The tab was $100,000. For that high price, we got what has been argued one of the best adolescent surgeons in America.
And in South Africa you could have gotten a surgeon who went to the same school as your doctor, who performed similar operations for members of the Saudi Royal Family and other dignitaries, plus recovered in a five star rehab center all for less than half that, including business class air fare.
Overall Canadians are happier with their "broken" health care system than here where top shelf medical care costs more because....because we can afford to pay more.
If you place huge fines on exposed data, companies will be able to compare the cost of the security measures to the cost of a breach and make a financial decision that will (hopefully) work out best for both the company and the customers/clients/etc.
One can hope, but it would be unwise to hold your breath waiting for big fines. Even if Congressed passed big fines for losing Privacy Act data, it's quite possible most companies would not pay them, even if they were grossly negligent. In response to a big fine from a government agency most companies will appeal. If they lose that, they'll litigate. All the while employing a professional lobbyist and PR firm to lean on elected officials for clemency. Even if the government hangs tough the courts will frequently give them a break and reduce or eliminate the fines and sometimes, even if they lose all that, they just won't pay period. Then the government has to try and launch a costly collection action, which stands the chance of bankrupting some smaller companies.
It varies between agencies how effective they are collecting fines. The IRS...better than most and they still settle sometimes. One favorite line companies use goes something along the lines of, "We could be using the money we pay in fines to fix the problem." If corrective action is necessary they can start playing the "Is This Good Enough" game. They propose a plan to fix it that they know won't do the job. Then offer to do what they should have been doing all along in exchange for dropping the punitive fines and not admitting they did anything wrong. Most companies are pretty cynical about it, too. We'll fix it when we get caught. If we get fined we'll negotiate. If it's really bad we'll litigate.
This time it was Wal-Mart pushing the move, but the Chinese could have just as easily picked HD-DVD on their own. When a country owns your manufacturing capacity, they own you they can set the standards or decide which one is going to win. No Chinese factory is going to defy the government if they decide to take sides on a format.
I don't think that's happened...yet. But it certainly could. Or the Chinese could decide that players made in their country will or won't support some type of encryption standard. What are we going to do if we don't like it? Start building new factories? Count on some other third world country to take up the slack?
They make almost everything we use on a daily basis, we couldn't start a trade war if we wanted to. The Chinese own billions in our foreign debt. If they wanted to tank the dollar and jerk us around, all they'd have to do is start selling. Other countries would have to follow suit or watch the value of their holdings diminish as well. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
They have us by the economic nads. Just because they haven't squeezed doesn't mean they can't or won't.
We like the 2 Party system because it make us believe that there is a good and evil party.
No, we like the 2 party system because when one gets all up about themselves and starts thinking they crap marble we can toss them out and enjoy a couple years when the new guys are actually concerned about doing a good job, before the entitlement mentality sets in and we have to start all over again.
Keep giving out the coupons for Vista upgrades. If MSFT ever manages to get the bugs out of Vista they'll use their coupon. Or they'll buy a Mac. But at least if they have a coupon they'll be tempted to try it first.
Vista reminds me of the dork in college who threw a big party and no one showed up.
Ha! I hope you're right but their track record taking hints is notoriously bad. I'll believe there's a chance they'll listen when Ballmer has a sudden desire to spend more time with his family.
Not to mention slander, liable, defamation of character and abuse of process. The kid's 12, imagine the parade of child psychologists you could put together to go on about how expensive it's going to be to treat his self-image problems and damaged reputation.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to put yourself in this child's place. Innocent of wrong doing and accused by this man (points at principle at defense table) in a most callous and vile manner and being a criminal and a liar. Imprisoned for 12 long days. Subject to the abuses of the juvenile detention system, all alone in the dark. Separated from family and friends. Can you imagine what that might be like. The terror, the fear, the horror. And in the place of his parents. Having your child falsely accused, then further accused of lying...your child ripped from your arms by the police. I ask you to remember all these things while you consider how much it's worth for a child to get their self esteem back, for the parents to get their good name back and for this man (points at principle again) to pay for his part in this horrible, horrible travesty. No, money can't buy happiness...as the defense has so callously inferred...but it can buy the best therapists, confidence building camps and tutoring that money can buy. It can provide the family the means to move elsewhere, to start over with a new life, far from the devastation to their good name. Small price to pay for a child's self image, don't you think? Thank you for your attention and I'm certain you'll do the right thing for this child and this family.
