That's a pretty nifty idea.

Is it possible to engineer the appliance so that instead of using passwords sent remotely to access the appliance, access is only granted when a physical switch is flicked on by the consumer? i.e.

Operator: Okay, we are connected to your system, press the red button now.
Customer: *press*
Operator: Okay now were in. Gimme a few minutes while we check your system.

But what if the identification was wrong?

Just look at how the profiling is done. From TFA:-

One of the features of Orca is an algorithm – a set of rules – that assigns each member of the network a probability of belonging to a particular gang. If an individual admits to this, the assignment can be awarded 100% probability. But if he will not, then any known associations he has with other individuals can be used to calculate a probable “degree of membership”.

We have no idea what rules are applied, or the weight given to them. The could take into consideration, for example, factors like skin color, race, language spoken, location of birth, marital status, family pedigree etc. I'm certain that the police are already taking some of these factors into consideration in deciding who to pay special attention to. The difference is that this technology is impersonal and can be misused to provide a veneer of legitimacy to otherwise abusive acts , e.g. "I'm shaking him down because the program says he is a gang member".

My point is that people who are born into a gang dominated environment already are severely disadvantaged, and it sits ill that someone who may be innocent may be subjected to undeserved police action/scrutiny simply because he is marked as a criminal by some program.

Before you jump to defend the internet cafe owner, read his complaint. The "internet cafe" was a disguised gambling den.

TLDR:-
1. Their computers all carry a "Game Display" programme.
2. Buying internet time entitles the user to participate in sweepstakes where they can win prizes. The more time you buy, the more chances you get to join the sweepstakes.
3. The "Game Display" was expressly created to, in their own words, "instill in the patron a sense of excitement and entertainment".

Yes, the law is overly broad and should be reworded, but in this case it did not get the wrong victim.

Having said that, the politicians appear to be equally dirty. There is some suspicion that this legislation was about politicians covering their butts and keeping legalized gambling interests happy.

The law the French government enacted to cut people off the internet, Hadopi, was basically unenforceable when the French Constitutional Court declared access to the Internet a basic human right in 2009.

The French judiciary has ridden to the rescue of the country's web users, striking down a controversial new law which would have allowed the state to cut off the internet connections of illegal filesharers for up to a year.

The ruling is a blow to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who had characterised the so-called "three strikes" law as a crucial weapon in the fight against online piracy. The Hadopi law, named after the government agency which was to police the new regime, was also used by many in the content industry as an example that could be followed in the UK.

But France's constitutional council ruled today that "free access" to online communications services is a human right and cannot be withheld without a judge's intervention. The council also ruled that the method of policing the web envisaged in the law breaches a citizen's right to privacy.

Statement titled "A Note from Tim"

Those of you who have been following along in the documentary know about the design vs. money tension we've had on this project since the early days. Even though we received much more money from our Kickstarter than we, or anybody anticipated, that didn't stop me from getting excited and designing a game so big that it would need even more money.

I think I just have an idea in my head about how big an adventure game should be, so it's hard for me to design one that’s much smaller than Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. There's just a certain amount of scope needed to create a complex puzzle space and to develop a real story. At least with my brain, there is.

As a side note, it appears that a majority of the backers (or at least, those who identify themselves as backers online) are fine with expanding the scope of the game. And also, that those who complain the loudest against it do not appear to have put any money into the project (like parent poster).

Yup. MS said so themselves.

Xbox One built for ads from the ground up

So what about the future of advertising on the Xbox One? “It’s going to be an exciting transition though because the 360 console wasn’t built with advertising in mind, it was more of an afterthought, so we’ve had to adapt to the technology and how we work to fit them in to the console,” said Technical Account Manager for Xbox LIVE Advertising, “whereas this new one is going to have advertising in mind. So a lot of the limitations that we have now, hopefully the release of the boundaries will widened so the opportunities will be a lot greater.”

Ironically, I know of some people who would buy the Kinect if that was a feature.

I'm pretty sure NASA have heard of this JPL since the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech is a NASA laboratory.

From TFA:

“A commercial lunar lander jointly developed with NASA would capitalize on NASA's previous investments and expertise in lander technologies. It also would stimulate a commercial capability to deliver payloads to the lunar surface reliably and cost-effectively."

So how is reaching out to commercial entities to improve their existing know-how instead of relying ONLY on their own labs "being clueless and pathetic"?