Not even a Google Search. Literally just talking to it before giving the toy to their children to see if, asked to talk about something harmful, it does so or refuses. Are the parents in your mind too tired to literally speak?

My preference for Firefox is based on the bookmark sidebar, with nested folders of bookmarks (similar to the way file are nested within folders on a disk drive).

The problem is that I've frequently heard of "anonymized" data being de-anonymized. It's not something I worry about a great deal, but perhaps I should worry more...and I've no real way to tell.

There are several alternatives, depending on your use-case. My fall-back is Falkon (from KDE).

FWIW, I didn't detest Pocket. OTOH, I never used it, either. But "universally detested" is wrong. I thought of it as "dead wood", but that's a very different category. There are LOTS of software capabilities that I don't use.

To me, panning a browser because it isn't optimized to run on a phone is silly. Saying I prefer a different browser on my phone would be sensible (if I though web browsing from a phone was sensible...but with my eyes that's never going to be true).

Well..."sort of virus first" is probably correct, but that doesn't mean that things don't sometimes go into reverse. The "sort of virus" couldn't be like the current stuff, because it couldn't be parasitic. And there are arguments that a "sort of cell" evolved before the genetic machinery. Nobody really knows, (See "metabolism first" https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/... for one argument.)

I, personally, suspect that the proto-"cell walls" and the proto-"genetic machinery" evolved their first stages independently, and mixed together later into something with superior "stability".

Well, they might let me remember people's names. There are probably other uses, but that's the one that occurs to me.

I accept that it is breaking the law. That doesn't mean any official is going to enforce that law. There are lots of laws that are frequently broken in obvious ways, and are enforced only when it is a convenient excuse.

How far in the future?
I can imagine useful AI based "smart glasses", but that description doesn't fit what I've heard so far, and my prescription means I couldn't try them if I wanted to do so.

On exactly what the detector is capable of detecting. If they're looking, at any point, for radio waves, then I'd start there. Do the radio waves correspond to the absorption (and therefore emission) band for any molecule or chemical bond that is likely to arise in the ice?

This is so basic that I'm thinking that if this was remotely plausible, they'd have already thought of it. This is too junior to miss. Ergo, the detector isn't looking for radio waves (which seems the most likely, given it's a particle detector, not a radio telescope), or nothing obvious exists at that frequency (which is only a meaningful answer if, indeed, it is a radio telescope).

So, the question is, what precisely does the detector actually detect?

I'm not sure you understand what jailbreaking means in the context of AIs. It means prompts. E.g. asking it things and trying to get it to make inappropriate responses. Trying doesn't require any special skills, just an ability to communicate. Yes, I very much DO think most parents will try and see if they can get the doll to say inappropriate things before giving it to their children, to make sure it's not going to be harmful.

(Now, if Mattel has done their job right, *succeeding* will be difficult)

If it's doing auto-transcription it's probably training an AI with your information, This could be a major security problem.

It's annoying, but good, because "there's a sucker born every minute" means there are always new victims who haven't been warned.

There have been lots of instances where companies with a "good reputation" changed their spots.

Honestly, even if they can't jailbreak it to be age-inappropriate / etc, it's still a ripe setup for absurdist humour.

Kid: "Here we are, Barbie, the rural outskirts of Ulaanbaatar! How do you like your yurt?"

Barbie: "It's lovely! Let me just tidy up these furs."

Kid: "Knock, knock! Why it's 13th century philosopher, Henry of Ghent, author of Quodlibeta Theologica!"

Barbie: "Why hello Henry of Ghent, come in! Would you like to discuss esse communissimum over a warm glass of yak's milk?"

Kid, in Henry's voice: "That sounds lovely, but could you first help me by writing a python program to calculate the Navier-Stokes equations for a zero-turbulence boundary condition?"

Barbie: "Sure Henry! #!/usr/bin/env python\nimport..."