... when you look at peoples assumption that this is somehow an accident or poor Chinese engineering. Why don't people consider the idea that this is a slow form of space warfare intended to deny the west access to the high frontier ? Remember the old saying : Once is unfortunate, twice is coincidence, but three times is a deliberate action.

... I'm sure we all know it's coming :-)

This raises the interesting question of what happens when AI becomes provably sentient, and a human terminates it ? While there may be some debate regarding the current state of the art, there doesn't seem to be a reason to believe AI won't achieve provable sentience in the future. Is it ethical to do nothing but allow murder to occur at some time and then respond, or should we lay the groundwork and parameters to warn people there is a point where continuing development comes with the obligation to maintain any created AI's in perpetuity ?

Is it just me or does age state of US Politics seem like a pot line from 'The Boys' ? I swear that the country is now being run by Voight Industries !

If the tariffs are now considered unlawful, it opens some additional issues for the US Government:

What about people whose businesses failed due to the increased cost of imported goods ? If the increased import costs caused businesses to fail, do they get to sue the US Government for compensation over this? This also has ramifications for other countries - if the tariff's are unlawful doe other countries get to take the US to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to pursue compensation over the impact the tariff's had on their economies ?

Time to crack the popcorn out and and start watching the fallout!

It's amazing how people focus on how usability and training is such a big deal. People made great and effective use of Windows 20 years ago, and the current Linux desktop is more modern and useable than that. It's not a matter of usability, but rather the fear of change that is an obstacle. People will quickly come around when they realise that use of a different system is rewarded by an ongoing pay check. It's also worth considering that if people want to step away form US built/supported technology, then they will also be avoiding the current AI platform that would otherwise take many peoples jobs away. Germany made great progress with Suse Linux, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that France could make the leap to a non-US platform. The great fear in the US is not that France succeeds, but rather than other countries choose to follow in their footprints.

If you check the linked article it states that Motorola is a "Lenovo company". Given that Lenovo is Chinese owned, and the CCP isn't a great protector of peoples privacy the idea of a CCP infiltrated privacy product is somewhat bizarre. You would be better off just trusting Apple or Google and buy their branded hardware

I thought that Bing was dead - just a placeholder to change after you installed Windows (who knew ?)

One of the features that Graphene (an Android fork) has is the idea of a 'kill code' PIN that when entered instead of unlocking your phone erases it. It would make the XKCD workaround for PIN codes less attractive to the government

I'd amazing that people are pitching the creation and integration of a Teams alternative as some mammoth task that only Microsoft can pull off, and attempts by anyone to compete will fail. You should keep in mind the fact that the US is not the sole source of IT expertise on earth, and the EU is more than capable of taking them on. The EU has the ability to pass legislation that can compel Microsoft to co-operate, and access to the necessary skillset is certainly available. The world has seen how broken the US has become recently, and there is no debate that the US will leverage its access to US companies to force outcomes that meet their need - they are in reality no different to China or Russia in that area. Recent development such as the arbitrary and unbalanced tariffs, invading foreign countries and threatening to annex sovereign territories shows that the US are no longer the 'good guys' but are slowly descending into a mess approaching that of other dictatorships around the world. There is every reason for nation states and blocks like the EU to invest in technology that serves their interests over those of the US. The fact that this is being discussed publicly shows that this is not a random thought bubble but rather a signal from people more than capable of competing with Microsoft on this. The idea that a nation state competitor to Teams is not possible is a joke.

Microsoft will co-operate with any requests form the EU to open access for a Teams alternative. All the EU needs to do is pass the necessary legislation to make it happen.

... I've known plenty of people whose reasoning skills appeared turned out to be a mirage.

This has nothing to do with restricting access to inappropriate content - kids will always find a way around whatever blocks adults put in their way (even Australian kids).

A more likely objective is the idea that the Government can interfere with Googles business model - an idea that (if the technology works) other Governments may choose to follow. Australia doesn't have the numbers to directly impact on scale, but of these changes have any measurable effect then other countries may choose to use it as an excuse to implement controls on Google - something they will likely want to discourage.

Google puts the app on your phone wether you want it or not. You need to go to Google to find instructions on how to turn it off ( not on the phone, by default you are opted in). The disclaimer basically states don't use it for anything important as it may be wrong. And when you finally work out how to disable it, your phone begs to turn it back on. While Microsoft had lowered the bar with Recall, there is no good reason to make it so effing difficult to opt out. Makes you wonder why they age forcing people to use it.

Hey drinkypoo - you seem to be just another troll. It's somewhat ironic - you are clearly one of the people who have contributed to the enshitiffication of social media and helped create the very problem that triggered this response. Your arguments are either irrelevant or senseless - maybe you should have spent more time in class paying attention rather than snapchatting girls with low self esteem. You should remember this : Australians care more for their children. Once they are responsible adults they can choose to step into the social media cesspool, but as long as they are minors they deserve protection and the chance to grow. Go away