I'm still a little hazy on the "planting seeds to see if anything will grow" part of the mission. And China is hedging it's bet by landing on the dark side so if their probe crashes no body will see it.

It's just a cover story by the UK government to shield the public from the impending Centipede attack. Or maybe they need a large track of land to shoot a beer commercial.

The most impressive thing about the Stuxnet virus was getting it into one of Iran's most secure facilities and loaded into their internal network. A network with no outside connectivity.

It is very relevant to China. Every time they get caught it provides the ammunition the government needs to ban Chinese products entering the US market. It can also lead to sanctions and prohibitions on other technologies that contain Chinese components in the products supply chain. Just ask Kaspersky Labs what happens when the US government decides to declare a company is a national security risk just because they are closely associated with a government hostile to the US.

I am just going to save my money and hold off on experiencing the current iteration of VR tech. I will re-evaluate the technology as soon as someone gets a Holodeck up and running.

The Atlanta airport has had an automated tram for years. Although I think they made a mistake getting rid of the Cylon themed dialect they used for the in-transit announcements. Now it's just another generic female voice.

This is just a common EU shakedown operation used to collect money from any company with deep pockets. And Ireland is appealing the decision rendered by the EU. What's interesting is when Ireland offered Apple various incentives to enlarge it's footprint in the country they were not violating any existing EU rules and regulations at the time.The EU changed the applicable rules and regulations AFTER the Ireland-Apple agreements were formalized. And in this particular case the EU are trying to apply their updated rules and regulations retroactively. Think about the consequences of a governing body being able to create and update laws and regulations and then applying them retroactively.

While it hasn't happened yet I hear Jeff Bezos is well on his way achieving the "all the money in just one pot" goal.

If duct tape doesn't fix your problem then you are not using enough duct tape.

The US has been nickel and dimed by it's trading partners since WW2. Why is it fair for the EU to impose 6% while the US is only imposing 4%?

It included a fairly good list of what facial recognition could be used for if taken to extremes. The big question is whether or not you have the expectation of privacy when walking around in public.

"no plausible mechanism for this to work on type 2"
A few years ago the same thing could have been said about type 1.

Why is SanFranciso or any other city wanting to tax their citizens to fund the fiber upgrades and other communication infrastructure upgrades? California is home to the wealthiest technology companies in the world. Tax them. Google could fund fiber upgrades for the entire state of California with their petty cash. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, MS, Comcast, and every other billion dollar technology company should be required by law to fund the technological infrastructure they depend on to rake in their billions of dollars in profit. If they want to put that type of initiative on any ballot I am pretty sure it would pass by a spectacular margin. If the politicians resist then start looking at the campaign donors for those politicians causing the problem.

The US just needs to use the Chinese playbook when it comes to bending the multi-billion dollar corporations to their will. US companies wanting access to the Chinese markets are required to take on a Chinese partner if they intend to build a presence inside of China. This allows China unfettered access to any IP the corporation uses in their products and services. China isn't stealing IP the corporations are handing their IP over freely all for a chance to sell their products and services in the Chinese market.

The easiest way to create a "Space Force" is to separate the Airforce's US Space Command into it's own entity. The current US Space Command run by the Airforce already tracks 20,000+ objects in orbit trying to head off trouble. The Airforce also runs the current X-37B missions program. Missions the Airforce has been unusually successful in keeping the mission details to themselves. A highly maneuverable and reusable stealthed space drone which would serve as a good orbital ASAT weapons platform.

That sharp knife or "box cutter" threat was a one trick pony. The next person trying that trick will most likely be dog piled by every passenger on the plane. There will probably be a secondary scuffle over who gets to pound on the "terrorist" first. If there is an air marshal present he can sort the secondary brawl out while the rest of passengers can break out their phones and record their own in-flight entertainment and market it as UFC-747.