You would be surprised at how few speech recognition companies are left in the industry. Nuance was on a buying spree a few years ago and there really are almost no mature companies left. There are a few smaller ones, but their software really isn't any good. Plus, they own almost all the patents, so others are quickly purchased or squashed...

I have used my USA based phone with a USA based app in Europe (UK and Germany) as an NFC payment option with no issues. I think the NFC enabled cards don't work in Europe -- but I've never actually seen one of those in the wild in the USA either...

Every McDonalds I've been to in the last three years has accepted NFC. In fact, they were one of the first to do it when they started refreshing their stores.

Um... I've been using Google Wallet with my Samsung (and now my HTC) phones for about 3 years. Last night I paid for my groceries at a small mom-and-pop grocer with NFC. I paid for gas at a Sunoco with NFC. I got breakfast at McDonalds with NFC. I think the only thing I needed to use cash for was parking. And since the Target thing last year, most retailers I visit have been replacing their card readers with NFC and Chip+Pin readers. The only retailer that really bugs me is Staples -- they have had NFC readers for about 4 years in all of their stores but their register software has no idea what to do with it (it scans, but then it pops up a screen on their register asking for the Authorization Code.)

When you use Google Wallet, you load the app, and enter your pin. You swipe, then chose which bank account you want to have the money paid from. It then pops up a copy of the transaction, which in my case I can put into a category. It's amazing how simple it is to use, and I've never had an incompatibility issue, except when the register isn't working (their card reader won't read anything).

I live within 2 miles of my organization's HQ. That doesn't help the fact they sell my services all over the USA.

Sure, the biggest of the biggest airports, there are more options. But If you look at the remaining 1,000 smaller airports (wait, Detroit is a smaller airport?), the selection goes WAY down. Hell, even MSP, has only a handful of flights that aren't Delta or United. In my case unless I want the one or two flights a week that Frontier, Southwest have, the next closest airport to get away from the crap that is United/Delta is about a 5 - 6 hour drive. The truth really is that if you live between the coasts, you are pretty much screwed when it comes to selection of airlines...

They ran that ad because they realized that if they could get rid of one row of seats, they could drop one of their stewardess, and save money that way.

Since that time, the FAA changed the rules on the number of people per crew member, so they lost their incentive to drop the extra row.

Wish I could upgrade. My company will only book the cheapest fare (X or lower), which usually ends up to be about a $500 fare between Detroit and LAX. Because they won't pay for the upgrade, I have to wait for the day of the flight to do an upgrade, and the last time I tried, they offered an upgrade to business class for an additional $600, or first for $1200. I used to be able to use my miles to upgrade, but Delta changed the rules so that I can only use my miles to book flights. I'm always number 200 on the upgrade list because they take care of the families that got their branded credit cards before me (I only have 200,000 miles -- but somehow the people who never flew before have 250,000 on their account).

The other solution people give is to fly another airline. That's fine if you are in New York or California -- but in the midwest, there are only two to choose from -- United and Delta. Both are in a heavy competition to see who can be worse. Every airport within 250 miles of me only offers one of those two to any destination that is not Florida or Mexico.

But that's ok. I guess I deserve it. Every time I fly my knees swell up and look like and apple after a food fight because the 5' 3" housewife ahead of me deserves to lounge in comfort. I have an appointment to have the cartridge behind my knees to be scoped because they are torn up -- and I don't run marathons or do any activities that would produce that outcome (other than flying a few times a month). Being a healthy 6'4" with long legs is not easy if you need to travel in the USA for your job.

There was an "agreement" between the companies that said they weren't supposed to hire workers from the other companies. It was more than poaching, it was to keep workers where they were. Sure, some people moved between companies, but a majority of us didn't make it past the filters...

Not true. There is a PIN requirement for cards that have a PIN assigned to them. US Banks have switched from the "Chip + Signature" to "Chip + Pin" system in the last year.

All the banks are issuing new terminals that accept chip+pin in the US. Start watching your local markets and smaller shops -- many of them already have the new readers. My corporate card was just re-issued last month with a Chip+Pin -- if I try to swipe it on one of these new readers, it denies the transactions and prompts me to insert it near the bottom.

I'd say 25% of the merchants I've visited in the last two weeks have a chip+pin reader already. Major chains where they have their own branded readers don't have them yet at all.

Because if you block access to SkyDrive, you end up blocking access to being able to run the newest version of Microsoft Office. The servers that it uses to get (stream) content are the same ones that SkyDrive uses.

Well, then your spouse dosen't know how to account for their time very well.

When I was teaching, I topped out at $52k a year. This was in the midwest, and the top-paid teacher in the district I think made near $60k.

We were required to be in the classroom for 990 hours. IF you just count that, 52,000 / 990 = $52/hr.

But I was required to be in school more than just the kids. This averaged to be 1 hour before they arrived, and 3 after. (4hrs*5days*39weeks) = 780 + 990 = 1770 hours required to be in school. Now, the per-hour figure goes down to just under $30/hr.

Oh, and if I don't get my grading, lesson plans, meetings, and everything else done in those four hours (I rarely did), then I had to do that as well. Lets be really conservative and say that was only 6 hours a week. 6*39 = 2,004 hours. $25/hr.

Oddly enough, ~2000 hours is what an average blue-collar worker gets paid for per year, including vacations. $52k is pretty good, but I was also at top-pay. That is what was worked-up to.

The trick is knowing what is happening under the hood -- whether you do it on a day-to-day basis or not. It's good to know why you wouldn't want to send a LONG into a function that requires a FLOAT. It's also good to know what the difference is between a MAP and having two Arrays or linked-lists. These things don't require doing memory management by hand, but being able to demonstrate what and why is the difference between a code monkey and somebody who is architecting code. Because a lot of the higher-level languages will obscure this from you, you can get along without ever learning them -- but you can get yourself into a hole quickly.

IT in Education conferences I would have you look at include Educause, and ACUTA. Educause is the 1,000 lbs gorilla, and everybody is there. ACUTA is much smaller, so you tend to build really good relationships with your peer institutions.