Posts by Asgard

Securo-boffins call for 'self-aware' defensive technologies

Scifi stories galore in this news. :)

@"So, just to be clear then, if these technologies did go rogue (and let's face it, they probably would) their top capability would be learning how to defend themselves from attack."

Worse than that, far worse. They would also be learning from cyber attacks, so they would learn how to launch their own most effective cyber attacks and they also want these self-aware technologies to defend Smart utility grids, so they would learn how to attack our utility grids.

So not only would they learn how to defend themselves, they would also be learning how to attack anything that threatens them as well, i.e. all of us.

What could possibly go wrong. :)

LOHAN to suck mighty thruster as it goes off, in a shed

@“come up with the traditional celebutard backronym ”

How about a CAMEO?

Celebrity Accelerating Motor Experimental Outgassing.

Be chums offer 1Gbit/s fibre-to-the-premises in London

Major acronym overload Batman

My brain finds FTTP distracting. Its like the Acronyms FTP mixed with HTTP. :)

My brain hurts, am I the only one?

Joking aside, I would so love to have a 1GBit connection. :)

LightSquared offers low-power olive branch to GPS

I think LightSquared are trying to pull a fast one, so to speak.

GPS was first. LightSquared are trying to move in and they know they will interfere with GPS yet they are still arrogantly forcing ahead knowing full well what they are doing will cause problems. Plus any attempt to use less power etc for a few years looks like just a cynical ploy to placate opponents to allow LightSquared to get a foothold in the market, then they threaten to will expand to make the their problem worse for others over time.

Also if that isn't bad enough, I can't even see how 4G at satellite frequencies is going to gain wide spread adoption because there will be too many problems with it. So is this just some cynical business ploy by the directors of LightSquared for their company to be bought out by a GPS company, so GPS companies can protect their system from interference from LightSquared? - that's the one angle that would make sense.

Which would make it yet another example of so called Horse Trading (as in unethical business practices). Unfortunately some business people do think like this. They want to cause trouble so they can then offer their solution, which makes them rich.

What LightSquared are doing seems all to dodgy as a business for me to ever risk my money on them. So there's no way I would buy a product from LightSquared knowing the problems its company faces with GPS. I couldn't even rely on LightSquared being around in a few years from now and its not the first communications company I've seen try something then go under and vanish with customers suffering as a result.

I think LightSquared are just trying to pull a fast one so to speak, to intentionally cause trouble, then they will try to be bought out and if that fails, the LightSquared directors will end up giving up and walking off with their rich wages payed for by the LightSquared investors money. The directors can then use the thin argument that the "market conditions were too difficult for success", whilst full well knowing they (the directors) will win big pay whatever happens to LightSquared.

I don't see the directors of LightSquared loosing whatever they do. The only potential looses will be with LightSquared investors and LightSquared customers, so they are not going to get my money.

Ten years after the Twin Towers: What's the Reg angle?

@"News and Web2.0rhea"

I wish all news sources were reliable. I wish everything I heard was the truth, but unfortunately life isn't like that. Sadly not all humans are like that. Some lie to get their own way. Therefore we have to guard against the potential for lies and manipulation. Its a tiresome lesson but one everyone has to learn for their own protection. Everyone has to test what they are being told to see if it really is true or not.

The issue of reliability of news sources is a very important one, but ironically its an important lesson long over due. Media was once held up far too much as an authoritative source of views on subjects. Yet whenever we hold any source as authoritative, we expose ourselves to the potential that what we think we are being told is the truth. This is how propaganda has been disseminated throughout the centuries. Its how people in high profile positions have been able to abuse their high profile to manipulate and bias public opinion very often for their own gain.

So ironically the Internet's ability to expose the extent of unreliability of news sources is a big step forward for society.

History is filled with examples of groups of society believing too much in what their high profile leaders tell them and it is still a massive problem today in every country. Even more importantly this need to test what we are being told applies to all forms of leaders in every aspect of society and thankfully the Internet is starting to help expose leaders of groups who lie.

Yet one of the biggest problems we still face in society are the people who still follow their leaders unwilling to even believe their leaders could be lying to them. The worst lying leaders even teach their followers to look away from anyone who questions the intentions of these leaders. The leaders don't want their followers to see the truth. Fortunately the Internet is helping to expose these liars for what they really are.

For example, leaders are very often Narcissistic people who are desperate to have power over others because they fear anyone ever having power over them ever again the way they suffered excessive control and abuse as a child. So these Narcissistic people seek to become leaders of groups of people by whipping up their followers to allow the leader to have more power to influence all around them. Plus the Narcissists who are also Histrionic enjoy and love being the centre of attention that their power gives them. These also Histrionic people love attention because they seek to make up for the lack of parental attention they suffered as a child, which leaves them forever craving being in the centre of attention. So we have two personality disorders that both give reasons for these people to lie to others, to give them what they want for their own gain. The people with these personality disorders crave power and attention. Sound familiar?!

Now apply that to the behaviour of the terrorist leaders to see why they behave the way the do!. Its the very reason why we are all today remembering 911 with its incredibly horrific lesson that groups of people can be whipping up by their leaders to commit such horrific acts against other people. Don't forget leaders need a group to follow them to give the leader a feeling of power over people. So in the case of these terrorist leaders their rallying cry to get people to follow these leaders was to portray the American financial district as the centre of America power and these terrorist leaders wanted to destroy the symbol of that power. Look at the horrific lack of empathy these leaders showed driven ultimately by their endlessly desperate need to gain power themselves and through that need they were prepared to kill as many people as they could to gain their feeling of power over others.

Look also at how many times leaders of groups of people have committed horrific acts of violence to maintain their position of power over others. Its the same pattern time and time again, their need for power over others at any cost no matter how many die in the process. A Narcissistic personality disorder is ultimately about their need to be seen as having power over others. Its why they have such a need to portray themselves in having such a grandiose superior way over others. Sound Familiar?!

High profile people are able to use their high profile to lead and bias the views of large numbers of people and we have to question their intentions, but its still not happening enough. Too many people still want to believe too much of what others tell them.

What makes it harder to see the truth is some of the liars in society are not so aggressive people. The aggressive ones are easier to see for what they are. But the passive ones are still just as capable of lying just the same for their need to feel power over others and attention from others. They just let their followers do their bidding whilst pretending to be above such behaviour themselves. For example, even now, there are still many followers of religious leaders who refuse to believe their leaders are capable of any form of mental and even physical abuse of any of their followers. Yet try telling the idea that religious leaders don't abuse their followers to the many thousands who have been abused by catholic church leaders. Try telling the families of the millions who have died in the name of religions throughout history. Try telling so many millions of poor in so many countries that their money is making their religious leaders rich whilst they suffer poverty. Ask yourself what the leaders get out of telling their followers what to do.

