Okay, except that's not what Comcast did when they first entered most markets. They built out the highly profitable areas long before they built out into less profitable areas. I mean, wow, in what other industry to you get a government enforced (not just allowed) monopoly without all the pesky regulation that other monopolies (like electricity and water) get?

The problem here isn't simply that they are unable to deliver unlimited bandwidth. The problem is they charge you for it even though they can't deliver it, and they know they can't deliver it when they sell it to you. The non-fraudulent way to say it would be "$A for the first B GBs, plus $C for every additional GB." Instead, they say, "$A for unlimited."

If they use the word "unlimited" and/or say "unlimited Internet for $X" but then put a limit on it or charge you more than $X, then it's a lie. If they say or print it openly, then it is blatant. Therefore, it is a blatant lie.

Obligatory car related analogy: Imagine if a gas station put up a sign that says "Unlimited gasoline for $8!" but then charged $6 for every gallon over 2 gallons. Do you think they'd get away with it?

This is pretty much SOP with any big custom system from a big company. Sure, they'll check off the boxes of the requirements, but it'll never work right until you fork over triple what the original contract was for, for "additional implementation." It's essentially extortion because at that point the organization is so many millions of dollars into it that they're willing to spend millions more to make it functional.

I'm very pleased that Oregon is not succumbing to this extortion and are fighting back. Oracle has claimed in the press that it was because the state added additional requirements midstream, but the problem isn't that they didn't implement those additional requirements, it's that they never delivered a functioning product, thus they did not fulfill a single requirement. Even if "it works" wasn't a specific requirement, it should be implied by the existence of any requirement which in itself requires the system to be functional. I hope Oregon gets back every penny they gave to Oracle, and I hope there's a legal reason they can get some massive penalties too.

@see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6...

Except in those cases those things were done in violation of the law. The issue was that it wasn't being enforced, not that it was legal. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I want to know both the "official" and the actual reasons. Oddly, the permits that are being denied are for Bt rice and phytase corn, but they continue to support Bt corn, so environment or food safety doesn't seem like it would be an actual reason, although it could be the "official" reason. A more likely scenario is politics and lobbying (or whatever the Chinese version of lobbying is, they probably just call it bribery).

Perhaps if Fusion is the answer, then the question is "What should we be spending money on developing?"

Which makes more sense:
1. Spend a trillion or so dollars (it's been about $400Billion so far, and rising) on the F-35, which won't be viable for a long time but has already been making a few rich people richer. Money comes from taxpayers, and it's the ultra-wealthy who directly benefit from the contracts who get richer. In reality our actual military power is unchanged.

2. Spend that money instead on R&D for fusion (spend a bit of it on battery research too for electric cars/trucks). The US saves $380Billion per year on oil imports. The economy and thus quality of life for everyone improves. The rich still get richer because manufacturing and transportation costs have been reduced. F-16's, F-18's, etc and UAV's continue to give us military superiority.

This is about the software. Did FoxxConn develop the OS for the iPhone? And even we were talking about hardware design, did FoxxConn design it, or are they just manufacturing it? I'm pretty sure they're just manufacturing it. Did Apple come up with any innovations to manufacturing processes that FoxxConn is now copying to make other devices with? I doubt it.

Ironically, the article flames a company for copying Apple's UI. Conversely, and the sort of article we usually see here, if Apple were trying to prevent anybody from copying it there would be a /. article flaming Apple and saying anybody should be allowed to copy it.

Yep. True of any big undertaking when contractors are involved (whether it's government or a large corporation hiring the contractors for a big project). How about this:
-The defense department undertook the development of F-35 and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices...
-[The task] was a complex effort with compressed time frames. To be expedient, DoD issued task orders ... when key technical requirements were unknown...
-DoD identified major performance issues ... but took only limited steps to hold Lockheed Martin accountable.
-DoD gave a lot more money to Lockheed due to changes such as new requirements and other enhancements...

