Hundreds of millions of potential customers will have this technology on Apple's [single] platform. Keyword: "Single."

Seeing how NFC typically needs hardware support, it would be starting with this generation of devices, and unless Apple does something different from the usual "downgrade existing top tier models and drop the bottom" then only the top end and most expensive models for the next couple years will have it.

Unless they sell a lower-priced iWatch or some other dongle that "expands" the existing iPhone range to support NFC (which would actually be pretty smart of them, so I wouldn't be surprised) or unless the last couple generations of devices have sold with disabled NFC hardware buried inside, it's not unreasonable to say that there will be NFC versus non-NFC fragmentation for at least another year.

Actually they data is in Europe the judge is trying to say since they have access to it from the US they need to turn it over. The data is under the control of a division incorporated in Europe.

If the parent company, located in the US, can just access the data any time they want and (presumably) do whatever the heck they want with it, then it's a bit of a stretch to say that the data is "under the control" of anyone else under anyone else's laws.

Basically, if a multinational corporation doesn't structure itself such that it actually respects borders and separate jurisdictions in its day-to-day operations, I see no reason why stuff like this shouldn't happen.

It'd be a whole other story if there were internal firewalls. You know, something like "well, according to Corporate Directive 1444.18.c, the only way we can transfer this account data to the US is either at the request of the user or under an EU court order; yeah, too bad, take it up with Legal".

Yeah, apparently "what engineer would ever design a product like that?" was the correct question to ask.

Because the answer is "no engineer"

I once pulled apart a cheap shop vacuum to fix an electrical problem. The motor was held in with about 10 screws evenly spaced around the core.

Nine of those screws were a phillips head.

The other screw? Otherwise identical to the others, nothing special about its location or anything to differentiate it from the others. Security torx.

Because some engineers are just assholes.

The problem with this is that if all cops feel like they're being audited all of the time, they're less likely to let you off the hook for a minor violation.

I'd expect that any "audits" would typically occur in response to serious complaints.

I'll grant that there *are* people out there stupid enough to formally complain about being treated with lenience (possibly the same people who call 911 to report the theft of their illegal drugs), but I can't see it happening often enough to be a major concern.

I guess they are trying to argue that the placement of the items is the connection?

Pretty much. I suspect this is one of those situations where "correlation != causality" is an appropriate comment.

I've never, ever had the severe kinds of problems you mention, and I've been on Ubuntu or its derivatives (most recently Mint) for years and years.

I've seen all sorts of similar stuff. Mind you, it's not as bad as the GP suggests. If you're running Debian testing, you *will* get bit on the ass inevitably. And Ubuntu prompts you to boot more than any other distro largely because the others don't really prompt you to boot at the GUI layer after a kernel update.

I've seen some updates that render a system unbootable (the one that comes to mind was that /dev/hd* to /dev/sd* migration a while back), and there's been some pretty boneheaded small glitches too (Ubuntu recently updated to show a pretty background image at boot rather than the far more useful prompt for my whole-disk decryption password). And things like drivers can be a pain (nvidia graphics and anything involving the name "Broadcom" in particular).

The main difference from Windows, though, is that I've never, *ever* had to solve a Linux distro issue by reformatting. I've had to boot into rescue to edit files, sure, but in over 20 years of running Linux, I've never had to completely nuke a system in order to "save it" from a broken update. In fact, I think the only time I've had to do so was way back when I had to tweak my own storage drivers.

Just put a "no parking" sign in the affected spots.

I was thinking "pick up and deliveries only". It takes more than a few minutes to melt a car, so might as well get some use out of the spot.

I'd trust a programmer who's never dealt with the sorts of problems caused by manual memory allocation (or, even nastier, compiler bugs) about as much as I'd trust a plumber who's never gotten shit on his hands.

It's not that I think garbage collection is bad, but the sorts of bugs caused by memory stomping tend to be some weird non-deterministic stuff which makes you question your sanity and your tools. You have to learn to narrow things down as deep as possible, to trust nothing, question everything, abuse your tools, and occasionally go on some very strange side-trips.

Now, Java can lead you down some strange alleyways (concurrency, for example), but it doesn't even come close.

Actually, I'm much more afraid of a crazy american trying to topple the government (all by himself, of course) than an actual terrorist.

Yeah, the rest of the world is afraid of your politicians, too.

The iPhone would actually be a more effective test...

Depends on what you're testing. It'd be a great test of network and frequency efficiencies. It would be an incredibly lousy test of Android bloatware.

What do you see or expect for the future of electronic-centric publishing?

Are e-books going to be dominated by the established publishing companies tendency to try and extend their control over the works of their authors, and their customers, as demonstrated with the limiting of adopting due to DRM, and fear of digital piracy?

Will there be a role for publishers, perhaps as curators and editors (in both senses of the word) of fiction and non-fictional works, separate from that of the retailers?

Will authors be able to find an economically sustainable means of financing their writing (including any necessary research) that can withstand the perils of near-free proliferation of illicit unlicensed digital copies of their works? Or will authors have to have either patrons (sponsors) (e.g. literary awards' prize money) or employers (e.g. academics) who pay them to write, perhaps limiting most content to be "safe" or "salable" topics for the most part.

They (the media) mean Mapp Biotech didn't issue a big-name PR firm to issue a press release about this "secret" (pre human trials) treatment, which is how most "science" and "health" news is researched by the media.

Does Mapp even have a publicly traded stock? No mention of ticker symbol, how could they be a real pharmaceutical company without hyping that?

I mean my kids have a NASDAQ Biotech company now, after their lemonade stand was closed down by the IRS for not printing a "forwarding looking disclosure" on their investment prospectus (aka napkins).

Emphasis added

Notice that said "bringing drugs to markets," not the basic funding for preliminary basic research into the actual discovery and isolation of the basic drug and/or drug interaction, which continues to be funded (95+%) by the federal governments of the G8 nations.

Then being granted a 18 or 20-years monopoly (from patent file date admittedly, not marketing approval date), if you successfully complete the marketing research without killing too many test participants. Although for any "successful" to "blockbuster" drug the entire pre-approval expense including administration and marketing is more than recouped by double in the first year of sales.*

The cited book ($800 Million Pill) is not the only ones to criticize and rebut the $800 million dollar figure which is oft-touted in the media, actually comes from the DiMasi's 2001 paper The price of innovation: new estimates of drug development costs.. Thought even the Wall Street Journal notes "[f]or instance, only $403 million of Dr. DiMasi's $802 million total are actual out-of-pocket expenses. The rest is an estimated cost of capital -- or the return that investing the money at an 11% rate of return would have earned over time." Non-executives-types would call it fudging the numbers.

* The $800 million pill book by Merrill Goozner.

Actually there is a law against that."The 2003 Medicare law* prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices, setting prices or establishing a uniform list of covered drugs, known as a formulary."

*: full title "Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act"
src: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04...

Because UUnet didn't offer dial-up TCP/IP connectivity (or Inter-networking) back in the 1980's, they offered dial-up UUCP (unix-to-unix-copy) services for Usenet (NetNews) and email (with ! (bang) addresses).

They offered backbone IP access in 1990 via its AlterNet service based on the Wikipedia article you linked.

plcurechax@slashdot.org!sf.net!...!uunet