Free Republic

Erik Gatenholm first saw a 3D bioprinter in early 2015. His father, Paul, a professor in chemistry and biopolymer technology at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, had bought one for his department. It cost somewhere in the region of $200,000. “My father was like, ‘This thing can print human organs,’” Gatenholm recalls, still awestruck. “I said, ‘Bulls#*+!’ Then it printed a little piece of cartilage. It wasn’t cartilage, but it was like, this could be cartilage. That was the moment when it was like, ‘This is frickin’ cool!’” Gatenholm, who had long owned a regular 3D printer, decided then...

Australian company Titomic has unveiled what it claims is the world's largest metal 3D printer at its fully automated Melbourne facility. Utilizing a patented process co-developed with Australian federal scientific research agency the CSIRO, the 3D metal printer boasts a build area 9 m long, 3 m wide and 1.5 m high (29.5 x 9.8 x 4.9 ft), however the printing process isn't constrained to this booth size, meaning it could be used to print even larger objects. The unit prints layer by layer like existing 3D printers, but rather than relying on metal powders that are fused using extreme...

EXPERTS say 3D-printed houses will be "mainstream by 2025", and could put an end to Britain's housing crisis. A new report details how Brits are less than a decade away from enjoying lower house prices thanks to a robot revolution in the construction of homes. 3D printing, or "additive manufacturing", is a process of layering up a material to build complicated structures. It works just like regular home printers – but instead of ink, a 3D printer will use materials like plastic or metal. Using giant 3D printers, it's been proven possible to quickly and cheaply build homes. Sadly the...

A leading candidate in Mexico's presidential race vowed to fire back at President Trump if he continues to insult Mexico on Twitter, Yahoo News reported. "If he makes an offensive tweet, I'm going to take responsibility for answering him," Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Friday. Trump has regularly attacked Mexico in speeches and on Twitter since he launched his presidential campaign in 2015. López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, said Trump needs to respect Mexican people. "I think (Trump) is going to understand he has to get himself under control, that he can't go around offending the Mexican...

There was a time when working from home was a pipe dream. Thanks to technology like Slack, there’s been a surge of legit jobs you can do from home. Whether that’s working remotely for a company or starting your own business there’s no shortage of work-at-home opportunities. Here are 50 work from home jobs that most make above the average American salary. 1. Affiliate Marketer For those unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, it’s simply referral marketing where you earn a commission. Let’s say that you have a website and refer a book on Amazon. When the visitor clicks the affiliate link...

A group of researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a new battery breakthrough that could have a big impact on runtimes for the gadgets. The researchers have developed new material that can address the two chief complaints of batteries used in electronic devices now: relatively runtimes life and unwanted heat production. The team has applied for a patent for a magnetic material that has a unique honeycomb lattice structure that offers distinct electronical properties. “Semiconductor diodes and amplifiers, which often are made of silicon or germanium, are key elements in modern electronic devices,” said Deepak K. Singh, head...

Do you still print stuff out? If so, you're undoubtedly like most of us who, at least periodically, still need to print out a hard copy of some digital document – whether for archiving, legality, to put into a cookbook, or whatever. Yet we've been promised for years that all of us using computers would mean that all those beautiful trees could be saved, presumably so we can hug them and live in them in the green paradise envisioned by some. What happened? Reality happened. And because of that, at least in part, our forest workers can still feed their...

Hi everyone. For the last couple of days, when I copy something, my computer refuses to paste it on the Internet. I've tried rebooting. I would hate to have to do a serial reboot. Does anyone have any ideas how I might fix this problem?

By now, we’re all tired of hearing about the virtual currency turned investment craze known as Bitcoin. Created in response to the 2008 financial crisis, anarcho-capitalists hailed it as the decentralized future of commerce. But as prices soared and the biggest names on Wall Street bought in, Bitcoin became mostly known as a speculative, unregulated investment. Think Beanie Babies, but you can also use them to buy drugs and engage in human trafficking. Perhaps the most remarkable Bitcoin storyline recently has been just how much computational horsepower it takes to create the virtual currency: some 26 quintillion calculations per second....

Four months ago, James O'Keefe caught multiple Twitter employees on undercover video discussing how algorithms are used to "shadowban" their conservative users. What's a shadowban? It's basically stealth censorship that throttles or hides a user or his content from some or all of Twitters users. There are no warnings. Everything looks the same to the user, except he's largely tweeting into a void. Twitter, of course, denied that the employees were speaking for the company or that Twitter uses shadow bans. This week's announcement that Twitter will be using algorithms that analyze user behavior to downgrade or hide tweets from...

