This is not remotely the same as having every transaction you ever did linked.

It`s not the same as cash, because once they have your identity, they have all your transactions to mine for more data as well.

They are not abandoning location tracking, just the ability of the user being tracked to get something useful out of that tracking for themselves.

Also the optical quality of the lens can not be compensated for in software. The tiny surface area of smartphone lenses makes them very susceptable to the tiniest of flaws.

Was this what it took for IBM to get their last OS/2 customer to migrate to Linux so they can make the support team redundant?

The issue here is that Mastercard and Visa have a duopoly on contactless payments. In order to get cheaper rates on contactless payments, the retailers are having to agree to put all transactions on dual standard cards (most banks in Australia issue bank cards which use the banks' own EFTPOS standard as well as either Mastercard or Visa debit), even if they are made by inserting the card rather than contactless. EFTPOS IIRC charges a low fixed rate per transaction, something that got it widespread acceptance long before Visa and Mastercard graduated from carbon paper imprints and got into debit as well as credit cards. Visa and Mastercard charge a percentage, which costs retailers a lot more on larger transactions.

The direction for upgrading single packages seems to be snap. The A/B system images would be minimal base images and any applications you want installed are installed as snap packages on a seperate partition, so they can be updated separately (possibly also via A/B updates). Basically the system should consist of 4 partitions - system A, system B, apps, data.

Or maybe don't make network filesystems a boot dependency if you are not in a high availability managed thin client environment.

They were already basically a subsidiary of Foxconn.

Why would you build a house that can fall down when you can live in a cave?

I'm a bit skeptical of the claims, as the founders are Apple, Amazon, Google, Comcast and Zigbee Alliance. The first three of those at least have a vested interest in cloud data collection and vendor lock-in, which seem contrary to the stated goals of Matter. I expect that it will be possible to use open source controllers like Home Assistant, openHAB etc to get the promised experience, but there will be enough holes in the standard that Apple, Amazon and Google can maintain their ownership of your digital life.

The incremental improvements since Windows XP have all been driven by what can generate ongoing revenue to Microsoft, not by what users want. Stop pretending that the number of users that want a feature (which they've had since before screens became wide enough for it to make sense to put the taskbar on the side) matters.

Your debt then ends up being one of the only things of value left in the company to be sold by the administrators when winding the company up. Big risk to you of not knowing what terms are going to be forced on you by whoever acquires your debt in future.

Yeah, why was everyone not posting fake Google and Tripadvisor reviews in 1950?

Someone who has clearly never sucked on a lactating breast as an adult. Human milk tastes disgusting to grown adults.