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"How will the search company — or anyone else, for that matter — ever make much money from Android."

How about extorting revenue from the hardware manufacturers under threat of litigation. And then leaning on them to install Office, OneDrive and Skype on the devices. So somebody is making money out of Microsoft Android ©.

Let's spin the dial back to the Pentagon banning animated Powerpoint tanks.

The shuttle disasters Richard Feynman, the late Nobel laureate and CalTech physicist, saw that "bulletized" thinking contributed to the Challenger disaster, where 7 crew members died and a multi-billion dollar craft destroyed due to an O-ring failure. The big problem was that NASA management wasn't really listening to the engineers - and breaking issues up into bullets helped them do that.

The engineers who worked on the Challenger O-rings knew they weren't qualified for cold weather. But management didn't want to hear it and OK'd the launch despite the engineer's opposition.

As sometimes happens, disaster ensued.

In the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster, Prof. Tufte dissects the PowerPoint slides that buried important information - such as volume, mass and velocity - about the large piece of foam insulation that penetrated the Columbia's heat shield. Creating useful engineering reports in PowerPoint is difficult if not impossible.

And of course, powerpoint makes you stupid

Do Not Track is useless garbage.

It doesn't stop any tracking. It's a voluntary program which doesn't mean what you think it means:

Even if you have Do Not Track turned on, that information will be collected and stored and used to create a profile of you that may or may not be accurate. That profile can be used by credit agencies, big corporations, and health insurance companies to make decisions about you that can literally affect your life and livelihood.

And it's not just the tracking industry that is ignoring the intent of Do Not Track.

If Firefox is relying on a useless fucking setting like Do Not Track to disable this advertising, then they're assholes.

Do Not Track is a complete lie in order to give the illusion corporations give a crap about your privacy or your wishes.

Want to stop being tracked? Run every ad blocker and privacy extension you can find. Because relying on some marketing asshole to not track you anyway is just stupid.

It's the piles and piles of third party shit on the internet embedded in every page which you need to be blocking.

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

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

http://www.dshield.org/diary/G...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/...

http://plus.evozi.com/204/mala...

http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/au/optus-...

http://www.zdnet.com/dutch-dns...

http://www.computerworld.com/s...

https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di...

http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/g...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/N...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/L...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

http://www.networkworld.com/ne...

* "Read 'em & weep" STILL more are coming (since that's only partial on my end, and the future WILL SHOW MORE without doubt)... & that's only SOME of the exploits DNS has experienced, I don't have them all but those will do!

(Simply facts supporting my former posts on the subject of DNS issues -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... AND http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... as I promised in it, to show the RAMPANT EXPLOITABILITY of DNS vs. my program AND WINDOWS protecting hosts perfectly...)

APK

P.S.=> You can't win, accept it... apk

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

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

http://www.dshield.org/diary/G...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/...

http://plus.evozi.com/204/mala...

http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/au/optus-...

http://www.zdnet.com/dutch-dns...

http://www.computerworld.com/s...

https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di...

http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/g...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/N...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/L...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

http://www.networkworld.com/ne...

* "Read 'em & weep" STILL more are coming (since that's only partial on my end, and the future WILL SHOW MORE without doubt)... & that's only SOME of the exploits DNS has experienced, I don't have them all but those will do!

(Simply facts supporting my former posts on the subject of DNS issues -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... AND http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... as I promised in it, to show the RAMPANT EXPLOITABILITY of DNS vs. my program AND WINDOWS protecting hosts perfectly...)

APK

P.S.=> You can't win, accept it... apk

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

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

http://www.dshield.org/diary/G...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/...

http://plus.evozi.com/204/mala...

http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/au/optus-...

http://www.zdnet.com/dutch-dns...

http://www.computerworld.com/s...

https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di...

http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/g...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/N...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/L...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

http://www.networkworld.com/ne...

* "Read 'em & weep" STILL more are coming (since that's only partial on my end, and the future WILL SHOW MORE without doubt)... & that's only SOME of the exploits DNS has experienced, I don't have them all but those will do!

(Simply facts supporting my former posts on the subject of DNS issues -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... AND http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... as I promised in it, to show the RAMPANT EXPLOITABILITY of DNS vs. my program AND WINDOWS protecting hosts perfectly...)

