Well that's genius logic. Your link demonstrates the need for an even higher standard for background checks and a zero tolerance for drivers with convictions that could be a threat to the public. In this instance it would suggest that the decision should not have been entrusted to the council in the first place - they should be responsible for the paperwork but the police should ensure the driver is of good character and their say should be final.

It also does NOT suggest that we should loosen or do away background checks altogether so that any psychopath, even those with previous convictions, can lure women into their vehicles.

I'd add that if you were to search for high number of court cases involving unlicensed cab drivers (i.e. those illegally operating taxis), that it demonstrates why checks are so necessary in the first place. Not just on the driver, but also the state of the vehicle they are driving in to ensure it is roadworthy and insured.

Further, I'd note that there is no reason that Uber cannot operate within the law. They can require their drivers hold a taxi licence and be in good standing. They just choose not to because interferes with their profits.

I was watching an episode of the BBC drama series "Colditz" the other day. One of the POWs attempted to bribe a German guard who needed a lot of money (his girlfriend needed an abortion). Rather than take the bribe he reported it and the chief security officer rewarded him with 2 weeks leave and a posting to somewhere closer to his family. Smart when you think about it - you want to encourage people to report events that could compromise security, not make them fear that they'll be punished.

The TV series is fascinating viewing especially from a security perspective since its informed by real events and contains many parallels for modern day security practices.

Maybe they did it to justify the West dumping all the broken electronics onto a barge and sailing it to India where it becomes somebody else's problem.

Google's problem is they're so big that they'll completely screw over their own projects if they don't align with the corporate roadmap. Look at the likes of iGoogle and Google Reader. Both products were popular but I'm sure some genius in Mountain View decided to shitcan them because they "competed" with Google+.

Now I can't say for sure how many people did move to G+. What I can absolutely say is that I'm not one of them. I used to use iGoogle and now I use My Yahoo. So instead of enjoying whatever metrics they used to gather from me and ads they now get nothing. Google+ is what it is and occasionally I look at it, but presently Google offer nothing which could be called a homepage and so I take my eyeballs elsewhere.

I have no idea what InBox is but the way it's being talked up would make me incredibly fearful of what could befall GMail. GMail is popular because it is online email with a nice GUI - nothing more, nothing less. It they replace it with some bullshit "stream", or a "network", or "social experience", or some glorified "wall", then they can fuck the hell straight off. Put that shit over in G+ where it belongs and don't even think of integrating or replacing GMail with it.

The high DPI manifest entry and APIs only turned up with Windows 8. It's hardly surprising that legacy applications don't support it or make declarations in their manifest to that effect. Even applications which are in active development might be using legacy APIs or DLLs that make it a non-trivial problem to solve.

It's not confined to Windows either, Linux and OS X suffer from similar problems.

Yes you can. You just lift the tablet out of the stand and walk off with it. The stand itself does a little heft to it because it has to counteract the high centre of gravity of the tablet. Microsoft's solution is kickstand which significantly increases the footprint the thing needs to stand on. Oh and no keyboard for you unless you fork out a small fortune to buy it as an accessory.

I doubt that holding a 12" tablet to take notes is an ideal use though I concede it doesn't have an active stylus. You could of course just buy a "dumb" stylus for a dollar and install one note all the same. Or use the keyboard. The one you get included with it.

Who said it was exactly the same?

I find it annoying too. Windows (and OS X and Linux) has long been used with low dpi screens so software can look really awful with a high DPI. All the menus, buttons, and toolbars are teeny tiny. So there is now a high DPI aware flag that software is supposed to use to declare it's conformance with new APIs.

Problem is some software proclaims itself high DPI aware but still doesn't look right - Google Chrome in particular has fiddly little buttons. If software doesn't say it's aware then by default Windows will scale the window but then you get a somewhat blurry upscaled window. It's possible to change the scaling and to disable it entirely from shortcut properties but it's clear that desktop operating systems still have some way to go to get things right.

It's like a Surface Pro 3 but cheaper and the price includes a keyboard / mouse / port replicator / speaker / stand to sit the tablet in. I find it very useful for holidays / travel etc. because it's a PC when I want it to be and a tablet when I need something simpler.

I preordered a OnePlus during the 1-hour, no 2-hour, no 8-hour sale where their systems collapsed under the load. I wasn't even sure if my preorder had been successful or not because I didn't get an acknowledgement until the day after. The whole thing was a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I was also told ETA 6 weeks but this dropped to 2 and suddenly the package was with me with no dispatch notification. So their IT and general customer interaction are seriously bad.

But the phone itself is excellent. It's easily comparable to a Galaxy Note and I have to remind myself it only cost half the price. I got a 64GB phone for £279. Build quality is excellent, the screen is bright and high DPI, the battery life is very good and it has a very good software experience thanks to Cyanogenmod. My biggest gripe is the charging cable (which looks very spiffy) is too short and the connector is upside down compared to other phones. Firefox also doesn't appear to be able to play hardware accelerated h264 properly for some reason which I assume is a fault in the software since no other app has the problem. Otherwise it's a great device.

That's marvellous if you are along the corridor of chargers. Not so marvellous for the vast number of people who aren't. Or who can't afford a Tesla.

It's not hard to envisage every gas station having chargers some day (or diners / supermarkets / convenience stores who want to attract business while vehicles charge). That day is still some way off.

Just google for "free antivirus and sexy girl screensaver APK". Lots of Chinese warez sites have it. The app asks for a lot of permissions but only to see if there are viruses hiding in your text messages or contacts.

It's one thing to not default search to Google, but it would be another entirely to remove it from the list. As I don't run Mint, I'm assuming you mean the latter by "actively prevent". Even Mint can't use the standard Firefox branding or search plugin (perhaps it has an affiliate id in out), there are other ones which would work.

Maybe Foxconn had some spare iPad mini cases left over

Let sites create their own keys and sign them (or not) by anyone they feel like. This could include CAs but equally it could include other sites they do business with to build a web of trust. And the browser should use SSL observatory to compare and cache these keys and present a simple checklist of what protection the site has against attack, its level of trust etc.

The existing model is broken by the fact that CAs are not always trustworthy, the certs they issue to most sites are worthless as tokens of trust and the whole mechanism is a tax on security. It needs all browser makers to knock heads and make CAs for security an optional thing. Yes some sites like banks or whatever might want to pay some CA to audit their security procedures for storing a cert. For most sites it's complete overkill.

A fool and their money are soon parted. I've yet to see a single kickstarter that would justify me giving a single penny to it. Most of them are glorified preorders - "give us money now and in a year or two we might deliver a product you can have for a small discount off its eventual retail price". No thanks.