Cbasedlifeform

Hear, hear! Not necessarily these, but let's drag the airlines kicking and screaming into the 21st century...

Win Phone 8 didn't do very well either.

After using iOS 7 for a few days, I confess I like the minimalism in general, and looking back at iOS 6 things seem heavy and clunky. But it's all a matter of taste. Sadly I've never really had an Android device at hand to see what it's like to use; I'd honestly be very interested to try one out for a few days.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the new iPhone 5S camera had a high enough resolution to take the photo of another user's fingerprint off the screen of his or her phone? ;)

From the article: 'One simple dynamo-technology low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe.'

And the bombs were 260 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Jesus H. Christ.

NB the original story appeared in The Guardian.

Not surprising (knowing the NHS IT sector) but thoroughly depressing.

Well, as they say in England, 'He would say that, wouldn't he?'

Someday perhaps all the links between Google and the NSA will be revealed, and we'll find out Schmidt's role in it all.

Essential news that affects us all in our jobs and in our lives. They should be as visible or more so than just about any other topic for the time being.

Interesting analysis by Dediu as usual (I'm a big fan and listen to his podcast regularly). I think a lot of people (including Horace and yours truly) are surprised by the 5C pricing strategy -- it's not 5C(heap) but 5C(olor). I just looked at real world photos on Ars of the new models and from my POV the 5C models look like they are designed for kids. (A matter of taste, of course.) If Apple cut the price by another $100 they might make sense as a pricepoint but at only $100 less than 5S it seems crazy to me.

It's notable there's no black (or 'slate') 5C. I guess if one wants a more 'dignified' (again, a matter of taste) one has to go 5S.

I commend to all the interesting Steve Jobs quote found at the end of the comment by markwilcox:

"What ruined Apple was not growth … They got very greedy … Instead of following the original trajectory of the original vision, which was to make the thing an appliance and get this out there to as many people as possible … they went for profits. They made outlandish profits for about four years. What this cost them was their future. What they should have been doing is making rational profits and going for market share." - Steve Jobs.

As a long-time Apple fan and former shareholder I'll be very interested to see how this pans out.

This is 1000% anecdotal, but I spoke earlier with my niece who loves her iPhone 5. I mentioned that her brother was a big Android fan and she said, 'Oh no, that was before -- now's he's got an iPhone and would never go back.'

I do think (for better or worse) iPhone users are stickier due to the ecosystem whilst Android users are less attached (possibly due to brand and hardware fragmentation).

Though the really crazy and fascinating thing is how the mobile phone industry has become such an incredible economic force and, more trivially, a topic of conversation. Who could've imagined just 20 or 30 years ago most people (within certain demographics at least) would be carrying around $500 or $600 devices wherever they go?

Again anecdotally, my niece (aged 25) is moving and will only get internet service -- no landline (god forbid!) but no cable either. The latter is one really fascinating trend.

Mr Obama and NSA spymasters, meet Mr Blowback:

In a survey conducted after the Snowden leaks, 10% of the foreign companies using cloud computing services said they’d already cancelled a project with a US cloud provider and 56% said they’d be less likely to use US-based providers. Conversely, among US stakeholders in the cloud sector, 36% said that the NSA leaks would make it more difficult doing business outside the US. The report estimated that if US cloud companies lose between 10% and 20% of their foreign business over three years, it will cost them between $21.5 billion to $35 billion.

But the report cautions it could get much more expensive “if foreign governments enact protectionist trade barriers that effectively cut out US providers.” In Europe, momentum in that direction is growing.

German Federal Data Protection commissioners threatened with new bureaucratic hurdles. Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich announced that “whoever fears their communication is being intercepted in any way should use services that don’t go through American servers.” And Justice Minister Jörg-Uwe Hahn called for an outright boycott of US companies.

How to make friend and influence people:

"If and when our government grabs Edward Snowden, and brings him back here to the United States for trial, what does this group do?" said retired air force general Michael Hayden, who from 1999 to 2009 ran the NSA and then the CIA, referring to "nihilists, anarchists, activists, Lulzsec, Anonymous, twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years".

