Free Republic

For those of us who still love getting our news from newspapers, those inky, crinkly, thin sheets of wood pulp you hold in your hands and read, these indeed are sad times. Print newspapers, thanks in large part to the meteoric rise of smartphones and online and social media, are in serious decline. [Snip] Many media analysts believe it won’t be long before print newspapers disappear. If it happens, they in large part will be devoured by a voracious horde of online and social media, many of which have little respect for the notion that the first function of news...

The Tata Steel sale has revived the battle between protectionists and free traders, a debate that became particularly acute in the run-up to the creation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995, which marked the success of “free traders” all around the world. In the protectionist camp, there is now a wide range of political parties from the extreme left to the extreme right: from Syriza to Ukip, from the Front National to Podemos. The common element for all these parties is that they dream of returning to a time when “we were in control”; when we could easily open...

Those who once built their music-buying week around new albums coming out on Tuesdays will have to change their schedules. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry -- a trade group representing more than 1,300 international record labels -- has announced that beginning July 10, its members and a consortium of other retailers, artist reps and other groups in over 45 countries will shift to a single global Friday release date for new albums.

I tweeted this link last night and John Ziegler replied, “Isn’t this guild statement the ultimate smoking gun of liberal media bias? Didn’t do same for David Geffen’s efforts to buy LAT”. Precisely my point in yesterday’s post. If the media was as neutral as they pretend to be for professional (and political) advantage, any bid from a strong partisan, whether left or right, should cause jitters about the newsroom becoming “unbalanced.” Where’s the hand-wringing over liberal ideologues buying up media?Here’s the Guild statement in full, via Jim Romenesko. Note that there’s no hand-wringing over traditional union concerns like the...

"A refrigerator has never been hacked. An on-line virus has never attacked a cork board." -- from United States Postal Service TV commercial urging people to use mail. Right. And a buggy whip has never had a broken transmission--so why don't we junk our cars? Really, that was the kind of pathetic logic on display in the USPS TV commercial that aired during today's Fox News Sunday. View the video here.

Obama better pray that one of his devoted fans doesn’t shoot up an ATM tomorrow… But I digress. Let’s go straight to the horse’s mouth, shall we? Obama, yesterday: “A lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller or you go to the airport and you’re using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate.” Is the President of the United States trying to jump-start the buggy whip manufacturers? Wait a...

In Religion News today, we learn that there’s nothing we can do – except perhaps getting naked and dancing around an Oak tree worshipping Gaia – to save the planet from rapacious capitalists, gas hungry gear heads, electrical power gluttons, and lawnmower fanatics. Basically, we’re toast: The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades. Their findings, published in separate...

China is threatening America's lead in technology By Ernest Hollings and Charles McMillion Financial Times, January 15, 2007 China's soaring spending on technology research and development now exceeds that of Japan. An authoritative recent study shows that if current trends continue, China's R&D spending will pass the European Union in four years and the US in seven. If China's spending continues to accelerate or if the US rate slows, China could be the world's leader even sooner. Make no mistake: with China's much larger population and lower production costs, the only way the US can maintain its high standard of...

At a news conference in Washington, D.C., today, U.S. semiconductor industry CEOs and an economist stressed the importance of continued progress and leadership in semiconductor technology since the coming transition to nano-scale semiconductor devices means leadership in IT is up for grabs. Advertisement Organized by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the conference included Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corp.; Steve Appleton, CEO of Micron Technology and current chairman of the SIA; Dale Jorgenson, a Samuel W. Morris University professor at Harvard University; and George Scalise, president of the SIA. Following the vision of Moore's Law, the U.S. semiconductor industry has...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. New Delhi, Nov. 10 (NNN): America is likely to lose its overall lead in technology and innovation sector to Asian nations such as India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Singapore, according to a top foreign policy expert. Adam Segal, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations writes in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs that though American technical dominance remains solid, the globalisation of research and development is exerting considerable pressure on the American system. In addition to the increasing science and research and development budgets, India, China, South...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Will move most of its manufacturing from plants in U.S. and Japan to China TOKYO -- Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc. (GST) is planning to shift most of its hard-disk media manufacturing from plants in the U.S. and Japan to China within the next three years, it said Wednesday. The company, which was formed at the beginning of this year when Hitachi Ltd. bought IBM Corp.'s storage operations, currently operates media production plants in San Jose, California, and Odawara, west of Tokyo. The media is the part of the hard disk drive...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yesterday's computers, so often dumped for the next new model, have finally come to be treasured as historical artifacts. And techies, known more for their skills than sentiments, are waxing nostalgic for vintage models from Apple to Zenith -- and paying good money for them. "Most collectors are geeks, from kids to people who've retired, who share an interest in technology," said Sellam Ismail, a computer historian and consultant who owns more than 1,500 models and runs the semi-annual Vintage Computer Festival (http://www.vintage.org). "Some people do collect...