Yes, you can have several ActiveSync accounts, at least in my Samsung Jellybean ROM. And you can join contacts -- see my post above.

If by "reboot", you mean "factory reset", then yes. You can merge multiple accounts into the same contact (called "join contacts" in android), but if you factory reset those merges are not preserved. Google contacts and Google+ contacts are automatically merged though, at least in Jelly Bean. And to answer another point you make -- when you join contacts, data is not copied between the several accounts.

No, it works the same way in Android. When you create a contact, it asks you to which account you want to save it to (Phone, SIM, Google, Exchange, etc.). I'm not sure what happens you delete an account as I'm not inclined to test it, but I suppose it's up to the account implementation whether to leave the data there unmanaged or to delete it.

In sum, there doesn't seem to be difference between Android and WP8 in this regard.

Not sure what you're saying here, but in Android you can synchronize data contacts from multiple accounts and have local, non-synchronized contacts without hacks. The same applies to other classes of data like events, tasks, e-mail, etc. Lookup account authenticators and sync providers in the android docs.

Whether their they look similar or whether Samsung copied Apple's design ideas is completely irrelevant. There's no general protection against "copying ideas".

It's well established that "look and feel" are not protected by copyright (see Apple vs. Microsoft), so they've turned instead to these doubtful patents to stifle competition. Even if these trivial patents are in fact valid (and having one held invalid takes years and millions of dollars and relatively onerous standards of evidence), they're arguably an abuse of the system originally designed to protect other sorts of inventions.

The summary is inaccurate when it says Jones required a warrant. The Court only found that the installation of the GPS device was a search because it involved a trespass. It did not say whether that search was unreasonable or, if it is, whether a search warrant or probable cause were required.

In fact, reading the opinions, it would appear that all the justices (except maybe Sottomayor) would allow GPS devices installed without a warrant for short term tracking.

Of course, the Justice department usually prefers err on the safe side.

What? Those exact same shortcuts work in Microsoft Office.

The GPL doesn't require the source code to be provided together with the binaries, just that the source code be made available to the recipient of the binaries, possibly even charging him for the transportation costs. So unless someone requested the source code and didn't get it, no one violated the GPL.