I have big hopes for asm.js. Even with its teething problems, it's the best chance we have for a truly multi-platform common ground to develop networked apps in.

At the same time, this awesomeness has traditionally been ignored by the big players who desired fragmentation. Hopefully this time is different, as all browser vendors have a lot to lose if they are the last to implement asm.js.

The big missing feature is threading - here's hoping for an extension to asm.js to make it complete.

I can eliminate PWM on some of my monitors by setting the brightness to maximum and lowering contrast and the color levels. When I watch those monitors for a full day, my eyes are OK. When I watch my laptop (240 Hz PWM) where I can't eliminate the flicker, my eyes are tired by the end of the day.

When I first learned about how LCDs are made, I was furious that after all the problems with CRT monitors, LCD makers resorted to such a poor choice. The world my eyes see is flicker-free. Why should monitors be different?

The technology for flicker-free LCDs exists and it's called calibrated color level compensation. It should be the standard.

I kinda need both my eyes until the end of my years, so I'd appreciate it if manufacturers stopped wearing them out with PWM...

I applaud this article repeatedly and loudly... everyone else seems to be doing so.

Like the subject says - is this something the Chinese government might be able to use to break TOR or SSL or any other encryption which is commonly used by political dissidents, freedom fighters, or even foreign military contractors etc.?

I'm curious e.g. how long it would take to break a standard 128-bit SSL session that they find potentially interesting?

Easy, here's how: US intelligence (which Snowden worked for) found out about GCHQ's spying and documented it.

That seems like a reasonably likely scenario to me.

Can the senders please make sure that if those guys are predators, the rest of us are safe. Thanks.

As a side note, I tend to feel strangely unsure that such things are a good idea when unknown extraterrestrials receive more attention than starving 3rd world fellow terrestrials.

"I believe the poll results"

Well I don't. The kleptocracy that can invade everyone's privacy at will can easily sway statistics as well.

Eisenhower's nightmare has come true. The monster that was created against the foes of both World Wars has turned against the society that created it. It's become the reason for its own existence.

"I've moved my stuff off Google,Hotmail and Yahoo....
...use multiple prepay phones
...Watch what you say online"

It looks like NSA has already backed you into a corner. Doesn't your story prove that they have too much unwarranted power and should be dealt with, instead of everyone just quietly letting them get away with such atrocious invasion of privacy?

The GMO producing companies are the most evil entities in the world.

They keep suing farmers when the wind blows their cr@p on other people's land. The fertilizers that keep their seeds going are a natural disaster for the soil, for the animals and all other crops in the vicinity. They forced a law in the US that doesn't even *allow* people to find out whether the product they buy is GM or not. They bait new customers with low prices, then when those farmers can no longer switch back to natural seeds, they ruin them. They expressly want natural seeds to die out so the whole world has to buy from them: they are sworn enemies of natural seeds because farmers can save those.

I trust natural selection. I don't trust greedy corporations that don't care about anyone or anything else. If you want the truth about them, read the stories of farmers who battled their army of lawyers for years. Percy Schmeiser's moving story at http://www.percyschmeiser.com/ is a good start.

Lasers, apparently "with a blast of infrared energy" -- so is it lasers OR infrared? Those are two separate things.

> you will find precisely zero cases where this happened. If you want to prove me wrong, then cite one case where a farmer was sued for unintentional infringement.

See Percy Schmeiser's struggle against Monsanto (which took several years) here:
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

"Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Bruno, Saskatchewan Canada whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola." Then Monsanto sued him.

I cannot think of a more evil and greedy corporation than Monsanto and the likes. I thank God I live in a part of Europe where no GM crops are allowed.

Some of the above comments are really funny, but this is actually quite serious. Monsanto is one of the most evil corporates ever. They force their genetically modified crap upon (bio)farmers. When their seeds then infect other crops, their lawyers appear and claim intellectual property rights, suing farmers left and right.
They promise better crops / results from GM origins, but the crops are actually worse over the years, they can't be sold in as many markets (because of GM bans), they require much more chemicals, superweeds take hold, and cancer increases.
I pray that genetically modified seeds (or animals, as the article says) never come to Europe. Ever.