Unlimited assumes there is excess bandwidth available to virtually all cell phone towers, or each tower can be configured to auto-throttle users based on demand so that their bandwidth limit is never reached. For providers that have been losing customers monthly, rather than gaining, it makes sense to offer what would normally be a losing proposition because they are desperate to get more revenue in the door. AT&T and Verizon would be able to solve the problem by offering different data SPEEDS based on what the customer would want to pay for, but they don't have the creativity to offer anything other than "top speed with data limits" as their way to keep people from using excessive amounts of bandwidth. There should be options, such as Unlimited base 3G speeds for $20/month, or 2GB of data at 7.2Mbps for $20, unlimited 7.2Mbps for $40/month, and other plans that take HSPA+ and LTE data speeds into account. Notice that cable and DSL providers don't give max speeds for the same prices, you get to pick what speed you want your unlimited data to run at, and if you want faster, you pay more. Even with FIOS, if you want the REALLY fast speeds, you have to pay a LOT for it.
There IS a basic concept that people who intentionally live in remote areas also ACCEPT the lack of services that living in a more populated area would provide. If you WANT to live deep in the woods, then you have to be willing to spend the money to install and maintain your own fiber optic lines from an area that has a connection, or not complain because YOU willingly are living that far away from where services are offered. In the same way that people in rural areas do not want their tax money going to pay for homeless shelters in cities, most people don't want to pay an extra $2000/year just so someone out in the middle of nowhere can have a high speed Internet connection. Broadband is not "a right", and the US government has not done anything to help providers, so who is going to pick up the bill?
CELLULAR based broadband is a problem in general, because with people moving around, excess bandwidth needs to be available EVERYWHERE, just in case some kid decides to drive somewhere and stream a movie. Now, I can see 802.22(not 802.11) fixing many problems when it comes to broadband availability, but until we see it implemented, I wouldn't count on it being the solution.
Have you looked at the size difference between Iceland and the USA? Averages are very misleading as well, because if 99 percent of the population lives in a city but that city only covers 1 percent of the size of the country, and broadband coverage is limited to the city, then you can say that while 99 percent of the population gets broadband, you can also say that 99 percent of the COUNTRY does not.
In the USA, there are large areas of low population density, where it would cost more to provide the service than the entire population of those towns would be able to pay, even if EVERY person were willing and able to pay for the service. You sound like you have never been here, but to get across many STATES here will take more than 12 hours of driving....consider that sort of distance, and the fact that it is over 3000 miles from coast to coast in the USA. When you get entire towns where the population is under 50 people, not households, but people, then you NEED the government to help subsidize offering services to these sorts of places.
Is there more risk of an accident if there is a passenger in the car, or someone who is talking on a hands free calling device? The person in the passenger seat can actually be more of a distraction than someone on the phone, so what will we do, limit vehicles to not have any passenger seats?
This is the old chicken and egg situation when it comes to parts, so the sooner the standard is released, the sooner products will show up that support that standard. Now, one thing that many businesses want would be the idea of clients with no local storage, or perhaps even remove all processing in the local "terminal", and have a central server provide EVERYTHING. The only way to make it so this sort of thing won't seem like crap compared to a reasonable workstation would be to have enough bandwidth to handle ANY demand. Displays connected via Ethernet could be possible for example.
For the residential market, there will also be some who go with a central "server" for all their music and videos in the home, and for that, higher speed links would be welcomed. Another thing that many people do not consider is how quickly SSDs will take over once the price comes down, which also means that access to information will become that much faster. There is also the element where connecting routers and switches to provide greater bandwidth within businesses is desired. The residential market will also generally trail the business market when it comes to "wanting/needing the latest and greatest", so just because you are looking at how things are TODAY precludes the potential for how things will be in 10 years.
Basically, think outside your perception of "the general public", and look at where things WILL be. I remember when 10 base 2 with terminators on the coax based cables was normal for networking, Things evolve, and the needs and capabilities evolve. I also remember the days of dumb terminals, which basically died as the needs of workstations precluded having a central server that held all the processing abilities. Those days COULD return if bandwidth was high enough to have the video, audio, and I/O be connected via a network connection.
When it comes to the mobile market, iOS doesn't seem all that different in terms of the UI compared to the original iPod Touch/iPhone, and the iPad is still using the same look, so there has been very little further innovation on the UI front. MacOS X may be updated, but again, the UI hasn't changed since it was first released in 2001. If their big concept that their main innovations are in the use of the computer, then they are really slacking.
