agreed.

looks more like bullying, bet if they offered a couple of parking passes and a couple of surface pros they would have had a deal..but they just had to call in the lawyers...that makes them AHs not that they weren't to begin with but really...hope the lawyers charged them time and a half...the 750k would have been cheaper.

Politician's created a spam phone bill the first time around which was doomed to fail because 1) no serious enforcement or punishment, 2) loop holes so the politicians could get their "public service" messages out. I noticed that among the first violators were zealot religious groups with a public service announcements couched as phone surveys which almost immediately became some sort of conservative religious lets break the constitution and destroy the separation of church and state..and that is before you even get to the IRS, Nigerian Ministers or Microsoft Support (we've noticed a problem with your computer and we will help you fix it if you give us access) calls.

...and now it is coming to light that the reason the FBI needs Apple's help is because they screwed it up in the first place trying to reset the password...Apple should be "recalcitrant" and be very stubborn about letting the government into the house.

needs a touch of Soylent Green to perk up the meal...

Like all the line items the government granted itself in the patriot act that they "would never use"? Nice to hear you are so perky about this...but really you know that someone is going to throw the switch and turn this on sooner rather than later. First it will be some disgruntled employee making a couple of extra bucks from a friend dropping in on a wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or other and then the NSA will create some FUD and insist it is for national security...historical trends do not support the innocent, naive version of "oh we just put it there but we aren't going to use it". Nice try, Nature hates vacuums. I'll remain neurotic thank you and carry a Sharpie if I am forced to use one of Hertz's cars...

tear up the streets and put in new water mains and sewers, by the time the construction is done waze will have reprogrammed it's options... or there is always public transportation,

there is an Elvis Voice...

Right! In addition to the 22,000 surveillance cameras hooked into the central facial recognition system? So the taxpayers are funding this. right up there with the Patriot Act will not be used to spy on private citizens and atomic energy is only for peaceful purposes...remember who is mayor here, the "moderate" Karl Rove, Rahm, Fish Dancer, Emanuel...

as in, if he is capable of being a judge doesn't necessarily mean that he is one? One huge problem with this is that now it becomes a reference...allowing the legal community to change at will definitions of words to suit the parameters of need...Hi, my name is Joe McCarthy and I'm back from the dead. It's the same insane crap that allowed the NSA to go frolicking off the reservation based on some loose wording in the Patriot Act...

and this is the way it has worked in Asia for quite some time. With devices sold from the start as unlocked the carriers are forced to compete for the business without the incentive of selling the devices...they actually have to provide/compete with each other and become price competitive...it's funny because all the money ATT and Verizon dump into the Tea Party, they may actually be forced to compete in an open market. Something that in the end scares them s less. they could be forced to act like real businesses. Wow what a concept.

I don't get it...regional libraries in Michigan have been offering books in epub format, for "check out" for awhile now. Process works great on nooks. So make a choice and stop whining (I still haven't found the word whinging in the dictionary). Oh...and no advertising to go buy what you already have checked out. If my parents bought every book they ever read or checked out from a library they'd be living in their garage because the house would be ink and paper fire hazard...

commodity pricing, I'm not even an apple fan boy and I can point to the argument that negates the commodity competition concept. sometimes yes but not always...

besides, Ford and Toyota have had technology trade agreements in place for a long time. (Ford hybrids eg.) not something that is likely anytime soon between MSFT and Goog. not to mention the fact that Toyota's research dept is big enough and good enough not to need input from Ford. (and Ford's is quite good). The first thing to go in companies that are spiraling down is R&D, which shows up as lack of innovation. No vision, No R&D, No innovation, borrowing technology and lots of lawsuits...earmarks of the golden age of Steve Balmer.

it doesn't get any better even with more options, Verizon? ATT? They're all in it....

I buy it, Apple always generates way more hype than substance. I mean really, I haven't heard of Steve busting a vein and being readmitted or suing the bar over this which makes it almost assuredly Marketing...With all of Steve's whining about Google and Adobe lately why not toss the pundatae a crumb or two, 5k is chicken feed in Apple world.