HN user
I believe they use Facebook's open graph API to scrape data. Facebook has been known to shut down access when you're taking too much information too fast without notifying them (as in the case of Twitter and Ping), but I imagine Greplin will take the time to notify Facebook of their intentions when before this becomes an issue.
I found the researcher's website (http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/jay.kennedy/) to be very helpful in understanding what an important discovery this is. Drafts of his papers are also available there.
Just FYI - You can actually manually update your Nexus One by following the instructions here: http://www.androidcentral.com/how-manually-update-your-nexus....
I'd love to go, but it seems kind of pricey - did anyone go last year? And if you did, did you think it was worth it? (Not including the benefit of the free phone, which I don't think they'll do again.)
I've seen many articles recently that suggest Microsoft's bundling of Browser to OS is analagous to Google's bundling of OS to Browser. They miss the key distiction that Google's offerings are /free/ and open-source. You don't like the OS? No problem, you can run Chrome (or Chromium) on whichever OS you want. No lock-ins, no harm to the user.
Wow, I thought I was just being shy, but I've been adhering to a similar strategy my whole life when joining a new group: stay back, let the group welcome you in instead of forcing yourself into the group. I also find that befriending single members of the group outside of the normal group environment works well in gaining some legitimacy in the group. After friending one person, you just apply the transitive property of friendship a couple time and hey! you've got a ton of new friends.
I think the point of the article is that it isn't "obvious to everyone that it's quite saturated" (at least not for me). We are bombarded with iPhone success stories, and he's just pointing out it's not all rainbows and roses on the iPhone side of the field.
I imagine the standard leasing procedures would apply - that is, safety deposit + contract.