Compare this to Microsoft, who was far behind MacOS X in many areas back in 2001, and with Windows 7 is actually a bit better in a number of areas of the UI, and Windows 8 UI, for all the complaints about it, at LEAST is an attempt to change how people use the computer, which should be seen as more innovative than anything we have seen in the computer space for a long time. For those who need the reminder, innovation is about something NEW, and many of the things that Apple is so proud of is simply taking the concepts that others have come up with, and then making it look better. From that perspective then, Apple has not been terribly innovative for a long time.
Even the high quality screens in Apple computers shouldn't be seen as really INNOVATIVE, since screen resolution increases should be seen as OBVIOUS...remember the original CGA was quite a bit worse in terms of resolution. Many people have been complaining that we are "stuck" at 1920x1080 for the affordable displays, and higher resolutions have not been aggressively pushed by the computer industry by anyone other than Apple. So, Apple does deserve credit for SOME things, but innovation in terms of user interface improvements is something that Apple is very very resistant to at this point.
apt-get dist-upgrade is difficult? Or, with Vista, turning off UAC to avoid getting prompted for every change while tweaking the machine? I can understand that some people are allergic to change, but those who are technical enough to be able to handle Linux shouldn't be THAT afraid.
Now, the Windows 8 UI changes are something to be CONCERNED about, but I suspect that it is more about people not wanting to have to learn something new after so many years with Explorer. Note that Mac people would storm the Apple HQ at this point if Apple were to consider changing the UI for MacOS, it's only been what, 11 years since MacOS X first came out?
And if you abuse your rights, you deserve what you get. If you release information that puts the lives of others at risk, then you MIGHT expect those people, if they survive, to do something about it.
Oh, he would get a trial, but not necessarily via the normal process that citizens would get. Basically, he violated the laws of the USA, and as such, he will be treated as someone who is a lawbreaker and who has put people in danger. If he was only guilty of exposing true cases of the US government employees who were in violation of their own rules and laws, then he would get more sympathy, but instead, he just released information without regard for who might be harmed in the process.
I am all for showing when a government is in violation of the law as normal whistle blowing, but this putz just wanted another publicity stunt by releasing documents without ANY thought.
Here in the USA, the "flagship phones" tend to be offered by the carriers with a 2-year contract to get that price. There are some deals for 1 year contracts as well, but they are not nearly as good. The issue I and others have is that the service charges we pay while under contract is exactly the same as we pay while off contract. This really encourages buying a new phone every two years(or 1.5 years for those renewing their contract) to get the best value for the monthly service fee. Most of us are paying $100 or so per month per phone for the service fees, give or take, but that does not go down if we are off contract or buy a phone at full price. Going from a $600 price without contract down to $200 with 2 year contract seems like a good deal, but then again, $600 for a phone seems a bit extreme to me.
When it comes to software upgrades, a big part of this is the carriers, and the REQUIREMENTS they put into the contracts when it comes to support. Apple went with the decision to support their own devices, so the carriers are not required to SUPPORT broken phones due to a failed upgrade and they are sent to Apple. The other device manufacturers leave the support for updates to the carriers, so the carriers need to do their own QA on every software update, and THAT is why there is a big delay. It isn't the device manufacturers that are at fault MOST of the time when it comes down to it, it is AT&T and Verizon being the slowest to release OS updates compared to EVERY other carrier on the planet(except perhaps the carrier(s) in Mexico).
The phone manufacturers have not made noise over the carriers being the ones at fault, because they are afraid of not getting their new phones picked up, but if you talk to any insiders, you would probably find out that they have the new OS versions ready to go on most of their handsets within a week or two, then perhaps a month or two for QA before sending them on to the carriers, who then will sit on the updates for a year before allowing customers to get them. I saw this happen with the Palm Pre Plus on AT&T where the update was ready, offered on carriers across Europe and on the phones that were not carrier specific, yet month after month after month passed without any updates. Palm even released 2.0 for the Pre Plus on one carrier, none of the others approved it so they were stuck with 1.4.5 and then 1.4.5.1.
So, AT&T and Verizon are the ones at fault for the OS updates not being released.
I can see Microsoft and others going with Google as well in this case, since hurting Apple would help EVERYONE. Apple is like the Chinese government in trying to control all the people within its sphere of control and force them to do things the way it wants. The "you MUST go through the iTunes store and pay us 30 percent" crap should really be investigated by the various government departments for violations of the law.