Researchers have been able to confine light down to a space one atom, the smallest possible. This will pave the way to ultra-small optical switches, detectors and sensors. Light can function as an ultra-fast communication channel, for example between different sections of a computer chip, but it can also be used for ultra-sensitive sensors or on-chip nanoscale lasers. There is currently much research into how to further shrink devices that control and guide light. New techniques searching for ways to confine light into extremely tiny spaces, much smaller than current ones, have been on the rise. Researchers had previously found...

Today, May 16, is a grave day in our battle for the Internet, as it is the last ditch effort to save Net Neutrality. The Senate will vote to reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality repeal. Odds are, with Republican opposition, Congress won’t do it, but it’s the last, best shot we have of restoring net neutrality this year. The FCC published the final notice of the repeal in the Federal Register in February. Net neutrality is now scheduled to end on June 11. By using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), Congress can overturn the FCC’s rulings by...

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by Israeli drone maker Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd. is being used by the Israeli military to dump skunk-water on protesters in Gaza, according to a video posted to Twitter by the Israeli Defense Ministry Wednesday. Tens of thousands of Palestinians had been protesting near Gaza’s perimeter fence since March as part of a campaign dubbed the “Great March of Return” which calls for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands in Israel. The protests escalated earlier this week ahead of the inauguration of the American Embassy in Jerusalem. Israeli defense forces have...

The King, Queen and Joker of Social Media’s False Gods Overlooked in the aftermath of thousands of conservative casualties left behind by the brutal social media truck drive-through: Many who are (infuriatingly to social media giants) still standing; still being followed by those who will still go looking for their favorite sites on the now pothole-warped Information Highway. Long before Facebook be-knighted itself as the ‘Hate Speech Killer of All Time’, people saw through the phoney claims of prominent users like former President Barack Obama deceitfully claiming more than 45 million fawning fans. Social media has been in cahoots with...

Teachers have long supplemented their incomes by tutoring. And there’s perhaps never been a better, or easier, time to do it than right now. The reason: China-based online education companies are in an apparent race with each other to hire U.S. teachers who’d like to work from home this summer and, using their webcams, “teach cute kids” the English language — in the marketing parlance of one of those companies, Beijing-based VIPKid. If you doubt that’s true, you haven’t been looking at the classifieds. Just today, five-year-old VIPKid i — which reportedly raised $200 million in fresh funding last summer...

A top nonpartisan political crowdfunding site on Tuesday cut ties with its CEO, a Fox News weekend host, and temporarily suspended all fundraising on its platform for Republican candidates. In a Medium.com post, entitled “A stand against Trumpism, a stand for democracy,” Crowdpac, a for-profit website that helps candidates raise money online, announced a series of major changes including the departure of founder and CEO Steve Hilton, acknowledging that his vocal advocacy for President Donald Trump “created a tension within our platform and community.” “We’ve heard from many quarters of the Crowdpac community that, in light of Steve Hilton’s political...

When I watched this video, I had to do a second take. I thought I had misunderstood this man’s words, but I was not mistaken. I am still amazed at what he said to the audience in trying to explain the sinister facets of artificial intelligence. As Elon Musk had said at an earlier time, “we are summoning the demon.” This, too, is amazing to me, as Musk helped to create A.I. I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but Elon has been on the downside of luck recently. He has had accident after accident with his inventions....

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Zensar, a provider of services to help clients implement digital solutions, is planning to hire as many as 200 people over the next two years at a new customer support center in RTP. Zensar, which is part of India-based RPG Enterprises, says the “current plan” is to hire “about 100” people, all of whom will be “local hires.” Jobs will be for developers, testing business analysts, data analysts, project leads and project managers. The center will provide customer support, consulting and training, Hiring up to 200 people could occur by the end of 2019 depending upon...

While Austin is the Texas city most commonly known as being trendy and tech-forward, there is a group in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex working hard to change that idea. Natalie Fletcher, director of innovation at the Dallas Regional Chamber, works daily to make the area seem cutting-edge by helping companies make the connections they need. “A lot of what I do is support the launch and growth of activities in DFW,” Fletcher said. The Dallas Regional Chamber is nonprofit business organization with other 1,200 member companies, many of whom Fletcher said are on the Fortune 500 list. “We are blessed...

Research data shows Twitter heavily censors replies to government officials. This is NOT a partisan issue: Twitter censors about as many replies from liberals as they do conservatives. See the examples involving @AjitPaiFCC, @NancyPelosi, @EPAScottPruitt, @HouseDemocrats, and many more at the link. This censorship gives some citizens an unfair advantage over others. We are not asking you to regulate Twitter or similar. We only ask you to speak out against this practice and to urge government officials to tell Twitter not to censor replies to their accounts. If Twitter refuses to allow a level playing field, then government officials should...