It was mentioned in another slashdot post that Google was perhaps undertaking some malicious compliance [1] in following the EU directive, essentially removing an article that referenced a person instead of just making his name not show the result.

By mentioning that they have a responsibility to balance public interest verses the privacy needs of the individual, they're showing more maturity in their response than Google did.

I don't say this too often but... props to Microsoft.

[1] http://search.slashdot.org/com...

That's the on-going contract rate with a 10hr monthly minimum, adhoc should be 2x that.

The Nokia board had already screwed it, they were in the hole to the tune of $1B before they went to the loan-shark (Microsoft) who required Elop as the CEO for their "investment", I imagine. They had years to respond to the Blackberry, the iPhone showed up with the Androids right after it, and the rest is history. I remember 12 years ago lusting over some of those smartphones that Nokia offered, but never really actually wanting what was offered - it all kind of sucked. I loved my Palm Treo 600 - it was the first real smartphone with apps that I could grok. Had Nokia taken that inspiration or acquired Palm, things might have been very very different today (though not likely - the iPhone was future-tech compared to everything around it when it landed).

Right - like programmers are all that controls a software product's destiny. You know there are these groups in almost every software vendor called "product management" and "sales", right? Lets not forget about "legal".

No, but this flight was quite a few miles off course - same airline, same manufacturer/model. The coincidence is noteworthy.

Since when has Justice become a bidirectional thing? Justice as practiced today is a pass-through function for the rich and connected to subject others to their judgement.

The amusing thing is that if you remove mention of a specific agency or actor, the above tactic is what all the big corporations and industry groups are using to subvert the public interest to serve their profit interest and this infestation of governmental agencies works regardless of who is in power (as long as you contribute to both parties - or at least the party in power).

There's even a term for it: Regulatory Capture

The future is here: http://www.slate.com/articles/...

That's a bit like arguing that the Civil War was about states' rights. True, but only because states rights were invoked to support slavery. In the same vein here, it's the auto and petroleum industry fighting a war against electric cars. If electric cars happen, the future arrives and the entire petroleum distribution chain will eventually have to transform (without the corresponding profit margin increases for the current players) and get commoditized as nuclear, wind, and solar can fully power the economy and people's transportation needs (no need to convert back to gas or diesel for transport).

Elon Musk and Tesla believe the time has come, and have done a lot to prove it. Now it's time to see if Big Oil and their auto cronies can stop an idea whose time has come.

Problem is, we aren't Comcast's only customers. Also the meaning of "customer" changes when a monopoly is in place (which is very much the case in many areas - Comcast may provide the only viable internet or subscription TV).

The target market seems about 1/8 the size as well (consequently, not significant enough for Microsoft to worry about it much). I skipped the Chromebook and got my parents an iPad - sure they don't type as much, but the banking, shopping and gaming options on the iPad are much more mature and reasonable than on a Chromebook and it's a hell of a lot more portable.

If you're going to keep it at home all the time, maybe it's a great tool for things like home folks and the classroom - but it is NOT a laptop replacement for the vast majority of people. Selling it as such is an expectations disaster waiting to happen.

So what happens when a cloud provider (e.g. Microsoft) hosts customer data for a non-US customer? Does the USG actually think that it's laws take precedence over the laws of region of the owner of the data (i.e., Microsoft's non-US customer) and when the actual transactions are happening off US soil?

Of course, perhaps the best solution for companies like Microsoft is to simply spin-off the non-US data sites as separate entities, so they can't be held liable for the US company's actions. Though this is still just regression games.

I'm fairly certain that a major reason for the lack of change is that US Founder and first CEO (or President, I forget the terms these days) George Washington is on the dollar and also on the US Quarter, thus making it very difficult to simply mint a dollar coin as a replacement.

You might laugh, but these kinds of peccadilloes, added to the general incompetence and recalcitrance of today's Congress, result in a whole lot of "doing nothing".

So where are your solid numbers (Amazon ratings and sales ranks don't specify models sold) ? And please let me know if I can use my Chromebook offline on my airplaine. Sorry, no way a Chromebook is replacing my Macbook anytime - I see you can't even view the movies you buy on the Google Play store offline [1] (ie, in an airplane - no that GoGo streaming is not allowed for movies) - what use is that?

[1] https://productforums.google.c...

THere's a lot that an S4 or S5 will do that your S2 cannot - though you may not appreciate it, including things like Bluetooth4 or a larger battery, better camera or support for more innovative features on the latest Android (or TouchWiz) release.

Personally I have an iPhone and I upgrade every several years with my wife leapfrogging so one of us has the latest phone. Apple has perfected the upgrade treadmill - you're compelled but not forced into upgrading, and they make the features on each new generation worth the upgrade.