Most people have a smart phone in arms reach at all times and can get more detailed information just as quick as using one of those gadgets. In the same amount of time it would take me to ask Alexa/Google/Siri what the weather was for the day, I could pick up my phone and access my weather app and parse much more weather data including graphs and radar FAR faster than they would be able respond with a lesser amount of data. This is true for most queries I make. I can get far more detailed info just as fast or faster, and the ability to use voice rather than access via a device is merely a flashy gimmick. A few years back I was at a Google event and the one staffer noticed I was doing a Google search and inquired as to why I hadn't squeezed my phone to activate the Voice Assistant and made my query that way, so we had a nice discussion about the near zero percent of the time when I'm in public that I want to announce to the entire room what I am doing.

That said I know exactly one person who uses voice assistants of any kind, but he does so mostly because he's dyslexic and has trouble typing queries in. For persons with mobility issues, fine motor problems, visual disorders, dyslexia, a lack of written language skills, etc. it's super useful. For the rest of us it provides generalized, low grade information without really improving any aspect of the experience. In the case of Alexa blurting out marketing spiel it means getting crappy information plus the digital equivalent of a telemarketing call, anyone at Amazon that is surprised that this isn't considered a compelling experience needs a new job. Of course that the course they're thinking about is to "add more cameras and sensors that would allow devices to recognize different voices or determine which rooms users are in" tells you all you need to know. They see the problem as being that the ads aren't targeted enough to the user/location to provide the proper illusion of utility prior to invoking targeted consumerism and not that the service they're providing really doesn't provide anything truly useful to the user over other means of accomplishing the same thing, and that it also has serious limitations and drawbacks.

Scott Manley did a really good video on this subject. https://youtu.be/bUi0yWc5Dnw

Yup. I don't identify it with Apple, Jobs, or Swatch at all, but it was always the gotcha point in every Columbo episode.

Sudden Jihad Syndrome, it could happen to anyone.

Please explain to me how a rake is going to discriminate between the lighter colored sand the normally lays under the surface and the thin, dark layer that is on top so it can separate them and redistribute them back in layers to cover the damage? Sand trap rakes are used to remove the impressions in the surface of a sand trap that is basically uniform in color, which is NOT the problem caused by the Greenpeace foray into Nazca which disturbed the upper layer exposing the lighter layer underneath...which is pretty much how the lines themselves were created. Given that the lines have not been obscured by natural forces for approximately 1,500 years we can assume that evidence of Greenpeace's ignorance will last at least as long. Like Greenpeace you seem to have proposed a action without first understanding the problems it could cause because a rake would simply cause more damage.

Trenton council rejects expansion of 'ShotSpotter' gunshot detection system
“That body was shot there in the head and it stayed there for five hours with ShotSpotter being only a few blocks away. This product does not work, at least not for Trenton.”
http://www.nj.com/mercer/index...

Shotspotter gun sensor technology halted in Birmingham after failed trial
http://www.birminghammail.co.u...

Gunshot detection system in Delaware comes up blank
600 reports of shots fired, 175 actual shootings, shots detected only five or six times, a camera only turned toward the shooting once and it was unable to see anything due to foliage in the way.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

Broward sheriff dropping gunshot detection system
"the system was picking up noises such as firecrackers or a backfiring car and registering those sounds as gunfire. The sensors were also triggered by helicopters and the roar of downshifting trucks from nearby Interstate 95...the problems at BSO with the gunshot detection system mirror findings of a 2008 report...called the system useful but took issue with an apparent high rate of false calls."
http://articles.sun-sentinel.c...

One would think that the quakes would be on the faults where the fracking sites in Nevada are rather than a completely unrelated set of faults 400 miles away where they aren't.

They probably just forgot to turn the cloaking device off.

If you think commerce across state lines is required for the Interstate Commerce Clause to be invoked, you certainly haven't looked at the 1942 Wickard v. Filburn decision by the Supreme Court and similar rulings. Federal limits for production had been put in place to bolster wheat prices during the Great Depression and Farmer Filburn assumed that because he was growing the crops for use on his own farm, which did not have a state line running through it, he was not obligated to abide by interstate commerce controls. The Supreme Court ruled that his overproduction meant he was not buying wheat on the open market to feed his animals and since wheat was sold across state lines his lack of purchasing had an effect on interstate commerce. So, essentially, Filburn was fined for NOT engaging in interstate commerce...

In 1995 the US murder rate was 8.2 with a violent crime rate of 6845, in 2007 it was 5.6 and 4718...all while firearms sales soared to all time highs and evil black rifles became the most popular gun sold.

...or reverse causation. It wouldn't strike me as odd at all if people who have already developed the qualities espoused by a certain type of literature would enjoy reading that sort of literature. In fact, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than the reverse.

I didn't have hot chick posters on my wall in high school, I had Beagle Bros posters... http://beagle.applearchives.com/the_posters/poster_3.html http://beagle.applearchives.com/the_posters/poster_5.html ...there was plenty of time for girls when I was at the arcade, my bedroom was dedicated to hosting a BBS and coding!

1980s? Heck...the logo Apple adopted in 1976 had two more colors than the new Microsoft logo!

A manufacturer that has determined that the volume of manufacturing being requested no longer justifies the base cost of tying up resources in light of opportunities to contract with other clients whose outlook isn't as bleak as RIM's currently is. Also, if they aren't one of the companies that RIM is contracting to produce their last gasp BB10 handsets or they lack confidence in BB10, they are MUCH better off repositioning themselves to work with other companies now rather than riding RIMs decline even farther. If they have ANY opportunity to enter into production for someone else right now I'd imagine they'd jump given RIMs positively slothful response to changes in a market they once dominated.

The numbers that were available BEFORE the IPO made it look like a terrible investment. The market valuation being projected was WAY too high for even the unadjusted income figures...did these people learn nothing from the IPOs of the dotcom bubble? Apparently not.