This is all in response to Apple trying to kill the Android phone market by preventing their devices from being imported, and nothing more. Apple started all this lawsuit garbage, and deserves to be slapped down hard for the MANY cases of THEIR copying of ideas from others.
The UK isn't a "lap dog". They are friends of the USA, and as such, the USA would also support requests by the UK for a lot of things. The difference is that the US government tends to be a bit more active around the world, like it or not(many in the USA don't like it either), so the UK gets dragged into more things.
Keep in mind that since English is spoken in both the USA and the UK, there is a bond of generally shared language that is not shared by most other countries, and language has always been a key element in feeling someone is either "one of you" of not, which plays into the negative feelings felt by some toward Spanish speaking people who are in the USA, but that is the subject of another discussion.
Now, there IS a bit of a difference here, because anyone who would pick security and abandon freedom for it really are at odds with the reason the USA was founded. People will fight for freedom, and that also means they will go against a government who is pushing security over freedom.
Being able to identify someone with a license plate is not the problem, but when does recognition become monitoring a tracking the movements of individuals? Would you want the police to be monitoring your every move all the time, even if you are not doing anything illegal? This is the issue, the "keeping records" part needs to go away. Make it so any license plates scanned are removed from the system after 30 minutes, unless a ticket is given, and it should again be deleted if there is no reason to keep it after the ticket is contested.
Those who get tickets regularly should know that there is a record of it, so there isn't a problem with it being kept at that point.
You misunderstand the concern here. Do you feel that you should be tracked and monitored by the government when you are not involved in any crimes? If there is an investigation of criminal activity, then license plate readers would be very useful, but what about rogue police officers who just decide to track the movements of individuals? Monitoring everyone in the hopes of discovering a crime goes against the idea of being innocent until proven guilty, and most people feel that it is abusive for police to pull someone over who is not breaking any laws.
What if you worked nights, drove a regular car, and every night you were pulled over to-from your job or to get "lunch"? You might get a bit offended by that, and that is when driving at night IS seen as unusual. Now, what about the police just keeping a record of every car on the road, with no reason for it? If they pull you over for a traffic violation, then it makes sense to speed up the process of issuing a ticket, but if they just randomly collect license plate information, then what?
So, does MONITORING of people who are not suspected of a crime seem like it is good for society? That isn't enforcement, and that is the problem. How about if a given police officer decided to use blanket monitoring to trace everywhere you go, for no reason? That starts to sound like it might be a bit paranoid, but it also sounds like the government keeping tabs on EVERYONE, and a police state is NOT what the USA is all about.
You confuse two issues at play, how well HTML5 works for displaying video content in a web page, and how well it works for full applications. I agree that for stupid garbage like banner advertisements, HTML 5 is a better choice, but for web APPLICATIONS, even simple stuff like speedtest.net, I would prefer Flash. Bugs in a given environment are a different issue.
On the flip side, making people install a dedicated application means that for single-time visits to a web page just takes up space on the device. Why waste storage space on small apps that SHOULD work just by going to a web page? Apple forced the issue just so they could artificially inflate the number of apps on iDevices which would not be needed if Flash were even allowed by Apple. Basically, take 100,000 apps off the iTunes store that would never have been there if not for the lack of Flash.
This is the other side of the chicken and egg question about getting new devices/products accepted. The public knows about Adobe because of Adobe Reader, and Flash player. The fact that people now know about the company is a big part of why many will end up at the Adobe web site, which in turn sells Adobe products. Kill Flash, and you run the risk of reduced public exposure to the company name, and a reduction in sales in the long term.
Since Adobe and HTML 5 or H.264 are NOT associated when it comes to public perception, suggesting this is like suggesting a given brand of car, just one of many instead of the "go to" brand.
They would need to have a reason to arrest those people. If there are people who are breaking the laws of Ecuador while in that country, then it makes sense that they be arrested. I doubt that Ecuador would want their embassy closed, and all things considered, there isn't a real advantage to giving THEM anything at this point, so they are risking a lot here.
The lower the population density, the easier it is to offer higher speed connections. Also, if the government actually helps pay for the deployment of fiber, or even provides the backbone, that really helps. People forget that the US government hasn't done much, if anything to help in this area for a long long time.