Unfortunately the terrible horrors of the events of 911 illustrates all too well the importance that we all, in all societies around the world must learn to question all who seek to lead all groups of society. We must all bring an end to the lying manipulations of all leaders in all aspects of society and only collectively can we do that. So the Internet's ability to expose the extent of unreliability of news sources and the lying words of high profile people is a hugely important step forward for every society, that we all must defend from all who lead whilst seek to hide anything they and their groups do in society. The Internet finally provides us with a way to learn to build a better world for all of us.

Then hopeful some good can finally come out of the terrible pain and horrors of the events of 911 as we all try to build a better world for all of us and all future generations.

Microsoft inks new patent pacts over Android...and Chrome

Microsoft are playing the patent protection racket game again

Microsoft tried this same kind of patent protection racket against Linux. They imply something was illegal in Linux (without revealing the details of their fictitious patents) then used that to intimidate small companies to sign and pay up or risk punishment. Then as more and more signed up, that allowed Microsoft to go after and intimidate even more small remaining companies, saying things like, "look at all who signed they agreed with us", even though the scared companies that signed did so effectively at gun point. Sign or we shoot your business down. It didn't work of course, because the bigger companies told Microsoft where to go. So anyway, now Microsoft are playing the same game, going after Android with the same tactics. (But then don't forget Android is also partly Linux, so Microsoft get to go after Linux again as well).

These smaller signing companies are paying up now as they know its cheaper and easier for them to give in to sign, rather than go through a lengthy very expensive court room battle, that could take years. Its only bigger companies that would tell Microsoft where to go and shove its paperwork, because they have the money and power to fight Microsoft.

The patent system is fundamentally broken. Its been manipulated, gamed and biased so many times by the powerful and greedy that its now become so twisted into such a sick perversion of what it was, that it can no longer function as it was originally intended to do so. No inventor can play this modern patent system game, unless they are a billionaire and even then their one patent would be utterly swamped with a tidal wave of hundreds even thousands of other patents blocking them ever using their one patent without treading on other patents. But then thats all part of the patent game these days. If a little inventor invents something in one of these markets the corporations will move in with hundreds, even thousands of other patents blocking the inventor ever doing anything with their patent. Patents are now a way to hold back all competitors who don't have billions in the bank to fight back.

This story shows yet another reason why we would ironically now be far better off without patents. It would actually be a lot cheaper for all of us. Also it should be about what good products win, not this endless patent legal warfare, with armies of highly paid lawyers and multi-billion dollar IP arsenals to build an effective protection racket against their competitors.

But then the people with the patents (and the lawyers who earn millions from all the legal fighting) will fight to their final breath to keep the patent system the way it is, because they know they can use the patent system to effectively run a protection racket.

The patent system is fundamentally broken and this bullshit has to be stopped, but no one in power will stop it. They and their friends are all earning too much money out of it and we ultimately pay for it.

Nvidia boss: Windows 8 will run Windows Phone 7 apps

@App on phones, tablets and desktops.

I wouldn't be surprised to find Microsoft working on a way to get phone and tablet apps on desktops as well, because its already been done on Android where C++ NDK developers can compile for multiple processors into the same app. So they can (if they wish) already include ARM and X86 code in the one app. The thing is with apps on tablets they already have to cope with larger screen layouts, so they are mostly like a desktop app anyway.

So it does make sense to compile for all sizes of devices in one go and Windows 8 has already had demos running on all sizes of devices, so its not to far of a stretch to see them include x86 and ARM code in the one app.

Also from an application developers perspective, as they already have to deal with the pain of different screen resolutions (between phones and tablets) then its actually good news for a lot of developers that they can also sell their apps to desktop users as well (to get more customers), without much more extra development work being needed. :)

I bet Intel are worried though, as all of this work is opening up a migration path away from x86 just at the time the ARM A15 is about to enter the market, which at up to 16 cores at 2.5Ghz is a direct competitor to anything Intel have, yet the A15 also uses far less electrical power and so single and duel core versions of the A15 will also end up in phones and tablets.

I find it fascinating watching how mobile devices are growing and converging with desktops. Its also kind of exciting times watching how technology is changing so fast. :)

Hurry up with webcams in courts, says Sky News boss

Webcams in courts ... Sky's next reality show TV frontier.

Yet more reality show TV so Sky can continue to anesthetise the brains of their usual target audience.

What will be learned?. Nothing, as usual, same with all reality TV. What will be gained by Sky?, advertising from zombified viewers being told what to think, as they watch their next 2 minute hate broadcast, which features as always an arrogant self-interested Narcissistic criminal being completely unapologetic about what they have done, whist gleefully enjoying their 15 minutes of fame and notoriety. Then once they have done their time, they can come back on the show as a returning reality show star, (which they will treat like a returning hero) just so they can let their fans know they are now reformed. (Only to get re-arrested within weeks of being free).

NPD+HPD people would love to be on TV like this. But also, whilst on the subject of personality disorders, I find it interesting how two faced this self-interested Narcissistic Sky boss is showing he is behaving. The two faced liar knows he can use the court case information for more reality show style TV, but he wants to say its all about Justice. Bullshit, utter bullshit. He is lying. He wants more reality show style stories, so he can then pretend to show concern such as "Oh look at the suffering of the poor victims" meanwhile this two faced Sky News boss John Ryley is counting the increased advertising revenue from exploiting and then broadcasting the suffering of the victims! ... What a complete two faced bastard! … But then exactly what I would expect from anyone working high up in Murdoch's crumbling empire.

Coders howl over Google's App Engine price hike (natch)

Lock-in

How many times have we seen this kind of lesson played out, where people dependent on a corporate Lock-in suddenly get stepped on by the corporation.

@"the biggest concern about App Engine? Lock-in. You're at the mercy of Google"

So when has that ever not been a concern? ... Oh that's right, some actually believe Google can be trusted, as they tell us they do no evil and so some people really fall for it ... So now lets just all sing that happy happy song (Google good Google good) whilst we hand over all control of our business to Google. What could possibly go wrong!

RAM prices set to 'free fall'

@"Who buys their memory from Dixons!"

