Never seen it before either, and that's exactly how I read it too. Scary that he was right about knowing what you meant.

If you think that's confounding, try reconciling it with the statements immediately before it:

I.e. 19% growth in revenue = good, 20% growth in revenue-generating activity = bad. Which is it? The author can't have it both ways!

I realized I forgot to finish my thought after I had posted it. I should have concluded it with, "For that matter, I don't want to be dealing with arcane systems or fiddling around with misbehaving technology at home either."

I've looked into Vera's products previously and have been quite impressed since they appear to have the ability to manage all of the things I've thought of so far (e.g. sprinklers, blinds, garage, etc.). That said, the last time I looked through their app catalog I noticed that there were a number of holes I'd need to fill with custom plugins I'd be writing for myself. That situation may have changed, but it kept me from jumping on that wagon. At this point, I figure I'll just wait another year or two, since I expect that most of those holes will be plugged, either by Vera's app community, or else by another vendor with a competing product.

Precisely. I've been looking for a simple way to automate various things around my home, but I've been holding off until these systems can pass the "if I sell the house tomorrow could the new owners get by like normal without an instruction manual" test.

Which is to say, the bar for entry should simply be "works like a dumb device", with any technological enhancements layered on top of that functionality so that it supplements the dumb functionality, rather than replaces it. Instead, many of them outright eliminate the dumb functionality or else make it dependent on the smart technology, meaning that they're utterly useless if the wrong link in the technological chain has a hiccup. If I move out tomorrow, I want the new owners to be able to use the place like a normal house without having to configure arcane systems, regularly maintain misbehaving technology, or worry about which OS they're running on their phone or personal computer.

Isn't it really California's failure then? Silicon Valley's rate is in line with the state's rate, but the state's rate is lower than the national average by a few points.

With scientists demonstrating math skills this poor, it's no surprise that distrustful Silicon Valley parents are abandoning vaccinations at unprecedented rates!*

*For purposes of this statement, "unprecedented" has been defined as "entirely normal".

So, you mean to say that we got exactly the results we'd expect if we took a representative sampling?

He never suggested he was talking about the average of the 12 facilities rather than the national average (you read that into what he said), but even if he had, it wouldn't make a difference. Regardless of whether we're talking about the average of the sampled group, the average of all facilities in the Silicon Valley area, the national average, or the global average, so long as the sample we take is a representative subset of the larger group, we would (in most cases) expect them to conform to the distribution of the larger group.

The only way your clarification might make a difference is if Silicon Valley is generally ahead in this area. If that were the case, these facilities would be notable for their failure to match the standard set by their nearby peers. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, since the whole summary is merely pointing out that Silicon Valley is conforming to national averages.

Whoop-dee-doo. Silicon Valley isn't special. News at 11.

That was my first thought as well, and I am shocked I had to scroll this far down before I saw someone else had posted it.

He can just get a phone intended for young children, program all of the speed dial buttons to go directly to his line (the one you linked even allows the user to program the emergency button too), and enjoy the fact that he doesn't have to spend exorbitant amounts of time or money on a custom-built solution that may not have issues he's aware of until the time comes to actually use it. Plus, he doesn't have to worry about false positives going to emergency responders, since the phone would be incapable of calling them in the first place.

Simple, cheap, easy to set up, available off the shelf, uses proven technology, and serves a need that isn't going away anytime soon, so there are plenty of options on the market.

I'd go even further than that and say that it depends on the type of scale being used as well.

When it comes to user reviews, if the reviews are thumbs up or down, I'll do the same as you and read the thumbs down reviews first, since it's easier to filter out the extreme reviewers and get a sense for the common issues. If it's a 5-point scale, I'll read through the 2s and 4s, since those reviews can give you a quick understanding of the pros and cons for the product, without nearly the level of overstatement that you'll need to filter through in the 1s and 5s. And I don't even bother reading reviews based on 10-point scales, since the way that everyday users grade on a 10-point scale is arbitrary to the point of uselessness (e.g. some people treat it like a 5-point scale with better granularity, while others treat it like an academic scale).