APK

P.S.=> You can't win, accept it... apk

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

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

http://www.dshield.org/diary/G...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

https://threatpost.com/en_us/b...

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/...

http://plus.evozi.com/204/mala...

http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/linkedin-...

http://www.zdnet.com/au/optus-...

http://www.zdnet.com/dutch-dns...

http://www.computerworld.com/s...

https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di...

http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/g...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/N...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/L...

http://www.dshield.org/diary/D...

http://www.networkworld.com/ne...

* "Read 'em & weep" STILL more are coming (since that's only partial on my end, and the future WILL SHOW MORE without doubt)... & that's only SOME of the exploits DNS has experienced, I don't have them all but those will do!

(Simply facts supporting my former posts on the subject of DNS issues -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... AND http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... as I promised in it, to show the RAMPANT EXPLOITABILITY of DNS vs. my program AND WINDOWS protecting hosts perfectly...)

APK

P.S.=> You can't win, accept it... apk

http://www.securityweek.com/fi...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/0...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/0...

http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/...

http://www.darkreading.com/per...

http://tech.slashdot.org/artic...

http://crypto.stanford.edu/dns...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/1...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/secu...

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

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/0...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/0...

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

http://blogs.zdnet.com/securit...

http://crypto.stanford.edu/dns...

* "Read 'em & weep" EVEN MORE are coming... & that's only SOME of the exploits DNS has experienced, I don't have them all but those will do!

(Simply facts supporting my former post as I promised in it, to show the RAMPANT EXPLOITABILITY of DNS vs. my program AND WINDOWS protecting hosts perfectly...)

APK

P.S.=> You can't win, accept it... apk

http://www.securityweek.com/fi...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/0...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/0...

http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/...

http://www.darkreading.com/per...

http://tech.slashdot.org/artic...

http://crypto.stanford.edu/dns...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/1...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/secu...

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

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/0...

http://it.slashdot.org/it/06/0...

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

http://blogs.zdnet.com/securit...

http://crypto.stanford.edu/dns...

* "Read 'em & weep" EVEN MORE are coming... & that's only SOME of the exploits DNS has experienced, I don't have them all but those will do!

(Simply facts supporting my former post as I promised in it, to show the RAMPANT EXPLOITABILITY of DNS vs. my program AND WINDOWS protecting hosts perfectly...)

APK

P.S.=> You can't win, accept it... apk

Automakers, though large and well-established, haven't put much effort into building the platform on which their cars run.

There's a reason for that. They're quite bad at it. That, and BlackBerry/QNX are quite good at it. Currently if you want Apple Car or Android Auto in your vehicle that vehicle will be running BlackBerry QNX Car as both platforms are simply plug-ins for QNX Car. BlackBerry needs to renegotiate its contracts such that they get credit just like Microsoft did with Sync so people know how pervasive BlackBerry actually is. Currently over 50% of the cars made worldwide run QNX Car. The problem is car makers choose what plug-ins to license for their vehicles and then customize the interface to their liking. That has led to some atrocious UI over the years but BlackBerry has sought to improve the situation with QNX Car 2.0 by providing more UI tools and widgets. Much of what Android Auto and Apple Car bring to the table have been possible for years. Car makers simply didn't see any need to add those features to their vehicles.

Correct.

Then, why don't you create your own distro free of systemd?

I'm building LFS right now.

Nobody is forcing you to use it,

Nope. They're trying, though.

and way smarted people than you,

know to look for the red squiggles

that actually create the most used distros,

Ah yes, the appeal to popularity.

as well as the all mighty keeper of the Linux kernel, don't see a problem with systemd.

Linus Torvalds said: "I don't actually have any particularly strong opinions on systemd itself. I've had issues with some of the core developers that I think are much too cavalier about bugs and compatibility, and I think some of the design details are insane

Now, what was that you were saying again? Nobody was listening.

Anything higher than 44.1/16 is scientifically proven to be wasteful.

Yes but be it SATA cables, Ethernet cables or higher than 44.1/16 you will find people that will believe their confirmation bias over facts.

