That would be an issue if the transition were abrupt. Markets are not good at handling quick, radical changes. They're amazingly good at exploiting marginal differences produced by shifting economics across broad and diversified areas. Most large-scale changes are the latter, and the exhaustion of fossil fuels is definitely of that sort.
This is actually rather obvious if you look at the decades of failed alternative energy companies... but more spring up all the time, because that's how the market seeks new methods: mutation and selection, just like nature. And as we're forced to more and more marginal (and therefore expensive) fossil fuel sources, the impetus for people to seek fortunes in the next big alternative energy source will motivate more and more investment... and rising fossil fuel prices will make more and more of that investment pay off as people shift to the more cost-effective energy source.
This is exactly what markets do well. Global warming... that's a different sort of issue. Absent regulatory action, climate change is an ignorable externality. Even when it does directly impact businesses, it's often still economically better to ignore it, due to tragedy of the commons dynamics. Not to mention the fact that it's easy to deny that it's an issue at all until it's too late to do anything about it.
If it's impossible to find a counter experiment, meaning that there is no conceivable way that a counter experiment could exist, then the theory is pseudo-science at best. If it's conceivable that a counter experiment could exist, but no one has been able to show one, then that's a currently-valid theory.
Also, there is nothing "american" about the notion of falsifiability. Not in the slightest. Popper was British, and his explanation of the philosophy of science (essentially, a theory of how and why science works), has been generally accepted everywhere.
The point is that market forces will naturally motivate the huge amount of work necessary to develop and exploit alternatives -- including lots of work by MBAs.
The thing about science is that its supposed to be falsifiable.
No it is not. It is supposed to be "investigate able" by experiments.
You need to read up on your philosophy of science. Karl Popper was the one who identified that the key element of a hypothesis that makes it scientific is falsifiability. Some later work has added that some additional requirements, but falsifiability is very much a key requirement.
That means it is "provable"
No, because nothing can ever be truly proven. In mathematics, we can define axioms and prove theorems based on them, but science is effectively about trying to discover what the axioms of the universe are so we can never have that solid basis from which we can prove things.
But, what we can do, is disprove things. But if you have a hypothesis which can never be disproven, under any circumstances, then it isn't scientific. Generally this is because it doesn't make any testable predictions.
... no idea why americans always use the term "falsifiable".
It's not an American thing. Anyone who has studied modern philosophy of science will understand and use that term.
Must have a special meaning in some circumstances?
In discussions of science, it has a very particular meaning. The definition given by Wikipedia for it is "A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument truthness of which proves the statement in question to be false." Note that a hypothesis can be beyond our ability to test and yet still be falsifiable. It's not necessary that we be able to make the observation that could falsify the theory, just that such an observation is concievable.
Or, how do you "falsify" the theory of gravity?
By finding or constructing some scenario in which your theory is shown not to hold. Basically, by finding a counterexample.
Actually, Einstein conjectured many scenarios in which Newton's theory of gravitation would not hold, and tests have shown that Einstein was right, and so Newton's theory of gravitation has been proven to be false. Of course, Newton's theory is right in enough situations that it's still highly useful (and used), but, for example, if we used Newtonian mechanics to construct the Global Positioning System, it would give inaccurate results, because relativistic issues do come into play.
It's also worth pointing out that Einstein didn't just tweak Newton's theory of gravitation around the edges, he completely replaced it. Gravity, it turns out, isn't a fundamental force at all, but instead is an effect of curved spacetime. This is an entirely different explanation than Newton's theory of gravitational attraction -- though in everyday experience the observed effects are the same. And when I say "it turns out" that Gravity is an effect of curved spacetime, that's per Einstein's relativity, which is itself a falsifiable theory which makes various testable predictions. So far, all of our testing has confirmed the theory, but it's always possible that we'll find a way in which it doesn't work and then we'll need a new theory, which might completely revise the way we explain gravitation yet again.
If you'd like to understand this stuff in detail, there's a fascinating (and very readable) book by David Deutsch called "The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World". Deutsch addresses not just Popper's theories of scientific reasoning but some of the improvements made by later thinkers.
