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http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/25/uberauto/

It's a real article about the present.

Like using your cat to unlock?
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/19/watch-a-cat-unlock-the-iphone-5s-using-touch-id-and-the-fingerprint-sensor/

Actually, they kinda have put the company up for sale. http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/12/blackberry-says-its-looking-for-a-buyer-or-a-willing-partner-forms-special-committee-to-explore-strategic-alternatives/ (Some other article on this topic quoted BB as saying they are "willing to entertain the idea of acquisition", and the author commented snarkily that this is meant in the same way that his three-year-old daughter is "willing to entertain the idea of being given a pony").

It's not as conspiracy-theory cool as magical backdoors implanted in every piece of hardware, but this is how the NSA actually breaks into systems... they do it the same way everyone else does, just on a much larger scale and with even less fear of legal repercussions that the cyber criminals.

Oh really? I don't see "everyone else" spending millions to deliberately subvert encryption standards , either.

  And since the CAs have been co-opted, SSL is laughable. Try Steve Gibson's cert "fingerprint" service and see for yourself. I tried it, and he gets a different cert for www.google.co.nz than I do. Is it the NSA? Who knows, but someone is up in my business >:-(

This struck me immediately. This was clearly an adult event.

Then why did the conference organizers allow the 9-year-old to attend and participate, going so far as to feature her presentation on their own website?

And if you're upset about the issue of the 9 year old. I'm pretty sure the parent should have know that at a conference for adults, a kid didn't really belong there.

TechCrunch endorsed the 9-year-old girl's attendance.

he better question is why is a 9 year old girl at a professional development conference?

The idea that an entire professional conference must be run by the nanny police to avoid offending a 9 year old girl at the expense of one of their largest customers reeks of someone wanting to be offended.

Why was a 9 year old at a professional IT conference? Like others, she was presenting her app. Or is it not ok for a 9 year old to present? Or was it because she was a 9 year old girl that you're bothered by her presence there?

Who is this "one of their largest customers" you speak of?

and wtf was 9 year old doing there? it's a fucking pitching gathering.

She was there pitching her app.

Here is her story and app.

A classic case of innovator's dilemma I'm afraid.

When something cut off at the knees by the CEO is outselling his pet project five to one you know that the CEO is not working for the company that he's supposed to be running.

Which is very close to what Apple did with the iPad and Mac. Sometimes you have to be able to move past a dead end by drastic measures.

PS: Symbian (or to be precise, S60) was crap. Crap to use, crap to develop, and crap to develop for (I did all three). Good riddance.

They're attacking American websites. Surely that constitutes electronic terrorism and would fall under the NSA's mandate.

Except said websites were still working fine. What the SEA did was phish the registrar (Melbourne IT) for a password which they then used to change the DNS records of said websites.

Sites like the NYT et al, all worked if you entered in via their IP address.

No elaborate website hack, just a DNS social engineering attack.

That story was a hoax and a sort of late April Fool's joke. The article was even dated a decade into the future.

Seeing as 78% of FB users are mobile ( http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/facebook-mobile-user-count/ ), this seems to have a limited market.
In fact, many people (myself included) would be "forced" to use FB mobile, since it is blocked by the corporate firewall.
Maybe someone could write an Android version, which activates the phone's buzzer until the browser is closed.

Zacktronics Infiniminer Oh it's a minecraft ripoff... that minecraft rippedoff.

Tiny Tower

Look, I can post a crap load more, but I'm not your personal fucking google.

Shit's been going on since the first videogames. It's like you fools don't know who Nolan Bushnell is. So, here's the thing. They will steal your shit if it's possible. If you do the crazy hard work of cranking out a shit ton of games & prototypes and testing them to find what's fun, and get some popularity (read: do market research for them), they they will steal your shit.

If you're a random indie gamedev, then chances are no one will play your game except other indie gamedevs and a few fans of the indie scene. Do that 100 times and get even a modicum of success? Yes, those mother fuckers will rip off your shit. STFU, you sound like a damn Noob.

If you haven't had your game design ripped off and executed by someone with more resources in a tighter timeframe... Then you either haven't made anything popular yet, or you're really fucking lucky (or your games suck.... Just sayin').

Hmmm, 1st quarter, 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, 4th quarter

That's what the appeals process is for so lawyers on both sides can argue what's right or wrong with the ruling. Amicus briefs can be filed by knowledgeable and respected organizations or individuals on both sides of the arguments as well to point out specific flaws or finer points that weren't exposed in the original trial. These briefs or amici curiae are most often used in appeals. So the EFF or the FSF could file a brief in the appeal on this case based on the legal and technical problems for society that it creates.

