How is a 1.5% bump in profit for Cisco or 2% for UPS a rounding error? Most CFOs would kill to find an extra 1.5%, or put another way it's one fewer round of layoffs to meet Wallstreet's latest estimate.

Cost of capital for well rated companies is around 4.25%, at most it will add a few months to the roi if you're looking at 6-7 years otherwise.

The Bay Trail devices are due to low memory, the in ram footprint of 64bit Windows is quite a bit higher when you only have 1-2GB and a cheap flash drive that you want to avoid swapping to at all costs.

I don't care about touch apps, I want all the good under the hood changes to go along with Windows Server 2012/R2, right now a lot of cool features only work if the clients are upgraded to Windows 8 and due to the UI screwups we can't possibly afford to do that so most of the best stuff on the server side goes unused. I'll probably start a major server OS upgrade push once 9 ships, we're already under an EA with software assurance so there's no additional cost for us upgrade once the training barrier goes away.

You seem to be ignoring the fact that Google has already done well over 1m miles of real world testing with their system without any problems caused by their recognition.

They cant make anything decent anymore, and even the highest performance car made, the Corvette, is an utter joke to the rest of the world.

Really?

$64,000 question - what's it like to drive?

In a word: stunning. What the 'Vette team has managed to achieve with the C7 is nothing short of astonishing. You basically get three cars in one. It will comfortably cruise all day, mopping up bumps, sipping fuel and generally letting you go about your business without getting in the way. You'd be happy commuting in it. Equally it has the performance - and luggage space under the rear hatch - to handle long journeys with ease. But the really special bit is, without touching anything more than the chassis set up dial, you can take it to a track and have hours of fun, too. topgear

and

Forget all previous Corvette generations - here is the new one. It brings the best Corvette ever produced. A U.S. superstar. A piece of American identity. But most of all she is after 60 years of intense maturity and evolution of one of the most stunning sports car in the world. autozeitung via google translate

Try taking those gambles with the toy systems that Google produces.

You mean like the billions of Android powered devices out there?

It's not even the BOM that it adds to, it's regulatory red tape (cable labs requires a boatload of documentation and takes forever to certify devices, I remember reading the blogs from the guys at Ceton when they were working through the certification process and thinking how much of a nightmare it was). The delay in time to market and the cost in personnel to guide the product through the process just isn't worth it for the .1% of folks interested or even knowledgeable about the feature.

Now that IS very interesting. I wonder how the IRB approved an experiment that clearly didn't have any participants' consent.

I agree, this was my first thought. They screwed up big time, it would be fun to see the federal government investigate them for unlicensed human research.

I don't know anyone who was affected by the Tuskeegee syphilis study, but that doesn't mean it was right or we shouldn't be outraged.

The issue is clear; if a doctor or psychologist tried this, they would have to get IRB approval. You need informed consent; such laws were passed after psychologists had tried a LOT of experiments on the unwitting public; simluating muggings, imminent death scenarios, etc.

I know people say "it's just manipulating feeds, what's the harm?" There can be plenty of harm if you manipulate the feeds. Where is the line? What if facebook had decided to see what happens if you try showing depressing posts and bad news for a year? Or a feed where you were always ignored? No IRB would allow something like that if it risked permanent mental scarring or created a suicide risk.

Bad move, Facebook. Experiments are definitely cool (I'm a researcher), but we go through proper channels and regulation for a darned good reason.

The idea of a back-talking robot cigar reminds me of this passage from Ubik:

Back in the kitchen he fished in his various pockets for a dime, and with it started up the coffeepot. Sniffing the—to him—very unusual smell, he again consulted his watch, saw that fifteen minutes had passed; he therefore vigorously strode to the apt door, turned the knob and pulled on the release bolt. The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”

“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”

In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.

From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless-steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.

“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.

Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”

-- Ubik by Philip K. Dick