If by "military" you mean standing armed forces, the founders didn't think it was necessary. They instead intended a militia-based system with provision for federal command and control when actively needed. They even tried to make it hard for Congress to establish a standing army by limiting its ability to appropriate funds more than two years at a time. Of course, since appropriations ended up being done annually for all sorts of reasons, that didn't actually work.
Personally, I think the time is ripe for a return to the Constitutional structure of the armed forces. We'd need to keep some full-timers around for the high-tech elements, and it might be wise to maintain a cadre responsible for creating and maintaining the training and integration plans that would be put into effect during a call-up of the unorganized militia, but even most of that could be delegated to the states' organized militias (AKA National Guard). But given the state of the world today, there really is no need for 1.5 million people on active duty. The Cold War notion that our goal should be to be able to "project power" and fight two foreign wars simultaneously is outmoded (if it actually made sense even then).
Of course, my thinking is based on the idea that our national defense strategy should be one of defense, focused on preventing the incursion of foreign armed forces onto American soil, rather than one of offense. Given that model, it is both more cost-effective and much less likely to embroil us in messy foreign wars if we focus on being prepared to train and equip the 120 million members of the unorganized militia. If we institute basic rifle marksmanship training as a standard part of secondary education, plus fund shooting ranges and marksmanship competitions, and buy and warehouse, say, 25 million battle rifles plus ammunition, with appropriate callup and distribution plans (with the weapons already well-dispersed, perhaps secured in various already-existing federal buildings, like post offices), then I think on fairly short notice we could have 50 million armed adults with rudimentary training, ready for further training, organization and deployment. Or, if necessary, self-organization and training.
I like to call this the "rifle behind every blade of grass" national defense strategy, in reference to the apocryphal Admiral Yamamoto statement "You cannot invade the mainland United States, there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass". You can try to argue that a modern military armed with tanks and aircraft overmatches any group of rifle-armed mostly-civilians, but "quantity has a quality all its own", and given that any foreign power with a prayer of success would have to transport their quantity across oceans (and through the non-trivial Navy I would propose we continue maintaining -- it is a Constitutional standing force), we should be able to massively outnumber them.
Not only would this approach cost a small fraction of our current expenditures on national defense and make the US an even harder target for invasion than it currently is, it would also make it very difficult for US presidents to involve us in foreign misadventures.
In my perfect future America, there would be a GPLv3 mapping algorithm that calculated all of the districts.
Algorithmic districting is a great idea. The algorithm doesn't even need to be fixed; it can be the subject of debate and revisions. But as long as there is a single algorithm applied nationwide it would be very hard for either party to use it to favor them... because an approach which helps them in one area will likely hurt them in another.
Of course, it'll never happen, because whichever party is in power wants to draw the lines their way. You might as well wish for them to move to approval voting, which would empower third parties.
Google is the like having the TSA body scanners in every doorway on the planet.
http://www.google.com/privacy/tools
Scroll to the bottom and you can turn off the body scanners. Personally, I go the other way and enable Google to track 100% of my web browsing history, because it's useful to me to have that tracked and available (now, where was that page I saw three days ago?), and I don't have any concerns about what Google is going to do with the data (show me ads I actually might care about! Oh noes! I want to see Tampax ads, not Canon! (Actually, I don't want to see Canon ads any more either, since I just bought a camera. That's an area that Google needs to improve.)).
Note that I do work for Google. You might think that means you should dismiss my comment, but think about it. Normally, to me, that would increase my concern about being tracked. Which is worse, some random company knowing all your secrets or your boss knowing them? But in this case it doesn't, because I know Google is responsible with how it handles the data, and I know that anyone in the company who looked at my data -- including my boss -- without a very good reason would get canned. I also know the data doesn't leave Google.
YMMV, of course, which is why Google provides the opt-outs. And if you want, the next step is that Google provides Takeout; you're free to take your data and move to other services (though applying the analytics and personalized advertising opt outs would still be a good idea, if you're concerned about Google tracking).
