I was taught this at college by a lawyer in Legal Issues for the Musician 1 - Contract Law. Unless you're a lawyer too or can provide proof of what you're saying I will continue under that assumption. Also, I don't appreciate your tone. Let's keep it civil, thanks.

I don't get this ultimate desire for privacy. Who the hell cares where you go? What does it matter if you aren't committing a crime? You are no one. The government has bigger fish to fry. Just because they can track you doesn't mean they are the least bit interested in doing so until you pop up on their radar.

Because there isn't one. Tracking student attendance is commonplace and has been for many years. Tracking student location is also commonplace. This device simply automates it. Now if she can make a case based on her religion then good on her but the right to privacy is usually suspended while on campus. In my district, this took the form of a signed agreement form by parent and student agreeing that, while on school property and/or time, the Code of Conduct superseded legal rights. You can sign away legal rights in a contract. It isn't dehumanizing and many workplaces use RFID cards to restrict access to sensitive areas and to keep track of who is coming into the building. There is a lot of FUD surrounding this kind of thing and so long as these are limited to schools and workplaces I fail to see any problem.

I don't think this will spread quite like that. That would require creative thought and, in my experience, school administrators tend to be lacking in that lately.

I generally agree with you but currently the law differs and I was saying it within that context.

As a fairly recent graduate (2007) of a public school system, when we were told "at all times" by the school it universally meant "while on school property" because they simply cannot (and should not) enforce anything outside of those boundaries. Where I live, the school system seems to be pretty good about that and will only investigate cyber-bullying and other off-campus issues if they bleed onto the campus in the form of dramatically decreased performance or increased violence. I read the article under the (I would consider reasonable) assumption that this school system operates similarly. I also do not generally trust the website that it came from so I take what they say with a grain of salt to account for extreme conservative spin.

It may well violate her religious beliefs for which she should be exempt and it has long been the case that students' 4th Amendment rights are suspended while on campus at a public school. Since the ID only applies during school hours, is not implanted and is not actively transmitting her location, I fail to see this problem. It isn't dehumanizing to keep track of students on campus, it is responsible. It isn't a violation of her privacy as on school grounds you have relatively little. It isn't eavesdropping on her personal conversations. It's to keep students from cutting class! Nothing more. Can someone please explain why this is a problem?

Yes. TBO.com as in Tampa Bay Online the website of WFLA (the local NBC affiliate) and the Tampa Tribune. Nothing fake about the site.

Personally, I use mine in class for note taking and various other on-topic tasks. I find that I can keep up with the professor when I type than when I write by hand. It is also useful for when the teacher has an example of something posted to the college's course management site; on my laptop I can look at it closely rather than look at an image projected on a screen. What bothers me are the people who used them for something other than school-related tasks while in their classroom. Same with texting and the like. Laptops, used properly can enhance the classroom experience and discussion.

The point of this device is that the people using them don't have a choice. If I read the site correctly, the main idea is for underpriviledged people and people in semi-developed nations would be using this to access information in a way that they otherwise would not be able to.

Why indeed. It seems to me that the most profitable and smart solution is to have "trim levels" for the PS3 (or any game console for that matter) separate from the hard drive size. At launch, if I recall, the PS3 was about $800 US. It could replace the following hardware: Blu-ray player, DVD player, CD player, PS1, PS2, PC (taking advantage of the Linux option), Anything that has a PPC emulator for Linux (NES, Sega, etc.), DVR (so I've heard), and possibly others in one box.

It was the ideal machine for people in cramped living quarters (like are common in Japan). Replacing all of those things with an $800 device seems perfectly reasonable to me and is exactly why I wanted a PS3. However, not every person wants to drop $800 on a gaming console with all those bells and whistles which is fine.

Because people weren't spending the money, those devices were removed from regular production and features began to be dropped. This is where Sony went wrong and why it took this long to be profitable. Instead, a base model and one with slight upgrades from the base, should have been the ones available in stores making the bulk of the money. Then, online, higher grades should have been available on special order that could do all of these things for the people who wanted (or needed) it.