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Comment Case by Case (Score 1) 150

It's up to a judge to decide what kind of warrant gets served.If they can authorize the search of a person's home and the arrest of that person, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to authorize the search of a person's full Gmail account if the need arises. As long as it's not a secret court and all due process is followed, then we're doing the best we can. The linked article makes no mention of the details of this court case. We have no idea why this Gmail account is being searched, who the Gmail account belongs to, how the search will be carried out, or how much data this particular Gmail account even contains. There's also no indication that the police will indefinitely retain a copy of the account, as some above have speculated. If they do, THAT is the problem, not the search itself.

Comment This Isn't The Way (Score 1) 590

Depowering a beloved character so a woman can take his place is not the way to show respect for women. This isn't feminism, it's just ridicullous. If Marvel wants to show respect to women, they should make sure their existing female characters are well-written and well-drawn. As it stands, I don't believe for a second that this new Thor isn't going to be subject to the same sexist tropes as so many other superheroines.

Comment Re:How about no? (Score 1) 104

Oh yes, office buildings would certainly need that kind of network, and it would be very useful if it could be monitored over the internet. But the minute you start building controls to change the temperature over the internet, you're asking for trouble. And don't try to tell me no one's going to try to do that; this comment is on an article about lights that can talk to smartphones!

Comment How about no? (Score 2) 104

Lights should illuminate things. Refrigerators should refrigerate things. Stoves should heat things, air conditioners should cool your air to a certain temperature, and coffee makers should make you coffee. They don't really need to do anything else. They don't all need Twitter accounts. I don't want my workplaces' lights to talk to my cell phone and tell some server somewhere where I was and what I was doing. That is a.) creepy and b.) almost certainly pointless.

Comment Re:Does it really matter? (Score 2) 99

It's sort of funny that you have very nearly the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips, the ability to communicate with people over thousands of miles (or hundreds, or dozens) instantly, and all the news about every place in the world you could possibly want to hear about... And the first thing you think about someone else doing with that ability is "play Candy Crush." Yes, it really does matter.

Comment Re:First things first (Score 1) 99

You need a lot fewer solar panels to power an internet-enabled device than you do to power a welder, or even a well. Incidentally, most of the world doesn't worry about DMV regulations. Places that don't have a well for water very often don't. They might worry about gasoline, but it's just as likely that neither thought will even occur to them. On the other hand, the internet contains a lot of useful information, which is often in even shorter supply than water in places like that. It is, after all, a lot more than a repository for cat pictures.

Comment To answer your question: (Score 1) 99

With as much money as they've got? Probably. At this point, they just sort of make money off of people being on the internet without having to do much else, so they've got every reason to. Hells, they may just up and decide to give everyone on the planet the equivalent of 56k for free with equipment, or something like that.

Comment Allwissen Auto? (Score 2) 800

I think we're all forgetting something here. Even if an autonomous car is advanced enough that it can tell the difference between a bus and a semi truck (based on what I've seen, most current prototypes see other cars as shapes with velocities), it's not going to be able to figure out whether that bus is full of children, nuns, convicts, migrant workers, or nothing. Autonomous cars aren't likely to meaningfully tell the difference between a Ford Pinto and a Rolls Royce for a very long time, if they ever really do. The decision the car makes in such a situation will be based on whatever factors it can actually determine, without trying to poll a remote database about who's driving what and why over unreliable cellular data links. Likely, if it's completely boxed in and there's something coming towards it, it will just try to stop dead, which I'm pretty sure is what I would do too. Honestly, I don't want to live in a world where my car knows enough to even be in the position to make an ethical decision about whether I live or die. The place you all seem to be postulating in sounds like even more of a ludicrous surveillance state than we already live in.

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