Google doesn't want to track you if you don't want to be tracked.
YouTube, trying very hard to force users to use their real name
YouTube in no way requires you to use your real name. You're free to create a "page", which is an identity which can be named anything you like (within some policies, I suppose), and you can use that as your YouTube identity. Completely pseudonymous. You can even create several if you like to use sockpuppets; toggling between identity takes two clicks.
trying to ram Google-Plus down everyone's throat
Which is something you don't like, I get that, but it doesn't affect privacy.
These services give out masses of information
No, they don't. They don't give any information that you don't choose to share, to anyone (other than Google).
you have to turn off the annoyances of things like gmails 'available' for chat
Only for people you've invited to be able to see that you're available. Prior to the new Hangouts chat system, you had to specifically invite every individual (or accept an invitation from them). With the new system, you have to circle them before they can see you.
I can't even comment on my own videos because of where I told them to shove google-plus.
I don't get this concern. You post comments publicly on YouTube -- publicly! -- for the whole world to see and read, and then feel it's an invasion of privacy that they also show up at a different URL? Actually, they show up at several different URLs, because the comments get indexed for search, too, and not just by Google. You can find your YouTube comments with Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. Public is public, especially on the Internet.
Now, if you don't want stuff to be available all over the web, the G+/YouTube integration actually gives you more control, because you can restrict your comments to being visible only to your circles, or to specific people that you identify. That integration increased YouTube users' privacy options.
But regardless of all that, if you don't want to use G+, don't use it. Just use YouTube's new comment system and ignore G+. And use a pseudonym if you prefer. Or use a different service if you dislike Google's stuff. Google makes it easy to take your data and walk away, and to tell Google to delete everything it knows about you.
Google doesn't do the same thing. If you see ads about wedding stuff after getting e-mails about weddings, it's because the ads are being served by Google. Google doesn't sell your data, but Google does use your data to decide what ads might be useful to you. You probably saw those ads all over the web, not just on Google properties, but that's because sites all over the web display Google ads. But Google serves the ads, and the sites don't know what's being served, and the advertisers don't know who it's being served to.
I am pretty sure that google will begin just what you describe if Facebook wins this lawsuit.
I'm quite sure that Google will not, and I work for Google (though I don't speak for Google -- these are my own opinions, not any kind of official statement). Two reasons:
First, though it's contrary to the/. groupthink, because Google actually cares quite a lot about user privacy. Even if the people who work for Google didn't care themselves (and, they generally do, a lot), there's the FTC consent decree that means Google has to step very, very cautiously around privacy issues. Of course, Google does collect a lot of information about users, to target ads as well as (increasingly) to deliver personalized services like Google Now, but that data stays within Google, and Google guards it carefully.
Second, because even if privacy weren't a concern, Google is quite certain that advertisers wouldn't be able to utilize/monetize user data nearly as effectively as Google can. Google believes that its algorithmic, big-data approach can target advertising more effectively than the advertisers could do, and therefore Google can make more money by providing interested eyeballs to advertisers than it could make by providing data to advertisers so they could go get their own eyeballs. Add to that the high probability that the advertisers would act obnoxiously to Google's users in attempting to advertise to them, thereby damaging Google.
IMO, Google would be stupid to sell user data, and (also IMNSHO) Google is not stupid.
I'm extrapolating from what my MotoX does. I think it will be highly useful to have personalized voice recognition for Glass, so strongly suspect that's the way it'll go. Like on my phone it'll probably be optional, but I think most people will turn it on.
Corpses have really weird legal status. They're not people, and they're not property, not even the property of the deceased (or deceased's estate). They can become property after being donated to medical science, but strings one might attempt to attach to donation aren't legally binding, even if there's a signed contract of some sort. And even then, they're property with very limited legal uses. The most accurate characterization of the legal status of a corpse is "ward of the state", because what can or cannot be done with a corpse is determined almost entirely by the law.
Which just means that the NSA has also found some remote exploits. Those are bigger news from a security aspect, but again not really shocking, and still don't require collaboration by Apple.
