Both of those that you list kids could see with parental permission. But more importantly than that, the rating system in Hollywood and the Video Game industries is voluntary. There is no law against kids seeing an R rated film, just a theater owner's agreement. A big part of that is if the rating were given the force of law, it would need to hold up to scrutiny. As it stands, there are a lot of societal standards and other things which don't necessarily hold up to government oversight, and the ratings process is entirely opaque for fear of influence scandals.

So yes, reward retailers who adhere to the ratings standards, be it movies or games. But there are major, obvious constitutionality challenges in giving a voluntary system the force of law.

I use Windows, OSX, Linux, iOS, and Android. I have to say, I find that I generally want either one window maximized, 2 windows halved to move data between them, or 3 - 4 windows halved over 2 screens to move data between 2 windows while looking at reference materials. Virtual Desktops are fine, but in practice provide a functionality similar to minimized windows but with an annoying degree of toucheyness.

Of course, for Linux, I pretty much just want a command line and a phone with a browser. So I'm probably not the target market. But I can still understand the goal of moving to just maximized windows, and jumping between them. OS UI got stagnant for about 10 years in there, so I'm happy that they're experimenting with things... even if that means they'll occasionally Ubuntu it.

People are not going to pick up a kiosk. To be fair, they're not going to pick up a tablet either. The only real solution where people actually watch the video, would be to have it up and running on a wall, either VIA TV or projected. If you really needed to be "Web 2.0" ey about it, attach a camera and let people interact with a projection through motion. Or make a tabletop with a touchscreen, and have people interact with it that way.

Or, and I'm sure everyone would hate this option, remove all of the magazines and newspapers from the waiting area, and just have the tablets on long tethers. Though, unless I'm mistaken, the reason the magazines are there is that they make everything go easier for the staff.

As someone who has been in that situation: go talk to your employer. Some will allow you to modify your employment contract to cover the umbrella case of IP outside of work hours. Some will officially sign over rights to you on a particular side project you're working on. Some simply can't do either, as they have iron-clad contracts with other people who require that clause for rights clarity purposes. Some will offer to partner with you on the project, or otherwise compensate you for the idea but have it within their system.

If you're in one of the states where outside work is generally exempt from these contracts (California, for example), then you probably don't need to go to your employer necessarily. But it will help cut off a potentially expensive lawsuit in the future.

And if you're not in one of the states that explicitly grants exemptions, don't just go ahead expecting that you'll win the legal battle.

While it is a far cry to execute a convicted murderer vs a tweeter, the US does clearly have huge racial and socioeconomic bias inherent in the system. Criminals that are poor, black, and of lower IQ greatly disproportionately receive the death penalty over middle-or-upperclass white people of normal intelligence.

You'd have to walk pretty slowly, but:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peterseid/romo-the-smartphone-robot

The obviousness criteria should be a lot more broadly applied than it currently is. For one, while copyrights allow for similar or identical expressions developed in parallel, patents do not. If you realize that someone can file their taxes * on the internet *, and I realize that someone can file their taxes * on the internet *, it's a first-to-file-take-all situation. If we allowed for independent / clean room developments, the water might be a bit murkier but at least the indefensible patents wouldn't survive a week.

Second, patents should involve some degree of experimentation and possibility of being wrong. If you don't have to think about whether or not the simplified abstract of the patent is right, it's probably obvious. Utilizing a form of magnetics to sort oil from seawater would be a patentable invention under this standard, in that it may or may not work. Some degree of thought went into it. Attempting to patent using an arrow to point the player in the direction of travel would not. Obviously it's going to work, because obviously that's what they're for. If more effort went into the patent's paperwork, than into the idea of what is being patented, the patent shouldn't not be granted.

Or someone who thinks that electric cars are part of the future that we need to transition towards energy independence. Someone who wants to promote the US car industry (Toyota, yadda yadda). People who commute with lots of co-workers, and want a silent platform to talk in.

It's definitely not for everyone. But it's not fair to categorize it as just a rich show-off machine.

While reasonably rare, iPhone viruses and malware do exist in the wild.

http://techfragments.com/news/982/Software/Apple_iPhone_Virus_Spreads_By_SMS_Messages.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/iphone-virus-botnet-bank-details,9136.html
http://www.mactrast.com/2010/07/iphone-virus-discovered-be-vigilant-and-seek-advice/
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3573755?start=0&tstart=0

The U.S. is also willing to invest heavily in upgrading old avionics, making what "generation" it is in to be relatively irrelevant.

The U.S. keeps investing heavily in upgrading old avionics, mainly because it can't seem to get new fighters off the ground. Or the ones that we do get off the ground, mysteriously choke their pilots. Really, the only bright spot we've had on our recent avionics history are the drones.

The F-16 is older than a lot of the people working on it. That's... kind of embarrassing for us.