the annoyingly loud range.

In related news, today's launch of a Soyuz didn't go very well, causing the American and Russian bound for the ISS to make an emergency landing (abort, presumably).
Soyuz launches to the ISS are grounded until they figure out what the problem was. The Dragon 2 capsule can't get ready soon enough, it seems.

Huawei's Watch 2 claims two days of battery life under normal use. That's 2.5 times better than Apple. And the Huawei looks good with its round body, unlike Apple's clunky/ugly phone-on-a-wrist. No wonder Huawei got such a big chunk of the market already. And they are said to be bring out a product with a full week of battery life. There you go, Huawei concentrates on what's important for a watch. Apple brags about more bits.

What is offtopic about that?

Well it came from a stupid nígger for starters.

Huawei's Watch 2 claims two days of battery life under normal use. That's 2.5 times better than Apple. And the Huawei looks good with its round body, unlike Apple's clunky/ugly phone-on-a-wrist. No wonder Huawei got such a big chunk of the market already. And they are said to be bring out a product with a full week of battery life. There you go, Huawei concentrates on what's important for a watch. Apple brags about more bits.

What is offtopic about that?

Huawei's Watch 2 claims two days of battery life under normal use. That's 2.5 times better than Apple. And the Huawei looks good with its round body, unlike Apple's clunky/ugly phone-on-a-wrist. No wonder Huawei got such a big chunk of the market already. And they are said to be bring out a product with a full week of battery life. There you go, Huawei concentrates on what's important for a watch. Apple brags about more bits.

And may I point out, Apple claims "up to" 18 hours. You can be sure it is less. Reality: if you have this watch then you need to charge it multiple times per day, and get used to wearing a brick for those times you forget. These guys have the right idea.

Unlike all the other LYING OEMs, Apple has a reputation for being the ONLY tech-device manufacturer that even APPROACHES their st stead battery life.

You need to do less Spewing of that Bile, and do some more Research.

And may I point out, Apple claims "up to" 18 hours. You can be sure it is less. Reality: if you have this watch then you need to charge it multiple times per day, and get used to wearing a brick for those times you forget. These guys have the right idea.

Back in the days NT run on Risc it was able to run x86 code, but only 16 bit x86 code. That's because the emulator was in the Windows On Windows (WOW) layer. Back then WOW was a way to run 16 bit code on a 32 bit OS. On an x86 chip it run the node natively. On Risc it used an emulator, which Microsoft had licensed from Insignia Solutions.

So on a MIPS R4000 machine you ended up with this

1) You could run Win16 and Dos x86 applications because those run in the WOW layer or in NTVDM, the NT virtual Dos machine
2) You couldn't run Win32 x86 binaries, you needed native MIPS ones
3) You couldn't run x86 drivers, you needed native MIPS ones

The R4000 was 64 bit capable but NT never run in 64 bit mode on it. Though it did on Alpha for while until that was discontinued. 64 bit mode lives on now for x64, ARM64 and maybe Itanium if you ask MS very nicely.

Now move forward to 64 bit Windows 10. The kernel is 64 bit code. WOW is used to run 32 bit binaries. On x64 it runs 32 bit code x86 code natively. On ARM it uses an emulator. So an ARM64 machine you end up with this

1) You can run Win32 applications because those run in the WOW layer. There's no NTVDM or support for 16 bit code in 64 bit Windows because that would need WOWOW - Windows on Windows on Windows.
2) You can't run Win64 x64 binaries, you need native ARM64 ones
3) You can't run 32 bit drivers, you need native ARM64 ones

Ironically given how wonderfully quirky ARM32's instruction set was and how Steve Furber reckoned that 'MIPS was clean but the cleanness lead to poor code density which hurt them they competed with us in the embedded world', (I'm paraphrasing a bit, the interview is here).ARM64 is much more similar to MIPS than it is to ARM32. I.e. no conditional execution, load/store multiple, no free shift with every instruction and no Thumb mode with two byte instructions. RIP Sophie Wilson's wonderfully devious instruction set. Still I can see why they did it - something stripped down like MIPS or ARM64 must be a lot easier to implement as out of order superscalar design than ARM32.

