As long as you can turn it off (and on) which out too much work, I have no problem with this. In fact it might have some other benefits.

It may give a voice to certain sector of the population that is not usually well represented; I always forget to put change my user agent info back after I have to access some specific page. I think Linux users, on average, take care of their privacy a little better maybe just because they have an inkling of how and have the tools readily available. Does this mean they are under-represented in the marketplace? Are they invisible to the extrapolation algorithms that help decide how to set up pages, how much to stock of certain products, and what might be the next fad?

As a simple example: Does Amazon know that Linux compatibility is a defining feature when X% of the population looks for a video card? Those kind of compatibility questions are rarely addressed on the product page in a useful way; I always have to look it up elsewhere.

If Ubuntu does not identify me specifically but it sends a lot of queries, they are showing that a lot of people want Linux oriented stuff. I personally would be ok with that.

Might even help in nerd oriented materials like dice and sci-fi/fantasy stuff. At least that is what I mostly search for locally and online.

I have found the opposite to be true. For a long time my new windows boxes at work were producing .docx files my clients could not open. This problem seems to have gone away, but I have occasional formatting problems going from windows office machine 1 to windows office machine 2. It is almost always a margins problem, I don't really know why. It might be something intrinsic to résumés.
The only superiority that I personally have found in Office is in Power Point, and, again this is my personal opinion, Power Point presentations should be illegal. They might just be the pretties, most inefficient way to present real information.
With the exception of large spread sheets, PDF is always the way to go. You can open them in browsers now a days and if I want it presented in a very specific way, I usually don't want anyone to edit it along the way.

I agree about the take free and add value thing up to a point. As an example in the publishing industry, Paizo does just that with Pathfinder (maybe others, I only do the Pathfinder stuff). The System Reference Documents are totally free and online in clear text and extremely searchable, really a much better format for rules than dead tree versions. The SRD are valuable in and of themselves but there is even more valuable when more people use them. In this case the freeness adds value. Paizo then sells the other stuff like print version, modules, adventures, special guides, even figurines and what not. Their stuff is really good. Also the smaller bits are easier buy because they are generally cheaper.

I seems to me that Flat World was shooting for the same type thing. Maybe it failed because it could not get schools and professors on board. I did very little if any extra reading for core/non-major related classes in college; if it wasn't on the syllabus I never even found out about it. Maybe Flat World's quality was mediocre. My point is that there might be other reasons they failed, no just the fact that "freemium" is flawed. If they are in fact working on something with EdX, they might be addressing the issue of expanding the base so that their original business can work.

good call, point to you

Mod Up parent, I don't think the poster RTA

is named Wang.

From the article:

They must be doing something wrong, because for the money they are spending, either the SW or some basic training should make it pretty easy to grab X amount of time off an HD and burn it to a CD, DVD or USB drive. And as fare as holding on to it goes. I have a 650GB HD because it was the smallest one I could find that day. How high quality are these cameras?

we, the consumers, will simply pay more.

I agree completely. The patent system was designed to promote innovation but now it seems to be promoting the export of innovation. I live and work in Argentina where IP law might be on the books but has 0 enforcement and people are innovating all over the place. I have heard people call it copying but that is not a fair assessment. They don't do the exact same thing over again. They take good ideas and make them better (not to say their aren't abuses) or apply them to things no one ever thought of. This is only possible because of the lax IP enforcement and there are great benefits to society in general which to me seems to be the spirit of IP law.

This is a very different situation. 1) Iraq did not have WMDs or nukes, which is why attacking was an option and 2) oil is not an issue. Our own behaviour has encouraged this type to rhetoric.

Isn't it a step in the right direction? At least the material is being used twice before becoming waste. I don't think anyone expects it to replace gasoline but it give more options, alleviating dependence on any one source for energy.

wait for it....wait for it....

It seems that Desmond Tutu and Putin went to analogy school together.