In Japan, they also have W-CDMA (UMTS), but at least the phones there typically use uSIM cards, which just happen to be similar to GSM SIM cards.
I can take any unlocked phone that supports UMTS, and put in any uSIM card from any other the 3 major carriers (softbank, au, & docomo) and it will work.
However in the USA, CMDA based carriers refused to allow any type of uSIM support for their networks, since they want users to be locked down to their networks. Even if you paid the extra $$$ for an unlocked iPhone 4S, you cannot get it work on both Sprint and Verizon the networks. The iPhone unlock is only for GSM not CDMA in the USA. The same is also true for Android phones as well.
I am very happy to see Google finally stand up against the horrible CMDA situation in the USA. As previous commenters have stated, it would be nice if either CMDA went away, or they followed the example of Japan, and are required to have uSIM cards.
The goal should be to have every unlocked smart-phone unlocked and able to work with every carrier, but simply inserting a SIM/uSIM card. Personally I think it is horrible that smart-phones are not required to be unlocked, since these phones are typically not subsidized with 2-3 year contacts that covers the full cost of the phone many times over.
There is a huge difference between copyright enforcement against individuals in the context of personal use, and organizations in the context of earning signifigant revenue.
Most people including those on Slashdot, do not think it is reasonable to sell a pirated DVD movie on a street corner for profit, but consider it okay to download that same movie for media shifting for personal viewing.
Sony should be applauded for making their own BusyBox alternative, rather than violate the GPL. Hopefully it will be released as opensource with a different licence, for those that want an alternative choice. Adding more choice is a good thing!
Why do corporations contribute so much money to politicians in western nations? Because they except and get a 10-fold return on investment, by having laws, tax policies, regulations, and government purchases catered to their wishes.
Protesting only value in the political equation, is its dollar value against the advertisement and other media costs needed to negate it. (Note that SOPA was only stopped, when Google, Wikipedia, and others put the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising against it, and not but grass-roots protests alone.)
The only reasonable way to stop ACTA now would be to get some major corporate support on board and/or generate a signifigant bribe fund for politicians that would be greater than the amount the media company are bribing with.
With the exception of early childhood with a few playground scuffles, I have never cause any physical harm to anyone, and do not have the desire to ever cause harm in the future.
However, as a geek and a white-hat hacker, I am very curious about technology, science (including chemistry), math (including cryptography), etc. So, yes, even I would be interested in reading about explosives and bomb making, along with my other technical curiosities, if only to be more informed and aware of the risks, even though I would never attempt to get the materials, build anything, or use it in any way.
But having technical info is illegal, even without any proof that that that man planned to misused it? Wow, I am shocked how much democracy we have lost in the last few years. At what point should we start causing our nations fascist states:
Thank you nutcases, for under undermining America science education! Since after enjoying the 200 years of prosperity, economic and military might that science has provided to the USA, it is very generous they now start undermining it, by insuring that future generations don't properly learn that pesky science, so that many other countries can advance and overtake the USA.
If I was a Chinese official, I would be actively funding the National Center for Science Education, since they are the ones that benefit most from American stupidity.
Hopefully the National Center for Science Education can now start attacking math, since transfinite numbers and arithmetic can be use to justify that there are infinities bigger than god:
A death rattle can last for many many years. All that they have to do is follow SCO example, and fire everyone and just spend the remaining money on legal fees. And when the money is dried up, the lawyers can then receive guaranteed cash from future settlements.
Interesting that most of the innovation in the US is legally based, and not based on science or engineering.
As long as launching capabilities are only within reach of governments and mega-corporations, which are the only ones that can afford to use this spacecraft, this is a useless waste of engineering efforts by volunteers. The rest of the 99.999999% of us will never get a chance to fly in one.
I would be much more interested in an opensource electric car design.
Here is a trick that I used. I received a company issued Dell laptop with Windows. I installed converted it into a VM (Virtual Machine) image with VMware converter tool, and then installed that VM on my Mac.
Whenever I need to do corporate stuff I do it in the VM, and all of the personal stuff I do on my Mac host machine. (This trick works for Linux hosts as well.)
