They do. It's called a Grand Jury. Although sometimes the media gets the information anyway, like in this case.

I always thought Nintendo had nailed the feeling of getting more powerful while still being challenged in games like Metroid and Zelda by showing players a lot of the level without letting them get to it. Then on your second pass through the world, your new skills/tools allowed to you explore a lot more even while feeling challenged because the creatures were harder to kill. By the time you took your third/fourth pass through the level, you were probably either flying (literally) or could use some kind of other tool to basically go anywhere you wanted to. Definitely gave a sense of leveling up.

The original award was $25 per car. On remand, the district court quadrupled it to $98 per car. It's buried in the second link I know, but look at the first paragraph on page 16. That sums up the court's findings. This award will be appealed as well, but it's more likely to hold.

Actually, that's sort of the problem for Toyota. They got hit with a patent judgment over their hybrid vehicles in eastern Texas a couple of years ago. The plaintiff was awarded nearly $100 a vehicle as an on-going royalty (which is about 17% of Toyota's relatively slim profit margin).

So I agree. Kudos to Toyota for playing the game like it should be played. They got hit pretty hard and they needed to fight fire with fire. Good for them.

This is exactly right. A jury really doesn't like it when you lie to their face.

I don't know. I think I'd rather just file for bankruptcy and move on than be brought up on criminal charges.

The fundamental inquiry is whether you want a human in the control loop during a crisis. And I think the answer is unequivocally: it depends on the crisis. No mystery here. The answer has got to be a smart hybrid of the two systems. I have no idea whether Boeing or Airbus has a better hybrid system but would love to know.

As an aside, I hate the pilot vs. computer characterization. It's pilot vs. team of engineers. Let's not anthropomorphize the computer. It's not "making" decisions. It's just the difference between a human on the plane with little time to respond versus a team of humans not on the plane with a ton of time to think of various scenarios and simulate outcomes. It's not clear to me that one will always have the advantage.

Blaming the victim sounds harsh when the article indicates that the failure to wear protective clothing was systemic: