I believe that torque converters are generally less efficient than the use of a mechanical clutch, due to the inherent losses involved in having a heavy additional piece of machinery that transmits torque through a fluid bearing compared to the relatively simple and direct clutch mechanism. No matter how intelligently the car shifts, the simpler transmission in a manual is inherently more efficient. CVT might be better than manual, though.

Yeah, I had an account on UKNova several years ago, and I was always impressed with their principles - okay, not exactly abiding by the letter of the law, but doing it in a way that always seemed like nobody was losing out. It did nothing that you couldn't personally have done with a TV card/VCR/appropriate set-top box, if only you'd had it set up at the right time. It's a pity.

It's Apple's right to ask for one, then. Thanks!

One iPhone, no Samsung smartphones (but two Samsung feature phones), and three LG phones, apparently. Overall, two had Android smartphones, and one didn't have a phone at all.

I admit that I'm no expert on US trial law, but it seems strange to me that this would be a matter for a jury. Could someone explain to me why this was assessed by a jury rather than by judges, as previous cases have been?

I was recently linked to a page on the BBC website which was blocked to visitors from the UK. We're not even allowed to look at anything that BBC Worldwide has made, apparently.

I've seen that - a relative of mine refused to take any of the film off her new laptop. And some people use that plastic film on touchscreen devices as a "screen protector" (here, for example). Utility of protecting a toughened glass screen with less-scratch-resistant plastic aside (I guess it works as long as you replace the protector sometimes, but I haven't found the need for one since we moved away from resistive touchscreens), it's designed to come off easily, not to be optically clear, an appropriate texture or to be permanently attached.

I was going to point out Amazon's Kindle packaging, yes. It's understated in a different way to Apple's, and feels more utilitarian, but it has its own distinctive style, is extremely easy to open, and uses little plastic.

Not directly, I just happened to have read that story earlier in the day (I'm British myself) and was reminded of it by this case where, apparently, the police also weren't very interested. I would like to think that the police in general, whether in Paris or London, would investigate this sort of thing when there's some evidence to go on, but clearly that doesn't necessarily happen - and so their supposed lack of response here doesn't seem as out-of-place as I'd like it to be, since there has been some discussion over whether the story sounded legitimate.

Having just read several stories about how people were mugged in the UK and the police didn't care to investigate despite having leads in many cases, I can believe that.

McDonald's operates franchises, yes. However, it appears that franchisors are sometimes liable for their franchisees' actions (I have no idea if that would be the case here). And even if they're not legally liable, McDonald's may want to protect their brand identity by dissociating themselves from abusive behaviour towards customers and thus pursue the complaint with the franchisee, I don't know.

Not wanting to admit you is a bit different from assaulting you (assuming the story is true).

I have to agree (and I'm an Android user, and no fan of Apple). Users want security and total convenience, and while technically the permissions side of Android is fine, the average user just wants their funny talking dog app to run - they don't care to look through the permissions list and wonder why it wants to be able to dial numbers and access all their personal data. Similarly, when Microsoft implemented UAC in Windows, people complained about the intrusive pop-ups and would automatically approve them to make them go away, until they were forced to lower the default setting in Windows 7. But you can bet that if they get malware on their Android phone or Windows PC they'll be blaming Google and Microsoft for not preventing it, rather than themselves for agreeing to its installation.

I don't see how there can be a perfect solution though... either you have freedom and have to take responsibility for these risks (knowing that a lot of people won't), or close off the device to anything that's not officially curated (restrictive and not foolproof either). Given the choice, I'll take - and have taken - the former, but I can appreciate that it's not necessarily ideal for the average user. All I can think of is initially exposing devices to a curated version of the Play Store ala Apple but providing a way to access the unrestricted catalogue if you agree to the increased risk, but that starts to make developing for Android look less attractive and would cost Google more.

This is a valid point, yep. Raising money for, say, developing a game through Kickstarter is fine, because you're just paying for the developers' time in advance rather than retrospectively, and that's what most of the money goes on. But if you're selling something on Kickstarter that has actual unit costs, you'd better be making sure that the price is high enough to cover all your overheads after you take that into account, and $99 is not a lot to be selling this device for considering that they also need to develop the controller, write the software, build a back-end infrastructure, perhaps fund some first-party games to kick start (if you excuse the term) the device, market it etc.