Any spyware on my VM does not obtain any information about my personal activity in the host OS.
If one is unfortunately enough to get a NFC capable Blackberry phone, such as the Bold 9900, from AT&T or T-Mobile, good luck trying to get NFC to work.
Is it disabled within the Blackberry OS, based on Vendor ID, at the request of these horrible carriers, even though other carriers enable it for those exact same phones. And currently isn't any jailbreak or hack to enable it. (Older unbranding tools like MFI don't work on these newer phones.)
Actually RIM is the worst smart phone company when it comes to deliberately disabling features and functionality at the request of carriers, especially compared to Apple, Google, and Microsoft. With that type of regard for their end users, I hope they continue imploding and go bankrupt soon.
Built a cheap portal to an alternative Earth that is 85 million years in the past, in order to colonize it.
Or wait for the rapture.
Because the above choices are more realistic than expecting the human race to put short-term greed aside to save the planet.
Ask a bunch of people if they would be willing to receive a billion dollar now, in exchange to blowing up the Earth 200 years in the future, you would be surprised how many of them would say yes. That is the problem with the human race.
The CA model is clearly broken, it is a chain that is too long with too many weak links. We have hundreds of root CA's, and combined with intermediate CA's, that number could be in the thousands. That is too many points of failure, which can bring down the entire system.
The following needs to be done immediately:
First: Eliminate Intermediate CA's: If an entity does not qualify as a root CA, why should it be allowed to issue trusted certificates?
Second: Restrict Root CA'S by geography: It is okay to trust the Chinese Post Office for *.cn, *.hk, etc. domains, why should we trust it for *.ca or *.com of Canadian companies? Why not restrict root CA's to geographic zones and also domain prefixes.
Back in the "olden" days, I grew up programming basic, assembly, and later in "C" on Vic20 and C64.
Now work for a major chip manufacturer, and some of my duties involves developing bootloaders, firmware, apps, and cryptographic libraries for SoC (System on Chip) and smart card platforms. Those old programming skills allow me to develop on platforms with extreme memory, storage, and performance limitations. I noticed that this is a challenge for those young wipper-snappers that only developed on platforms with giga-bytes of RAM & storage, multi-core processors, etc., and never had to learn to be efficient with limited resources.
Programmers should be thought of as artists. Just as a skilled oil painter can easily switch to water paintings, it should be just as easy for a skilled programmer to switch to different programming languages and platforms.
Google is an advertising company. Nearly all of their sites and services are focused to drive ad revenue.
Please note: 2011-Q3: Total Ad Revenue $9.335B (96%), Other Revenue $0.385M (4%) Source: Google Financial Results
If Google did allow 3rd party frames of its websites, than that creates the situation that someone else can add their own advertising onto Google's pages/services, and prevents them from completing controlling the entire ad experience and ad revenue.
Personally I don't fault Google for this, since they are behaving exactly as one would expect from an advertising company. I think that other websites sites also need to use JavaScript and web tags to prevent Google using them in frames.
Two can play at this game. Everybody place a legal notice in the paper that does essentially the same thing, except that you are simply claiming your own personal data. State that your data may not be used without a contract and payment subject to negotiation, and that you regard unsigned agreements as invalid. It may or may not stand up in court, but it'll be a helluva good show.
That won't work for adults since they can claim that as the owner of your personal data, you automatically give them a licence to use your data when you agreed to use their services. It might work for minors, since in many countries, minors are not allowed to sign contracts or give up rights, without parents' permission.
For adults, one can formally sign the complete rights to their personal information to a trusted individual (like a parent) or organization, before joining any social network service. Then have the trusted entity sue the social network service when they use your personal data without permission.
Of course if that trusted entity decides to "DO EVIL", then you will be total screwed.
My current iPhone 3GS is too dated and on its last legs. I am a big fan of iOS, and was planning to immediate buy an iPhone 5 this year, from any carrier, since my old contact has long expired and I am only paying month-to-month. But since Apple decided after nearly a year and a half to slap their loyal fans in the face and refused to produce and release any significant hardware improvements, let me tell you, I am strongly considering this Samsung Nexus Prime as my next phone.
