it is the routine unwarranted (as in "without a warrant") usage, which gives me creeps.

The unwarranted use is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled warrants (or exceptions to the need for warrants, like exigent circumstances) applies to radar like this a while ago. Like over a decade.

But nice to see Illiberals confounded by the dilemma of "taxes are good" vs. "government surveillance is bad"...

It's no dilemma. I never said "every government program is perfect." I said, "cherry-picking the dumbest example of something to argue against all instances is wrongheaded". In much the same way that I don't respond to your current post, and every one of your posts, by looking through your history, choosing your dumbest statement, and repeating a totally coherent and unambiguous rebuttal of it. Each act should be addressed on its own merits.

That doesn't mean the police should be free to use it at any time, at their own discretion.

They're not. The Supreme Court ruled in the early 2000's that the police require a warrant for FLIR and wall-pentrating radar.

I suppose that doesn't make for a good headline: Police acquire new tech for performing searches; searches still require warrant!

Huh, controversial use of tax dollars (and a very small percentage of tax dollars) implies that all taxes are bad? I didn't realize we took the worst reported use as the standard use.

Like Bernie Madoff proved that capitalism didn't work? Or that plane crash in San Fran meant planes were dangerous? Or a particularly cold winter means global warming isn't real?

And even then, when used with a warrant, I see this as preferable to a bunch of cops rounding corners, getting scared and shooting.

My assumption is they meant complete payment information for a credit card. So 16 digits, plus 3 digit code, plus expiration date, plus name on card (maybe plus zip code??). It could easily be 60 characters on average, and although most of that is numeric information that could be highly compressed, that could easily be the costs of a naive implementation.

Everyone gets all adamant about drawing a distinction between theft and copyright violation when we're talking about the MAFIAAs; can we please apply a consistent standard to cases when it's ordinary users being "stolen" from

Well, the difference is actually important. In one case, the data is being published and intended to be published, it's just a matter of optimizing compensation models. That is, the reason people object to copyright infringement is the potential loss of a sale. . In the other, the person's privacy is being breached, so something is in fact getting lost.

Or, to use an analog, it's the difference between sharing photos that were in Playboy, and sharing photo's copied off an unsuspecting person's device.

Well, if it can run Android apps, that removes a major impediment to buying a Windows Phone. They need apps one way or another. This seems a better solution than playing developers to fill p the ecosystem.

Then, they can offer 2x the hardware for the same price, or whatever to build marketshare.

Then, they can extend. "Dear developers, now that 1/2 of your Android customers are running Windows Phones, maybe you want to make use of advanced features X,Y,Z"

A killer feature for me would be if they allowed more control over the device. Of couse, I don't think they will, but that's what I would want.

. It's the fact that most of the apps suck

Borrowing a page from Linux/WINE, I heard they were building native Android apps support into the newest version of Windows. Which would make tons of sense. Sideload apps, or get people to port to the store for almost no commitment. With MS's resources, and Android's openness, they could make a 100% compatible emulation layer (they're very good at compatibility management).

Since he's actually being interviewed by them, the spelling is less objectionable than kibitz not being the right word at all. He's involved, not a spectator.

All the while Google has extremely vulnerable versions of it's old stock browser on older but still for sale Android phones that it openly states that it will not patch.

FTFY

It's easy to argue against the stupidist implementation of a rule. Add in some human judgement, and they system is remarkably easy to solve. "Releasing in 106 days because at 88 days we found the cure was worse than the problem" is so qualitatively different from "it's in our lone developer's backlog" that it's a laughable claim that they are confusable.

See also, zero-tolerance policies in schools?

I'm not sure how unreasonable this is. "Over the weekend, promise to error on the side of the rules until we figure out, on Monday, if you did anything wrong. Otherwise we have take more drastic actions to ensure your children are safe til then".

Seems analogous to "give us money, or we'll have to throw you in a prison to ensure you show up on your court date, to figure out if you did anything wrong." only non-costly. Just "promise to error on the side of anal".

Now, that isn't to comment on the stupidity of getting involved in this particular case. Although likely there is no discretion until the review as soon as a complaint is made, for a variety of good reasons based on avoiding past horror stories.

That one guy pointed out the fact that no actual evidence had been presented, just circumstantial evidence.

It's tough to judge based on that description. But enough circumstantial evidence is evidence.

Aren't jurors who know the defendant supposed to, I don't know, get disqualified?

No, they do it immediately. While reminding everyone that that version of Android is no longer supported, and they really should buy a new device.

If only there was some way of using past performance by specific companies to establish whether exceptions are reasonable or not, given their past behavior of (a) asking for them, (b)delivering after receiveing the 1 month extentions.

That would take some company that could accumulate and parse data unfortunately.