We already know that Apple and Google are doing it that way because it makes sense for them to do so (it's in Apple's best interests to not have the ability to hand over your data since that improves their hardware sales, and Google's best interests to secure your data against illicit use since using your data is where they make their money) and is trivial to verify. Just run Wireshark or something similar on your network and check to see whether your phone is phoning home constantly or not. Easy peazy to check, and companies that fail get raked across the coals. Plus, Apple has published white papers over the subject, detailing exactly what steps they've taken to secure the data and how they are using it.

The reason I presumed that Microsoft was doing the same as its other competitors is because they've already been raked across the coals regarding this exact topic even when they were doing it exactly that same way (see: the "Xbox, on" controversy), so there's no way they'd be stupid enough to try and do otherwise...at least not until the market comes to accept this stuff.

As for how cozy they are with the NSA, that's an entirely separate issue. One worth discussing, I believe, but one which is entirely tangential to this discussion here.

P.S. It'd be a lot easier to take you seriously if you stopped with all of the unnecessary scare quotes and question marks.

The issue here isn't simply that the audio is being sent off to be parsed. The bigger issue is that the audio is being sent off to be parsed without the user's awareness. In the case of Siri or Google, I have to press a button or use a keyphrase (e.g. "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri") before the device will start sending audio off to be parsed at remote servers. And having read through Apple's white paper over how they secure and use that data, a user can be reasonably confident that their audio isn't being used by third parties, whether via a business deal or via illicit capturing of the audio as it's en route. If Google has published a white paper over their technology, I haven't seen it yet, but I can at least be confident that they're taking steps to secure the data, given that data is their bread and butter, even if they might be looking for ways to monetize that data.

Samsung though? We can't safely make any assumptions regarding their efforts or success at protecting me from third parties of any sort.

I can't speak for Cortona, but I would assume it works the same way as Siri and Google, in that it doesn't start sending data until the local device first either hears a specific key phrase (e.g. "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri") or is purposefully activated by the user by the press of a button.

There's a big difference between speech that I want to have parsed getting sent off to be parsed, and speech that I never knew was being captured at all being sent off to be parsed. Apple, Google, and I would presume Microsoft are all doing the former. Based on the summary, it sounds like Samsung is doing the latter.

You're conflating issues. Apple TV has dozens (hundreds?) of channels at this point, with the only notable absence being Amazon Instant Video (no one seems to know if it's Apple or Amazon keeping it off of the Apple TV). Roku may have more/better channels. Or it may not. I don't know off the top of my head, and, frankly, it doesn't matter to most people since most of the important channels are on all of the devices anyway.

Where Apple does lock things down is with the content that you purchase from them, such as TV shows and films. THAT'S the black hole, since those remain locked to Apple devices unless you go through contortions of dubious legality. But there's no need to get your content from them, and just because you have an Apple TV doesn't mean that you're locked into Apple's ecosystem. I've ripped all of my media to HDDs at this point, and I stream it to my media center via my Apple TV. I could do the same on a Roku, an Xbox, or any number of other devices, and have in fact done so in the past, but I found the Apple TV to be the simplest, easiest, and most reliable to use of my available choices, so it continues to get used in that way. If Apple ever locks it down, I'll simply switch to something else. No big deal, since I'm not locked down.

TL;DR: Apple TVs don't lock you into anything. It's iTunes content that locks you in.

Quite a few ways, actually, all of which would have been apparent had you just clicked the link, but if you need it spelled out for you...
1) uBlock is available for multiple browsers and is available via official stores/sites for at least some of them (with plans to get into the others). Doesn't matter to you, perhaps, but it does matter to some of us, especially if we're looking for something to recommend to non-techie friends and family.

2) uBlock actually leads to a reduced memory footprint for your browser, whereas AdBlock Plus (on which Edge is based), increases the browser's memory footprint.

3) uBlock has SIGNIFICANTLY better CPU performance than ABP and its competitors. Nearly an order of magnitude.

4) uBlock is slightly better at blocking unnecessary server hits. About twice as good as ABP, and just a shade worse than Ghostery.

All of which is to say, by nearly every measurable metric, it's better than the thing that you think is the best.

On the contrary, that's exactly what they are. From Wikipedia's pacemaker page:

The earliest ones simply stimulated the heart at regular intervals, but this newer variety that monitors the heart for signs of trouble (e.g. irregular heartbeat) and fires when necessary has been around for decades.