To me, the physically bigger high resolution AMOLED screen is a big deal. I find myself needing to surf the web more and more on my phone, and with iPhone 4 the screen is so small, that I typically can only read small chunks of it at a time, and need to do a lot of horizontal scrolling, even in landscape mode.
NFC support is really important, since not only can it be used for purchases, but you can buy stacks of NFC RFID tags for next to nothing, like the NXP iCode tags, and read and write to them for countless applications (WiFi settings, business cards, product info, etc.).
What I don't like about the Prime is the fact that the iPhone's typically have superior cameras. I am not talking about the number of mega-pixels, but the actual sensor quality and optics. I have done a number of image comparisons between photos taken with iPhone 4 and Samsung Nexus S, and the iPhone wins hands down by a huge margin. There also does not appear to be a video out solution. I wonder why doesn't the Prime support HDMI out like HTC Android phone? At least the iPhone has a VGA out cable. It would also be nice to have a microSD card slot as well.
The iTunes App store still has a lot of great apps missing from the Android marketplace. My favourite is OmniGraffle for quickly drawing diagrams, charts, etc. If only there was something equivalent in the Android marketplace now that IceCreamSandwich supports Honeycomb apps. I also love the Pages and KeyNote apps from the iWorks suite, which is by far superior to QuickOffice and Google Docs. I am hoping these will get better soon in IceCreamSandwich.
Maybe I should hope for HTC to release this fall an IceCreamSandwich phone with a similar screen, better camera, plus NFC, video out, and microSD slot. If I can get all of that, it would be enough for me to break out of my iOS addiction, especially since the Android marketplace is steadily growing.
A year and a half later, all that they can offer is a slightly better camera, faster CPU, and universal (GSM+CDMA) mobile.:(
Most people including myself were hopefully for the thinner design, larger edge-to-edge 4 inch screen, metal back, NFC, 3D glassless display, 4G wireless data, etc. that were mentioned in the iPhone 5 rumours/hype. What a huge let down. No innovative must have features offer! Definitely not worth an update over the popular iPhone 4.
It also sucks that you still can't play video podcasts in the iPod Nano like you used to 2 generations ago!
In fact this entire iPhone+iPod refresh really is a big disappointment for me. I guess Apple does not think that hardware innovation is important anymore! What a great way to disappoint your fans, and have them look at other platforms that at least have some more frequent hardware improvements.
If corporations can get indefinite copyright protection for everything under the sun, why can't individuals get the same protections?
A user should be able to copyright their social profile postings, browsing history, purchasing habits, etc., and sue any corporation that uses it without authorization. Just because something is on the Internet does not mean that the rights holder gives up their copyright.
If a company like Sony music puts a song on the Internet for others to download, perhaps as a promotion, then a movie studio would not automatically have permission to use that song in a commercial film without written permission. So why can't I sue these online check firms for using my personal data without my written authorization?
This does not make sense. Neanderthal genes are not present in humans with a pure central to southern African lineage, which are present in non-Africans and Africans from the Mediterranean.
And yet, those Africans without Neanderthal genes do not seem to have any weaknesses in their immune systems in dealing with viruses compared to others. True there are some illnesses that Africans suffer more than others, but there are also other illnesses that Europeans and Asians also suffer from more as well, so it seems to balance out.
Those Neanderthal genes in North American and South American native populations did not prevent more than 90% of them from being wiped out by smallpox, typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, mumps, yellow fever, and pertussis when the first Europeans arrived.
Price gouging in Canada is not as bad as our southern friends, since it is a short drive to the USA border, but is still significant. My favourite gouge are recently printed books and magazines that show both the American and Canadian prices, with the Canadian prices 25-40% higher in dollar values, even through the Canadian dollar has been worth more than an American dollar for some time.
It is justified, because Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have "small" markets, so they have to charge a premium for distribution, advertising, etc. (It's not true, but that is their excuse.)
