Here is a counter example:

A friend of mine invented Buzzy to take the pain out of shots. If she didn't have patents, the idea would have been stolen long before now.

Although I understand your point, the story is apocryphal.

See Snopes for examples that attribute the same story to Tesla and Edison, as well as anonymous engineers, mechanics, and plumbers.

Also, pianos also have dampers (felt pads that lower onto the strings when the key is released) and petals, which control the action of the dampers. Furthermore, the vibration of strings on the piano can effect other string especially with the damper petal down. So a bit more complicated than you make out.

Blanket consent doesn't mean you don't have to register your device. From your article:

In addition, we require all Class B signal booster installations to be registered in an FCC signal booster registration database. Thus, in the event a Class B signal booster causes interference, the operator of the device can be located and asked to shut down the interfering device.

They are using the allure of scarcity. Remember when people went crazy over GMail or Google + invites?

This taps into a basic human driver. Scarcity makes people feel special, and working hard to get something makes people perceive the value is greater.

Of course, Google needs developers to embrace Google Glass to be successful. The more the better. But by making it exclusive people will value it more. Such are the problems of a digital society, where almost all that is left is artificial scarcity.

There are have been problems with iOS, exchange support, and push email for a long time. I used to have really bad bluetooth problems, and I would get into funky modes where my battery drained fast and my phone overheated. Granted, I did have a slow and overloaded Exchange server. The solution to both problems was to off push email and fetch email every 15 minutes.

UAVs have come a long way, and will certainly get better in the future. It is easy to see how much more capable you can create a plane that doesn't have a human pilot. UAVs don't need ejector seats, don't have to have life support equipment, don't have to worry about harming a pilot with Gforces, etc.

And, they are controlled remotely, which means that they can be jammed. However, the ability to jam communications also effects piloted aircraft. Looking into the future, it is clear that UAVs will continue to develop autonomous technology, so they can can take appropriate action when they loose communications with remote pilots.

Ultimately, a goal of the UAV program is autonomous vehicles, that have objectives specified by humans but carry out those objectives independently.

Really? Bill Gates dropped out after two years at Harvard. Steve Jobs dropped out after a semester at Reed College. Steve Wosniak dropped out of Berkley after one year. And Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard after two years.

There is no denying these folks are smart. But they are not highly educated. I also question the level of investment. Apple, Microsoft and Facebook started in dorm rooms and garages.

The reality is that while education is necessary to develop the underlying technology (the integrated circuit and CPU, high density storage, computer networks and the internet, touch screens, etc), it almost seems like education is unnecessary, or even an impediment to actually creating popular consumer products.

James Burke did an excellent series on tracing the history of technology called Connections in which he very successfully argues that all technology and inventions are part of an interconnected, iterative web of adaptation. Rug weaving led to the computer. Castle fortifications led to movies. Interesting stuff indeed.

Innovation requires more advanced equipment, more investment, and more education?

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others would beg to disagree.

Three obvious suggestions, three sarcastic responses:

Changing batteries has also been available for laptops forever. It is totally inconvenient. How much time per day do you spend managing your batteries?

Why are you watching movies on your tablet? Don't you have a nice big screen? Wouldn't a study pillow be easier?

And finally...real geeks don't exercise.

This article was obviously written by someone who has no idea what the state of the art is in performance web serving. If you know anything about high scale web technology, skip it.

Where to start complaining? Don't roll your own http server. You probably don't understand what you are doing, and you will get weird results. Using Windows as a platform for a java web server is pretty silly. The author incorrectly assumes that because the .Net framework is fast, the ASP.net framework will be. That isn't the case. Running load testing on hello world test cases is silly. If you are interested in the real world, try testing with real world applications. The author also doesn't seem to understand that the JVM or .Net runtime will compile bytecode using JiT methods (Just in Time compiling). Finally, if you have skilled developers, it doesn't really matter what language you use. Architectural issues like data storage and caching are much more important than language.

I'm not an expert on rockets, and don't know if your comment is true or hyperbole. But it seems that the more modern designs costs 2x or more what SpaceX does to get to LEO. How can such a horribly inefficient design cost so much less to fly?

How will the cop know who to arrest, if the car isn't displaying the obvious signs of a drunk driver?

For now, though the laws require a sober driver, no drunk driver will be in trouble under most circumstances. The laws will eventually catch up.

On the other hand, the airlines go to great pains to tell you which devices are approved in flight. I'm reminded that there is a list in the in flight magazine every time I fly.

The thing is, even an IPad or Kindle might cause a problem if the device was dropped once to many times and is malfunctioning. Weird things do happen when electronics breaks.

The solution for this problem is pretty simple. A relatively inexpensive wide band RF sensor could be used to scan the cabin by flight attendants in order to identify any devices with problems. Instead of punishing all of us because our devices might have problems, we could just eliminate actually dangerous situations.

I was asked about porting a major live video application to the Surface recently. The Surface doesn't support flash in web views inside apps. It doesn't support HLS (without a third party library). They stubbornly insist that Silverlight and VC1 are still relevant. My answer to the request was, well, sure, but it will require a new encode farm, and rebuilding the app from the ground up. Which is basically a no-go.

Microsoft is very late to the party. Two other operating systems are there first, have far more users, and are generally more compatible with standards. Microsoft is late to the party, and clinging to all of their old proprietary baggage. And they wonder why they are losing.