If they are providing public Internet services then if they are not an expert they should be paying someone who is.

Fair enough points and you could be correct, but I'm sorry if I do not trust your employer. I'm not really sorry per se but you know what I mean. Google makes it's money from ads. CM allows users to circumvent that. It's pretty simple math to me.

Sorry, kid. Contact wasn't published (I read the book, didn't see the movie) until I was graduating High School. I knew what Occam's Razor was long before that.

That was my first thought. Google either wants to kill it or neuter it.

Ever hear of Occam's Razor? The simplest explanation is a natural cross species viral jump, and that is pretty much what probably happened.

In my company, we have 3 colleges, a hospital and software teams that have been using the same PCs for over 6 years now. About 800 of them.

All large companies have the same IP strategy and they behave exactly the same simply because they can.

Sorry. Google, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have used patents purely in defensive mode. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Erricsson etc. are the litigious bastards.

If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.

When these patenting agreements were drawn up, Android had a much smaller marketshare. So rather than getting caught up in litgation, some large Android makers chose to pay. But not Motorola, and they are yet to pay a penny. Now that Android is the undisputed king in mobile and tablets, even Microsoft making Android devices through Nokia; there is not much compulsion to continue paying.

Phones and tablets do not replace desktops and laptops.
Agreed, they don't. However people hesitate a lot before upgrading the desktop OS. And desktops and laptops last more than 8 to 12 years, so not much revefnue for Microsoft from those markets. Hence my prediction that they are doomed.

What the large monies paid by Samsung indicates is the enormous mindshare and marketshare for Android. Windows on the mobile and tablet space is non-existent. For some years Microsoft might make money out of Android sales using these patent threats, being the litigious thugs they are.

But in a few years - say three at the max, Android makers will realise that these patents are really worthless, and back away from their agreements.

In any case a few billions in patent royalty is pocket change for Microsoft, and their bloated manpower will plunge them into the death spiral since Windows is becoming fast irrelevant in the only space it serves - viz, the desktop.

I voted against every County Council member who voted Yes, so yes I did vote no on both counts. I'm a huge Steelers fan but the Rooneys could afford to build their own damn stadium.

Bullshit. Here in Pittsburgh they held a referendum on the new stadium back when it was proposed. The people voted NO. So the politicos did what they called 'Plan B' and used funds from a recently raised (only in Allegheny County, mind you) sales tax to build it, by fiat.

Actually the NFL has some of the most entertaining commercials I see. I sometimes even watch them just because of that.

Yet Roger Goodell gets a $44 million/year salary. That does not really compute well for me.

Yeah, and maybe if it didn't cost $100 for a couple to buy tickets plus $8 beers and really bad $6 hotdogs your argument might make sense.

Oh I could not agree more. For me those specs would not work. The same goes for 'minimum' vs. 'recommended' specs on games. Sometimes, though, people on /, forget we are a very small minority of users.

The reason the specs have not changed is because CPUs and systems in general have been capable of doing most common tasks for at least 10 years. Are the use cases for extreme power? Yes. The submitter, however, makes it sound like it's a bad thing to be able to run on a wide range of hardware, including older slower machines. Are the minimum spec machines going to be able to run Crysis? Nope. Will they run Outlook, Work, and a browser? Yep. This is a non-story.