From the article: The mandatory E-Verify system requires Americans to carry a “tamper-proof” social security card. Before they can legally begin a job, American citizens will have to show the card to their prospective employer, who will then have to verify their identity and eligibility to hold a job in the US by running the information through the newly-created federal E-Verify database. The database will contain photographs taken from passport files and state driver's licenses. The law gives federal bureaucrats broad discretion in adding other “biometric” identifiers to the database. It also gives the bureaucracy broad authority to determine what features the “tamper proof” card should contain.

Apart from the possible benefits (and drawbacks) of such a system, does anyone believe the US government (and associated bureaucracy) has the expertise to implement it properly and securely?

Jimmy Carter is like fine wine -- he has improved with age. Not a great president, but he has turned into one of the greatest ex-presidents with his concerns for global human rights and humanity in general. Not for him a jetsetting life palling around with plutocrats and dictators, or smiling on the golf course with one of the Bushes.

brilliant but all too realistic alas

You'd think they would have learned about the concept of 'blowback' by now. Bad enough (strategically and otherwise) to spy on US citizens but WTF did they think Russia, China et al would do when they learned what was going on?

I'm an Apple fan (to say the least) but for better or worse they need lower priced phones. A few years ago when I visited Singapore all I saw were iPhones. Now it is at least 50% Android (read: Samsung) among the young. The perceived premium value or coolness of Apple products just isn't there any more.

That's not to say it isn't still an amazing company, just that the investors seem to want persistent incredible growth and high margins. Not sure both are possible, especially when the global economy is in a tailspin.

(Disclaimer: ex-AAPL shareholder)

I have to confess I found this the most confusing navigation interface ever. I quit after a half dozen slides. Was there a "home" option somewhere I stupidly missed?

Apologies for that! Seems to work fine in Safari. I should have used the link to the original article (see below).

How to win friends and influence people... or something like that. FB is already in hot water in the EU over its privacy policies (or lack thereof). One of these days they will pay the price for all this sleazy and greedy behaviour.

Just look at the rate of increase between 2000 and 2012...

Military: 144% increase Homeland "Security": 359% increase General Services Admin: 1363% (!) increase

All very good if you are on the receiving end (military-industrial complex, government workers, bureaucrats)...

Trust the lawyers to make out like bandits in just about any situation. This reminds me of the various UK "public enquiries" e.g. into Northern Ireland which last a decade and cost literally millions of pounds. Nice work if you can get it.

That's a hell of a scary chart.

NB the US tax code is similarly ginormous, especially when compared to virtually every other country in the world.

Not a great way to encourage entrepreneurship.

I don't know that guy but I have the dubious pleasure of workng with a large enterprise with a few thousand users stuck with XP and IE7 and no end in site. They can't even manage an upgrade to IE8 due to legacy apps.

Given the choice between following or friending Mark Zuckerberg or Julian Assange, I sure as hell know which I'd pick.

Excellent point about the drug trade. It's not just the dealer on the street corner who profits. HSBC, Wachovia, Citibank and others have all been caught profiting from drug money laundering. (So do, albeit on smaller scales, the corrupt cop and judge.) As cryptogon points out, hard to do all this if all transactions are digital and logged.

That is indeed why I posted it as startups (and any other business) will be affected by these changes. It's sometimes useful to have a macro view of the world.

All rather depressing but just as many predicted when ORCL bought Sun. Well, another reason to move to Postgres :) A shift to MariaDB would be easier but not sure what the point would be.

Well this sounds kinda scary:

Total U.S. GDP growth in the 20th century was $9.93 Trillion, while the government accumulated $5.5 Trillion in debt. In the 21st century, the US has borrowed $10.7T and has a grand total of $5.30T in GDP growth.

Doesn't sound too good for MS:

...But this was before the launch of Windows 8 and Microsoft's Surface tablet, so this time I correctly assumed the Microsoft Store would have a lot more customers; I counted about 40 in the store. However, during my 45-minute people-watching span, not one person left the store with a Microsoft product. Across the way at the Apple Store, about 120 people milled around inside and 30 customers waited outside to pick up pre-ordered iPad minis and new fourth-generation iPads. I counted at least 35 people carrying Apple products out the door.

I was on a Eurostar from Paris to London a few months back, with a family of 5 next to me. The daughter, about 13 or 14, didn't stop playing ?Angry Birds (not sure) on her device for the entire 2.5 hour trip, even when the meal was served in front of her. Scary.