I only have one bit of memory from Dixons.

Its a flag bit that says, don't buy from Dixons. :)

Russian rocket flub threatens to empty ISS

@SpaceX & our future in space.

I think we have to take pioneering out of the hands of the politicians as their interest wanes and shifts too fast to be trusted with the future of the human race. Politicians cannot be relied upon. So as much the politicians would like us to believe its them who make the changes for the future, its not them, its the engineers & scientists and the companies around them that change and build the future for us all.

So in that regard I see SpaceX as one of the leaders of this new way of thinking about space as a business opportunity, rather than having to trust in very politically influenced and ultimately politically funded and therefore politically run organizations like NASA.

Also reading the comments above I'm reminded of the way pioneering progress was made by our previous generations. In particular I was thinking about the growth of the Industrial Revolution, especially around steam engines and trains and how political infighting and lack of support even back then ended up delaying and often undermined progress, yet through it all engineers drove progress on, ultimately to help transform the world to where we are now.

Engineers & Scientists change the world not politicians, so we cannot trust politicians to help us build the future of the human race.

The simply fact is we have to stop trust politicians at all, no matter what party they are in. They are all so too faced that they can't be trusted and history shows so many times how politicians have undermined progress as soon as it suits their own political power games.

Our future is too important to be trusted to the self interested politicians, regardless of which political party they are in, as none of them can be trusted and so unfortunately its better off simply not trusting any of them, rather than keep being betrayed by their self interested power games. Ironically we are better off without politicians in the way, as they ultimately don't help progress. Its the Engineers & Scientists who change the world and the companies around them. They are the key to our future.

Boffins build powerful yet 'table-top size' atom-smasher

My own Hadron Collider?! :)

So how long before I can have my own Small Hadron Collider. ;)

Samsung says Apple lifted iPad from Kubrick's 2001

Incredible prior art example

The most damning prior art against Apple's lies is "The Tablet" video from 17 years ago. This for me utterly destroys all Apple's claims. (Work started on The Tablet 19 years ago).

If you haven't seen the video of The Tablet yet?, its shocking how good it was as a prediction of now. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI

It can even be argued in court the look of current smart phones are just a smaller scaled down version of this tablet. They even call it "The Tablet".

I'm tempted to email this to Samsung because they have got to use it against Apple. :(

Ofcom mulls smackdown for rogue religious TV channel

@AC

You say that about cults because perceive cults to be abusing their followers, whereas you assume religions don't abuse their followers, which is where you are so wrong. Try telling the idea that religions don't abuse their followers to the many thousands who have been abused by catholic church leaders. Try telling the families of the millions who have died in the name of religions throughout history. Try telling so many millions of poor in so many countries that their money is making their religious leaders rich whilst they suffer poverty. Ask yourself what the leaders get out of telling their followers what to do. Now look at the harm this TV channel is causing and then look at the money the creators of the TV channel are getting out of lying to their followers.

Time for you to learn the truth.

@"anyone watching Believe TV is probably quite gullible"

That above quote sums it up perfectly.

@"repeatedly improperly exploited its audience"

Which is the crime all cults commit (and anyone who is a cult follower, don't fool yourself, all religions are cults).

But then as much as we try to protect the gullible cult followers, ultimately if these gullible people base their health care on anything the lying cults want to tell them, then sadly thats a perfect demonstration of natural selection still stochastically deselecting the cult followers from our gene pool over time.

One way or another the lying cults are coming to an end, but then its not really the followers who are the main problem. Its their lying cult leaders who perpetuate this problem.

Which makes these lying adverts so interesting as its a perfect example of how lacking in empathy the cult leaders are to allow their followers to be exploited like this. It shows so well how two faced the cults leaders are and yet their gullible followers still believe them. :(

Sulphur-loving microbes might be oldest life

ET's

It also helps strengthen the case for thinking about what other forms of extraterrestrial life are possible, other than just oxygen breathers.

HP: webOS will still run PCs and printers

2011 The year HP and Nokia both shot themselves in the foot

Sadly its shaping up to be a landmark year for incompetent corporate mismanagement in the tech industry. The year we lost WebOS & Symbian. :(

Its sickening how both WebOS & Symbian have died through a complete lack of management support, rather than for technical reasons. Both could have done really well if only their brainless management had been any good, but then I can't help thinking their brainless management has been the core problem which has held them back from success for years and in the case of WebOS that rot goes way back to the early days of PalmOs corporate mismanagement (and I say that as a fan of Palm devices and as an ex-PalmOs developer. I was a fan of Palm devices over a decade ago and I still have 3 of them in the cupboard even now, as I can't face getting rid of them, so I'm deeply sickened to see how its all ending when it could have been so good).

I also wonder how many WebOS & Symbian developers have been thrown out of work and into an uncertain future by all this madness. :(

ARM vet: The CPU's future is threatened

3D Chips

The future must surely be 3D where layers of a chip are sandwiched together. That also allows cheaper production as faulty layers can be checked for and rejected before the final sandwich assembly is completed. So it becomes a question of finding ways to increase mass production of layers (which can be improved), not a question of reducing the geometries of layers which cannot continue.

That would even work with older larger geometries so older Fabs would still be very useful. (Plus older Fabs are still very useful for a lot of smaller more dedicated chips which is a very big market).

@"since the Intel 4004 appeared 40 years ago this November"

I hope that historic anniversary is recognised by the world's press. Technology has after all totally changed the world in the past 40 years and we all owe a lot to that historically important work.

P10000: What HP wants to make instead of PCs, tablets

HP's smoking gun

So HP's CEO wants to sell the PC side of the business, even though its the biggest PC maker in the world. So what kind of a bonus does the CEO get from such a huge sale?

The directors (more interested in share prices and company acquisitions) have built the company (image) up with company acquisitions and now its sell out time, to break up and sell off parts of the business. So big bonuses both ways for the directors, during both acquisitions and sell off's.

So all the talk of the end of PC's is just a smoke screen lie. Its an excuse to try to justify (to shareholders) that the act of selling up the PC making side of the company has to be done. It doesn't have to be done, but then the directors know they will get huge bonuses when it is sold, so they are prepared to say whatever it takes to get that big fat bonus ... then once they have bleed out any remaining value from HP, they can leave to go to another company, to do the same thing again.

