For a twice a year event an external battery pack is a much better fit than the compromises that come with removable internal batteries. This is the same debate where people were hating on Apple for eliminating the slots that almost nobody ever used on. There is a vocal but tiny minority that claims that they MUST have them or the product will be a failure but most people eventually come to the realization that internal is not the only or best way to go.

Of course. When the NSA hacks into german or french targets, c'est un scandale for euro politicians / journalists. When the the DGSE or the BSA is shown to have used the same techniques, well that's just normal.

Belief in the fundamental good nature of Mankind?

As an AC, you're a more probable expert on what NSA cock tastes like, so why don't you tell us?

Moxie has been in the trenches breaking drm to free our devices and thus has a good idea of what works & what doesn't.

Much like the "Real programmers" that bemoaned the death of really using the machines when we stopped programming directly in machine code, some will miss PGP, but not anyone who wants encryption to become widespread. PGP is convoluted and a poor base on which to build. We need to move on.

That Google wants to monetize their endeavors is no surprise. The shocking thing is that some people are foolish enough to think that it is a good idea to let their credit history be monetized by an entity that is selling that info onwards. Google could have chosen to not put themselves in the position they are in with Google Wallet & I wouldn't have a problem with it. I don't see what, other than profit is stopping them from going the same route Apple Pay did where they are not in the loop.

Why do you think that Google having your entire credit history and selling it off is a good idea?

At some point that information will be either hacked or sold. I'm not an anti Google zealot but the level of info GW gives Google is just too detailed for me to be comfortable with them having it.

The explicit nobeta URL doesn't always work, for example on my iPhone (but does on my iPad).

Result: I avoid /. & read my geek news elsewhere when on my iPhone. BRAVO to whoever forced beta,

Google wallet uses à virtual card so that every transaction gets sent to google for treatment & then rerouted onto the real cards they people add to GW. Thus Google are getting a copy of every transaction everyone makes using GW. This ingredibly intrusive individually identified transaction history is what Google is using to make money off of GW.

Apple Pay sets up a token for each card enrolled into it and is architectured so that Apple cannot get a copy of the transactions. Apple gets a cut off of the card issuers transaction fees for having secured transactions and thus diminishing fraud but Apple cannot sell your individualized credit history the way Google does.

That right there is why GW is DOA for everyone with a minimum of common sense. Yeah, sure I'll give Google my search history & sometimes my location, but NOT my credit history too, waaay too many eggs going into that basket.

"dave420 points out the hypocrisy in pseudonymously railing against anonymity."

dave420 disses sardaukar86 for complaining about someone posting as an AC instead of posting under an account (which was all sardaukar86 asked for). I point out that there is a valid reason to prefer accounts & thus his hypocrisy in dissing saraukar86.

"distinguishing between anonymous and pseudonymous is silly"

Elsewhere maybe, but not here on /. where friending & foeing make posting under a logged in, "pseudonymous" account much more useful than posting as an AC. Neither you nor dave420 use the friend/foe system but at least dave420 had the benefit of not reading about it immediately before overlooking it's usefulness & making an ignorant statement.

Oh, because dave420 is soooo much more identifiable, right Einstein? Pot, Kettle...
As for criticizing as an AC, I too wish that there were fewer twits abusing the AC system to post insults as I value the occasional intelligent AC posting on threads they have moderated (also the only reason I post as AC). Gratuitous insults, racist comments, etc are not why I read /. & I value friend/foeing as a means of upping the signal/noise.

Lol, quite

What exactly makes you think that a F18, designed to go 1.5 Mach, would be able to go higher than a Mach 3 Mig25, designed to counter the SR-71?

Much like for the pentagon's ASAT missilefrom the 80's, the best available US platform would be an F15.

Or, just possibly, some of us have seen friends and/or family members piss away all their money & the money their friends & family gave them to get their fix.

The problem being that you and those like you that want taxes to pay for free food and housing (& to continue to pay for more of the same when the first houses are trashed) do not pay enough taxes to pay for these programs.

So, you also want everybody else to pay for it.

Forgiving? Way way beyond forgiving IMO.

Comes with KitKat but they "trust" will be updated at some point in the future.
McAffee nags you to register every time you turn it on but it's an OEM favorite so they're not surprised to see it.
Takes 2-3 seconds to transition landscape-portrait/portrait-landscape but they "hope" Dell will address this in an update
The real sense cameras are useless other than in best lighting conditions but they're not a gimmick
Middle of the road performance - At launch. In 6 months those slightly higher than the mean stats are going to be pushed even lower.
Through all that, they still give the device their recommendation