DuckDuckGo does not license Google's results. "It combines data from hundreds of sources including Wolfram Alpha, Wikipedia and Bing, with its own web crawler, to surface the most relevant results." (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-google-alternative-search-privacy)

I think Jitsi Meet is easy to use and would be a good starting point for the Meething. Mozilla does not need to reinvent what is already out there.

Looking over the table, it looks like Wickr is the one program that meets the criteria the best. It is not FedRAMP approved and it does not have "voice conferencing" (what about "video conferencing" with the camera blocked). No other program did as well. Signal came close.

True only if you are one of the Chinese elite.

More information can be found in this Wired article. What is interesting to me is that hardware and the "app layer" is now more important than the "OS layer". At Microsoft, the Linux kernel is appearing in many places. Now Microsoft is going to produce an Android "phone". I am amazed at how Microsoft has changed in the last 10-20 years.

"It is not a bug. It is a feature." (It is the backdoor Putin needs to guarantee his continued control of Russia.)

Twenty years ago David Brin wrote "The Transparent Society", where he argues that cameras are already everywhere (20 years ago), and since the genie is out of the bottle the solution is to let every one view the cameras that are the street corners. This way it is not just for the government or the rich but everyone can hold everyone else accountable for their actions. He likes his privacy, but if there are going to be cameras outside watching, he would rather have the same access to the cameras as the police, the landowners, or the rich. It is an interesting idea.

It is interesting what motivates Facebook and what does not motivate them.

The way I see it, Google has decided that they can save some money by saving some space, and that 3 months of data will get just about all the relevant data they need from you. And at 18 months they have all relevant data, confirmed and verified. Beyond 18 months of data, it is not worth it for them to save the data. That is what I think they must be thinking.

The practical implications of Article 13 depend heavily on how they're implemented. If Article 13 becomes law, its vague text will need to be transposed into detailed regulations in every member country. Then those regulations will need to be interpreted by judges

The devil will be in the implementation details and the interpretation of the law. A harsh rendering of the law would be something to worry about, but a tech-friendly rendering would require only minor adjustments.to what is now done.

I think the commerical announcing the Mac was one the best commericals ever, if not the best. I remembered it well even though it would be many many years later before I saw the commercial again.

I have noticed some slowness with the loading of Google sites with Firefox. I think these changes are also affecting Firefox. My initial reaction to slow loading gmail was to wonder how did the Firefox team mess up this up, but when I got thinking that it was very unlikely that they would not test on such a popular site. I then wanted to blame Comcast, my provider, but that also seemed unlikely with other sites loading okay. This makes a lot more sense. Come on Google, you can do better!

Thank you for posting a link about electric car subsidies. It appears to be true that Slashdot readers do not click the links and read the articles. I had to scroll a long ways to find this link. Thanks for posting the link.

I agree with what you are saying, however I think the business environment has changed, not so much Microsoft. Microsoft has always been about maximizing profits. Twenty years ago they were the big 800 lb gorilla. They did what they wanted to make more money. Today they are competing in a field of equals and they are trying to remain relevant with the new computing paradigms. So now they have to behave nicely to maximize profits. They decided that joining OIN was worth more than the royalties they would have collected from OIN members. I believe they will still try to collect royalties from non-OIN companies. It is all about the money.