Free Republic

On Thursday, February 4, Satya Nadella will celebrate his second anniversary as the CEO of Microsoft. It's been an eventful couple of years. Microsoft has grown its crucial cloud business, released Windows 10 to a much better reception than its loathed predecessor, launched a bunch of great apps for iPhone and Android, and generally made people like it a lot more. But the real victory of Satya Nadella — the truly monumental shift — has been within the company. Under Nadella, Microsoft is pointed in one direction for first time in modern memory.

If you've ever wondered whether the grass would be greener — or if you literally make more green — by moving to another state or working in tech, we have your answer. We've ranked the average salary of tech workers in all 50 states, using the latest data from a new survey conducted by Dice.com. While you'll need the necessary skills to get your foot in the door of a tech job, this roundup gives you the chance to at least see how your state, and those across the country, stack up. Here's how every state ranks, from those with...

With the internet age and its endless possibilities in the realms of publishing, communication, and collaboration, opportunities have never been so widely accessible for creators. But how has our new digital world affected the pathways to invention? In Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World, out today, journalist Pagan Kennedy offers a fresh take on how the digital era has upended the traditional pathways for creation. When Kennedy began writing about inventors for The New York Times, she soon "would marvel at how few of the people were professional inventors, designers, in corporate innovation labs." It led...

Actually that's not the title of yesterday's blockbuster report in the Wall Street Journal. Here's the WSJ title: "Missing U.S. Missile Shows Up in Cuba." "An inert U.S. Hellfire missile sent to Europe (Spain) for training purposes was wrongly shipped from there to Cuba in 2014," continues the WSJ, "a loss of sensitive military technology that ranks among the worst-known incidents of its kind. The unintended delivery of the missile to Cuba has confounded investigators and experts who work in a regulatory system designed to prevent precisely such equipment from falling into the wrong hands… Investigators are unclear if the...

resident Obama is the top recipient in campaign cash from the "smart gun" manufacturing industry, which stands to benefit from his executive action calling for more research into the technology. The National Institute of Justice, a research, development, and evaluation agency of the Department of Justice, released a report in 2013 consisting of a review of the smart gun industry. The report identified ten companies that focus exclusively on smart gun technology.Of the smart gun companies that made political contributions, Obama was the top recipient of campaign funds in 2008 and 2012, according to campaign finance data.The president ordered the...

Engineers who design computerized products and services seem to have an almost fanatical determination to avoid using plain English. It is understandable when complicated processes require complicated operations. But when the very simplest things are designed with needless complications or murky instructions, that is something else. For example, like all sorts of other devices, computers and computerized products and services have to be turned on and off. And everybody knows what the words "on" and "off" mean. But how often have you seen a computer or a computerized product or service that used the words "on" or "off"? These simple...

If you read Stephen Moore's column, he noted how the consensus over oil is wrong. We're not running out of oil. In fact, many have been saying we're going to run out since the 1930s: These stupid predictions of the end of oil have been going on for most of the last century. Just over 100 years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated total future production at 6 billion barrels, yet we've produced more than 20times that amount. In 1939 the Department of the Interior predicted U.S. oil supplies would last 13 years. I could go on. The folks...

I remember reading obscure things concerning biblical prophecy when I was a child. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around them. But these days, the Bible seems more like a newspaper than a book of prophecy. Look over these photos/verses and please add your own!

AFTER a year of big Apple releases, analysts are predicting a flat 2016 where the world's biggest tech company refines product lines rather than produces the next big thing. Apple's share price has taken a battering in the past six months, with more than $220 billion slashed from the company's value as analysts look towards an era of smartphone saturation. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty recently predicted that 2016 would be first time that iPhone sales would shrink, dropping by up to three per cent.

There may be no more American thing to do than to bemoan the declining state of everyone younger than you. Even Ben Franklin believed the youths of the 1700s fell short of the generations that had gone before. "The best capacities require cultivation, it being truly with them," Franklin said, "as with the best ground, which unless well tilled and sowed with profitable seed, produces only ranker weeds." A prime catalyst for those fears frequently has been new and evolving technology. In the early 20th century, even bicycles were seen as a tool of immorality, as romantic trysts between young...

