I believe one of the patents Apple is trying to beat up Android phone manufacturers with is the infamous BT "mobile computer" US patent that they acquired from the UK telco. This seems to prevent anyone else making any form portable device that can run custom applications.
This is just a continuation of the phenomena where global companies want to take advantage of geographical prices disparities in both directions. Jobs move to low paying areas to keep costs low, but if anyone tries to buy products from other parts of the world they scream foul play. Look at what happened to CDWOW importing CDs from Hong Kong to Europe, or Tesco importing Levi's Jeans. It's even more pronounced with online digital sales, as EU rules forbid companies from refusing to supply across borders (providing the customer is willing to stomach any relevant delivery costs or pick up the item), yet copyright agreements are often per-country. This prevents, say, someone with a UK credit card buying from the German iTunes or Steam stores or vice versa, which they may wish to do depending on the current exchange rates and differential pricing, while it is relatively common for cars to be bought over mainland EU borders (less so where there is a left-hand right-hand drive issue, although it is not unheard of for UK or Irish residents to order right-hand drive cars from mainland European dealers).
That's because cooperation is dangerously close to socialism.
If I send a SMS, the phone company doesn't keep a copy.
Oh yes they do.
Or 1GB on the ones above AFAIR £35/month. However, they didn't change existing customer's terms.
Try Tesco first (they run on the O2 network)
Thanks for the suggestion but O2 shares the same corporate overlord with T-Mobile, so I don't trust them to not pull a similar stunt a few months down the road.
That's Orange, who along with T-Mobile are now both part of a France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom joint venture called "Everything Everywhere" (presumably as long as it's less than 500MB). o2 are owned by Spain's Telefonica, and already reduced their caps to 500MB/1GB (dependant on plan). However, they explicitly only did this for new contracts. I'm still unlimited and as it's a SIM only plan I don't intend to change that.
I'd check out both the "1 Plan" on Three and giffgaff as well.
Stopping burning it doesn't mean stop using it. Quite the opposite TBH. In fact, that's another reason to stop burning oil - it's too damn useful for other things.
They already have SkyPlayer on the XBox. Apparently the BBC were approached to do similar iPlayer support, but Micosoft's policy of not allowing that kind of service unless you have a Gold account is not compatible with the BBC Trust's policy that where BBC content appears on a tiered cost platform it must be available on the lowest cost option.
While we're on the topic, most of our oil comes from Canada, South America, and yes, our very own US of A. It's a common misconception that we rely on the middle east for "most" or all of our oil, and you see it perpetuated every time Obama and other politicians talk about "our foreign dependence".
Oil's pretty fungible. Where a specific barrel comes from is largely irrelevant. OPEC still manages to pretty effectively control the price of oil sold to the US without the US sourcing that much from OPEC.
"Oh, and while we're on the topic, Middle Eastern nuts wouldn't have so much money to finance terror attacks if we weren't giving it to them for the goddamn oil. They wouldn't even have a reason to attack us if we weren't involved in their politics in the first place. Our post-oil energy policy is also our anti-terror policy."
And that is the key to so much. Screw climate change or otherwise. So much oil is in "politically inconvenient" places that western countries becoming much more energy self -sufficient seems like such a no brainer that I don't see why anyone could think attempting to move away from burning things was a bad idea.
Except if you're more than an hour or two from Kings Cross / St Pancras travelling by train to Europe is pretty much out for most people. I did Aviemore (just south of Inverness) to Bordeaux once. That was one LONG train journey.
Phones are often available exclusively on one carrier on a subsidised basis (although usually only for a time limited or in a custom colour), but it's unusual for a phone to not also be available unsubsidised and unlocked, and these will work on pretty much any European network with the relevant SIM. Given the rise in the UK (and presumably other EU countries) of much cheaper "SIM only" contracts with short 30 day notice periods and no phone subsidy, this is often the cheapest way to get the latest and greatest. SIM only deals can be around £20 a month cheaper for the same mins/texts/data combination as 18 month "with phone" deals, while subsidised phones can still cost £100-£200.
Nonsense. Most European predominantly set by the council of ministers, which is a group of (non-fixed) representatives of each national government (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_European_Union). The way you influence that is by influencing your own government.
Also, not all piracy is done because 'they want it for free'. If you want English subtitles in the Netherlands, you either have to import (illegal, won't play on DVD player) or download your movies, so I but the movie with dutch subs and download the one with English subs.
play.com will ship UK versions EU wide. Both the Netherlands and the UK are Region 2. That'll save you from buying the Dutch one at all.
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.
