Once you jump through all those loops, who will you be talking to? And if such a person exists, he probably already knows what you are going to say, so why bother calling? :)

Mod parent up. iOS needs to keep doing what it's doing. It must be doing something right if /. consensus is that Android is "increasingly sophisticated". This is by the same group of people who don't understand why Linux does not have broad appeal.

As an iOS user and developer (as well as user and developer for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, MacOS and attempted but tired and frustrated user and developer for Android :) ) - I hope Apple continues with incremental and stable approach, giving users well thought out and tightly controlled new feature sets, while maintaining clean, simple and usable system.

Do *not* under any circumstances let engineers ruin this one.

So somehow you are able to better remember a single number for water freezing temperature if that number is 0, rather than if it is 32? I find that highly unusual. Are you, then, unable to remember the value for "normal" human body temperature in Celsius? It is not only non-zero, but also, usually, includes a decimal point (36.5 or so)?

Knots are not very romantic at all. They are consistently used in navigation, for very practical reason, same reason that "nautical mile" is a navigation's basic measurement unit. The reason is that nautical mile is derived from real world measurement too. It is in fact equal to 1 minute of meridian (or, approximately, equator), which makes it very handy for various navigation-related calculations.

So, in a highly "technical" field we have current, exclusive use of a non-"metric" unit (although modern NM has a well defined number of meters too). In aviation feet are also exclusively used as an official world-wide unit of altitude. Go figure.

What exactly is gained by change in units? As a metric "native" I can tell you that metric units are not based on real-world criteria. There is no way to naturally define an "approximate" centimeter or a gram (as opposed to approximate inch, foot or ounce, for example).

Metric units primary convenience in common use is to make shorthand in writing easier by avoiding decimal point or additional places of 0 and replacing them with predefined short prefixes. I suppose it may be useful to those who have good memory for greek-derived words but can't multiply or divide by 10, but are these people a majority? There are more convenient unit conversions when it comes to scientific use, but as far as I can tell, scientists do use metric quite universally.

More importantly - if you like metric system, just use it. I can't think of many (any?) products sold in US that are not dual-labeled. Virtually everything has either both imperial and metric weight/size etc. marked on it, or sold in metric and imperial versions. If metric system is superior in day-to-day life - market will no doubt prefer it without the need for government intervention.

Relatively few people will have access to building roof. Radio station would need constant maintenance, and (assuming it is running autonomously) a way to change music selection (although perhaps they were feeding data wirelessly?).

Just check janitors and maintenance personnel, and there you'll have it.

Also, it's Regions bank, not that anyone cares.

Here (US) very few government installed CCTV cameras. Depends on a state or locality, I suppose - but anywhere I lived or visited, none that I can tell, except internal security in government buildings and "red light" and traffic cams. Certainly none by feds, they don't really get to control local affairs *that* much yet.

On the other hand - *private* CCTV is everywhere. Should I feel different about those?

It doesn't. There is no way to scale classic economy where every person is required to provide some sort of "labor" in exchange for goods and services he needs, not anymore. We are at a point where needs of entire humanity can and will be served by ever decreasing amount of labor.
The only options are:
1. Reduce total number of people to match that required for production, more or less. That'd be great - but difficult to do politically (except if contraceptives became mandatory part of cheap food and beer).
2. Provide some amount of goods and services to majority of people without requiring any labor.
3. Create token "jobs" that require nominal labor, and provide goods and services in exchange for that.

Note that we are apparently implementing some mix of 2 and 3. World would be a better place with 1, but it is highly unlikely.

Either way, a factory in US is probably a good thing for *some* people - but almost irrelevant in the larger scheme of things.

If this processor is going to be designed and licensed under GPLv3 - I guess one won't be able to build any license-compatible proprietary software for it either. Curious - but count me out :)

It seems like firing people is now a way of solving problems at Apple. I can't recall too many high profile firings during Steve Jobs tenure (may be I am not digging far enough, but still). Wonder what that means.

That said, primary failure of new Apple maps is not in what it does, but what it does not do. As driving maps go, they are fine. They have their share of errors, but so do Google maps. In fact just yesterday Google maps insisted that a whole block of streets was open and available for me to drive through, whereas in reality they are permanently blocked or do not exist (caused me to waste a good 30 minutes finding my way out). Checked on iPod at home with Apple maps, and it actually had them correctly shown as blocked. That's one advantage of using TomTom data which draws on crowd-sourced user corrections - changes are actually noted sooner.

However, lack of public transportation directions is a major dealbreaker for me. Along with lack of untethered jailbreak (though I can live without the latter) it's the reason I am holding off on buying iPhone 5. I can adjust to most other applications and changes - but there is no substitute out there for general purpose, universal public transportation directions like Google has.