However... we can blame the law for our collective lack of defense in situations like this.
I'm sure there will be a lot of people who don't like hearing that, but it's true. The US didn't get to be the country it is by people depending on the government to defend them. Did we learn nothing from 9-11? 90 people sat in their seats and let five guys with box cutters take over a plane because they had "just cooperate" drilled into their heads. And some jagoff kills...now 33 kids because they've grown up depending on others to protect them.
I'm so, so sorry this happened. For the kids, their families...everyone. But he killed 31 people with a damn handgun! Come on! We can either take more responsibility for our own protection or accept a police state. You can't have it both ways.
it was a matter of a leftish organization waiting for a conservative radio talk show host to say something that they could use politically.
I don't know about anyone else, but I've just about had it with this whole lefty/righty, liberal/conservative bullshit. I'm not any of those. I side with the truth but the truth doesn't have many friends these days.
Political organizations on both sides of the political spectrum are monitoring speeches, public appearances, radio and TV shows waiting for the other side to make a mistake. This isn't limited to a "leftish" group, they're all doing it. Truth be told it was organizations you might consider "rightish" started it. The other side probably feels like they have to respond in kind and that's why the majority of political ads are negative. Any discussion of varying points of view politically turns into an angry finger-pointing furball. And it's turned us into a nation of picky pooh little hall monitors.
Why couldn't Imus just apologize and everyone move along? It was a dumb thing to say and when you talk for a living you're going to say dumb things. It's inevitable. But when there are political groups with agenda waiting to pounce on anything any public figure might say that runs against their agenda and take what was said out of context and blast it all over YouTube and the internet we're never going to be able to have a meaningful discussion about anything.
You can run your eBay store from Bermuda, Antigua or Grenada just as effectively. Avoid paying US taxes, live near the beach and enjoy a comfortable living in a place that doesn't ask a lot of questions where money is concerned. Same thing with any other online venture. It raises an interesting point to consider when thinking about taxing online enterprises. If the taxes get out of hand in the US or UK, what's to stop the owners from moving to a more tax friendly country?
It's a lot easier to move an eBay store than Wal-Mart. And you can still use UPS to send your shipments in most countries. How convenient.
I'm not sure the IRS is the right organization to be making that decision, but it's probably faint hope expecting Congress to address the issue. Keeping the US friendly to business from a tax standpoint to keep us competitive. The same body that can't even agree on when to pull our troops out of Iraq.
A more appropriate question might be, "What is the extent to which Web apps will be effective, and accepted?".
I agree. The answer to the question is a moving target and it's moving pretty fast.
I for one find Google applications (spreadsheet, word processor) perfectly good replacements for my more modest needs day to day. They come close, at this very immature stage in their life cycles, to being able to completely replace my need for desktop instantiations
When I look at web apps today, I'm amazed how far we've come in such a short time. How much functionality is inherent in the applications rolling out now. It's amazing and the transition, in my opinion, is very fast. It's a big mistake to sell the future of web applications short. Imagine what we'll be able to do with web apps by the time we get to the end of the Windows XP life cycle.
Another factor is if Microsoft and other primarily desktop application developers continue to make their applications an ordeal to use. Either by product activation, security flaws or license auditing. It doesn't take much annoying behavior on the part of Microsoft to raise the attractiveness of alternatives, even if they're not as feature rich.
To me the data storage problem is a non-issue. You trust hundreds of companies with your data now. Vendors, channel partners, resellers, ISP's, consultants. Some of them are responsible but some of them may be storing your data on servers in China or India. How tempting is it for Chinese or Indian governments to avail themselves of that data so conveniently stored in their country or managed by companies they can influence? You have to trust someone...you already are trusting many organizations with critical data who may, or may not (bet on 'may not') be properly protecting your data. I trust Google more than Microsoft. I trust Google more than China or India. When I can store a local copy of the data Google is storing for me, for backup in case of an unimaginable disaster or in case I want to switch providers, then Google becomes my preferred vendor for Email and possibly productivity if the apps are up to speed. And I'd happily concede that Google is far better at data storage than me. I think the local copy is more touchy-feely than genuine risk.
