...years ago. I tossed cable when Netflix was still sending DVDs in the mail (they probably still offer that - I'm not sure). There's no way in hell I'm paying a dime for the crap that's on the cable lineup.

"I've got 1,300 channels of shit on the TV to choose from..." (Pink Floyd, Nobody Home, from The Wall, 1979 -- revised to add double 00's)

@Nerdfest -

I don't know. I have a suspicion that some companies are quite happy to lend a helping hand to the surveillance dragnet. Certainly the Guardian articles pointed to at least one company that was apparently quite willing to cooperate. I'm sure there's either increased revenues or increased chance of securing large government contracts as an incentive for them to comply. Probably the opportunity for big contracts is the bigger piece of the pie.

@hairy -

Some people do that stuff. And some people run large corporations and associations that guard their data and communications quite closely. America is not a homogenous group of pot-heads and sex-crazed teenagers.

Some people are criminal defense attorneys and healthcare law attorneys and civil rights attorneys that are busy suing the government to defend the rights of citizens. You think they want their private emails reviewed by big brother?

@Nerdfest -

Is it FUD if it is "certain" and "beyond doubt" that private companies are taking money from government agencies to help them scoop up your private communications?

Some consumers are large companies. They might think differently than what you have stated.

Too bad that all the other service providers don't look at it the same way as Zimmerman. They apparently see the NSA money as a profit center. Their customer's data is simply something to be monetized in any way possible. All those crap "privacy policy" documents they've mailed to us over the years aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Don't be surprised to see Google, Facebook, Amazon et al, plus all the cloud providers, start showing lowered revenue in the next few financial quarters. As always, consumers will vote with their wallets.

All proprietary software is now a potential carrier of hidden surveillance backdoors - especially if its being developed by Americans. Debian without non-free sources is the way to go.

@Omega Hacker - "Now, if we were talking about something that cost $10 trillion or so, then I might consider it functionally out of reach, as that probably surpasses the net worth of the top several thousand."

When you consider that the elite banker class controls the printing of money, nothing would be out of reach for them if they wanted it. For instance, they propped up the bankrupt US economy for the past 5 years - a project that has cost much more than $10 trillion in "quantitative easing" money (of which amount, STRANGELY, untold billions of those dollars have found their way back into elite banker accounts, while the working class has actually gotten poorer).

@afxgrin - "I don't like their website design, I find it annoying to navigate. :P"

I agree - navigation of the page is horrendous, like a too-busy MySpace page.

However, if they can make these for less than $300, it would make a great outdoor hobby toy. Like back in my youth, when we would spend hours fascinated by our first hand-cranked international weather radio.

@AC 05:12AM -- "zimbabweans have computers?!"

Yes, but most access the internet via internet cafes or mobile devices. The number of Zimbabwean internet users has tripled from 1.5 million to 4.5 million (around 37% of the population) in just the past two years. This number should jump substantially over the next year, as 3G/4G service has grown rapidly - reaching 91% of the population in the past year. A 2010 United Nations survey found the Zimbabwe literacy rate was the highest of all African countries.

@AC 12:27AM -- "Clippy, is that you?"

1995 called - they want their stale jokes back.

@ackthpt -- "Microsoft never had to claw their way to the top, they just bundled, bought up and drove other competition to ruin by immoral business practices."

MS has long had some of the most effective sales teams of any software company in the world. To claim otherwise, or to say that ALL their success was based on "luck" or "immoral business practices" is a serious stretch of the imagination.

@93 Escort Wagon -> "So this is what you end up with - a crappy office experience"

You are leaping too far ahead with your analysis. This is a beta product - clearly not an "end" point. MS has typically done a fair job of improving the user experience over time with their software, and I would expect for them to iron out the bugs in the Office on Android experience.

...FOILED by PRISM. Nice work boys.

You are way off base. I did it in Hermione Granger's voice. Try it - you'll see. And you have to stretch the word "actually" out a bit to do it correctly.