Probably because Verizon are selling the 32GB version, whereas only the 16GB version is available in the UK

Chrome does this for a number of plugins, including Java.

I think the treatment of DigiNotar vs Comodo is really an issue of 'too big to fail'. Removing DigiNotar was essentially a painless exercise because nobody used their certs. I very much doubt they would follow the same course of action for a major player such as Comodo.

Ninite is a similar product with a wider range of software, although they charge $10 per year for their automatic updater.

Taiyo Yuden claims a 70 year shelf life, but they have only been around for what, 8 years tops?

The company itself has been around for 60 years. Granted, they haven't been optical discs for all that time, however their oldest discs are coming up for 30 years now, so there should be some indicator of quality by now.

• There are a ton of free (cost & licence) applications for Windows. For almost every Linux application, there will be an open source equivalent for Windows, often the exact same program.
• Do you know why most of the applications in the Ubuntu package manager are free? Because almost nobody develops commercial software for Linux.
• As to the cost of Android apps, Google only takes their cut if you sell through them. Unlike Apple's ecosystem, you have the choice to distribute through other marketplaces or just by throwing the APK online for people to download. I don't know if Google restricts the licences of apps distributed through their market, but no one can stop you releasing the source if you're distributing the app yourself.
• Android is, for the most part, open source. As for other distros, perhaps you've heard of CyanogenMod?
• Anyone can develop for Android. For free. Here's the SDK for you. And as I mentioned, you can freely distribute the APK once you've finished.

The latest reports claim 500,000 units per day , which is up from 300,000/day at the end of last year and 160,000/day from a year ago. If Microsoft could get $10 per phone at those numbers, that's almost $2 billion a year in effectively pure profit, or around 10% of their yearly profit. And in all likelihood Android's numbers are only going to continue growing.

The wholesale cost of roaming data is capped at 0.5 EUR/MB, but providers are under no obligation to pass savings on to customers.

Why would Mike at Computerworld submit a link the release notes? He doesn't get pageviews that way.

There is no draft in the UK and the majority of countries in the EU (and I believe there's a civilian alternative in those countries which do practice conscription).

Well, yes, it's technically voluntary for ISPs to implement the blacklist. But the previous government essentially threatened to make it mandatory unless every ISP 'voluntarily' adopted it.

A collection of location data points that includes cell towers and WiFi access points, which generally have a range of less than 100 feet. In areas with higher population densities, there are usually multiple cell towers per square mile, which makes it incredibly misleading to drop the 100 mile figure.

Presumably the difference is that everybody uses PDFs and Javascript, but nobody uses [FOSS codec of choice], so there is greater value to the average user in including that former two rather than the latter.

The significant cost of rolling out a cable infrastructure is probably the barrier to entry, not government regulation. If you want a 20Mb unrestricted connection, you can get it. It'd be a leased line, and cost £500-£1000 per month, as opposed to the £45/month for Virgin's top end 100Mb down/10Mb up offering.

QWERTZ keyboard perhaps? In which case, 'a' would be above the 'y' key.