Android is on pace to surpass one billion users across all devices in 2014. By 2017, over 75 percent of Android's volumes will come from emerging markets. Source: http://www.gartner.com/newsroo...

I just purchased an 8-core THL w200s from Amazon for 200.00 bucks and Prime shipping. If they preloaded this phone with the Amazon App Store and marketed the hell out of it, they could sell the crap out of these phones for 200.00 bucks a pop. A similar American phone would sell in the 500.00 - 600.00 range.

And that is exactly how they could make a big splash in the Smartphone Market. A kick-butt phone in the 200.00 to sub-200.00 price range...

No, to use Amazon Apps on my first phone, I had to type in a secret key combination in order to install the Amazon App Store. My next phone was rooted, so no big deal. Obviously, they want it to come as default. It's just like everything else, if you have to google a secret key combo to install something, how many people are really going to use it?

I can't help but seeing how a real alternative to the Google Play Store as being a bad thing. However, as someone who has used both stores, developers treat Amazon apps as less important, that's for sure. Many apps I use frequently are several versions behind on Amazon. I finally had to break down and use Google to get updates.

I think Amazon stuck a fork in the eye of Google when they pulled off a fork of Android. If they are going to really pull it off, though, Apps need to be kept up to date.

because other People's safety is at risk

Oh, if only there was something we could give children to keep them from getting sick. Then personal choices would not put other people at risk, only the people that opt out would take their chances.

A study last year found that in many American counties, especially in the deep South, life expectancy is lower than in Algeria, Nicaragua or Bangladesh.

http://www.pophealthmetrics.co...

Yes. If we have been tricked, it is that we think we need so much protein. Meat consumption in the rest of the world is a luxury, and if you look at the places that eat less meat, they have way less chronic metabolic diseases than we do. I'm not saying they have no disease, I'm saying they have less.

We have also been tricked into thinking that carbs are bad...when in fact, lots of places in the world eat carbs all their life and are still healthier than we are. The difference is that there carbs are way less processed.

We have been tricked into thinking that soy is good for us, when the way they eat soy in the rest of the world is way different than the highly processed soy crap that we eat here.

We have been tricked into thinking that milk is good for us, when in fact it is not (but may help if you have a really crappy diet).

Yes, we have been tricked, all right! If you want to live, take a world map and throw a dart at it. Anywhere it lands outside of the US, adopt their diet. You will live longer and healthier than we do here in the US.

Yes. Netflix can rent physical DVDs without negotiating with studios or distributors. In theory, they could run to Walmart and buy DVDs to mail out. They need nobody''s permission to do this. With streaming, they are at the mercy of the studios. Studios who want to offer their own streaming services.

The death of DVDs could equal the death of Netflix. It may or may not play out like that, but DVDs have been very good to Netflix for the simple reason of not having to enter into any agreements to do their core business.

There are any number of entities that would love to see Netflix fold. The way to do that is through license fees. They can turn the screws.

Yeah, tell Chiropractors there is no medical conspiracy. They sued the AMA for conspiring against them, and won!

http://www.yourmedicaldetectiv...

In the past, medicine has fought battles to limit the practices of such professionals as homeopaths, naturopaths, osteopaths, podiatrists, optometrists, dentists, psychologists and chiropractors. In the case of osteopathy and chiropractic, there are distinct differences in the approach to healing and health when compared to medicine. The last thing that organized medicine wants is for their doctrine of drugs and surgery to be challenged.

Osteopaths allowed themselves to be absorbed by medicine--today there is little difference between an M.D. and a D.O. Chiropractic on the other hand, fought hard to be a separate and distinct profession.

Same goes for skin, as well. Wash your hands, but you don't have to "nuke bacteria from orbit." A lot of it is good for you and is there for a reason.

Scientists Discover That Antimicrobial Wipes and Soaps May Be Making You (and Society) Sick

http://blogs.scientificamerica...

What is worse, perhaps the most comprehensive study of the effectiveness of antibiotic and non-antibiotic soaps in the U.S., led by Elaine Larson at Columbia University (with Aiello as a coauthor), found that while for healthy hand washers there was no difference between the effects of the two, for chronically sick patients (those with asthma and diabetes, for example) antibiotic soaps were actually associated with increases in the frequencies of fevers, runny noses and coughs [4]. In other words, antibiotic soaps appeared to have made those patients sicker. Let me say that again: Most people who use antibiotic soap are no healthier than those who use normal soap. AND those individuals who are chronically sick and use antibiotic soap appear to get SICKER.

Here, then, is the evidence we need, evidence very clearly at odds with our intuition to scrub and scrub. Yet hardly anyone has followed up on Larson’s study and no one has reexamined what happens with chronically sick patients and antibiotic soaps. The truth is that few biologists are studying what antibiotic soaps do to us. Still, the evidence indicates that when confronted with a dirty grocery store cart handle, we should just wash with soap and water like our great grandmothers would have done (if they had had grocery carts). At the very least, antibiotic wipes do not appear to help us and, it may be that they are actually hurting us.

Probiotics and alternative medicine people have said things like this for decades. Modern life, with antibiotics for non-life threatening illnesses, and things to kill bacteria at every turn, is one big living experiment. Little things that have big consequences that are really unknown:

Antiseptic Mouthwash Raises Heart Attack Risk
http://www.medicaldaily.com/an...

I would change my diet very quickly and take up jogging:

Is Alzheimer’s Type 3 Diabetes?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytim...

Also, I would look specifically at anti-inflammatory diets, because Alzheimers, like many chronic modern diseases, is linked to chronic inflammation (in this case, in the brain):

> Since the late 1980s, various studies have found hints that the chronic inflammation found in Alzheimer’s hastens the disease process

See the connection?

http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/...

Inactivity and obesity increase the risk for diabetes, but exactly how is unclear. Recent research suggests that inflammation inside the body plays a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

The good news: An "anti-inflammatory" diet and exercise plan can help prevent and treat type 2 diabetes.

The effects of inflammation are familiar to anyone who has experienced a bug bite, rash, skin infection, or ankle sprain. In those situations, you will see swelling in the affected area.

With type 2 diabetes, inflammation is internal.

All they would have to do is fork Android and replace all the proprietary Google parts with their own. There is nothing secret or shady about this. See: Amazon Kindle Fire.

Microsoft would just have to jump into it fully. I like the Amazon App market, but I've found apps in it are often several versions behind apps in the Google Play store. If something like that is going to work, app makers are going to have to support multiple app stores, and do so fully.

Even though I like Amazon giving Google the competition, I find I'm starting to get apps from Google more because they seem to be supported better.

I have been reading slashdot since about 1999-2000.

I've been a user since 1996-1997. Fuck Beta. The most obvious thing is they don't seem to give a shit about our feelings. I'm sorry you are getting annoyed, but it won't be long before we won't have to worry about anything in the comments, because there won't be any comments any more. It's like sitting with a dying relative. You see death coming, but there really isn't anything that is going to stop it. Sucks, but Fuck Beta.

Fuck you.