As a cancer survivor, it appears that I will need to start to wear tin-foil outfits from head-to-toe for health reasons whenever I use public transit or visit government buildings and other "risky" place. Thank you Obama, this will really encourage me to reduce my car usage and carbon footprint.
Doctor Oz does not consider these scanners to be safe for the following 4 groups: cancer survivors, pregnant women, children, and elderly, and he recommends that they should avoid being scanned at airports.
One key advantage is that you can use your phone with a free Android app to read and write onto cheap (read+write-many or read+write-once or read-only) HF based HFID tags that cost a few cents and are field powered:
Imagine the possibilities... Product tags, WiFi setup including WPA2 keys for guests, bulletin messaging in areas with poor signals, etc. In addition, the NFC chips being used on these phones have a security crypto chip that is isolated from the main device and can act as a hardware security token capable of full PKI (RSA, ECC, X509v3, CMS,...), in addition to being used for electronic payment, transit fares, etc. Google Wallet is just one example. But since NFC is compatible with ISO14443, you can also use it with Paypass, Clipper, Suica, Octopus, etc.
How much do you think it costs to embed microphones and audio processing electronics? Not to mention the resources needed to support this including external power, and potential problems in noisy environments.
Personally I think that any country that hides and shelters a terrorist that kills thousands and thousands of the civilians would be considered an act of war. Pakistan should consider itself lucky that its only got a small slap on the wrist by the USA navy seals.
In the first documented and well-confirmed act of cyber-warfare, does this mean that both the USA and Israel have declared war against Iran, and that Iran would be in its rights to strike back at targets in both countries and kill people there?
Gee, this is all we need, yet another war on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
Slashdot Mirror
... don't join:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6611967/not-google-plus
In Japan, they also have W-CDMA (UMTS), but at least the phones there typically use uSIM cards, which just happen to be similar to GSM SIM cards.
I can take any unlocked phone that supports UMTS, and put in any uSIM card from any other the 3 major carriers (softbank, au, & docomo) and it will work.
However in the USA, CMDA based carriers refused to allow any type of uSIM support for their networks, since they want users to be locked down to their networks. Even if you paid the extra $$$ for an unlocked iPhone 4S, you cannot get it work on both Sprint and Verizon the networks. The iPhone unlock is only for GSM not CDMA in the USA. The same is also true for Android phones as well.
I am very happy to see Google finally stand up against the horrible CMDA situation in the USA. As previous commenters have stated, it would be nice if either CMDA went away, or they followed the example of Japan, and are required to have uSIM cards.
The goal should be to have every unlocked smart-phone unlocked and able to work with every carrier, but simply inserting a SIM/uSIM card. Personally I think it is horrible that smart-phones are not required to be unlocked, since these phones are typically not subsidized with 2-3 year contacts that covers the full cost of the phone many times over.
There is a huge difference between copyright enforcement against individuals in the context of personal use, and organizations in the context of earning signifigant revenue.
Most people including those on Slashdot, do not think it is reasonable to sell a pirated DVD movie on a street corner for profit, but consider it okay to download that same movie for media shifting for personal viewing.
Sony should be applauded for making their own BusyBox alternative, rather than violate the GPL. Hopefully it will be released as opensource with a different licence, for those that want an alternative choice. Adding more choice is a good thing!
Why do corporations contribute so much money to politicians in western nations? Because they except and get a 10-fold return on investment, by having laws, tax policies, regulations, and government purchases catered to their wishes.
Protesting only value in the political equation, is its dollar value against the advertisement and other media costs needed to negate it. (Note that SOPA was only stopped, when Google, Wikipedia, and others put the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising against it, and not but grass-roots protests alone.)
The only reasonable way to stop ACTA now would be to get some major corporate support on board and/or generate a signifigant bribe fund for politicians that would be greater than the amount the media company are bribing with.
With the exception of early childhood with a few playground scuffles, I have never cause any physical harm to anyone, and do not have the desire to ever cause harm in the future.
However, as a geek and a white-hat hacker, I am very curious about technology, science (including chemistry), math (including cryptography), etc. So, yes, even I would be interested in reading about explosives and bomb making, along with my other technical curiosities, if only to be more informed and aware of the risks, even though I would never attempt to get the materials, build anything, or use it in any way.
