I find it really ironic that Google, a company so used to being the new hotness upstart company, is so willfully ignoring usage patterns of a significant minority comprising "the youth" and people on the wrong side of the internet divide, and much of the third world, and anyone without a data plan outside of wifi range.

What these people have in common is they use sms or some form of text-like DM instead of email, so email notifications sit in an unread inbox and are effectively useless. Syncing calendars is fine as long as each individual maintains their own calendar, but sms is one of the nice ways to notify individual attendees without some major calendar confab.

For example, my kid's french tutor uses Google calendar for scheduling, and if you load the calendar it shows *every* person scheduled on that calendar, which is great for finding available spots, but it's not something you would leave visible. Turn it off/non-visible, and you lose web notifications. However, at present each person gets an sms notification for their appointment, even if they turn the calendar off. Sooo.... Google expects every person on a shared calendar to leave that calendar active at all times in order to receive web or email notifications, which are likely ignored if not disabled?

It's a tone-deaf move. Personally, I use sms to ensure my kids get the notification no matter what, and this downgrade will result in all sorts of ignored events and missed appointments. One workaround, at least for t-mobile, is to email the notification to 800YOURNUM@tmomail.net ....tho there was some talk of the service being taken down to avoid abuse.

For an individual or small group, I won't assume malice where incompetence or failure is an entirely viable explanation.
For a large group, inhuman malice towards individuals is generally indistinguishable from studied and successful neutrality.

Why? Because open naivete and narrow cynicism are both excellent spices, but neither fills the stomach.

Note to Obama: You are being lied to.

Seriously, and trying to sidestep most of the political angles: This is what happens when a person with authority collects a small set of advisers -- in an effort to cut noise/increase focus/get to data-driven decisions -- and then those advisers are not challenged or regularly rotated or infused with new thinking.

This instance pains me, partly because by my citizenship I'm on the wrong end of the Patriot Act aka "Putin's Law" ...but even more because I make my living by gathering and giving security and privacy advice on both the technical and compliance sides. When Obama's not even getting the quality of mid-market commercially-available advising, we're all in deep doo-doo.

To wit:
- Let's get real: metadata IS the data. Who/when/how/where you called is just as important as the what/why content of the call. The ears don't get much more totalitarian than this, we just don't have totalitarian fists yet. (Oh wait... *watches news about street cops outfitted with combat armaments and light tanks, then acquitted for movie-style executions*)
- NSA's collection of citizen's communication data and metadata have not led to even one single foiled terrorist plot. Not one. It's not even the right model to catch the stuff we know about in hindsight. The only reliable detection tool for decades has been manual notification by family and friends to authorities, and there's still no good unified repository and workflow system to handle it.
- There are multiple documented instances of abuse where the collected information was too tempting for federal employees not to do something stupid or illegal or both. (LOVEINT is almost funny, but multiple instances of commercial espionage have been alleged and documented.) If we amass this kind of information, people will use it for whatever purpose they imagine -- justified or illicit -- because admitting there's no legitimate function is the worst option of all.
- In the big picture, total security really does obliterate freedom. How I wish we could discuss that without hyperbole. Maybe we could stay grounded by involving the French, who are further into a discussion about how overreaction to Muslim immigration will destroy their governing principles as effectively as any perceived human threat.
- It deeply troubles me that Obama appears to have no better tech-sourced intel than 3rd tier CEOs buying security guidance from consultancies with 800 number to a sales guy and $150/hr bill rate.

What a sad state of affairs.

I'm horrified, partly because I'm on the verge of buying a BB Passport. It's the best thing they've done in years, and since playing with SWMBO's (she bought one instead of a galaxy edge, after much comparison). The BB has a nice android implementation, simple hack to add the Google apps, better security and sandboxing of droid apps, and real keys with a touch surface that flows right onto the 1440x1440 touchscreen. Oh, and all that stuffy Blackberry stuff. It's a truly awesome piece of hardware. And now Redmond wants to gut 'em for their IP portfolio and security reputation?

In the mobile market, Microsoft is like King Midas in reverse: everything they touch turns to shit.* But this isn't a rant about Microsoft, it's a worry that Blackberry -- having done the amazing job of pulling out of the total nosedive they were in -- might get stomped just as they level out, and ship something even better. What a disappointment that would be.

*apologies to Tony Soprano

Yes, kitchen counter space is limited. And toolbox space, and desks, and dressers, etc etc. Keurig has a functional niche (places where mess is intolerable or there's no one to clean it up, like medical lobby or a low-use office), but their marketing has convinced a broader market that it's too cool not to have one. It won't last. Already there's blowback about the amount of waste produced by this particular device, and popularity is waning... just like most other uber-popular single-use doohickeys.

