Read Losing Ground. Then tell me if you think UBI is a good idea.

Here's what should and probably will happen eventually.

Google of course must give users the option of selecting and/or recording their own activation phrase and/or password phrase. Even given the option, most users won't bother to set that up.

So Google should give allow users to say "Block Burger King", block "Whopper", etc. to block specific voice activations.

Let Burger King play their harmless and educational trick.

When users get disgusted, they can block it. BK loses in the long term. They and other actors will then have to decide whether future exploits like this will do more harm than good.

You could, but not in the NFL. These tablets are locked down to a single app provided by the NFL to show still photos of earlier plays in the game. The photos are sent to the tablets during the game, thus the need for connectivity.

The tablets, the app, the connectivity, and the photo feeds are all provided by the NFL. Probably hard to fault the tablet hardware itself for any complaints Belichick may have.

Mod this up. Very serious issue - if pedestrians know the car will avoid them at the cost of the driver, they'll have no incentive to be cautious. Forget about "look both ways before crossing"; now it's "I cross, you die."

Let's agree that the government has a legitimate need to regulate this.

Let's assume they set up an organization of 100 people with average salary of $100K per year to regulate and monitor the industry. Seems like plenty to get the job done.

In 10 years they spend $100M in salary. Throw in another $100M for overhead costs. Total: $200M over 10 years.

Remember, industry develops the technology, pays all testing and regulatory costs, etc. Government just works with them to make sensible rules and confirm the rules are followed.

So how do you come up with a proposal for the government to "invest" $4B, twenty times as much? Answer: government overreach.

Steve McConnell's Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art is the last, best word on this topic.

Interesting and probably true but nothing more than an ad hominem attack with regard to this study.

Moore's Law predicts a periodic doubling of transistors, the number of articles predicting the end of Moore's Law seems to remain constant year after year.

In your analogy, Netflix is the retransmitter. And yes, Netflix pays content providers like CBS for the right to retransmit. So by your logic, Aereo should pay content providers just like Netflix does.

Thank you for supporting my argument. Or is that not what you were trying to do?

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised Aereo won that ruling. Sure, every consumer has the right to receive a broadcast signal on an antenna and record it for time shifting purposes, and ostensibly with Aereo you simply outsource those functions to them. But there's a crucial difference: Aereo is not located on your premise; it's remote. That means in order for the signal to reach you, Aereo must transmit it from the remote DVR to your premises. I mean, isn't that a re-transmission by definition? And if so, is Aereo legally entitled to retransmit without compensating the original provider of the signal?

Probably not a popular opinion here on Slashdot, but legally speaking I'm surprised Aereo won. Of course, IANAL and all that.

...lives on his back. The Gene Genie loves chimney stacks.

Glad to see I'm not the only person on this board old enough to remember the original Mission Impossible TV series: "This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds" followed by a smoking real-to-real tape player.

First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the real face of Iranian leadership. The ayatollahs make policy, not him.

Second, to the extent that he does influences Iran's behavior, what does Ahmadinejad's eating habits have to do with his policy goals? Is it OK that he wants to wipe Israel off the map and long as he gets lots of fiber in his diet?

Remember when Amdahl made computers that were "plug-compatible" with IBM mainframes? As I recall, any Amdahl component was a drop-in replacement for the equivalent IBM component.

What the hell has happened to patent laws (or corporate patent strategies?) that you can't even build a damn power connector without running afoul of some licensing issue? I agree with the parent: no patents on connectors! How does it "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" if nobody can independently build a device to connect to yours?