Checks are even worse than credit cards - anyone with your account number (which is printed right there on the check, no "secret" CVV code or anything else needed) can use an electronic check (or print his own) to debit direct from your checking account.
I paid my daughter's creepy landlord with a check. When she moved out (three days after moving in!), he promised to return the money. I didn't believe him and the check hadn't cleared yet, so I cancelled it. He got pissed off and created four electronic checks drawn on my account and cashed them. I did manage to get my money back after sending an affidavit to my bank saying that the check was unauthorized.
I called the police and he's probably going to be arrested for multiple felonies, but it was a huge PITA. Checks suck. If at all possible, stick with credit cards, your risk is limited by law to $50 and in practice it's normally $0.
Go back and read the list of attacks against Snapchat. Silent Circle is still subject to screen shot attacks, device malware attacks, device graphics RAM dumping attacks, etc. It probably isn't subject to retrieval of deleted messages, and really shouldn't be subject to grabbing of messages through a session-logging proxy. But that's my point... though it's vulnerable to fewer attacks because, it's still vulnerable.
BTW, I'm a guy who builds systems with real crypto, and who knows real crypto. I respect the Silent Circle authors, and have every reason to believe they're doing the best job that can be done. But the best job that can be done is far from perfect due to other limitations.
I'm waiting for a crowded streetcar or something, where someone just starts yelling "Ok Glass send a message to " and all the trendy hipster douchebags wearing these things have just blown up some random cellphone.
Only the owner's Glass will activate. My MotoX already does this very well... I've get to find another person to whose voice it will respond.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no language superiority
There are, however, some extremely inferior languages, which suck for any purpose.
That would be an issue if the transition were abrupt. Markets are not good at handling quick, radical changes. They're amazingly good at exploiting marginal differences produced by shifting economics across broad and diversified areas. Most large-scale changes are the latter, and the exhaustion of fossil fuels is definitely of that sort.
This is actually rather obvious if you look at the decades of failed alternative energy companies... but more spring up all the time, because that's how the market seeks new methods: mutation and selection, just like nature. And as we're forced to more and more marginal (and therefore expensive) fossil fuel sources, the impetus for people to seek fortunes in the next big alternative energy source will motivate more and more investment... and rising fossil fuel prices will make more and more of that investment pay off as people shift to the more cost-effective energy source.
This is exactly what markets do well. Global warming... that's a different sort of issue. Absent regulatory action, climate change is an ignorable externality. Even when it does directly impact businesses, it's often still economically better to ignore it, due to tragedy of the commons dynamics. Not to mention the fact that it's easy to deny that it's an issue at all until it's too late to do anything about it.
If it's impossible to find a counter experiment, meaning that there is no conceivable way that a counter experiment could exist, then the theory is pseudo-science at best. If it's conceivable that a counter experiment could exist, but no one has been able to show one, then that's a currently-valid theory.
Also, there is nothing "american" about the notion of falsifiability. Not in the slightest. Popper was British, and his explanation of the philosophy of science (essentially, a theory of how and why science works), has been generally accepted everywhere.
Tomato, tomahto
The point is that market forces will naturally motivate the huge amount of work necessary to develop and exploit alternatives -- including lots of work by MBAs.
The thing about science is that its supposed to be falsifiable.
No it is not. It is supposed to be "investigate able" by experiments.
You need to read up on your philosophy of science. Karl Popper was the one who identified that the key element of a hypothesis that makes it scientific is falsifiability. Some later work has added that some additional requirements, but falsifiability is very much a key requirement.
That means it is "provable"
No, because nothing can ever be truly proven. In mathematics, we can define axioms and prove theorems based on them, but science is effectively about trying to discover what the axioms of the universe are so we can never have that solid basis from which we can prove things.
But, what we can do, is disprove things. But if you have a hypothesis which can never be disproven, under any circumstances, then it isn't scientific. Generally this is because it doesn't make any testable predictions.
... no idea why americans always use the term "falsifiable".
