merlotisred

My secondary school used biometrics (albeit fingerprints rather than facial recognition) for lunch money back in 2005. This concept isn’t new, just the implementation

There is a huge difference – fingerprints are of little value for remote surveillance, unlike facial recognition. Fingerprints can not be misused to catalogue every photo featuring your face on the Internet. Etc, etc. You trust the school’s IT department not to foul this up?

Nice in itself, but just another device to misdirect the users attention whilst their social graph is livestreamed.

The chips are down!

Indeed, I think with this so-called "challenge" to legislators VanMoof risk being hoist by their own petard, by creating a focus for the "road tax" payers already baying for bikes and current e-bikes to be legislated out of existence. A varied package of compulsory helmets, insurance and licencing between them should send most would-be e/cyclists back into their cars where they can blend seamlessly with the congestion.

Do these ads only happen in some markets (USA?). I’ve never seen an ad in any Samsung stock app. Admittedly, I don’t use the whimsical apps, but I’ve always used the Samsung Internet browser, email client, contacts, SMS, camera, Gallery, and so on. Never seen an ad.

Absolutely. I see it like this:
We all like a competitive market, it drives innovation and keeps prices in check. It’s the goose that lays the golden egg.

Why would a business owner not want to own that goose? Of course most business owners don’t like the price competition bit, they just want the golden eggs, so they think they can buy up the market, eliminate the competitive element and … they find that they just killed the goose.