Prehistoric hockey games?

>> Why Didn't Sidecar's Flex Pricing Work?

Because they hired Bennett Haselton to promote it, and the target audience died of thirst waiting for BH to finish his pitch.

>> Sir Richard Branson Quietly Shelves Virgin Submarine Plan

"Quietly shelves"...really? From the department of less crappy headlines, here's a couple of freebies:

"Branson Deep Sixes Own Submarine Mission"
"What Do Sir Richard Branson and the Red October Have in Common?"
"Virgin Dive Aborted Before Anything Gets Wet"

>> business could collect a...card number and use it to make an instant payment...real-time, payment transaction risk-scoring

Congratulations you've invented the credit card!

>> Who's old enough to remember when the best technology was found at work, while at home we got by with clunky home computers and pokey dial-up modems?

I'm even older. I remember when the best technology was at home, on our personal computers. From there, PCs started invading the workplace...finally breaking up a lot of the control held by an iron-fisted, non-innovative, mainframe-based IT department.

I love the source document, but how about a TFA that summarizes what this is all about?

>> Does the FAA know about this?

They probably would after the fried plane drops into the sea.

>> U.S. Navy has declared a "laz-er" ...an operational asset and ...has given permission for the commander of the ship to defend itself with the weapon

Today, we finally begin to close the Shark Gap.

>> The company might adopt a new pricing model for the upcoming operating system, as it looks to shift away from the one-time initial purchase to an ongoing-revenue basis.

This certainly follows what we've seen out of the Office and Azure product lines already, what developers are used to with MSDN subscriptions and what many enterprise customers are used to with "true-ups" with large CAL and desktop/laptop counts. However, the coming squeeze on customers locked into Microsoft is why I love the fact that my company has gone all in on a multi-year "if it's not open source (or our own customizations), we don't need it" approach to software.

>> Give Jackson money and he'll go away.

This. Remember when beer distributorships were harming minority communities by entrenching already dominant companies? And then Jackson's kids mysteriously ended up owning a distributorship or two...and suddenly all was well? http://www.martinlutherking.or...

>> doesn't look like there's rampant wide-spread abuse of this sort of data. Yet.

But there could be. Many IoT company's privacy policies seem to be just a cut/paste of their wide-open web privacy policies. For example, take a look at Lowe's IRIS system. According to the legalese, I think they might be able to scan your home video feeds to look for products you might want...
http://iotsecuritylab.com/iot-...

>> Any rational interpretation would suggest that when people buy or pay off the loan on a piece of equipment—whether a car, a refrigerator or a mobile phone—they own it, and should be free to do what they want with it.

This argument has already lost in the public square WHEN IT HARMS OTHER PEOPLE. For example:
* If you own a refrigerator, it's already illegal to just discharge the coolant into the environment
* If you own a car, it's already illegal to just set it on fire, and in many places you can't store it certain places (like your front lawn)

If you narrow it down a bit (e.g., "root your phone = legal but proceed at your own risk") I could get behind this guy, but when we're starting to talk about hacking automobile electronics that other drivers and pedestrians depend upon for their own safety...you can probably see where we're developing a slippery slope.

>> that'll pollute *their* environment, not ours, right?

I think you've hit the nail on their head. It sounds like someone's just figured out a way to turn this problem:

Q) How do we ship all our old batteries to a third-world country and then dump them in local landfills, gullies and rivers?

into this opportunity:

A) Repackage the batteries individually and ship them to locals in third-party countries. Then, when they dump the batteries improperly - hey, it's not our fault - we TRIED to give them flashlights! Hell, we might even get some "green" grants for this scheme!

>> In North Korea, Hackers Are a Handpicked, Pampered Elite

Which means $3K/year, 1600 calories a day?

>> every time they try to charge for something, it means they are scared?

Not sure where you got the "every time". Dig into a few of the articles and you'll see that these changes were specifically aimed at solar. For example: http://milwaukee.gov/milwaukeeshines/GoSolarHowto/EnergyEngagement.htm