AOL was once the largest site on the Internet. They were doing scalability before Microsoft invented the word. Under Michael Manos, they've been doing really innovative stuff like a lights-out, zero employee datacenter [1] and the recent micro-datacenter [2]. Their stuff is highly efficient, maintenance is scheduled in least costly way, and it mostly manages itself. Most of the "modern," "cutting-edge," "sophisticated" companies on Y Combinator's hiring page can't say the same about their infrastructure. Funniest part is that, despite all the case studies on highscalability.com etc, so many of them are still "trying to figure out" how they'll scale the exact same kind of apps. IT industry rarely learns from its successes or mistakes: keeps reinventing the wheel instead. AOL's old school approach just identifies the problem, applies a solution that works, invents one otherwise, and moves on to getting business done. The one thing to emulate, other than cool, datacenter design. :)

[1] https://loosebolts.wordpress.c...

[2] http://www.zdnet.com/article/a...!

Nick P, Security Engineer/Researcher

They already make money from Linux! By collecting dubious licensing fees from Android phone manufacturers, including Samsung.

This amounts to over $2bn, as of over a year ago.

Granted, they are not writing apps for it (yet), but they are making money from a Linux platform.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/h...

I guess the screen is polarized so that the different camera angles appear from corresponding audience viewpoints? Nifty, but not a "hologram."

You just wait until Win 10 launches and practically insists on MSN and THE CLOUD, Xbox for media integration, your mic as a default on device with cortana and sparton, ten tentacles hooked into your nuts and brains for every web service that defaults to bing,

Ok, yes, that's a problem. But its also not a problem.

I accept Microsoft might develop all that crap.
I accept Microsoft might turn all that crap on, or make the default rout. Note I don't necessarily LIKE it.

I also know it all going to be something I can turn off because: enterprise and government.

Those customers aren't going to put up with xbox integration, or MSN cloud signin, or always on microphones, or desktop search talking to bing. Or any of that crap... so I know that not only will I be able to turn it all off, but that it will be pretty easy too. No hacking, probably even GUI tools for it, with preset policy's I can just flip, save, and apply to any computer I buy, easily.

So while I know Microsoft might WANT 'my brainz' I also know they'll ensure they fully support not giving them 'my brainz' in a way that Google never will.

Sure google has apps for enterprise but its a bastard stepchild that is peanuts compared to their search and advertising division.

Microsoft will provide for what the enterprise wants. So when I read about horrible Microsoft feature X... I ask myself "would an enterprise put up with that?" and if the answer is no, I don't worry about it. And so far that's never let me down.

I do worry about Windows as a subsription service. -- Enterprises by and large are already on one. And I figure the 4k drm garbage will be real... enterprises by and large won't give a shit whether the pc's will play hollywood 4k movies or not.

But requiring an MSN account to sign into windows? Yeah I'm not worried about that. Requiring xbox integration? Nope. Not worried. Requiring always on Mic? Nope.

Yes you are correct it will be up to the user to chose as it is with all google services. The way the google search engine works I can turn on anon browsing in both FF and Chrome and google does not give a shit sideways it still does the same job SO I CALL BULLSHIT. Slashdot is starting to become a haven for Microsoft shills. GMAIL does not plaster my ass with adds or track the shit out of me and all this bullshit that has been spread by the SCROOGLE crowd here and elsewhere will eventually come to light when Google gets mad and strikes back by telling consumers the truth about the FUD campaign that Microsoft launched, financed, lobbied in Government and in general started a culture of MUD SLINGING bullshit because they really want to gain traction in web services and advertising revenue.

I am running ten tech preview and even the so called PRO is completely web centric and essentially a PITA to run for purposes like a DAW or workstation. The OS is a bloated mess of integrated web apps that constantly get in the way of everything you try to do with the system and don't work worth shit unless you have connection to the web. Every PC service interface is a royal pain in the ass. BUT I will give them this you can still access control panel but you have to make it work old school to do anything useful and the system configuration utilities are buried so deep that it makes VISTA LOOK GOOD! It can be customized but you have to go at it with a sledge hammer to make into a real operating system. And do follow the links that I posted as that tells the real tale and if it wasn't for Android revenues Microsoft would not even be in the cell phone business because to tell the truth the real dead boat anchor with baggage that they are trying to integrate into the Windows experience is their cell phones. This is what is really going on they are turning into a bi

If you look at zdnet.com article, you will find the complete list of patents. Or just google: android patent list china

What are the actual MS patents for which these Android companies are paying royalties? TFS and every one of TFAs don't say, don't even hint.