If you lay your own fiber, and have no other people using it, you can get full speed, and the more people using it means you need more fiber to handle the demand. I just don't see the US government paying for anything involving the Internet, unless it would be to provide broadband to very rural areas that will never be profitable. This is the same as towns with a population of under 100 people total having a school with a full faculty, where the local population would NEVER be able to afford to pay for the expenses of that school.
There is a huge difference between what speed they set customers to, and if there is enough bandwidth where you are to handle the demand. The big question is the way your home and building are wired, plus the connection from the building to the network, then how much bandwidth is available in your neighborhood. So, they may have applied it to you, but you just don't see it.
I have noticed that Cablevision out on the east end of Long Island has boosted average speeds to many from the 7-13Mbps range(which already was decent) well upwards, with many seeing over 20Mbps over the past year. This is the sort of change that DOES help support the numbers getting better overall. While not every access provider is boosting speeds, there has been an effort out there to boost speeds, and to improve capacity on networks.
What many forget is that to offer increased speeds, ISPs need to have excess capacity to handle bumping the speeds, and that is why progress has been so slow for many. How much does it cost to add more fiber in a suburban town so that speeds can be improved without hitting capacity limits on the main connection to that town? How about replacing older equipment, and do you increase speeds in just one neighborhood once the work is done to ALLOW for increased speeds, or do you wait until all the old equipment is replaced, and then turn on better speeds for everyone?
I remember that back in 2002, Cablevision was still offering speeds of "up to" 10Mbps, which was boosted to 15Mbps in 2003-2004 as a part of the normal service. While not all areas have seen the increases we have seen out here on the east end of Long Island, the EFFORT to improve speeds can not be denied.
The idea is that Firefox 15 HELPS reduce memory usage, so those 2GB laptops will be able to handle it. The real key is that Firefox by design is working to cut memory usage, but you can't help it if web pages themselves become larger and demand more resources.
Just because something is the most popular does not mean it is good. Flash by itself isn't bad, but add stupid Zynga games like Cityville, and suddenly you have very high memory usage. Now, the real question is what version of Firefox you have, and what plugins and addons you have. Firefox 14 with Flash 11.3.300.270 should not generating too much memory usage, but again, games like Cityville will take up a LOT of memory by design, and no browser will fix that.
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Unlimited assumes there is excess bandwidth available to virtually all cell phone towers, or each tower can be configured to auto-throttle users based on demand so that their bandwidth limit is never reached. For providers that have been losing customers monthly, rather than gaining, it makes sense to offer what would normally be a losing proposition because they are desperate to get more revenue in the door. AT&T and Verizon would be able to solve the problem by offering different data SPEEDS based on what the customer would want to pay for, but they don't have the creativity to offer anything other than "top speed with data limits" as their way to keep people from using excessive amounts of bandwidth. There should be options, such as Unlimited base 3G speeds for $20/month, or 2GB of data at 7.2Mbps for $20, unlimited 7.2Mbps for $40/month, and other plans that take HSPA+ and LTE data speeds into account. Notice that cable and DSL providers don't give max speeds for the same prices, you get to pick what speed you want your unlimited data to run at, and if you want faster, you pay more. Even with FIOS, if you want the REALLY fast speeds, you have to pay a LOT for it.
There IS a basic concept that people who intentionally live in remote areas also ACCEPT the lack of services that living in a more populated area would provide. If you WANT to live deep in the woods, then you have to be willing to spend the money to install and maintain your own fiber optic lines from an area that has a connection, or not complain because YOU willingly are living that far away from where services are offered. In the same way that people in rural areas do not want their tax money going to pay for homeless shelters in cities, most people don't want to pay an extra $2000/year just so someone out in the middle of nowhere can have a high speed Internet connection. Broadband is not "a right", and the US government has not done anything to help providers, so who is going to pick up the bill?
CELLULAR based broadband is a problem in general, because with people moving around, excess bandwidth needs to be available EVERYWHERE, just in case some kid decides to drive somewhere and stream a movie. Now, I can see 802.22(not 802.11) fixing many problems when it comes to broadband availability, but until we see it implemented, I wouldn't count on it being the solution.
Have you looked at the size difference between Iceland and the USA? Averages are very misleading as well, because if 99 percent of the population lives in a city but that city only covers 1 percent of the size of the country, and broadband coverage is limited to the city, then you can say that while 99 percent of the population gets broadband, you can also say that 99 percent of the COUNTRY does not.
