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Perhaps people won't complain about privacy if the utility provider is the entity that builds and uses the data monitoring system, instead of a third party entity ?

Google doesn't (as far as I know) sell user information to advertisers. They exclusively use their own analytics; all an advertiser can do is submit their target demographics and keywords, and let Google do the math.

This is an oft quoted statement. Does that imply/insinuate others (like fb) do ? I think fb and Google might be the same in this regard.

If you're not using their services (at least passively), you're definitely not making them money.

When I send an email from my non-Gmail account to somebody who uses Gmail, is this still true ?

Since USAian's hurt feelings are a matter of national security, NSA is well within the law for collecting info about what Germans think.

Blasphemy ! Where would PHBs discuss the lack of STEM employees and the need to increase H1-B quotas ?!

If the focus is on the message, the messenger is irrelevant. The message should be scrutinized (which sounds like "Trust, but verify").

Eventually at some threshold everybody will care. We are just not there yet, unfortunately.

FTFY.

ABP and their ilk might work effectively on sites where you do not have an "account". On sites that you do, they already have a mechanism to identify you and all ABP does would be to block the ad content from being displayed. The tracking and mining cannot be avoided.

"...that my country has ceased to be the land of the free, the home of the braves *..."

* Offer valid untill Sept, 11, 2001

Windows Explorer for Mac OS X.

Courage, self confidence, and willing to sacrifice is all that's needed for a revolution to start.

What is needed for a revolution is a significant portion of the populace to feel that they have nothing to loose. That has been the case throughout history. Seemingly autocratic regimes are tolerated as long as the percentage of population that feels this way is substantially smaller than those who feel altering status quo would cause them to loose something they have (aka middle-class in modern terminology). This is the buffer between the (lots of) haves and have nots.

MS WP7 is a stop gap implementation. A new phone UI over an old crappy embedded OS (WinCE child). That's why it's .Net only, they know they will have to scrap the foundation and put a real OS ASAP. And they said W8 will support ARM. I'm sure it's not only for low power servers... So by W8, they will have a unified core that can be used for phone and PC.

I think Nokia is waiting for some development like this over WP7, which is probably the reason for the delay - late 2011/early 2012 for the Nokia /WP phones.

I find it quite depressing to be frank. I would rather see a clean start from a clean base.

As somebody who still (occasionally) uses a Nokia E61i, I share your sentiment. The E61i still beats the N1 in terms of VoIP voice quality, battery usage when connected to SIP over WiFi and a host of UI areas (why does Android treat screen lock time out and security time out to be the same - come on Google, this has been a requested feature since 1.6). With all the focus on apps everywhere, simple but essential features like this are overlooked.

I hope some OEM takes MeeGoo and runs with it. That's the only hope for a base OS that runs from phones to tablets to whatever else the future holds.

Elop described this partnership as making the smartphone market a three horse race. It is starting to be more like a three legged horse race.

With the first Nokia/WP phones slated for 2012, there is ample time for one (if not two) updates for iOS phones and a boat load of Android (especially low cost) devices to hit the market. With no meaningful transition (for both customers and developers) from Symbian to WP, why would anybody buy a high end Symbian device today ?

There has been a lot of chatter about a cheaper iPhone being able to penetrate emerging markets. I suspect unless that device can work without requiring a computer, this will be a non-starter. Android devices have the edge in this regard.

There is also a price restriction that makes it impossible to have higher in app subscription pricing vs. direct ones. From:

However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a website, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

That pretty much makes revenue drop by 30% for iOS platforms. How bad do the content providers want iOS ?

Joking aside, that's pretty much what I do. I've never had some turning-point moment where I've thought "I need to do this differently", and it does still Just Work.

Have been in this boat for a while and just out of curiosity tried to move into something more sophisticated. Using Mac OS X, I was unwilling to get into any organizing software that stores the data in propitiatory format - making it difficult/impossible to get the data out. Ended up with EagleFiler, which uses tags that can go into/come out of OpenMeta. Can also use directory structure if that's your style. Since the data is just regular file system contents, you can get to the data using any means.

It is shocking that Nokia did not know about the Osbourne effect - which perhaps held back the Maemo/MeeGoo penetration even among geek circles. While this will give MS an entry in the emerging markets where Nokia is the leader, I cannot comprehend how this will influence a potential smartphone customer.

If the rumored iPhone Nano is true and the upcoming low cost Android phones will make it that much harder for this Nokia/WP7 combination to make meaningful dent in the marketshare - perhaps for MS, compared to without this deal. But is Nokia in that bad a shape that this alliance is needed to address the short comings in the smartphone landscape ?