The United States has finally pulled out of ruling the Internet. The job is now left up to the non-government agency, ICANN. It’s a good move.

Well, then again, as has been shown around the world, when governments want to, they can shut down the Internet. I believe this act is more of a formality than any surrender of the Internet. If the power elite who rule this country (or any country) wanted to dispense with the Internet, it would be switched off in a nanosecond. So, again, I view this move as a formality.

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Apparently some good-natured folk are attempting to find the missing Malaysian airliner by using Google Maps. They are doing so in such great numbers that Google had to create a press release to inform people of the nature of Google Maps: It’s not live.

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Anyone who has access to an unsecured computer, phone, or tablet has instant access to all your online password — providing that they know where to look.

I view this risk as yet another reason you should be very careful with your electronics. Secure passwords on a phone or tablet? Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.

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Poor, Microsoft! They’re in a quandary over what to do about the millions of users who still cling to Office 2003 and Windows XP. They just won’t leave!

Apparently — and you could perhaps guess this — Windows 8 isn’t enticing the XP masses.

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Radio Shack was never a “cool” company. I mean, did anyone ever get all excited and say, “Hey! I’m going to Radio Shack”? Probably not. Even those of us who adopted the TRS-80 as our first computer way, way back when had our issues with The Shack.
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Like your home, office, and car, the Internet has keys. There are seven of them, each held by someone from different parts of the world. Every three months, these people gather at a secure location to generate a new master password for the Internet.

If this sounds like a plot device from a spy thriller, you’re correct. But it’s also all true.

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The capacity is truly insane. I remember when 4GB was considered a vast amount of storage, acres of empty fields you could never plow, ever. How they managed to squeeze 128GB of storage onto a card approximately the size of your thumbnail is beyond me.

The price is also pretty insane: $120. That’s a dollar per gigabyte. While it’s not the same dollar/GB of a traditional hard drive, the price is dropping. I once paid $1,000 for a 90 megabyte hard drive. This price drop begs the question: Will the entire database of human knowledge one day be stored in a container the size of a sugar cube?

The answer is most definitely “Yes!”

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I had it when this happens.

Microsoft’s online storage system is now called Onedrive. The change was made a few days ago when a British company claimed to have prior rights to “Skydrive.” I would have figured that Microsoft would vet the term before throwing it out in the public, but no.

The amazing thing is that your Microsoft Office 2013 programs now show “Onedrive” where they once showed “Skydrive.” That’s pretty amazing. Not only that, my Skydrive folder on my PC was renamed Onedrive. That makes me wonder what other changes Microsoft can make to my computer without my approval.

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Apparently your musical preferences have a lot to do with where you sit on the political spectrum. This according to Pandora, who claims to be able to guess how you’re going to vote based on which tunes you enjoy on their streaming music service.

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This is one I would prefer be enabled by the cellular carriers as opposed to the government. While it sounds good to have a cell phone kill switch, something you could remotely activate should your phone be lost or stolen, there are — as is always said about laws — unintended consequences.

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