That doesn't solve the problem of a bad law, like the CFAA which is rotten to the core. In this case it sounds like 3Taps was told to stop particular activity, scraping servers, by Craigslist and when they didn't stop Craigslist pursued the matter in court. 3Taps also appears to have used masking techniques to try to hide their activities which also forced Craigslist to seek a judicial ruling. In this case the C&D didn't work, which is more friendly, 3Taps said screw that and then went after using proxy servers which Craigslist detected and somehow tracked back to 3Taps so in this case you have somebody you've told to stop accessing your website against your ToS and the CFAA applies there. Not that I agree with all of the CFAA but certainly telling somebody to stop breaking into your house, time and time again, is more than reasonable and when they won't stop you can seek legal means to make them stop. Craigslist has also shut down other apps that scraped their servers as well. Even though their UI sucks and it seems their legal team doesn't. Good for them.

Yeah, Android has 70% of the mobile phone market, and it is only going to grow. The main reason is because where iOS is only used by one company on it's devices Android is used by many companies on more devices than can be accounted for, and more of these devices are cheap/affordable than not where the only cheap iOS device is a used one. Therefore by shear ratio of poor to rich of course Android is going to beat out iOS.

Now lets talk about how much of the market is made up of Premium Android devices such as the Galaxy S4 32gb that I carry ($867.50 if you buy it outright like I did.) Then the percentage goes way down for Android, because consumers are still screaming about material quality when it comes to premium devices. They all want better materials like real metal (not simulated like on the GS4) and Glass like the iPhone if they are going to pay almost $1000 for a device. For the everyday consumer that is distracted by shiny objects, that wants uniformity, and simplicity iPhone will almost always be their choice.

And yet, Google rolled over for the NSA years earlier than Apple. Methinks the NSA prefers Android if they have a preference at all...

Actually, designing / testing for android is typically done on 3-4 device types

http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/11/this-is-what-developing-for-android-looks-like/

Animoca, a Hong Kong mobile app developer that has seen more than 70 million downloads, says it does quality assurance testing with about 400 Android devices. Again, that’s testing with four hundred different phones and tablets for every app they ship!

If you check this article, the author says she has a direct statement from the police department as follows:

Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”

From http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/01/employer-tipped-off-police-in-pressure-cookerbackpack-gate-not-google/:

Suffolk County Criminal Intelligence Detectives received a tip from a Bay Shore based computer company regarding suspicious computer searches conducted by a recently released employee. The former employee’s computer searches took place on this employee’s workplace computer. On that computer, the employee searched the terms “pressure cooker bombs” and “backpacks.”

For you to make your case effectively, you'd need that page to be about murders of passengers by their taxi drivers.

All right. I give you another link S.F. Taxi Driver Chokes Passenger For Not Leaving Tip

A taxi driver choked and robbed a passenger in a dispute over a tip near San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park early Sunday morning, a police spokesman said today.

Not quite on murder, but licensing does not guarantee safety per se.

I can talk about London, UK. Here, there have been several rapes, assaults and murders carried out by licensed taxi drivers. But the rates are substantially higher in the unregulated (and illegal) world of unlicensed cabs. This is unsurprising, given that to drive a licensed cab you need to have a clean criminal record.

I agree with you that unlicensed gypsy cabs are unsafe. However, here we are talking about cabs operating under ridesharing companies, which is a totally different animal. To get an idea of how they operate and their safety record, have a look at this article.

They key point is this :-

The problem is, the company typically partners with third-party limo and taxi services to pre-vet drivers, doing background checks and ensuring that they have all the necessary licenses or permits. City to city, Uber drivers are required to abide by whatever local regulations are in their jurisdiction.

For the most part, Uber and its partners follow the same regulations all the usual cab or limo services do. Which is to say, if Uber’s regulations are soft, so are those that are followed by every other taxi or limo service out there.

So, now knowing that cabs operating under ridesharing companies do follow safety regulations, does this change your opinion?

Getting in a car with a stranger carries some risk. Regulations can and do help lower that risk. Not perfectly, and not completely, and there are other ways of lowering the risk as well, but denying an obvious truth is just dumb.