The Intercept has obtained a secret government catalog that law enforcement agencies use to source even-more-secret cellular spying devices, mostly variants on the Stingray/Dirtbox, which pretend to be cellular towers in order to harvest the subscriber details of all the people within range (up to an entire city, for the airplane-mounted Dirtboxes). The catalog details the capabilities and costs of the different devices in use in at least 60 law enforcement agencies in the US, most of whom will not admit to owning them (this can go to absurd lengths, such as lying in court, or police-on-police raids to confiscate...

Many consumers believe smartphones will cease to exist within five years, according to new research carried out by researchers on behalf of Ericsson. The company's ConsumerLab questioned more than 100,000 customers in its native Sweden and 39 other countries, seeking their views on their technological desires for the future.

Lawmakers continue to wrangle over a bill that would overhaul the nation's immigration system. One provision in this bill would allow companies to import a lot more skilled workers. The tech industry has lobbied hard for this, despite fears among some American workers about the extra competition. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin says the bill has American workers covered. --Employers will be given a chance to hire a temporary foreign worker when truly needed. But first, they'll be required to recruit Americans. No exceptions, no excuses,-- he said. Still, making companies recruit Americans isn't the same as making them hire them....

The Amish are online, onscreen, and multiplying fast. In their battle with modernity, it’s tough to say who’s winning I’ve probably visited more Amish settlements than anyone. Who would venture out to the most remote corners of Montana, Maine and South Texas if they didn’t happen to be a student of Amish culture? Perhaps a peddler of pots and pans; many Amish cooks, I have noticed, gradually gave up their cast iron for stainless steel in the past 50 years... In my 25 years exploring Amish communities, I’ve witnessed changes that would be unnoticeable to the average outsider... To the...

China continues to rack up successes in exporting its nuclear power technologies as it seeks to become a leader on the global stage. Chinese President Xi Jingping wrapped up a state visit to the United Kingdom at the end of October, in which he inked a deal with the UK to help build nuclear reactors in England. The deal will see the China General Nuclear Power Corporation acquire a 33.5 percent stake in the Hinkley Point nuclear power plant. The power plant could be the most expensive reactor ever built and although it will be constructed years behind schedule, it...

Wireless power has been a dream of mankind’s for decades, but the technology finally appears to be gaining some traction. Theoretically, numerous studies have shown that wireless power is possible through a variety of aerial transmission modalities. Yet the problem with wireless power has been getting the technology to work at a reasonable range. So far, commercial use of wireless power has been limited, but progress is being made. For instance, Samsung now has a commercially available wireless charger for its cell phones. With the charger, consumers do not need to plug their phone into the wall for it to...

During the fourth Republican debate, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina correctly noted that "big government has created a big business called politics. And there are lots of people invested in the status quo of that big business called politics." What Fiorina did not say was that, particularly in the tech sphere, the big business of politics loves to attempt hostile takeovers, often in the guise of trying to stop genuinely predatory behavior. Ironically, the biggest beneficiaries of such takeovers are usually the predators themselves. No better example of such disingenuous action exists than the current proposed FCC enforcement action...

Transmittance spectrum of the 54Al2O3-46Ta2O5 glass in the UV/vis region. The inset picture shows the glass sample used for the transmittance experiment. Credit: (c) 2015 Scientific Reports (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep15233 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with The University of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute has created a type of glass that is stronger than many metals. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers describe how they overcame one of the major hurdles in creating glass imbued with extra amounts of an oxide of aluminum, by using what they call aerodynamic levitation. Glass that does...

With the exception of Mrs. Clinton and her email scandal, few presidential candidates of either party have been moved during their campaigns to discuss technology at length. That changes today, as Donald Trump gives an exclusive interview to Breitbart Tech about hacking, cyber-warfare and artificial intelligence. BREITBART TECH: What’s your position on the NSA? Has it overreached in recent years, or is it an essential line of defense in the fight against terrorism? TRUMP: The National Security Agency (NSA) is charged with collecting electronic intelligence from a host of sources around the world and from those who live in America who might...

Your next tinfoil hat will won’t be made of tinfoil. A small company called Conductive Composites out of Utah has developed a flexible material — thin and tough enough for wallpaper or woven fabric — that can keep electronic emissions in and electromagnetic pulses out.