Two systems offer redundancy protection

The Euro system cost is pittance of around $600 million and is a bargain for the benefits that will accrue from it, especially when compared with wastage incurred under the farm subsidies.

The generosity of the Americans, coupled with the good deed by President Clinton - who signed the order resulting in increased accuracy, is acknowledged but given the 'politics' involved with the GPS system a secondary system controlled by a separate political entity is wise.

ATM's, public transport trains, etc. all depend on GPS so it is just plain smart to have the Euro system.

That 'Sony Ericsson swirl' was pinched from a mint-flavoured ...

gob-stopper I had years agp.

Talk about prior art.

Now that Blair has been 'outed' for ...

misleading the Commons, according to evidence from Lord Goldsmith, see < http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lord-goldsmith-blair-did-not-reflect-legal-advice-on-iraq-war-2187031.html >, does this mean Blair could b charged with malfeasance?

Facebook: Act first, then engage brain

Time and time again FB introduces a new 'feature' then afterwards figures out the implications.

It is the sign of poor/immature management and equally poor planning.

Hard to believe there are 5.000,000 dummies who trust FB with their life data - happily plundered by police, lawyers involved in litigation, human resources departments, credit bureau's, bail bondsmen, etc. - and not necessarily in the users interests, either.

"smuggle in the cables too - presumably the same way the phones ... " Ouch!

The prongs of the chargers might prove a little painful on insertion and extraction from a suitably sized body orifice.

A pain like haemorrhoids?

American has changed the game plan ...

by killing off the special deals it had with these complaining would be competitors thereby forcing passengers to use the AA web site to check for deals and driving prices higher.

AA was the originator of several passenger shafting moves including killing off travel agent commissions.

If other air carriers were to adopt this ticketing strategy, all the Expedias and screen-scrapers will have poblems. Some might say Ryanair started this, but is Ryanair a normal carrier?

One worth looking at is Travelocity, owned by GDS Sabre, which gets its data from the GDS rather than directly from the airlines.

New life for worn out laser drums?

Following this articles theory, am I to assume simply resetting my lasers "Change Drum" circuitry, I can carry on using my old drum whilst improving communications?

What a boost for saving the garbage dumps!

Word disassociations: Oil and Water; Facebook and Privacy; Facebook and Security ...

How long does it take to understand that social web sites can be trouble, especially Facebook.

If you have doubts ask those who have been convicted/imprisoned due to Facebook data, or those who have lost job opportunities.

Facebook treats peoples private information as a commodity to be traded, sold or given away. If you value your privacy, don't use them. It's nit that hard - billions around the world don't use FB.

"permits stray cattle, tumbleweeds etc to be ignored" is the answer

Would be Mexican immigrants should use cattle to cross the border to avoid detection. Emulation a tumbleweed is somewhat challenging.

The border between the U.S. and Canada has, as part of the Olympics security many years ago, a sensing cable system that discriminates between humans and 4-footed animals crossing the border.

The northern border has some unique challenges: villages and houses straddle the border in the east (you can actually sleep in the U.S. and eat in Canada. Then there is the Kahnawake reserve at Akwesasne, which crosses the borders of Quebec, Ontario and New York (best known for cigarette and people smuggling) and people and drug smuggling at Niagara.

People still manage to cross the border without detection ... talk about a waste of money.

Why would anyone trust Goldman Sachs after their recent sorry history?

The name Goldman Sachs is synonymous with fraud and cheating customers by betting against shares they promote. That U.S. investors can't buy in should serve as a warning, too.

Of course it could be a Goldman Sachs technique for pumping up the shares for obviously the wealthier Americans have little regard for borders, they can buy shares wherever they want with ease.

Remember the Dot.com bubble? This might be version 2.

Kind of dumb doing it in a public place & what of the much vaunted filtering?

Two things:

Anyone using a laptop should do in private or with their back to the wall;

I guess the UK filter wasn't working too well that night, either.