Connectivity...another non-issue to me. There was a time companies thought it was foolish to depend on the electricity grid. What good does it do to keep your servers running if no one else in the building has power? You can dual hone, have a satellite stand-by...you can solve the connectivity problem if that's a big worry. I think about how many days we've gone without internet connections at customer sites...seldom. Or how many times I've lost it at home...a couple times in the last two years, never very long. And I start wondering if worrying about the connectivity issue isn't like worrying about any other utility? If the water was out at your office, how long could you operate? How often does the water go out? Is it worth worrying about?
Millions of people and businesses all buying the same software is economic insanity. It's not at all the same thing as millions of people all buying the same kind of car. A car has intrinsic value related to the cost of the components, software doesn't. Software sunk costs are incurred during development. Once complete the only ongoing costs, outside maintenance, are for distribution and the media. You don't have any intrinsic value of metal and parts in software.
Instead of paying money to buy software, a company can instead choose to pay less money to modify an open source project to meet their needs and leverage the contributions other companies have made modifying the same project to their needs. It's game theory in action. Five companies all pay a little to modify an open source project instead of all five paying a lot for some big box software solution. Collaborate with competitors in the same field for the common product they all need, then compete in pursuit of their market. Game theory.
What was needed for the theory to become disruptive to reality was a base of open source software to start with. We've had that for a while. All the pieces are there. And, as the author pointed out, it presents an opportunity for integrators.
Software really does fit the utility economic model better than a manufacturing model. Which is one of the things that really scares me about the US shipping manufacturing capability overseas and relying on a brain share economy.
It really doesn't matter if this is related to the patent deal with Microsoft or not. The damage is done by the mere perception that Novell is aligned with Redmond.
This whole deal is to IT was Iraq is to foreign policy: A bad idea implemented without a clear exit strategy.
Unless the goal was to drive users to Ubuntu. In that case it's a brilliant plan.
It's just amazing to me that we survived without bike helmets, seat belts or child safety seats. We played Defender, Smash TV, Missile Command and a host of other violent video games and managed not to grow up being violent people. At least most of us and those that didn't were probably fucked up anyway. My opinion is children are more intelligent (though inexperienced) and resilient than we give them credit for. It's also my opinion that we coddle and fuss over them to the point of nausea. Kids aren't special, they're just kids. You're not special or privileged because you managed to reproduce. Breeding is the an act common to animals on this planet. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad when people are responsible parents. When they take parenting seriously and care about their kids. Those are good things. But that doesn't make them or you any better than anyone else. That doesn't mean the rest of us should have to reshape our world to accommodate your offspring. When it comes to video games the stark realism that's possible in video games today it's a more thoughtful decision for parents. You should think about it. And maybe it's okay to wait until their thought processes are a little more mature, that there's a clear line between reality and game play before giving them access to the more violent content. Just don't agonize over it. They're not that fragile.
I think this country started going downhill with those stupid Baby On Board things people used to put in the car window.
To certify every cell phone to be safe in flight would require a lot of study and creating new standards, restricting the design criteria of avionics and testing of every possible cell phone model.
I'm sorry but I just don't buy that. Airplanes fly well within range of cell phones and towers now. If interference was that likely it would already be happening. Airliners already operate in the air, on the ground and certainly at take off and landing in an ocean of cell signals. Not to mention TV, radio, wi-fi, emergency and police radio signals the whole spectrum of communications. Some MP3 players broadcast on FM frequencies. Are you going to try and control devices on the entire planet just because Boeing and Airbus can't figure out how to shield circuits?
Or maybe the whole cell phone interference idea was a crock from the beginning. Which seems more likely to me.
I think Microsoft's fatal flaw is summed up in this quote:
Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck.
And they never will. That's why they won't be able to adapt to changing climate conditions in technology and the nimble little warm-blooded creatures they barely notice will thrive and ultimately outlive them.
I mean look, they haven't even gotten rid of Ballmer yet. As long as he's on top it's going to remain the same stodgy old company it is now. MSFT reminds me of some 40 year old guy who thinks he's cool hitting on his daughter's college friends. He's the only one who doesn't realize he's creepy and pathetic.
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The tab was $100,000. For that high price, we got what has been argued one of the best adolescent surgeons in America.
And in South Africa you could have gotten a surgeon who went to the same school as your doctor, who performed similar operations for members of the Saudi Royal Family and other dignitaries, plus recovered in a five star rehab center all for less than half that, including business class air fare.
Overall Canadians are happier with their "broken" health care system than here where top shelf medical care costs more because....because we can afford to pay more.
