out of mod points, but parent is 100% correct.

It's a stupid set up (no doubt an attempt to protect Google from being blamed for what's in their store) and is a huge pain for many reasons. But its not a "privacy hole", and was not "discovered this morning".

This is simply not true. Stupid as it may seem, Google has set up the Play store so that they are merely the "card processor". I agree that it seems a bit of a stretch, but that's the way it is. As such, the app developer really is the merchant. That's why you get receipts (via google checkout) from Joe Bloggs LLC rather than from Google itself.

The right of first sale has always been very frustrating to game developers/publishers. Since in theory a whole line of people can play (and temporarily own) the same physical copy of the game, getting the same, full, "as new" experience, while only one payment ever goes to the publisher. As a game developer myself i can totally see this frustration myself, but can't really argue with a customers right to sell something they have purchased.

To me there are two major issues that cause resale to be a problem.

A. Most games are designed as consumable experiences - maybe they shouldn't be. Once you have have played through, there is a little to make you want to keep the game, other than the occasional tacked-on multiplayer mode, or the geek-centric urge to collect a "library" of games. On slashdot, car-analogies are popular, but from most points of view, a car is not a consumable purchase. When you sell your car, you lose something very tangible: ie. the ability to get around. Once you sell your (completed) game, you pretty much lose nothing - a closer analogy for many games would be a bowl of ice cream. You buy it, you eat it, and then... wait... it reappears, un-eaten, and you can sell it on too? Awesome!

B. Games are too f***ing expensive. Does no one at MS, wondering why used-games are so popular, stop to think $60 is crazy expensive? I'm positive that sales would more than double at $30, just from the increased impulse buys.There are a lot of people who currently just don't buy *any* games because of the cost. In addition used-game margins would plummet, causing retailers to see them less as an easy revenue stream, and consequently push them less.

So in summary. Give consumers a reason to not want to not sell the game they bought. Also give them less incentive to choose a used copy.

ps. another analogy for a consumable experience is obviously a buying a movie ticket. How does this compare with what MS are (maybe) proposing? And why is it different? (I'm honestly asking.) You buy a ticket, you see the latest, greatest, Fast & Furious movie at the local theater. Right of first sale says you can sell your ticket to someone else, but those f**kers at the door ripped your ticket in half! Is this really any different from an activation code?

Computer dominance of chess will surely end when tournament organizers realize how rampant doping is, and kick those silicon fuckers out.

Since android's apis are java, it would be trivial to decompile and circumvent the code that initiates the online check. Code obfuscation helps but only to slow down the process marginally.

Really, java makes things very easy for hackers - at least with a "real" compiled language a little bit of effort would be necessary!

My wife just switched to Virgin mobile too (I don't have a data plan at all , lol) .
A high, initially off-putting, cost up front, but works out way cheaper in the long run. ($30/month if you set up automatic pay) Shame their choice of phones is pretty poor (though they have iphone now too), and that they're locked to the Sprint network, but i can get over that.

Hopefully a lot of people will switch and the big 4 providers will wake up and get their act together. I too liked the idea of the verizon/at&t shared plans, naively thinking it would save money. But even with 4 lines its *still* $55 a month each (what a bargain!) and that gives you a measely 250mb/month each (if shared equally)

In WP8, the problem has gone from "WTF???" to merely "hugely inconvenient".
Unfortunately for MS, when you have no app developers, and no market share, "hugely inconvenient" is something you probably want to avoid.

Yeah, WP7 was a write-off as far as cross platform apps were concerned for this reason (games in particular). They're still (unsurprisingly) pushing DirectX when everyone else is using OpenGL, but its better than nothing, and won't generally require a whole app rewrite.

This is all very well as a business strategy if they could actually pull it off. Unless you count windows itself, I'm not sure if any of their me-too products have been profitable at all. Even XBox, which many view as successful, is only starting to turn a profit 10 years later, and must surely constitute a huge net loss overall.

This strategy (if it is a strategy at all, and not just a general lack of direction/ideas) *should* avoid "high risk flailing about" but in practice, MS seem to do a lot of flailing anyway.

It boggles my mind that a company with so many resources, and willingness to throw its money about, consistently fails to produce successful new products.

Since it won't include all those bundled minutes and SMS messages, its going to be much cheaper than current "everything" plans right? right??

Why do i have a nagging suspicion that it won't be...

This is clearly a stupid claim for Fox to make,and i don't see them getting this tech banned any time soon.

I worry a little bit about what it will lead to though. TV companies aren't going to give up and go home, and businesses still want to advertise crap to us. I foresee a near future where all these ads will just get moved into "banners" (or similar) and displayed/overlaid *during* the show (this may happen at the source as part of the broadcast, or by the TV - youtube style). At this point we'll probably wish all we had ad-breaks back...

While I agree with the point you're trying to make(that we should question our sources), I get pretty much the same results for your query on bing and google. Any summaries that indicate a favourite, pretty much all favour chrome (this is true on both bing and google, and isn't all that suprising if recent changes in market share are anything to go by)

I don't see any evidence of deliberate bias here.

Interestingly, the most obvious difference is that the top entry on Bing, is a paid ad for IE9.