Look here?

You're a bit behind the times. Both Linux and OS X are now more vulnerable operating systems than Windows.

Show me one Linux vulnerability in the last year that didn't require a highly skilled attacker combined with a set of highly unlikely conditions, or rely on the system to be poorly configured. Hell, forget the year limit. Show me one from within the last decade. Good Luck!

I guess you've forgotten about this. Or you can search for ShellShock or Heartbleed. And then there are the kernel bugs that cause race conditions last December, or last May's bug that allows users to get privileged access or do a DoS, not too good in a shared hosting / shared server environment. This bug has nothing to do with a "poorly configured system". It's a flaw.

Here's the security vulnerability list for the linux kernel for 2014, with 133 bugs.

Some of these bugs made the evening news, so I don't know how you missed them all,

Sigh...Linux has more vulnerabilities than Windows by 3 to 1 in 2014, Windows beats iOS, OSX, and Linux in least number of vulnerabilities in 2014, and how to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps targeting the same weakness that more than 90% of malware target, the user...HAND.

And after July 14th?

XP is supported until 2019 by changing identity to POSReady, which requires a single registry key change. I get monthly security updates as I always have.

How about completely opening .Net

Completely? Not at all. According to microsoft engineers, only server side parts are going to be released. They also say what's the motivation behind this.

Microsoft is not planning to open source the client side .NET stack, which means it won't be open sourcing libraries specific to the client such as Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and Windows Forms

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-open-source-more-of-net-and-bring-it-to-linux-mac-os-x/

Small shops have been dead for a decade. and laws did not do it, it's back room deals like "franchise agreements".

100% incorrect.

In 2002 the FCC decided to regulate DSL and Cable broadband under Title I - which meant no common-carrier and so no net netruality and even more importantly no open access, effectively shutting out the small shops.

Brand X finally made its way to the supreme court in 2005 where it was decided that yes the FCC did have the authority to exempt cable companies from net neutrality requirements. What few small shops had not been starved by the years of Title I in practice were ended by that ruling.

If you care to read the actual ruling, you'll see that it is all about routing packets. The rules say, in short, that all traffic is to be routed equally without regard to source, destination, or content. It prevents Comcast, who effectively has monopoly power in most of the markets it serves, from charging Netflix extra simply to route packets from their servers to their subscribers. The ruling also prevents service providers from rerouting web requests to competitors' servers. It also prevents outright denying access to competitors. In fact, the ruling states quite clearly that ISPs are to act as common carriers and no censorship of content is to take place at all. You would know this if you actually read the ruling and stopped reading propaganda coming from right wing "news" sources.

citation please. I can assert that all Chinese routers are compromised in silicon, but it's no more valid than your accusation without a credible source..

The other major change is that security sites are starting to actually TEST Linux (instead of just buying the "many eyes" myth which is the classic "is ought" fallacy because it assumes because the code IS out there somebody with the years of experience in low level coding and ability to spot weak spots OUGHT to have audited it) and in several spots its been wanting, with GHOST being the latest nasty to come down the pipe. In fact if you are wondering how bad Linux is getting hammered by nasties? Gentoo Linux had more bugs than IE in 2014, 350 to 289 so not even close. In fact as of March this year both Apple and Linux have more bugs than Windows, again by pretty large amounts. For those wanting the figures and don't want to read TFL? OSX is the worst at 147 followed by iOS at 127, Linux at 119, and Windows, which the Linux faithful are always screaming is "full of bugs"? A grand total of...38.

Linux users SHOULD rejoice at this, as I've been saying for years that Linux has been skating by on security by obscurity and these numbers should make the devs finally take notice...of course these figures are before the huge uptake in systemd and since that is being controlled by Lennart "ship it anyway" Pottering? I'm betting Linux has their very own Code Red or Netsky before the year is out. It should be an interesting 2015 for Linux regardless as what the figures show is the malware writers have gone after Linux full bore, so seeing how many more Shellshocks and Heartbleeds we end up with should be enlightening.