That actually depends on the nature of the regulations. If they deal specifically with safety issues like background checks, then yes. If the regulations are of the "pay $$ for a licence" variety, that will not increase your safety. For the record, the taxi drivers were arrested by SFO not for being unsafe, but for unlawful trespassing. You can draw your own conclusions from that.

Incidentally, it's pretty unpleasant to joke about sexual coercion.

Hmm, the taxi driver was certainly making an unwanted proposition, but I hardly think it was coercive...Nevertheless, since my joke offends you, I apologise.

> I don't think that even Apple stores sell that
> many iPads during holiday season.

Easy to find: Apple sold 22.9 million iPads in the 2012 holiday season. That's a quarter-million PER DAY; six million in 3.5 weeks.

If just 10% of iPads are sold in Apple's 400 retail stores, that's over 60 per day per store.

And Samsung still wouldn't care, evidenced by past behavior (otherwise known as the best predictor of future behavior):

Samsung could face 15B Euro fine
Samsung, LG fined for LCD price fixing
Tax evasion, bribery, and price fixing: how Samsung became the giant that ate Korea
Samsung agrees to plead guilty to DRAM price fixing, pay $300M fine
6 Samsung executives headed to jail for price fixing
Samsung, LG fined for mobile price fixing scheme

Everyone is holding these guys up to be some kind of saints in their battle against the evil Apple Empire, when they are thrice-convicted price fixers that screw their customers over at every opportunity, legal or otherwise; and try to screw the competition by suing over standards-essential patents that they don't license for FRAND terms (allegedly).

Samsung is not a friendly company, but I'll likely be modded down for saying so. Whatever, I've got the karma to burn.

I'm not saying its the patent offices job to search for prior art, (but if Joe Random can find prior art why can't they?), but voiding all of these patents only AFTER they have been issued and appealed, and used in court, and enforced by various import bans, and inflicted untold damage on the market place just seems backwards.

I thought searching for prior art was part of a patent examiner's job. Is that not correct?

As you say, allowing shitty patents that later get overturned causes a great deal of damage to the market (and expense to our court system). It's interesting to note that Apple can also claim to have been damaged by this - after all, pinch-to-zoom (along with other gestures) was actually patented by Fingerworks, which Apple bought in 2005. Apple actually went the right way on this, legally - they wanted this patented technology, so they paid for it. Others went ahead and used it without buying or licensing, and now 8 years later the USPTO is essentially telling Apple their money was wasted.

It seems like the USPTO is doing a *slightly* better job of not granting these absurd and frivolous patents. Love to see if they keep up this kind of thing.

Whoa, there cowpoke. Let's not acknowledged them for ordinary powers of observation over one "dee-NIED!"

Now if they start making a habit of it, there may be cause to light one cupcake on fire in celebration.

Spot on.
The re-examinations are starting to show some common sense.
After the community at large finds the prior art for them, the patent office seem to fess up to their mistakes more easily than most government agencies.

I'm not saying its the patent offices job to search for prior art, (but if Joe Random can find prior art why can't they?), but voiding all of these patents only AFTER they have been issued
and appealed, and used in court, and enforced by various import bans, and inflicted untold damage on the market place just seems backwards.

Since we are now on a first to file basis, the idea of imposing a 1 year public comment period commencing just after the Patent office published an intent-to-award notice would seem a reasonable extension to the patent process. It would put the community or others in the field on notice of which patents need attention.

As it is now, thousands of patents are filed and even the community efforts can't find all the prior art on every filing and the effort isn't warranted when significant percentage of patent applications will be rejected anyway.

We probably need a Dewey Decimal System for patent claims, so that the search process would be faster.

It's obviously quite highly subsidized.

Not according to TechCrunch:

The price? Surprise! It’s $35. Are you kidding me? According to Google, they’re not selling them at a loss.

Apple has 145 billion dollars in cash and other liquid assets it could use for a buyout as of April supposedly. Tech crunch

They had 120 billion dollars in long term investments as of October The guardian on 120 billion dollar investment strategy

The different in counting depends on what you're counting exactly as 'cash'. Your yahoo link gives apple as 176 billion dollars in assets, 15 billion of which are property 800 million as inventory, 1 billion in goodwill, and 4 billion in intangibles. There are about 40 billion dollars in outstanding cash liabilities.

The difference is in what exactly you want to count as 'cash'. Companies usually take their money and buy stuff with it, if they don't want to buy other companies or to give the money to shareholders they can buy other companies bonds (sometimes even for overnight), they can buy government debts etc. etc. etc. As per the guardian link, Apple has a lot of money waiting to repatriate it to US investors whenever congress can be bought into offering a 'one time' tax break for doing so.