But having technical info is illegal, even without any proof that that that man planned to misused it? Wow, I am shocked how much democracy we have lost in the last few years. At what point should we start causing our nations fascist states:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
Thank you nutcases, for under undermining America science education! Since after enjoying the 200 years of prosperity, economic and military might that science has provided to the USA, it is very generous they now start undermining it, by insuring that future generations don't properly learn that pesky science, so that many other countries can advance and overtake the USA.
If I was a Chinese official, I would be actively funding the National Center for Science Education, since they are the ones that benefit most from American stupidity.
Hopefully the National Center for Science Education can now start attacking math, since transfinite numbers and arithmetic can be use to justify that there are infinities bigger than god:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_number
Is it so much easy to teach kids that 1+1 = whatever god tells them. Welcome to the new American Taliban.
A death rattle can last for many many years. All that they have to do is follow SCO example, and fire everyone and just spend the remaining money on legal fees. And when the money is dried up, the lawyers can then receive guaranteed cash from future settlements.
Interesting that most of the innovation in the US is legally based, and not based on science or engineering.
As long as launching capabilities are only within reach of governments and mega-corporations, which are the only ones that can afford to use this spacecraft, this is a useless waste of engineering efforts by volunteers. The rest of the 99.999999% of us will never get a chance to fly in one.
I would be much more interested in an opensource electric car design.
Here is a trick that I used. I received a company issued Dell laptop with Windows. I installed converted it into a VM (Virtual Machine) image with VMware converter tool, and then installed that VM on my Mac.
Whenever I need to do corporate stuff I do it in the VM, and all of the personal stuff I do on my Mac host machine. (This trick works for Linux hosts as well.)
Any spyware on my VM does not obtain any information about my personal activity in the host OS.
If one is unfortunately enough to get a NFC capable Blackberry phone, such as the Bold 9900, from AT&T or T-Mobile, good luck trying to get NFC to work.
Is it disabled within the Blackberry OS, based on Vendor ID, at the request of these horrible carriers, even though other carriers enable it for those exact same phones. And currently isn't any jailbreak or hack to enable it. (Older unbranding tools like MFI don't work on these newer phones.)
Actually RIM is the worst smart phone company when it comes to deliberately disabling features and functionality at the request of carriers, especially compared to Apple, Google, and Microsoft. With that type of regard for their end users, I hope they continue imploding and go bankrupt soon.
A removal tool is definitely needed! In fact, Android needs to have a better way to prevent background data on Apps when they are not in use.
Maybe I should just root my Samsung Nexus S 4G and only use ROM's from non-commerical sources, such as from xda-developers.
Built a cheap portal to an alternative Earth that is 85 million years in the past, in order to colonize it.
Or wait for the rapture.
Because the above choices are more realistic than expecting the human race to put short-term greed aside to save the planet.
Ask a bunch of people if they would be willing to receive a billion dollar now, in exchange to blowing up the Earth 200 years in the future, you would be surprised how many of them would say yes. That is the problem with the human race.
The CA model is clearly broken, it is a chain that is too long with too many weak links. We have hundreds of root CA's, and combined with intermediate CA's, that number could be in the thousands. That is too many points of failure, which can bring down the entire system.
The following needs to be done immediately:
First: Eliminate Intermediate CA's:
If an entity does not qualify as a root CA, why should it be allowed to issue trusted certificates?
Second: Restrict Root CA'S by geography:
It is okay to trust the Chinese Post Office for *.cn, *.hk, etc. domains, why should we trust it for *.ca or *.com of Canadian companies? Why not restrict root CA's to geographic zones and also domain prefixes.
Three: Certificate Caching & Monitoring Should be built into browsers:
Certificate Patrol is an excellent addon that does this, why isn't it built into browsers? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/certificate-patrol/
Back in the "olden" days, I grew up programming basic, assembly, and later in "C" on Vic20 and C64.
