Apple might be doing the same thing with your information. And since Apple spans from music to apps to books now, it's really dangerous. Always without your consent, to promote their own products.

I don't know with which publishers you had to do in the past, but the serious publishing houses I'm subscribed to don't sell my information without my consent. You know, the little box that says "consent giving this info to 3rd-party advertisements". If I press no, my info remains to me.

Wait a minute! You have the same alternatives as well.

You can just not use the publisher who betrays your confidence. Or is it somehow some right or necessity to own and use a certain subscription?

I'm telling you, I prefer not to put all my eggs under a basket. We all see what happens when Apple flexes it muscles to move the industry where IT wants (see Flash issue, 3rd-party runtimes, etc), not where everybody would be free to go.

You don't seem to get it: If I pay Apple for a service or a product, I understand that I need to give them my credit card and other personal information. This is a transaction for which I have full control. If I don't want to purchase from Apple, I do not give them my credit card nor any other information.

Well, you don't seem to get it either: I can say the exact same about the publishing industry. If you don't trust a publisher you simply refrain from subscribing to his products and services. Buy your copies from the newsstand.

The thing about Apple is that they now want to have everything. As if they have developed some Microsoft-complex from the near-death experience they had in the 90s by their archenemy. And day by day, the acquire everything: the customers' data (for Apple's interests of course), the 30% cut of the profits, the final say about what goes in the stores and what the customer can legally buy (music, apps, now books), everything.

It's the new big brother they so loathed in 1984. As much as I like the ubiquity of the AppleID entry system to a world of digital content, I hate that I don't have serious alternatives because nobody will take onto Apple.

I hope the publishers make a good stand. After all, alternative ereaders exist and they're actually pretty good for the job.

Line-by-line quoting is childish and annoying so here's my concentrated answer.

You implied that they don't need that information, but it seems that it is ok for you that Apple already has it. Otherwise you should have said something about it as well. And in Apple's case, it's becoming pretty serious since today and in the near future you will do almost everything with an AppleID.

Apple perhaps doesn't need to sell to third parties (like Facebook) because it uses the information itself for its own marketing and advertising. It's a vertical company.

Competition is good. When one party has already won spectacularly you don't have any more serious competition. When I say the music industry bowed I mean that we won't be seeing an alternative (and perhaps better) model of buying songs anytime soon.

As for the publishing industry, expect an iTunes-track system for paying books with all major publishers pretty soon. Especially if the iPad becomes the prime ereader and Amazon fails miserably. I hope they don't.

I backed up almost everything, my assertions had known facts from past history inside. You should have filled the blanks yourself.

No. You imply that Apple "protects us" from the "bad" magazine marketeers. It's not so. Apple simply wants to keep all the personal data for itself and as a leverage for every deal they make.

They've already bowed the music industry, now it's the turn of the publishing one. What's next?!

But this is no news, I guess.

I only hope these policies are not Apple's undoing because it would be a real shame. Steve Jobs is a genius, but he makes so many enemies in the industry. In the end everybody will make alliances just not to have to deal with Apple's policies.

Actually I think it talks about transistor density, not CPU frequency (speed). And transistor density keeps going up, year after year. In 2007 we had the CPU that beat Kasparov in 1997 and weighted 1.5 tons. This info is in the article, btw.

Even if the rest of the things explained in the article happen many years away, the last couple of paragraphs explain the trend:

Hopefully, this is the solution to 2018's problem of reaching atomic levels of miniaturization. We have a breaktrought to continue with Moore's law beyond current technology.

Going default will be a short-lived remedy. The country will go back to 1990 in terms of market appeal and productivity. And yes, if the big tech companies leave, the hope of reacquiring a high-tech knowledge industry will go away as well.

I prefer C++. It's a better C.

Arguably, this is the coolest gadget around since the 2007 iPhone. Its potential to revolutionize the UI field are enormous. Just as we were finally arriving to touch screens, there you go... no screens at all! :)

(of course, I'm joking... the same efficiency and functionality is years in the future)

Amen to that!

That's why I use C++ even if half the world of developers whine about its complexity. It's true, but the libraries and toolkits (like Qt) are there!