"For one horrible moment, I realized Apple gave me no way to test whether the battery and display connectors were actually seated (they probably weren’t) and had me close up the phone anyhow."

Once you get good repairing these things, you'll just know when to plug it all in to see if everything works before closing up.

What are the Android equivalents to the Genius Bar at Apple Stores? When users encounter malware on their Android phones, who can they take the devices to in order to identify and fix the problem?

He's trying to sell Oculus VR goggles. He paid billions for the privilege.

The steel body of the DeLorean automobile had to be coated with a transparent shellac in order to eliminate what would otherwise be dangerous reflectivity when driving the car in bright sunlight. Coating the outside antenna surface with a similar shellac would prevent skin contact with the antenna, and make the phone look even more spectacular.

For the sake of 100% backward compatibility, Microsoft refuses to throw anything out. So Windows Vista and Windows 7 harbor nearly every API call that came with xp, including the deprecated ones. They want to make sure that all old software still works.

The problem that results is that you can't get rid of awful legacy software by moving on to the new OS and forcing departments to upgrade. Right now the codger departments that refuse to budge control the IT infrastructure in major companies. Microsoft has allied itself with the curmudgeons of the IT industry.

It also makes for a very difficult case to sell the idea that the new OS is actually much more reliable. Windows 7 networking works a lot better than xp, for example. But there's a lot of terrible code that runs on xp that will nevertheless have no chance of working properly on Windows 7 because they were never thoroughly tested during development on Windows 7. There is no chance of any of that software working properly on the new OS without further maintenance work. Remember the curmudgeons? They're not going to fund any of that maintenance work for Windows 7 operability because Windows 7 doesn't automatically make their awful code behave better.

iPhone owners should get the app Mark the Spot for reporting dropped calls, failed calls, coverage failures, data failures, and lousy voice quality when and where it happens. (That is, when you are able to next connect.)

We now know that Kaspersky never speaks out against authority, and would never say anything in public that anyone would ever disagree with years from now. If he did, he would have respect for anonymity. Can you imagine doing something simple, like trying to get an interview for a job while you're on public record on the internet saying bad things about that company? So Kaspersky is above all that now, he has all the money he needs.

So who is Kaspersky speaking on behalf of? Is he just speaking for himself? Or does he have a sponsor that wants him to represent them in public appearances and before government committees?

Is that sponsor...anonymous? Who might it be? A Communist government, under which free speech is regulated? A dictatorship, under which freedom is a dream? A corporate partner, whose executives really have no idea whose playing field they're on, or perhaps they're a proxy for a government with no respect for unpopular speech?

Syfy wouldn't be pronounced sigh-fie, it would be sigh-fee, like Dolly, or murky. If they spelled it "SyFi", it would work.

What have terrorists hit so far? Would they be positively affected by blurring the images on Google Maps?

A marine base in Lebanon: the web didn't exist at the time.
The WTC in NYC, the Pentagon in DC: doubtful.
Subway trains in Japan: does Google Maps show subway routes?
Trains in France: just use the handy commuter maps displayed near each station.

Sometimes the point of terror is to not target anything in particular.

To me, if there's something that's intentionally blurred on the map, that just indicates there's something of interest right there. But you don't need the blur at all. If you know what you're looking for, Google Maps will be glad to put a helpful little pin tag showing you where something is. Just type in a city and state of choice, and when Google Maps settles down after drawing that area, type in "High School" and see what happens.

The claims describe managing an avatar display list on the client, such that avatars which are too far from the client's avatar, or too far past the sides of the field of view, fall off the list, and that the client only displays up to a certain number of nearby avatars.

A whole lot of MMO shops use display list clipping because they're a stock way to keep the frame rate up. It is the kind of stuff that has been done in viewing parts of 3D virtual space since the 70s.

I guess the novelty justifying the patent is combining the display list with the client being responsible for deciding what to clip, and with 3D avatars. Looking at the huge number of MMOs out there that do this exact sort of thing, I have to wonder just how novel the basis for the patent really is.

Prior art might be found by studying the code for XTrek, based on Empire for PLATO. If spaceship doesn't fall within the viewport for the universe, don't draw it, and I believe XTrek was client-server, but not 3D.