For me personally I'll be curious to see if the next huge critical vulnerability in Linux comes from without...or within. As we've learned from Snowden the TLAs are gobbling up as much data as they can, and which OS is all the "secure" LiveCDs based on? Linux. And who is one of the biggest contributors to critical areas of Linux? Red Hat...well where does Red Hat get their money from? More than 86% of their money comes from the US government TLAs like NSA, FBI, CIA, etc. So if YOU were working at one of these agencies where would YOU go to get a backdoor or at least have a cowboy coder assigned (cough Pottering cough) to a critical subsystem so your black hats can get in? I know where I would go, I'd go to RH. After all, you think they are gonna bite the hand that feeds?

No, system designers are not complete morons.

Or are they?

not all open source code is bulletproof but microsoft has proven their code is swiss cheese. so why would anyone willingly use a MS product that for something that needs to be secure? when people are shooting at you, do you want to be wearing body armor or cheese?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/t...

Microsoft has (discounting the time before the nimda and code red disasters and the security push) consistently beat the industry average on fewer vulnerabilities for comparable products.

Specifically the later versions of internet information services (IIS) - the webserver that would be roughly comparable to Apache httpd with PHP, Ruby or Java - have fared extremely well in comparison: IIS 7 has had 8 vulns discovered in it's entire lifetime, while IIS 8 still has a clean sheet.

I'll bet it's on zdnet.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/s...

Does this describe how this respect works?

Two big associations, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Digital Advertising Alliance, represent 90% of advertisers. Downey says those big groups have devised their own interpretation of Do Not Track. When the servers controlled by those big companies encounter a DNT=1 header, says Downey, "They have said they will stop serving targeted ads but will still collect and store and monetize data.”

That is not respecting DNT, it's pretending to without actually respecting it.

Google's web services may not be a player in China (irrelevant, so I didn't check), but their browsers (desktop and android) most certainly are: http://www.chinainternetwatch....

I don't think "lessor" is a word, but if you meant "lesser" then you couldn't be more wrong: http://www.zdnet.com/article/n...

I'm quite confident that most of these Google-browser users don't have a clue what digital certificates are.

Verisign, Thawte and GeoTrust would probably be treated the same way, if they failed to act of known false certificates. This isn't just "negligently or willfully making bogus certificates", this is mostly about failing to fix the problem after having been informed of having created "bogus certificates". Matter of fact, these CA's regularly update their recovation lists (CRL): https://isc.sans.edu/crls.html

Really?

Really. Everyone has their anecdotes, but Apple has long been at or near the top of hardware reliability.

As someone who did tech support for Macs many years ago, I cant buy them being more robust or reliable.

Because you're a Hateboi. Too bad Apple has placed at or near the top of hardware reliability since the Jurassic age.

Pretty much anything you can get from a Mac these days can be gotten from another manufacturer for less money.

If you're a sophist who thinks that a 7 lbs plastic brick is the same thing as a 3 lbs machine aluminum laptop because they have the same processor, sure. Comparable products cost comparable prices.

Except the wank factor of course.

Your projection is noted. Look, Zombie Jobs isn't holding a gun to your head. If you don't like Apple products....try...not buying them. I have no use for a large-screen phone or one with a curved screen, but you don't see me whining at length about Samsung the company. I just buy what I want that does what I want.

Try it some time.

Why do they pay for extended support when they could just use the posready registry fix and get free XP updates to 2019?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/r...

More of these M.2 SSD drives on the way, some 2-3 times faster than this one. http://www.thessdreview.com/ou... http://www.intelgamingpromo.co... http://www.zdnet.com/article/c... http://forums.hardwarezone.com...

There are lots of people who can do that and all you need is decent credit & the ability to sign your name

http://www.zdnet.com/article/9...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/la...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/uc...

Fortunately, more informed parties disagree with you:

HTTP/2 doesn't require you to use TLS (the standard form of SSL, the Web's encryption layer), but its higher performance makes using encryption easier, since it reduces the impact on how fast your site seems.

In fact, many people believe that the only safe way to deploy the new protocol on the "open" Internet is to use encryption; Firefox and Chrome have said that they'll only support HTTP/2 using TLS.

They have two reasons for this. One is that deploying a new version of HTTP across the Internet is hard, because a lot of "middleboxes" like proxies and firewalls assume that HTTP/1 won't ever change, and they can introduce interoperability and even security problems if they try to interpret a HTTP/2 connection.

