What happened to the news/rumor that there will not be another DirectX version?

http://tech.slashdot.org/story...

My problem here is that this is announced as something that could be a global first.

It's only new for the Jetblue. Lots of other carriers had this for years and years. I remember I flew with Lufthansa somewhere between 7 and 10 years ago and they were doing this. And yes, I'm fairly sure it was satelite-based since it was on a transatlantic flight.
The only thing is that at that time the service while being free, was fairly useless for economy passengers, since there was no electrical power in the cabin and at that time and my laptop could only go on a couple of hours on batteries, there were no smartphones to speak of and no tablets. Now, however, I still find it useless, since they want to charge for it. And it's my opinion that I pay enough for the flight ticket as is. :-)

While I do agree with you, that economy cabin seats could be more roomey and comfortable, I do think that you exaggerate.

I'm 6'1" and around 240 lbs and I have no problem relaxing on a plane. And before you say anything, I'm not spilling over to the person besides me either. What I do is simple: I always (if possible) get a window seat. That way I can lean on to the fuselage wall and away from the person besides me. I stretch my legs underneath the seat in front of me and I fall asleep. If I want to I can be asleep before we even take off.

I admit, if I were to get stuck in a middle row, I would be unhappy. But in the last 250 flights that only happened to me 7 times.

Actually there is mention of Miracast, alongside with Chromecast and Apple TV. The section you're looking for is the "Competitors" section.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/airtame-wireless-hdmi-for-everyone--2

I have to say that I haven't been playing around with any of these things yet, but what they (Airtame) are claiming, seems quite cool to me. Especially the part about desktop extension and multicast sharing.

A lot of Nokia phones had (prior to 2010) dual-charging option. Nokia E72 (announced in 2009) has the Nokia charger connector, but also has micro USB port which also supports charging. My GF still uses that phone and these days we have no Nokia proprietary chargers anywhere. Just USB.
And N97, which was announced at roughly the same time, only had micro USB.

"Huge" part of the marketplace, that you're referring to, has no choice in the matter. It comes from a single vendor who is refusing to play with others because (in my opinion) their main selling point is that they're "different".
And it's not really fair to say that their market share is "huge" with less that 18 percent in EU, this year (source below).

I know that in the past one of my motivators to NOT switch mobile phone vendors was that I had a significant number (home, office, car, travel,...) of chargers available for a particular vendor. And going to another vendor and having to re-stock was an added expense and a bother. Now, I don't have to think about that anymore.

Also, one thing that people seem to forget or misunderstand. The EU directive for micro USB is for charging-only. It doesn't mean that there can't be another connector on the phone for other features. Like connector for car holder on HTC One X, for example.

The only thing that I envy the iDevice crowd is the accessory market, though. Although (again in my opinion) problem with accessories for android devices isn't so much connector oriented, as much as it is location oriented. If all the vendors would put USB port in the middle of the bottom of the phone, then accessories would be able to take advantage of that with relative ease.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2013/09/04/apples-iphone-gaining-share-in-u-s-but-dropping-in-europe-and-china/

Interestingly enough, the crowd on Tahrir square was actually cheering the military on. Every time the helicopters showed up it was cause for celebration. The crowd likely had no idea that they were annoying the pilots.

So you answered yourself then... Apple uses a proprietary connector, that is converted to USB.

And that goes for both the old and a new version of the connector.

I do like looking at pretty women. Pretty women in skimpy outfits serving me food will get me to visit their establishment more often than an establishment where buff (or for that matter overweight) guys do the same job.

You can say that the "environment is more pleasant". I say that I like to look at boos and asses.

Thus, they sell me more than they would otherwise.

They don't have to charge more than the competition because on same prices they have more customers and very, very likely higher tips.

Sex sells. If whoever is doing the selling is not forced into it and doesn't feel demeaned, I have absolutely nothing against it.

There are lots of women that will gladly go and see a Chippendale gig. There are lots of women that wouldn't.
While we men are mostly (I use myself as an example and my friends) fairly shallow when it comes to observing the female physique, I believe that women are slightly less so.

And just a note to any guys, who may think that they will have an easy time scoring with a chick that's all hot-and-bothered after a Chippendale show: If you think that after what she's just seen on a stage, looking at you is a turn-on, you should BE on that stage instead :-)

So try to keep THEM out of the country and keep the ones there under close supervision :-)

No you shouldn't. But you pay someone to secure your house for you, don't you?
That is the business model that works most of the time in the real world. Either you pay someone, whatever the two of you agree upon, or you do it yourself if you have skills, time and resources to do it.
If you pay someone, it's usually a pretty good idea that you understand beforehand what the payment is. That's why money so well liked. Money payment typically means that you for over whatever quantity you have agreed upon and that's it. Your obligations to the provider are satisfied and they have no more claims against you.
On the other hand if the service/product is "free" you should be aware that there has to be a way for the provider to recoup their expenditure in some way.

It's simply common sense. Like the saying I've heard a lot: "you're not so pretty that someone would give you something for free." And even if you would be as pretty as that, they probably just give you stuff, because they want to fuck you.

Let's not pretend that your suggestion is not fiction.

Everyone uses Google because they have free services.
They have free services because they provide advertising based on your data (email contents and such).
They cannot provide advertising based on your data if they have no access to it.

No access to your data = no free service.

If you believe that anything you store on a public provider location that "gives" their service for free you're insane. Even providers that charge for their service can be guilty of same, but there at least you have a bit more leverage in forcing them not to have access to your data.

Honestly, in this day and age it's not a difficult thing to host your own web server if you would want to. Buying a small box with 8-16GB RAM, a decent CPU, 2TB of disk space and putting some open-source virtualization solution on it should not cost you more than about 500$.
If you think that's too much, then for sure, use Google (I do). But don't for a moment think that anything there is considered truly private.