Okay, it's round. But everyone knows why they made it round, because all of us grew up with round Honeywell thermostats. If I made an MP3 player that looked exactly like the original iPod, or a car that look exactly like the original Mustang, I would make plans to eventually expect a letter from Apple or Ford. You can't tell me that Nest Labs is not smart enough to know they would eventually get a letter from Honeywell.

Astroturfing is intentionally spreading a lie. You may not have authority to speak directly about the product in question, but you have authority to speak about the quality of the company that makes it. You are an employee, so you have a legitimate connection and interest in your companies products. Even if you've never used a specific product, you have an interest is putting your company in a good public light. Would you hesitate to say something good about your company and its products to a friend at a coffee shop? Neither do you have reason to hesitate about saying good things about your company and its products in social media.

Astroturing is intentionally spreading a lie. If you know that saying good things about your company and its products are not a lie, then this is not astroturfing. If saying good things about your company and its products is a lie, then start looking for a different job!

Best Buy has themselves to blame for developing a reputation of over-priced products and unknowledgeable, pushy salespeople. But their latest attempts at reformatting their stores is, I think, the only strategy in which brick-and-mortar can survive. It is the model pioneered by Apple Stores. Everybody knows that brick-and-mortar stores have turned into showrooms for online purchases. Best Buy's latest layout tries to take advantage of the new retail reality by filling the showroom with a variety of devices, but then offering a friendly user support desk onsite (just like Apple's Genus Bar). In addition, subscriptions services like cable or satellite TV, mobile contracts, and so on are easily available, plus a variety of accessaries, and quality, friendly tech support, installation, and repair services. Best Buy needs to find a model where they may never sell another device again, but can make money on subscriptions, accessories, and services. Their latest store formats are getting close; the question is if it is too late for Best Buy?

Thanks for the reply. I'm curious, do you attend church at a Sports Car Club? Or is the link wrong?

I recall Westlaw in the 1980s was successful in asserting copyright over the way they organize public domain legal information. This sounds similar to textbook publishers trying to assert that the organization of their particular book is covered by copyright. This can only bee settled in court, but it seems there is enough precedent there for the textbook publishers to bring the challenge.

An interesting observation. But it was not the established Church that adopted the Gutenberg Bible -- printing and reading the Bible in the local language was actually heavily resisted and forbidden by the established Church of the time.

Rather, communication technology like the Gutenberg Bible played a central role in the reformation of the Church. It allowed those dissatisfied with the established church to learn and organize for themselves, and establish a new church, the Protestant movement, that was more to their liking and better suited their needs.

What will be interesting to see is not so much how established churches adopt new technology, they are generally quite slow and resist such technology. Rather, it will be interesting to see if today's disruptive communication technologies enable people to start new movements to reform the church, or create a new church better suited to our times. You may read up on the Emerging Church Movement to get a taste of what that may be like.

1) No all people who read and study the Bible are deniers of science.

2) Using 21st century technology (iPad) to study the Bible is just as strange and unusual as using 15th century technology (printed books) to study a set of documents written between 1200 BCE and 100 CE.

You work at Blackboard and are only *now* becoming aware of the terrible reputation you guys have developed in schools over the last ten years. Just how out of touch are you?

Lest you forget, when Bush left office, the global economy, lead by the U.S., was heading toward a bottomeless crash of unknown proportions and everybody slowed their purchase of oil products significantly. That is why a gallon of gas was in the $2 range when Obama came in. I don't know how we can expect healthy economic growth *and* low energy prices, nomatter what the source of the energy, at the same time. Simple economics would seem inform us that we can't have both.

If Google reminds you of Bell Labs, that is a very bad omen for Google. Last I heard, Bell Labs only had four scientists remaining on their staff, and it no longer engages in basic research, only doing work in immediately marketable areas. If Google is Bell Labs, maybe Whittaker chose the right time to leave.

Bell Labs, PARC, Cray Research, etc. Companies start with great innovation, then Wall Street forces the to focus on near-term profits instead. Ads are where the quick profits are, so of course Google will focus on ads. If history is any indicator, this is the early beginning of the end for Google as we knew it.

Why shouldn't the organization that provides the start-up capital get a piece of the revenue?

It's basically an updated version of the street newspapers that homeless people have been selling for decades. Micro-business like this can be the first step and getting out of poverty.

Do whatever you want with U.S. laws. It won't make a difference. Ban it here and people will just drive to Mexico to buy the treatment, usually from other Americans over there. In fact, they already do. I'm not advocating that stem cell treatment should be legal in the U.S. Just saying that whether it is legal or not won't affect people's ability to buy it when they want to.

Even the most rudimentary automobiles displayed potential advantages over using horses -- longer range, higher payload capacity, higher sustained speeds, and so on. In all of the descriptions of this Kinect hack, I don't hear any description of the potential advantages over using a cane. The only advantage I can think of is it avoids the strong negative social stigma attached to using a cane. If the only problem with canes is social stigma, a social remedy would be much more appropriate and effective than a technological remedy.