It's really very simple. When you're reading literature, you WANT the writer to have made those decisions. That's the writer's job. The story decisions are the heart of what makes a collection of stories into literature. Otherwise, you're just creating a world and throwing a reader into it to do the work of building his own story. There's nothing wrong with it for the tiny minority who want to do it, of course, but for the vast majority of people, having someone else make those artistic decisions and give them a satisfying story -- with interesting twists along the way before arriving at an interesting end -- is what makes reading literature worth doing. The people who favor the reader-driven plots don't really understand what literature is. As others have pointed out, hypertext stories are simply games. There's nothing wrong with that format, but it's neither fish nor fowl. People who want a good linear narrative story are best served by a traditional book. Those who want an interactive game are best served by graphics-heavy games. Hypertext stories serve a tiny niche that will never grow, IMO.

Quit being reasonable and making sense. There's no room for that in the Church of Openness. ;-)

It's cute to watch a certain type of geek when he's delusional enough to think that a plan such as this will work. They don't understand the way business incentives actually work, which makes it even funnier when their predictions don't come true. ;-)

People who worship Google as a paragon of virtue are no smarter than people who worship any other company, whether it's Apple of Microsoft or Red Hat or whoever. Every company's agenda is to compete and win, gaining power and making money. I have no problem with that. That's just the way the market works. The problem comes when gullible people believe a company's PR rhetoric about peace, love and freedom -- or whatever they're selling that day. Google isn't your friend. Google is a huge corporation that provides services in its effort to win more dollars in the long run. Those who think that Google is doing "open" things out of the goodness of their hearts in order to make the world a better place are either stupid or naive. They're a huge company that's competing to own as much as it can. If you like its services, use them. But understand this. When you are using "free" services, the company is making money some other way -- and it's almost always the case that YOU have become the product that they're selling to someone else. If that's OK with you, fine. But you need to understand reality instead of thinking you're getting something free. You pay in one way or another. With Google, you pay by giving up your information and privacy. But that's your choice.

If people are willing to pay more, why wouldn't they charge more? The market value sets the price. Period. If you don't want to pay the higher price, well, don't buy the stuff. What's the big deal? It's just business.

I think you're missing the point that what Siri on the iPhone 4S does IS DIFFERENT from what other manufacturers provide. Yes, others do voice recognition, but it's not nearly as good under as many circumstances as what Siri does. Have you seen the various video comparisons (on YouTube) between Siri and Android phones interpreting the same commands? There's no comparison between the two.

Actually, it WAS called Siri before Apple bought it. I still have a copy of the app on my iPhone, although it's useless now since it won't communicate with the server. The original version wasn't exactly what shipping with the iPhone 4S. Yes, it's the same basic technology, but that's it. For whatever reason, it seems as though Apple didn't think the technology was good enough without the add-ons that come with the 4S.

I don't see what he's saying as anti-intellectualism. I read constantly and soaked up information like a sponge, but I didn't read my textbooks. They were dumbed down and fairly useless. The fact that they were written on such a low level made me feel that they were patronizing me. I learned almost all of what I wanted and needed to know elsewhere.

Life must be difficult living under that tinfoil hat of yours.

It's just a tad thicker than the prototype unit they showed two years ago, isn't it?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/22/olpc-shows-off-absurdly-thin-xo-3-concept-tablet-for-2012/

Lots of other people also pointed to a loss of more and more freedom. (Libertarians have been doing it for longer than Stallman has, for instance, and they're consistent instead of obsessing about one issue.) To pick out this one issue and claim that it means "Stallman was right" doesn't make any sense. Stallman might not trust government, but then, many other people also don't trust government -- and they don't necessarily agree with Stallman's views. So it's some pretty screwy logic to claim that this proves Stallman was right about anything.

I don't mean this as criticism of Google, but it's a major company whose interest is making money. Something like this is pretty much irrelevant to its operations. Some other priority -- internally or externally -- got in the way of what they were doing, so they pulled the plug. Those who think Google (or any other company) does things just to be helpful are living in fantasy land. This is what's wrong with relying on free services. If a company can make money by offering you a service, that service will continue. If it can't -- and it some other interest gets in the way -- your service will be gone. If you truly care about something, pay for it from a provider who has a financial interest in keeping your business.

DigiTimes is like the Chinese-language version of the National Enquirer for the tech industry. It's rarely right, but that doesn't stop people from continuing to pretend it has legitimacy or accuracy.

Don't confuse the fanboys with facts like this. Since they hate Apple, it MUST be "a serious setback" for Apple.

Oh, yeah. When one of these delusional "open source hardware" projects finally turns a profit and matters, then we'll talk. Until then, they're all delusional.