So the situation with WIndows on ARM is better than Windows RT on 32 bit ARM of course - that had no x86 emulator and actually blocked Win32 ARM binaries from running unless they were signed by Microsoft. This was part of Microsoft's evil plan to move people from Win32 to Windows Store applications.

What I think will be more of an issue for Windows 10 ARM is performance. A Snapdragon 835 is comparable to an Atom natively but emulation will add some overhead - some benchmarks imply a lot.

E.g. a Snapdragon 835 running x86 code gets a mere 818 single core score on Geekbench

https://www.windowslatest.com/...

That's about half the native performance which around comparable with an Atom. I.e. great for phone but terrible compared to an i5.

https://www.slashgear.com/asus...

Intel have threatened Microsoft and Qualcomm with a lawsuit if they convert SIMD instructions from SSE or AVX to NEON. So you could run 32 bit Photoshop but the emulator can't support any SIMD instruction set. And you're running on a chip which is more like an Atom than an i5/i7. That's going to suck. You can't run x64 binaries, even though most software is x64 now.

It'll run something like 7zip or Firefox OK, and those will probably have a native ARM64 binaries too, but if you try to run the x86 version of Photoshop on it the experience will be dreadful.

Outside of Microsoft everyone ignored the non x86 platforms for NT. There's a fair chance that apart from open source stuff people will ignore Windows on ARM too. It's hard to see Adobe spending much engineering time getting Photoshop to run well on Windows on ARM.

Can you provide references so this can become greater knowledge other than a third person account of 'It was horrible'? Please share.

Your Warning is on spot I think. We used to make fun of people by calling them conspiracy theorists that that warned of their TV's being turned into listening devices. Now they actually DO have their own Internet connection, microphones and cameras in addition to our new smart phones. We also installed Xbox Kinects with their own camera system and Internet connection and those have been hacked before.

https://www.slashgear.com/mit-...

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

It appears to have a trackpad but its under the 10 key http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-co...

It's been pretty obvious to me that Nintendo's value is in it's IP, not it's hardware. Games on other systems, movies, tv etc. are where the growth is.

It has been suggested before:
25 Jan 2007: http://www.cnet.com/forums/dis...
28 April 2012: http://www.slashgear.com/why-n...
20 Aug 2013: http://www.ign.com/boards/thre...
2 years ago: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards...
7 Oct 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
21 Nov 2014: http://www.polygon.com/2014/11...

http://www.thetoptens.com/reas...

NVIDIA does exactly that : warps the image according to most recent (or even predicted) head position.
Works on their recent high end cards
http://www.slashgear.com/nvidi...

Many, many Google Software Projects get Shuttered before their time.

IIRC, Even Nexus Phones are only guaranteed 18 months of Android Support They could get up to 3 years; but might be as little as 18 months, depending.

Now this?

Meanwhile, my iPad 2 and iPhone 4s can load the latest version of iOS 9, and you can install the latest version of OS X, 10.11 El Capitan, on nearly any Mac from 2007-08 up.

Where Nest announcde they would brick a home automation hub they used to market.
And in order to save face, is offering a full refund

Dear Apple your anorexic design language is played out. iMacs, MacBook Pros, and MacPros do not have to be the smallest and thinnest devices.

Yes because consumers want the computers to be as fat and large as possible. Especially their laptops. They want to carry more weight not less. If Apple did what you suggest, are you going to complain that they are not innovative and are copying every other manufacturer?

Give your desktop customers a line with at least one PCI-e slot and that uses desktop CPUs.

