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Google Attack On the Mobile Market Rumored
xchg writes in with a somewhat speculative, though plausible, piece from WiseAndroid claiming that Google is gearing up for an all-out assault on the mobile-phone market that will include a new, Google-branded handset and the first comprehensive Google phone service with unlimited free calls. "The real breakthrough, however, will come with the marriage of the Googlephone to Google Voice, the Californian company’s high-tech phone service. Google Voice gives US users a free phone number and allows unlimited free calls to any phone in the country — landline or mobile. International calls start from... just over a penny a minute. Google Voice also uses sophisticated voice recognition to turn voicemails into emails, can block telemarketing calls automatically and offers free text messaging. Google sounded its intentions two weeks ago when it purchased a small company called Gizmo5... [E]xperts are predicting that the Googlephone will be launched in the US early next year."
Ever since the introduction of 2G mobile technology, we've just been throwing data back and forth between the towers, and yet even in 2009 the telcos still charge us differently for minutes, text messages, and "data."
It was always going to take a disruptive force to get them to recognize data as data and price it as such. Maybe Google will serve as just that disruption.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
That's not true. At any point you can go to the credit card company and say "Here is the $3874 I owe you" and get out of your contract.
The terms are only unilaterally adjusted if you pay it off monthly. In that case, you're still in the loan, so of course your contract holds. They can't ignore the contract. You signify agreement to any changes by not canceling your account. If you've been using your credit responsibly, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you've been using it like a second source of income, yeah, you're screwed.
I do think many of the credit card company's practices are horrible, and some should be illegal. In fact, some are now (read: June 1st) thanks to the credit card reform that was passed. But it annoys me that so many people take on so much debt and then complain that they have to pay it off.
I don't see enough people taking responsibility, so I poked at your point that read that way to me.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Google market cap: 183.94 billion
Comcast market cap: 42.48 billion
Citation? Otherwise, I think you are "making this up".