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(credit: Engine)

On the same day that five key states voted in the presidential primaries, startup lobbying shop Engine took a close look at where the candidates stand on important tech issues like privacy, net neutrality, and patent reform. If your views on those issues align with Engine's, you won't find their 2016 Candidate Report Card an encouraging read.

After taking a look at the candidates' records in four policy areas, Democrat Hillary Clinton got the highest overall grade: a B+. Her challenger Bernie Sanders got a B, while Republican candidates ranked lower: C+ grades for Marco Rubio and John Kasich, a D for Ted Cruz, and straight F's for Donald Trump.

Candidates were ranked on "privacy and security" based on whether they understood the importance of strong encryption and supported reforming privacy and surveillance laws. Bernie Sanders (the only candidate who has suggested leniency for Edward Snowden), got a B. Both Sanders and Clinton (B+) have a "relatively nuanced approach" to the encryption debate. Trump (F), Kasich (C-), and Cruz (C) have made statements "that show little understanding of what encryption is and its role in protecting user safety and security." Rubio earned a D for his promises to double down on NSA surveillance.

Android N isn't all about notifications and multi-window mode, even if they are the biggest and most noticeable features. (credit: Google)

Android N has a bunch of big new features in store for its users—the ones who eventually receive the update and don’t have those features torn out or replaced by their phone’s manufacturer, anyway. We’ve already covered a lot of the biggest user-facing stuff, including the multi-window multitasking mode, the revamped notifications and quick settings, and the new UI customization options.

But every year there are a few smaller or hidden features that are important to the platform but don’t get as much of a spotlight, either because they’re hidden under the covers or they appeal to a narrower audience. As we’ve done for Android L and M, we’ve looked at the developer docs and come up with a handful of new additions that you ought to know about as you’re playing with these early developer builds.

ART JIT

Google formally switched from the Dalvik Java runtime to the Android Runtime (ART) back in version 5.0, and it has continued to make new changes and optimizations since. Android N introduces a big one with far-reaching consequences—after switching entirely to ahead-of-time (AOT) code compilation in the first versions of ART, this version re-introduces just-in-time (JIT) compilation under certain circumstances to speed things up in areas where ART slowed down.

(credit: Kārlis Dambrāns)

In its final court filing before oral arguments that are scheduled for next week, Apple argued that the government’s interpretation of an obscure 18th-Century law goes too far, and it should not be able to authorize the forced creation of a customized iOS firmware to aid in the opening of a seized iPhone.

In a Tuesday call with reporters, Apple lawyers said that this case is serious and has profound implications. The company largely re-iterated many of its previous arguments in earlier filings, ending with this conclusion:

The government’s position has sweeping implications. Under the government’s view, the state could force an artist to paint a poster, a singer to perform a song, or an author to write a book, so long as its purpose was to achieve some permissible end, whether increasing military enrollment or promoting public health.

Last month, the government obtained an unprecedented court order under the All Writs Act, an obscure 18th-century statute, which would compel Apple to assist in the government's investigation. If the order stands up to legal challenges, Apple would be forced to create a new customized iOS firmware that would remove the passcode lockout on the phone. Apple has said both publicly and in court filings that it will fight the order as much as possible, and the company has drawn support from many cryptographers, tech companies, and even the husband of a survivor of the attack.

Charles Bolden flew on the space shuttle four times. (credit: NASA)

It was nearing the end of a two-hour Appropriations subcommittee hearing in the US House of Representatives when Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) asked NASA Administrator Charles Bolden an interesting question. The question referred to comments Chris Kraft made a few years ago in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, in which he said that the operating costs of NASA's large Space Launch System rocket "will eat NASA alive."

Kraft, the agency's original flight director, and the man for whom NASA's mission control is named, is skeptical of the plan to build a very large rocket with a similar capability to the Saturn V used by Apollo program. He and a number of Apollo engineers are concerned that NASA can't afford to fly the expensive rocket more than once every other year and that a lack of missions will have dangerous consequences for the rocket's reliability. Some, like Kraft, have argued that NASA should cede rocket-building to private companies like the United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, which have demonstrated an ability to do so safely and at a lower cost.

After summarizing this idea, Honda asked Bolden, "How do you respond to these sorts of concerns about the Space Launch System, and what is NASA doing to work with industry and government partners to develop a spectrum of missions beyond EM-1 and EM-2 to fully utilize this enormous national asset?"