If you place huge fines on exposed data, companies will be able to compare the cost of the security measures to the cost of a breach and make a financial decision that will (hopefully) work out best for both the company and the customers/clients/etc.
One can hope, but it would be unwise to hold your breath waiting for big fines. Even if Congressed passed big fines for losing Privacy Act data, it's quite possible most companies would not pay them, even if they were grossly negligent. In response to a big fine from a government agency most companies will appeal. If they lose that, they'll litigate. All the while employing a professional lobbyist and PR firm to lean on elected officials for clemency. Even if the government hangs tough the courts will frequently give them a break and reduce or eliminate the fines and sometimes, even if they lose all that, they just won't pay period. Then the government has to try and launch a costly collection action, which stands the chance of bankrupting some smaller companies.
It varies between agencies how effective they are collecting fines. The IRS...better than most and they still settle sometimes. One favorite line companies use goes something along the lines of, "We could be using the money we pay in fines to fix the problem." If corrective action is necessary they can start playing the "Is This Good Enough" game. They propose a plan to fix it that they know won't do the job. Then offer to do what they should have been doing all along in exchange for dropping the punitive fines and not admitting they did anything wrong. Most companies are pretty cynical about it, too. We'll fix it when we get caught. If we get fined we'll negotiate. If it's really bad we'll litigate.
This time it was Wal-Mart pushing the move, but the Chinese could have just as easily picked HD-DVD on their own. When a country owns your manufacturing capacity, they own you they can set the standards or decide which one is going to win. No Chinese factory is going to defy the government if they decide to take sides on a format.
I don't think that's happened...yet. But it certainly could. Or the Chinese could decide that players made in their country will or won't support some type of encryption standard. What are we going to do if we don't like it? Start building new factories? Count on some other third world country to take up the slack?
They make almost everything we use on a daily basis, we couldn't start a trade war if we wanted to. The Chinese own billions in our foreign debt. If they wanted to tank the dollar and jerk us around, all they'd have to do is start selling. Other countries would have to follow suit or watch the value of their holdings diminish as well. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
They have us by the economic nads. Just because they haven't squeezed doesn't mean they can't or won't.
A regular furnace and a zap of current is enough to meld boron with the metal rhenium....Sound familiar?
If this sounds familiar you need to get out more. Seriously.
We like the 2 Party system because it make us believe that there is a good and evil party.
No, we like the 2 party system because when one gets all up about themselves and starts thinking they crap marble we can toss them out and enjoy a couple years when the new guys are actually concerned about doing a good job, before the entitlement mentality sets in and we have to start all over again.
It's all about the tubes, Ralphie. Tell 'em about the tubes!
Keep giving out the coupons for Vista upgrades. If MSFT ever manages to get the bugs out of Vista they'll use their coupon. Or they'll buy a Mac. But at least if they have a coupon they'll be tempted to try it first.
Vista reminds me of the dork in college who threw a big party and no one showed up.
Good, Maybe MS will take a hint....
Ha! I hope you're right but their track record taking hints is notoriously bad. I'll believe there's a chance they'll listen when Ballmer has a sudden desire to spend more time with his family.
Perhaps they're praying the court will read the motion.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/18/ 1247229
Did anyone read Western hemisphere and think WTF?
No, but I did wonder how many people in Alabama could point to it on a map.
"Laugh-a while you can, monkey boy!"
-- Lord John Whorfin
*cough* libel.
And now you know why I didn't go to law school. :(
wrongful imprisonment?
Not to mention slander, liable, defamation of character and abuse of process. The kid's 12, imagine the parade of child psychologists you could put together to go on about how expensive it's going to be to treat his self-image problems and damaged reputation.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to put yourself in this child's place. Innocent of wrong doing and accused by this man (points at principle at defense table) in a most callous and vile manner and being a criminal and a liar. Imprisoned for 12 long days. Subject to the abuses of the juvenile detention system, all alone in the dark. Separated from family and friends. Can you imagine what that might be like. The terror, the fear, the horror. And in the place of his parents. Having your child falsely accused, then further accused of lying...your child ripped from your arms by the police. I ask you to remember all these things while you consider how much it's worth for a child to get their self esteem back, for the parents to get their good name back and for this man (points at principle again) to pay for his part in this horrible, horrible travesty. No, money can't buy happiness...as the defense has so callously inferred...but it can buy the best therapists, confidence building camps and tutoring that money can buy. It can provide the family the means to move elsewhere, to start over with a new life, far from the devastation to their good name. Small price to pay for a child's self image, don't you think? Thank you for your attention and I'm certain you'll do the right thing for this child and this family.