Its a reoccurring pattern often found in directors of companies. Its like the old saying, "follow the money". The directors don't really care about the company and its workers, they only care about their big bonuses. The directors are being very narcissistic, but then that's company directors. :(

HP chief bows to Jobsian cult

HP really seem to be rudderless these days :(

Back when William Hewlett & David Packard were prominent in the company it had products and a company to look up to. But then both Hewlett & Packard were both engineers, so they knew good engineering when they saw it. But HP are now run by suits more interested in share prices and company acquisitions to artificially boost their perceived company value in the eyes of shareholders.

Its sickening that their core focus on building products is being given up because they are not run by engineers. Its hard to believe HP are giving up on technology to go over to more of less only software. So I guess they want to become another Oracle Corporation by the sounds of it?. Service industry, not engineering? How many Oracles can the fleecing service industry support?!

If HP are not careful they will throw away what good they have remaining in their company and risk becoming another sinking ship like Nokia. :(

I wonder what William Hewlett & David Packard would have made of all this. :(

HP were one of the old company names I grew up with at work and at home. They have been over the decades like a constant name to me. One of the old names, so its sad to see them in decline like this due to rudderless greedy non-technical managers who wouldn't know engineering if they fell over it. :(

They is why they are doing this, not PC decline. PC's will still be here, but I question HP's survival chances with people like this running the company.

Facebook flashplodder to appeal against 4-yr cooler stint

Seriously Giles Jones WTF!

@Giles Jones, “These sentences are a great way of illustrating that while people have free speech they are ultimately responsible for what they say”

Talk about Cognitive Dissonance! … its both astounding and frightening you fail so totally to see the fundamental flaw in your logic. Ok lets take this step by step.

We all know trolls exist and we have all heard them say some deeply annoying and insulting and stupid and arrogant and etc.. things which we can all be very annoyed about. However the act of saying something is different from the act of doing something. They are two separate actions. Yet what we are seeing now is a way of punishing thoughts, not just actions. “Ah but these are terrible thoughts, right?”. True they are, but once you have a way of punishing thoughts, who's thoughts become the baseline upon which everyone else's thoughts get compared as right or wrong? “Ah but these are terrible thoughts and we will only punish the terrible thoughts right?” … Wrong. Exhibit A:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/15/essex-water-fight-blackberry-messenger

The above link is about police arresting a man for arranging a mass water pistol fight so people can have a laugh and meet up in the hot weather. Its purely for fun. Yet now, its an arrestable offense to arrange a gathering of people to play with water pistols! “Ah but we can argue thats just a few people taking the law way to far, right?” Wrong, because where one can take the law too far, others can as well. The law has to be right or wrong, we cannot have subjective laws and thought crime most definitely is subjective, because nothing has been done, only said.

Still not convinced? Ok here's Exhibit B, (and this is a big one shown throughout history) because whenever people have to protest against politicians, the one reoccurring constant is that the politicians are always in complete passive aggressive denial that they have ever done anything wrong. The reason that is important is because as far as the politician is concerned, its everyone arguing against them that is wrong. They hold the attitude of how dare people protest against me, and incite anger and hatred against me. That is how they think. That is how a passive aggressive thinks. The politician in their mind plays the passive aggressive victim (as all passive aggressive do). That kind of person would do all they could to punish anyone speaking out and arranging protests against them and we have all seen that repeated throughout history and around the word in the past year (people to this day are still dying because of it). Yet we have all in our fear of the rioters just handed the politician their biggest prize. Public consent for the punishment of thoughts. Have we as a society learned nothing from the old saying “He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.”

The evil bastards who were the rioters showed repeated strong warning signs of being very aggressive Narcissistic Personality Disordered people and that is at the very least, (due to their incredible lack of empathy for other people). I say at the very least, because some even demonstrated psychopathic levels of lacking any empathy what so ever for other people. They all have to be punished and stopped, but these people are not acting on the words that are told to them, by people online or off, (even if they try to use that as yet another lying excuse), because they are acting on their own desire to be evil to other people for their own gain as always with Narcissistic people.

The enemy in society is the actions of the Narcissistic people, not the words they say. What is missing about every political condemnation of what the Narcissistic say online is the fact that others online, (the vast majority of people in fact) will respond and speak out online against anything the trolling Narcissistic people say. Its actually good that the evil bastards are highlighting what bastards they are online because society can speak out against them and highlight them for what they are. Yet what we are now getting is simply prohibition of their words, that doesn't solve their hate filled attitudes. They are still filled with hatred at others, just as they are filled with hatred at the people who made them such Narcissistic self interested bastards in the first place (usually their parents who are just as much hate filled Narcissistic bastards). The point is they act on their own desires not on the word of others, so prohibition of words will not stop them. But prohibition of words will stop anyone who has to speak out against politicians, thereby destroying any feedback in society to stop politicians taking things to far (as they always do) because no one is then allowed to speak out against the state for fear of being punished for arranging protests against them.

Punishing thoughts as a society is horrifically dangerous. Also only a few months ago the UK was condemning Egypt for punishing what was said online, yet now we in our terror of the rioters are doing the exact same mistake!. WTF is wrong with some people that in their fear they give up all sense of freedom only to realize too late they have created another ultimately far bigger problem. How many times does this insanity have to be repeated throughout history before people finally learn!

Mozilla strokes coders with Firefox 6

@"That's going to be fun for plugin developers!"

That's why I wanted to hesitate upgrading from version 5 to 6, until I could be sure my beloved favorite plugins still worked on version 6. But unfortunately this morning, I didn't have a choice, as Firefox auto-updated to version 6 without even giving me a choice!. I didn't even expect it to auto-update a major version number like that.

So while it updated I had to hold my breath and pray my plugins still worked!. Not good, not good at all. I wanted to wait to be sure plugins worked before upgrading. I hate it when software forces a change on me and prevents me from having a choice of what I want to do with my machine.

Google's Moto move spells iPhone doom

@johnny19

@johnny19, "I also don't buy that Android got popular because of price, almost everyone I know has moved to Android from Apple."

When I look at my technically minded friends and colleagues, I would totally agree with your assessment that its not price that is driving the uptake of Android phones.

When I look at my non-technically minded friends and family, I would totally disagree with your assessment that it most definitely is price that is driving the uptake of *cheaper* Android phones.

I would also bet the vast majority of us who read this website would fall into that first group of people.

My point is however to highlight there are two entirely different market segments, both of which see reasons to buy Android and they do that for *different* reasons. However what is important is that both are finding reasons to buy some kind of Android phone.

