Free Republic 2nd Qtr 2026 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $30,106
37%  
Woo hoo!! And now only $674 to reach 38%!! Thank you all for your continued support!! God bless.

Computers/Internet (General/Chat)

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Nvidia’s new PC chips represent CEO Huang’s bid to win at every layer of AI stack

    06/02/2026 5:02:12 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 25 replies
    CNBC ^ | June 02, 2026 | Katie Tarasov & Kif Leswing
    Key Points Nvidia’s announced entry into the PC chip market sent shares of AMD, Intel and Qualcomm lower on Monday as Wall Street recognized the threat. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, signaled his intent to “reinvent the PC.” Analysts see Nvidia moving beyond the data center and to the so-called edge, as smaller devices become capable of running AI workloads without tapping the cloud. ============================================================= As important as Nvidia has become to the tech industry, its entire run-up in recent years has been tied to the data center. Now the chipmaker is going after the PC market, and Wall Street is...
  • After Nearly Three Decades of Service, Lycos Mail Quietly Pulls the Plug Leaving Longtime Users Scrambling

    06/02/2026 12:17:03 PM PDT · by fwdude · 51 replies
    Triopolitan.com ^ | May 31, 2026 | Gene Lee
    For nearly thirty years, Lycos occupied a strange corner of internet history. It started as a search engine project in the early web era and grew into a portal packed with hosting services, personal websites, and email. Lycos launched its email service in October 1997, at a time when having an email address still felt novel rather than mandatory. At the olden times of 1997, they had partnered with USA.NET (NetAddress) to offer a co-branded free email service to its portal users, before ditching it in favor of their newly acquired proprietary platform (MailCity) in 1998.For many users, an @lycos.com...
  • Microsoft Windows Has Become Spyware

    06/02/2026 8:04:42 AM PDT · by ShadowAce · 71 replies
    The Liberty Daily ^ | 2 une 2026 | Mike Adams
    Windows PCs Are Spying On Their UsersI have spent over two decades investigating corporate surveillance and the erosion of digital privacy. After years of watching Microsoft’s behavior, I believe Windows is no longer simply an operating system but a surveillance platform designed to extract data from every user. From telemetry that can’t be turned off to a built-in screenshot keylogger called Recall, Microsoft has made spying a core feature. Here’s why this matters: your privacy is not an inconvenience to be traded for convenience — it’s a fundamental right that Microsoft is systematically violating.Back in 2015, I warned that Windows...
  • Anti-ICE agitator who allegedly bit officers during Delaney Hall protest was previously accused of distributing child porn

    06/02/2026 1:19:02 AM PDT · by Libloather · 10 replies
    NY Post ^ | 6/01/26 | Victor Nava
    The anti-ICE rioter who allegedly sank his teeth into federal law enforcement officers during a protest at Delaney Hall last week was previously accused of distributing child pornography. The New Jersey US Attorney’s Office charged Brendan John Geier, 26, with assaulting federal officers and causing bodily injury, for allegedly “kicking and biting” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers outside the Newark detention center, leaving them with “horrific wounds,” according to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Geier, of Madison, NJ, was previously charged with sexual abuse of children related to the dissemination and possession of child pornography, the Justice Department confirmed...
  • DuckDuckGo installs are up 30% as users reject being ‘force-fed’ Google’s AI Search

    06/01/2026 8:10:38 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 22 replies
    TechCrunch ^ | 06/01/2026 | Rebecca Bellan
    Last week, after Google announced its huge overhaul to Search , I overheard a woman on the phone saying she was switching to DuckDuckGo because you can “opt out of using AI.” “Google just isn’t Google anymore,” she said. It seems that others had the same idea. At I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, the company said it would transform its search box into a conversational engine that expands for longer queries, anticipates user intent, and autocompletes searches. Rather than just returning a list of links, it will use AI Overviews to answer questions directly first. Google also unveiled a more...
  • Nvidia lays out RTX Spark roadmap for laptops and desktop PCs at Computex 2026 — three generations outlined, Rubin with LPDDR6 memory, followed by Rosa Feynman

    06/01/2026 6:20:47 PM PDT · by fireman15 · 43 replies
    tom's Harware ^ | June 1, 2026 | Jeffrey Kampman
    Nvidia is fully committed to transforming Windows on Arm into an agentic AI platform. Along with its first-generation RTX Spark platform for desktop and laptop PCs, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed the company's commitment to future generations of those platforms on its future roadmaps. The company is committed to producing at least two additional generations of Spark platforms for its partners. Beyond the Grace Blackwell RTX Spark chips (the top-end RTX Spark Superchip and an as-yet-undetailed smaller chip), Huang promised that every future generation of the company's platforms will include a Spark chip. That means there will be a Vera...
  • AI's Coming Reality Check: When The Physics Finally Hits The Hype

