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Everyone has an opinion about the revelations that government agencies may be tracking us.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak believes that America is becoming like Russia.

Some, though, feel comfortable with the idea that government may be offering surveillance for own own good. Or do they?

An answer given by Miss Alabama during the Miss USA pageant on Sunday night fully expressed how pretzel-ish the thinking has to be around our personal safety and security.

Asked by actress Wendie Malick whether NSA surveillance is an invasion of privacy or a necessity, Mary Margaret McCord offered a sure-minded reply.

She said: "… Read more

As the passions and justifications swirl around the revelations concerning the NSA, the rest of the world sits and wonders.

Is only the U.S. involved? Or might, perhaps, every government on Earth be rather keen to use all technological methods to protect its interests?

What do ordinary Americans think (apparently, we don't mind too much)?

But, more importantly, what does Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak think?

It so happens that Latin American tech site FayerWayer happened upon Woz as he sat at San Francisco airport.

So often known to be obliging and spontaneous, Woz offered his thoughts. Essentially, he … Read more

Sunday is the day when fathers are celebrated for what they are: bankers.

Well, and stoics, gardeners, philosophers, carpenters, tap dancers, soccer coaches, barbecuers -- and, of course, miserable, grouchy men.

For all these reasons and many more, Google would like you to celebrate the man whose chemicals helped bring you into the world.

In another touching little doodle, you click Google's second "o" and you see in the "l" a compendium of different dads' roles and personalities, as if it's just one day in a dad's life.

Naturally, Google would like to … Read more

Technology can be frustrating, especially when it's designed to oust you from your sense of being.

Who better, then, to offer a jaded human's perspective than Lewis Black, a man who makes lemons seems remarkably sweet?

Appearing on "The Daily Show," Black looked through a glass darkly at what he called the latest "space toys." You know, things like Google Glass that excite space boys.

You might imagine that Black's observations are both predictable and curmudgeonly.

You might conceive that he isn't the wisest commentator when it comes to new technology.

However, … Read more

Microsoft is not going to stop until iPad sales go down to zero.

It's not going to stop until there are no iPads left in the world.

Because this is payback and war and so many other cliches of aggression that companies are fond of exhuming.

In its second assault on the iPad released Thursday, Microsoft tries to explain very quietly that even a Dell tablet is better than an iPad.

Just as in the first ad of this phase, Redmond is using Siri's measured tones to show how a Windows tablet measures up to an iPad. This time it's the Dell XPS 10. … Read more

Our children constantly need to be rewarded.

Poor things, they're growing up in a world in which they don't know what will happen tomorrow and whether the things they want to do in life will suddenly be automated by a couple of fluff-chinned hipsters sitting in a hotel foyer.

It makes them wonder whether going to school is worth it all. Instead, go to work, get your Series A funding by the time you're 19 and hope that you can take it easy by the time you're 25.

One L.A. schools district is conscious of … Read more

Would you like to disappear?

No, I am not threatening you. I am merely wondering whether you might be happier to be anonymous, private, tucked away so that random entities cannot find you.

Of course, I am moved to this suggestion by the avalanche of debate following the revelations from Snowdenia that have rendered idealists and libertarians simultaneously insensate.

You mean everyone can view everything we do? Even governments? Even Russian governments?

This seems to be the case. Which is why those who like to be meta before there's even a norm are striking out by hiding from the … Read more

The world tends not to reward initiative as often as it should. Somehow, creating something new or presenting something different rouses many into fear mode, causing them to suppress with jerking knees.

This phenomenon might well have befallen a Chinese man called Mr. Li, who has been tossed into the clink for creating a stink.

Mister Li presented a mystery. He claimed to have caught an an alien in a rabbit trap and slipped it into his large freezer. He explained that there had been five aliens that descended upon his land. They allegedly came from a UFO.

The Shangdong farmer insisted that this alien -- which, for all the world looked like it was made of rubber -- was the real thing.… Read more

This is serious.

All over the world, people are are using apps from Apple's App Store in order to save lives, better lives, or change them completely.

Whether it be Skyscape Medical Resources, Galileo, Cherokee Language, or Proloquo2Go, these apps affect human beings.

So Apple has released a touching 9-minute film that tells some of the stories of how apps such as these truly make a difference.

I defy you to remain emotionally grounded on seeing Paralympic bronze medalist rower Oksana Masters explain that her app has made it possible for her to put on high-heeled shoes.

You might … Read more