Now as for tablets, currently they only appeal to the premium end of the market due to their high prices, but as soon as their prices fall, more people will want to buy them as well. Its like I said yesterday, its simply the old economic principle of the supply and demand curve. As price drops, product demand increases and that economic principle has worked like that for centuries, regardless of what products we are talking about.

Also we all know that as mass production increases that reduces manufacturing costs which in turn allow even lower price points to become possible. The point is, all of this is driving prices down and so helping to increasing the widespread acceptance of Android devices. Android wasn't a mass market 2 years ago, it was a niche market, but now Android is rapidly becoming mass market and its doing that by appealing to multiple market segments at the same time, each for their own reasons for buying the devices.

People don't want tablets, they want iPads

Price and mass market

I think the "Joe/Jane Public who dont have £700 to burn" are by far the mass market and so the most important market and its interesting that they are now the most important segment of the market that is fueling the very rapid growth of Android phones, as some Android phones are much cheaper. So it means once Tablet prices really come right down (and they will) then its likely Android tablet sales will really start to take off big time.

For example, now I have a smart phone, I find myself often using my phone to quickly lookup stuff on the Internet rather than go to the hassle of booting up my PC. But the one thing I would like at home is a bigger screen than my mobile has. So a tablet laying around at home would be very convenient for quickly looking up stuff. :)

So for me, the price is the only thing holding me back from getting one ... for now. :)

Its the old economic supply and demand curve. Currently tablets are priced at the premium end of the market, but as soon as their prices come down (just as the mass market of lower spec mobiles are now doing), then demand will inevitably shoot up which will in turn lower manufacturing costs allowing even lower price points to become possible as it accelerates towards a mass market. Which is good news for everyone who wants cheap technology. :)

Jeff Bezos patents retro jets, and airbags, for telephones

Entering free-fall

@"When the phone enters free-fall, the owner will be alerted via physical stimulus to the event."

When I enter free-fall, I'm usually quickly alerted via the physical stimulus of hitting the ground!

IBM PC daddy: 'The PC era is over'

I'm going in, I could be some time...

@"I'd better put my PC in the bin with all that paper I don't use anymore"

Tell me where you live, because I feel the urge to practice the ancient art of dumpster diving. ;) ... I could do with another PC. :)

Its recycling after all, so good for everyone and the environment. :)

Cheers icon for the free gift and Happy Birthday PC!

Zuck's sister leaves Facebook to start new venture

Well you can certainly see she is in marketing!

I'm guessing RtoZMedia is something like marketing buzz word soup. ;)

For example...

"launch my own initiative"

"incredible outpouring of support and enthusiasm for my next adventure"

"In attacking this challenge"

"Be assured I will continue to be a strong, vocal evangelist for the most incredible social platform ever created"

"strong mentorship, guidance, and support, which is empowering me to follow my dreams"

Its like buzz word bingo, you can make up your own sentences without really saying much. :)

... For example...

My incredible outpouring of evangelist enthusiasm empowers my strong mentorship allowing me to attack this challenge to follow my dreams for my next adventure.

:)

Its Friday and after that I think I need some mind bleach. ;)

The curse of Google?: Android licensees fail to cash in

Keeping customers happy is very important.

@Miek, I totally agree about keeping customers happy.

But this bit from the article :"Expensive efforts to differentiate their Android handsets from others are turning out to be a waste of time"

That I totally disagree with, because it completely over looks how customers are reacting to the products. For example the success of the Galaxy S shows this article is wrong. Also as the most popular mobile app category is mobile games, (as mobile is after all flooded with games) its therefore hardly surprising users often compare phones on how well they run games and the Galaxy S was very impressive when it was released for how well it done high end mobile 3d graphics. So even if a user isn't interested in games, they will still get to hear about how good a phone is from other users that are interested. Just look at youtube and see endless reviews of the potential of the Galaxy S. Its very evident a lot of people are impressed by its gaming performance and that has driven it to become the most popular Android mobile phone so far. (Between Galaxy S 1 & 2 its already got over 18 million sales. Also Galaxy S 2 achieved 3 million sales in 55 days, so that shows brand loyalty to the Galaxy S brand).

Brand loyalty takes time to build. Dominate players in the Android market like Samsung and HTC are starting to emerge, but they will only keep customers if they keep them happy, as Miek above said. As soon as the companies do something wrong, their customers will rightly move onto another company.

As for the failure of some companies to earn *as much money as they would like* from Android (which is what they really mean), they only have themselves to blame. But as usual with bosses, its far easier for them to blame others than look to themselves, to see where to make improvements in how they run their companies, to keep their customers happy.

Google claims 'bogus patent' conspiracy against Android

@blackcat, you are so wrong about so much

"Without patents we would not have the constant competition between Intel and AMD, nVidia and ATI, Google and Apple, oh how the list goes on."

That is absolutely wrong and you are being totally fooled by the two faced rhetoric of the control freaks who want patents. The constant competition between companies is for the billions they earn for gaining as much market share as possible. That remains true in a world without patents, because the competition would actually speed up to stay ahead, not slows down as it can with patents.

blackcat you are blindly repeating the patent control freaks rhetoric. They want control. They want to control competitors. Its all about an endless need to control with them and with control that slows down progress because that is what control all about, the ability to stop people. It holds back competitors from using similar improvements. If we lived in a world without patents that would force companies to keep improving their designs to stay ahead of competitors or they go out of business as it should be.

But then anyone who secretly fears they cannot come up with better designs than competitors will back the need for patents. That is the typical two faced game of the passive aggressives in society, who have a hidden agenda in what they say.

We need a society that rewards improvements but doesn't allow companies to then sit back and stop improving as patents do. With patents they create something that prevents everyone using the same improvements for decades. We need to accelerate progress, not allow ways for huge corporations to hold progress back. This puts the design engineers centre stage of importance as it should be. Currently its the corporate lawyers who are centre stage as its all about their need to control and design engineers are sidelined. You can see that is true from their pay differences which shows who their corporate bosses really think are most important to their businesses. (Don't listen to the bosses lying two faced rhetoric about the importance of design engineers. Instead see what the bosses actions really show how they really think, which proves their real priorities are not design engineers).

The two faced rhetoric of the control freak bosses is that they always want control to do this, that and the other. It is a relentless lie born out of their need to control competitors because they ultimately fear they cannot out design their competitors. They fear they cannot come up with better designs. In such a world without patents, the designers become more important as it should be, as the need to stay ahead becomes more important and so that drives changes ahead faster. So I stand by what I said, the bullshit of the current broken patent system shows its lost sight of engineering used to be about the craftsmanship of artisans and the importance of good design. :(

What was once all about craftsmanship increasingly no longer is. :(

"Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation."