Now work for a major chip manufacturer, and some of my duties involves developing bootloaders, firmware, apps, and cryptographic libraries for SoC (System on Chip) and smart card platforms. Those old programming skills allow me to develop on platforms with extreme memory, storage, and performance limitations. I noticed that this is a challenge for those young wipper-snappers that only developed on platforms with giga-bytes of RAM & storage, multi-core processors, etc., and never had to learn to be efficient with limited resources.
Programmers should be thought of as artists. Just as a skilled oil painter can easily switch to water paintings, it should be just as easy for a skilled programmer to switch to different programming languages and platforms.
Google is an advertising company. Nearly all of their sites and services are focused to drive ad revenue.
Please note: 2011-Q3: Total Ad Revenue $9.335B (96%), Other Revenue $0.385M (4%)
Source: Google Financial Results
If Google did allow 3rd party frames of its websites, than that creates the situation that someone else can add their own advertising onto Google's pages/services, and prevents them from completing controlling the entire ad experience and ad revenue.
Personally I don't fault Google for this, since they are behaving exactly as one would expect from an advertising company. I think that other websites sites also need to use JavaScript and web tags to prevent Google using them in frames.
Two can play at this game. Everybody place a legal notice in the paper that does essentially the same thing, except that you are simply claiming your own personal data. State that your data may not be used without a contract and payment subject to negotiation, and that you regard unsigned agreements as invalid. It may or may not stand up in court, but it'll be a helluva good show.
That won't work for adults since they can claim that as the owner of your personal data, you automatically give them a licence to use your data when you agreed to use their services. It might work for minors, since in many countries, minors are not allowed to sign contracts or give up rights, without parents' permission.
For adults, one can formally sign the complete rights to their personal information to a trusted individual (like a parent) or organization, before joining any social network service. Then have the trusted entity sue the social network service when they use your personal data without permission.
Of course if that trusted entity decides to "DO EVIL", then you will be total screwed.
My current iPhone 3GS is too dated and on its last legs. I am a big fan of iOS, and was planning to immediate buy an iPhone 5 this year, from any carrier, since my old contact has long expired and I am only paying month-to-month. But since Apple decided after nearly a year and a half to slap their loyal fans in the face and refused to produce and release any significant hardware improvements, let me tell you, I am strongly considering this Samsung Nexus Prime as my next phone.
To me, the physically bigger high resolution AMOLED screen is a big deal. I find myself needing to surf the web more and more on my phone, and with iPhone 4 the screen is so small, that I typically can only read small chunks of it at a time, and need to do a lot of horizontal scrolling, even in landscape mode.
NFC support is really important, since not only can it be used for purchases, but you can buy stacks of NFC RFID tags for next to nothing, like the NXP iCode tags, and read and write to them for countless applications (WiFi settings, business cards, product info, etc.).
What I don't like about the Prime is the fact that the iPhone's typically have superior cameras. I am not talking about the number of mega-pixels, but the actual sensor quality and optics. I have done a number of image comparisons between photos taken with iPhone 4 and Samsung Nexus S, and the iPhone wins hands down by a huge margin. There also does not appear to be a video out solution. I wonder why doesn't the Prime support HDMI out like HTC Android phone? At least the iPhone has a VGA out cable. It would also be nice to have a microSD card slot as well.
The iTunes App store still has a lot of great apps missing from the Android marketplace. My favourite is OmniGraffle for quickly drawing diagrams, charts, etc. If only there was something equivalent in the Android marketplace now that IceCreamSandwich supports Honeycomb apps. I also love the Pages and KeyNote apps from the iWorks suite, which is by far superior to QuickOffice and Google Docs. I am hoping these will get better soon in IceCreamSandwich.
Maybe I should hope for HTC to release this fall an IceCreamSandwich phone with a similar screen, better camera, plus NFC, video out, and microSD slot. If I can get all of that, it would be enough for me to break out of my iOS addiction, especially since the Android marketplace is steadily growing.
