Another go-nowhere project from Microsoft's social research group Fuse Labs, following in the footsteps of Live Labs, a previous group that disbanded in 2010. Anyone remember Pivot? Deepfish? Listas? Photosynth? And about 10 other discontinued products.

We all know this will be swept under the rug and forgotten faster than you can say "Google Wave", but it's amusing seeing Betteridge's Law of Headlines at play in the coverage, such as this gem from Fox News: "Is this the next Facebook? Microsoft unveils so.cl social network" The best part is that the article spends its first six paragraphs definitely answering its own headline with a no. Mainstream tech coverage is barely above tabloids.

There's a bunch of raw imagery up from Cassini at the CICLOPS imaging lab site here.

iCloud's introduction date is irrelevant. Apple has a revenue stream coming from members of the developer program, and paying members are the only ones who can take advantage of Apple's online services. For instance, they're also the only ones who can use push notifications. Put two and two together.

The statement about storage allotment doesn't make sense, because if a developer doesn't use iCloud in their app because they didn't pay for the developer program, then obviously the storage will instead be used by some other app that did pay.

App store hosting requires being a member of the $100/year developer program regardless of app pricing.

I don't know...I don't think freedom of travel and freedom from unreasonable search is being violated, as you're not being barred from travelling and you're not being searched. And I don't necessarily believe the legality of something changes simply because technology can do what humans can't. That argument of scale is the same argument the RIAA makes to differentiate P2P technology and 80s tape-trading.

I mean, I'd prefer not to be scanned, but I just don't feel like my rights are being violated if it's known that I'm driving down the freeway, after having driven through who knows how many security cameras at intersections and shown my photo ID who knows how many times just to buy beer and M-rated videogames. I'm usually an anti-government surveillance guy, but I don't feel as if I'm giving up more information than I usually do.

Not saying you're wrong or trying to argue with you. I agree with you that the storage is the real issue here, and I think two years is too long. The scanning itself just doesn't bother me for some reason. But it's possible other posters will make convincing arguments that could change my mind.

The two-year storage is really the only part that bothers me. But the actual scanning doesn't, for some reason. I guess because people see my license plate every day anyway. It's a pretty public thing already, and it's government-issued so the only data being collected that they don't already have is my location, but again, any driver on the freeway can already see me. I don't know; usually I'm against most kinds of data harvesting, but for some reason this doesn't bug me as much. I guess because driving in your vehicle is such a publicly identifiable thing anyway, and it is on government property.

So Apple should pay hosting fees for apps not sold through their store? How does that make sense?

Just your friendly neighborhood reminder that Origin tracks your hardware, installed applications, software usage habits and more with no way to opt-out, unlike Steam. This is the new games industry.

Management doesn't know shit. Taking short breaks isn't slacking off, and studies have shown that such breaks improve worker productivity.

Management's problem is that it sees everything through a veil of pie charts and graphs, and if someone spends five minutes looking at pictures of their kids on Facebook, it must mean 0.2058% less revenue. Gotta fret over those graphs and spreadsheets.

Also, yeeeaah, can you come in on Sunday, too? We lost some people and need to catch up. Thaaaanks.