This is the part I find so deeply sickening.

Business should be about what products are good becoming the market leader, not who has the most billions to buy the biggest army of lawyers and the biggest arsenal of patents to wage war against competitors.

Engineering used to be about the craftsmanship of artisans, yet this story shows all too well how sickeningly far the business of engineering has become distorted from what was once all about the importance of good design.

The patent system was intended to be a way to help inventors, yet in recent years its become so sickeningly distorted that it now prevents all but the absolute richest of corporations even being able to legally claim ownership of design ideas. So patents are not helping society or progress, it shows companies exploiting the broken patent system as a way to greatly undermine progress.

It means ironically, society would now be better off without patents any longer. It would save everyone a lot of money.

But of course companies with patents will argue till their final breath that they need patents, because they secretly know they can exploit the patents to undermine competitors and earn a fortune out of taxing competitors. Meanwhile the patent lawyers will argue we need patents as they secretly know its worth millions to them to keep patent battles in the courts.

All the while, all this legal fighting keeps showing how much its all undermining the fact engineering used to be about the craftsmanship of artisans and the importance of good design. :(

Hobbyist killed by home-made hovercraft

Very sad news.

That is really sad news. He sounded like a really good guy. Apparently his partner and neighbour witnessed the incident and as he was only 40 when he died, I guess his 3 kids are still young, which is so bad for them to loose their father as well so soon. That is such a sad story. :(

Hovercraft are a lot of fun and it sounded like he was very unlucky after a structural failure. Its obviously easy to say in hindsight, but I guess he was having so much fun driving it for the first time, that he didn't stop to see how it was holding up. I suppose at least it can be said he died doing what he loved doing so much, but its really sad for his family. My sincere condolences to his family. He sounded like a good person to know. :(

Oi, Android, get gaming sorted out NOW

Games development on Android

@Gledster, "Google should release something akin to an Android version of Direct X which developers can write for"

It already exists, its called OpenGL ES.

The problem isn't detecting the Android form factors, its the considerable effort of having to write extra code and produce extra graphics to best suit the rapidly increasing numbers of Android form factors and games graphics are far more complex to get right, than in slow non-realtime app UI's.

Plus its expensive to test all the Android form factors as they require real phones and tablets because the emulator is currently of little use for many games developers. For example the emulator doesn't support OpenGL ES 2.0 so developers cannot even see if their games graphics layout correctly on the various screen form factors. That's by far its biggest failing so far. I could suffer it not running at real time speeds (for now) but the lack of any support at all makes it useless for any testing, yet the vast majority of Android developers are currently Indie developers and they all can't afford an increasingly high number of different form factors in phones and tablets (worth thousands) which would be required for testing all form factors. So most developers are forced to pick the few common form factors.

Also the performance difference between Android phones is incredible. For example what would run at 60Hz on an average phone would run at 4Hz on a slow Android phone. So what is good on an average phone is underutilising a high end phone, yet unplayably slow on a low end phone! Plus ever more low end phones are coming out all the time!. So if a developer only targeted the high end phones they badly miss out on the vast mass market of phones and worse still don't forget the slow phones are not only the older phones, as newer cheaper Android phones are also underpowered compared with the average and high end phones. That forces developers to think about supporting the main mass market of phones and not the few high end phones. Plus getting the best out of the best phones if expensive games development work.

So long story short, its bloody complex supporting Android phones and getting worse all the time (what with the rapidly increasing numbers of Android form factors) and the lack of emulator support isn't helping developers. Its time consuming and expensive to support the ever increasing number of form factors and that impacts on the viability of any games business based on selling games on Android, as it reduces the number of games they can produce and all but the top few dozen games developers don't even earn enough to live on the income from just one or even two or three good games on Android, so they have to produce a number of good games to become even viable as a business. So is it any wonder they don't have the time or the money to support the ever increasing numbers of Android form factors. :(

Film studios thrash BT in Newzbin site-block test case

So one more act of control, turn the screw, tighten the control a bit more. :(

This legal ruling means that the film and music industries have finally got what they have always wanted. Unfortunately they now have a legal way to force censorship over the Internet and sadly we all know this is just the beginning.

@"There are hundreds if not thousands of such sites"

True there are, but never the less, unfortunately the film and music industries will happily employ rooms of people to scour the Internet and add every site they can to domain black lists and if anyone complains (and they will struggle to have their complaint heard) the rich film and music industries now have the this legal ruling to throw in their face, backed up with an army of highly paid lawyers to drag out any legal battle for years until the already closed down (and therefore censored) sites and companies go out of business.

So yes it won't stop piracy, but it will add a huge growth industry into Internet censorship which is the real danger. Plus you can bet the governments will secretly be only too happy to support this legal ruling as well. Censorship doesn't stop the determined from finding what they seek, it never has, but in time, it will reduce what the masses can find and whilst the film and music industries say that's good, the undeniable bad is the ability to censor the Internet leading to governments exploiting this ruling as well, allowing them to help keep the majority of people more in the dark about what they are really doing, whilst they pretend its all in our best interests.

The core problem is we desperately need a free Internet. In decades past we could at least rely on the main newspapers to show some journalistic integrity to show us what our governments were really doing behind our backs. But these days as Murdock's close connections with the politicians shows so completely, we cannot trust the newspapers at all to tell us the truth, so we badly need a free Internet to leak government documents (which should be public documents, but they refuse to show us the truth, as they know we will be pissed off with them if we find out the truth). The problem is governments will happily abuse this legal ruling into a way to add more censorship.

This legal ruling is so bad its obscene, but sadly its not entirely unexpected. We all know they have always wanted this for years. The question now is what is done about it and you can bet the governments will secretly obstruct any attempt to overthrow this legal ruling in court, as they know they can abuse this legal ruling for themselves as well. So they will want this legal ruling to stick in some way, regardless of the freedom the majority of society wants.

So its one more act of control, turn the screw, tighten the control a bit more.

While you're at it, turn the heat up on that boiling frog, it should be almost cooked by now.

So one more step toward Totalitarian control, all in the name of the media distributors. :(

Winklevoss twins' new Facebook lawsuit rejected by judge

Trying their luck too far

There are a lot of people who have good ideas and either don't or can't get them to market or are beaten to market dominance by someone else with the same idea who simply got lucky enough to gain market share when it counted. So the Winklevoss twins should consider themselves bloody lucky they got anything (let alone $65M) for an idea that wasn't even original back when Facebook launched, as other social networking sites were around before it.