Let's hope Body Spare Parts Inc warranty is handled better than Apples

If Jobs is headed back for warranty work on the spare parts he was given, it is (remotely) possible he will gain understanding of how his customers view warranties and get tired of having to sign non-disclosure forms and fight for their rights.

The union shareholders demand for succession plans is quiet prescient and deserves an answer as Apple is, supposedly, a public company.

Jobs, in asking people to respect his privacy, is asking too much, given how much data he collects on others.

Too big to fire? Building job security.

I guess the increasing criticism of Balmer, both within and without MS, makes him feel vulnerable so he is building a little insurance.

Hardly surprising ... the Bureau of Prisons could have even freed him with a GPS locator

The Bureau of Prisons attitude is that once the judge has finished the body belongs to them - the only way to change it is to use the court system.

What surprises me more is that a deal wasn't set up before hand, but maybe they thought the judge had fixed it.

There is no good time early release in the U.S. Federal sentences.

Sounds like a variation on the ...

dubious benefits of using multi-stranded speaker cables that make huge profits for stereo dealers. My speakers simply use 20 amp electricity cables with no measurable losses.

Imagine the power bill for this monster ... Ouch!

Will it require a 2-phase or 3-phase supply?

At least building heating concerns will be covered but how about the air-con?

Yet another ignorant politician demonstrating he is technically dumb

Why are politicians such control freaks? Of course this particular idiot has a complex cultural background so it is hard to determine which way he will head.

The only good news is that the EU has such a mass that it takes almost the length of a presidency to gather momentum.

Could the 'special relationship talks of with France be centred around the fact they are both beholden to Hollywood and the elimination of piracy?

There are so many more pressing matters than diddling with the InterNet, like financial collapse.

HSA and TSA actually terminate people?

It's hard to believe that these two entities, whose annual increases in size more resemble the Pillsbury Doughboy, actually fire people.

I wonder which HSA list he will end up on?

Why the surprise? Android ...

outsold the opposition in the last quarter.

Now what magic is Jobs going to try next? Unlocking the garden?

The defence can be the killer ...

If the Defendants were to disclose the crack in their defence documents, sending a copy to Sony's lawyers by the slowest means possible, then file an affidavit of service with the document attached, tipping off reporters, Sony wouldn't have time to have the Defence sealed.

Game over.

RC Church declared Murdoch to be of "unblemished character" ... after he gave them millions

Rome has declared the pope to be infallible and after it declared Murdoch to be of "unblemished character" and made him a knight.

Obviously this had nothing to do with his giving millions of dollars to the church, whose coffers are kind of light after paying damages for all the paedo's it employs, a few months earlier.

So what can Wikileaks have that the pope doesn't know about?

Not the only one on the market

I saw a number of similar devices when I stopped over in HongKong during New Years.

Perhaps these more generic types will prove more compatible to a greater variety of Android handsets.

"filtering reduces ... abuse by ... internet users ... accidentally exposed to child pornography"

I've yet to be accidental exposed to child pornography on the InterNet and having soaked the sun on beaches where tiny tots ran naked I can also report my only reaction was in response to the screams emitted by these naked bodies.

Greece, where semi-naked bodies are the norm, my reactions were dulled when an aged female emerged from her garden in Marathon, walked to the beach where she shed her beach coat to reveal the most unappealing, totally naked, slack-skinned apparition I have ever witnessed.

Living in a country with light InterNet political filtering and frequently visiting China, I can assure those dimwits in Brussels filtering does not work. If a human wants something, they have enough ingenuity to find and obtain it.

Not even Brussels can change something that has gone on for centuries. Maybe the filtering proposition says more about them than InterNet users.

Sick joke: "... protecting Britain's civil liberties ..."

Pray tell me, how many remain?

Plod can search people on a whim; Plod can look at your images/video; UK government databases cross-linked for easy profiling; DNA collected and stored for years; taking pictures of children inference of perversion; taking pictures of historic/old/famous buildings potential terrorism use; presumption of guilt in TV licence investigations; train-spotting is potential terrorism preparation; all electronic communications filtered for sigint/or tapped; mail is opened. Unlimited house arrest control orders. InterNet access subject to filtering.

