When the ISIS Association initially locked down NFC, it only locked down access to the NFC secure element. In other words, third party developers were still able to use NFC for other purposes, than making payment applications with it. In that sense, Apple is far more paranoid and repressive than ISIS itself.

As a user, I personally couldn't care less about the latest power struggle between big players. I just like to be able to read my Clipper card with it. And I just like to pair with my speakers/my headset, or my friends devices, without having to even think about it (or without being forced to buy NFC Bluetooth speakers at twice the price because they an exclusive deal with Apple).

Or as an alternative: If you track the location of cop's cell phones you can predict areas at higher risk for crimes, after they've been called in.

Explain all you want. In some cities, taxi medallions are no longer being sold and the supply of taxis is being artificially limited.

Personally, I live in San Francisco and I'm sick and tired of not being able to catch a cab during peak hours. So I end up have to drive my car to work and pay exorbitant parking fees whenever I have to go somewhere after work that's not easily reachable via public transportation.

And no, I'm not black, in case you were wondering. Although, I suspect that increasing the supply of taxi-like services like Uber would solve some of that problem as well. If there is an oversupply of taxis or taxi-like services, then these taxi drivers are actually much less able to discriminate.

Why stay in an RV when you could stay on a couch?

Putting the initial joke aside, here is the actual insurance policy from Uber.

There is actually nothing wrong with it, as far as I can tell.

Netflix has geo-filtering in place, hence the need for private VPNs. In fact, if the reverse was true and non-Australians watched Quickflix movies through VPNs, I very much doubt that Quickflix could do anything about it.

My guess is that Quickflix is just posturing to get better terms on content licensing. 200,000 is an awful big guess estimate. VPNs are not free (the free ones just aren't reliable). I doubt very much that 200,000 people would put down money for a VPN subscription, on top of a Netflix subscription, on top of broadband service. If people are getting VPN subscriptions, it's probably for porn, business, and/or free video streaming services like hulu.com or thedarewall.com

[s]
Why not? It worked well enough when they were charging individually for sms messages.
[/sarcasm]

For cell-based broadband at least, it's usually the difference between a fast-lane and a zero-speed lane.

On T-Mobile for instance, once you exceed your initial quota, your device is supposed to slow down to 3G speed, but it actually doesn't do that. It keeps its 4G speed for Facebook (because Facebook pays for the privilege), and it slows down the rest of the traffic to zero for everything else (even for low speed things like email).

It doesn't count if people have to pay €1 per minute to call your kids' phones. Ultimately, someone is paying for the hardware.

And here are the details of Lyft's insurance policy

This is false. Here is Uber's insurance policy in the US.

And before everyone says that 1 million dollars is nothing for a commercial insurance. The facts are that in the US, car insurance requirements are ridiculously low (compared to a country like Germany for instance, which Uber has a different higher insurance for) and that in the US at least, you certainly won't get better commercial insurance coverage from any existing taxi cab company.

I've seen those stories. Those are not facts. Those are conjectures, FUD, and click-bait stories that parade themselves as news stories, that don't even take the time to go through the public web sites of those ride-sharing companies to try to counter the claims about their insurance published there.

There is one country that does care and that's Canada.

Canada does end up complying with WTO rulings, especially if the complainant in question is already a large trade partner to begin with, like the United States is.

Not only that, but with the wording they're using, they'd get their ass handed to them in front of a WTO panel.

Either that, or may be their end game is to also regulate their own Canadian online streaming services and to claim surprise and innocence when the WTO requires them to impose the same regulation on their own industry.

What about when someone with DNA inevitably commits a crime and leaves some DNA behind? Are we allowed to take a DNA swab just out of anyone willy nilly? The answer is no, not yet at least, and not with some kind of due process. In the US and in Europe at least, there are specific laws protecting the privacy of DNA (unless you're a felon, or unless you're in the military).

Granted, the entire male population of three villages in Scotland was once swabbed for DNA for a double rape and a double murder case, but even in that case, those males were only asked to "volunteer" for the procedure, or they would be considered primary suspects. But even in that case, I doubt that such a threat would have worked in a larger metropolis.

So then, the argument might center around the ownership of that DNA. Do you freely give away your DNA to others? Do you freely give your DNA to the government when asked? And what about the DNA of your relatives? More than one person have already been convicted for rape or murder because one of their relatives had DNA on file with the US military for instance.