It's not an American thing. Anyone who has studied modern philosophy of science will understand and use that term.
Must have a special meaning in some circumstances?
In discussions of science, it has a very particular meaning. The definition given by Wikipedia for it is "A statement is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive an observation or an argument truthness of which proves the statement in question to be false." Note that a hypothesis can be beyond our ability to test and yet still be falsifiable. It's not necessary that we be able to make the observation that could falsify the theory, just that such an observation is concievable.
Or, how do you "falsify" the theory of gravity?
By finding or constructing some scenario in which your theory is shown not to hold. Basically, by finding a counterexample.
Actually, Einstein conjectured many scenarios in which Newton's theory of gravitation would not hold, and tests have shown that Einstein was right, and so Newton's theory of gravitation has been proven to be false. Of course, Newton's theory is right in enough situations that it's still highly useful (and used), but, for example, if we used Newtonian mechanics to construct the Global Positioning System, it would give inaccurate results, because relativistic issues do come into play.
It's also worth pointing out that Einstein didn't just tweak Newton's theory of gravitation around the edges, he completely replaced it. Gravity, it turns out, isn't a fundamental force at all, but instead is an effect of curved spacetime. This is an entirely different explanation than Newton's theory of gravitational attraction -- though in everyday experience the observed effects are the same. And when I say "it turns out" that Gravity is an effect of curved spacetime, that's per Einstein's relativity, which is itself a falsifiable theory which makes various testable predictions. So far, all of our testing has confirmed the theory, but it's always possible that we'll find a way in which it doesn't work and then we'll need a new theory, which might completely revise the way we explain gravitation yet again.
If you'd like to understand this stuff in detail, there's a fascinating (and very readable) book by David Deutsch called "The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World". Deutsch addresses not just Popper's theories of scientific reasoning but some of the improvements made by later thinkers.
What would be the correct terminology to use in place of what we're all calling "3rd-world"?
Developing world or, if referring to one specific country, developing nation.
Oh, she's not. But that's a comparison tapehoser would understand. You have to speak to your audience.
A Military is a necessary evil
If by "military" you mean standing armed forces, the founders didn't think it was necessary. They instead intended a militia-based system with provision for federal command and control when actively needed. They even tried to make it hard for Congress to establish a standing army by limiting its ability to appropriate funds more than two years at a time. Of course, since appropriations ended up being done annually for all sorts of reasons, that didn't actually work.
Personally, I think the time is ripe for a return to the Constitutional structure of the armed forces. We'd need to keep some full-timers around for the high-tech elements, and it might be wise to maintain a cadre responsible for creating and maintaining the training and integration plans that would be put into effect during a call-up of the unorganized militia, but even most of that could be delegated to the states' organized militias (AKA National Guard). But given the state of the world today, there really is no need for 1.5 million people on active duty. The Cold War notion that our goal should be to be able to "project power" and fight two foreign wars simultaneously is outmoded (if it actually made sense even then).
Of course, my thinking is based on the idea that our national defense strategy should be one of defense, focused on preventing the incursion of foreign armed forces onto American soil, rather than one of offense. Given that model, it is both more cost-effective and much less likely to embroil us in messy foreign wars if we focus on being prepared to train and equip the 120 million members of the unorganized militia. If we institute basic rifle marksmanship training as a standard part of secondary education, plus fund shooting ranges and marksmanship competitions, and buy and warehouse, say, 25 million battle rifles plus ammunition, with appropriate callup and distribution plans (with the weapons already well-dispersed, perhaps secured in various already-existing federal buildings, like post offices), then I think on fairly short notice we could have 50 million armed adults with rudimentary training, ready for further training, organization and deployment. Or, if necessary, self-organization and training.
I like to call this the "rifle behind every blade of grass" national defense strategy, in reference to the apocryphal Admiral Yamamoto statement "You cannot invade the mainland United States, there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass". You can try to argue that a modern military armed with tanks and aircraft overmatches any group of rifle-armed mostly-civilians, but "quantity has a quality all its own", and given that any foreign power with a prayer of success would have to transport their quantity across oceans (and through the non-trivial Navy I would propose we continue maintaining -- it is a Constitutional standing force), we should be able to massively outnumber them.