The 90s called with their requirements. You know who does all of that: every other competitor of Apple. You are free to buy IBM (I mean Lenovo), Hewlett-Packard (I mean HP-Enterprise), Sony (I mean VAIO). Hmmm, it seems other companies that follow that model are exiting the business. . .

But in all seriousness, what do you need a PCI-E slot for? Video for gaming . . . and maybe that's it. Everything else is built into the motherboard these days. Most consumers only need the power of integrated video when surfing the internet (unless Flash is involved).

Give your MacPro customers a tower with M.2, SATA, bays for drives, and slots for GPU cards.

Um, the MacPro is a tower. It's just a small one. M.2? You realize M.2 is just a connector for PCI-E or SATA right? PCI-E based storage is already available for the MacPro. As for SATA, you want Apple to use the slowest possible connector to storage for the workstation? Bays for drives: For what? With most pros using networked storage (especially for collaborative work), why does Apple need that again? GPUs? for what? The MacPro is a workstation, not a gaming machine. The current cards in the MacPro which are almost 3 years old are still good for professional work although they are a bit older.

Thunderbolt is not becoming a new standard it is becoming Fireware. Good for a some small markets but not a mass market interface.

That's why every PC companies like Dell and Razer are selling TB3 products like docks and computers. Because Dell selling out of their TB3 docks because it is becoming obsolete. TB took a while for the PC industry to adopt (like USB) but it's starting to become more of a standard.

First of all, this is all way off topic from TFA.

Second, most of the time the DMCA is used to bully people who have legitimate claims over content through fair use or in some cases direct contracts with content providers.

Probably the best one can be read about in Ars -- http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

The video was mentioned by name in the official recommendations by the US Copyright Office on exemptions to the DMCA as an example of a transformative noncommercial video work. In other words, the US government said this was clearly a good example of fair use.

Fast forward a few months (I think) and Lionsgate issued a DMCA anyway, taking down the video, closing down the youtube channel of the poster and generally making themselves a nuisance-- despite the fact that the incredibly popular video was already named as a clear example of Fair Use.

For some reason the crappy movie Pixels created all sorts of DCMA takedown requests on content predating the movie, and even trailers for the movie itself

http://www.slashgear.com/dcma-...
http://www.cinemablend.com/new...

Apple will replace OS X with iOS.

Latest rumor is that Apple will rename OS X to MacOS to be consistent with iOS, tvOS and WatchOS.

http://www.slashgear.com/apple-further-hints-os-x-name-change-to-macos-15436420/

"The Brother SV-100B will land in Japan on June 1st, priced at $1,450"

What you recall isn't always a fact.

http://www.slashgear.com/broth...

Have the South Koreans made any notable technological advances in increasing the maximum range of a speaker

No, but the French have. Devialet Silver Phantom produces 105 dB sound pressure levels

Nexus devices rarely get more than 18 months of actual support.

http://www.slashgear.com/andro...

I'm trying to think of what games people play competitively on consoles, and none come to mind. Keyboard and mouse flat out destroys controllers when it comes to competitive play.

That's OK, because 2015 (or perhaps 2016) is the year of the keyboard and mouse on consoles. (Sony is also licensing a kb/mouse peripheral, AFAIK this is a licensing first. Yes, I know that there were mice for prior platforms; I have them for SNES, PS, and DC. (That's all of them, right?)

The military is way ahead of you: http://www.slashgear.com/darpa...

For example, I think T-Mo has Nexus devices with proprietary WiFi calling added.

They do not. It's supposed to be coming shortly, but it will be a carrier app, not baked into the firmware. In fact, carrier apps are no longer supposed to be baked into the firmware in Lollipop (though carriers, I'm sure, are still doing this for non-Nexus devices). Instead, carrier apps are installed during the setup process, as normal apps that can be removed by the user. As a bonus, if you set up the phone without a SIM installed, it doesn't know which carrier's apps to install, so you get no carrier apps.

