Actually Samsung has done a lot of that research, however it is handwaved away by the US courts and valueless.
Samsung and other companies participating in the active development of standards for such important techniques also
cooperate, cross license, and charge very little.

Apple however slapped 'on a capacitive touch screen' on a mountain of prior art it is held up and important and innovative.
Apple then uses this 'high value patents' as a weapon to try and exclude competition from who markets so they can protect
their astronomically high per device profits (compared to industry norms).

THAT is the problem.

Want me to translate what you are feeling for you?.

1. You are embarrassed that the good ole US Of A has been outed as the local bully boy and peeping Tom on a scale even their friends never guessed. Deal with it. Perhaps it can help you become a more healthy country.

2. You feel he may be a traitor to the USA. Fair enough. Just remember he is a hero to humanity.. Which kind of trumps that. A lot.

Um.. No.

Point 1. My country does not claim to be the leaders of the free world, dies not pose as the world police, and does not claim the right to invade and 'punish' other countries at will. The USA does and therefore needs to live up to higher standards.

Point 2. My country actively spies FOR the USA. On its own people and others. Almost certainly due to strong arming from the USA.

Therefore I do believe I have the right to be very pissed of at what has come to light, and to now see the USA in a different light than before.

It does seem interesting that many in the USA seem to think it is OK to just say fuck the rest of the world. We are all that matters. It would be a good idea perhaps to climb of the high horse first though.

Mind you.. At least my country doesn't owe it's body and soul to China and Japan.

You actually believe that shit? Really?

Do you realize that what it is actually saying is that in the US, manufacturers have much higher markups on their products than Chinese?
And of course carefully ignores the fact that most of what they count as manufacturing is actually assembly of Chinese produced components?

a few other titbits you may like:
'China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries increased $12.2 billion to a record $1.317 trillion in November, data released on the Treasury Department’s website showed. '
'China’s swelling foreign-exchange reserves, reported today to have reached a world record $3.82 trillion at the end of December'

The simple fact is that americans have priced themselves out of base manufacturing, and are only just holding on to 'value-added' assembly - most of the
base capability still left is held their artifically to avoid huge unemployment of the working class.
That is of course why the US has spent the last two decades forcing their own bizarre view of IP/Trade laws down the throats of other countries practically at gunpoint - after all the Romans demand their peeled grapes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_virtue .

You got a choice? pure luxury! Oh to have had a choice.. We just got zeros, and were damn happy to have em.

Great, now of course you also realise you need to balance the infrastructure AND collection AND policing fees across the user population right?
So, how much do you think all the cycleways will cost per rider?

After all, you want it to be 'fair'

Actually I think you will find it is more the opposite.
Road taxes pay for the roads, and then some - hence they contribute to the general funds.
It is being foolish to present this as road taxes being punitive, they are paying for the roads AND providing an excess.
Hence the road users ARE paying for the roads.

>There are other way to "get involved" than sending in special forces, supplying arms to insurgents, holding large military exercises on the borders
>and threatening invasion. Those are the tactics of an uncivilized bully.

Sounds a lot like the US in central america for the last, well, a long time..

Jealous that public sectorunions use the publics hard earned tax dollars to give themselves conditions that no one in the private sector
could dream of getting due to the fact that they wield a double edged sword of manipulating a large group of votes as well as being able
to use strike action, whereas the civil servants holding the purse strings have nothing to loose by caving in to demands - after all, its
not their money they are spending. they just want to avoid any embarrassing media coverage to they can keep their own nests feathered.

No, I think pissed off is the word - public sector unions are a cancer against democracy - public sector workers have a vote, just like the
rest of us. THAT is their working condition protection.

Ah, you mean the consensus from the financial analysts...
Sounds like an open and unbiased viewpoint to me.
But then if you can convince all the suckers its in their interest, and they accept that, then it is, right?

You will of course not have noticed that the bailouts were not actually used to help the people who
were trapped in negative equity situations, but primarily used to payout ongoing large bonuses and
option packages to the 'managers' of the institutions.. ut hey, they are the ones who NEED protecting, right?

And not only that, it seems to be a vehicle for pushing the 'fact' that *human caused* global warming is a proven fact, by trying to associate it with a group of much more solidly proven 'facts' and poking fun at dissenters.

Which of course is NOT true, while there is a large amount of evidence for global climate change itself, there is much much less evidence as to the actual causes, let alone the magnitude of each of those causes.

So far the models that purport to prove that global warming (climate change, even) is CAUSED by humans have shown themselves to be absolutely terrible at one of the key tests of any scientific theory, prediction (and no, I am not talking about weather prediction, I am talking about climate prediction). And yet many people place these poorly performing theories on a high altar and will attack any dissent.

Which is a great pity, considering the article is trying to promote better understanding of science, and yet is making a major failing itself. It seems to be mainly another step in the political 2-step that is life in America these days. Sad.

I split quite a lot of wood, and in quite a range of types, from reasonably easy (straight grain macrocarpa) to very difficult (large old falled bluegum with twisted grain).

These days I mainly use a fiskars X27, which is a very nice splitting axe (not too heavy, fast swing, weight in the head, does not stick).
I also use a maul at about twice the weight, but mainly to releast the x27 on the rare occasions it does stick.
http://www2.fiskars.com/Gardening-and-Yard-Care/Products/Axes-and-Striking-Tools/X27-Super-Splitting-Axe-36#.U1WY4FdEBdU

In a side by side comparison to a good hydraulic splitter, against myself using two tyres on chopping blocks and a helper to load/upload them
(and two people on the splitter) I am faster for the first hour, then slow down on easy and medium wood, splitter wins of difficult wood, but only the
very difficult (twisted grain, lots of knots).

Knowing how to use the axe, using a tyre to contain the wood, pacing yourself, and using the twist on impact technique at the right times makes
a huge difference to axe splitting.
I would love to try one of these axes, unfortunately hugely expensive so not worth it - keep meaning to try asymmetric weighting on one of my axes to see if its a gain..
there are videos of it being used on more tricky oak, and discussions by 3rd parties that would indicate it is still useful. if you think any splitting is dont by cutting through the wood then you need to spend more time behind an axe.. the theory of operation on this thing should scale through most wood - but of course difficult wood is always difficult, its just a matter of scale..

And I am not big (140lbs...), so many axemen would do MUCH better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steubenville_High_School_rape_case

Enough? Took me a good solid 5 seconds on google.

In what way exactly is recording audio in a public place 'wiretapping'?
Are you claiming that any recording of audio in a public place requires the explicit permission of anyone who is audible on the recording?
I suspect the main problem here is the parents did not lawyer up well enough (either through assuming this would be trivially solved as it should have been, or through cost).

The 'solution' unfortunately, will be to get better lawyers. Dont you love the land of the free?

Jealous much?

Seems to me that the people who have been pissing away their time spending everything they can day to day and not buying any actual property are now pissed that the property values for others who didnt do that are going up, and that they will then have to pay more rent.

Hint - its called investing for the future, and its a damn good idea, no matter how fashionable your triple chocolate mochas and anti establishment tees are.

To you actually know that the capitalism in, well, capitalism actually means? Or would you rather live in some state allocated location, with a state allocated job, eathing your state allocated rations? hmmm?