Time for the twins to move on and try something new.

Dixons Retail boss pockets £1m in face of consumer meltdown

The same pattern again and again

So they continue to stuff cash into their pockets whilst the company flounders ... oh wonderful. :(

Its like sipping Champagne on the deck of the Titanic while its sinking?!. But then the greedy bosses know they have a money lifeboat ready and waiting to take them to safety if it sinks, so to speak. Shame about everyone else being taken down with the ship. But then we have seen so many times how all the little people just like us, don't really matter to the greedy powerful bosses, as they only care about themselves.

Bosses like this show through their actions, they desire no staff loyalty what so ever, because ultimately they show they have no real loyalty to their staff. They are only in it for themselves and be dammed the consequences and hardship for everyone else around them. :(

Segway death blamed on good manners

I really wish they were legal to use

I was sorry to hear this guy died as it did seem his heart was in the right place so to speak. He tried to do good. But I would say the way the law is now we are trapped in the UK with transport that dates to over a hundred years ago :(

So I really wish personal motor powered transport was legal for everyone to use in Britain, as it would help fuel a lot more innovation in personal transport.

That would be good in so many ways. It would for example help start up more businesses and it would (as others have pointed out) also help reduce carbon emissions compared with petrol engines in some applications. Plus by having legal access to the UK mass market, that would in turn also help lower manufacturing costs and increase innovation in disabled personal transport as well.

Also it would be good for everyone's mood to simply be able to have more fun with new forms of personal transport. :)

Also public transport is under increasing pressure, so innovation in personal transport would help reduce this problem, whilst also helping to put pressure on public transport companies to lower their transport costs.

So the politicians should allow more innovation in personal transport, as a truly free market would help the economy and help lower carbon emissions and help lower costs and help innovation in disabled personal transport and with other gains as well, so I can't see how they can keep obstructing progress. :(

So I really wish they were legal to use in the UK. :(

Scientists snap amazing technicolour dreamtoad

Toad licking

Considering all the toad licking comments, I'm beginning to see another reason why Amphibians are in danger.

.XXX to launch nothing-but-smut unsafe search

So what of the other Top-level domains?

This xxx sounds very short lived, because as soon as we get many Top-level domains (as some are trying to bring in) then the xxx will become almost meaningless from a business point of view. For example,

.porn

.xxxx

.xxxxx

... and so on.

Coalition renames GCHQ internet spook-tech plans

Arrogant hypocrites

The MPs are crying foul of phone spying on them, yet they continue to push through ever more spying on all of us.

Also what are the MPs so fearful of that they need to spy on all of us so much for? … We are the people they say they represent, yet they want to spy on us relentlessly.

We already have more state surveillance over us than at any point in history, yet they continue to want more and they want to spend billions more of our money to do it. So when does it end? When is enough finally enough?

Go Daddy no-no means No Daddy is no-go

Someone should open a nonodaddy.com site ;)

I hope they have a site backup because usually the Internet routes around damage. :)

Unfortunately the forum has been lost at least on the wayback web archive, as it can't save that...

I think the link is...

http://web.archive.org/web/http://nodaddy.com/

But it does have the title page saved with info on that and I think the cartoon on the front page of the Godaddy Corporate Structure with birds is so funny. :)

I like the cartoon so much, I've had to save a copy of it for posterity. :)

Sweaties decode ultimate mystery of chips

@"Mars bars have a genome"

They do if you leave them unwrapped long enough. :)

Coat icon, with a mouldy Mars bar in the pocket. :)

Ballmer begs partners to love Microsoft clouds

58% ... of what exactly?

"58% of companies are working with cloud"

Hey Microsoft, specifically define "working"?

Is it, Customer "oh I used a search engine" ... Microsoft "well you are a cloud user now" ... In other words, how low has the bar been set for inclusion in this 58% of companies are working with the cloud?

I bet the bar has been set really low, so the figure sounds much higher than it really is to make people think they too should join Microsoft's cloud.

Chambers of Commerce say UK recovery is weak

@DragonLord

@DragonLord, “When you're budget is squeezed then you look to save money where you can, so if you can buy stuff significantly cheaper elsewhere then you do”

That is a false economy and extremely short sighted, because whilst they save short term in one area Britain looses yet more money having to support the out of work British people. Plus the British economy then isn't infused with *our* money, (as we are also leaking *our* money out of our country!) and so British companies cannot grow. Plus don't forget that when one British company earns good money, then all British companies supporting that one company also see increases in their incomes as well and our overall economy then grows and improves.

Other countries know this but our politicians refuse to do it.

Dave15 is right, our country is failing to reinvest its money back into its own country and worse its undermining what companies we have. Plus its a vicious circle forcing our companies out of business and don't forget, as our companies don't get the work, that's making it even worse, as its forcing their prices even higher, not least because they also don't get as much volume sales as they would otherwise have had. Our manufacturing base has been utterly decimated over the past 30 to 40 years and it is exactly this endless short sighted political thinking that is one of the root causes of the problem. :(

Oracle resellers: 'Give us our cash and make it snappy'

Open Market?

@"on the vendor's Open Market Model"

Oracle's idea of “Open Market” sounds like newspeak for seeking vendor lock in via kick-backs.

Which is also called, bribery and Anti-competitive practices.

So I guess the name, "Open Market Model" is for the benefit of making it sound legitimate.

BSkyB/News Corp merger: Wait for the cops, says Ofcom

Incredible, the Ofcom boss is using blatant procrastination as a reason for doing nothing?!

The Ofcom boss is showing he is using full on Passive–aggressive behaviour because ultimately he has no intention of blocking Murdoch in any way what so ever. Not even an investigation.

Ofcom boss: "then we’ll look at it, if we need to,”

Yes right, you'll look at it if you need to. Why not look at it now and then decided if you need to block it? But no, lets sit around doing nothing, whilst the merger goes through. :(

A good description of a Passive–aggressive behaviour is "procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible." ... which is exactly what the Ofcom boss is doing. His blatant procrastination shows he has no intention of looking into or doing anything about Murdoch's plans.

So Ofcom are just procrastinating whilst waiting for the merger to go through, then later they can say, well its too late now to stop the merger, as its already happened. The Ofcom boss shows he has already decided its going through (he is just a two faced Passive–aggressive who won't truly admit that is what he is really doing), because he shows he has no intention of doing anything about it. Not even looking into it.