The other is that the Web is an increasingly dangerous place, and using more encryption is one way to mitigate a number of threats. By using HTTP/2 as a carrot for sites to use TLS, they're hoping that the overall security of the Web will improve.

So stick with plaintext HTTP/1.0 as long as you want, but the rest of us are moving to secure-by-default.

Matrox HeadCast in 2001.

it makes sense that a device that requires you use the Google office apps rather than native apps, would require you use considerably more memory and power.

Yes, it's ridiculous, but think of it like this: how optimal do you think a Google spreadsheet, implemented over JavaScript, the DOM, and XML, in turn implemented over various abstraction layers that eventually get down to C++ and some kinda linkage to the native widgets of the underlying OS, is, compared to a Microsoft/GNOME Spreadsheet implemented directly in C++, with a little abstraction but not a lot between that C++ and the underlying OS?

TL;DR: A device that forces you to run desktop apps inside a web browser will always need more power than a device that allows optimized apps to run.

Are you forgetting the other Chromebooks, all implanted with low-end processors? The Pixel is noteworthy because it's overkill. James Kendrick writes, "My old Acer C720 Chromebook had budget hardware when released, and still runs Chrome OS well." (Okay, his "old" Chromebook came out just a year ago. But still, it has a Celeron. Others have ARM processors.) The consensus is that Chromebooks are snappy no matter the hardware.

And back in 2007 you'd be telling us the iPhone would present no threat to BlackBerry. And before that you'd have told us that the iPod would pose no threat to other mp3 players. The sheer amount of fault predictions that Slashdot nerds have made about Apple are hilarious.

You're revising history as much as Apple revises their products. A $599 phone (with no subsidy discount), locked to one carrier, that can't run 3rd party applications, doesn't support MMS, has poor call quality and no 3G support was no threat to Blackberry. A $399, Mac-only, MP3 player that lacks USB was no threat to other MP3 players.

The iPod didn't become a genuine threat to competitors (and a runaway success) until hell froze over and Windows support was added. The iPhone didn't become a threat to competitors until Apple allowed AT&T to subsidize it. By the time the products had overcome their respective major roadblocks to widespread adoption, the current versions resembled their initial predecessors in name and physical appearance, but most of the missing capabilities the nerd peanut gallery derided them for, had been addressed.

If anything, this is a cautionary tale that while the Apple Watch may eventually be yet another blazing success story for Apple, the model that goes on sale on April 24th will be nothing like the updated version that catapults it to mainstream popularity. Of course, it could also flop. As they said on Mythbusters, "failure is always an option." Either way, it will be an amusing show, and I'm sure plenty of people will have their own revisionist history to write when it succeeds or fails.

USB type C finally solves the issue of non-reversible cables. The Lighting port is not that robust, there are issues with the charging pins corroding.

I keep hearing about Microsoft's Android patents but I still don't know what they are?

There's a link in here.

Google: microsoft android patent list

Then you will see articles detailing the Microsoft/Android patent situation.

The list of patents was secret until last year, then China spilled the beans.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/310-microsoft-patents-used-in-android-licensing-agreements-revealed-by-chinese-gov/

Will NVIDIA be paying the Microsoft Tax?

They've gotten worse about bloatware: http://www.zdnet.com/article/s...

...wasn't it? I've sort of lost track, but I think Microsoft has made precisely this claim for every browser. Yes, here we go:

" That's your vision for IE7, to definitely support Web standards?

Chris: Absolutely, in IE7 we really are trying to support Web standards. Even at the expense of more backwards compatibility..."

Then much the same thing was said of IE8,

and then we read that
"I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised to read this post on el reg that highlights that IE9 is currently the most standards compliant beta browser on the block. Iâ(TM)m really proud of the work the IE9 team is doing to nail the the things that were previously levelled at Internet Explorer for being a 'bad browser.'"

It's the same every time. They acknowledge that the previous browser wasn't standards-compliant after all, and promise the one they are now working on is.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

$28,000 per arrest could be cheap compared to the alternatives. You can use as many or as few drones to cover a given area as you need to maintain an acceptable captur rate. And drones can be moved more easiy than stuff that's fixed or tied to ground facilities.