In order to survive past initial novelty-driven sales, a single-purpose/non-flexible device had better be utterly awesome at what it does, and seriously durable in both function and regularity of need. That's why the regular pan stays while the egg-magic pan goes to Goodwill (not durable, don't want eggs every day), and virtually every Rolodex has been replaced by a free app on a general-purpose portable computing device (not flexible, need changed). The Keurig makes consistent mid-grade coffee (not awesome), and is moderately durable at best (and DRM is a form of intentional breakage), which means market survival will eventually come down to flexibility. Can JoeBob consumer make ramen with a Keurig? No? Then eventually he'll keep the kettle and throw out the Keurig.

'Jus sayin... as I sip decent coffee out of a mug, made with a 15yo Cuisinart kettle, an $0.80 sbux Via packet, and less waste/cleanup than Keurig. The packet will change, the kettle will stay.

Oh, holy shit yes, THIS.
Having just dropped off dragon #2 at his educational containment unit, I have just a few hours to restock the feed lots before the return of #1 early this afternoon. I do not know how long I can keep this up; perhaps they will just eat my remains.

All addresses.

No, because I dropped Facebook a couple of years ago. Too narrow a view on the world, too much of a social/political/financial echo chamber, too prying re personal detail, too much advertising, and too much extremely-creepy influence on ads I see externally. I miss a *little* of the content, but most of it was OCD junk from distant relatives and bloviating nonsense from industry "thought leaders". Good riddance.

Ok, ok, I know Ford would sue the bejezus out of Tesla if they did it, but... I so hoped that after the Roadster ("Model R") and the Model S (...well...), the affordable car for the masses would be the Tesla Model T. Can they at least spell out "Three" on the nameplate, with a big capital "T"??? Please ?? :)

So.... really, how is this different from Windows RT leftovers, warmed up and plonked onto a phone a la Atrix as mentioned above?

It's got all the overhead of Windows but in a walled garden, etc etc. As before, what's the compelling advantage versus Android (which is faster, less costly, runs everywhere) or iOS (more pretty, more apps, and reliably walled-in)? It seems like they're beating the wall with their collective head.

More pointedly, the scraps left between the two big players in mobile aren't enough to create a success condition for Windows Phone 10, UNLESS somehow Microsoft fixes all the hassles with syncing enterprise AD accounts with consumer-level Microsoft accounts, AND all those Fortune 1000 companies with their own cloud implementation plans abruptly change their security policies to allow confidential documents to transit MS cloud services under consumer msft accounts (e.g. do phone buyers allow an employer to have complete control of their personal phone aka Blackberry, or carry two phones). Unlikely on all fronts. They can build it, but who's gonna come?

Nope, wrote it myself, asshole. But thanks!

...and your comment represents the absolutely fundamental misunderstanding that pervades this discussion.

The truth no one wants to hear:

The distinction is no longer the technology or the place, but the person(s) using a capability: the target. In a free society based on the rule of law, it is not the technological capability to do a thing, but the law, that is paramount.

Gone are the days where the US targeted foreign communications on distant shores, or cracked codes used only by our enemies. No one would have questioned the legitimacy of the US and its allies breaking the German or Japanese codes or exploiting enemy communications equipment during WWII. The difference today is that US adversaries -- from terrorists to nation-states -- use many of the same systems, services, networks, operating systems, devices, software, hardware, cloud services, encryption standards, and so on, as Americans and much of the rest of the world. They use iPhones, Windows, Dell servers, Android tablets, Cisco routers, Netgear wireless access points, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Gmail, and so on.

US adversaries now often use the very same technologies we use. The fact that Americans or others also use them does not suddenly or magically mean that no element of the US Intelligence Community should ever target them. When a terrorist in Somalia is using Hotmail or an iPhone instead of a walkie-talkie, that cannot mean we pack our bags and go home. That means that, within clear and specific legal authorities and duly authorized statutory missions of the Intelligence Community, we aggressively pursue any and all possible avenues, within the law, that allow us to intercept and exploit the communications of foreign intelligence targets.

If they are using hand couriers, we target them. If they are using walkie-talkies, we target them. If they are using their own custom methods for protecting their communications, we target them. If they are using HF radios, VSATs, satellite phones, or smoke signals, we target them. If they are using Gmail, Windows, OS X, Facebook, iPhone, Android, SSL, web forums running on Amazon Web Services, etc., we target them -- within clear and specific legal frameworks that govern the way our intelligence agencies operate, including with regard to US Persons.

That doesn't mean it's always perfect; that doesn't mean things are not up for debate; that doesn't mean everyone will agree with every possible legal interpretation; that doesn't mean that some may not fundamentally disagree with the US approach to, e.g., counterterrorism. But the intelligence agencies do not make the rules, and while they may inform issues, they do not define national policy or priorities.

