Some people prefer hardware keyboards. I'm not one of them; I prefer to have a slimmer device with a larger screen instead, but I've tried one of the old BB models (one with a trackball) and found that its keyboard was rather good for typing longer messages. I can see the attraction if most of what you do is email and messaging.

What a lot of people (myself included) didn't appreciate is how much people hate having to carry two devices. Where I work, many people had a BB provided by the company as well as a personal cell phone (smart or otherwise). As soon as the company offered corporate email and calendar on personal smartphones, pretty much everyone dropped BB and continued to use their personal device. And pretty much no one choose BB as their personal device either. TFA praises BB for not trying to appeal to the mass market with this device, and instead offer something that does a couple of things really well, but BB need to understand that in the world of bring-your-own-device, the reality is that your device needs to service personal needs as well as business needs. Having a physical keyboard and a great messaging app clearly doesn't cut it anymore.

Adding the ability to run Android apps on modern BB phones is a great move though. That may be exactly what is needed to make them good enough for personal use.

That "word" needs to die a quick and painful death... If you want to use that saying as a verb, just write "have been eating their own dog food".

Did you ever see Christopher Walken in "Pulp Fiction"? ;-)

Information wants to be free. Sony demands. Anthropomorphism requires.

Q: If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?

TOM!

"Uh, Tom... Tom... Actually, from now on, we're the comedy team of Ahjnudpippibod and Davis."

They've outgrown the confines of Guantanamo Bay.

Indeed, only the biggest companies have that integration. These are the "sprawling multinational oil corporations" GP was talking about. By the way, even the majors increasingly farm out work and expertise to service companies, and we're now close to the point where the small national oil companies can now hire that same expertise to handle more complex exploration and production projects, without needing to bring in the majors.

And here's your citation: Oil Company Earnings: Reality Over Rhetoric for the US. For the Netherlands: Winst op benzine rekbaar begrip. Long story in Dutch, but the most optimistic view (that of the ministry of economics) still puts the ratio of tax vs profits at 4.6:1

Just Google it, do your own homework.

You mean the oil companies that are putting billions upon billions of dollars on the line and running significant risks, as opposed to the government who just stamp a concession and sit back to collect. Compare the nr. of dollars earned vs. the amount invested by oil companies, and you see decent but not exorbitant returns. Especially with the price of extracting that oil rising, and the price per barrel being relatively low at the moment. Now compare the amount of money that the government makes at the pump, compared to what the oil companies make. You know, the guys who find, extract, move, refine and ultimately sell it to us. In the US the ratio is 7:1; in Europe it's much worse. States do pretty well by that measure.

Of course you can argue that it's good that the states profit so much from oil, since ultimately that means we profit (by lower taxes or better services). However you can consider if the government is really the best party to decide how to spend a windfall like this. Look up "Dutch disease" to see what I mean. Norway is doing a lot better with that extra income, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Mwahhhahaahaaahaaaa!
-- Eric Schmidt

The documents DEMAND that the the press DESTROY SONY!

This. As far as I can hear, compression is the main difference between vinyl and digital, and that's something that is caused by the guys doing the mastering, not by the medium. For fun, compare a recording of an album like Californication on vinyl against the CD, and marvel at the difference. Now, rip that vinyl to your computer and turn it into a file using a lossless codec (or even use MP3 at a higher bitrate). You'll find that the audio file will faithfully reproduce the vinyl recording, pops, crackles, "warmth" and dynamic range and all.

It's sad that masters made for vinyl are not available as digital downloads, but perhaps ther ecord companies prefer to serve the long tail of the market with physical vinyl exclusively. Because selling proper masters might well eat significanly into that market, social factors and album art notwithstanding.

Memberships and influence. Greenpeace have repeatedly shown to put those before their stated goals, before simple integrity and truth, and before their own volunteers. Greenpeace's real mission is Greenpeace.

Maybe the CIA are thinking the same thing. They send the "artist" and his helpers into the embassy to make a cast of Assange, freeze him in carbonite instead and smuggle him to the USA that way. He'll end up as the favourite decoration in John Brennan's office.

Recommending people to learn how to code because computers play an ever-increasing role in our daily lives is laudable if you're a tech writer and open source advocate, but if you do so as a tech billionaire, you motives are immediately suspect? That's nice...

Besides that, the difference between coders and non-coders in any profession is remarkably apparent; people who have learned coding at some point in their life seem to be the better troubleshooters and analysts. There are other ways to acquire those useful skills and some people will have a natural aptitude for them, but apparently coding is a very good exercise to impart them. I'd say that coding is a useful subject in school even for people who will never code professionally later in life.