Free Republic

Apple’s iPhone 7 is claimed to be IP67 rated, making it suitable for water resistance at a depth of 1m for up to thirty minutes. That’s great if you happen to drop your iPhone in the bath, or for some reason, feel the need to reply to emails in the shower, but there will always be someone who takes things a little bit further.Perhaps too far, in fact, but it usually makes for great entertainment when they do. So when we heard about one YouTube taking an iPhone 7 for scuba diving, our ears pricked up.The hugely unscientific water resistance...

Published Friday, June 25, 1999, in the Miami Herald DONALD J. TRUMP A choice for human rights Donald J. Trump is a real-estate investor and head of The Trump Organization in New York City. Several large European investment groups have asked me to take the ``Trump Magic'' to Cuba. They have ``begged'' me to form partnerships to build casino-hotels in Havana. With the influx of foreign tourists, we would make a fortune, they promise, and they are no doubt right. They are also right to say that this type of arrangement would allow me to skirt the U. S.-imposed embargo....

The United States does not have a coherent strategy to deal with a rising People's Republic of China in the Western Pacific. Nor do foreign policy experts specializing in the Asia-Pacific region have a concrete set of ideas to coax an increasingly assertive Beijing into accepting the U.S.-led post-Second World War liberal-institutional world order or to reassert Washington's dominance in the region. It is becoming increasingly clear that China hopes to chart its own course independent of the existing Western frameworks as Beijing reaffirms its claims to the South China Sea and continues to build artificial islands in the region,...

The world’s leading smartphone makers just can’t stop copying each other. While the company has certainly improved its image over the past few years, Samsung is likely most famous for being an Apple copycat. After all, the company was sued repeatedly by Apple for stealing its technology and designs. And as we all learned, things got so crazy at one point that Samsung even created a 132-page internal document to help its engineers copy the iPhone pixel by pixel. Of course, Apple is hardly innocent in all this. The iPhone maker has aped plenty of features from Android in recent...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — One Bradenton man is trying to get rid of the overpopulated lionfish in an unconventional way, by glock-fishing underwater. This means shooting lionfish underwater with a glock pistol. Courtland Hunt said he taped his experience to raise awareness about the lionfish’s harmful overpopulation. FWC spokesperson, Amanda Nalley, said the FWC is aware of the video and the agency encourages people to remove lionfish, but not with firearms.

Aircraft engineers in Germany have successfully tested the world’s first four-seater plane that uses emission-free hybrid fuel cells to fly. The 10-minute test flight Thursday at Stuttgart Airport in southwestern Germany involved two pilots and two dummy passengers. The twin-cabin plane, known as HY4, was developed by aircraft maker Pipistrel, fuel cell specialist Hydrogenics, the University of Ulm and the German Aerospace Center DLR. …

Lawmakers are venting outrage over high prescription drug costs, but if Congress is looking for culprits, it might want to look in the mirror. Republican- and Democratic-controlled Congresses, and presidents of both parties, may have set the stage for the startling prices that have consumers on edge. In the last 13 years, Congress passed major legislation that expanded taxpayer-financed coverage for prescription drugs but lacked explicit mechanisms for dealing with costs, instead relying mainly on market forces. […] “The history we see over and over again is that when the government steps in as a guaranteed payer without regard to...

Owners of the top-loading appliances say the machines exploded while they were doing laundry. REUTERS/Steve Marcus Just days after Samsung began replacing defective Galaxy Note 7s due to a risk of exploding batteries, the company faces another major product issue. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a warning today after multiple reports of top-loading washing machines exploding. Owners of Samsung appliances in Georgia, Indiana and Texas say that they were doing a load of laundry when they heard a loud boom. ABC News reports 21 people have submitted cases to the CPSC since early 2015 of washers exploding...