In the USA, there are large areas of low population density, where it would cost more to provide the service than the entire population of those towns would be able to pay, even if EVERY person were willing and able to pay for the service. You sound like you have never been here, but to get across many STATES here will take more than 12 hours of driving....consider that sort of distance, and the fact that it is over 3000 miles from coast to coast in the USA. When you get entire towns where the population is under 50 people, not households, but people, then you NEED the government to help subsidize offering services to these sorts of places.
Is there more risk of an accident if there is a passenger in the car, or someone who is talking on a hands free calling device? The person in the passenger seat can actually be more of a distraction than someone on the phone, so what will we do, limit vehicles to not have any passenger seats?
This is the old chicken and egg situation when it comes to parts, so the sooner the standard is released, the sooner products will show up that support that standard. Now, one thing that many businesses want would be the idea of clients with no local storage, or perhaps even remove all processing in the local "terminal", and have a central server provide EVERYTHING. The only way to make it so this sort of thing won't seem like crap compared to a reasonable workstation would be to have enough bandwidth to handle ANY demand. Displays connected via Ethernet could be possible for example.
For the residential market, there will also be some who go with a central "server" for all their music and videos in the home, and for that, higher speed links would be welcomed. Another thing that many people do not consider is how quickly SSDs will take over once the price comes down, which also means that access to information will become that much faster. There is also the element where connecting routers and switches to provide greater bandwidth within businesses is desired. The residential market will also generally trail the business market when it comes to "wanting/needing the latest and greatest", so just because you are looking at how things are TODAY precludes the potential for how things will be in 10 years.
Basically, think outside your perception of "the general public", and look at where things WILL be. I remember when 10 base 2 with terminators on the coax based cables was normal for networking, Things evolve, and the needs and capabilities evolve. I also remember the days of dumb terminals, which basically died as the needs of workstations precluded having a central server that held all the processing abilities. Those days COULD return if bandwidth was high enough to have the video, audio, and I/O be connected via a network connection.
When it comes to the mobile market, iOS doesn't seem all that different in terms of the UI compared to the original iPod Touch/iPhone, and the iPad is still using the same look, so there has been very little further innovation on the UI front. MacOS X may be updated, but again, the UI hasn't changed since it was first released in 2001. If their big concept that their main innovations are in the use of the computer, then they are really slacking.
Compare this to Microsoft, who was far behind MacOS X in many areas back in 2001, and with Windows 7 is actually a bit better in a number of areas of the UI, and Windows 8 UI, for all the complaints about it, at LEAST is an attempt to change how people use the computer, which should be seen as more innovative than anything we have seen in the computer space for a long time. For those who need the reminder, innovation is about something NEW, and many of the things that Apple is so proud of is simply taking the concepts that others have come up with, and then making it look better. From that perspective then, Apple has not been terribly innovative for a long time.
Even the high quality screens in Apple computers shouldn't be seen as really INNOVATIVE, since screen resolution increases should be seen as OBVIOUS...remember the original CGA was quite a bit worse in terms of resolution. Many people have been complaining that we are "stuck" at 1920x1080 for the affordable displays, and higher resolutions have not been aggressively pushed by the computer industry by anyone other than Apple. So, Apple does deserve credit for SOME things, but innovation in terms of user interface improvements is something that Apple is very very resistant to at this point.
apt-get dist-upgrade is difficult?
Or, with Vista, turning off UAC to avoid getting prompted for every change while tweaking the machine? I can understand that some people are allergic to change, but those who are technical enough to be able to handle Linux shouldn't be THAT afraid.
Now, the Windows 8 UI changes are something to be CONCERNED about, but I suspect that it is more about people not wanting to have to learn something new after so many years with Explorer. Note that Mac people would storm the Apple HQ at this point if Apple were to consider changing the UI for MacOS, it's only been what, 11 years since MacOS X first came out?
And if you abuse your rights, you deserve what you get. If you release information that puts the lives of others at risk, then you MIGHT expect those people, if they survive, to do something about it.
Oh, he would get a trial, but not necessarily via the normal process that citizens would get. Basically, he violated the laws of the USA, and as such, he will be treated as someone who is a lawbreaker and who has put people in danger. If he was only guilty of exposing true cases of the US government employees who were in violation of their own rules and laws, then he would get more sympathy, but instead, he just released information without regard for who might be harmed in the process.
I am all for showing when a government is in violation of the law as normal whistle blowing, but this putz just wanted another publicity stunt by releasing documents without ANY thought.