A year and a half later, all that they can offer is a slightly better camera, faster CPU, and universal (GSM+CDMA) mobile. :(
Most people including myself were hopefully for the thinner design, larger edge-to-edge 4 inch screen, metal back, NFC, 3D glassless display, 4G wireless data, etc. that were mentioned in the iPhone 5 rumours/hype. What a huge let down. No innovative must have features offer! Definitely not worth an update over the popular iPhone 4.
It also sucks that you still can't play video podcasts in the iPod Nano like you used to 2 generations ago!
In fact this entire iPhone+iPod refresh really is a big disappointment for me. I guess Apple does not think that hardware innovation is important anymore! What a great way to disappoint your fans, and have them look at other platforms that at least have some more frequent hardware improvements.
If corporations can get indefinite copyright protection for everything under the sun, why can't individuals get the same protections?
A user should be able to copyright their social profile postings, browsing history, purchasing habits, etc., and sue any corporation that uses it without authorization. Just because something is on the Internet does not mean that the rights holder gives up their copyright.
If a company like Sony music puts a song on the Internet for others to download, perhaps as a promotion, then a movie studio would not automatically have permission to use that song in a commercial film without written permission. So why can't I sue these online check firms for using my personal data without my written authorization?
This does not make sense. Neanderthal genes are not present in humans with a pure central to southern African lineage, which are present in non-Africans and Africans from the Mediterranean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal
And yet, those Africans without Neanderthal genes do not seem to have any weaknesses in their immune systems in dealing with viruses compared to others. True there are some illnesses that Africans suffer more than others, but there are also other illnesses that Europeans and Asians also suffer from more as well, so it seems to balance out.
Those Neanderthal genes in North American and South American native populations did not prevent more than 90% of them from being wiped out by smallpox, typhus, measles, influenza, bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, mumps, yellow fever, and pertussis when the first Europeans arrived.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#Depopulation_from_disease
Price gouging in Canada is not as bad as our southern friends, since it is a short drive to the USA border, but is still significant. My favourite gouge are recently printed books and magazines that show both the American and Canadian prices, with the Canadian prices 25-40% higher in dollar values, even through the Canadian dollar has been worth more than an American dollar for some time.
It is justified, because Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have "small" markets, so they have to charge a premium for distribution, advertising, etc. (It's not true, but that is their excuse.)
As a cancer survivor, it appears that I will need to start to wear tin-foil outfits from head-to-toe for health reasons whenever I use public transit or visit government buildings and other "risky" place. Thank you Obama, this will really encourage me to reduce my car usage and carbon footprint.
Doctor Oz does not consider these scanners to be safe for the following 4 groups: cancer survivors, pregnant women, children, and elderly, and he recommends that they should avoid being scanned at airports.
http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/dangers-radiation-exposure-pt-4
Check around 4:10, also at 1:30 as well.
One key advantage is that you can use your phone with a free Android app to read and write onto cheap (read+write-many or read+write-once or read-only) HF based HFID tags that cost a few cents and are field powered:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nxp.nfc.tagwriter&feature=related_apps
Imagine the possibilities... Product tags, WiFi setup including WPA2 keys for guests, bulletin messaging in areas with poor signals, etc. In addition, the NFC chips being used on these phones have a security crypto chip that is isolated from the main device and can act as a hardware security token capable of full PKI (RSA, ECC, X509v3, CMS, ...), in addition to being used for electronic payment, transit fares, etc. Google Wallet is just one example. But since NFC is compatible with ISO14443, you can also use it with Paypass, Clipper, Suica, Octopus, etc.
How much do you think it costs to embed microphones and audio processing electronics? Not to mention the resources needed to support this including external power, and potential problems in noisy environments.
What about SEAL Team 6 invading Pakistan?
Personally I think that any country that hides and shelters a terrorist that kills thousands and thousands of the civilians would be considered an act of war. Pakistan should consider itself lucky that its only got a small slap on the wrist by the USA navy seals.
The USA & Israel jointly developed the Stuxnet worm and launched it against the Iranian nuclear facilities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
In the first documented and well-confirmed act of cyber-warfare, does this mean that both the USA and Israel have declared war against Iran, and that Iran would be in its rights to strike back at targets in both countries and kill people there?
Gee, this is all we need, yet another war on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.