Not only would this approach cost a small fraction of our current expenditures on national defense and make the US an even harder target for invasion than it currently is, it would also make it very difficult for US presidents to involve us in foreign misadventures.
In my perfect future America, there would be a GPLv3 mapping algorithm that calculated all of the districts.
Algorithmic districting is a great idea. The algorithm doesn't even need to be fixed; it can be the subject of debate and revisions. But as long as there is a single algorithm applied nationwide it would be very hard for either party to use it to favor them... because an approach which helps them in one area will likely hurt them in another.
Of course, it'll never happen, because whichever party is in power wants to draw the lines their way. You might as well wish for them to move to approval voting, which would empower third parties.
Darned right. People should vote based on real facts. From Oprah.
Shame on you for bringing logic and facts to a flame war!
Unforgivable, I know.
Google is the like having the TSA body scanners in every doorway on the planet.
http://www.google.com/privacy/tools
Scroll to the bottom and you can turn off the body scanners. Personally, I go the other way and enable Google to track 100% of my web browsing history, because it's useful to me to have that tracked and available (now, where was that page I saw three days ago?), and I don't have any concerns about what Google is going to do with the data (show me ads I actually might care about! Oh noes! I want to see Tampax ads, not Canon! (Actually, I don't want to see Canon ads any more either, since I just bought a camera. That's an area that Google needs to improve.)).
Note that I do work for Google. You might think that means you should dismiss my comment, but think about it. Normally, to me, that would increase my concern about being tracked. Which is worse, some random company knowing all your secrets or your boss knowing them? But in this case it doesn't, because I know Google is responsible with how it handles the data, and I know that anyone in the company who looked at my data -- including my boss -- without a very good reason would get canned. I also know the data doesn't leave Google.
YMMV, of course, which is why Google provides the opt-outs. And if you want, the next step is that Google provides Takeout; you're free to take your data and move to other services (though applying the analytics and personalized advertising opt outs would still be a good idea, if you're concerned about Google tracking).
Google doesn't want to track you if you don't want to be tracked.
The fact that the ad was served by Google itself, or by a third-party, is quite irrelevant for the user experience.
It is irrelevant to the user's perception of privacy, I suppose. But it's extremely relevant to the user's actual privacy.
YouTube, trying very hard to force users to use their real name
YouTube in no way requires you to use your real name. You're free to create a "page", which is an identity which can be named anything you like (within some policies, I suppose), and you can use that as your YouTube identity. Completely pseudonymous. You can even create several if you like to use sockpuppets; toggling between identity takes two clicks.
trying to ram Google-Plus down everyone's throat
Which is something you don't like, I get that, but it doesn't affect privacy.
These services give out masses of information
No, they don't. They don't give any information that you don't choose to share, to anyone (other than Google).
you have to turn off the annoyances of things like gmails 'available' for chat
Only for people you've invited to be able to see that you're available. Prior to the new Hangouts chat system, you had to specifically invite every individual (or accept an invitation from them). With the new system, you have to circle them before they can see you.
I can't even comment on my own videos because of where I told them to shove google-plus.
I don't get this concern. You post comments publicly on YouTube -- publicly! -- for the whole world to see and read, and then feel it's an invasion of privacy that they also show up at a different URL? Actually, they show up at several different URLs, because the comments get indexed for search, too, and not just by Google. You can find your YouTube comments with Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc. Public is public, especially on the Internet.
Now, if you don't want stuff to be available all over the web, the G+/YouTube integration actually gives you more control, because you can restrict your comments to being visible only to your circles, or to specific people that you identify. That integration increased YouTube users' privacy options.
But regardless of all that, if you don't want to use G+, don't use it. Just use YouTube's new comment system and ignore G+. And use a pseudonym if you prefer. Or use a different service if you dislike Google's stuff. Google makes it easy to take your data and walk away, and to tell Google to delete everything it knows about you.