What Apple could use for a buyout (of anyone really) would be their cash, cash equivalents, short term investments and long term investments. They might end up with some complex web of borrowing money against those assets too, but that's relatively normal.

It looks like that problem is solved in Android 4.3

At the moment there appears to be more growth in ads on Hulu Plus and other Ten-Foot-Interface content companies than on mobile in general. Statistically people are more likely to watch an entire ad on Hulu than any other non-streaming cable method, and their CPMs are something like 10 times that of web ads, and those are twice over more than mobile ads.

Mobile ads are mostly a bill of goods Google sells to advertisers, and users hacking around at the edges of that isn't very important -- ads on TV are orders of magnitude more valuable real estate.

. . . and more's the pity, there's actually not that much of a difference between them. As yesterday's vote on the Amash Amendment proved. . .

So you agree that you're wrong, then. Good. Clearly if 56% of consumers are buying the Mac Air instead of an Ultrabook, they're selling a lot of them.

No I think the market segment is a bit of a failure.

Ultra-hyped ultrabooks ultra-flopped in 2012 http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/010713-ultrabooks-265469.html
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/are-ultrabooks-an-epic-failure/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/are-ultrabooks-an-epic-failure/
A year on, Ultrabooks are a worse disaster than most expected http://semiaccurate.com/2012/10/02/a-year-on-ultrabooks-are-a-worse-disaster-than-most-expected/
Remember Ultrabooks? Yeah, That Was A Good Time http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/01/remember-ultrabooks-yeah-that-was-a-good-time/

as I said apples sales are down 22%, 2% and 7%

There is a TechCrunch article on the breach, and someone by the name of Ibrahim Balic is taking credit for the breach.
What he wrote is below, and the link provided goes directly to the comment.

Hi there,

My name is ibrahim Balic, I am a security researcher. You can also search my name from Facebook's Whitehat List. I do private consulting for particular firms. Recently I have started doing research on Apple inc.

In total I have found 13 bugs and have reported through http://bugreport.apple.com./ The bugs are all reported one by one and Apple was informed. I gave details to Apple as much as I can and I've also added screenshots.

One of those bugs have provided me access to users details etc. I immediately reported this to Apple. I have taken 73 users details (all apple inc workers only) and prove them as an example.

4 hours later from my final report Apple developer portal gas closed down and you know it still is. I have emailed and asked if I am putting them in any difficulty so that I can give a break to my research. I have not gotten any respond to this... I have been waiting since then for them to contact me, and today I'm reading news saying that they have been attacked and hacked. In some of the media news I watch/read that whether legal authorities were involved in its investigation of the hack. I'm not feeling very happy with what I read and a bit irritated, as I did not done this research to harm or damage. I didn't attempt to publish or have not shared this situation with anybody else. My aim was to report bugs and collect the datas for the porpoise of seeing how deep I can go within this scope. I have over 100.000+ users details and Apple is informed about this. I didn't attempt to get the datas first and report then, instead I have reported first.

I do not want my name to be in blacklist, please search on this situation. I'm keeping all the evidences, emails and images also I have the records of bugs that I made through Apple bug-report.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/21/apple-confirms-that-the-dev-center-has-potentially-been-breached-by-hackers/?hubRefSrc=permalink#lf_comment=87472293
Short URL: http://fyre.it/tjlVmC.4

ibrahim Balic is apparently responsible for the breach (by his own admission).

DNT had exactly one use: to determine whether or not advertisers respect the wishes of people who do not want their browsing habits tracked. The verdict is in, and to nobody's surprise advertisers have no respect for anyone. Now we know that we are justified in using ad-blocking plugins and building browsers that block ads by default.

Careful, advertisers like Google have paid Adblock Plus to whitelist their ads. Sure it's google ads today, but Google owns the vast majority of online ad networks and commands practically all the online ad markets, and if they're paying off the ad blockers to whitelist...

And of course, Google is naturally tracking you. Especially whitelisted.

I encourage people to always adblock on techreport, because they threaten to nuke user accounts that talk about using adblocking. That's not the right approach.

It depends. Sites depend on ads to pay for content and hosting, and many with "premium" options do not allow talk of ad blockers as well. Even reputable ones - like Ars Technica. Even the merest hint of ad blocking without whitelisting the site in question is out. I got banned for mentioning noscript and didn't even mention blocking the site's ads, just it happened to block a good chunk of ads.