Piecemeal solution of loading individual apps for various areas does not work both because it's:
- too much work to leave one app for another
- does not let me see these directions along with driving (what if I want to quickly compare which one's faster)
- Literally *all* of the 3rd party public transportation apps I tried (and that includes a number of major metropolitan areas in US) were complete and utter junk. They don't have to be, but then they'd have to basically become google maps :)

I also think at this point that Google is not going to be very forthcoming with their maps app for iOS6. I though differently before, since Google stands to lose quite a bit of tracking of Apple users. But now I happen to think they are ready to forgo this for a bigger prize. By withholding Google maps app they are able to slow adoption of iPhone 5 and other newer Apple hardware which is not available with older iOS. That's a direct hit at their competitor and they stand to gain some business that way (or other vendors of Android devices like Samsung, which still benefits Google). This way they make up lost tracking data and make more $$$ in the process.

So, my guess is - there may not be a Google maps app for iOS for a long time now. Time will tell.

Mod parent up.

What the hell? Is /. finally gone on Samsung payroll here? Srsly guys, try to at least *pretend* to report news. Also "anonymous" submitter? Is is email pr@samsung.com by any chance?

It's only a pilot program. As all things of the kind, their purpose is not only to test the process, but to acclimatize people to the new reality. In a little while new reality becomes "it's always been that way", and then they can move for wider application. And what better way to do so than to begin with school students. Why, you could then combine RFID databases between schools "for improved information sharing", then perhaps offer local malls, movie theaters etc. data for them to better gauge their audience or, better yet, "better protect children from inappropriate material" (oh, now we are talking). Then, as they grow up and graduate - why not join forces with a local college or university, public transportation, sports venues - you name it :) It's just a matter of time.

This type of tracking needs to be nipped in the bud, before it becomes the "new normal".

And btw, there is nothing reasonable about employees being tracked en-masse at office either. Technically, though, employees are there voluntarily and can leave at will. There is no such choice at school.

Since this is /., I am not quite sure how to react - perhaps someone will enlighten me?

Do we *like* the idea that a federal agency is taking online crime seriously and increasing its investigative efforts? Or do we decry even larger invasion of privacy by the lead-fisted government into private citizens lives? Assuming, of course, that any investigation of online crimes would have to at a very least get access to various online resources, logs and data, most likely not voluntarily shared by many parties who go to great lengths to be difficult to identify. You know what *that* means.

:) That's fine - uid is a good guide to /. longevity. As far as I recall, I resisted registering on /. until 1998/9 (seemed like a long time then :) ), been reading it virtually since day 1. Not that it matters here.

I am in the same boat wrt. to Apple use - I write cross-platform software (most Unices, Linux, Windows and Mac, and lately iOS too). Mac was first literally forced on my by work requirements about 5 years ago. Over time my personal use and even most development naturally shifted to Mac to the exclusion of others (I write Windows software in VMWare box on my Mac now :) ). "It's the worst system there is except for all the others".

To the topic - I think rationalization of hate may come in different forms. But that's all it is - it's a way for people who hate someone/something to bring quasi-logical explanation to their feelings. Hate by its very nature is not based on reason. I think on a most basic level it's simple - Apple is extremely successful and widely used now, just as Microsoft was back then. That's pretty much sufficient.

Personally, I can't hate Apple for that - they got where they are by building products that people like and use (including those, who like myself may not agree with their principles etc). There is nothing unfair about that, they won because they are good. It may pass as well - but for now this is it. Incidentally, this is where they are unlike M$, but that's beside the point.

Apple is what M$ was 10 years ago for /. current demographics - Evil Satan that can do no right.

As someone who has been on /. longer than that (and around technology of any kind even longer) - all I can say is "this too shall pass".

In the meantime, I think Apple did the right thing. Take it on the personal level. Let's say you feel someone wronged you. You go to court, try to correct the wrong, and court decides against you and (in your opinion, adding insult to injury) requires you to apologize to the party that offended you. How do you feel? Can you offer an honest apology? Why would you? Regardless of whether you agree or don't agree Samsung copied Apple. For the record, while I am not a big fan of Apple policies, I *do* feel that most manufacturers, including Samsung, are copying them. In these things the devil is in the details, and *imho* these details are what make Apple products convenient and others (Samsung) are convenient mostly as far as they follow these same details. Feel free to disagree.

And of course no discussion of British legal system and apologies is complete without this, which I find extremely pertinent:
http://movieclips.com/CDHXP-a-fish-called-wanda-movie-upside-down-apology/
(Now you can tell how old I am :) Linking here because youtube is misbehaving at the moment)