The MAIN GOAL of these big companies is to suck money. The "collateral goal" is to provide the "official offered solution". Having presence in several countries, they simply give foreign "gifts" when contracts are approved.

And politicians get a chunk of it... So, nobody with the right controls in a country would like to allow people (consumers) watch how cheap things are in another place.

Probably most of the VPs saw the bill... the only people pushing the case to eternity were the lawyers....

Just make it cheaper, no matter how.... if somebody find a way to make good business nuking the moon, they will go ahead....romantic people can still watch Breakfast at Tiffany's... Tides? Who needs tides? Fishes? who cares? I will have my new Ferrari to drive, a longer yatch and a luxurious flat in Aspen....

If this senator would like to erradicate crime from the streets, maybe he should start supporting public health and education up to university level with big tax deductions for them whom finish their degrees... crime is a way to get easy money, like..em...belong to a Govt institution for life....or receive insane pension plans for 3 years in politics, without any evaluation of results....

Ditto...I remember when I read about the "trick" to copy all the 3.12 floppies to the boot partition and install it from there.... no more floppy swapping!! ...I guess Novell's success was because it was *simple*... My record for a Novell Server was slightly more than 3 years without rebooting....solid rock...

China a threat? They hold 1/4 of the external treasury bonds.!! (http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt)....USA is flowing billions of $ to China to buy their products and the chinese cheap labor keeps the phones and tablets prices low in USA....there is no economic reason to act. It's just big money....no ideologies involved. Iran? No way...it's much better for the big money laundry scheme to keep an enemy alive than destroying him....where do you think all the money for the cold war had gone if the USSR had been destroyed?? trillions of taxpayers $ now are in hands of family and friends of private defense corporations....and they must keep the faucet flowing!!...a new spa in the alps, condos in big cities, a 300 acre vineyard in Italy (Ferrari included).... "see your taxes at work!"

This looks like a product targeting soldiers to provide them some reality+ in the lens (threats, escape routes, blueprints, language translator, FoF id, remote video....). Probably they already have some of them....I would consider it interesting if there is a medical use to it. (help to people with blind issues).

It's very clear to me ...these people left the train sometime ago in the evolution....what else could we expect from them?

What's the idea behind this kind of "patents"?? Some profit for some lawyers?? Can I patent "a displacement method using two organic carbon based devices, using one of them at a time" ??? Or "an organic device which captures air into a closed system and expels CO2" ?? So nature spent 4000 million years evolving for this??? what a waste....

when politicians are responsible for their acts WITH HIS OWN present and future monies. No super retirements or bonuses for ANYBODY among the "decision makers" if the debt goes up. But, hey...dreaming is still free and not taxed.

I thought the idea of the tax and patent system was only an extra revenue for bankers, lawyers and accountants... who planned the system.... like the Government - Fed eternal debt... On the other hand, I think patents should be owned by people, non-transferable, and for a limit period of time (10 years?), not companies, simply because a person (or a team) developed the device/solution. And of course, the process to register it should be FREE. If you as a John Doe develop something new, it's obscene to pay $20.000 to protect it... And "ideas" shouldn't be allowed to be patented....maybe another method....but "system where the user ask for something through a device to get a result"..... Companies will not be able to avoid taxes using the "IP fee" to subsidiaries in fiscal paradises anymore....there is so much money involved, I don't think this abolition would prosper...

I would like to see a day when politicians are accountable (financially) for their job. If the debt goes down, they receive a proportional pension...if the debt goes up, they don't receive any perks but they are financially in debt with the Govt to cover the difference.

Maybe the comparison should be made using power needed by cpu/modules instead. There are no plug sockets in Mars...yet.

The idea is to force a customer to pay the cost of the phone, the cost of the comms and a big chunk for the companies. The price THEY pay for an iphone is not the MSRP !! It's a chain of big chunks, where the consumer pays it all. Locked phones should be illegal. If you want a new fancy shmancy phone, pay it!. Several companies in Europe treat the phone and the service as different items in the invoice. You are BUYING the phone in installments and paying for the service. If you want to change companies, you just finish your contract (you may have to pay early termination fees) and you change companies, but you are still invoiced for the phone. The "pay as you go" users are the ones paying the higher prices in comms, allowing the spoiled teenagers and young consumers get their last gadgets. When there are regulations, the concept of free market is just an illusion...