I wish I had mod points, this would get +5 insightful/informative. These are the real issues. Primarily banks and the telcos want that sweet, sweet action. Banks are going so far as to introduce their own MicroSD based solutions. My guess is that Apple wanted to get that cut of the action but AT&T/Verizon and others wouldn't stand for it. Right now, this is the BluRay/HDDVD battle - between the banks and the telcos. Frankly, I think the whole idea is stupid.

From what I read, is that the PETN explosive put inside the toner cartridge looks just like toner powder through an X-Ray machine. At least one of these packages was screened through normal processes and was not detected. Another article I read said that the authorities in England couldn't find anything wrong with the printer they were told was a bomb until instructed by authorities in Dubai on what to look for. It sounds like this was an incredibly well-made bomb, and I think it is in part to the fact that visually it raised no red flags.

Google relies on Twilio for their audio transcription.

Have you looked into the Speech API's baked into Vista and Windows 7? If you're familiar with .NET coding, version 4 of the framework provides easy to use hooks into the speech api. The only problem is it is designed to be used with fairly specific grammars/lexicons (programmer supplied) however it does come with a general speech recognizer - but you'll get some interesting results without training it first. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163663.aspx Downsides also include it only natively supports WAV files but that can be addressed with some rolling-your-own goodness.

Old news is so exciting!

The author misses the real point here: vendor lock-in... Why would people even bother to buy an iPhone if any of the Google offerings allow them the same apps? If there's a really hot app that can only be had on the iPhone, then people will buy iPhones... Plain and simple.

Solution? Hire Bruno Ganz and a ragtag group of aspiring actors and reshoot the scene... Then use this new version as the basis for Downfall parodies?

That's Xfinity, you insensitive clods!

It only reinforces that you saw the ad... This approach may backfire and incentivize this type of behavior.

I'm pretty sure Linux can do this but I am by no means a guru. If your router is a Linksys WRT54G, I highly recommend installing the 3rd party Tomato firmware. All the features you require are there. I personally find the Quality of Service packet prioritzation an absolute must in a household of bachelors all running BitTorrent and Xbox 360s...

... QiQiQi ^_^

Agreed. I've heard licensing the map data represents a healthy chunk of the cost so I doubt you'd ever see a competitor sell just the app for less than $50. Still, you've hit the head on the nail that this is TomTom trying to compete with the iPhone instead of complement it.

Yes, all of this. Also, apparently the GPS chip inside the iPhone isn't "good enough" to do turn-by-turn navigation, so the cradle that TomTom sells has a chip inside it that is better suited. Now, this might be a big fat lie, since the app will work without the cradle albeit not as well if the marketing literature is to be believed.