We're very sorry our behaviour could impact our business. If we had just explained better our spineless deferral to Chinese government authoritarianism, it would have made everything ok.

Not interested in being a slave to the Blizzard content masters.

Schmidt, as long as governments can have their privacy and hide what they do from the public, citizens should also have protections and privacy.

I suspect that they always knew their attempts to fix it would fall short, this is all make-busy to give the appearance that everything that could be done is being done. The correct solution appears to be forcing oil companies to drill relief wells for existing exploitation. The idea here is that the relief well is mostly completed so that if a disaster occurs, instead of taking months to connect to the main well, the work can be done within days.
BP's experience is showing us that the relief well is the only solution that will work.
It's why the Canadian government is taking the position that one must be drilled at the same time as a new well is being built. Unsurprisingly, oil companies are already lobbying hard to have these measures curtailed.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-will-take-tough-stand-on-offshore-drilling/article1557095/
"At issue in talks between the oil industry and the National Energy Board on relief wells in the North is whether they must be drilled during the same season as the primary exploration well. The window for drilling in the North is only a few months because of ice conditions. However, allowing oil companies to wait a season to drill relief wells could leave a new well exposed to a potential rupture for a year or more. Mr. Pryce at CAPP said the policy for relief wells was devised in the 1970s, and alternative technology for dealing with ruptures has advanced considerably. "

It's marketing noise. In my opinion some genius at marketing has come up with the idea that since they can get people to pre-pay for games, maybe they can get them to pay for a partial and then pay again for the full release.. garbage... the only way this could possibly work is if the cost of the download was later subtracted from the full retail price. I didn't buy Bioware's expansion because it was overpriced, and I'm sure as hell not going to buy any demo.

There is enough reality distortion propaganda coming from Fox me to disagree with the sentiment that Fox is just being choosy with what they report.

After all these years... it's still Windows and Office. After all these years and new products. It's time to fire some executives. Microsoft apparently can't make money at anything new it does. Unlike Apple.

Well, it's true the OS is tied to the computer, but I'd like to point out that the kind of license checking we're talking about isn't present on any of Apple's software that I have used. iWork, Aperture, Quicktime, Final Cut Express etc .... Those do not "phone home" and check your licensing. It is worth noting the fact that Apple typically offers an attractively priced family pack for those with multiple computers to update. I'd imagine that has something to do why the license checking isn't needed.

Google did the right thing, eventually. At the end of the day we are more than employees. We are citizens that benefit from freedoms hard earned. It is the utmost height of hypocrisy to then turn around and pretend there is nothing wrong with assisting the repression of people in foreign countries. One day, China may very well be the powerhouse of the world, western corporations' eagerness at supplying tools to assist Chinese repression will then come back to haunt us. Our failure to stand up against this hypocrisy will then have transformed into a failure to fight for our democratic rights.

I fail to see how pulling out of China counts as a boost to competition. Unless you think that Microsoft is rubbing its hands with glee at the opportunity replace Google there and kiss the censors asses in the hope to win market-share over Google. I search extensively all day long for my work and Google is my preference by far. Your reasoning that bing is better than Google is subjective and makes you sound very biased.