and Firefox continues to be the only browser that supports extensions

Firefox may support a more robust extension model than other browsers, but it certainly isn't the only browser that supports extensions.

Besides, isn't this a form of a Truck System [wikipedia.org]? Which is illegal in many countries, but apparently not in the US.

In most US jurisdictions (while there are federal labor laws, most labor law is state law) a simple truck/scrip system would illegal, but this seems to be designed to skirt around the provisions in the laws which are designed to prohibit such systems. (Particularly, its structured as a deposit into an account with a banking institution that the employee agrees to use.)

So, it probably is technically legal -- or at least close enough to the boundary that those employing it might not unreasonably believe they can get away with it -- in some US jurisdictions, but not because those jurisdictions haven't prohibited truck systems, but because this is a new way of structure employment to have the effects of a truck system without the structural elements that have been prohibited because of past abuses.

I don't understand how this can be legal - fees for withdrawals is basically a pay cut.

In the absense of applicable laws governing the mechanism of payment, the fact that a mechanism of payment results in certain fees for the employee if they choose to use their pay in certain ways isn't illegal. OTOH, I'd expect that most jurisdictions inthe US have adopted some laws that might apply to this, given the former prevalanc eof the extreme form of this -- payment in company scrip only redeemable at face value in the company store (which had heavy markups) and, if redeemable for cash at all, only at a significant discount. (It might be noted that Wal*Mart was recently, in 2008, forced by the Mexican Supreme Court to stop employing that "extreme form" in Mexico, so its pretty clear that if there weren't barriers in the US to the extreme form, we'd still see it.)

At the same time, I suspect this new form is deliberately designed in light of existing laws, though it may well be designed to push them right to the edge and get away with as much as possible (with some risk of getting struck down) rather than being designed to be legally safe for employers.

There have been an ongoing series of Guardian articles that cover much more than what the President addressed in his comments.

Right, but blocking the Guardian isn't acknowledging everything that the Guardian says is true, its acknowledging that there is some classified information there. Which has already been publicly acknowledged by the President and DNI.

Umm, you're aware this is about Chrome OS the operating system, not the web browser, right?

Actually, its about a Native Client extension for the Chrome browser that is currently only available for (and bundled with) the dev channel of Chrome OS.

And by definition, operating systems cannot include applications.

That's a very odd definition. Given that basically every OS ever sold has included applications.

Google needs to prepare for its next anti-monopoly trial if it is going to start bundling app-like functionality in its OS.

Every OS has always included bundled apps. That's not an anti-monopoly problem.

It is an antimonopoly problem if you engage in unfair competition by bundling apps for which there is an existing competitive market with a monopoly OS as the centerpiece of a broader pattern of anticompetitive practices (e.g., prohibiting resellers from including competing apps or removing the bundled app, etc.) designed to extend to the OS monopoly into the market that the bundled app is in.

People who don't really understand what happened in the Microsoft-bundling-IE cases often generalize incorrectly from their misunderstanding of the issues in that case.

Will this get us pixel-perfect wysiwyg editing of Microsoft Documents?

Probably not; heck, even Microsoft Office isn't pixel-perfect wysiwig.

OTOH, QuickOffice, which is what Google is porting to NaCl to do this, is a higher-fidelity editor for the Microsoft Office formats than import-to-Docs, edit, export-as-Office.

Well, if people want it, then they can use it. However, though TFS says "Maybe by the end of year, the functionality will make it into the Chrome browser, too", I really hope it doesn't.

Its worth noting that the new editor is, like the existing Chrome Office Viewer, a Native Client app resulting from porting QuickOffice that is installed-by-default on the supported builds of Chrome OS. I would suspect that, if it "makes it into Chrome browser", it will do so as an app on the Chrome Web Store that Chrome browser users can choose to install or not, as they see fit.

The military has now done what I was told not to, confirming the authenticity of the Guardian report.

The President and the Director of National Intelligence had already confirmed that authenticity of the source materials presented in the Guardian report when they claimed that the Guardian story was misleading on the program because it presented information from that source material selectively and out of context.

So there is nothing confirmed by blocking access to it that hasn't already been confirmed at the highest levels.

You are trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist. Money is tender. Tender is money. There is no difference.

You are trying to ignore a distinction which does exist. The things that need to be transmitted for an entity to be a "money transmitter", under both state and federal law and regulations, are defined in those laws and regulations, and are not restricted to "legal tender". Because the effect of these provisions -- whether state or federal -- are not to regulate what is legal tender, insofar as they can be viewed as defining "money" for their own purposes, it does not touch on the reservation to Congress of the power to make things other than gold and silver "tender for debts".

