I've seen two cases on how this was solved.

The first was when an assistant manager came up and said "Please stand over here so that we can continue to serve other people", he ranted and raved about how much business the store would lose but I can practically guarantee that the store would have seen more repeat business from the others in that line.

The second was another customer pushing past them and telling them to naff off when they complained that they were in line. The guy did ask nicely for the couponer to move along first, then just shoved him out of the way. Australians tend to have little patience for the kind of person who likes to hold up lines.

Why would they do that?

Remember that both Apple and Google make money by collecting your information and selling it (at least Google gives you some assurance it's anonymised before sale). Why would they want to make it harder to do this.

now, I had nothing against uber before hearing this; but now, I won't be caught dead inside one of their cars, now. this 'war on your customers' is nothing I care to help fund or support!

With the way Uber acts, why did you think this wouldn't happen?

The way they thumb their nose at the law means that its a safer assumption to assume that they will do arse-hattery like this. Uber is in the business of making money and your data is worth money. They are not honest businessmen who care about the reputation of their business, regulations designed to protect you or their customers in general.

I've never installed the Uber app, I took one look at the permissions it requested and figured out it was a data mining operation.

I've said it since the begining. The only thing Uber has going for it is the irrational hate people seem to have of taxis... Whilst they've capitalised on that fantasitcally, soon people will realise they've got all the same problems as traditional taxis and a few that traditional taxis dont have... Like this one.

This, different jobs have different requirements. Personally I hate open plan, but I find that if I can communicate quickly with my team it's very helpful. The problem is listening to everyone one else communicating with their team. Having been sat right next to sales, I'd rather be stuck in the dreariest, boxiest cube farm ever devised by Catbert, the evil director of human resources. Sales never shuts up, ever.

Its not real estate, its tax.

Certainly in Australia, a partition is not considered furniture, it's considered part of the building so the cost cant be amortised or depreciated as quickly as the desks and chairs (IIRC furniture is 3 years, walls have to be depreciated over 40).

So finally I will have multiple apps in the foreground bringing my tablet to a crawl.

Jokes aside, have Google announced wich devices will get this, I'm wondering if my Nexus 7 and 4 will receive the official update.

Obviously for marketing purposes, they wouldn't consider that a switch.

But with it being a 2 player market and Android having the lions share, it's obvious that most switchers to iphone will have come from Android. The same would be true for switchers to Android. The question is, are the people switching to Iphone greater than the numbers switching to Android.

Also recent numbers will be skewed by the introduction of the Iphone to several countries, most notably China. In established markets, for several years the Iphone user base has been stagnant or dropping slightly with 75-80% of Iphone purchases being from current Iphone users.

Simple answer: it's easier to fleece Apple users.

Android users tend not to click on ads, some will even have ad blockers. Iphone users are less discerning and more prone to impulse purchases. Also Android owners are a lot more varied than Iphone owners meaning the Iphone market is easier to target. Point in short, its not that Android users aren't using the more advanced features of Android phones, it's just that Android users aren't clicking on the "free ringtone" ads.

Reality:

Apple User: I think my phone is soooo superior.

Android user: that's cute.

The industry loves things like Dubstep because it can be produced on a computer and the "artist" (using this term very loosely) is just an actor and can be replaced if need be. Not that the art of replacing band members in pop groups is a new concept either. Their ultimate goal is to replace the human component forever, that way they dont have to pay them their 10%, beyond this people tend to have opinions that aren't popular, develop drug habits, get old/ugly. Virtual pop stars are the wet dream of the music industry.

Back to sound quality, I've noticed this too, even with voices they seem to be altered to just beyond the range of what the human voice is capable of. My theory always has been that this is done to make the track sound louder and more noticeable (modern music seems more about annoying you into listening/remembering than enticing you) but someone else in this thread pointed out that people have grown used to listening to poorly encoded MP3's and this also makes a lot of sense, people are starting to think that the artefacts you get in bad MP3 files are normal. Add to that the fact that people have also grown used to using poor quality playback devices to listen to their poorly encoded music.

Whilst this is true for a lot manufactured pop, with forms of music that had the artist sing and play as well as write different albums have different sounds. The Colour and the Shape from the Foo Fighters sounds very different from Nothing Left to Lose and the albums were only separated by 2 years and this is very different from Sonic Highways (their latest album).

So yeah, someone who has their music written for them and autotuned will benefit from releasing songs on a staggered timetable, but bands who tour will still need to make whole albums and not just because they only get a few months of studio time between tours.

You're still over complicating it, so let me break it down for you... Its because they can.

Established manufacturers can afford to sell on reputation and charge for extras that lesser known, liked or trusted manufacturers cant. This is why you get more features as standard in a Hyundai I30 than you do in a Toyota Corolla.

Last time I went to a BMW dealership it was an exercise in saying "no".
Bi-xenon headlights - no.
Parking package - no.
Comfort package - no.
ConnectedDrive(TM) - no.
Driver assistant - no and if you mention this or automatic transmissions again I'm walking.

Manufacturers will keep trying to up sell you on features because people keep buying them.

Fixed that for you.

The driver was under the impression that the car had Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), which is a feature Volvo offers on the XC60 but isn't installed by default. Vovlo's advertising doesn't reflect this obviously, it's hidden in the small print that says something like "optional extras not included". The "self parking" part is a misnomer on the part of the submitter.

However the bigger problem is the mistaken faith they have in AEB systems, that they are 1) infallible, 2) effective. If you watch a video of the XC60's AEB system (Euro NCAP will have a few) they are only effective up to a speed of about 20 KPH, after that all they do is reduce the speed of the impact. Also these tests are done from a steady speed (I.E. not accelerating). I'm sure that mashing the go pedal wont help AEB work.

I firmly believe that AEB is going to make things worse, not better as it gives bad drivers false confidence. People who already dont pay attention to the road will think it's perfectly OK to pay even less attention to the road. We're making already lazy drivers even lazier. AEB will eventually be removed because of this, Volvo is lucky in this case because 1) it was in the Dominican Republic so they can simply buy their way out of trouble and; 2) the feature was not installed on the car. However shortly a dopey Doris in an AEB equipped car will be doing 100 down the motorway and plough into the back someone else's car at 75 because they were busy texting and their excuse will be "but the car was supposed to brake for me". Even though car manufacturers have tried to cover their arse in the fine print, it wont be enough to save them from the ignorance and stupidity of end users.

I accept 1, but 2 is debatable, we need to encourage people to NOT fuck around with gadgets in the car at all.

However vendor locked "infotainment" systems need to die and die a horrible death in a fire. In car nav systems are almost always inferior to third party, updates are difficult and in many cases, expensive. Manufacturers have made a system that is obsolete in 2 years max which cannot be replaced in a vehicle that has a serviceable life of 10+ years. This needs to change.

I cant imagine how bad my current car, a 2002 Nissan Silvia would be if I couldn't swap out the stereo with something that knew what an MP3 was. I'd still be forced to burn music CD's like a Neanderthal. Fortunately it was a standard double DIN with standard Nissan connectors, so putting in a new Alpine head unit was easy. However this wont be the case with most 2012 cars in 2025.