I would not recommend holding onto the stocks of a company whose overall balance sheet has been stagnant for about a decade, and where its core revenue source is sufficiently threatened that they're undergoing a major restructuring to pivot away from it altogether. One quarterly earnings report is nothing to make investment decisions about.

The last time I saw this sort of acquisition, layoff, and rehiring cycle from a major company, it was Pfizer, and that did not end well for the shareholders.

They pull no punches on that one. Regarding video chat - which is useful for communicating using ASL:

Accordingly, we are concerned about the Commission’s proposal to permit
broadband providers to degrade applications to a “minimum level of access” in lieu of a
full-throated no-blocking rule. A “minimum level of access” rule would open the door to
a two-tiered Internet, placing users who are deaf or hard of hearing that depend on
performance-intensive video and other applications to communicate at the mercy of their
broadband providers’ willingness to negotiate with the users’ application providers of
choice—and the ability of those providers to pay for sufficient access. This ability to pay is
especially in doubt for niche providers that serve primarily the market of people with
disabilities and have little mainstream market penetration, such as relay service providers,
remote interpreting services, and other innovative accessibility services. To ensure access
for both users who are deaf or hard of hearing and application providers on equal terms,
the Commission should strongly consider its alternative approach of banning priority
arrangements.15

Crowbars won't save you now.

One potential perk that they didn't think of is automatically orienting the phone's screen to face you without relying on the accelerometer. (If I put my phone down on the desk or hold it at a shallow angle, it doesn't know which way's "up", but the Fire Phone knows where my face is so this shouldn't be a problem.)

There were rumours before the phone's announcement that it would allow you to look at items in their catalogue at various angles in a natural way. Perhaps the content for that didn't turn up or they realised how time consuming it would be to make a Quicktime VR of every single item they sell.

That's kind of what the UK's Project Canvas was supposed to do. TV guide entries and on-demand catalogue entries both point to the same object in the database, so if you try to watch a show or movie that's not currently airing, it quietly redirects you to the appropriate streaming service instead. When you throw IPTV support into the mix you suddenly have a platform where there's no functional difference between content coming off the web, HDD, or airwaves, recorded or live. From that it's a short hop to a situation where every streaming content provider is offering up its wares (ad-supported) to the same audience and it's all consolidated in one place.

Of course with no generic live IPTV broadcasts in the UK, what happened is that each communications company built their own live IPTV silo that only their subscribers could use, and chased after exclusivity deals on streaming providers. Ultimately all that happened is that communications companies got the broadcasters and the licence payer (including the BBC) to fund their set top box R&D. Admittedly this raised the standard of set top boxes considerably because they were total garbage.

Microsoft tried a similar integrated interface thing for the Xbox 360, where one search box could take you to whatever streaming providers sold what you were looking for. The same interface would also have live IPTV. I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the UK most of the streaming apps just plain don't show up in it. The IPTV functions didn't appear at all.

This thread is about whether privacy infringement constitutes harm in this context, though.

The lawsuit also rides on the fact that these people bought Android phones at a time when Google already knew (but was not telling anyone) that it would be changing its privacy policy. By being forced to replace their devices - which automatically had the new policy applied to them - the customers have been demonstrably harmed. In fact this appears in the paperwork before the battery drain issue.

Inasmuch as the plaintiffs had the opportunity to discontinue the use of Google's products when the policy changed, that's correct. If Pizza Hut changes its name to Poop On Bread Hut and starts selling poop on bread, and you still shop there, that's on you.

However the judge agrees with the plaintiffs that they bought Android device which tied them into the changed privacy policy, and that Google was aware of the impending change at the time it was marketing devices. This would be like, I don't know, prepaying for a year of Pizza Hut and then they decide to become Poop on Bread Hut and you're stuck with their craploaves. If they knew at the time you prepaid that they would be making this change, then they have misled you.

Of course you have to actually show up in court on the relevant days, having filed the appropriate motions and paid the appropriate fees, to make the case that "no, I'm not responsible for any and all copies and descendents of the original". Otherwise the people suing you win by default. And then maybe at the end you can recover your fees again, and if you are very very lucky, the cost of your time.

The history of antipiracy lawsuits, especially in the US, would seem to suggest that they do bugger all to reduce piracy, at an enormous cost to the IP owner and the taxpayer. When the patient's dying on the table and your best witchdoctor isn't helping, maybe it's time to switch to a better kind of medicine.

Interestingly a cursory reading of the relevant law suggests that it's only supplying IP-infringing goods that is a criminal offense in the UK; being a recipient is at most a civil offense.

It doesn't make a blind bit of difference to the criminalisation of IP infringement, it just makes the first step towards closer government interventions.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipenforc...

Because they can turn around in a few years when this is normalised behaviour and say "Hey, isn't it ridiculous that we know who all these inveterate pirates are, but we aren't doing anything? Maybe we should pass a simple law that fines them a few hundred quid, that's not much of a problem, is it?"

True, but at least in that case you'd expect them to limit their search to plausible bludgeons. It's a tantalising grey area, I think we both agree.