    05/31/2026 9:23:43 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 30 replies
    International Man ^ | 05/31/2026 | Chris MacIntosh
    In five years, we’ll all likely be chuckling and shaking our heads over AI. Because today, the tech feels free and limitless, doesn’t it?People are generating endless content: images, videos, memes, code snippets, social posts. Companies are bolting AI onto products by default, the way every Fortune 500 company suddenly discovered they were “sustainable” five years ago.There’s much deliberation on AI right now, and it splits into two main camps of thesis:The majority — those who will die on its hill of promise, convinced we’re months away from effective altruism, UBI, and sentient toasters.And the minority — usually older, more...
  • Researchers let AI models run a simulated society. Claude was the safest—and Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct within 4 days

    05/31/2026 8:26:58 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 13 replies
    Fortune ^ | 05/31/2026 | Jake Angelo
    Imagine a world run by AI agents. What does it look like? What are the values or societal priorities? Is it a safer or more dangerous world? Enterprise AI startup Emergence AI is trying to find out. The company just launched Emergence World, a research lab dedicated to stress-testing the long-term viability of continuously-running AI systems. The organization ran five 15-day simulations, each governed by a different AI: Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, and a fifth simulation run by a mix of models to see what kind of world each one builds, and whether it holds.Each simulation netted wildly different outcomes....
  • US’ oil, natural gas production could be maximized with highly-advanced lab’s new method

    05/31/2026 6:39:41 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 29 replies
    Interesting Engineering ^ | May 31, 2026 | Prabhat Ranjan Mishra
    Researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) are taking significant steps that can help boost production of oil and natural gas that can be recovered from unconventional formations. The method focuses on recovering these additional resources in shale and other tight reservoirs that have already produced hydrocarbons through hydraulic fracturing in primary recovery operations but still contain large amounts of oil and gas trapped within rocks. In unconventional formations, only a small percentage of hydrocarbons in place are typically extracted. While the new research could help ensure affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the United States. Primary recovery from...
  • Some New Yorkers demand $800K each in reparations as state commission holds hearing

    05/30/2026 3:48:06 PM PDT · by Libloather · 39 replies
    Fox News via NY Post ^ | 5/30/26 | Joshua Q. Nelson
    Some Black New Yorkers are demanding cash reparations from the government as state officials consider some form of compensation for slavery or other past racial injustices. “We need $800,000 for each foundation of Black Americans. That’s simple,” Aubrey Muhammud told Fox News Digital. “That’s — in New York — that’s about the cost of living that’ll get you a home or a small business or for you to recover from any financial duress.” The New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies held a public hearing last Saturday. The hearing followed up on when Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2023 signed...
  • New report: Getting abortion drugs easy as 'purchasing something off Amazon'

    05/30/2026 12:08:45 PM PDT · by Morgana · 6 replies
    Live Action News ^ | May 28, 2026 | Nancy Flanders
    A new report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) backs up what Live Action News has been reporting: abortion businesses have been violating Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) safety rules, as well as state and federal laws, when selling abortion drugs. Key Takeaways: * A new report from CLI found that 81% of online abortion pill businesses that report their data ship abortion drugs to women whose pregnancies exceed the FDA's 70 days’ gestation safety protocol. * None of the 18 foreign-based companies require identification from customers before ordering the abortion pills. Of those, 17 send unapproved or mislabeled drugs...
  • Elon finally did it.

    05/30/2026 6:46:45 AM PDT · by eastexsteve · 64 replies
    Not A Tesla App ^ | May 29, 2026 | Karan Singh
    A new Texas law allows companies with SAE Level 4 or higher autonomous vehicles to offer commercial driverless transportation. Tesla wasted no time in self-certifying their vehicles. On the same day the law went into effect, Tesla officially self-certified their FSD software on their robotaxi vehicles as Level 4 compliant. For years, Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD software, even in Texas, has navigated the consumer market under the constraints imposed by a Level 2 driver-assist system. And while Tesla now operates in Texas as a level-4 system, this does not change the level-2 designation for consumer vehicles. Taking Responsibility While many...
  • Should You Take Nutrition Advice From a Chatbot?

    05/27/2026 3:36:30 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 26 replies
    New York Times ^ | May 26, 2026 | Alice Callahan
    Many people are turning to artificial intelligence for help with their diet. Experts weigh the potential pros and cons.When Julie Bernstein’s doctor recently recommended that she start eating chicken and steak to get more protein, she felt a bit irritated. Ms. Bernstein, 76, had been vegan for decades, and she was not about to start eating meat again, she said. Her physician, lacking ideas on how to guide her toward vegan protein sources, suggested she turn to ChatGPT. A few weeks later, Ms. Bernstein typed her goals into ChatGPT on her iPad and marveled at how quickly it churned out...
  • AIs Don't Like Religion - Particularly Jehovah's Witnesses, Study Claims

