Thanks for the thoughtful and informative response. I did opt out of most of the stuff; have location tracking off, disabled Google +, Google Play Music, Books, Magazines, Games, Video, Hangouts, etc; use Startpage for most searches, use Firefox not Chrome, have Now turned off. Only occasionally use Gmail but I love Google Maps and Play Store.

In any case, I tend to be a pessimist and skeptic about such things, especially when I have no real proof that "opting out" really does anything. It is nice to hear someone a bit more on the "inside" that relays positive info.

Maybe you should read the actual law before pre-empting what the judge might say, it clearly includes the words "intent", "secrecy" and "privacy" in the following excerpt - "[Thou shall not photograph people's wobbly bits] with the intent to secretly conduct or hide such activity, when the other person in such place and circumstance would have a reasonable expectation of privacy in not being so photographed".

So the prosecutor needs a bit more than just the video, he has to demonstrate the defendant intended to film the victim's "private parts", was attempting to conceal his true intent, and that the victim had an expectation of privacy. A naked toddler running around on a public beach clearly does not have an expectation of privacy and it would be very difficult to demonstrate secrecy and intent in such a scenario (assuming the defence lawyer is not in a coma). Why the chief prosecutor would bring such a case before the judge will also be questioned by any judge who (in your own words) is just interested in what "the law states". OTOH making upskirt videos of strangers with a hidden camera in your shoe is now clearly illegal.

As a non-American the jury nullification thing doesn't apply to me, nor do I have to suffer elected judges who don't have a clue what they are doing. However the concept of jury nullification is interesting, a majority vote by a jury that the law is unjust should at least delay a verdict until the legislators have publically reviewed both the case and the law. With such a system (US*) public prosecutors may become less keen to use bogus charges as bargaining chips to score a "confession" on a less "scary" charge.

* - Google "prison population by nation".

And yet a guy in Texas was recently executed on nothing more than the testimony of a couple of people simply because the governor wanted to be president and saw an opportunity to prove he was "tough on crime". Of course he was nowhere near as rich and famous as OJ. With such inconsistent outcomes I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would support capital punishment

>"they revealed that Google's data is now safely protected from the prying eyes of government organizations. "

That is nonsense. The NSA could probably STILL access the information if they want to (and likely will) or Google can be compelled to reveal it with a super secret demand order, or even a regular warrant.

No information that is ever collected is ever "safe" from prying eyes. And even Google having the information is certainly nothing to be comfortable about. They have ENOUGH information about consumers already... certainly enough to be creepy.

Involuntary actions....triggered by MUSIC are the most relevant questions, surely you hear music when your not playing your violin? Do you NATURALLY react? BTW: my score was 58 - I can't play any instrument and I don't spend a lot of money on music.

AI suffers from continuously moving goal posts because nobody has a good definition of intelligence.. A computer (Watson) has already convincingly beat humans at general knowledge. Watson is an amazing technological feat however the general public does not recognise Watson as intelligent in any meaningful way, they have the same reaction as my wife when they see Watson playing Jeopardy - "It's looking up the answers on the internet, so what?". They don't even understand the problem Watson has solved, when the general public talk about AI they are thinking about robots that appear in modern movies and are basically indistinguishable from humans (eg:Terminator), something that is not only intelligent but also has also (nearly) mastered human social intelligence.

In a way they are right, emotions drive what the logical mind thinks about and AI cannot (yet) communicate, let alone reproduce, human emotions, I have long thought that this is partly because AI researchers in general concentrate on modelling the brain and more or less ignore the huge network of intricate sensors and actuators attached to it.

Their answer to that, of course, is that it's no longer "modeling" when you're flying something through the air for commercial use.

I agree that they need to follow proper rule making procedures, and get this done for real. In the meantime, it's a complete mess, and the administration is thumbing its nose at the law (from congress) that set a timetable for having this wrapped up. Deliberate foot-dragging with no consequences for anyone except all of the people looking to earn and spend money in this area. For an administration that pretends that it cares about the economy and jobs, this is just more of the same BS.

Who cares? The case in question wasn't about a glider. It was about someone flying FPV under power, diving under bridges through traffic, looping the hospital helipad, etc. That's not "glider" activity. The guy used the same style craft for his stunts buzzing the Statue Of Liberty and other high profile structures with lots of people right under his area of operation, while flying outside line of site. Props, spinning. Feel free to stick your nose or a finger into that while it's flying. I wouldn't.

I've come to the conclusion that we are past the point of that being necessary. I don't consider myself a great typist. Decent, but not great. When I am in practice, I can accurately type 65 wpm. In the real world, I doubt I average 45 words a minute, as there are other factors than the physical act of typing that slow me down below the 65 wpm mark.

To be fair, their computers will have fully functional voice recognition systems that will be able to do anything the touch system can do. The touch systems will be for 'open floorplan' work spaces where people would be talking over each other, places where you want the data is at least somewhat confidential, and places that you just don't want the noise of people talking.

You mean, like you couldn't possibly get a permit to launch a multi-stage, liquid fueled rocket from your back yard into LEO? Well, since you can't get that permit, they would be total asshats for fining you if you did it anyway, right?

The pilot's recklessness is EXACTLY why he was fined. The administrative judge's initial ruling (it was just an initial one - this still has a long way to go, including eventually to an actual federal court if the agency wants that to happen) was that the rule making process that was used to back up the agency's policy wasn't properly followed. So the pilot wiggles out of his fine on a technicality, not because he actually deserved to avoid the fine.

Does "every kid" use an out-of-line-of-sight FPV RC plane to fly at street level through traffic, buzz a hospital's active helipad, and make people on public streets duck while the pilot is making video that he uses to show off the stuff he sells? Interesting.

Have you actually seen these FPV "foamies?" We're talking about things that are carrying a camera, a brushless gimbal, flight controller with associated daughter components, one or more heavy/dense lithium batteries, a prop spinning at high RPMs (frequently made from very sharp carbon fiber), and ... the whole thing can weigh several pounds, with some of them easily flying at well over 50mph (some well over 100mph).

Care to get "bonked" by one of those?

But the FAA's policies make specific reference to model aircraft, and repeatedly get into things like "guided" and "sustained" flight. Meaning, the reason an RC drone isn't a rock is that you're actually sending it, under control, through a sustained flight in the air. The FAA's authority begins an inch off the ground, not 100' or 10,000' - which is why they're still in charge of safety when a 747 is 1' off the runway, or 1,000' off the runway.

A hospital helipad is a 24x7 controlled bit of air space. And more to the point, the pilot in question is all about goggles-on FPV flight. He's seeing where he's going by watching through a small nose camera and a relatively low-res RF video downlink. The guy we're talking about ("Trappy" Pirker) makes a big deal about how he flies FPV out of line of sight. Flying that way, he's got absolutely no situational awareness (say, a medivac helicopter coming in from above or from the side, out of his FPV cam's forward view).

No, he didn't. The FAA fined him for operating recklessly, and he followed the usual administrative procedure to challenge that fine.

That's not to say that some law suits aren't appropriate in this area - if for no other reason than that the FAA is ignoring legal mandates from Congress to get this area sensibly on the books in short order. The Obama administration, and their people running the agency in question (which is part of the executive branch) is, just as they're doing by randomly and unilaterally modifying and ignoring hard dates and requirements in the ACA, are just blowing off the law on this matter. That, in and of itself, has no bearing on the case in question, but it's causing this to be dragged out for no reason, as hundreds of millions in new economic activity is sitting on the sidelines holding its breath. Thanks, administration. We can tell what your priorities are.