If you REALLY want to split hairs and get technical, tender is money that is used to PAY for something.

Actually, no. "Tender for debts" is anything that, when given in settlement of a debt that already exists, discharges the obligation associated with that debt. Many circumstances of payment for something don't involve creating a debt (this is generally the case where the contract is accepted by payment.)

And I'll repeat my reply to the others who responded: Constitutionally, it doesn't matter what the Federal government says, if nobody within the States can legally use anything but gold or silver as legal tender.

And this is wrong, the cited provision of Congress reserves to Congress the power to make things other than gold and silver tender for a debt. When Congress does so (as, in fact, it has), courts in the states are obliged, by the Supremacy Clause, to accept that exercise of explicit Constitutional power. ("Use...as legal tender" is somewhat of a garbled concept, because "legal tender" isn't something that an object is used for, it is something that it is recognized as in law; having or lacking legal tender status doesn't affect whether or not you can use something in a particular way, it effects the legal effect of that use should the status of a debt be contested in court.)

These things were put in the Constitution for good reasons.

Yes, they were put in to prevent state-issued non-specie currency and simultaneously to guarantee the power of the federal government to issue non-specie currency.

If one were to accept your argument, the only conclusion would have to be that the founders just threw that in there for laughs.

Incorrect, as already explained. Conversely, if we were to accept your argument that "Constitutionally, it doesn't matter what the Federal government says, if nobody within the States can legally use anything but gold or silver as legal tender" that would require reading the explicit reservation of Congress of the power to declare things other than gold or silver as legal tender as a denial of that power to Congress, which is pretty bizarre, on top of the whole confusion about what "tender for a debt" means.

There is no physicality in the packets being transmitted, therefore no "money" changes hands.

Surprisingly enough, none of the state and federal laws and regulations I've seen covering money transmitters and other money service businesses include a "physicality" requirement, so, while this would be a neat argument if the law actually included this rule, as it is it seems to be a rule invented just for the convenience of making the argument, not one which actually relates to the applicable legal reality.

If SETI@Home "units completed" points were called "BitCoins" instead, would the Treasury be going after them?

The applicable laws are much more concerned with how things are used than what they are called.

If they're going to claim that the Bitcoin Foundation is engaged in the business of money transmission, wouldn't it be because they consider them to be the "operator of a payment system"

No; for one thing, I doubt very much that, insofar as it could be considered "an operator of a payment system", it would not be one that operates "between or among people excluded by this section". You seem to have skipped right over that limitation.

Having said that: the same clause in the Constitution prohibits States from recognizing the current U.S. dollar (fiat money) as "money", too

The provision says nothing about "recognizing" or "money", it says something about "making" and "tender in payment of debts". The states do not "make" the US dollar legal tender, Congress did that, as it is power under the Constitution; the states merely follow the federal law in recognizing the result of that act, as they are obligated to under the Supremacy Clause.

In order for California to consider it as money, it would have to declare Bitcoin to be "money", but the Constitutional explicitly prohibits it from doing that.

No, the Constitution prohibits California from making bitcoin "a tender in payment of debts".

It doesn't prohibit California for considering it "money" in the context of any rule where being "money" doesn't make it legal tender.

Not that that matters, because the rules which set the definition of money transmitter that California is applying are federal rules, and they treat any "value that substitutes for currency" the same way as "currency" or "funds", and the federal agency responsible for enforcing the regulations has already detailed their application to de-centralized exchanges of virtual currencies, so, even if there was an issue of the reserved federal power to define legal tender involved, California would be fine because it is simply following the Feds, not establishing its own definition.

MTGOX doesn't transfer money, it exchanges money for goods. Unless California is saying Bitcoin is a legitimate currency.

California is applying the rules of the federal regulations on money services businesses, which require state licensure of money transmitters. Those regulations -- 31 CFR Sec. 1010.100(ff)(5)(i)(A) -- define a "money transmitter" as one who provides "the acceptance of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency from one person and the transmission of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency to another
location or person by any means."

Bitcoin doesn't need to be a "legitimate currency" for an exchange which accepts dollars, keeps accounts in dollars and bitcoins, exchanges one for the other, and transmits dollars and bitcoins back to people to qualify as a money transmitter under the rules.