This only works if there is cooperation from those spreading the disease. Maybe I have an overly devious mind but one of my first thoughts was when is some ISIS nut-job going to get themselves purposefully infected and start planting bodily fluids on every subway handrail, mall restroom door handle, drinking fountain leaver, escalator hand-rail, ketchup-dispenser, and whatever else they can think of, before they get too sick to move, and then finish it off by collapsing in the middle of some very public place, causing panic. Don't tell me there aren't at least a few sick bastards out there thinking along these lines. All it would take is one or two of these cases and the shear panic it would induce would shut this country down for a long time.

I find it interesting how much private information is exposed in that screenshot of the lab report. I would probably have cropped it differently or blurred it out before plastering it all over the interwebs...

Many of the better note-taking apps have a palm-rest/palm-detection mode for writing with a stylus.

Nobody in the Indian government would ever consider misusing this surveillance capability. As we all know, Indian government workers do not take bribes, the rich and powerful only have the same rights as anybody else, and the Indian government has a long history of the utmost integrity. There is no reason for anyone using BlackBerry who is concerned about their privacy to switch to another provider.

I have a Playbook. It's nice to use but doesn't do much beyond browsing the web. My Android phone does a lot more, and has many more high-quality third-party apps available.

Developing for RIM platforms is frustrating. Developer documentation is poor quality and App World takes weeks to months to approve apps. Not acceptable when the base of app-buying users is not near that of iOS and Android. And since when have you been able to develop for Playbook in Java, with Android, or natively? These SDKs have been "coming soon" for a long time now.

I'm a med student who has worked in several hospitals, and have yet to see one where HIPAA is rigorously followed. Directives by management are common, but when HIPAA impedes patient care (it's a hassle and timekiller to comply completely), it is always worked around. Doctors by and large, in my experience, toss HIPAA aside the first time they have to decide what to do with their limited time - adhere to every last rule or take care of a patient.

I'm really surprised it's taken this long for a fine to come about.

If you reach an experts-exchange.com page via Google, just scroll down to the very bottom for the solution.

If you are willing to hack your phone, you can install the GPS software from the new Epic 4G, which is a Galaxy S phone. In my experience this substantially improves the function of the GPS receiver on my Captivate (AT&T version of the Galaxy S). So while Samsung made a big mistake shipping a clearly broken product (did they seriously never try out the GPS even once before shipping the phone?), at the very least a fix exists and I feel confident it will make it out officially.

Other than the GPS issues it really is a brilliant piece of hardware. Overall I do not regret my purchase.

A system like this could presumably work through any site that hosts user-generated content. A repressive government would have to ban every service that doesn't allow them to tie each message to a real person. So they would have to block all of the Internet originating in the western world. Even for a place like China that would be pretty untenable.

That's absolutely terrifying.

This also highlights the fact that Verizon can impersonate any site, and that there is little chance they haven't granted a private key to US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you want to communicate securely, without every government under the sun listening, you have to manage the encryption yourself.

Actually, if the load average is greater than the number of cores, you have oversubscription.

Lots of scientists use Macs. They are easy to use, UNIX-like, and don't require antivirus nonsense like Windows does. Apple markets to smug bastards but the products are often actually pretty good.

What a brilliant idea by whoever fired you - producing a disgruntled former employee who knows how to steal money from the company.

If they are told up front their position is temporary, what's the problem?

Does the monthly fee (with its built-in subsidy) become any cheaper if you supply your own phone?