From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   People in the US like to make fun of the seemingly endless   
   bureaucratic hurdles that the EU Governments keep putting in the way   
   of US companies looking to make a quick buck. You know, having to   
   worry about boring things like “privacy” and “interoperability” and   
   “security”, that kind of thing. Oh, and maintaining free-market   
   competition -- imagine lecturing the USA about how to achieve that!   
      
   But every now and then, this endless stream of new regulations hits   
   the jackpot. Like how Google is suddenly able to offer full two-way   
   compatibility with Apple’s formerly-proprietary “AirDrop” feature for   
   exchanging files between mobile devices -- the file exchange is done   
   directly, peer-to-peer, without going through any central servers.   
      
   It’s all down to the fact that the EU forced Apple to move away from   
   the completely proprietary low-level radio protocol it was originally   
   using for AirDrop, towards something that was more amenable to exactly   
   the sort of reverse-engineering of the higher-level protocol that   
   Google did.   
      
   Of course Apple did also contribute work towards the new standard,   
   just as it did with USB Type-C; it’s better to be seen to be   
   cooperating with inevitability, rather than futilely trying to fight   
   it tooth and nail.   
      
      
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)