It's simple: when everything started we didn't have good tests. As things went we started to get better tests and multiple different kinds of tests. What is going on is the CDC is trying to reconciling all the data. If the numbers are out of wack, then have a neutral statistician review the data and come up with real numbers. Maybe things really are getting better?

Android and iOS is the closest alternatives. Android lacks full applications like an Office suite or PhotoShop. iOS lives in such narrow ecosystem it will never have the broad appeal of Windows.

It's burns cleaner than coal and gets us off of foreign oil. But timing is odd. My guess it's a strike against Chinese coal imports.

And Facebook and Twitter is pushing to have phone taxed so that people will use their messaging and VOIP services.

I wouldn't say worthless. You have a decade's old company that has millions of active email addresses. That's a captive audience you can advertise to. AOL/Time Warner biggest mistake was getting rid of their chat service. That is what was keeping them alive.

AOL already had created communities that could be accessed by keywords. If those were standardized a bit the platform could have have created and AOL Timeline. So you had AOL Groups. You had an AOL Messenger. Restrict who could see or send you messages and you would have had AOL Facebook.

The original USB 1.0 standard had written into it the ability to have a universal driver system. When plugged in the device would upload a drive payload in a Java applet to allow at least partial operation until a platform specific drive could be found. For security reasons and the fact Java wasn't installed everywhere that was quickly dropped from the USB standard. Microsoft is just replicating that idea but in .NET instead of Java.

Overall no.The issue I think most people have is the Christian hierarchy that is enforced within the organization. They fear that it will force everyone who touches SQLite will have to take a religious stance they don't agree with. That CoC is just peace, pray, and work hard for what you believe. If they stay with this CoC I look for Google and the Mozillia foundation to remove SQLite for their browsers in the next major update just for political, not practical reasons.

You've heard of all the clones of the Raspberry Pi SBC? One of them is the Orange Pi. They have a line of DIY kits that will let you build your own phone starting around $40 on AliExpress.

Personally almost all I use is Chromebook. Occasionally I need to tweak a graphic or Word document which I can do via tVNC on my old desktop.

For work I use Citrix to get into my desktop. My storage is 95% in Google Docs. When the Linux windows come out I'll be set there.

The only things I really want beyond quality desktop office and graphic apps that don't have a huge monthly cost (I'm looking at you Microsoft and Adobe) is better Android support. There's a few apps and games I really wish ran better on my system. Maybe a better gamepad interface. But that's more on the game producers.

What is the best way to make a 'lite app'?

• Aren't Progressive Web Apps processor and RAM hogs?
• HTML with wrapper like Cordova have a pretty good storage footprint. From my tinkering apps are 4 megs minimum for a basic app on a phone with almost no space is not a good situation. I've seen some apps get to 600 megs.
• Java - is good in size but Google is moving away from it. Also I've had pure Java apps run real slow.
• C++ is the best overall but hard to work with on Android and you have to make custom versions for almost every major processor type.

So what is the best way to make a lite app?

The Atari VCS (formally AtariBox) is scheduled to come out the general public (non-bakers) within 6-12 months of the PS5. Will the general public buy the VCS or wait for the PS5? I know that the VCS will use similar but much lower powered CPU and GPU's. So why pay $200-300 for a VCS when you can get a PS4 for the same price or a PS5 for little much more?

At the company I work for we use a sever products that have exclusive interface with Flash or Sliverlight. Our concern is what happens when these products have reached thier End of Life. I know the first thing a lot of people will say is 'switch vendors'. It's not that easy.

We would love to but we have contracts, working relations, and thousands of hours of setup and training on these products. We are looking for alternatives. But until we find them we have to launch VM's for these applications.

But I suspect that the long term plans included things like striking deals with movies theaters for a slice of the concessions (arguing increased traffic)...

When MP first came out they bought large block of ticket credits from various chains at about $.75 - $1 a piece. Most people were only using the service about 2-3 times a month. At the time it was a $30/month subscriptions which made them a ton of money .(I heard these part on a radio interview with president at the time about 3 years ago.) Theaters saw concessions and attendance go up which was a great time for everyone.

Then the theaters said 'As more people use the system we're getting a lot complaints customers on how the system work. Why don't we do the same?'. The chains started raising the prices on MP to about $2-3 per ticket to cover their cost dealing with complaints. With MP's administration costs and the lowered subscription price they were loosing about 1-2% on every subscription. This was compounded by attrition from member's credit cards expiring (see comments below). Since the theaters 'owned' ticket already they realized that loosing money to a middle man. The big chains already had movie clubs so they modernized it (easier to use member cards), dropped the price, and added roll-over concession perks. Plus the chains also got additional demographics they never had before.

The Movie Pass application system is just plain clunky to use:

• After sign up everything was done in the poorly designed phone app. It's a resource hog for no reason. Nothing is controlled through website even though that had the API's for the applications.
• You had to sign-in too buy ticket via the app AT your location. You couldn't but them from home to save time. You had use data and have a good GPS on your.
• You had to use a special credit at the theater and hope your earlier sign-in has register with the credit authorization system. That also meant to carry an extra card instead of just using the phone.
• Neither the website or the app would let you update your credit card information. When your credit card expired you had to get a new account

A few things can (would have) of fixed:

• Web interface to let you update you information and buy tickets at home
• Get rid of the credit card and use a 'member' card with a QR/bar code that could be scanned.
• OR display a QR/bar code on your phone (additional security if it rotated every so often)
• OR let you just print a ticket from home and do away from all the above BS