I don't see anybody falsely advertising unlimited data. In the case of T-Mobile, your speed goes down once you reach a threshold, but it's still not limited (that said, the speed once you cross that threshold is pretty terrible). If we're going to make new regulations, we should be regulating a minimum acceptable bitrate for unlimited data. An unlimited service at 1kbps would be unlimited, but I think we can all agree that it wouldn't be usable. T-Mobile's throttling falls into the "just barely usable" category.

You're making the all-too-common error of conflating "unlimited" and "infinite". "Unlimited" means the provider is not imposing a limit on how much you can use, but you are still constrained by the infrastructure involved--in your Netflix (Qwikster) example, that constraint would be the postal system. In the case of streaming, the constraint is the (e.g.) 720 hours in a 30-day month (you obviously can't watch 5,000,000 hours of content in 720 hours). In the case of Internet service, that constraint is the speed of your connection (there's only so much data you can download given your provisioned bitrate, congestion on the network, and your network interface).

If, no matter how much you use, the provider will not cut you off or tell you that you used too much, then you're getting unlimited. If you want infinite, you'll need to make the speed of light infinite. In this universe, c is the limit, no matter what you do.

I leave you with a Fawlty Towers quotation:

Basil: "The sky's the limit!"
Sybyl: "22 rooms is the limit."

You read that sign wrong. What it said was "2GB of high-speed data". They (T-Mobile, clearly) don't limit how much you can use, but once you cross 2GB, you will be dropped to 2G speeds.

They should have done what they did with Chrome, calling the fully open-source project Chromium. That way, there are two different brand names and it's clear which devices are certified. Call the open-source project something other than Android, and let those who use it advertise something to the effect of "compatible with Android apps", making it clear that it's not Android.

GP is talking about the old-style iPods, not iPod Touches. I used the Rockbox firmware on my iPod back in the day, but to my knowledge there are no alternate OSes for the iPhone or iPod Touch.

I assume GP meant "never had significant market share in North America". Not once have I ever seen a Symbian phone in person.

No. First off, all versions of Android that run on phones are open-source. Even on tablets, though, where Honeycomb is not open-source, you're free to run whatever apps you want without having to get anyone's approval. On the iPad, you can't (without jailbreaking). That, to me (and I think to many others as well), is the most important distinction.

This is not true (in the US). The only copies you can have are ones you make yourself; downloaded copies are still illegal.

Not like you're going to get caught.

They are in the advertising business which is supported, to a great extent, by search. Indexing content and providing content are two complementary approaches to delivering quality search. Recently, we've seen much more federated search on Google--in other words, combining results from different resources. For instance, a search for Apple will give you results from the web index mixed in with results from image search and product search.

An example where one of the elements is content that Google provides rather than indexes is Maps. Sure, Google could index web pages that have maps on them (and they do), but the user experience is far superior when the search engine can just provide the content you want without the need to perform extra clicks

The researchers and engineers are concerned primarily with making the user experience as satisfying as possible, and providing relevant content is part of that. If the users are happy, they'll keep coming back, thereby generating ad impressions and making money for Google.

If you haven't seen it already, this exposé on the BBB is worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo8kfV9kONw

In the US, you don't have to pay the winner's attorney's fees unless the judge specifically orders it. In this case, he did not. I also doubt that Spamhaus spent very much defending themselves in this case--the default judgment was because they didn't show up, and they went on to appeal the damages.

T-Mobile and AT&T run their 3G on different frequencies, so unless your device happens to support both, you'll only get 2G data with your old device when you switch.

It seems perfectly cromulent to me.

That begs the question: Why weren't you being fully careful?

(For those who don't know, "begging the question" is a type of logical fallacy where the conclusion is assumed in the proposition's premise. The correct phrase here is "raises the question". Alas, it seems that this battle has been lost; nobody seems to know what begging the question actually is anymore.)

"Irregardless" is what happened when someone decided "irrespective" and "regardless" should be combined into one word.