This is slightly off-topic but I'll post anyway.

I worry that our friends in Mountain View are starting to lose their grip on reality somewhat.

By this I mean that incidents of their senior staff saying or doing unusual things are getting more and more frequent. For example, this comment on medical -record privacy shows that Mr Page does not really understand that his Company's unquenchable thirst for information and data should indeed have limits.

Mr Schmidt's visit to North Korea, an attempt to ingratiate Google with NK's leadership so that when they decide to "open up" their Internet even a little, Google will be there to control most of it for them (come on, why the heck else would he go there? Peace envoy, FFS?)

Google Glass is another spent-too-much-time-in-the-Californian-sun moment. Google Glass does not scratch an itch, it's just daft and will probably die a swift death once they try to flog it elsewhere in the world.

Then at the I/O keynote all the talk about wanting to make great new things rather than being "negative" is just the usual peace and love BS that they spout whilst wanting to crush all their competitors (which is what they should be doing anyway).

I had a point but have forgotten it.

tl;dr - Google are starting to get on my nerves with useless new products and services, ever increasing creepiness, and smiling and whispering sweet nothings whilst they knife their competitors. Ahem.

Well said (er, written) sir! If I had mod points, I would. I'd like to link to your response from my largely ignored Twitter feed, and probably will. I think that Google with this "product" has now crossed the creepy line. These exist only for one purpose, the record everything and categorise it. The Stasi would have loved this. Discuss.

Excellent points and well made, Causality. Thank you for taking the time to write them.

In other words after carefully considering all their options and went with the one that offered the best overall package, whilst keeping the price point competetive? Not nerd willy-waving, then? Jolly good.

Well said, sir. Well said. I for one deleted/suspended/hid my Facebook account for this reason. Never felt comfortable with it and have no regrets.

I think you need to take more water with it. You said: "Verizon is also owned by Vodaphone, which has a much larger international market presence." The other guy said that Vodafone in fact own a 45% stake in Verizon Wireless (VZW). Vodafone Group DOES NOT own VZW. VZW is technically a joint venture. Vodafone networks globally use the GSM system. VZW uses CDMA-something. The two are incompatible. They are both, however, big and red. I like red. As Jack Carter once said, "You're a big man but you're out of shape. Now to me its a full-time job, so behave yourself".

Not quite.

Phone to phone messaging in Japan is very popular, more so than voice use. However on the Japanese FOMA handsets the messaging is essentially SMTP, not GSM SMS/MMS. This is the way it's been since FOMA was introduced by DoCoMo back in c. 2000.

My sources, if yer interested: http://www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/culture/japanese_cell_phone_culture.html

Whilst this is a failure of some rudimentary security system that was supposed to protect the data stored on the chip, this is anot a cloned card per se.

The chips on these ID cards, and the new UK passports, are there to enhance the integrity of the DOCUMENT, not be secure stand-alone identifiers alone. For instance you can easily copy the data on a chip once the security has been defeated but to accurately copy the paper part of the document including the watermarks, UV sensitive fibres, holograms, raised ink, irridescent coatings, etc. takes a lot of time and effort that most people won't bother with. Some do bother as a lot of bent banknotes will testify to.

These cards like the passports SHOULD when tested/checked be read by a human being who knows how to check the security features (e.g running your fingers over the top of a banknote to check the raised ink), check the details and the photo are correct and do not seem to have been tampered with, then they can check that the data on the chip matches the data printed on the paper/plastic. If they match then there's a very high chance that the card/passport is genuine.

Just checking one portion rather than the other defats the purpose of these designs.

Weak systems will always be exploitable. UK Border Control staff/Police/Home Office drones need to know that that no document is unforgeable and to maintain the integrity of a system requires knowledge and training on the part of those who are attempting to enforce it.

Well put sir, well put. Constant nerd will-waving about what tickbox such-and-such device has over another (not just iPhone and suchlike) is as tiresome as it is pointless. Canada has mountains. So does the moon. The moon is bigger than Canada. Therefore the moon is a better place to live than Canada. (OK, well, I spent only some time in Calgary...)