Our Cell industry IS largely unregulated - we think of the FCC as performing that function - but compared to most other Western countries, they aren't doing much. Same as ISPs (which, in fact, overlap the Cell industry quite a bit.)
Lobbying (and the results it produces) are a capitalist idea, and they result in bad or no regulation..

And get the same answer. Both technologies are great examples of the FAILURE OF CAPITALISM in an unregulated and greed driven free market system.
I don't expect this will change till after the singularity..

Sure they will. Call and ask for global-access or something like that. Assuming you've had the phone for more than 60 days, they will unlock it and you can use a SIM card in it to get GSM/3G access when outside the US - simple and easy. They do "claim" that you can't use the SIM card while in the US - that Verizon CDMA will take preference - this may be true - I didn't test it. I sounds like the iPnone5 doesn't have that (potential) limitation. I think the unlock is permanent, or mostly so, since when I upgraded my iPhone4S to IOS6, the first message to pop up on iTunes was 'congratulations, your phone is unlocked now.'

Radio Spectrum starts out as public property - selling it, a limited resource, with unknown but extensive economic effects in the future, is a bad idea. I strongly believe we should nationalize radio spectrum and lease it out, for limited periods (a dozen years? two dozen, tops.) to companies to use as part of their product.. Given how fast technology moves, and how useful (in unknowable ways) Radio Spectrum will be in the future, we are selling away our birthright..

Rather that move things around, how about use "union" filesystem to present an optional different view of things. Heck, you could use chroot and union fs to create a completely different singular view of the same file system to different users..

Seriously? A weaponized UAV, for the police? Are they insane? Not my problem, for now, since I don't go to Texas .. Ever. It's a dangerous place where the population is drunk and armed and the cops practice more lawlessness than otherwise. Also it's a state that still murders people (Death "penalty".)
Nothing good can or will come of this, for a fact.

Man, this is starting to sound more and more like the local parking enforcement and red-light camera issued tickets! Guilty without need to present evidence and little to no contesting rights. Next thing you know, the studios will have enforcement troops.

Maybe it's just me, but I think Kootol's logo looks very similar to Gooogl's logo!
http://www.kootol.com/Images/Kootol_Logo.png
http://www.google.com/images/logos/ssl_ps_logo.png

For a number of years, as a Netflix customer, I've been watching and thus receiving less and less DVDs a month. Two years ago I cut back to one-at-a-time. Streaming was free. Then the price went up for $2 (apparently, history being re-written, that hike was for the one-at-a-time dvd plan, the cost of the original one-at-a-time dvd plan being directed towards a streaming plan!) $10/mo still felt like a soft cost, I could absorb it, I did. Now it's going up to $16/mo. I like getting a dvd now and then, rarely, maybe 1-2 a month. I stream a movie about as often. I can live without both of those. I'll get my DVDs at the corner store or on demand and live without old movies. Netflix, a company I once thought of as great, is now just another company trying to get as much out of me as they can. Well, the pushed a bit too hard. They now get ZERO out of me and I hold grudges. Netflix: Don't expect me to return to you anytime soon EVEN if you improve your cost structure. It will cost you all the money you lose from me in the meanwhile AND the cost of re-acquiring me as a customer - buying my loyalty back, should you choose to, to get me back.

The only reason I held onto mine for so long is that it didn't cost a lot, and I was "soft" on deciding to drop it. Now I am not longer soft, lol, I am steaming hard on it. BYE BYE Netflix, I loved you for a while - so long as you gave me pretty things for cheap, Now that you don't, I no longer love you.

There is no safe level of radiation - there are simply levels that don't significantly increase risk. It may well be discovered that hanging out by XRay sources isn't as un-bad for your health as previously assumed (perhaps due to not actually testing..) I'm so glad my tax dollars paid for all this tech and will now pay all the large sums that will get awarded in the inevitable law suits.. Yay.

From what I recall of reading about this a year+ ago, the same tech would allow for mathematically changing focus, zoom, pan, tilt in real time on the signal from the camera or post-fact on a recording of the same signal. So, basically, a flat non-moving sensor can now emulate a PZT camera. I can imagine that with a spherical lens or one of those weird mirrors that lets a regular camera catch a 360 image, it should be possible to make a near holocam. Imagine a movie shot like this and glasses that allow you to focus on different depths at will (maybe by watching your eyes?) it would be a "real" 3d experience, none of that fuzzy background you get on stereo 3d movies.

So, knowing better than to waste my time, I called AT&T today and, as expected, "Apple still doesn't allow us to unlock iPhones." Anyone have a clue if this policy is ever going away?

I stopped consuming music years ago.
I am happy with the hundreds of hours of music I already own and generally find little new music I like. I get my new music fix from the radio, pandora, and the like. The only music I actually acquire are the free weekly downloads from itunes.
I stopped primarily due to DRM and crazy ass licensing. Less DRM now, but my new habits around this are established.
Our copyright/IP system is entirely broken and getting more so every day. Something has to break, I am sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what goes first - the last of our civil liberties, or the insane system we have built.