I work in a fairly large technical sales environment, and we exercise a zero tolerance rule for our younger team members when we are out with clients - if you touch your mobile device for any reason beyond presenting content or sharing contacts relevant to the meeting, you will be reprimanded. Don't leave the device on the table, and don't even think about taking notes on your phone - anything that distracts you and forces you to break eye contact with your customer is a bad thing and makes you look like you're only half-interested in the people in the room.
We will occasionally experience some belligerence after they have been reprimanded, but we always remind them that the best, most seasoned sales team members only need four things to close a multi-million dollar sale - pen, paper, whiteboard, and business cards.

Love for cars and love of driving is too ingrained in our culture to permit the future you have just described. People don't simply buy the safest vehicle they can afford - they buy something that's fun/sporty/responsive/peppy/powerful/fast/etc. and safe. Safety is almost an implied feature, but it always takes second fiddle to something a driver can enjoy. At most, self-driving will be a switch for the morning commute.

Your assertion that autonomous vehicles will take over fails to take into account one of the major reasons we have such a large automotive industry - people like to drive. They like to buy new cars, repair old cars, and do stupid things in fast cars. At most, a car with auto-pilot would be a convenience feature for the daily commute, but so long as people get an adrenaline rush when they put the pedal to the floor, this will not change.

Wow, move to a real country. Not even kidding. I work for an average employer in Canada and they pay 100% of the monthly costs for my entire family, and that covers extended health, drugs, dental, vision, the works.
Some mobility would be good for your family growing up, anyway.

I'm glad that someone is attempting to quantify this. As someone who works in sales for hosted services, I saw this trend emerge virtually overnight with the Snowden leaks - the complete erosion of trust for any service hosted in the U.S., even if the actual, measurable impact to date any of my customers of being spied upon is exactly nil.
Now if only someone would compare the impact to the NSA's operating budget and draw some lines, things might get better. I've been called an optimist before, however.

This. The sense of entitlement and self-importance is astounding amongst some flyers. I guess it's understandable on some level - some people could just never be told to put their toys away by an authority figure as a child.

The Dead Hand, I believe.

The mobile market is always fascinating. Ting piggybacks on Sprint's network (ultimately driving down revenue for Sprint) and does not build any of their own infrastructure, yet their customers point the finger right back at Sprint when coverage becomes an issue.
The future is pretty straightforward for companies like Ting - once they have a large enough customer base and start taking a measurable chunk of Sprint's revenue, Sprint will either buy them out or lobby for legislation to shut them down. Sure, Sprint makes some money for each Ting device on the network, but not enough to justify brand new towers, and so long as that is true, Ting cannot exist without Sprint's willful participation.

Looks like only the AC's are biting on this one. Regardless of whether it makes sense on a technical level, this is exactly what the bean counters and VP's are thinking. They don't care if the folks providing support know what FTP is, they have a contract and someone to yell at if it all goes south - and a mountain of provable cost efficiencies. If they're particularly smart, they will keep just enough dedicated talent on-hand to babysit during the transition offshore, chewing up all of their work/life balance for the promise of something better.
But don't worry, as one of those dedicated, talented people facing burnout, you, too, will be offered the ability to work from home when the dust settles. You can pat yourself on the back, knowing that you've done a good job for your employer, and that your work-from-home arrangement won't end the same way, right?

They forgot to use "Software Defined Networks" in TFA. That'll hurt their SEO scores.

So let me get this straight - it's better to have all of your actions monitored and recorded online by one of the most warmongering and paranoid countries on the planet, than to have the Internet controlled by an international organization which "might" abuse the privilege? Makes sense...

I cannot agree more with this. Every new version of Android/iOS/Windows Phone seems to be all about more integration with various advertising platforms (Google, Facebook, Twitter, the list goes on) - with Samsung even calling their phones a "Life Companion" now. I'm sorry, but I put a ring (not a ringtone) on my life companion, and I don't give a shit about tweeting or "checking in" when I'm on the crapper. Making phone calls and responding to emails are my killer apps, and that's it.

Thank you for this. I wish I could give you mod points.

From the link:

Someone familiar with this needs to clarify - exactly - how a high-latency and unreliable (compared to fiber) network could be considered backhaul. They claim data rates of 12 Gbps per satellite, but what type of data do they intend to carry? Do they expect smartphones to be manufactured with satellite modems? Or is it common in other parts of the world to build an HSPA+/LTE tower fed by T1's?
Call me skeptical, but both of these projects just seem to be round peg/square hole. A much more reliable and suitable solution for rural areas could easily be had from a terrestrial wireless solution at a fraction of the cost and complexity.

+1 Funny.