The end-user can opt-out. It's written into the law (suggested configuration and opt-out during initial device setup). Manufacturers cannot. I found the definition of "Sold in California" to be pretty broad, it includes buying a phone online with a shipping destination in California. Good luck enforcing that one. The law seemed fairly reasonable as written. It's stupid to a point, considering Android and iOS are both doing this. It's a lot like California trying to look tough by demanding what's already being done, which is to say the bill's authors showing off and adding some bullet points to their resumes for next election.

Having cars include technology that prevents collisions pretty much means "receiving remote information and making decisions". Maybe that isn't commands, but it's pretty easy to imagine "information" that would make the car think the only safe course is a full stop (e.g. there's a row of stopped cars directly in front of you).

I was waiting for that whitehouse announcement to make /. by itself. I guess we just lump that in with google speeding now? I had about the same reaction. The government mentioned things like "anonymous" but we all know that's a joke. Whatever protocol they come up with will still need some UID to identify the specific car so you know that there are two cars side by side right behind you and not one car bouncing back and forth due to GPS reflections. Then it's just an SQL join to connect you with all the other data mining. Even if they didn't already know the UID/license# pairing, a few trips by a traffic camera solves that. And then there's your idea, the police just sending your car an "OMG! There's another car RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! BRAKE! BRAKE!". And then the hackers idea, once they break the digital signature so they can report their own fake data. Actually, that would be kind of nice when I want the car in front of me to move out of the way. Maybe I shouldn't knock the government's idea. I can probably live with old used cars the rest of my life...

It's not like they provide NO information. You can check out their website for FREE and see that the reduction test was done in a fixed size room over fixed time and plots the particulates over time. http://smartairfilters.com/ind.... I won't kid you, it's marketing material, but their graphs are totally better than the ones I've seen on your Tiger-Rock. They also mentioned in TFA that the $33 is for parts costs. Probably just another trick from these shysters.

I totally agree with the malicious compliance, only I'm glad to see Google doing it. This is a stupid law that seems vaguely like DMCA for removing true information that violates no one's copyright. The EU was nice enough to let Google (pay an army of paralegals to) make a first pass at figuring out which things violated their general terms, so I'm glad Google's using that freedom to point out ludicrous examples before people have forgotten all about this new censorship.

Almost all of my purchased media these days is because of my daughter. She goes over to friends houses and grandmas and other grandmas and brings with her movies to watch. Streaming is still so locked down in the draconian, paranoid past that they've only barely made it convenient for me to do in my own home/network/devices. It's no where near convenient enough to "take with you". Also, there's little to no cost savings for all the downsides.

I was kind of excited about Google Wallet, but it's been almost entirely a disappointment. The one place I semi-regularly have a chance to use it is at Jack in the Box, but the NFC scanner is attached to the credit card reader, and some miscreant cut the cable between the credit card reader and the machine. This has no impact on the function of the NFC scanner, mind you, yet each time I tell them I'm paying with my phone they inform me it's broken because someone cut the cable. I've shown them it still works, but every single time I get a new person who thinks it doesn't (or the same person who's forgotten) and I have to argue with them that it does actually work. I gave up. Now I just hand them my card through the window. Less arguing, thus faster. This is pretty much true even without scanner damage, too. "I'd like to pay with my phone." "What? You can do that? I don't know. What do I hit?" "Nevermind. Here's the plastic rectangle you know what to do with." Also, I'm still waiting on the solution to include those other wallet things: license, insurance cards, train pass. Some things are *almost* there.. like my train pass actually uses NFC, but there's no way to have the pass on my phone that has NFC. My insurance cards are no more "secure" than a photocopy of them, but storing pictures of the cards in my phone is going to be a tough sell when the Dr's office wants to make their own photocopy. Police can always look up your license, so a picture might be okay there, but not as proof of legal age at a bar or liquor store. So yeah.. what does it do for me? Still have to carry the same number of things and makes nothing go faster and some things even slower.

Probably because he only had one data point? Since the example site was selling furniture, I doubt his argument was that the blocking was due to content restrictions. And what scale would *you* expect even if it was due to content? You sound very sure that there's no linear correlation, but we don't even know how he selected the domains he tried (random vs. alphabetic vs. ip order). He at least used the phrase "if the same proportion holds", while you assert that "certainly" wouldn't be the case. So I guess I'm more curious why you are so sure it can't be linear.

At the very least, I take from his argument that comcast doesn't do a good job with it's DNS service (intermittent failures + missing records) and provides no recourse for small businesses who are being excluded for whatever reason from being easily reachable on the internet. I'm going to go on continuing to hate them, without the but.

Me too. It seems to work like this: Release A. Wait for government to say, "Okay. Sure. We did A. But that's it." Then, release B. "Okay. Sure. We did A and B. But that's it." It really makes the government look bad to have to revise its denials all the time. Plus, the slow release helps fight the "Look! Shiny!" defense. If you released everything at once, they could then distract us with a couple scandals and the media would never go back to this issue.

Thanks for your comment, gave me something to look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNIL :) I'm still unsure on the language of the complaint, but I suppose the privacy laws may specifically outlaw connecting separate databases without some legally defined justification, and Google hasn't provided a legal basis that would grant them an exclusion. Of course I'm no expert either, especially in the field of French law. I wish one of those reporters would flush out the specific violation in this area.

Isn't France that country where "everything is allowed, unless strictly forbidden?" I'm fine with the notion Google didn't notify people enough, but why is unifying their data between services inherently illegal?

I had the same thought! I'd mod you up but I can't. Instead, I'll just add that this seems to be a general trend. Developing for the end-user seems like a thing of the past. Instead it's what do the carriers want? What do the content producers want? What does the government want? At least they didn't create an NSA Advisory group (yet)?

I think there are two sets of numbers here. The spent $135M out of $208M for DMV upgrades before canceling. In another example, they spent $254M out of a $371M for payroll system upgrade before canceling it. Still, I'm not sure I would find it surprising to learn the government had spent more than the total after only completing half the work. :)

Still, monthly increments imply that the user will still be aware of the cost of the phone. Unlike the bulk of US operators where different phones are subsidized at different rates, with the user left with the impression that all phones cost either $0, $99, or $199. In this case, I expect the user will see:

iPhone: $99 up front + $X/month for 24 months + Service Fee
iPhone: $600 up front + Service Fee
Nexus4: $299 up front + service Fee


And yes, I think that will create a significant change in customer behavior. At least at T-mobile.

I think, like me, the original poster is a former Nokia employee, not just a user.