Free Republic

What the net-neut obsessives refuse to recognize is that anticompetitive intent isn't worth worrying about if an anticompetitive result isn't possible. If AT&T were "double-dipping," or charging sender and recipient for the same data, as some allege, its rivals would quickly copy its innovation and compete away any excess revenues. If AT&T were to degrade websites that don't pay up, its rivals would pounce and steal AT&T's dissatisfied customers.

Taiwan-based Foxconn Group will invest US$40 million in Pennsylvania, the US, over two years, according to group president Terry Guo. The investment is in line with the US government's Advanced Manufacturing in America policy, Guo said. Foxconn will invest US$30 million in Foxconn East America, a subsidiary based in Harrisburg, to expand an existing R&D team to set up an advanced manufacturing facility for high value-added products for applications including automobiles, medical care and environmental production, Guo said. The expansion will recruit about 500 employees. In addition, Foxconn will invest US$10 million in Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh specifically for...

Greenland’s parliament voted on Thursday (24 October) to end a decades-long prohibition on mining for radioactive materials like uranium, further opening up the country to investors from Australia and China eager to tap its vast mineral resources. The move will not only allow the mining of uranium deposits, but also of rare earths, minerals used in 21st century products from wind turbines to hybrid cars and smart phones and that are currently mostly extracted by China. With sea ice thawing and new Arctic shipping routes opening, the former Cold War ally of the West has emerged from isolation and gained...

Prepaid phone plans, where you pay the full price for a cellphone and then pay lower monthly rates without a contract, seem to offer what most budget-conscious people want. So why haven’t they really caught on?

As the baseball playoffs approach, beware: As some fans in Boston found out the hard way, snapping too many cell phone photos may be bad for your camera. Or at least your beer. Still, despite the chance of losing your phone or your beverage, we love to snap and share. Everything. It was that noted wine drinker Socrates who opined that the unexamined life is not worth living. But how many friends would he have had on Facebook, anyway? Americans don’t have Socratic problems. Our lives are over-examined. Few of us go anywhere without a smart phone these days. Whether...

...at least one man in Washington is tuning in. Ajit Pai, the lone Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, is on a personal if quixotic quest to save AM. After a little more than a year in the job, he is urging the F.C.C. to undertake an overhaul of AM radio, which he calls “the audible core of our national culture.” He sees AM — largely the realm of local news, sports, conservative talk and religious broadcasters — as vital in emergencies and in rural areas. “AM radio is localism, it is community,” Mr. Pai, 40, said in an interview....

THE TOWN of Fort Lee, N.J., has outlawed texting while jaywalking, issuing scores of $54 tickets to pedestrians who send or read messages while drifting out of crosswalks. Tiny Rexburg, Idaho, bans texting while crossing the street. Last year the Utah Transit Authority created a $50 civil fine for distracted walking across its transit tracks. Even in Nevada, where “Anything Goes” should be the official state song, legislators filed a bill this year making it a crime to read, write, or send data while crossing a public way.

HEAD FOR THE HILLS.

Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications. The president of the country's national assembly, Rene Nuñez, announced the $40bn (£26bn) project, which will reinforce Beijing's growing influence on global trade and weaken US dominance over the key shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The name of the company and other details have yet to be released, but the opposition congressman Luis Callejas said the government planned to grant a 100-year lease to the Chinese operator. The national...

If your cell phone stops working, don’t blame your battery. The government remotely disabled it. Central to society is the constant question of who is in control. Our quaint republic is rather unique in that we believe, and actually once enforced, the right of individual self-determination. In short, you were in charge of you and any problems you created for yourself were yours to deal with. Despite being widely popular, certain insecure individuals with weak mental constitutions wanted a perpetual nanny once they were too old for their original keepers, and found pliable politicians to allegedly protect them. In return,...

