The little gadget was bootleg gold, a secret treasure I'd spent months tracking down. The miniOne looked just like Apple's iPhone, down to the slick no-button interface. But it was more. It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn't. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers. The miniOne's first news teases-a forum posting, a few spy shots, a product announcement that vanished after a day-generated a frenzy of interest online.
I am amazed at the shortsightedness of some of the readers. I guess that is why no one objected when Clinton let the Chinese copy some of the Defense Dept. IP to improve their ICBM and launch capabilities. What happens when there is no more original work to copy? You can always tell the pioneers - - they are the ones with the arrows in their back! In this case, arrows from their own! -JPJohn
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