Google doesn't do the same thing. If you see ads about wedding stuff after getting e-mails about weddings, it's because the ads are being served by Google. Google doesn't sell your data, but Google does use your data to decide what ads might be useful to you. You probably saw those ads all over the web, not just on Google properties, but that's because sites all over the web display Google ads. But Google serves the ads, and the sites don't know what's being served, and the advertisers don't know who it's being served to.
I am pretty sure that google will begin just what you describe if Facebook wins this lawsuit.
I'm quite sure that Google will not, and I work for Google (though I don't speak for Google -- these are my own opinions, not any kind of official statement). Two reasons:
First, though it's contrary to the /. groupthink, because Google actually cares quite a lot about user privacy. Even if the people who work for Google didn't care themselves (and, they generally do, a lot), there's the FTC consent decree that means Google has to step very, very cautiously around privacy issues. Of course, Google does collect a lot of information about users, to target ads as well as (increasingly) to deliver personalized services like Google Now, but that data stays within Google, and Google guards it carefully.
Second, because even if privacy weren't a concern, Google is quite certain that advertisers wouldn't be able to utilize/monetize user data nearly as effectively as Google can. Google believes that its algorithmic, big-data approach can target advertising more effectively than the advertisers could do, and therefore Google can make more money by providing interested eyeballs to advertisers than it could make by providing data to advertisers so they could go get their own eyeballs. Add to that the high probability that the advertisers would act obnoxiously to Google's users in attempting to advertise to them, thereby damaging Google.
IMO, Google would be stupid to sell user data, and (also IMNSHO) Google is not stupid.
I'm extrapolating from what my MotoX does. I think it will be highly useful to have personalized voice recognition for Glass, so strongly suspect that's the way it'll go. Like on my phone it'll probably be optional, but I think most people will turn it on.
Corpses have really weird legal status. They're not people, and they're not property, not even the property of the deceased (or deceased's estate). They can become property after being donated to medical science, but strings one might attempt to attach to donation aren't legally binding, even if there's a signed contract of some sort. And even then, they're property with very limited legal uses. The most accurate characterization of the legal status of a corpse is "ward of the state", because what can or cannot be done with a corpse is determined almost entirely by the law.
The market hates being anthropomorphized. Please stop before you piss it off.
Which just means that the NSA has also found some remote exploits. Those are bigger news from a security aspect, but again not really shocking, and still don't require collaboration by Apple.
Checks are even worse than credit cards - anyone with your account number (which is printed right there on the check, no "secret" CVV code or anything else needed) can use an electronic check (or print his own) to debit direct from your checking account.
I paid my daughter's creepy landlord with a check. When she moved out (three days after moving in!), he promised to return the money. I didn't believe him and the check hadn't cleared yet, so I cancelled it. He got pissed off and created four electronic checks drawn on my account and cashed them. I did manage to get my money back after sending an affidavit to my bank saying that the check was unauthorized.
I called the police and he's probably going to be arrested for multiple felonies, but it was a huge PITA. Checks suck. If at all possible, stick with credit cards, your risk is limited by law to $50 and in practice it's normally $0.
Go back and read the list of attacks against Snapchat. Silent Circle is still subject to screen shot attacks, device malware attacks, device graphics RAM dumping attacks, etc. It probably isn't subject to retrieval of deleted messages, and really shouldn't be subject to grabbing of messages through a session-logging proxy. But that's my point... though it's vulnerable to fewer attacks because, it's still vulnerable.
BTW, I'm a guy who builds systems with real crypto, and who knows real crypto. I respect the Silent Circle authors, and have every reason to believe they're doing the best job that can be done. But the best job that can be done is far from perfect due to other limitations.
s/get/yet/
I'm waiting for a crowded streetcar or something, where someone just starts yelling "Ok Glass send a message to " and all the trendy hipster douchebags wearing these things have just blown up some random cellphone.
Only the owner's Glass will activate. My MotoX already does this very well... I've get to find another person to whose voice it will respond.
Your dystopian future is already here.