How so? I've read that 8.1 just brings back a visible button in the lower left to open the Start screen. It still has the same problem that the Start screen entirely covers up the applications you were using on the desktop, breaking subconscious continuity, unlike the Windows 7 Start menu or the Classic Shell Start menu that sits in the lower-left corner and leaves what you were working on visible.

How so? In comments to stories about cryptographic lockdown policies sometimes called "walled garden", some users (who shall remain nameless for the moment) keep claiming that the vast majority of users of computing devices have no desire to learn a programming language or do anything else commonly associated with job titles that fall under "developer". This is why the lockdown inherent in game consoles and devices running iOS doesn't hinder their adoption by the general public.

Case in point: The forthcoming Xbox One console is believed to run a customized build of Windows 8 alongside the "Windows XB" used by games. If "everyone is a developer," who will have access to the Xbox One SDK?

Sure, Firefox has the Beta, Aurora, and Nightly channels, Chrome has something analogous, and Ubuntu has the beta of the next semiannual Alliterative Animal version. But the vast majority of end users don't expect them to be supported in the same way that the release is supported. Beta users expect breakage. However, developers can rely on builds marked "release candidate" to be nearly identical in behavior to the RTM, especially once the final release candidate is declared RTM a short time in advance of pushing it out to the vast majority of end users. Even if this window between the release of an RC and its deployment is only a few days, it's still long enough for developers to fix those application defects that have the highest impact.

I think the point of the article is that developers feel likely to end up burned by any substantial differences between Windows 8.1 preview and Windows 8.1 RTM. When a difference between preview and RTM causes an application not to work, it may end up with unjustified 1-star ratings (or whatever the equivalent on Windows Store is).

Is that the same FAG, a Schaeffler Group company, that makes the vibration measuring tool it calls the FAG Detector III?

If the dimensions of a basketball court (94 by 50 feet, rim 10 feet up, size of free throw lane, etc.) and the official size, weight, and bounce ratio (2/3 of initial height) of a ball are considered rules of the game of basketball, then "the matrix shall be 10 cells wide" and "the pieces shall be the seven one-sided tetrominoes" and "pieces shall move by translation and 90 degree rotation" and "a row filled with squares disappears to make room for more pieces" sure sound like mechanics and rules to me. I guess I must be misunderstanding exactly what the judge found to be "expressive elements" in this case, other than perhaps the piece colors.

U.S. judges have tended to draw the line between idea and expression in different places for games compared to other kinds of software. On the one hand, you have Lotus v. Borland and Oracle v. Google that weaken copyright in interfaces between a program and a user or between a program and other programs. On the other hand, you have Tetris v. Xio that strengthens copyright in the basic rules of a game.

But expression is, and good luck convincing a judge that what you copied is the idea, not the expression.

And some of these App Store copycats are getting sued.

You mean like 0x10c, which got shelved?

This describes the general public well.

I myself can come up with a solution; I just lack the business experience to bring my solution to market. I have listed some principles for an attractive HTPC. But the majority of the general public can't come up with a solution, as evidenced by twistedsymphony's comment among others listed here. Economies of scale tend to favor the general public, which may be part of why major manufacturers haven't engineered products based on these principles and brought them to market.

Videos blocked from viewing on Android are also blocked from search in the YouTube app for Android, and I think the YouTube app for iPad works the same way. But if you search for videos through Google Search, or someone shares a link to a video with you, you may end up on a "not available on mobile" screen. Does this play?

According to Facebook's own help pages, Facebook still doesn't let mobile users create a nickname or create a Page, whether through the mobile web or the mobile app.

True, but "plenty" doesn't help when the specific game that your friends are recommending to you is unavailable. As for bugging the developer of this specific game to port it to iOS, I thought it cost substantially more for tools to develop a game for iOS than for SWF. For one thing, you will likely have to replace your current computer with a Mac.

Every Windows or GNU/Linux laptop that I've owned has had a more or less standard barrel connector. Apple, on the other hand, has declined to license the MagSafe connector and instead gone to court against companies that bought genuine connectors, cut them off, and soldered them onto another PSU.

My point is that if the major labels insist on DRM, one valid option is to ditch the major labels.