I like Android but my biggest gripe is not being in control of my own updates. When Apple announces a new OS everyone can get it. When Google announces a new OS you better pray you can get it a month later, and that the bug fix version won't be three months behind. That's if your device manufacturer even supports the update.

Another reason my current phone is a Nexus device.

It seems as though Google is testing the waters here, for a potential fix to this issue. Logical next steps include installing vendor binaries (launcher, lock screen, and other apps) during setup (hopefully we see this in Android M), then doing the same with drivers (requiring some basic compatibility modes in the hardware used, or some standard drivers to be included, to enable first boot and setup). At that point, Google will be able to update the OS separately from vendor and carrier apps and drivers, and vice-versa. That will be a huge benefit to users of non-Nexus devices; meanwhile, Nexus owners running Lollipop are already enjoying this.

Why would I want to travel in a self-driving car that drives worse than I do?

So you can get yourself and your car home when you're drunk.

Seriously... if you want to manually drive your self-driving car, go right ahead. Even that weird Mercedes prototype thing still has a steering wheel and pedals so you can drive it manually if you want to.

The question is, do you want to have the option of not driving in situations where it would be inconvenient, tedious, or dangerous for you to drive? If so, you might find a self-driving car useful.

Is this to presume that they'll discontinue the Volt? The names are so similar I could see confusion here...

No they are not discontinuing the Volt as they just updated it to have a longer electric-only range (50 miles), 5 seats instead of 4, and improved acceleration and styling.

Of course the next GM electric vehicle will be the Chevy Jolt probably...

LOL, obligatory Slashgear link

Re: FBI. That may be true (albeit difficult to do). However, that would be the end of their business, so it would be somewhat pointless to ever agree to that (they have already declined such a request). For reference here is their guidelines for law enforcement requests:

https://wickr.com/wp-content/u...

And the report of them denying an FBI request:

http://www.slashgear.com/wickr...

I've never seen an NFC terminal. If it's industry standard where are they?

Are you sure you've never seen one? They look just like other credit card terminals, but have a protruding bump at the top with some of the various NFC brand logos on them, like PayPass, as well as the more generic NFC logo, which looks kind of like a wi-fi logo turned on its side. At least, that's what the ones I've seen usually look like.

There are some newer ones coming out, too, that also have the hoods around the number pad, so that you have privacy when typing your PIN.

If you really haven't seen one, that could range from astonishing to perfectly reasonable, depending on just where you are. In rural Upstate NY, they're not very common, but when I go buy groceries at Wegman's in Syracuse, or visit a Panera, they've all got them in one form or another.

However, the point here is that regardless of their current ubiquity or lack thereof, the technology behind them is an industry standard: any terminal that accepts Apple Pay also accepts Google Wallet and any of the various tap-to-pay NFC-enabled credit cards (like MasterCards with the aforementioned PayPass). Apple's not doing anything fancy and proprietary to communicate the authorization to the bank and merchant, just using the industry standard procedures for tokenized NFC payment.

It's important to remember that just because something is an industry standard (like, say, USB, or Thunderbolt), it won't necessarily show up everywhere immediately. In the US, Apple's a relatively early mover on this technology, despite how common it is in the rest of the developed world (and despite some geekier and less-well-known solutions like Google Wallet using it earlier), so for now, it seems to be a technology linked to Apple, but over the next few years, you'll start to see it more and more around the US.

Dan Aris

Just get your PC from a reputable OEM.

Its called Dell (just the business/corporate side of the house tho.... BEWARE of Dells obtained at WorstBuy/Costco.....)

Ok, you asked for it:

Here's da facts

Seems the stance changed/clarified since I last read up on it... http://www.slashgear.com/hp-wi...

how is it supposedly increasing productivity if I have to lift my hand off keyboard and mouse to aim for a spot on the screen with my finger?

You aren't supposed to be using a keyboard and mouse. That's just stupid. You would be using something resistive with a pen in place of a mouse. http://www.slashgear.com/wp-co.... If it is a desktop then you are using a tablet which miniaturizes the screen http://cdn2.digitalartsonline....

