My employer installed an external power board specificity for charging the electric scooters since they are the most common form of staff transport. My company has people to deal with tax issues for me but generally, as an alien, all living expenses, including power are tax deductible. Even at full retail about 0.3KW x 0.7Hours a day adds up to very cheap running. Don't know what power cost here but it's cheaper than back home, where a week's power would cost about 20 cent US. If I was where you are would I be legally required to declare the less USD $10 of free power for a year?

With an electric scooter only costing USD$500 new and charging at the office for free it has to be the cheapest non-human powered option. Range is ok for commuting but not so good for exploring the city. It's great not having to visit gas stations.

If you had asked this question in 2008 the the number of iPhone using Slashdot readers would have been above the average for the general population. That would have been because the iPhone then represented the cutting edge and was technically interesting and therefore appealed to the average Slashdot reader. While you can argue Andoid vs iPhone based on displays or processors etc the simple fact is Apple want you to consume with your phone, not hack it. Android being more open appeals more to the Slashdot reader as a phone you can customise to be your own. This is why the poll is skewed in favour Android here. For the record back in 2007 I thought my iPhone was great and today I think my Galaxy Nexus is awesome.

Depending on your standard there is probably none. I have spent a lot of time in China over the last couple of years and have visited quite a few factories. The working conditions vary of course but general the higher quality the product the better the factory is made in. I guess the attention to details that make a better product are also more like to make a better work environment. The quality of our product is our reputation which is why we now have our own factory built to first world standards. We also pay our staff well above market value. In return for a better work environment and pay we make clear to our employees that we expect them to take the quality of their work seriously. The result is can produce a quality product at a good price. Of course if we were making high volume low margin products that might not be possible.

The catch is we don't make all the parts, but deal with factories that do and they in turn deal with other factories of which we have no idea of the their standards. The factories I have visited have been better than I had expected but most would be borderline by first world standards with hardest thing I have seen being the employees who work their whole shift standing. I couldn't do that. Often the heating and cooling is substandard and safety standards are like stepping back 30 years in time. I imagine myself doing their work and in most cases it would be no worse than the kind for work I did part time in my youth. While the work conditions are not great they are not so bad I feel guilty about buying Chinese products. Of course there may be many far worse places I have not seen yet.

The pay on the other hand is probably a issue. I don't know how much the average worker gets but I suspect it is often unethically low. That is a result of our race to bottom on prices because at the end of the day given two similar products most people will buy the cheaper one and you follow that down the supply chain you will find that is the cheapest labor force.

There is an irony here that over the 6 years since I first visited China the average person's position has improved. For example my first trip bicycles were the most common transport, now it is electric scooters. With wages rising and work conditions improving China is now loosing it competitive edge over other 3rd world countries who's peoples have not seen any improvement.

To answer the question "What does this mean for the Galaxy Nexus, which is only available as CDMA in the U.S.?". My understanding is there will still be the HSPA+ version, made for GSM networks, available in the USA, and that Google will continue to support it.

Maybe there is hope for IPv6. I was going to cmment about it being a USA company but I see it is an Aussie company. Still no unlimited plan but much better than here. Maybe they will make the jump across the ditch to NZ one day, I'd switch to them.

Until IPv6 is offer by a single ISP or Telco then it is the stuff of myths. Nice to read about but not part of the world I live in.

For those who don't live in Australia or New Zealand DSE is like Radio Shack but has suffered a worse decline in to just another appliance store. Like Radio Shack DSE used to sell electronic components to the general public and like Radio Shack they have shifted focus to selling appliances. The biggest difference is that if you spend long enough looking it is still possible to find and purchase a resistor at Radio Shack, but at DSE you can't anymore. While the staff at DSE are nice enough people they are low paid drones who often would not think of issues such as formatting returned media. While there may be a company policy on the issue it is probably just one of dozens the staff are meant to follow but, as minimum wage workers, may forget or ignore.

It would help if you look at the Wikipedia link in my earlier posting, When you use a corrected map with the South Pole at the top you will find the East is on your left. With summer pretty much started here and straddling the New Year it is unclear if it should be called the Summer of 2011 or 2012? Doesn't the W in W3C stand for World? So using a season for a time frame is ambiguous. Not as bad as saying 'Fall' which has to be translated from American to the English 'Autumn' then possibly reversed to 'Spring'. Q1 or Q3 is so much easier!

Now you just being silly! Of course it rises in the East tracking from left to right across the sky/map to set in the West. Logical when you think about it, same direction most of us write.

Bottom? I'm in New Zealand. We don't fall off because we are on the top. The Earth obversely spins clockwise so therefore South Pole is on the top. It's all explained at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversed_map

So when they say "summer 2012" do they mean Jan/Feb 2012 or Nov/Dev 2012?

I'm not a fan of CCTV being over used but as it isn't normally available for access when used in a taxi the abuse potential is pretty small. We haven't had them long but they have already caught one scumbag http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10764246 on video. Used in this limited fashion I support their use.

Dear Orcon, Sorry about the 10% drop. I had to travel overseas at the end of August so I have been using another ISP. Don't worry I returning on Sunday and your traffic will return to normal then. Cheers ukoda

I am in China now and the rate of change here is amazing. The amount of development in roading and new building is nothing short of impressive but what I really noticed the high rate of EV usage. In the 'developed' world we talk about how great EVs would be if they were both practical and cheap but in China they just get on with it because here EVs are both very practical and cheap. For USD $250 to $350 you can buy the functional equivalent to a 50cc scooter which is cheaper to run and can take you anywhere in the city and back home on a charge. What more do you need? It seems to me the difference is the Chinese will use something if it's good enough for what they do most of the time where as we have to have a vehicle that does everything we might want to do, even if we seldom have the need. I guess the truth is there is many factors at play but the bottom line is in the cities I have seen here the EV scooters significantly outnumber cars but back home (New Zealand) I have never seen an actual EV in use on a public road. I should add I don't count half assed hybrid like a Prius as an EV unless it can be used without petrol.