.. one guy at the patent office to look at each patent for about five seconds, and stamp ones like this with "This is stupid, go away... NO PATENT FOR YOU!!"

Apple will probably sell a "special" iPhone that includes the transmitter.

Or a big red eye that one wears in the center of his forehead. Maybe with a big "L" on it.

Since Apple patented it, this means it doesn't (and theoretically can't) apply to anything but iPhones. So everyone else who has an Android, or Windows, or BB, or any other dumb camera phone is not only free, but PROHIBITED from having this "feature" unless the manufacturers license it from Apple.

Way to go, Apple, you just gave everyone one more reason NOT to buy an iPhone. I'm sure the theater owners will love installing a (probably) expensive IR gadget to catch the small percentage of camera phone owners who will be covered by it.

A high school football player just last week died during practice. MANY kids are hurt doing team sports in schools. There's a KNOWN, DEFINITE health threat, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt!

If they can ban stuff based on the vague possibility of a problem, why not ban what is PROVEN to be one!

I put in mine and it shows no wired providers, only wireless. I had 8 mbps DSL four years ago from Bellsouth/AT&T, and have even faster now from Comcast.

Nobody ever said Michael Crichton had the best grasp of technical issues. While the book was a BIT better than the movie, most of his stuff is still pretty well divorced from reality.

As I recall, one of the tasks given to Nedry in the design of the computer systems was to devise a database capable of holding a couple of billion fields to handle the sequencing of DNA strands.

You give them the MEID, and they look it up. They know. The web site won't activate a smartphone. It knows too.

There was a lot more to it than this. AT&T was prohibited from being in certain markets (computers) because of the "regulated monopoly" status. They had fantastic technology available via Bell Labs, but they couldn't sell it directly. They also had UNIX. They owned it. But they couldn't make money off it.

The government wouldn't let AT&T sell computers because it was believed they would have an unfair advantage in the marketplace if they controlled everything from end to end. They could make their computers work better or cheaper on their networks. Few people remember now how much it used to cost to connect a third party modem to a Bell phone line. But you could rent a modem from Bell that would plug right in! And then you'd pay, and pay, and pay rent forever.

The management of AT&T decided it was better for the company to be broken up so they could get the new entities into markets they thought would make them more money than just carrying traffic. At that time, the small computer industry was beginning to take off, and they wanted a piece of that. They wanted to take on IBM, and even without the local providers, they were still about the only company large enough to succeed.

This isn't about technology, or customer service, it's about BUSINESS. Everyone who owned AT&T stock got shares in all of the new entities, and the idea was that the new entities, moving into new markets, could make more revenue combined than the old monolith. That translates into higher overall dividends, and higher aggregate share prices.

It's all about "maximizing shareholder value".

Sometimes in business, you have to think about what your company can be, rather than what it IS. If the railroads had thought this way, they could have been the first into the airline business, but they thought of themselves as RAILROADS, and not as "transportation providers", and by the time they realized what was happening, it was too late.

The management of AT&T tried to branch out, to get into the game, but unfortunately nobody thought of them as a computer company. They didn't discover how to properly market their new products till they were outclassed by the other players. Their early UNIX boxes were good products that just never sold well.

I bought a Treo on the used market a few years back. Verizon won't activate a data-capable phone unless you buy a data plan. That's just how they work. If you try to switch from a standard phone to a smartphone via the web site, it'll tell you to call customer service, and they will tell you you HAVE to buy the data plan. No alternative.