Because there are more risks than simply damage to the customer's furniture. If you are hauling stuff on a commercial basis without declaring it to the company insuring your vehicle you will likely find yourself totally naked in the event you have an accident (remember that clause in your policy that says no commercial activities?). So the nice little old lady that you ran over won't be able to get her medical bills covered by you unless she takes the time and effort to bring you to court. Unles you just happen to have that extra $100K to give to her.

So the state has a general interest in ensuring that you are safe, competent and insured. It's not just about you.

OK, here's a new idea for a start up...

A telepresence physical abuse robot.

Works with all major video conference systems. Able to get right in the face of the appointed victim and the user gets to chose from several different forms of intimidation - having the robot inflate to a larger volume, a soft plastic club, a metal bar or perhaps a tazer. The possibilities are endless.

Besides, development would be fun.

The 'small ecosystem' is likely to be his refrigerator.

When in trouble,
Or in doubt,
Run in circles,
Scream and shout.

-- Heinlein

While your complaint about the subscription model is valid (although lots of people would disagree with you), at least Adobe does allow you to use an unlimited number of previous versions. When you think about it, this is critically important to Adobe's preferred clientele - large professional companies with numerous licenses - since you don't dare change a major version in the middle of a project and a professional graphics company are always doing multiple projects.

You can end up with a hard drive full of various versions of everything if you're not careful.

Unfortunately, it is really more along these lines:

1) Apple releases a beta of the new OS
2) The people who write 3rd party software test against the OS, and if needed release a minor version upgrade
3) End user upgrades the minor version of their software automatically
4) When the OS is released all the tested* software is compatible.

* tested software includes a couple of the built in programs, usually excepting Mail and Finder, Adobe products not included.

5) Version X.0 delivered to great fanfare
6) Numerous issues discovered in X.0 within 48 hours, typically in Mail and Finder. Apple support servers spool up to include most of Amazon and Microsoft's cloud.
7) Three weeks later X.1 released
8) Within 48 hours, about half of the original complaints have been fixed, another crop of issues discovered, usually in Mail, Finder and Adobe products
9) Apple support servers again spooled up to utilize a significant fraction of California's electrical supply.
10) Three weeks later X.2 is released
11) Within 48 hours, about half of the original complaints have been fixed, another crop of issues discovered, usually in Mail, Finder and Adobe products
12) Apple support servers spool again, NASA determines that California has the hottest month on record.
13) Three weeks later X.3 is released
14) Most issues solved, Apple support servers go back to just requiring more power than most European countries.
15) X.3 - X.6 released to no fanfare
16) Some idiot at Apple has some weird, non standard way of doing something simple (Hello Airdrop), breaking compatibility with everything other than the very last round of hardware
17) The remaining tale is left as an exercise to the student.

Not to worry. We'll just stay on XP.

Signed, your CIO.

They asked the British for technical advice.

Right. A rich AC on Slashdot.

That's rich.

Rule 1: Blame the user, not the computer.

The problem is that somebody else can get to the supply. The system goes through a lot of trouble to make sure somebody doesn't siphon off the drug. Getting into the guts of the machine, bypassing the log functions and bog knows what else might be very tempting to the right person. All the more so since the pumps are used all of the time - you could have a good supply of your favorite narcotic.

I give it a couple of weeks before a simple exploit gets published somewhere.

Except that it has an Ethernet port. With an open Telenet. On a PCA pump (Patient Controlled Analgesia - a morphine drip). Which can kill the patient with the wrong dose.

Oops.

I think that, in 2015, one can reasonably expect the rudiments of security with a machine designed to deliver accurate quantities of a potentially fatal drug. Sure, it doesn't need to be hardened against every potential exploit but an open telenet port? That's pretty weak sauce. Aside from potentially killing a patient, an addicted nurse / tech (I was going to say doctor but they typically wouldn't know a telenet port if it went up and bit them in the nose) could potentially use this to siphon off the drug for their own use. The things have various locks and passwords to prevent that exact thing from happening.

They aren't taking the DNA sample FROM the iPhone. You are mailing a sample of DNA to some lab which will link your SNP profile with your iTunes ID number.

Now, think of this for a minute. The ability to associate SNPs with buying proclivities. An "Apple gene", if you will.

Now folks, this is a marketing executives wet dream complete with hookers and blow.

Hamburger.

Oh this is exactly what happens. In fact, in medicine, we have gone farther than any other industry - we have lots of (different) barcodes and numbers for everything.

And just to keep everyone on their toes, we change them at random intervals.