If the laws don't change then it's Obama's job to implement them as written - not decide that things need to change and carry out his own ideas. He may even be correct in that assessment but he does not have that power under the Constitution, so such actions are illegal. Do nothing Congress? Too bad, embarass them on prime time or whatever it takes to change things legally. It may well suck, but that does not change the rules. I realize he's been doing it anyway, so the point is merely academic.

you only need to feel old if you're still waiting for a working cdrom driver.

bad business move, but good principle. We just got the decision that a black baker has to make a cake for the KKK, and that's very wrong. If some Muslims have to be allowed to be stupid to prevent that case, then it's OK for us to be tolerant of their foolishness - nobody says we have to like it.

tempest is easier than breaking bt crypto.

errr ... 'he' = 'Snowden'. Bad missing antecedent, bad!

You don't rendition a prisoner to a black site for punishment - you do it to send a message to would-be followers. The UK flight tracking club has already disclosed that the CIA rendition plane was sent to Scotland as he was fleeing west and we know they grounded President Morales's plane to grab him the next day. That's a preponderance of evidence.

This is misinformed - he was transiting through Russia when the US revoked his passport, and according to the stupid nation-state rules, that grounded him. If anybody chose where to cause Snowden to seek asylum it was John Kerry. He would have been in Latin America if not for the US State Department. Which, ironically would have been worse for him because the USG has no compunction about doing covert ops there. #monroedoctrine

which they do with barely a whimper and certainly without action - so Detroit is wise to assume they will again, continue producing crappy cars, and give themselves fat bonuses.

They can improve the quality but the real deal is that Apple is ditching the 3.5mm jack for a digital, DRM, patent-encumbered connector. Beats will have it - if you want the cool headphones you gotta give up your Android. The royalties will enforce exclusively.

Apple has to do *something* to stop its marketshare slide - that they didn't put the $3B into R&D tells you how desperate the internal numbers look.

then go out with a Darwin for the hattrick?

not as socially poignant as Space Worms.

Google makes it clear you're talking to a corporation, Apple forces you to anthropomorphize your machine. Match goes to Google.

Google: funds and markets a "modular and upgradeable" phone for sustainability points; has blanket ban on storage expansion on Nexus devices.

If you don't trust the USB stick why are you plugging it into your Windows machine?

It is fine if it comes straight from the factory vacuum sealed (although still open to certain risk). If there is common module swapping between phones you get the risk of the device silently transmitting viruses from phone to phone if it simply loads its own driver on plug.

I would disagree. Having this data available to crunch the numbers would definitely benefit healthcare (in the saving lives aspect). Currently (perhaps forever) the dangers probably outweigh the benefits. There is far too much incentive to abuse this data and we require more than some guy saying "hey, it's totally going to be fine" to convince us.

It's like storing passwords as plaintext. It is super convenient for everyone involved as long as everyone involved is altruistic. But assuming everyone is altruistic is stupid so storing passwords in plaintext is generally regarded as stupid.