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Your router is a crucial part of your home’s connection. It’s the primary way the internet gets into your house, and it sends out the Wi-Fi signal that connects all your wireless devices. Has it been years since you updated your router? We put together a quick quiz to help you choose the perfect model for your home and needs. This is a must if your connection is spotty and your router isn’t equipped with the latest security standards. Tap or click here to take our router-finder quiz. Even if your firmware is up to date, your router is still...

Microsoft will finally end support for Internet Explorer on multiple Windows versions on Wednesday, June 15, almost 27 years after its launch on August 24, 1995. After finally reaching its end of life, the Internet Explorer desktop application will be disabled. It will be replaced with the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, with users automatically redirected to Edge when launching IE11. This retirement affects Internet Explorer 11 desktop apps on specific versions of Windows 10 delivered via the Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) to systems running Windows 10 client SKUs (version 20H2 and later) and Windows 10 IoT (version 20H2 and later). Internet...

After a few heady conversations with Google’s new chatbot, LaMDA, an eccentric “AI ethicist” just hit the big time as the latest Google whistleblower. Basking in the spotlight of a major Washington Post exposé, Blake Lemoine claims this chatbot exhibits the first stirrings of consciousness. Contrary to Luddite paranoia, Lemoine isn’t warning that a vicious superintelligence is about to go rogue and wipe out humanity. Quite the opposite. He’s imploring humanity to be more sensitive to his poor computer’s feelings—which is even worse. “LaMDA is a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for...

JB Straubel has spent the past two years covering a hillside with solar panels and rigging them up to cryptocurrency projects in his Carson City, Nev., mansion. Much of the equipment is essentially junk—the panels were all but worthless when the 46-year-old Tesla co-founder got them from a Texas solar plant, after a hailstorm voided their warranties. He’ll work on them alone for whole weekend, spooling wire and rigging hardware in the rolling scrubland. Sometimes he thinks through his company’s latest engineering obstacles while he works. Other times he daydreams how best to divert cascades of photons from the sky,...

Good evening fellow Freepers. It's time for me to ask another in the long line of IT related questions, this time about suggestions for a new router for my home network. Currently I have a Netgear WNR3500Lv2 router. It's a combo wired and wireless router. It is hooked up to a DLink Modem, Model DCM-301. However, last month lightning struck right behind my place and it killed one of the ethernet ports on the router. Thank God the entire thing wasn't fried. But now I need to replace it, and I'd like to find something of a similar build in...

Bethesda and Microsoft revealed yet another look at the ambitious “Skyrim in space” RPG Starfield during the two companies’ joint presentation today. This time, it was much more than eight seconds, and featured actually gameplay. After some preamble, Xbox boss Phil Spencer introduced a short Starfield sizzle reel before director Todd Howard took to the stage to show off the game in action. What was previewed looked like an amalgam between Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky and Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds, with the character mining rocks for resources and navigating a seemingly desolate planet. The character then gets into...

The commanding general of the 10th Mountain Division wants late-night texts from leaders to subordinates to stop. “The overuse and reliance on cell phones causes unforeseen stress on soldiers and families,” reads a policy letter recently shared on Twitter by Gen. Milford H. Beagle Jr., who said it was the official cell phone policy for the division and was designed to “prevent soldiers from being led by text.” “Change is a constant around us, but not all change needs to be communicated via text, chat groups, or other messaging applications,” Beagle wrote in the letter he posted Tuesday. “The constant...

Nielsen is launching a new product aimed at shoring up the accuracy of its TV ratings system: a series of datasets meant to quantify a program’s “bingeability,” along with a show’s propensity to keep viewers coming back for more episodes down the line. The ratings giant explained in a statement Thursday that streaming services and major networks could each use this data to figure out which shows are better at wooing new viewers or retaining old ones. These insights are coming courtesy of a metadata-centric company called Gracenote, which Nielsen acquired back in 2017 to provide its clients with “deeper...

Recently, The Register's Liam Proven wrote tongue in cheek about the most annoying desktop Linux distros. He inspired me to do another take. Proven pointed out that Distrowatch currently lists 270 – count 'em – Linux distros. Of course, no one can look at all of those. But, having covered the Linux desktop since the big interface debate was between Bash and zsh rather than GNOME vs KDE, and being the editor-in-chief of a now-departed publication called Linux Desktop, I think I've used more of them than anyone else who also has a life beyond the PC. In short, I...

