... don't join:

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6611967/not-google-plus

In Japan, they also have W-CDMA (UMTS), but at least the phones there typically use uSIM cards, which just happen to be similar to GSM SIM cards.

I can take any unlocked phone that supports UMTS, and put in any uSIM card from any other the 3 major carriers (softbank, au, & docomo) and it will work.

However in the USA, CMDA based carriers refused to allow any type of uSIM support for their networks, since they want users to be locked down to their networks. Even if you paid the extra $$$ for an unlocked iPhone 4S, you cannot get it work on both Sprint and Verizon the networks. The iPhone unlock is only for GSM not CDMA in the USA. The same is also true for Android phones as well.

I am very happy to see Google finally stand up against the horrible CMDA situation in the USA. As previous commenters have stated, it would be nice if either CMDA went away, or they followed the example of Japan, and are required to have uSIM cards.

The goal should be to have every unlocked smart-phone unlocked and able to work with every carrier, but simply inserting a SIM/uSIM card. Personally I think it is horrible that smart-phones are not required to be unlocked, since these phones are typically not subsidized with 2-3 year contacts that covers the full cost of the phone many times over.

There is a huge difference between copyright enforcement against individuals in the context of personal use, and organizations in the context of earning signifigant revenue.

Most people including those on Slashdot, do not think it is reasonable to sell a pirated DVD movie on a street corner for profit, but consider it okay to download that same movie for media shifting for personal viewing.

Sony should be applauded for making their own BusyBox alternative, rather than violate the GPL. Hopefully it will be released as opensource with a different licence, for those that want an alternative choice. Adding more choice is a good thing!

Why do corporations contribute so much money to politicians in western nations? Because they except and get a 10-fold return on investment, by having laws, tax policies, regulations, and government purchases catered to their wishes.

Protesting only value in the political equation, is its dollar value against the advertisement and other media costs needed to negate it. (Note that SOPA was only stopped, when Google, Wikipedia, and others put the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising against it, and not but grass-roots protests alone.)

The only reasonable way to stop ACTA now would be to get some major corporate support on board and/or generate a signifigant bribe fund for politicians that would be greater than the amount the media company are bribing with.

With the exception of early childhood with a few playground scuffles, I have never cause any physical harm to anyone, and do not have the desire to ever cause harm in the future.

However, as a geek and a white-hat hacker, I am very curious about technology, science (including chemistry), math (including cryptography), etc. So, yes, even I would be interested in reading about explosives and bomb making, along with my other technical curiosities, if only to be more informed and aware of the risks, even though I would never attempt to get the materials, build anything, or use it in any way.

But having technical info is illegal, even without any proof that that that man planned to misused it? Wow, I am shocked how much democracy we have lost in the last few years. At what point should we start causing our nations fascist states:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

Thank you nutcases, for under undermining America science education! Since after enjoying the 200 years of prosperity, economic and military might that science has provided to the USA, it is very generous they now start undermining it, by insuring that future generations don't properly learn that pesky science, so that many other countries can advance and overtake the USA.

If I was a Chinese official, I would be actively funding the National Center for Science Education, since they are the ones that benefit most from American stupidity.

Hopefully the National Center for Science Education can now start attacking math, since transfinite numbers and arithmetic can be use to justify that there are infinities bigger than god:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_number

Is it so much easy to teach kids that 1+1 = whatever god tells them. Welcome to the new American Taliban.

A death rattle can last for many many years. All that they have to do is follow SCO example, and fire everyone and just spend the remaining money on legal fees. And when the money is dried up, the lawyers can then receive guaranteed cash from future settlements.

Interesting that most of the innovation in the US is legally based, and not based on science or engineering.

As long as launching capabilities are only within reach of governments and mega-corporations, which are the only ones that can afford to use this spacecraft, this is a useless waste of engineering efforts by volunteers. The rest of the 99.999999% of us will never get a chance to fly in one.

I would be much more interested in an opensource electric car design.

Here is a trick that I used. I received a company issued Dell laptop with Windows. I installed converted it into a VM (Virtual Machine) image with VMware converter tool, and then installed that VM on my Mac.

Whenever I need to do corporate stuff I do it in the VM, and all of the personal stuff I do on my Mac host machine. (This trick works for Linux hosts as well.)

Any spyware on my VM does not obtain any information about my personal activity in the host OS.

If one is unfortunately enough to get a NFC capable Blackberry phone, such as the Bold 9900, from AT&T or T-Mobile, good luck trying to get NFC to work.

Is it disabled within the Blackberry OS, based on Vendor ID, at the request of these horrible carriers, even though other carriers enable it for those exact same phones. And currently isn't any jailbreak or hack to enable it. (Older unbranding tools like MFI don't work on these newer phones.)

Actually RIM is the worst smart phone company when it comes to deliberately disabling features and functionality at the request of carriers, especially compared to Apple, Google, and Microsoft. With that type of regard for their end users, I hope they continue imploding and go bankrupt soon.