Without the authorities granted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), the United States cannot target non-US Persons who are foreign intelligence targets if their communications enters, traverses, or otherwise touches the United States, a system within the United States, or, arguably, a system or network operated by a US corporation (i.e., a US Person) anywhere in the world. FAA in particular is almost exclusively focused on non-US Persons outside the US, who now exist in the same global web of digital communications as innocent Americans.

Without FAA, the very same Constitutional protections and warrant requirements reserved for US Persons would extend to foreign nations and foreign terrorists simply by using US networks and services â" whether intentionally or not. Without FAA, an individualized warrant would be required to collect on a foreign intelligence target using, say, Facebook, Gmail, or Yahoo!, or even exclusively foreign providers if their communications happens to enter the United States, as 70% of international internet traffic does. If you do not think there is a problem with this, there might be an even greater and more basic misunderstanding about how foreign SIGINT and cyber activities fundamentally must work.

If you believe NSA should not have these capabilities, what you are saying is that you do not believe the United States should be able to target foreign intelligence targets outside the United States who, by coincidence or by design, ever utilize or enter US systems and services. If you believe the solution is an individualized warrant every time the US wishes to target a foreign adversary using Gmail, then you are advocating the protection of foreign adversaries with the very same legal protections reserved for US citizens -- while turning foreign SIGINT, which is not and never has been subject to those restrictions, on its head.

These are the facts and realities of the situation. Any government capability is imperfect, and any government capability can be abused. But the United States is the only nation on earth which has jammed intelligence capabilities into as sophisticated and extensive a legal framework as we have. When the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress, multiple executive agencies under two diametrically opposite Presidential administrations, armies of lawyers within offices of general counsel and and inspectors general, and federal judges on the very court whose only purpose is to protect the rights of Americans under the law and the Constitution in the context of foreign intelligence collection are all in agreement, then you have the judgment of every mechanism of our free civil society.

Or we could just keep laying our intelligence sources, methods, techniques, and capabilities bare to our enemies.

âMany forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Speech in the House of Commons, November 11, 1947

"The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged â" all that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in most Enterprises of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned and promising a favourable issue.â â" George Washington, our nation's first spymaster, in a letter to Colonel Elias Dayton, 26 July 1777

I just quit Micro^h^h^h^h for this exact reason.

Over a period of 5 years:
Hired in.
Report to a guy who looks 12, but turns out to be an Excellent Manager*.
Do my best work in a decade.
Excellent Manager reorg'ed from Inspiring General Manager to Disastrous Director.
Excellent Manager is driven out by political fuckery by Disastrous Director.
Disastrous Director is fired for malfeasance.
Inspiring General Manager won't come back, had enough, quits managing to do research.
Report to Microsoft Lifer, old EM's technical manager a who does a passable job leading.
Microsoft Lifer is reorg'ed under General Manager/Bottlewasher who can't stop micromanaging.
Lifer gets ruthlessly fucked with, has entire team's work credited to incompetent Level 67 Blowhard.
Lifer's team is reorg'ed under Blowhard, except for me+handful.
Old EM's peer Last Asskicking Manager quits because he won't work for Blowhard.
GM/Bottlewasher can't stop micromanaging everyone.
Lifer gives up and takes a non-mgmt job.
Report to McManager hired from military, who used to manage 600.
GM/Bottlewasher can't stop micromanaging everyone.
McManager reorg'ed, team reduced to 5.
Blowhard steals work output from McManager, leaving no credit.
GM/Bottlewasher lines up all resources behind Blowhard.
McManager demoted to my peer.
Report to new guy Perennial Survivor, brought in by another reog.
Lifer demoted to my peer.
Old Excellent Manager quits to work for Amazon, because it's saner(!!!).
Survivor admits 80% of Botlewasher's 2015-16 yearly plan is bullshit makework.
Fuck this noise, quit. Even a startup is saner.

*only one in 5 years.

It's easier for incompetence to hide in large enterprises. They used to write books about how great Redmond managers were. Now the entire enterprise is infested with pointy-haired, risk-averse, beige, wannabe-hipsters who can't make any decisions other than to stab each other in the back. And front. And sides. Precious few people do actual work, when so much effort is devoted to bad management and the shielding of productive people from that bad management.

So if a company doesn't operate in a way I like, the best way to express that... is to invest in them? I don't think you thought that one through completely.

Ok, now Vizio, you have my attention for being a good guy... in this regard. I'm in the market for a couple of new screens every year (home offices for two, couple of tech saavy kids, etc etc), and this sort of corporate behavior is a huge influencer in my decision of whose almost-commodity product to buy.

If you're listening at all: I'll buy your products again this year. How about you try to be better about the GPL?