Here in Australia we have automated passport control gates that scan a chip in our passport then takes a photo of our face (and I assume does some matching with our passport photo) before allowing reentry. It's quite quick and very convenient. Although I'm not aware of any airlines being able to use the system for boarding.
Traveling extensively the past year I have noticed the following which are probably all coming into our lives soon. (a) In many countries border entry is accompanied by a fingerprint scan which will be either a left and right index finger scan or a scan of the whole left hand. The scans are done at inbound border crossings in conjunction with the passport check. (b) In many countries both border exit and entry are paired with the taking of a photograph. In some places it appears the exit photograph is validated automatically by software. (c) In some cities, the subways have security checks at entry and in those places photographs are taken, non obviously, by the security equipment. I am not sure how effective these systems are at tracking. I guessing ideally governments would like to pair these photos with a passive probe of something carried on the body like a phone or official id, something that could link the photo to an already verified identity. (d) On country entry, purchases like SIM cards for local telephone service or public transportation pass cards can only be acquired if one presents an official id. Manual computer entry usually links the card to the presented id.
And here is a prediction, getting a record of faces and fingerprints, and tracking movement is on the agenda right now. In the future there will be a equally focused agenda to acquire records of peoples DNA. In countries where there is nationalized health service, it will eventually be required. Aquisition will begin when the cost of storing, acquiring, and searching that DNA information becomes cheap enough.
Same in Europe. You arrive at Frankfurt Airport. None EU citizens are questioned as if they are terrorists. I go to electronic doors. I put my EU passport to the gate. The camera scans my face and then computer compares it with the photo in my EU passport (there is HD photo within the passport chip). And the door opens. I'm back home in EU. No police, no border control other than that few seconds camera check.
In Australia, you don't need an ID for a domestic flight; and non-flyers are permitted to walk to the gate, no boarding pass is required to go through security.
There's some talk about changing this but I hope they don't. It's really convenient to just walk on and fly - you can do Sydney to Melbourne door to door in 2 hours.
I recently flew into Australia (typing this from there). I was so irritated when the scanner wouldn't read my passport for some reason, and I had to stand in the hour-long line at 6 am because of it.
Not sure if my passport chip is broken or the system isn't full proof?
Even better, many foreign visitors can use the same system to enter Australia. Lots of countries have fully automated entry for citizens but by doing it for foreigners, Oz is ahead of the game.
And I would value that lottery ticket at about $1 today - with the understanding that:
a) the face value is over-stated by around 100%, and
b) I have no hope of riding out the variance, so the gamble is a poor one for me.
You are absolutely correct, if the company is successful, equity might be worth quite a bit. It's unlikely that you will choose a startup that will be successful in a way that makes equity valuable.
Venture Capitalists are in the business of making money off successful startups. They work day in and day out on finding startups that are likely to be successful and investing in ways to help them be successful. Most of the time, they're wrong. The only way that VCs are able to be profitable is by having a diverse portfolio of companies in the hope that one is successful enough to outweigh the losses of the others.
Picking out successful startups is (probably) not your expertise, and you only get about a dozen chances (on the high end?) to choose a new employer for the duration of your career. The odds are very very against you. Given those odds, we can value startup equity at approximately $0, perhaps a bit higher.
Unfortunately, most startups offer lower salaries in trade for equity. They also are offering you _options_ instead of actual shares. Unless you stick around long enough for a liquidity event that guarantees the option's value, you will have to exercise those options prior to knowing their true value. This costs you money _twice_ for an entity that has a near-$0 value.
Keep in mind that many (all?) smartphones are deliberately obsoleted within 2-3 years of release - as an example, my S5 (released 2014) only supports through Marshmallow (obsolete as of 2016). Any apps requiring Nougat or later are unavailable to me. Given that I personally use my phone for communication, browsing the web, reading, and note-taking (and occasionally SSH), this isn't a concern, but it might well be a deal-breaker for a Bose soundsystem, unless their apps happen to be backwards-compatible (though being IoT-connected would be enough to make me avoid it like the plague regardless).
Same situation here, but with an S6. I would probably pay a subscription for an AOSP based install that was supported and got updates. The volunteer level of support for supporting different devices that LineageOS gets means that for some phones (namely the one I'm using), have poor or nonexistent current offerings. :/
I run Linux on my computers and degoogled android on my phone. Do I not deserve to have speakers because I don't run google spyware? Why should speakers even need an app, I just want to plug them in and have sound.
