Well, stating the obvious here, but my tongue in cheek remark was meant to highlight the fact that Emacs is wonderful if you happened to have spent the 70s in an AI lab, but if you are illisperate, the usefulness goes down significantly.

This was not a suggestion that you actually go out and learn lisp so you can make your text editor work.

(Although, as an emacs user, if you invest in learning some basics of the language it pays off big dividends, fast)

Like so many things in emacs, this is probably easy to fix if only you spoke lisp ;)

How do you know she wasn't supposed to live to 130?

The key question here, is what is the mechanism that causes shortening of your life?

If, for instance, high fructose corn syrup is the culprit, well soda only started getting HFCS recently (old time soda was made with sugar).

Then again, maybe the mechanism is only for excessive use? The same way that how someone who drinks a beer a day is fine (maybe even healthier than someone who doesn't drink), and someone who drinks a gallon of beer a day ends up dead at 40 of cirrhosis?

Or is it something genetic? Perhaps some people have a gene that causes soda to lop off their telomeres quickly?

In summary: while the results are interesting, we're no where any where close to actually understanding the ramifications (if they're in fact true).

IIRC back around 2000 there were some laptops (was it IBM?) released with fingerprint sensors for security, and you could use biometric authentication in windows.

So really what you mean is Samsung copied Apple who copied Motorola who copied ?IBM?

Technology is a pyramid. You only get to a higher point by building on the stuff before you.

Truly original ideas are few and far between and in most cases you have incremental improvements. And, in the cases of original ideas, you have improvements on the original ideas!

The fact of the matter is EVERYONE is playing catch up.

When the iPhone 6 (and +) came out, android users started talking about how they'd had swiftkey keyboards, etc., for YEARS.

They conveniently forget about things like how Samsung came out with a fingerprint sensor after apple's introduction, or any of the other features phablet makers played follow to leader to Apple on, like a half baked watch Samsung got out on rumours of the Apple Watch so they could be the first mover.

This is the nature of competition. Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, and any other phablet makers are going to innovate. They'll create unique features for their products. A few years down the road, anything that was a brilliant idea is going to get copied.

So can we please all stop this b.s. of "X is copying Y"?

Yeah but when you buy a car, resale value is a HUGE thing people look at.

If Tesla really wants to be a good automaker, they need a good resale value.

The city and state combo is a list. An example if we extended the list would be: Austin, Texas, United States, and Earth.

Hence, we're talking about the oxford comma.

You bring up an interesting point. Replacing your in dash computer system is probably ridiculously expensive.

I'd disagree about their target market being throwaway devices. They are quite vocal about trying to become the dominant electric car player.

That's not going to happen if 5 years after sale all the boards are fried, and the car doesn't work anymore.

What you're asking for is called the "Oxford Comma," and is considered optional.

There's a really interesting TED video on the debate about the Oxford Comma, and usage, on TED

My XPS had the keys on the keyboard fall off, suspiciously close to the time the warranty ran out.

As always, YMMV.

Apple historically has offered the same displays for sale as separate entities.

My guess would be in the future you'll be free to buy an Apple display

If someone wants to buy a car with a small engine, like a Civic, you tax it at one rate.
If someone wants to buy a sports car with a big engine, like a Ferrari, you tax it at another.

You have a number of features you can use in any car to implement such tax bracketing so that it's fair. For instance, no budget car will have 8 cylinders or leather seats.

European countries like the Netherlands have been doing things like this for a long time, and it works out quite well.

Except voice recognition is difficult. Really, really, really difficult.

I have no doubt they would like to bring such technology in house. But after the Apple Maps fiasco, I'm not sure they'd risk a switch.

Then again, Siri already sucks. It can't get much worse.

I find it funny how this article implies that because Samsung might now own the technology behind Siri, Siri is in trouble.

Samsung is a REALLY big company with lots of different divisions. One of those, the phone division, is in stiff competition with apple. Another one of those, the chip division, has apple as their best customer.

Apple will continue licensing siri technology. Yes, they'll probably look for alternatives (the same way they are looking for an alternative to the Samsung chip fabrication).

But whether or not they're successful, all that will happen is two really big companies will continue having divisions that work together, and divisions that are in competition.

It's a non story.

It started a year or two ago IIRC. Basically many starbucks ask for your name, and write it on the cup. That way you know the venti cappuccino is indeed for you, and not the guy next to you. (They also write the order)

I travel a lot and I've had the fortune of going to many starbucks, globally. I'd say maybe 50% use names, but it hasn't been implemented everywhere.