The difference between healthcare.gov and any other big project is the politicalization of it. On one hand, you have the people who want health insurance so they can get medical care. On the other hand, you have insurance companies that want to keep the old system because they make higher profits. With the F-35 you only have one side...the defense contractors who want to make tons of money.

Not really, from the defense contractor's point of view. If they do have a breach, it is in their best interest to cover it up. Without any rules in place, they are not violating any rules. If there are rules in place, then covering it up would be a violation of those rules, so in some cases it would be in their best interest not to cover it up (risk/reward).

The article does not say that Apple contacted law enforcement because he searched on it. The article is sensationalistic click bait. Pretty much every search engine logs what you search on. Whether it's Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc etc etc. Even if it doesn't your browser is probably logging it in the history. Why would you expect Siri to be any different? It's really just a search engine with voice recognition. And, in a murder investigation, it's going to be standard procedure to investigate all of your browsing history and other activity leading up to and after the time of the murder. Nowhere in the article does it say they did any of this without a warrant. When they have lots of probable cause already and the suspect has already been arrested, it's not hard to get warrants to search their whole life to build a case (and if they find exculpatory evidence they are compelled to hand it over to the defense).

Now, if Apple sent law enforcement notification that said, "look, here's a list of people that searched for suspicious things" that would be an entirely different story. And, if law enforcement tried to get Apple to give them the information without a proper warrant (like if they sent them an NSL) then that would be a different story too. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of instances of corporations and law enforcement being scumbags and violating the constitution, but this doesn't appear to be one of those instances.

Dunno about the built-in flashlight that's in iOS7 (with Control Center), but the 3rd party flashlight apps tend to have ads. If it has ads, then it's being logged somewhere.

Ok, so, since corporations are people too, then if a corporation is the creator (and in the law it really means copyright owner), then as long as that corporation doesn't go out of business the copyright never expires? Doesn't seem so different from how it is now, other than a few remaining old copyrights that were owned by individuals (and now their estates).

I think the copyright term should most certainly be shortened, by a lot, but shouldn't have anything to do with the creator/copyright owner's lifetime. The benefits of copyright are how certain careers get paid. Your family should get to reap the benefits of it for the same term as if you were alive. After all, in other careers where you get paid on delivery, you get to leave all that money to your family, not just a shortened portion of it because you died (okay, estate tax might complicate that a bit, IANAAccountant). The problem is, now the copyright term is soooo long. If it were shortened to something reasonable like 10 years then allowing your family to retain the copyright for the remainder of the 10 years would seem fair. Shortening the copyright term is by far the #1 reform that would seriously improve copyright law.

With patents, which is what the article is about, there's more to it than that. Sure, we can shorten the patent term (which is a helluva lot less than copyright term), but it's not the #1 thing. The #1 problem with patents IMO is obviousness, you're not supposed to be able to patent something that's obvious, but too many patents are obvious. Hint: if a dozen people come up with the same way of doing something without copying your patent, it's FUCKING OBVIOUS. When a new technology comes out (say, putting GPS inside a phone) then it's always a race to patent every use of it anybody can think of. If it's a race to patent something, then that something is obvious. The point of a patent, and the reason it's not supposed to be obvious, isn't that you were the first one to come up with an idea, or the first one to file the patent for it, but it's supposed to be that the idea (for a method or thing) wouldn't have been thought of anytime soon by somebody else.

And if they were to follow their theory on the F-35, they would not only stop giving Lockheed Martin more money, but would charge Lockheed Martin money for every mission that they missed out on had it been delivered on time.

This breaks the model of every government contract that has ever been. And frankly, SpaceX is doing pretty frickin' well compared to other aerospace contracts.

No, that would be low resolution. This is high resolution. Use a shot where the face is at the intersection of 4 pixels. There, I just quadrupled your resolution!

Of course, the headline (which seemingly has nothing to do with the articles or even the summary) says see your face from space, not identify your face from space. If your face is represented in 1-4 pixels, which could potentially be distinguished as a face by those pixels' colors in comparison to neighboring pixels, isn't it technically seeing your face?