Sounds pretty much the same as the Canadian system. We stopped getting paper bills and using cash for anything a couple years ago. Only thing I haven't enabled yet is NFC payments on my phone.
It's really just the poor Americans to the South who are still in the banking dark ages, not North America in general.
We can do that here in Canada, using Interac via e-mail. Money leaves your account, goes into the Interac escrow account, the recipient gets an e-mail. They login to the Interac website, put in the password you gave them offline (or over the phone, SMS, whatever), and the money is transferred into their account.
It's not instantaneous, but nearly so. The recipient chooses when it's most convenient to receive the money. And the sender always has the option of revoking the transfer.
AFAIK, there's no reason you couldn't do a similar transfer to/from a business.
And via e-mail (person to person transfers). The list of participating banks is still fairly small, but covers all the major Canadian banks, most of the regional banks, and several credit unions, with more joining all the time.
You don't realise just how powerful and pervasive the Interac system is, until you try to do anything banking related in the US. It really is like the banking dark ages down there.
Most people can't tell
It's *very* easy to tell the difference between two monitors if you have them side-by-side. But stick one monitor into one room, and the other into another room, and ask people to pick the best one after walking through the two rooms, and it'll be a lot harder.
It's like comparing DPI on print jobs. Anything under 300 DPI looks like crap. But go over 300 DPI on a B&W laser, and it gets very hard to tell which is better
Every window manager released in the past 5-ish years supports "snap-to-side" features.
Move a window over to the left side of the screen, and it automatically resizes to take up full height and half the width of the screen, touching the left side of the screen.
Move a window over to the right side of the screen, and it automatically resizes to take up full height and half the width of the screen, touching the right side of the screen.
Several even include support for snapping into quadrants.
Move a window over to the top-left side of the screen, and it automatically resizes to take up half the height and half the width of the screen, touching the top-left side of the screen.
Repeat for the bottom-left, top-right, and bottom-right sides of the screen.
Move a window to the top of the screen, and it maximises to use the whole screen.
Even Windows 7+ does this (not sure about Vista). KDE 4+ does this. No idea about GNOME or Unity as I avoid them like the plague.
IOW, what you want, already exists.
Exactly. It doesn't matter how many were sold in a single quarter. What matters is how many have been sold overall, and how many of those are still in use.
Maybe this is a tipping point, and Chromebook sales will start to match iPad sales. Maybe not. Maybe this is a blip and never repeats.
Comparing anything over a single quarter is just plain dumb; short-sightedness in the extreme.
Slight correction:
NetBSD and FreeBSD were developed independently in the 90s, and mostly in parallel.
OpenBSD forked off NetBSD.
DragonflyBSD forked off FreeBSD.
OpenBSD is hoping to do just that.
Exactly. You need to separate infrastructure (installation and maintenance thereof) from content (that goes across said infrastructure).
There's only 1 set of power lines going into each building, yet there are multiple providers/sources of electrons in the grid. Most power utilities are split into generation and delivery businesses. Customers can even choose where their payments go (to "normal" power generation, "green" power generation, etc).
There's only 1 set of gas lines going into each building, yet there are multiple providers/sources of natural gas in the grid. Most gas companies are split into generation and delivery businesses. Up here in BC, Canada, we have multiple gas suppliers to choose from, depending on whether we want a fluctuating rate or a locked-in rate. All goes over the same gas line infrastructure.
Back in the day, there was only 1 set of phone lines into each building, but you could get phone services from multiple local or long-distance carriers. You could even get Internet service through multiple dial-up ISPs or ADSL ISPs. Separate businesses from infrastructure and content.
Some cities even had 1 set of cable lines going into a building, but you could get TV service from multiple cable companies.
We need to separate IP infrastructure (1 set of fibre cables into each building) from IP services (multiple ISPs, IPTV, IP-whatever companies).
It's absolutely rediculously redundant and wasteful to have every ISP running their own lines into each building (cable, ADSL, fibre ISP1, fibre ISP2, etc). And it's anti-competitive as all get out to have a content company managing Internet infrastructure.
What are you dropping it on and from how high?
My G2 has been without a cover for 10 months now. Dropped several times on laminate floor, carpet, linoleum, and carport cement (2-4' drops). Been kicked across the floor and the driveway. And went tumbling down the stairs twice so far. Only permanent damage is two small divots on the very edge of the bezels ( in the extremely thin silver band just outside of the glass screen).
This has been one of the sturdiest phones I've had, and the first touchscreen phone I've kept out of a case. The only one stronger was my first cell phone, a fortified Panasonic TX-220.
Except that Google Voice only works for Americans. If you don't live in the US, it's extremely difficult to get a GV number, or to use GV.
Skype works on any Windows/MacOS computer, virtually any iOS, Android, or MS phone device, some consoles, and probably other devices. Even if you can't phone a landline using it, you can still connect with people using it.
A better comparison would be Google Hangouts which can be used to:
- send/receive SMS messages on cell phones
- send/receive instant messages on cell phones, tablets, chromebooks, laptops, PCs, etc
- make voice or video calls between Hangouts users
- make voice calls to landlines within North America for free (and other countries for pennies)
Google Hangouts is quickly overtaking Microsoft Skype in features, although it's still building it's userbase.
Standby time is irrelevent. Turn the screen off, put it in airplane mode, and it will last a month. Turn the phone off completely, it will last for years. Never take it out of the box, and it will last indefinitely.
How long the battery lasts when you don't use it isn't really a metric worth debating.
How long a battery lasts while you use the phone on a regular basis is what matters. And 4 or 5 hours of SoT isn't anything to brag about. Not when the LG G2, Droid Razr Maxx, and similar phones get 7+ hours of SoT.
4-5 hours in 2014 is pathetic.
4-5 hours screen-on time isn't that great. That was the benchmark in 2013 before the LG G2 came out. It's normal to get 7 hours SoT with the G2, and more if you tweak things or use it as an ereader.
The number of days of standby time is irrelevant. My phone lasts 3+days if all I do is check the odd text message; it's amazing how long you can drag out 8 hrs of screen time if you don't actually turn the screen on.
Runs what faster than Chrome? JavaScript? Nope. HTML rendering? Nope. Loading web pages in general? Nope. Starting up from disk? Nope.
Firefox used to be the lean and mean alternative browser. Then Chrome came along and showed everyone just how slow and bloated Firefox has become (which just shows how slow IE is).
The only thing Firefox has left as positive features are extensions and plugins. In every other way, it's been surpassed by Chrome, Safari, and sometimes even IE11+.
You gotta love marketdroids. "Max" means there's nothing greater, yet they have "Max Plus" and "Max Turbo".
Where do they find the people who dream up these names? And why do they still have a job? Did the Street Fighter naming crew get picked up on contract here?
"I want the max download speed you have."
"Okay, would you like Max, Max Plus, or Max Turbo?"
"Uhm, what?"
The best things in life go on sale sooner or later.
