The integrity of the economy was the reason more so than the auction houses themselves.

However it would not be trivial to rearchitect a client-server game to be client only. Lot of code to move for relatively little reward. I doubt adding the offline capability would cause a rush of new PC purchases, especially after the Xbox/PS versions are out.

Arrogant d-bags raging on the Internet because they create a product not marketed to their demographic.

Apple's share of the smartphone market is the best it is have ever been.

http://i.imgur.com/EVirL7S.jpg

Apple was the first company to incorporate BLE into their devices, a competing standard that is now incorporated into Android 4.3. Don't ever plan on seeing NFC in an iDevice. BLE takes less power, connects faster, has a higher bandwidth, and a longer range.

Look at how fingerprint readers were incorporated into laptops, and compare that to the iPhone 5S. That is elegance at its very definition.

Yes, iTunes purchases can be configured to use the fingerprint.

Yes, but not this one. This doesn't read your fingerprint, but rather tissue underneath the skin. Your wax copy of the outer skin won't work.

Unconscious? Yes. Dead? No. This reads living tissue under the skin. Can we stop with the "chopping off your hand" junk now?

You are correct, this is immune to fingerprint lifting. "Sub-epidermal skin layers" means it reads living tissue under the skin.

Two big differences. 1) This reads living tissue under the skin, which is more secure than a simple fingerprint that can be found anywhere. 2) This is integrated into something you touch already, the home button. It doesn't add any additional steps for the user.

Another example of Apple taking an old idea and applying it in a very elegant fashion.

This technology doesn't use a fingerprint, it actually reads living tissue under the skin. The technology seems very similar because of how you use it (put your thumb here), however it is drastically different.

So no, your fingerprints on the screen won't work. They don't match the living tissue this reads.

This technology reads the living tissue under the skin. You can't just take an outer-skin fingerprint from the screen and authenticate with it. You also can't "chop off someone's hand", as this reads living tissue under the skin.

I was told today that nothing someone saw "wowed" them. I asked what has "wowed" them since 2007 when the first iPhone was announced. No reply.

Smartphones will continue to get faster, better battery life, and more usability features (Touch ID). This isn't a bad thing, just the reality of a use case that has been played out.

Actually if the A6->A7 jump is anywhere near what they put in their graphs, it is much more than I predicted. The A6 is still #1 in terms of graphics performance and web browsing (glbenchmark and sunspider scores).

Jobs said they wouldn't make a 7" 16:9 tablet. They made a 7.9" 4:3 tablet that has 34% more screen area. I would expect Slashdot to understand basic geometry and know that these aren't equivalent form factors.