Of course, one side effect of this is sites get desperate for money and they end up getting sold and re-sold to other companies. It's only a matter of time before pretty much online ads disappear as we know them because websites are all purchased up and owned by a few media conglomerates who bought them for the user information and all that.

Of course, the little guy with a blog who wants to make a couple of bucks won't be able to attract any advertisers because they all went to the big guys with their massive data pools from buying up websites left and right.

However Samsung wants to expand their foundry business badly.

What is your source for this?
The only reason they would want to expand their foundry business would be if it was hugely profitable, and offering Apple even bigger discounts than they already were getting would make it LESS profitable. Further, Samsung already can handle Apple's total chip requirements, so this wouldn't involve an expansion at all.

Samsung might not want to IDLE any of their foundries by losing Apple business, but with Android sales surging to 70% market share world wide, there is little risk of that having any long term effect.

This.

It's a case of Apple needing Samsung because Samsung can deliver the volume and quality Apple want.

Samsung is simply not vindictive, so they're not turning down the contract.

However Samsung wants to expand their foundry business badly.

What is your source for this?
The only reason they would want to expand their foundry business would be if it was hugely profitable, and offering Apple even bigger discounts than they already were getting would make it LESS profitable. Further, Samsung already can handle Apple's total chip requirements, so this wouldn't involve an expansion at all.

Samsung might not want to IDLE any of their foundries by losing Apple business, but with Android sales surging to 70% market share world wide, there is little risk of that having any long term effect.

Is it really non obvious?
Government official paints Hackers as dangerous in the public eye, cites Feds may want to stay away from the uncontrollable trouble makers attending Defcon.
Distracts threat of global surveillance state by pointing at a few computer nerds who can hack your Facebook until some bug is patched.

Film at 11.

Protip. Jeff Moss is a government agent. His past deeds mean nothing. They know where he and his loved ones live.

He's correct, the fragmentation issue is quite overblown, especially when compared to Android ‘Master Key’ Security Hole Puts 99% Of Devices At Risk Of Exploitation.

Seriously, I don't get the fuss. The industrial world has been overdue for a change in tactics for at least 3 decades, and the problems in society around the globe reflect humanity pursuit of things that can't work the way they used to anymore.

These are the facts (and we all know them, either intuitively or by plain analysis):

1.) We are reaching peak capitalism.

2.) Our jobs are going away, either to robots or the poorest of the poor on the planet ... and *then* to robots.

3.) We are about to reach a worldwide abundance of material goods. The last pieces of production society are on the way out.

4.) Most of our societies follow rules which, under the circumstances described above, seem bizare, arcane and silly. Each society and country has it's on set of soon to be totally pointless behaviours, but they all have them. The US has their evangelical cristian stuff, Germany spends 4.7 billion man-hours per year in traffic jams (seriously) and I don't even know where to begin in describing the bizar notions and pressures the Japanese society puts on people.

Let's face it: Most of us here on slashdot (I consider the average IQ here on /. measurably higher than average) would do the same if they hadn't developed some sort of psychological survical skill or found a nice warm place in the 9-5 jobworld where they can play with computers all day.

Bottom line: This is a totally normal reaction to environment, especially if you haven't had the luck to be introduced to stoic or zen philosophy or something simular in your teenages which might help you cope with the bizar theater going on around us in everyday life, including people presuring others to 'get a real job' and 'do something usefull'.

My 2 cents.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/11/googles-3-top-executives-have-8-private-jets/

I was all prepared to snark with, "Great, without technical questions, now hiring will be based on personal acquaintances only, resulting in unintended disadvantages to minorities and groups not typically represented in the technical work force." Sadly, though, I read the techcrunch.com piece linked in the Slashdot summary, and they not only outline a great alternative hiring process, they specifically caution against homogeneity.

Techcrunch.com's "discuss their past projects" reminds me of the best interview question I've ever learned. I learned it by being on the receiving end of a Microsoft interview 15-20 years ago. Every time I made a bold claim of my capabilities, the phone interviewer simply responded with, "can you give me an example of that?" Now when I interview people that I'm hiring, it's my number one question. I use that line over and over again, on every interview I conduct.

Let's see. With Apple, you can target 100% of 17% = 17% of phone buyers, whereas with Android you can target 75% of 75% = 56% of phone buyers.

http://techland.time.com/2013/04/16/ios-vs-android/

iOS users spend 3.5x as much on apps as Android users....

And iOS users are on average more affluent....

