You get quite a lot for the subscription value. Ad free, the ability to watch in the background, ability to download, and YouTube Music.

I expect the real move here is to put pressure on Spotify and Apple. Apple can respond by bundling music and Apple TV. Spotify could try to upsell their unique podcast offerings. Eventually users have to choose what they want alongside their music subscription.

It won't help a large number of students though. Embassies remain closed for regular visas and the border remains closed to much of the world. If you don't already have a visa and aren't already in the United States, there's still a host of obstacles in your path.

Nothing to dodge if you pick a quiet morning.

Montana doesn't have deer? Or broken down cars? Or potholes? Or big chunks of shredded tires from 18 wheelers?

Early adopters will, of course, make a killing.

Then, Amazon and eBay will start getting bad press and put a halt to the price gouging. Suddenly the late entrants and the very greedy will find they have a garage full of Nintendo Switch's. Then Nintendo will increase production, Animal Crossing will be outdated and they won't even be able to sell them for the old list price.

Oh, I didn't know the EU was a western country all of a sudden.

It isn't. But many member nations are.

It's not like they used touchscreens just because the technology existed. They use touchscreens because it's cheap. One set of wires to the dashboard is much more cost effective. Only one thing to go wrong. You don't need a physical switch that's rated to last thousands of clicks and expected to have a 10-20 year life in an environment with huge temperature changes and constant vibration.

It was never about anything other than saving money. That it looked high-tech was just a bonus.

Opens /.

Me: "hey Google, read this page"

Assistant "got it"

Assistant "sorry, I'm not able to read that page aloud".

That said, it did work on the venturebeat source article linked in the intro.

I get it if you're happy with a light attached to an old fashioned switch. But you can do so much more with smart bulbs, and it's easy (for me at least) to see why folk want them. The ability to change color to set a mood, the ability to turn on interior lights when you unlock your front door, having lights come on 30 minutes before sunset and turn off shortly after sunrise, and so on.

Of course if something is networked, there are bound to be patches. It's part of the territory.

What I'm less sure about is the summary. It says you need to patch your bulbs, but implies the hub will update itself if it's connected to the internet. So it looks like the only thing needed is to have an internet connected hub and have your bulbs turned on. That's as it should be.

Now, where I'm concerned is with third party bulbs. What if you're using an Ikea bulb on a Hue hub? Is it vulnerable? If so, will it be updated?

Honestly, I've never been in Japan. Maybe this is what their pubs are like, but this is the last thing I'd want.

If you just want to get cheaply drunk you might as well buy a big bottle of cider in Europe or some malt liquor in the US. The purpose of paying a premium for drinks in a bar is the environment. Having a bar tender who knows you can be a big part of that.

This would make much more sense as a bartender assistant - something that helps them pour more drinks more quickly so they can better tend to the customers.

Give us working keyboard, and freaking ports to plug stuff into to get work done!

This would be why I'm still using a Thinkpad T420 from the pre chiclet era. I also have a USB version of the same keyboard, which now seems to go for several hundred dollars apiece on eBay. I wonder why?

I found a video from the Global Warming Policy Foundation advocating this. I don't know who they are but they seem to be talking sense...

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) is a United Kingdom think tank founded by climate change denialist Nigel Lawson with the purpose of combating what the foundation describes as “extremely damaging and harmful policies” designed to mitigate climate change. The group was established on November 22 2009, just three days after the first set of “Climategate” emails were released on the University of Tomsk's server. [1], [2]

Nigel Lawson described the GWPF as an “all-party and non-party think-tank and a registered educational charity which, while open-minded on the contested science of global warming, is deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated.” Although Lawson claims to be “open minded” on global warming, the GWPF website has a banner depicting a short-term temperature graph that suggests the world is not warming.

Source

Early MiniDisc players had optical out. I imagine that remained pretty common on HiFi separates versions but didn't own one of those.

You can still buy a professional drive with digital audio output.

The ISPs will just add language to the TOS that, by accepting the TOS and using the service, they authorize their data to be transferred or sold to third parties. I'm surprised that it's not in there already.

Believe it or not, legislators aren't stupid. Also, it helps to read the bill.

1 3. Customer consent exception. Consent of a customer is governed by this
2 subsection.
3 A. A provider may use, disclose, sell or permit access to a customer's customer
4 personal information if the customer gives the provider express, affirmative consent
5 to such use, disclosure, sale or access. A customer may revoke the customer's
6 consent under this paragraph at any time.
7 B. A provider may not:
8 (1) Refuse to serve a customer who does not provide consent under paragraph A;
9 or
10 (2) Charge a customer a penalty or offer a customer a discount based on the
11 customer's decision to provide or not provide consent under paragraph A.

If only there was some way to monitor the traffic flowing in and out of the device over your own, private, internet connection...

This is why I'm generally comfortable with a smart device in most rooms. I know it's not transmitting everything to the cloud because that would be obvious in the data.

What is concerning though is that as the processing power increases, soon these devices will comfortably be able to translate everything to text. At that point all conversations could easily be compressed and uploaded and it wouldn't stand out. Certainly that's not quite as invasive as actually having your speech transmitted, but it would still be a massive erosion of privacy.

Why?

Because it costs me to answer the call. It takes time (usually out of my evening with family or friends). It's more likely than not something I don't want - otherwise every telesales operator would already have a bazillion dollars. You have no idea what time zone I am in (old landline numbers now ported to cell phones). I might be roaming and your call could actually be costing me $1+/min.

Filtering out junk makes actual calls more valuable to the recipient. People will be more likely to answer the phone and to use the phone to call others.