At least air is free.

Good news for oldies/seniors ... fingerprints become increasingly difficult to take once you hit your 70's. For you tykes there's always arsenic applied to hands followed by dermatologist abrasion - leaves a very satisfying hatch pattern!

The coalition honoured the killing of the national DNA/fingerprint database, as promised.

British civil liberties? Not too many to protect.

Could the Beeb be wary of termination seeing how Miriam O'Reilly ...

won her case when she claimed she was tossed for allegedly being too old?

Better to hang on to old things like WAP until they can prove it's too old.

Isn't 'Apple' generic, too.

After MS has delisted more Apple Tosh maybe it should turn it's lawyers loose on those two orchard farmers words apple and the cultivar with red and green skin, a tart flavour, and tender white flesh called McIntosh Red (or McIntosh, popularly 'the Mac').

This strain of apples was discovered in 1811 by John McIntosh on his farm in Dundela, a hamlet near Morrisburg, in Dundas County, Ontario, Canada.

Definitely not Californian or 20th Century. There Jobs goes plagiarising yet again.

Apple catching up with Android!

Finally Apple has taken another step in matching Androids attributes. Strangely Verizon's users won't find preloaded cellco software on the phones, and are limited to downloading carrier-specific apps from Itunes.

Maybe someone will jailbreak the device.

Any news whether they will be shipping in white, yet?

CDMA is now extant in the U.S.A. and China with most carriers switching to good old GSM. Hardly worth making a CDMA/GSM version.

That slapping noise to be heard in Cupertino is ...

Jobs expressing his frustration for not having thought of these first.

He could have called them the iCans.

Once upon a time Canada launched an earth resources satellite ...

and during it's validation tests pictures would be taken of anomalies, and other data of interest. For example, different forestry diseases emit different 'signatures' as do trees of different species.

Ground crews were sent out all over to correlate the data for when the satellite went into full service.

One anomaly had them stymied - a hot spot way out in the prairies. Out went the crew and they confidentially determined that it was an illegal still making hooch the old fashioned way.

All was well until some scientist wrote up their experiences with this wondrous new satellite along with all of it's capabilities. He also mentioned. light heartedly, the discovery of the still.

Some time later the RCMP caught up with this item and dispatched a cop armed with a search warrant.

This was the first satellite bust of an illegal alcohol still occurred

The NSA will make it profitable

The NSA, in dealing with ever increasing streams of sigint, is bound to buy a few of these so it can cover all the bases, which should make the venture very profitable.

The U.S. government is good at sleight of hand financing - ask Boeing.

H.264 is not 'open', use involves paying bills

Open means open: open and FREE for all to use.

Little from Apple. or MS, is truly 'open' unless there is a benefit from them making it open, which happens on occasion and sometimes only under duress.

Apple trying to recover their market share?

Apple/Jobs must be getting a little excited as it is now behind Google's market share in the latest sales surveys.

The main reason to switch to Verizon, from AT&T, is because Verizon has used the intervening time to beef up it's network facilities whilst AT&T's network weaknesses have been exposed very vocally by disappointed users.

Amazon, Strange morals: hacking - OK; Wikileaks - NOK?

Amazon needs to sort out what it is offering.

Either is like a Common Carrier who has no interest in what it's services are used for OR treats everyone equally.

Long past due, but still welcome

Google, in supplying this service, offers a virtually guaranteed reliable service that is unlikely to disappear, as others have on occasion.

Use with confidence.

Defective cable TV wiring can even block air traffic control frequencies

In some countries cable TV systems use signals in the RF aeronautical band and a cable defect, such as a shallow buried drop to a house getting 'shaved' by a grass mower, is in the vicinity of an airport this interference can be quite severe because of the decreased land/aircraft separation.