Dang, knew I shoulda gone to law school!
However... we can blame the law for our collective lack of defense in situations like this.
I'm sure there will be a lot of people who don't like hearing that, but it's true. The US didn't get to be the country it is by people depending on the government to defend them. Did we learn nothing from 9-11? 90 people sat in their seats and let five guys with box cutters take over a plane because they had "just cooperate" drilled into their heads. And some jagoff kills...now 33 kids because they've grown up depending on others to protect them.
I'm so, so sorry this happened. For the kids, their families...everyone. But he killed 31 people with a damn handgun! Come on! We can either take more responsibility for our own protection or accept a police state. You can't have it both ways.
Microsoft is being run by the Bush administration!
it was a matter of a leftish organization waiting for a conservative radio talk show host to say something that they could use politically.
I don't know about anyone else, but I've just about had it with this whole lefty/righty, liberal/conservative bullshit. I'm not any of those. I side with the truth but the truth doesn't have many friends these days.
Political organizations on both sides of the political spectrum are monitoring speeches, public appearances, radio and TV shows waiting for the other side to make a mistake. This isn't limited to a "leftish" group, they're all doing it. Truth be told it was organizations you might consider "rightish" started it. The other side probably feels like they have to respond in kind and that's why the majority of political ads are negative. Any discussion of varying points of view politically turns into an angry finger-pointing furball. And it's turned us into a nation of picky pooh little hall monitors.
Why couldn't Imus just apologize and everyone move along? It was a dumb thing to say and when you talk for a living you're going to say dumb things. It's inevitable. But when there are political groups with agenda waiting to pounce on anything any public figure might say that runs against their agenda and take what was said out of context and blast it all over YouTube and the internet we're never going to be able to have a meaningful discussion about anything.
You can run your eBay store from Bermuda, Antigua or Grenada just as effectively. Avoid paying US taxes, live near the beach and enjoy a comfortable living in a place that doesn't ask a lot of questions where money is concerned. Same thing with any other online venture. It raises an interesting point to consider when thinking about taxing online enterprises. If the taxes get out of hand in the US or UK, what's to stop the owners from moving to a more tax friendly country?
It's a lot easier to move an eBay store than Wal-Mart. And you can still use UPS to send your shipments in most countries. How convenient.
I'm not sure the IRS is the right organization to be making that decision, but it's probably faint hope expecting Congress to address the issue. Keeping the US friendly to business from a tax standpoint to keep us competitive. The same body that can't even agree on when to pull our troops out of Iraq.
Locate your pot growing operation in Googles utility tunnels. No wonder all their employees are so loyal. :)
A more appropriate question might be, "What is the extent to which Web apps will be effective, and accepted?".
I agree. The answer to the question is a moving target and it's moving pretty fast.
I for one find Google applications (spreadsheet, word processor) perfectly good replacements for my more modest needs day to day. They come close, at this very immature stage in their life cycles, to being able to completely replace my need for desktop instantiations
When I look at web apps today, I'm amazed how far we've come in such a short time. How much functionality is inherent in the applications rolling out now. It's amazing and the transition, in my opinion, is very fast. It's a big mistake to sell the future of web applications short. Imagine what we'll be able to do with web apps by the time we get to the end of the Windows XP life cycle.
Another factor is if Microsoft and other primarily desktop application developers continue to make their applications an ordeal to use. Either by product activation, security flaws or license auditing. It doesn't take much annoying behavior on the part of Microsoft to raise the attractiveness of alternatives, even if they're not as feature rich.
To me the data storage problem is a non-issue. You trust hundreds of companies with your data now. Vendors, channel partners, resellers, ISP's, consultants. Some of them are responsible but some of them may be storing your data on servers in China or India. How tempting is it for Chinese or Indian governments to avail themselves of that data so conveniently stored in their country or managed by companies they can influence? You have to trust someone...you already are trusting many organizations with critical data who may, or may not (bet on 'may not') be properly protecting your data. I trust Google more than Microsoft. I trust Google more than China or India. When I can store a local copy of the data Google is storing for me, for backup in case of an unimaginable disaster or in case I want to switch providers, then Google becomes my preferred vendor for Email and possibly productivity if the apps are up to speed. And I'd happily concede that Google is far better at data storage than me. I think the local copy is more touchy-feely than genuine risk.