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/forrester-iphone-app-users-young-and-wealthy-android-app-users-skew-older/

Well, "Revenue Share" is important for investors. Not so much for customers. When was the last time you bought a product based upon how much money the company made selling the product?

The rationale behind Android is very simple for Google: they need an open platform to sell their wares.

Think back to 2009. Google's Voice app was languishing away waiting for Apple approval, which would never come. Now, I don't care about the reasons. Maybe it was a deal Apple had with AT&T. Maybe it was that the dialer would cause confusion. The reality is that Apple blocked it for whatever reasons.

Suppose others start doing the same thing? Could Microsoft block Google apps? Or RIM? When your money comes from selling advertising, the last thing you want is for some OS maker to arbitrarily decide to block you for whatever reason. Google needed a popular open platform for people to use or risk being cut off from the eyeballs due to some sort of corporate deal-making.

Chances are Google did pay when they made a license deal with MPEG LA. Had Google not done this cross license with MPEG LA, chances are you would not be seeing V9.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/google-and-mpeg-la-sign-licensing-agreement-covering-googles-vp8-video-codec-clearing-the-way-for-wider-adoption/

Google’s VP8 video compression format, which the company acquired from On2 Technologies, is an open standard and covered by a free patent license. That, however, didn’t stop MPEG LA, the guardians of the H.264 patent and license, from looking into creating a patent pool in 2011 and potentially suing Google for patent infringement upon its competing codec. Today, however, MPEG LA and Google announced that they have come to an agreement. MPEG LA will grant Google a license “to techniques that may be essential to VP8 and earlier-generation VPx video compression technologies under patents owned by 11 patent holders.”

The agreement allows Google to sub-license the techniques covered by the agreement to any VP8 user and also covers the next generation of the VPx codec. As part of this deal, MPEG LA is discontinuing its efforts to form a VP8 patent pool. Chances are Google had to pay for this license, but the financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Q: Why would Saudi Arabia ban communication tools such as Viber, Whatsapp and Skype?

A: Because they have no control or access to the messages passed with these apps.

According to TFA, Viber was blocked for non-compliance, and that WhatsApp and Skype may be next on the list. What is most interesting is that the regulator issued a directive in March saying tools such as Viber, WhatsApp and Skype broke local laws, without specifying which laws.

What we do know is that in 2010, Blackberry was also banned by Saudi Arabia. The reason behind the ban was because BBM did not allow their customers' exchanges to be monitored by government. The ban was lifted after BB made a deal with the government to share user data.

Skype, Viber and WhatsApp AFAIK do not share their user data (for now).

Why has Saudi Arabia become emboldened to act now? Because the disclosure of the PRISM program makes them immune from international criticism. They can rightly point out that the US government already has access to the data. It shouldn't take long for other countries to follow suit with similar demands.

Or it might be to kill free competition for STC (the incumbent telephone company owned by the government...the government being the Royal family).

Q: Why would Saudi Arabia ban communication tools such as Viber, Whatsapp and Skype?

A: Because they have no control or access to the messages passed with these apps.

According to TFA, Viber was blocked for non-compliance, and that WhatsApp and Skype may be next on the list. What is most interesting is that the regulator issued a directive in March saying tools such as Viber, WhatsApp and Skype broke local laws, without specifying which laws.

What we do know is that in 2010, Blackberry was also banned by Saudi Arabia. The reason behind the ban was because BBM did not allow their customers' exchanges to be monitored by government. The ban was lifted after BB made a deal with the government to share user data.

Skype, Viber and WhatsApp AFAIK do not share their user data (for now).

Why has Saudi Arabia become emboldened to act now? Because the disclosure of the PRISM program makes them immune from international criticism. They can rightly point out that the US government already has access to the data. It shouldn't take long for other countries to follow suit with similar demands.

I haven't, yet. But it's how I'm going to be replacing Reader.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/03/reeder-greader-other-popular-feed-reading-apps-partner-with-feedly-ahead-of-google-reader-shutdown/

But, like I said, it's a back-end change, so I'm not expecting to have to do anything.

I Googled "most successful HTML5 game"

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/22/ludei/

This was the result.

denial, therefore, should carry at least some weight.
At a LEO level ie a fax on department stationary or email is not a court order.
We did get that 2011 BBC Interview with the national security comment :)
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/13/rim-ceo-flake/
http://www.ibtimes.com/rim-ceo-walks-out-bbc-interview-says-security-question-unfair-279919