Guard bands have a purpose and in selling them off in the interest of enriching a countries treasury may prove to be a dangerous/expensive thing.

Apple warranties are like Allstate - The Good Hands People - Rarely On Your Side

Apple is always cheating someone of their warranties, just like the reputation of Allstate, whose adverts show a pair cupped hands purportedly to save you but as the late Allan King demonstrated, the 'safe' hands evaporated when an insured submitted a claim.

Apple has demanded non-disclosure agreements of claimants, denied there are battery problems (except in Japan when the government knocked on Apples door), refused to repair equipment subjected to smoking environments, etc., etc.

In two words, Apple is a "fraud artist".

Balmer eliminating the competition

Balmer's performance, of late, has been somewhat lacklustre.

By dumping all the bright sparks in MS he is ensuring no one, internally, will be fingered for Balmer's position.

UK Plod are becoming freedom of expression suppression experts!

Once again, undoubtedly, Plod is busy readying cameras, shields and Tasers whilst dirtying or loosening their ID tags, in preparation for yet another go at suppressing members of the public who wish to exercise their charter right to freely express their opinions.

The rhetoric against funding cuts will rise as Plod tries to maintain the status quo.

At least Microsoft responded. Perhaps these mystery transmissions are App makers ...

back-channel communications that enable them to sell data and provide appropriate advertising.

Or is it a 'cloud' back service?

Apple's board just a bunch of sycophants who follow, not ....

guide.

Apple is pretty unique in that it is a public company that is run like a private fiefdom.

Jobs' challenge is to pull another 'magical' trick out of his bag every year and one big enough to generate income of sufficient size to satisfy the ever increasing expectations of shareholders avarice.

Every market Apple creates, or develops in the case of pads seeing how the Chinese and Japanese were first, will always shrink as others exploit the weaknesses/omissions of Apple offerings. Jobs fetish in maintaining control will always result in opportunities for others as potential customers opt for freedom of choice.

The union who is using it shareholding to push for transparency is right in it's demands as it will hopefully focus the board on it's fiduciary obligations.

How poetic: Ellison foisted on his own petard!

Ellison, who demonstrated such a Gotch Ya! attitude after winning against SAP, deserves this 100%!

Hope the award is as great as SAP, too.

Wasted energy ... few people have InterNet access in North Korea

along with food, telephones and freedom of thought.

'Skin' affectionados needs met by visiting ...

Glodok, part of Jakarta Old Town, also known as Pecinan or Chinatown. I saw numerous shops selling DVD's featuring lurid pornography.

The 'catalogues' only contain DVD covers. When you make a selection either a cell call or a runner will result in the affectionado receiving his satisfaction after a few minutes. You'd be surprised just how many 'liberal' Muslim viewers there are!

Finally, it's sinking in - the U.S. is bankrupt financially and morally

The global 'empire' of the U.S. is fading, just as those of the Romans, Greeks and British did before them. America needs money to work it's magic and it's credit has about hit the buffers.

Previous empires left benefits be it long, straight roads, democracy or bureaucracy and right-hand drive. They also enjoyed a certain amount of good will and appreciation.

What will the U.S, legacy be? Israel's Teflon coating thinning out, substantial drops in standards of living and far less effective sabre rattling, no more invasions and undeclared wars.

Let's hope they realise it soon, so their demise can be orderly and minimise collateral damage.

Any cachet with owning Apple disappeared when they sold them at Walmart

Walmart is today's Woolco/Woolworths and has as much class as they did in their hey days, long ago.

They were known for selling the worst or cheapest of things, which is Walmart does.

Likewise Apple's cachet has been tarnished, especially when they are discount.

The "employee who bought the stolen goods has died since the thefts ceased"

One thing for sure, he won't be charged or convicted and the company will be able to blame everything on him and get away blame free.

Not even the U.S. government can bring back the dead.

Sounds like great case for constructive dismissal

Why should the CFO be fired - he only used Apple computers to do the books. (Maybe he bought an Android phone?)