Connectivity...another non-issue to me. There was a time companies thought it was foolish to depend on the electricity grid. What good does it do to keep your servers running if no one else in the building has power? You can dual hone, have a satellite stand-by...you can solve the connectivity problem if that's a big worry. I think about how many days we've gone without internet connections at customer sites...seldom. Or how many times I've lost it at home...a couple times in the last two years, never very long. And I start wondering if worrying about the connectivity issue isn't like worrying about any other utility? If the water was out at your office, how long could you operate? How often does the water go out? Is it worth worrying about?
Millions of people and businesses all buying the same software is economic insanity. It's not at all the same thing as millions of people all buying the same kind of car. A car has intrinsic value related to the cost of the components, software doesn't. Software sunk costs are incurred during development. Once complete the only ongoing costs, outside maintenance, are for distribution and the media. You don't have any intrinsic value of metal and parts in software.
Instead of paying money to buy software, a company can instead choose to pay less money to modify an open source project to meet their needs and leverage the contributions other companies have made modifying the same project to their needs. It's game theory in action. Five companies all pay a little to modify an open source project instead of all five paying a lot for some big box software solution. Collaborate with competitors in the same field for the common product they all need, then compete in pursuit of their market. Game theory.
What was needed for the theory to become disruptive to reality was a base of open source software to start with. We've had that for a while. All the pieces are there. And, as the author pointed out, it presents an opportunity for integrators.
Software really does fit the utility economic model better than a manufacturing model. Which is one of the things that really scares me about the US shipping manufacturing capability overseas and relying on a brain share economy.
Nixon had NOTHING on the current thugs in the White House administration.
If it gets any worse we're going to have to dig up Nixon and apologize. He's starting to look almost saintly by comparison.
It really doesn't matter if this is related to the patent deal with Microsoft or not. The damage is done by the mere perception that Novell is aligned with Redmond.
This whole deal is to IT was Iraq is to foreign policy: A bad idea implemented without a clear exit strategy.
Unless the goal was to drive users to Ubuntu. In that case it's a brilliant plan.
It's just amazing to me that we survived without bike helmets, seat belts or child safety seats. We played Defender, Smash TV, Missile Command and a host of other violent video games and managed not to grow up being violent people. At least most of us and those that didn't were probably fucked up anyway. My opinion is children are more intelligent (though inexperienced) and resilient than we give them credit for. It's also my opinion that we coddle and fuss over them to the point of nausea. Kids aren't special, they're just kids. You're not special or privileged because you managed to reproduce. Breeding is the an act common to animals on this planet. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad when people are responsible parents. When they take parenting seriously and care about their kids. Those are good things. But that doesn't make them or you any better than anyone else. That doesn't mean the rest of us should have to reshape our world to accommodate your offspring. When it comes to video games the stark realism that's possible in video games today it's a more thoughtful decision for parents. You should think about it. And maybe it's okay to wait until their thought processes are a little more mature, that there's a clear line between reality and game play before giving them access to the more violent content. Just don't agonize over it. They're not that fragile.
I think this country started going downhill with those stupid Baby On Board things people used to put in the car window.
To certify every cell phone to be safe in flight would require a lot of study and creating new standards, restricting the design criteria of avionics and testing of every possible cell phone model.
I'm sorry but I just don't buy that. Airplanes fly well within range of cell phones and towers now. If interference was that likely it would already be happening. Airliners already operate in the air, on the ground and certainly at take off and landing in an ocean of cell signals. Not to mention TV, radio, wi-fi, emergency and police radio signals the whole spectrum of communications. Some MP3 players broadcast on FM frequencies. Are you going to try and control devices on the entire planet just because Boeing and Airbus can't figure out how to shield circuits?
Or maybe the whole cell phone interference idea was a crock from the beginning. Which seems more likely to me.
I think Microsoft's fatal flaw is summed up in this quote:
Microsoft's biggest weakness is that they still don't realize how much they suck.
And they never will. That's why they won't be able to adapt to changing climate conditions in technology and the nimble little warm-blooded creatures they barely notice will thrive and ultimately outlive them.
I mean look, they haven't even gotten rid of Ballmer yet. As long as he's on top it's going to remain the same stodgy old company it is now. MSFT reminds me of some 40 year old guy who thinks he's cool hitting on his daughter's college friends. He's the only one who doesn't realize he's creepy and pathetic.