Answer in TFA. But I also suspect it's because it will be the hardest and most stringent FDAs out of the way, which will facilitate certification with other FDAs (and their respective counterparts) around the world while opening up the US as a large HIV market right off the bat.

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Turn a "why" into "why not".

What?! The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your eneMY! (c) RATM

Considering a near three-decade long history of Multi touch RnD (starting with University of Toronto, followed by Bell Labs and Xerox, et al...) a patent awarded to apple would be quite a spit in the face of everyone who made the technology possible in the first place.

Want social skills and the joy of direct human interaction, sports, walking to class [or bars] and having [even if occasional] sex lost to digital sensory stimulation, abscence of physical activity and a severe vitamin D deficiency?

Thanks, but me and my kids will do it the old fashioned way.

Why bother with the backyard if most /.'ers can do it from the basement?

I though it took the Shuttle 20 minutes to reach LEO...?

an MS Office+JS / VIM+Lisp flamewar? :-)

A slight typo - I think you mean Unobtainium. You think NASA is spending all this cash to send Lego figures to the outer planets to find methane (that won't even burn on Mars). No no no no no no, no! They're after a much bigger fish. Ooooh, fish?

In Soviet Russia the government listens to no one

Hey, maybe it's the kids' way of saying they're in search of a job. If I were the italians, I'd sit down with them and see what they can do for the (Italian|American|NATO... ) govt - as they can obviously do quite a bit and clearly more than their employed, university educated cybersecurity "specialists". 2c/

Is it encrypted??

I don't want this thing watching me when I'm doing drugs!

Not Olga Chapman? Aww...