As Ofcom have no intention of even looking into it, then Ofcom has proved its totally useless, because its suppose to look into these kind of deals, so Ofcom needs to be shut down and replaced and the boss needs to be fired now. Ofcom show they have become too corrupt and complacent. They are not doing their job and they show they have no intention of doing their job.

I find the blatant display of procrastination astounding. :(

Facebook snuffs Chrome extension for uncaging 'friends' data

Who my friends are, is *MY* information not Facebook's.

@"extension that let you export information about your Facebook "friends" so that data can be shuttled into competing services." ... yet Facebook are blocking people exporting their own information?!

I thought who my friends are, is MY information not Facebook's.

But it shows that Facebook considers our information more their information!

The way Facebook are treating people's information as their own is very arrogant. Which is why I will never join sites like Facebook.

Facebook, Google, and the war to lock you in

@“dramatic shift AWAY from social media" and site lock in.

@ProNetworkBuild, I was with you for most of what you said, but I don't think we will see a dramatic shift away from social media. I'm sure it will evolve and new sites will try to get into the market (as they are already trying to do), but social networking of some kind will always be around. Too many people want it in one form or another, so Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, they all have a place and appeal to different people.

I have very little interest in Twitter and Facebook and both have a very bad signal to noise ratio so they bore me. Plus there's so much to see on the Internet, that I mostly prefer more deep sources of information, so sometimes I can have more interest in some blogs etc..

But social networking of some kind is here to stay. (Scary thought isn't it ;)

But I would say all these sites are trying some form of lock in, but I hope they don't ever succeed. But then the Internet routes around blocks and controls, so I can't see any site ever succeeding in their need to totally control users unless that site plays some very underhanded government moves against us all, like getting governments to force everyone to sign up to the site. I've heard it suggested already for Facebook and too hell with that idea. I (like a lot of people) would fight every step of the way against any company ever gaining that level of power to spy on us all and the thought of a government forcing people onto such a site is abhorrent. Any government who tries to bring in such a move would have to go and I'm sure any company trying such a move would suffer a public backlash fate far worse than Sony has suffered. So any company trying to extend its lock in, better tread very carefully, because if their dare to make a deal with governments, they risk facing extreme public anger.

Cisco drives epic Chinese surveillance network, says report

Peaceful, yes right

"Peaceful Chongqing" is Newspeak if ever I've seen it.

How is it really peace if it requires total surveillance and therefore implied forceful repression of decent. That's a very strange, very false peace. You will be peaceful, because we will pummel you until you are.

I can't help being reminded of the 1984 sentence ... "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever".

I'm just waiting for a UK politician to try to use tax payers money to go on a "fact finding mission" to China to learn more about how to create a Peaceful London and Peaceful UK. :(

Call of Duty given ultimate Star Wars makeover

It looks amazing!

It never ceases to amaze me how much effort fans put into these kinds of projects. I hope LucasArts allows it. Lucasfilm have been extremely understanding to fans for most fan made Star Wars film productions so far, so I very much hope LucasArts will also allow this fan made production. But it does concern me that this fan made game directly treads onto LucasArts games business area. But then LucasArts can make a more professional looking product, but not by much more than this production. The fans have done a very good job of it. :)

I hope it gets official backing and perhaps even a publishing deal from LucasArts. :)

That's after all how Counter-Strike started as a mod to Half Life, but then Counter-Strike was an original idea whereas this is based on Star Wars which is obviously heavily trademarked.

The problem is, if LucasArts tried to publish the game, then they would suffer some complications with Activision's control of Call of Duty, as you just know a company like Activision would want a slice of the money as well (even though they would get more sales of Call of Duty in the process, so they would gain anyway).

I haven't got Call of Duty, but if they all allow this mod, then I would buy Call of Duty to play the mod. I very much hope they all allow it, especially after so much fan effort. :)

EU cloud data can be secretly accessed by US authorities

We cannot trust ANY government to stay out of the cloud.

“These EU provisions might conflict with obligations US-based firms, such as Microsoft, face under US law. “

Unfortunately they don't conflict as much as we would hope, because the EU provisions already have small print allowing law enforcement access to the data. For example, EU grounds for processing personal data include:

“Processing is required by a legal obligation;” … and “Such exceptions are permitted if, among other things, it is necessary on grounds of national security, defence, crime detection, enforcement of criminal law, or to protect data subjects or the rights and freedom of others.”

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/privacy/guide/index_en.htm

Unfortunately if a government wants to look at our cloud data, then they will just play their usual “national security & defence” or “law enforcement so legal obligation” joker cards, so they can gain access to whenever they want. Sadly its already allowed in the small print of the EU provisions.

Plus make no mistake, governments will abuse cloud data assuming its their right to access it for an ever increasing number of reasons. Low hanging fruit so to speak, will be to scan for terrorism and before you know it, it'll be scanning for everything.

The simple truth is, we cannot trust governments to stay out of the cloud. Governments have small print in everything they do. For example, article 12, of the human rights act sounds like it should protect us, as it states:" No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." … But of course, the small print is “arbitrary interference” … so therefore define “arbitrary interference”. A legal obligation is being argued its not arbitrary, therefore they argue they are not violating article 12, therefore article 12 is meaningless in practice. It won't protect us from state overview of anything they define as legal obligation and they will abuse that over time to mean anything they want it to mean as legal obligation.

Plus don't forget we have seen laws abused to mean totally different things over time before. For example, just look at how the insane UK to US extradition ruling has been abused out of all proportion from what it was originally intended for. It was started to help stop terrorism and yet now, its being turned into anything including trying to extradite a kid for just linking to sites which violate copyright!

Cloud data will be utterly abused by governments and they have small print ready and waiting to be exploited for them to continue to find reasons to access the cloud data. Plus these companies offering this Cloud are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. They also want to scan and spy on the data.

Exploiting our privacy is turning into a free for all gold rush for corporations and governments and they are trying to lie to us to fool us into believing we should just give up our privacy to put it all in the cloud. Because ultimately violating our privacy is very valuable to the corporations and governments.

There are good reasons why people fight to stop state intrusion into their privacy. History has shown this so many times and if that isn't enough, then look at the revolutions this year, where people are still dying to this very day, as they fight to try to stop state intrusion and control over their lives. We are not all fools who believe in the cloud. The cloud cannot be trusted because ultimately governments cannot be trusted.