Free Republic

Kim Freudenberg, a longtime teacher in San Francisco, knew that raising two boys meant a lot of hard conversations. She warned them about all the usual dangers: drugs, alcohol, sex, social media, riding a bike without a helmet. "Never once did I even think that I needed to say 'gambling,'" she recalls. One day, when her oldest son was 11, he was watching someone play video games on a livestream and clicked on a link in the comments. It took him to an offshore online casino. There, he got sucked in — to blackjack, poker, roulette. He could use items...

Americans’ personal data could be collected and stored overseas — even if they’ve never downloaded a foreign-developed app themselves — according to a new FBI alert warning about the risks tied to popular mobile platforms. That means information like a person’s name, email address or phone number could be pulled from someone else’s contact list and potentially stored abroad if a friend or family member grants an app access to their device. The warning comes after years of scrutiny over TikTok’s ties to China, but the FBI alert suggests the concerns extend beyond any single platform to a broader range...

I use AVG (which is the same as Avast) on my desktop PC but, it's interfering with one of my favorite Bible software programs. Delays it opening because AVG has tagged it as suspicious. It gives me the option to define PC Study Bible as safe which, I've repeatedly done. AVG is still messing the Bible starting up regardless. I run Win 11. Is there another free anti virus besides the above? Thanks.

Matthew Gallagher took just two months, $20,000 and more than a dozen artificial intelligence tools to get his start-up off the ground. From his house in Los Angeles, Mr. Gallagher, 41, used A.I. to write the code for the software that powers his company, produce the website copy, generate the images and videos for ads and handle customer service. He created A.I. systems to analyze his business’s performance. And he outsourced the other stuff he couldn’t do himself. His start-up, Medvi, a telehealth provider of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, got 300 customers in its first month. In its second month, it...

As thousands of Oracle employees awoke on Tuesday to an email informing them they were being laid off, the workers likely didn’t know the tech company had been busy trying to hire foreign staff. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data, Oracle filed for roughly 3,126 petitions to employ H-1B workers in fiscal years 2025 and 2026. Employers must submit the paperwork when seeking to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations like technology. Some 436 of those petitions were filed this year alone. Amazon, which in January said it would axe 16,000 corporate employees, has filed for some 2,675...

Artificial intelligence is changing the workplace faster than almost anyone expected just a few years ago, but despite all those scary headlines about AI replacing most jobs, the reality is more nuanced. Sure, AI may be replacing certain tasks, but it isn’t replacing careers. This is an important distinction, especially for students and early-career professionals trying to choose fields that will remain valuable long into the future. Here are some careers (and skills) that are resilient in 2026. AI Isn’t Eliminating Jobs OvernightOne of the most important developments since last year is what hasn’t happened. Despite rapid advances in generative...

The SpaceX initial public offering (“IPO”) is expected to be the largest IPO of all time, with the company targeting a market capitalization of $1.75 trillion, according to the Financial Times. Despite the massive valuation and huge anticipation for the company’s public debut, there are a few under-the-radar details about the IPO that should chill investors looking to participate in the Elon Musk-helmed company.The Financial Times reported that SpaceX is looking to raise $75 billion from the offering, up recently from a target of $50 billion, as executives look to haul in more cash at the company’s highest valuation of...

After announcing a 2029 target for migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), Google issues a new warning that a quantum system could attack a Bitcoin (BTC) transaction in about nine minutes. The tech giant warned it won't happen today but it's a possibility one should be prepared for sooner than later. Understanding quantum threat to cryptocurrency Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies that rely on cryptography to encrypt or conceal sensitive financial details from those other than transacting parties. Though the most powerful supercomputers active today will take thousands of years to decrypt cryptography, the cryptocurrency community fears quantum computers will be able...

Local police said initial findings suggested a "system malfunction" caused multiple vehicles to stop in the middle of the road on Tuesday. Videos on social media have documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision, although police said no injuries had been reported and passengers exited their vehicles safely. Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to the police statement, posted on social media site Weibo, the cause of the incident is still under further investigation. Baidu operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in dozens of cities across the...

Comcast is migrating Xfinity residential email accounts to Yahoo Mail, a shift that underscores how ISPs are offloading non-core applications to specialized providers. Comcast is transitioning existing Xfinity email mailboxes to be hosted by Yahoo Mail while allowing customers to keep their current @comcast.net or @xfinity.com email addresses. The migration is being phased, with customers notified by Comcast when their account is eligible and given guidance to complete setup. After migration, users access their mailbox through Yahoos web and mobile clients or supported third-party email apps. Mail, folders, contacts, and calendar data are moved as part of the process, with...