You don't use a hardware solution that makes no sense. Rather what Windows 8 allows for is hardware solution that makes sense being usable. The problem is, as I said you've probably never used proper Windows 8 hardware and so think that keyboard and mouse are the best solution while in reality that is very rarely the case.

It sure helped to get some telcos off their bait and switch practice where they lured you in with incredible rates only to jack the price up once they got you tied down to that 2 years contract.

Not really. They no longer try to jack up your rates, instead they tack on a new "service fee". So your bill still goes up, but by calling it a "surcharge", it's within the existing contract scope and does not invalidate the contract terms. AT&T did this recently.

Please ignore the ravings of a lunatic posted above. Nothing like that is happening!

Xbox Live political advertisement targeting leverages user data

http://www.slashgear.com/xbox-...

Microsoft to target political ads on Xbox Live using player data

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03...

Microsoft is getting ready to Scroogle Xbox owners

http://bgr.com/2014/03/07/micr...

Microsoft is using your data to target political ads on Xbox Live

http://tech.slashdot.org/story...

The question is not how many freemium games there are, it's whether their existence is impacting the market for purchased games. In ages past shareware and freeware had the lions share of the PC gaming market (at least among every gamer I knew in middle and high school, and most of my older friends as well), for the simple reason that nobody had $30 to throw away on a game that *might* be good. Consoles were the only place that purchased games dominated, for the simple reason that there were no free games available - but everyone I knew who had a console also had a huge library of free PC games.

Well, on consoles, It started with DLC, which was innocent enough - you played through the content, they provided expansions as DLC rather than brand new games, etc.

Then some craftier ones noted that they could offer DLC on the get-go, so-called Day One DLC where you can purchase upgrades and such right at the start.

It took Android (credit belongs to Android, really) to take freemium to the next level by offering the games for free and having users buy more smurfberries or play credits or whatever, which now extends into the console world with purchased addons and all that.

And now you have Microsoft and Sony in the last gen catching up by being able to offer free games that weren't a marketing gimmick.

Nowadays, it looks like it's used to buy your way into the game - don't want to grind? $1 will get you a bunch of upgrades and gold and whatever.

Thankfully, some people get it - Titanfall, coming out next week will have no day one DLC or paid upgrades, the only DLC planned is maps.

So at least one company gets it - you don't spend $60 only to be bombarded for $20 season passes for addons the moment the game is released.

And it's such a bad problem the EU is considering motions towards telling when free really means free (with paid addons). Because a lot of mobile games are now making it such that you get a demo, pay for level 1, pay for level 2, etc.

These guys work 24/7 with a budget beyond most corporations to ensure they are one step ahead of everyone and can access any piece of information they want to get to.

Short of never connecting your computer to a public network (and even that might not cut it), You're fighting a losing battle against these guys. If there's any technology out there you could truly use to secure yourself against the NSA, they'll do everything to make sure it never sees the light of day.

The only way to really combat this, is to fight for democracy, open government, and legislation to make these sorts of operations criminal activity.

why do you put up with this kind of crap?

Games haven't been owned by anyone for a long time now. Even buying a physical disc is just buying a license to play the game, which can and does get revoked in cases of abuse (see: Halo 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Diablo III). Of the companies out there that are licensing games to customers, Steam is relatively permissive, and it's rare that a typical gamer will run into issues with them.

Nintendo can have their NES, SNES, and Gamecube games back when they pry the cartridges and/or discs from my cold, dead fingers!

why do you put up with this kind of crap?

Cost, convenience, and a lack of alternatives.

I license the right to play a game from Steam, usually for dirt cheap prices, and in exchange, it's available on any Internet-connected computer I own. Should I lack an Internet connection, it's possible to enable an offline mode as well, allowing me to continue playing regardless of my lack of a connection.

