This happens when there is a third party between a user and business. Google controls when and if the user gets to you. At one point it will take over your services and user will not even notice (actually they will be happy to receive faster answers in more unified way).

And that is only the beginning - with everybody jumping on voice inputs, AIs and such. At one point most of the internet sites providing information will be made obsolete because "order food" or "what is the ...?" will be answered/fulfilled right away by your phone or whatever device will use Google API or Apple API without any chance that the user will ever see the origin of the information or the service provider behind it...

It will be just a user-phone (Google, Apple, Samsung) interaction and somewhere on the backend there will be inter-changeable swarm of slave (businesses in very tough near perfect competition environment running on near 0-profit margins) service providers for big names owning the API gates. Dim future is ahead.

I am dealing with similarly sized project for last 13 years. Our workflow is different though. We have continuous updates (no batch updates) when it comes to bug fixing. We use our in-house Project Management system.

- Client sends a request/bug report, our team creates new Task in our PM and
- assigns it to department/programmer
- programmer fixes it, tests it on Devel version puts the task to QC status
- QC team tests described problem and greenlights deployment
- programmer deploys/merges the fix into the live version and puts the task to Completed
- QC team re-tests live version and notifies client of completed task

Although there are few levels of fixes

- trivial - we skip the QC status/QC test in the middle, programmer fixes it, tests it and deploys it with setting it to Completed which trigers QC team test and client's notification (really super trivial fixes, text typos etc.)

- complex - when developing complex new features we freeze the deployment (blocking task) of other patches while the complex task is in QC status to avoid any conflicts during subsequent deployment - QC status ensures that the problem is tested by QC team in exact state it will be deployed and there will not be competing patches deployed before this one. But it blocks other patches. This one has high priority in our PM and gets fast-tracked before every other patch.

There are many draw backs of every scenario but we try to keep healthy balance between speed/flexibility and super-stability. This yields good results. But the PM (project management) with good prioritization and tracking features is essential. It solves the problems with deployment/testing...

Now you never fully own things. They are always co-owned by sellers/IP owners... You need to share your former rights with them. You must agree how will you share the thing you bought - if you want to use it, you can, if you want to fix it, only they can, if you don't need it then you must destroy it or return (you cannot resell many things like games and such)

You don't really own things anymore. Marx is half-happy because we are half-way there!

> Google had the address on file because I had included it in my personal Google Maps settings. It did not ask my permission to share that.

Well I like those folks who enter all personal information into... and they whine "nobody asked my permission"...

Don't you know that if you feed that Internet Beast with your information it will chew it up, swallow it and transform it in a poop that you may not like? And it won't ask if it can poop your precious personal info?

By nature AI censoring (moderating or also so called recommendation systems) work on premise that only information "you/author likes" are permissible. And there is the danger because the ultimate goal is to leave only comments (ads/recommendations) that are totally in line with given topic/desire/need/view...

Now imagine the site of the fundamental extremist - in that context AI will ban all moderate comments as they will be deemed "toxic" by extremists leaving only comments supporting the fundamentalists point of view and thus driving fundamental extremists even further to maybe suicidal fatalists...

On vegan sites the AI will ban all meat-eaters. On meat-eaters sites it will ban all vegans. On communists sites it will ban all capitalists and on totalitarian sites all democrats... and as the result this type of AI (which also Facebook uses to show you posts on YOUR wall) will harden your believes and it will turn you into fundamentalist vegan, meat-eater, communist, capitalist, totalitarian, democrat... With mass deployment of this technology it will strip you off of so much needed confrontation with "the other side" that is so much important in shaping your world-view and understanding the depth. Now they are trying to make you happy by giving you only views and points you want and turning you into unchallenged extremist in your own believes.

That is the biggest threat to society so I believe it should be truly regulated because "toxic" can be easily mistaken by AI just for "the other point of view".

I bet that China LOVES this idea! No censors... just AI that will do the job in a way that it will censor unwanted content "nobody would have flagged at all". That is totalitarian dream! Great ways to put AI to use for the benefit of mankind. Mark, congratulations for your achievement.

I am sure we will hear about this technology soon but we may not like the news.

I suggest having standardized JAVA-Doc-like syntax where users can rate functions and add virtual likes/dislikes to whatever code they want.

Because what is better code then a code that does the job (nobody has to fight with it), is readable, understandable, manage-able... simply code that users (other programmers) like to use?

S why not to have /**
  * ...
  * @rating elixon +1 Some optional comment.
  * ...
  */

That way one can even identify problem parts in a code that are difficult to work - that slow down other programmers so it can be refactored... :-) I would love it. I would give my @rating thumbs up and down like crazy...

"The territorial principle (also territoriality principle) is a principle of public international law under which a sovereign state can prosecute criminal offences that are committed within its borders." [wikipedia]

I would say that those women committed the picture-crime on US-based servers - no against US law. But the policemen viewing the pictures from Iran committed the immoral thing of viewing uncovered "US-based" pictures in Iran - against Iran law. I say let's sue those indecent Iranian policeman!

By the nature of the demo it is clear what they aim at.

4 demoed transactions in 2 minutes: 1. show weather, 2. spend money on tulips, 3. spend money on hotel, 4. spend money on cab. VIV obviously stands for
Valuable Information Value.

Definitely something you will not install on your wife's phone.

Mozilla should reinvent the browser again. Browser is what makes Mozilla. If they don't clean it up it wont be successful anywhere else. If they make it work it will span into other areas like IoT, mobile phones, cars... naturally by people willing to use it for their projects.

Trying to push broken/sluggish/buggy software beast into those areas using heavy investments of resources that Mozilla needs elsewhere is management's misstep.

I am the user of this browser since Phoenix 0.5 (not to mention Netscape before). But it is lately that I started slow migration to Chrome. It all started with inability to use debug tools properly (not working, misleading debugger, extremely slow responses) then terrible video performance on Youtube and crashes and UI freezes... The only reason I use FF on Android is because it supports extensions.

It is sad to hear something like this from myself - me, die-hard Firefox fan.

Is it THAT Hern of R3 CEV consortium comprising of 30 world banks? :-) Well. I completely believe him. He says... expected things.

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/3...

This article reads that we must procreate to preserve economic viability and competitiveness.

"My dear, it is time to tell you the truth. The reason you were born is not because daddy loves mummy but because we want our nation to stay competitive and economically viable. Love, your economically stable parents & your government"