If they don't defend it then they can lose it, and it will become fair game for everyone else, too.

Probably just corporate me-too stuff.
When blockc-- er I mean, A.I. is hot, everyone starts doing something with it simply so they can be "part of the latest trend", even if the thing has nothing to do with the business's core product.

"Health Secretary Wants Every American Wearing a Tracking Device Within Four Years"

Welcome Chrome users to Firefox of several years ago.
Also Firefox has uBlock Origin on Android.
And Mozilla can't read the bookmarks/passwords in your Firefox account (unlike Google syncing).

That's not really the same at all for precisely the reason you give. You don't take possession of the merchandise until it's paid off, so it's not a debt. The retailer still maintains control and if you didn't pay it off they could sell it to someone else at full price. They don't take any loss by your inability to pay. Layway plans were only a few months at most so depreciation of the merchandise wasn't a concern. You could even cancel the layaway and get the money back you had paid up to that point (minus a restocking fee perhaps).

No it's not. You're talking about the "Rent-to-Own" industry (Aaron's, Rent-a-Center, etc). This is about the "quick finance" people where you're on a product page online and instead of paying the amount you're offered the ability to break it up into four or more payments, and there's little or no interest. Affirm is one of the players here -- they are even mentioned by name in TFA. Paypal also offers this option when you use PayPal checkout.

Okay... and your point? We're not talking about any industries where data-sovereignty is a concern. The article is about private U.S. tech companies outsourcing their support to overseas companies to save money (like it says in sentence one of TFS), then being surprised when those outsourcers have less-than-honest employees. They're on the other side of the world from their clients, it's much less risk for them to not follow data security requirements.

Have higher standards in hiring/outsourcing, and be willing to pay for those types of employees. When you're paying the same as the local McDonald's don't be surprised when you get fuckheads for applicants.

Yes, it might drive demand for larger and larger screened phones, just like what made the iPhone, and all the profits Apple made from it, possible.

They get people to pay $200 for an additional 8 GB of RAM in their laptops.
Seems they already have verified their users will fall for a scam.

n/t

Let the celebration begin! We have again sent six mega-rich people not-quite to space, so they can gawk at the Earth for a few minutes before coming back down, having accomplished nothing but causing additional air pollution and creating something for them to talk about on their social media feeds like they have had a religious experience, but will not influence their behavior or actions in ways that benefit people in all walks of life the way actual saints have.

No, that's the point (to them). The hardware is too open. They want devices that will only play DRM'd content signed by the special services. Just like a cable TV receiver is generally worthless to a normal person without a cable TV subscription.

The books were finished by Brandon Sanderson on volume 14, and if I do say so his contribution was actually a big positive. The pace was lethargic and full of detours into Aes Sedai politics in the last few volumes by Jordan. Sanderson brought the main story back into focus and got the ball rolling on the Last Battle.

The TV series meddled too much with the main characters to fit the spirit of the books beginnings, and the casting choices we detrimental to the setting of the story.

As poor an adaptation of Jordan (and Sanderson)'s books this was, I still found it very entertaining. Was looking forward to the next season for it.