The Authentication LayerWhy Digital ID Is the Hill to Die OnA friend and I got into it recently. He’s smart, freedom-minded, and totally gets the danger of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). Expiring money, programmable control, carbon budgets - he sees most of the expanding tyranny clearly. And yet he dismisses Digital ID as a distraction. When I try to make the case that digital ID is the gateway to the gulag in the metaverse, he demands I name ONE thing Digital ID gives the government that they can’t already do.My answer: it enables CBDC.Of course, governments have already encroached...

When you’re building at breakneck speed, hiring a trusted team is crucial for an early-stage startup. In this episode of Build Mode, Isabelle Johannessen sits down with Isaiah Granet, the CEO and co-founder of Bland, a voice AI company that has grown from pre-seed to Series B in just 10 months. Their team has ballooned to 75 people and Granet has tactical advice on how the company managed to find hidden talent in unlikely places. With a founding team fresh out of college, Bland’s early hires were selected for their passion, rather than pedigrees. “We were searching for a really...

Whole Foods says it is cooperating with law enforcement to identify and arrest a man seen on surveillance video committing a lewd act targeting a female shopper inside its store in Valencia, California. The incident occurred March 23 inside the Whole Foods Market at 24130 Valencia Blvd., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Security camera footage shows the man exposing himself and rubbing his genitals on the shopper’s ear as she crouched down and looked at products in an aisle. Investigators say he also appeared to be holding a cell phone, possibly to record the assault.By the time...

"The very feature that causes harm also drives engagement," researchers sayArtificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are so prone to flattering and validating their human users that they are giving bad advice that can damage relationships and reinforce harmful behaviors, according to a new study that explores the dangers of AI telling people what they want to hear. The study, published in Science, tested 11 leading AI systems and found they all showed varying degrees of sycophancy -- behavior that was overly agreeable and affirming. The problem is not just that they dispense inappropriate advice but that people trust and prefer AI...

I don't think many people saw this one coming, but it makes sense in a perverse way. Events in the Middle East have conspired to create a situation in which Ukraine has become an indispensable ally and munitions supplier to Gulf Arab states. Nobody in the world has as much experience fighting Iranian drones as does Ukraine, and they have become extraordinarily proficient at destroying them before they do any damage, and at a price that cannot be beat. The Gulf states, having blown through an awful lot of their anti-air magazines, are having to quickly learn how to defend...

They break into your house and steal the stuff you worked so hard to buy. They rob you on the street in broad daylight. They pull you out of your car at a traffic light and take it. They convince your grandma that they are you and need bail money. They walk into acstore and grab things. They break the jewelry cases and steal the jewelry. They overrun a convenience store and take what they like. They steal your credit card numbers and buy themselves stuff. They steal your bank account numbers and empty your accounts. They convince you to...

Let me tell you, folks, the situation with Iran is going incredibly well, better than anybody could have imagined, and it’s all because of the strength and smart leadership we’ve brought back to America. We’ve got them right where we want them, scrambling and failing, and the results are pouring in like never before. Tremendous progress on every front, and the world is watching us win bigly again. Those IRGC losers thought they could push us around in the Strait of Hormuz, but they were dead wrong, total amateurs. We’re going to blow up all their mines down there, every...

Looking at the letter, Norris called his mother, asking if she could talk with the woman claiming to be his daughter. The matriarch agreed to see her face-to-face instead. While Norris was initially hesitant to meet Dina, his mother called him, urging him to come over immediately. Dina was there. Seeing her stopped him in his tracks. "I walked into the living room and nearly had my breath knocked out of me," Norris wrote in his book. "There, standing before me, was a beautiful young lady. I was stunned, but the moment I saw her, I knew. I didn’t need...

I embarked on a vanity project to record some of my chess games against Shredder, my cell phone app. The games are recorded in algebraic notation, but I prefer the traditional English descriptive notation, so I asked ChatGPT to make the conversion. It kept correcting itself through multiple iterations. I finally had to stop it. I turned to Grok to get the conversion done. It seemed to work, so I asked Grok to illustrate the game with board positions at critical points in the game. It turned into a major league fail on steroids. I won't bore you with the...

There are four categories. You are in one of them. Nobody asked which one you'd like. I am the CEO of Perplexity. My company is worth $20 billion. I am 31 years old. Last week I said losing your job to AI could be a "glorious" thing. I said it at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference. On a podcast. In front of an audience of people who build the tools. Everyone nodded. I said: "The reality is most people don't enjoy their jobs." I have had one job. I have had it for three years. It made me a billionaire. I...