Games haven't been owned by anyone for a long time now. Even buying a physical disc is just buying a license to play the game, which can and does get revoked in cases of abuse (see: Halo 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Diablo III). Of the companies out there that are licensing games to customers, Steam is relatively permissive, and it's rare that a typical gamer will run into issues with them.

That's a good point, however, it's been proven that these 'hardware' features can be overcome in software. Sad as it may seem I now have a USB extension lead to my webcam and only connect it when I need it. Example: Link

What really interesting, in my book, is the fact that Skype only started detecting plug in devices 'on the fly' after MS took over, If I hadn't had the device plugged in I would usually have had to quit / re-open skype - or at least re-run through the video setup - nowerdays skype can run all the time and even half way through a text or audio conversation I can plug the webcam in and hey presto. Was this for us? Or for them ?

I use and recommend a Sonicare electric toothbrush.

They aren't paying me to shill so if you prefer a different brand, buy that. (The Sweethome recommends this Oral-B toothbrush.) But Sonicare is working for me.

My teeth tend to accumulate tartar buildup quickly. (I'm not complaining; better that issue than having acidic mouth chemistry that erodes teeth.) It used to take a long and unpleasant time for my teeth to be cleaned.

I got my first Sonicare and started using it, and as it happened I had a dentist appointment about a month later. The dental hygienist took one look at my teeth and said "I can already tell you are doing something different, and whatever it is, I like it." I was stunned... this was after just one month! How much better would it be after six months!

That was years ago. I have been using the Sonicare and my teeth cleanings go more quickly and are less unpleasant.

A few tips.

The main one: let the Sonicare do the brushing... don't apply a lot of force with your hand. I have sometimes been guilty of this and it can have a negative effect on the gums, making them "recede" which you don't want. Just use light pressure and let the moving bristles do their thing.

Also, make an effort to let the bristles brush the gum line (where the teeth meet the gums). I used to have an issue with deep "pockets" in my gums, and the Sonicare seems to have stimulated my gums to grow and fill in the pockets. After I used it for a while, I only had the deep pockets in the corners of my mouth; and then I made an effort to brush all my gums, including in the corners, and I don't have any of the deep pockets anymore.

Sonicare has a deluxe edition that includes a USB-powered travel charger. I lust after that USB travel charger, but I can't bring myself to spend that much money on a toothbrush. http://www.slashgear.com/philips-sonicare-diamondclean-review-09201165/

This is what I have. For half the price of the deluxe edition I got two Sonicares, a charger, and a travel charger. The charger has a UV feature to sterilize the brush heads; it makes an annoying high-pitched whine that I can hear, so I never use it. Instead I use the travel charger, which works fine.

http://www.costco.com/Philips-Sonicare-Flexcare-Rechargeable-Sonic-Toothbrush-Premium-Edition-2-pk.product.100071852.html

Also, floss your teeth every night, seriously. It make a big difference.

Nice "prior art" you have there, of course you're comparing a list of samsung design concepts from 2006 to the actual iPhone released 2007. Journalist had predicted Apple was releasing a phone for years and released artist concept photos, it would take nothing for Samsung to claim those were their design. This is what Samsung smartphones looked like in 2006.

Anyone know if those LED baseball caps really work? What about a can of spray paint, aimed at the Glass-hole?

This looks promising, it's an IR based 'camera blinder' that hides your face:
http://www.slashgear.com/surveillance-cam-blinder-2010369/

Dunno how effective it is against different camera types and it does require you to wear a dumb-ass headband but it looks like a promising concept.

I've been playing around with various IR LED types, such as this one, at a couple wavelengths, and I found that in darkness and twilight, you need only very few to become a huge blob of ghostly light, but in good lighting conditions, a good camera like an Axis P3367 and even some of the crappy webcams I tried will see them as merely little points of red light. So I'll integrate a bunch in my backpack's straps and on it's surface, to at least get that commute, including subways etc.. covered, but with little hope of completeness.