Roaming fees for voice calls, texts and internet access will effectively be completely scrapped under the proposals, which are part of a broader effort to create a single European telecoms market. The group of 27 European Commissioners voted in Brussels on Tuesday to drive the package through in time for the European elections in May next year, to come into force as soon as 1 July 2014. … They expect the death of roaming charges to typically wipe 2 percent off mobile operators’ revenues … The reforms are designed to encourage radical consolidation of European mobile network operators. A source...

<p>Technology companies stung by the controversy over the National Security Agency’s sweeping Internet surveillance program are calling on U.S. officials to ease the secrecy surrounding national security investigations and lift long-standing gag orders covering the nature and extent of information collected about Internet users.</p>

"My job this morning is to be so persuasive...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack," he told a crowd of about 300 Ivy Leaguers--and, by the looks of it, a handful of locals who managed to gain access to what was supposed to be a students-only event. For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney...

Scary. Unacceptable. This is not America. Those are some of the comments that I have heard about the revelations regarding government snooping on our cell phones. The statement that one man made that something is wrong with you if you don’t think something is askew here -- that would be about right. If you are not upset about this situation then you are clueless. There is a dangerous extension of government that no true American could possibly endorse or accept. Our government has no right to randomly rummage through our cell phone or email records. If you think that the...

A U.S. trade agency says it is banning imports of Apple's iPhone 4 after finding the device violates a patent held by rival Samsung Electronics. Because the phone is assembled in China, the import would end Apple's ability to sell new iPhone 4 devices in the U.S. The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington issued a final ruling Tuesday in Samsung's suit against Apple. The panel issued a limited import ban and a cease-and-desist order for AT&T models of the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G.....

We can't count the number of times we've wanted to enact vengeance on some inconsiderate audience member whose cell phone goes off during a performance. But, like most people, we just bottle that fury up deep down inside and take it out on the break room vending machine later. Not Kevin Williamson. Last night the National Review writer was in attendance at the marvelous new musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 when one theatergoer's incessant cell phone use finally drove him over the edge... into vigilantism. The stellar production—a swinging cabaret-type musical adaptation loosely adapted from Leo...

Samsung on Sunday announced that it had developed a core component of its 5G network by solving a problem that has stymied the wireless industry, Yonhap News reported. Using the 28GHz waveband, Samsung says it has achieved download and upload speeds of tens of gigabits per second (Gbps). Current 4G LTE networks top out at around 75 megabits (Mbps). In practice, that speed would allow wireless users to download a full HD movie in seconds. Samsung executives see the technology enabling a wide range of rich applications. Samsung used 64 antenna elements in order to accomplish the high-speed data transfer,...

Abstract: Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup®, is the most popular herbicide used worldwide. The industry asserts it is minimally toxic to humans, but here we argue otherwise. Residues are found in the main foods of the Western diet, comprised primarily of sugar, corn, soy and wheat. Glyphosate's inhibition of cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes is an overlooked component of its toxicity to mammals. CYP enzymes play crucial roles in biology, one of which is to detoxify xenobiotics. Thus, glyphosate enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins. Negative impact on the body is insidious and...

I was almost sideswiped by another driver on Interstate 95 today. He missed me by a couple of inches and I looked over with alarm as he passed to see him looking down into his lap and not out the windshield. No proof, naturally, but it's a safe bet he was texting on his cell phone. If fact, I had been watching him in my mirror as he approached from behind in the passing lane, and his directional control was marginal, to say the least. Who among us has not been witness to an inattentive driver using a cell, whether...

Sometimes, the best way to get a handle on the unpredictable is to label it with a completely random numerical value. Oddsmaking is a combination of magical thinking, intuition and sheer chance. With that in mind, here are the odds that Vegas bookmakers might want to give to the following world events: 1. North Korea starts a war with South Korea: 10% My biggest fear is that the West believes that North Korea does not actually feel threatened and is simply posturing. But that assumption has almost never, ever held water for any conflicts. It's been a huge blind spot;...