How else would I keep up with all the "someone just called you a cunt on slashdot" alerts I get on my phone? Oh, just wear a bluetooth headset around all the time? Good way to not look like a complete fucking toolbag! /sarcasm. No thanks, I would rather throw money at the smartwatch company. If you don't want one, don't buy one. However, the absence of a use case isn't a use case for absence. Or, in case you need it in plain fucking English, there's no fucking way you are smart enough to tell everyone else they don't need one.

At this point the embargo is there solely for the "I'm right as long as I don't admit I was wrong" effect. In that regard, it is highly effective. The other possible explanation is to serve as a warning to others (i.e. nations with resources we might actually want, such as Bolivia, Venezuela, etc) such that they know any further steps toward socialism would lead to economic disaster even worse that what they have already endured.

Sure I would (I do already, actually, regardless of financial incentives) but this isn't about me.

What good would this be, why not just use the existing method of locking the phone while it's in motion? Or, do you mean to have a way for all other phones in the vehicle to somehow also pair and abide by the steering wheel hand sensor, thereby allowing passengers to text only when the driver is being "safe"? Why not just have a working phone act as a key to the car, which then becomes locked (presumably its the driver's phone) and therefore who ever isnt the driver has a working phone still? Better yet, have electronic "driving gloves" in the car that are required to have hands firmly in them in order for the engine to run, which will naturally stop the user from being able to operate a touchscreen while driving (unless they have a blackberry or happen to be Bennett Hasselton, two punishments worth more than the crime of texting while driving anyway.)

The unfortunate thing is that drivers have a really endless list of dangerous shit they can do behind the wheel (ghost riding the whip, anyone?) and passengers do, too (watch any given episode of tosh.0 for hints) so bending over backwards to stop serial texters is probably not worth the trouble. Give cops good ways to spot and cite it, let the offenders get penalized, and if they dont stop then take their license away. Pretty simple, really. Alcohol, at least, has a chemically addictive component that isn't easily forsaken which calls for more specific punishment to encourage rehabilitation. Texting and driving is perhaps only rehabilitated if you take away the offender's friends.

If you're like a lot of people, you carry a backpack/computer case with you on a regular basis. Keeping your phone safely inside that bag for most circumstances would be a benefit, freeing your pockets of the burden. You could still receive/triage incoming communications while the phone was tucked away. "Nearby" for a well designed bluetooth transceiver is 30-45 feet which is enough to keep you from having to unsheathe your phone in most circumstances. If you're worried about EIRP from carrying a phone on your body, this is a clear win for the smartwatch (assuming the watch is good about TX power management).

Not until the health/life insurance companies start offering incentives to wear and heed a smartwatch's fitness advice. Given the recent findings correlating sitting for extended periods with poor health outcomes (even for those that exercise and have an otherwise "fit" life) , a smartwatch that guided the user to the right level of daily activity could significantly reduce their risk of many chronic diseases later in life and thereby reduce the cost profile for insurers.

They are OK with ignition interlocks that could easily be defeated if a non-inebriated passenger were to provide the breath for analysis. The idea is to put a barrier in front of a known offender, not to properly filter the actions of would-be offenders. One would think that this sort of reform/punishment would be offered in lieu of alternatives (i.e. you can get your license back in half the time, if you agree to have your phone locked/monitored) such that you can opt out, if you want to receive the normal punishment.

If you don't care that the data is "gone for good" then a split encryption system is not needed, just a thorough erasure system (which is where an escrowed sum comes into play, to cover the cost of a third party service performing on-site wiping of all hard drives with customer data in the event of bankruptcy). I also do not know of a single cloud provider that does this today, the cost difference at scale of a cloud solution vs a managed hosting solution is not that great, so a company with truly invaluable data will choose the latter and retain all control. Hopefully one or more all-cloud platforms will come forward with solutions like this in the future.

It seems that considering all the other hurdles, an internal pulse-oximeter and manometer would be an easy feature to build in. No doubt it will have some sort of feedback loop with the body, but perform better when a profile is loaded knowing what to expect (say, extended running vs extended sitting around). To your point about security, the real problem isn't that it is well designed today, but is it considered well designed still in ten years? Wifi protocols have a pretty serious history of security-breaking vulnerabilities discovered after only a few years of use (see WEP and WPA first gen) so it would be good to know that a new organ won't be obsoleted in 10 years and need replaced else it become a security risk.

Like, a contract to escrow the cost of the wiping and/or returning of all relevant hardware to the original owner? There are plenty of precedents in contract law to mitigate risk in the case of bankruptcy. Just because you can't think of them doesn't mean they aren't there.

Of course they aren't documenting their ability to subvert anonymity on Tor. It is probably the most powerful weapon an intelligence agency can wield right now. The rather simple (but un-falsifiable) fact is that with enough relay and exit nodes owned by one entity (and ownership is deliberately un-attributable) you can pretty effectively de-anonymize it by attrition (there are a few protocol weaknesses too, that allow you to leverage a lot of hosts). The only clue an outside observer might have that it is happening is inorganic changes in the network layout (i.e. a lot of nodes going online or offline) signalling a large single controller is at work. Luckily, at least this avenue is covered and you can see via the Tor Metrics portal what is going on across the network, and infer occasional events (like the de-anonymizing attack this past spring).

Taking your infrastructure planning cues from SimCity2000 isn't the best way to arrive at practical solutions.

Ahem, free market requires lack of collusion. No one is stopping Casio, et.al from making a competitive product that does the same thing but costs 1/10th as much, except apparently they don't want to bother or are choosing to do it just differently enough that the learning curve is unattractive to prospective buyers. Maybe $150 for an educational product that is well thought out and well supported isn't over the top after all? What's amazing is that there isn't a 1:1 TI-84 clone from AliExpress that sells for $9 shipped (from Hong Kong.) The usually on-the-ball knockoff kings in China who can clone a new model of iPhone in 60 days for 30% of the cost aren't even bothering to go after what is allegedly a hugely profitable product? Something is fishy with the premise here.

You are so right. And to any parents who find the problem with this (what problem? wait for it...) I will sell you a TI-84 Simulator for your iPad that perfectly recreates the UI of the calculator that your little snowflake will need to master in order to get into college, and it won't even be that expensive! $49.95 should do the trick. Paypal or bitcoin, thx.