Here in the USA, the "flagship phones" tend to be offered by the carriers with a 2-year contract to get that price. There are some deals for 1 year contracts as well, but they are not nearly as good. The issue I and others have is that the service charges we pay while under contract is exactly the same as we pay while off contract. This really encourages buying a new phone every two years(or 1.5 years for those renewing their contract) to get the best value for the monthly service fee. Most of us are paying $100 or so per month per phone for the service fees, give or take, but that does not go down if we are off contract or buy a phone at full price. Going from a $600 price without contract down to $200 with 2 year contract seems like a good deal, but then again, $600 for a phone seems a bit extreme to me.
When it comes to software upgrades, a big part of this is the carriers, and the REQUIREMENTS they put into the contracts when it comes to support. Apple went with the decision to support their own devices, so the carriers are not required to SUPPORT broken phones due to a failed upgrade and they are sent to Apple. The other device manufacturers leave the support for updates to the carriers, so the carriers need to do their own QA on every software update, and THAT is why there is a big delay. It isn't the device manufacturers that are at fault MOST of the time when it comes down to it, it is AT&T and Verizon being the slowest to release OS updates compared to EVERY other carrier on the planet(except perhaps the carrier(s) in Mexico).
The phone manufacturers have not made noise over the carriers being the ones at fault, because they are afraid of not getting their new phones picked up, but if you talk to any insiders, you would probably find out that they have the new OS versions ready to go on most of their handsets within a week or two, then perhaps a month or two for QA before sending them on to the carriers, who then will sit on the updates for a year before allowing customers to get them. I saw this happen with the Palm Pre Plus on AT&T where the update was ready, offered on carriers across Europe and on the phones that were not carrier specific, yet month after month after month passed without any updates. Palm even released 2.0 for the Pre Plus on one carrier, none of the others approved it so they were stuck with 1.4.5 and then 1.4.5.1.
So, AT&T and Verizon are the ones at fault for the OS updates not being released.
I can see Microsoft and others going with Google as well in this case, since hurting Apple would help EVERYONE. Apple is like the Chinese government in trying to control all the people within its sphere of control and force them to do things the way it wants. The "you MUST go through the iTunes store and pay us 30 percent" crap should really be investigated by the various government departments for violations of the law.
This is all in response to Apple trying to kill the Android phone market by preventing their devices from being imported, and nothing more. Apple started all this lawsuit garbage, and deserves to be slapped down hard for the MANY cases of THEIR copying of ideas from others.
The UK isn't a "lap dog". They are friends of the USA, and as such, the USA would also support requests by the UK for a lot of things. The difference is that the US government tends to be a bit more active around the world, like it or not(many in the USA don't like it either), so the UK gets dragged into more things.
Keep in mind that since English is spoken in both the USA and the UK, there is a bond of generally shared language that is not shared by most other countries, and language has always been a key element in feeling someone is either "one of you" of not, which plays into the negative feelings felt by some toward Spanish speaking people who are in the USA, but that is the subject of another discussion.
Now, there IS a bit of a difference here, because anyone who would pick security and abandon freedom for it really are at odds with the reason the USA was founded. People will fight for freedom, and that also means they will go against a government who is pushing security over freedom.
Being able to identify someone with a license plate is not the problem, but when does recognition become monitoring a tracking the movements of individuals? Would you want the police to be monitoring your every move all the time, even if you are not doing anything illegal? This is the issue, the "keeping records" part needs to go away. Make it so any license plates scanned are removed from the system after 30 minutes, unless a ticket is given, and it should again be deleted if there is no reason to keep it after the ticket is contested.
Those who get tickets regularly should know that there is a record of it, so there isn't a problem with it being kept at that point.
You misunderstand the concern here. Do you feel that you should be tracked and monitored by the government when you are not involved in any crimes? If there is an investigation of criminal activity, then license plate readers would be very useful, but what about rogue police officers who just decide to track the movements of individuals? Monitoring everyone in the hopes of discovering a crime goes against the idea of being innocent until proven guilty, and most people feel that it is abusive for police to pull someone over who is not breaking any laws.
What if you worked nights, drove a regular car, and every night you were pulled over to-from your job or to get "lunch"? You might get a bit offended by that, and that is when driving at night IS seen as unusual. Now, what about the police just keeping a record of every car on the road, with no reason for it? If they pull you over for a traffic violation, then it makes sense to speed up the process of issuing a ticket, but if they just randomly collect license plate information, then what?
