Samsung and LG want curved TVs to become all the rage because the only way to currently make them are using OLEDs and they own many of the patents for OLED screens. With that said, the Samsung OLED television got a glowing review from Consumer Reports - basically the only downside to the TV was the cost which is sure to come down in the future.

I've always been curious about full disk encryption but I've never taken the time to set it up. Regardless of whether or not this was precipitated by a three-letter agency or not, this makes me want to use TrueCrypt even more. The next time I format my drives, TrueCrypt 7.1a is going on there (assuming I can verify it's signature).

As for everyone wondering about the status of the project, couldn't the project resume development off of U.S. soil? Between software patents and government spooks, the U.S. is definitely becoming a more hostile environment for software developers.

This makes perfect sense - you no longer need the portions of your brain that store your hopes and dreams, so those portions can transition to finding ways to push your kids to be good at something so that you can live vicariously through them!

Sure, you'll have to rewire your house every few years, but that's a small price to pay for a faster and more portable house!

Nobody is arguing that iPads are used by executives - the argument is that iPads are no good for people who actually have to do work.

No, 2016 will change something.

The only thing that will change in 2016 is which person has a bunch of rich hands up their asshole controlling what comes out of their mouth. Everything else will remain exactly the same.

If you don't tell anyone what town you're from, they can't do what you're suggesting.

That's not to say that the information can't be found, just that it makes it much harder. So we're in agreement that this whole thing is a matter of convenience.

I'm also not making any arguments directly related to this new law, I'm simply fleshing out the reason that this sort of law has come about. People in general are ignorant of how criminal justice actually works, especially on the side of convicted persons. If people did not automatically hold a person's past transgressions against them, this would all be moot; however, there is a strong assumption in Western societies of "once a criminal, forever a criminal," particularly in the U.S. and this assumption is a large driving force of the vicious cycle of criminal reoffense.

I agree that people tend to be too harsh on people with a criminal past, but I still do not feel that this law is justified (and I realize that you haven't commited to claiming it is justified either, although you seem to be somewhat sympathetic with its intentions). This is a matter of the consequences of people's perception of past transgressions translating to future transgressions. While I agree that those assumptions may often be unfair, I shouldn't lose my ability to search publicly available data and form my own opinion on what that person has done and whether or not they have changed their ways. Besides, I would hope that the ability to find people's wrongdoings more easily would act as a bit of a deterrent the next time a person considers morally-questionable behavior. Rather than making a law that prevents people from finding publicly available information, I believe we should address the problem by using statistics and success stories to educate the public about criminal reform rather than take away people's ability to learn about their past.

That seems like a valid point, but I'd like to point out one important distinction: it is not a right to be forgotten, but a privilege. In your example, a suspicious member of your new town could place a phone call to a friend in your old town, have them look up the public records, and provide that information to the people of your new town, which is very similar to what Google currently does. Since that behavior is completely legal, then your "right" to be forgotten is more of a privilege that is currently being degraded by technology. But forcing someone to censor their speech, which most people consider to be an inalienable right, so that some other people may enjoy a privilege just doesn't seem fair.

We do have a right to be forgotten online, imho.

I consider myself to value privacy quite a bit but I really don't understand where this line of thinking comes from. Do you believe you have a right to be forgotten in real life? If so, how would you enforce it? If not, then why do you believe the online world should behave differently from the real world?

I just realized that you were referring to legislation specifically, so my comment is irrelevant. I take back my accusation of ignorance and point it towards myself.

If we eliminate the FCC and hand their work off to Congress, then Congress would be the ones auctioning spectrum and going after people who violate wireless transmission laws. Either you don't understand all of the responsibilities of the FCC or you have a lot of faith that your Congressman can balance legislation and wireless transmission regulation. Most Congressmen can't even handle the legislation part.

On the plus side, the money this brings in will allow the ISPs to back off their threat to stop innovating!

Looks like you're RSS feed is in the slow lane. You'd better pay up if you want the news while it's still relevant, buddy!

You would think that with the Time Warner Cable merger still under review, Comcast would be on their best behavior. Instead, they extort money out of content services, threaten to reduce innovation, and now announce that they anticipate capping customer data. If this merger is approved, it will be the last proof that we need that our government is riddled with corruption.

People who invest in things like Tesla doesn't always do it for hand over fist profit. They sometimes do it because they support the objectives of the company or that is aided by the company's operations.

What's the point of that? After the IPO, the company reaps little to no benefits from you buying their stock. At that point, it's a casino chip with a corporate logo. If you like a company and want to support them, then buy their products (although I realize that is difficult with an $80,000 car). But the only reason to buy a stock is if you believe that someone will buy that stock from you in the future for more than you paid for it.