Ubuntu has certainly proven not to be an option for production level servers and is starting to make me question its viability as a work station.

Ubuntu Server doesn't have a GUI so your argument is largely irrelevant.
It (10.04 Server LTS) has certainly proven to be an option in my production environment where we provide web services backed by databases with over 100 million rows in a single table.
It also beats CentOS by a mile for speed and efficiency, too.

Actually come to think of it, it's the CARRIERS that benefit from this data, not Apple. It's not storing your GPS location ... just the location of the cell towers you've hit

The carriers already have a log of this anyway, no matter which phone you use.

The most surprising part is that this'll ship by the end of the month...

If you subscribed to some of the official mailing lists like I do (server ones mostly because I'm a Sysadmin) then you'd realise how incredibly quickly they work.
These are a busy bunch of people, and most don't even work for Canonical.

Not always, I'm betting that the majority of searches are actually performed while at work.
No doubt they are relevant to your profession, but how many are in a shopping mood while Googling for "Outlook error E3298112"?

The throwaway culture like this really pisses me off when you have people in developing countries who would have their lives greatly improved by having access to a computer, even without an internet connection.
Unfortunately, it would cost them about 2 years of wages to even afford a basic one.

They do, at least, have a genuine advantage here because they already know what you are interested in.

If you list your hobbies as action movies, rock concerts and computer books then you can expect to see adverts for Netflix, Ticketmaster and Waterstones etc.

Business-wise, it's a brilliant idea and if I ran a business I would be all over this.
But it's slightly creepy, I find.
I'll be opting out or outright blocking Facebook (yes, you can bet money on it being opt-out only).

What's the IP Address of the Sun?

0.0.0.1

When I was in China last, six years ago, and went to visit internet cafe's, all the other people ever seemed to be doing was playing games.

Or possibly stealing everything from your WoW account...

Governments should not be able to use Cellphone data unless first obtaining a warrant, and informing the person that the search has taken place. The EU has such a "law" codified in its Fundamental Rights document, and the US needs something similar but with stronger effect.

Didn't stop the News of The World though, did it?

vs. an online posting that can take on a life of its own and become essentially permanent in a venue accessed by billions of people.

Which (and stating the obvious here), is exactly what has happened.

They wouldn't touch this with a bargepole until there is significant security in place. And by then, this story would be irrelevant.

Uhm, not in the UK it isn't - there are no laws forbidding you from photographing or videoing the police while on duty....

Doesn't stop them though, does it?

It's completely infeasible.

Even a 1Gbit Ethernet link will degrade severely over these kinds of distances (remember even regular 100Mb Ethernet is not recommended for distances over 100 metres using regular Cat5 cable.
No idea how much by, but I'm betting the extreme temperature differences between day and night in a diurnal region like this could cause the internal copper to become damaged pretty quickly with tiny fractures leading to a break.

And besides, do you really think they'll have 200KM of Cat5 to lay to the border?
This isn't a country where many people can even afford computers.

...just a couple of thousand dollars in electronics and portable infrastructure for each...

Yeah, I'm sure that a couple of thousand dollars will be no problem for the residents of war-torn Libya.