The Census Bureau reported that median income jumped 5.2% last year. As I pointed out last week, that's a solid increase, but still leaves us short of the record in 1999. Still, something about the gains struck me as wrong. Even with cities, states and some businesses bumping up their minimum wage, 5.2% seemed like a lot. So I went digging. And the more I dug, the more disappointed and frustrated I became. As usual, the source of my angst was the federal government. Long-time readers know my ongoing annoyance with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) when it comes...

Just a short vanity: I just saw a very nice patriotic Jeep commercial. I was surprised enough to elicit this vanity. This is a hat tip to Jeep. Very nice commercial. Well done.

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. Great partnerships are often forged when each party enjoys a surplus of something the other needs and there’s little conflict in their ambitions. By that logic, two of Silicon Valley’s best known firms, Apple and Tesla Motors, really need each other right now. An investment in Tesla by Apple in return for some of the carmaker’s innovation dust might be just the ticket. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook is revamping the company’s approach to self-driving cars and the gadget maker’s broader role in the future of transportation....

Air traffic controllers and pilots are switching to text messages for faster plane takeoffs, saving billions With the new system, called Data Comm, a controller can type a few instructions into a computer, tap a key and send the message directly to the flight management computers in each plane that needs the information. Pilots read the information on cockpit display screens and decide with the push of a button whether to accept it.

A United Nations working group is getting into the fray on U.S. racial discrimination. After 14 years, and 20 days of speaking with U.S. officials, activists, and families of people killed by police in major American cities, it has issued its conclusions: the slave trade was a crime against humanity and the U.S. government should pay reparations. “Contemporary police killings and the trauma it creates are reminiscent of the racial terror lynching in the past,” a French member of the working group of U.N. experts, Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, said after their meetings in the U.S. The U.N. experts traveled to major...

Oscar winners, sports stars and Bill Gates are building lavish bunkers — with amenities ranging from a swimming pool to a bowling alley — as global anxiety fuels sales and owners "could be the next Adam and Eve."SNIP Adds Mike Peters, owner of Utah-based Ultimate Bunker, which builds high-end versions in California, Texas and Minnesota: "People are going for luxury [to] live underground because they see the future is going to be rough. Everyone I've talked to thinks we are doomed, no matter who is elected."

Insurance company Aetna today announced a major health initiative centered on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, which will see Aetna subsidizing the cost of the Apple Watch for both large employers and individual customers. Starting this fall during open enrollment season, Aetna will subsidize "a signficant portion" of the Apple Watch cost and will offer monthly payroll deductions to cover the remaining cost. apple watch series 2 Aetna also plans to provide Apple Watches at no cost to all of its nearly 50,000 employees as part of a wellness reimbursement program to encourage them to live healthier lives. "We...

Microsoft’s self-installing Windows 10 operating system has reached the 400 million mark, the firm announced at its Ignite conference in Atlanta this week, up from the previous high of 350 million in August. This adoption rate means the firm’s self-imposed target of a billion devices by mid-2018 looks increasingly unlikely, but the Redmond giant can take some consolation in the fact that business enthusiasm seems to be growing. The latest version of Windows hit its one-year anniversary on July 29, a date that also marked the ending of the free upgrade offer period for users of Windows 7 and Windows...

The host of the first presidential debate on Monday night, Hofstra University in New York, may have broken the law and could be in line for a huge fine. Reporters at the event were appalled to find that among the heavily marked-up items they were offered – $150 to rent a lamp, anyone? – was a $200 charge for a "secure wireless internet connection." Worse than the clear effort to price-gouge people trying to file stories, however, was the fact that the university decided that only its wireless access points were allowed to be used, and even sent someone around...

Faster, brighter, water resistant and far more versatile I am not the world's best surfer, or passionate kayaker, but I quite enjoy a gentle swim from time to time. Credit: Apple I’ve been using my Apple Watch Series 2 for over a week. I thought I should share a few observations about my experience and try to explain why I think now is a good time for people who may have been curious about the product to take a look. A little history Introduced in a blaze of glory after years of speculation, Apple Watch quickly became King of the...

Get it? 'Cause their website is BeCandid. Ha.