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Comment Re:that's for virtualization. (Score -1, Interesting) 305

It's a juicier narrative to portray it in the way the summary did--that even though Microsoft once depicted Linux as a "cancer", Linux must now be so awesome that Microsoft is one of its key contributors. Providing context buffs out some of that luster.

I find it far more intriguing that the key contributors to Linux are companies and not independent individuals, since the old storyline used to be that devoted hobbyists were gathering on the internet to do a better job than commercial companies, back when the "year of Linux on the desktop" was always right around the corner.

Comment Re:Just remember. (Score -1) 118

Neither of the Groklaw links you posted refuted anything I wrote. Bedrock and Google settled after Google lost. You also state that Bedrock "had to willingly dismiss its claims", which is contradictory--if they willingly did it, they didn't have to do anything. You can "lean on zero" if you want just because you don't want to perceive Google in any losing light, but the settlement was likely initiated to immunize Google from further lawsuits related to the first ruling.

Comment Games are an easy political issue (Score 4, Insightful) 161

Why is there still political uproar over games after all these years? It may have been understandable in the mid-1990s when Doom and Mortal Kombat were portraying a level of violence people hadn't seen in games before in such detail, but that time has passed without effect, and the attention given to games today feels disproportionate. It's just an easy, uncontroversial issue for politicians to pick up in order to appeal to family-first voters.

Comment What is meant by "tracking" (Score 4, Interesting) 85

I'm curious to know what exactly is being tracked. The summary makes you think that everything is being tracked, like conversations and text messages, but it's actually just location that's being tracked. Companies already track such data for service quality--for example, the iPhone tracks cell phone towers to determine strongest signal areas, which ultimately means it ends up with a history of phone locations. Most smartphones do this. That said, for the government to be able to track private property without permission for purposes of investigation is different, and there should be protection against such invasive surveillance. Unfortunately, I don't think much progress will be made in that regard as long as Obama is in office--he's demonstrated that he's more than happy to embrace warrantless surveillance of all kinds.

Comment Single window mode (Score 2, Informative) 50

Added `single-window-mode'. Basically this feature is known from OS-X, though it's implemented in a more strict way. The `single-window-mode' window should get all of the users attention.

Single window mode hasn't been a standard feature of OS X since the public beta in 2000. I thought at first that it was referring to fullscreen mode in Lion, but it appears to really be talking about the original single window mode, which had a purple button in the upper right corner of a window before the button was turned into a white pill and made into a toolbar toggle. IIRC, the feature is still there if via a hidden defaults key.

Comment So that leaves Google (Score -1) 40

So that leaves Google as the last major entity not to implement DNT. Article says: "Google recently said that it will implement the technology in Chrome sometime soon." There's nothing stopping Google from having implemented it already--they're just stalling because they don't want to affect ad revenue. All the other major browsers implemented it long ago. Google loves to give these vague promises of things and then never follow through, especially when it affects their bottom line.

Android

Submission + - Google Made $550 Million From Android Since 2008 (guardian.co.uk)

bonch writes: Figures in court documents filed as part of a settlement with Oracle suggest Google generated only $550 million in Android revenue since 2008. According to the numbers, which were derived from figures offered by Google as part of a damages offer to Oracle, Google receives just over $10 per Android handset annually. Google's presence on iOS was much more lucrative, generating four times a much revenue--though it may not last, as Apple is working to replace its use of Google Maps.

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 2, Interesting) 922

He wasn't found guilty by a jury of his peers. He admitted his crime to the judge.

So I must again ask, what kind of wacky police state does the UK have that it forces its police to chase Twitter trolls? "Inciting racial hatred" is a nebulous, highly subjective crime involving the expression of ideas. It's too easily abused by the government. And look at the consequences in this case--he is forbidden from using social networks and jailed for nearly two months because he trolled on Twitter.

I could understand a fine, and I definitely understand getting kicked out of university. But a 56-day jail sentence for online trolling? Do you really not see the absurdity in this?

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 0, Insightful) 922

That is completely wrong. You can't be jailed for years just because a policeman says he thought he smelt marijuana from your house. If the policeman issues a search and discovers a bunch of marijuana, that's a different story. But you portray it as if you don't even have to possess the illegal drug in question to be jailed for years. As for having a sense of perspective, I consider violations of free speech to be far more egregious than violating local drug laws.

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