According to the US Energy Administration...

  In 2012, the United States generated about 4,054 billion kilowatthours of electricity. About 68% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuel (coal, natural gas, and petroleum), with 37% attributed from coal.

Energy sources and percent share of total electricity generation in 2012 were:

        Coal 37%
        Natural Gas 30%
        Nuclear 19%
        Hydropower 7%
        Other Renewable 5%
                Biomass 1.42%
                Geothermal 0.41%
                Solar 0.11%
                Wind 3.46%
        Petroleum 1%
        Other Gases 1%

Even without the $25m owed in the contract, Oracle is probably still profitable on the deal.

I bet they maintain 60-70% margins... and that's on the services side...

WinXP: It's good enough.

My retired parents use their computer for the exact same things today as when they bought it ages ago. They surf the web, do email, occasionally skype and keep track of things in excel, word and a bit of time on FB. It sits in their home office and each morning one of them turns it on uses it and then at night when the last one is done using it, (s)he powers it off for the night. They've got some ext HD that backs up their computer every day in case something happens.

It works. Sure they have kindles to read books, but there's no need to fork over $500+ for a new system and then the hassle of migrating all of their apps/data/settings to a new platform.

What else do they have that "just works"? A toaster oven, a microwave and other appliances. They see the computer as an appliance, it works, it has an interface and a set of expected behaviors. Nice and simple.

These guys aren't banks, and your deposits with them aren't FDIC insured. This is why where there's some bank robbery, I'm not concerned how much money they tank. The bank's customers' money is safe.

If a real bank stored my bitcoins, then it's not a problem if they're stolen since the deposits are insured. However, with these fly by night operations, you're no better off then using a safe in your basement (or in someone else's).

Until these crypto currencies are insured, I'm not touching them.

you could get companies to build peripherals for them... Google doesn't make the addons, someone else does...

A set of Carl Zeiss lenses for your smart phone?

I do remember upgrading CPUs from 486sx to dx to adding in a 66mhz overclocking chip etc...

However, it wasn't very long before upgrading a cpu meant buying a new motherboard.

A phone on the other hand... if you want it to be small and lightweight with no bulky connectors... it won't be field upgradable. Look at ultrabooks with their soldered on ram and SSD modules vs a W series Lenovo with dual expansion bays...

I also seem to recall at the S5 launch that the audience applauded the phone being dust and waterproof. Not sure how you can do this with all sorts of connectors.

Though I do applaud them for trying and maybe something good will come out of it.

I work in an area that has a high number of large companies with big parking lots. Nearby there's plenty of places to eat, and all employers warn their employees never to leave laptops in their car, in sight, when they go to lunch. As it's a common occurrence for people to walk the restaurant parking lots and "smash n grab" a laptop bag.

So now you're providing the opportunity for someone to sit in a parking lot, wait for a UPS/FedEx truck to drive around, identify a vehicle, deliver a package and drive away. Then the thief would go up to the car, and pry open the trunk and in 2minutes drive off with the package.

I'm also surprised that Volvo would suggest this since they sell quite a few cars that do not have sealed trunks but are open in the back like a station wagon/SUV/crossover.

If it's OTA and my car gets bricked, is the manufacturer going to send a tow truck to my house and take it to be repaired? This would be a major unplanned inconvenience for me.

If i have to take it into the dealership anyhow, and it gets bricked, it's already there and in capable hands of being fixed. If I time the update with other maintenance like oil changes, then it's all done at the same time.

The Tesla model could work perfectly well, just like i've never had my home router brick when doing upgrades, but if my router did brick, I'm not stuck somewhere.

UPS/FedEx/USPS have efficient routing because your house doesn't move. They can plan the best way to get from the warehouse/depot to a set of locations throughout the day. I think this is akin to the traveling salesman problem...

Now, if you have it delivered to your car, which is mobile, how are they supposed to coordinate this? If the truck leaves the depot at 7am, and my car is detected at my house, the truck has a route optimized for delivery to my house. If I go to the grocery store at 9am, does the truck re-reroute to the grocery store and then if I go to the bank 30min later re-route again?

Doubt it.

This might work if you tell them that your car will be in a fixed location throughout the day. But I'm not sure that civilian GPS is sensitive enough to tell the driver where your car is when it's in a parking lot with 500 other cars.

Look cord cutters don't get many things including many live sporting events (College Football, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB), the local news channels etc..

They wanted to cut their cords knew fully well that not everything they wanted was available online.

I pay for cable tv so I get the olympics, I don't pay for netflix, so I don't get every episode of Friends on demand. Oh well. It's not like I can force netflix to stream to me every episode of Friends on demand because it's not fair, or I didn't realize that I could get them to provide me with free services even when I don't pay for them.

Currently with POTS the phone company provides power to the line entering your home.

Is there a way that you can provide VOIP or other digital means without having to power a home device locally?

A few years ago we had a massive ice storm in MA and we had no power for 3 days. My "emergency" $10 phone from walmart worked like a champ.

I supported ISDN back in the 90s... while I know that ATT/Verizon aren't considering ISDN, the thought of troubleshooting premises equipment again gives me chills.

I seem to recall a few friends of mine that purchased Wii Fit and that balance board. The balance board was used the day they unwrapped it and now while the wii fit sits in the closet the balance board continues to sit under the TV where it has sat since the day it was unwrapped.

So now Nintendo's strategy is to push Wii Fit again? Is their market the elderly in retirement homes?

Well.. i guess their next move is to release yet another version of Mario...

If you're just working in your basement or making basic recordings/mixings, go with Garageband. Need more features and aren't afraid of paying a bit more look at Logic Pro-X. I like LogicPro for composing music while ProTools is better for editing and mixing.

All of the above have a rich support for plugins.

Conversely you could select Audacity. Runs on windows/linux/mac and is pretty much free. It's a step up from Garageband, depending on exactly what you need to do. Definitely take a look at it.

One could pick their applications based on platform or based upon your requirements/needs of your work.

I chose the latter and went with a mac and LogicPro.

Btw, don't forget to to get good input hardware (mics, converters etc..). Believe it or not, that $30 cable that comes with the game Rocksmith does provide an ok USB interface, not quite as good as the equipment from Line6, but if you're just hacking in the basement for minimal cost, it'll work. With recordings crappy input = crappy output.

I would also spend some time on Homerecording.com browsing/searching their forums. This topic is covered quite a bit there.

Good luck.

Since I'm in San Francisco, I'd like to lease the seat heater function. I'll pay for it from November through end of January and then I want to stop paying for it for the next 9 months.

Likewise, people in New England would probably only want A/C for a few weeks in July/August.

No chance on earth I want to pay $1k to enable seat heaters for something I'll only use a few times a year.

However, for someone in Florida, they should be able to pay a one time fee and get it forever.

I have a phone.
My wife has a phone.
Our son has a phone.

My family then has one computer with three accounts on it.

Sure there are families with multiple computers and one phone, but I doubt that one phone is passed around each day to a different family member. A mobile phone isn't consumed like it was a mobile version of a land line (one line per household).

So instead of selling one device per household with a computer, you sell one device per member of household. A much larger addressable market.