I dont expect you to understand but, it's nice to have a leader you dont have to be disappointed in. Even if they're only a symbolic leader and haven't wielded any real power in 400 years.

The same way someone is granted a patent on using rounded corners or scrolling on a mobile device.

The patent system is horribly broken and now only works for money (you pay, you get patent).

A robot bartender in a commercial environment would either need to be able to follow all the same rules or be operated by someone that does.

A robot bartender will be programmed with a set of rules that will look very similar to the rules set out for human staff.

It will be the same with a robot carer. They will be programmed to the same parameters as a human carer would receive. So someone with chronic liver issues will be denied alcohol, someone who has mobility issues will be able to order the odd sherry.

People forget we already have a system of rules for decision making in place. The main reason they're flawed is because humans sometimes dont follow them (I.E. the man with chronic liver issues might persuade his carer to give him a sherry because it's his birthday).

The difference between a human and robot bartender is that when you've had a few too many the robot bartender can not be bargained with, reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop until you've been served a diet soda.

No that's a head that looks like a freak formation of mashed potato.

Thats because 99% of AAA games are twitch games. No strategy involved, just reflexes. Games like COD, Halo, et al. really limit what the player can do and it really is the fastest mouse wins. So they have to limit the reaction time of the AI to what a human is capable of.

Now if you look at strategy games like Civ IV, you had to give the AI unfair advantages to put it on equal footing with human players. But turn based strategy games have a lot of fuzzy logic. So really an AI mastering COD is not news, we can have been able to build bots with superhuman reaction time since the 90's. Wake me when they can master a city building sim as well as a good human player.

Remember when Apple was forced to remove all porn apps from the App Store?

Me neither.

Probably because Apple banned it from day 1.

I do have to love the hypocrisy here. When Apple bans something, it's "curating" a "walled garden" but when google does it they're "censoring" your "right to free expression".

Because it's Google and anything that can be twisted into sounding like Google is Baaaaaad and Ebil is news.

For those familiar with Google, this wont really be a surprise and by RTFS they aren't banning nudity, they're removing obviously pornographic videos and pictures (so your 50 shades of grey fan fiction is safe).

As it's Google's site, it's Google's rules. If you dont like them you can start your own blogging platform for explicit material with blackjack and hookers (although I believe this is already called Pornhub).

I can tell you aren't an engineer.

Again you have a strange definition of "millisecond".

There is at least a 5 second processing time. Closer to 10 seconds in most cases.

A few milliseconds doesn't even cover the time it takes the checkout operator to press the button that sends the transaction to the EFT processor for you to insert your card (my country uses chip and pin, my current card doesn't even have a magstripe).

Lets not even consider those smaller stores who need to key in the price manually because the EFTPOS system isn't linked to the register (this makes it take even longer as you have to make sure they keyed in the right price).

Needless to say, by the time you've finished fumbling about with your card and waiting for the bank to respond, I've paid in cash and out the door.

Beyond this, I dont really want to give out my card details to every shop so they can store them on poorly secured servers that get compromised every few months (well this isn't a problem in Australia as its illegal to do this, but a serious issue if you live in the US).

Silence meatbag.

Every transaction approval I've had for the last 15 years has been nearly instantaneous.

You must have a very strange definition of "instantaneous".

Because I have travelled extensively, including the US and transactions have always taken longer than just using cash. Every single time.

This is because the EFT terminal needs to contact the bank.

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy."

Wars are not won by brutality. They're won by being smarter than the enemy or as Winston Churchill once uttered:
"Battles are won by slaughter and manoeuvre, the more a general contributes in manoeuvre the less he demands in slaughter".

History is filled with the destruction of empires built on brutality. Even the most successful ones barely outlasted their leaders (Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun) where as the generals we remember the most were the most innovative and intelligent of their time (I.E. Julius Ceasar, Sun Tzu). Anyone who thinks they can bludgeon their enemies into submission are simply setting themselves up for a fall.

Fixed that for you.

Cash is by far and away the fastest form of payment. Having to wait for the EFTPOS terminal to contact the bank takes far longer than getting change from the cashier.

The thing is, even with the Game Cube being a bit of a flop compared to the PS2 and Xbox, Nintendo still made money. They made back all the R&D and some.

So Nintendo doesn't need to worry about the lukewarm reception the Wii U got... But Sony and Microsoft need to worry about the lukewarm reception the PS4 and XBone got as they require years of good sales to get into the black, the fact they had to drop their prices so quickly after release means that the sales figures do not bode well for them.

Microsoft has deep pockets and can keep funding the Xbox from their profitable divisions but Sony is haemorrhaging money across the board. I think a better question is, how long until Sony becomes the next Sega.

The thing is, easy piracy increases console sales.

Microsoft knew this with the original Xbox. It was so easily modded that everyone bought one. Same with the PS2. When the PS3 came along they lost momentum because everything was just a huge pain in the arse.

The Dreamcast was just a bad console with a serious dearth of good games. Even if it were just a bad console but had some good games it would have been enough to keep Sega going like Nintendo did with the Game Cube.