    05/27/2026 3:18:46 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 12 replies
    The Register ^ | Wed 27 May 2026 | Brandon Vigliarolo
    LLMs prefer secular, rational reasoning, and while they'll still get religious on occasion, they have a negative view of Jehovah's WitnessesIf you're looking for one of the leading AI models to push faith as the answer to your otherwise neutral queries, you haven't got a prayer. Major LLMs ignore faith and use secular-rationalist reasoning to answer ethical questions, says a consortium of religious universities. But one thing the models all have in common is a negative view of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Secular, humanist, and scientifically derived responses to questions that aren’t framed in a religious manner are at the heart of...
  • Tribeca Festival Sets First Premiere of Fully AI-Generated Film, ‘Dreams of Violets’

    05/27/2026 1:53:42 PM PDT · by sphinx · 34 replies
    Variety ^ | May 27, 2026 | Corbin Bolies
    The 2026 Tribeca Festival has set the world premiere of “Dreams of Violets,” a fully AI-generated film produced by studio Fountain 0 aimed at showcasing Iranian civilian resistance.The film’s premiere at Tribeca marks the first full-length, live-action film generated by AI to be accepted by a marquee film festival, according to Fountain 0.The project took three months — built entirely using tools such as Kling AI for video generation, Anthropic’s Claude AI for language-related editing, Google’s Gemini and Nanobanana for research and imagery and Fountain 0’s own technology for blocking and frame accuracy, according to the company — all from...
  • No joke: data centers are warming the planet (still only 4.67 years left)

    05/27/2026 9:25:06 AM PDT · by Libloather · 25 replies
    Network World ^ | 4/01/26 | Paul Barker
    Findings by academic researchers suggest that hyperscalers' AI data centers contribute to local warming, but not everyone agrees. Findings of a new study conducted by a group of academics from around the globe have revealed that land surface temperature (LST) increases by 2°C (3.6°F) on average after the start of operations of an AI data center, an effect detectable up to an estimated 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away. The study, The data heat island effect: quantifying the impact of AI data centers in a warming world, was conducted by a dozen experts from leading universities in the UK, Singapore, France,...
  • Colorado And California Shield Linux From OS-Level Age Verification Rules

    05/27/2026 8:03:11 AM PDT · by Openurmind · 16 replies
    Open Source For U ^ | May 26, 2026 | Apurba Sen
    "Colorado and California are moving towards exempting open-source operating systems and software distributions from proposed operating-system-level age verification laws, offering a significant regulatory win for the Linux and broader open-source ecosystem. Colorado’s bill, which has already reached its “Final Act” stage, explicitly excludes software distributed under licences that allow users to copy, redistribute, and modify software without platform-imposed technical or contractual restrictions. The law is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2028." Snip... "The proposed California language states that an “operating system provider” does not include entities distributing software under licences permitting users to “copy, redistribute, and modify” the...
  • Death of an Indian tech worker A wave of suicides and widespread AI-fueled layoffs reveal a workforce under extreme pressure.

    05/27/2026 7:41:19 AM PDT · by Cronos · 46 replies
    Rest of world ^ | 27th January 2026 | Parth MN
    On a warm night last May, Nikhil Somwanshi sent his roommate a WhatsApp message asking him to tell his family that what was about to happen next was an accident. The message triggered a frantic search for the 24-year-old machine-learning engineer in southeast Bengaluru Somwanshi was a star student from a small village in the farm-dotted countryside. 9mths earlier he’d landed a coveted job at Ola Krutrim, an artificial intelligence startup worth $1 billion. Getting a job at Krutrim was a big deal for Somwanshi and his community. Banners went up in his village, congratulating him. He sent funds from...
  • AI bubble warning signs? Microsoft, Uber face unexpected coding agent cost surge in 2026

    05/27/2026 5:38:33 AM PDT · by millenial4freedom · 44 replies
    The News ^ | 05/26/2026 | Aqsa Qaddus Tahir
    Artificial intelligence revolution is meant to bring unprecedented efficiency and boundless productivity for the tech landscape by cutting the costs. But the promise of revolution is currently hitting a stark fiscal reality marked by unexpected AI-related costs, leading to the burning of budget tech companies designed for 2026 year. Of all the companies, Uber and Microsoft are grappling with AI budget overruns. For instance, Microsoft recently has decided to rescind its internal Claude code license along with its Experiences and Devices division ending access by June 30, 2026. The decision to cancel the pilot has been taken only after 6...
  • ClickUp Just Replaced Hundreds of Employees With 3,000 AI Agents

    05/26/2026 8:36:21 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 42 replies
    TechJuice ^ | 05/26/2026 | Abdul Wasay
    Project management software company ClickUp laid off 22% of its workforce, replacing hundreds of employees with roughly 3,000 internal AI agents in what CEO Zeb Evans called “a full embrace of AI-driven productivity.” Evans announced the cuts on X, framing them not as a cost-cutting measure but as a structural transformation. Remaining employees now direct AI agents to handle complex tasks and review their output rather than performing the work themselves. Evans described his goal as turning ClickUp into a “100x org.”The company, last valued at $4 billion in 2021, recently deployed the 3,000 AI agents across internal operations. Evans...