So the real challenge may be: can we build a device that automates lens detection, focuses a small laser on the lens in question, and keeps it there while both the lens and the wearer of the countermeasure laser move along. +1 for a switch that will briefly increase laser power to burning strength. As in using a 2W Laser diode at low power. Capability :-)

Anyone know if those LED baseball caps really work? What about a can of spray paint, aimed at the Glass-hole?

This looks promising, it's an IR based 'camera blinder' that hides your face:
http://www.slashgear.com/surveillance-cam-blinder-2010369/

Dunno how effective it is against different camera types and it does require you to wear a dumb-ass headband but it looks like a promising concept.

"midrange iPhone"

lol

Mobile is a two horse race between Apple and Samsung, anyone who believes anything else is deluded.

This would never happen on Android; they must have loaded a rom for windows:. http://www.slashgear.com/nexus-flaw-sees-android-phones-crash-after-sms-overload-29307177/

They probably value the flexibility to do monitoring and ad-hoc patching from the ground over security in what is supposed to be a closed-off private network.

NASA does some amazing jiggery-pokery-at-a-distance on the software of the unmanned probes to work around unexpected hardware and software issues.
http://www.slashgear.com/nasa-to-apply-two-software-patches-to-curiosity-rover-11273409/

It's slightly less critical when you have personnel close by, but I'm sure the astronauts would have better things to do in an emergency than sysadmining.

So, prior to iOS 7's release, 93% of iOS devices were running iOS 6. Apple announced earlier today that over 200M devices are already running iOS 7. And I don't understand why you're suggesting this problem should be starting now, since you're saying that the iPhone line has finally gotten long enough that the problem would manifest just as it did on Android, despite the fact that the iOS product line goes back prior to Android's first device on the market and has gone through more major iterations of the OS as well. As such, we should have expected to see the issue of fragmentation manifest on iOS first, not second.

For reference, the iPhone 4 is the oldest model that runs iOS 7, so that means that any new models since June 2010 can run the latest version of the OS. If the iOS 6 numbers are any indication, only about 7% of iOS users have devices that are older than that, so OS fragmentation should remain low.

At a supposed price of $327, and as an unlocked android phone, I'd say this is pretty stiff competition for the Nexus 4.

Xiaomi should be scaring the pants of established phone makers. Their Hongmi (Red Rice) phone has a quad-core 1.2Ghz SoC with 4.7-inch 312ppi IPS display and is selling for $130. Even at that price, it looks like they'll have healthy profit margins - TrendForce says their BOM is only $85.

http://www.slashgear.com/chinese-xiaomi-red-rice-smartphone-has-85-bom-30295442/

OP was quoting Andy Rubin at Google explaining why android is "open" and ios is not. The point being that 3 years later, Andrdoid doesn't really qualify as open by Google's own definition.

Google is slowly morphing into just another proprietary software corp - my feeling is that it is because of management changes where the new guys think that because google is now the biggest fish in the pond that there really isn't any point in trying to make the pond bigger, they probably feel threatened by the chance of enabling competitors.

Well, I don't know about stupidly low, but a big discount is what this writeoff represents. The estimate of 6 million Surface tablets comes from the $900 million writeoff and the $150 discount which they started offering to educational buyers last month, and are now offering to the general public.

Actually, the latest version of Office RT (2013) does include Outlook.

Yes, the latest version, which doesn't have a formal release date yet, which will be "coming out soon", does include Outlook. That's certainly good to know.

If you're one of the lucky teachers or one of the students however, like those in the article, don't count on getting Outlook without being forced to pay full retail for Outlook separately, or pay full retail for Office RT (2013), or pay for full retail for an Office 365 subscription instead. After all even on the more expensive Surface Pro, the Office Home & Student 2013 edition does not include Outlook. And there is no reason to believe this is going to change for the RT edition once Outlook RT does get released.