So, does MONITORING of people who are not suspected of a crime seem like it is good for society? That isn't enforcement, and that is the problem. How about if a given police officer decided to use blanket monitoring to trace everywhere you go, for no reason? That starts to sound like it might be a bit paranoid, but it also sounds like the government keeping tabs on EVERYONE, and a police state is NOT what the USA is all about.
You confuse two issues at play, how well HTML5 works for displaying video content in a web page, and how well it works for full applications. I agree that for stupid garbage like banner advertisements, HTML 5 is a better choice, but for web APPLICATIONS, even simple stuff like speedtest.net, I would prefer Flash. Bugs in a given environment are a different issue.
On the flip side, making people install a dedicated application means that for single-time visits to a web page just takes up space on the device. Why waste storage space on small apps that SHOULD work just by going to a web page? Apple forced the issue just so they could artificially inflate the number of apps on iDevices which would not be needed if Flash were even allowed by Apple. Basically, take 100,000 apps off the iTunes store that would never have been there if not for the lack of Flash.
This is the other side of the chicken and egg question about getting new devices/products accepted. The public knows about Adobe because of Adobe Reader, and Flash player. The fact that people now know about the company is a big part of why many will end up at the Adobe web site, which in turn sells Adobe products. Kill Flash, and you run the risk of reduced public exposure to the company name, and a reduction in sales in the long term.
Since Adobe and HTML 5 or H.264 are NOT associated when it comes to public perception, suggesting this is like suggesting a given brand of car, just one of many instead of the "go to" brand.
They would need to have a reason to arrest those people. If there are people who are breaking the laws of Ecuador while in that country, then it makes sense that they be arrested. I doubt that Ecuador would want their embassy closed, and all things considered, there isn't a real advantage to giving THEM anything at this point, so they are risking a lot here.
The lower the population density, the easier it is to offer higher speed connections. Also, if the government actually helps pay for the deployment of fiber, or even provides the backbone, that really helps. People forget that the US government hasn't done much, if anything to help in this area for a long long time.
If you lay your own fiber, and have no other people using it, you can get full speed, and the more people using it means you need more fiber to handle the demand. I just don't see the US government paying for anything involving the Internet, unless it would be to provide broadband to very rural areas that will never be profitable. This is the same as towns with a population of under 100 people total having a school with a full faculty, where the local population would NEVER be able to afford to pay for the expenses of that school.
There is a huge difference between what speed they set customers to, and if there is enough bandwidth where you are to handle the demand. The big question is the way your home and building are wired, plus the connection from the building to the network, then how much bandwidth is available in your neighborhood. So, they may have applied it to you, but you just don't see it.
I have noticed that Cablevision out on the east end of Long Island has boosted average speeds to many from the 7-13Mbps range(which already was decent) well upwards, with many seeing over 20Mbps over the past year. This is the sort of change that DOES help support the numbers getting better overall. While not every access provider is boosting speeds, there has been an effort out there to boost speeds, and to improve capacity on networks.
What many forget is that to offer increased speeds, ISPs need to have excess capacity to handle bumping the speeds, and that is why progress has been so slow for many. How much does it cost to add more fiber in a suburban town so that speeds can be improved without hitting capacity limits on the main connection to that town? How about replacing older equipment, and do you increase speeds in just one neighborhood once the work is done to ALLOW for increased speeds, or do you wait until all the old equipment is replaced, and then turn on better speeds for everyone?
I remember that back in 2002, Cablevision was still offering speeds of "up to" 10Mbps, which was boosted to 15Mbps in 2003-2004 as a part of the normal service. While not all areas have seen the increases we have seen out here on the east end of Long Island, the EFFORT to improve speeds can not be denied.
Plugins that run amok can cause that. Do you run Firefox 14, or an older version?
The idea is that Firefox 15 HELPS reduce memory usage, so those 2GB laptops will be able to handle it. The real key is that Firefox by design is working to cut memory usage, but you can't help it if web pages themselves become larger and demand more resources.
Just because something is the most popular does not mean it is good. Flash by itself isn't bad, but add stupid Zynga games like Cityville, and suddenly you have very high memory usage. Now, the real question is what version of Firefox you have, and what plugins and addons you have. Firefox 14 with Flash 11.3.300.270 should not generating too much memory usage, but again, games like Cityville will take up a LOT of memory by design, and no browser will fix that.