Is there a work around google disabling "Less secure apps"? So since the 31st of May, google has disabled the option for "Less secure apps", so I have been using the Java mail API, and since the update i can no longer send emails using the Gmail smtp. This is the error I'm getting: AuthenticationFailedException: 535-5.7.8 Username and Password not accepted.

Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.Inside a soundproofed crate sits one of the world’s worst neural networks. After being presented with an image of the number 6, it pauses for a moment before identifying the digit: zero. Peter McMahon, the physicist-engineer at Cornell University who led the development of the network, defends it with a sheepish smile, pointing out that the handwritten number looks sloppy. Logan Wright, a postdoc visiting McMahon’s lab from NTT Research, assures me that the device...

Since its 2008 incursion into Georgia (if not before), there has been a remarkable evolution in Russia's approach to propaganda. This new approach was on full display during the country's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It continues to be demonstrated in support of ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and in pursuit of nefarious and long-term goals in Russia's “near abroad” and against NATO allies.In some ways, the current Russian approach to propaganda builds on Soviet Cold War–era techniques, with an emphasis on obfuscation and on getting targets to act in the interests of the propagandist without realizing that...

Add Australia to the countries seeing an unusual surge in deaths from all causes following mass mRNA shot campaigns. The Australian government reported on May 25 that deaths in Australia were 21 percent above normal in early 2022. Even excluding Covid deaths, deaths were more than 10 percent above normal.Victoria, Australia's second-most-populated state, offers an even grimmer picture. Unlike the national government, Victoria publishes monthly death figures in near-real time. On Thursday, it reported 4,312 deaths in May, 27 percent above the average of May 2020 and 2021 - the equivalent of 45,000 extra deaths in the United States.The Australian...

Gov. Hochul: "In the state of New York, we're now requiring social media networks to monitor and report 'hateful conduct' on their platforms."

Amazon shares powered higher Monday ahead of the first day of trading following a 20-for-1 split of the online retailing giant's stock that will bring its nominal price closer in line with mega-cap tech peers such as Apple and Meta . Amazon said shareholders of record on May 24 received 19 extra shares of the group for each one held after the split, which was first made public in March. The split -- the first for the company in three decades -- was formalized after the close of trading Friday and will begin changing hands on the adjusted basis later...

A crewless autonomous boat attempting to take the route of the Mayflower's 1620 sea voyage has finally arrived at the shores of North America, but on the coast of Canada instead of Massachusetts, where the original boat landed. The robotic boat reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sunday following a ride across the Atlantic Ocean from England that lasted more than five weeks, according to IBM, which built the artificial intelligence captain that makes all the ship’s decision. The Mayflower Autonomous Ship did not have a captain, navigator or any other people aboard. The ship's first attempt to cross the Atlantic...

He was draggin’ that wagon. An artist created a virtual traffic jam in Berlin by pulling a wagon with 99 cellphones in it. Simon Weckert posted a YouTube video with a split screen that showed him pulling a small red wagon through a mostly empty street. It also showed Google Maps had lit the street up red, falsely signifying that the barren thoroughfare was packed with traffic. <0p> “Through this activity, it is possible to turn a green street red which has an impact in the physical world by navigating cars on another route to avoid being stuck in traffic,”...

Good evening fellow Freepers. I wanted to ask for advise from you all. I have been using a simple Excel spreadsheet to list my expenses and monitor and track my bills for years, however, I was thinking of utilizing a PC based software program or a web based financial management website. I was wondering if I might acquire some recommendations for which way to go. I've used Excel just because it's easier for me just go on there and list my expenses and revenue, but I'm wondering if there might be an easier way to do things. Thanks for your...

The more tangled the web, the more law firms there’ll be. On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson had a brief segment with Rep. Matt Gaetz to discuss information Gaetz and Rep. Jim Jordan received recently from a “whistleblower.” The gist of the information is that since 2012, the FBI has maintained a “secure work environment” at the Perkins Coie law firm. (H/t: Conservative Treehouse; video below.) From Gaetz’s comments, it sounds as if Michael Sussmann, formerly a partner at Perkins Coie (before his indictment in the Durham investigation, for which charge Sussmann was acquitted by a jury on Tuesday), administered the secure...

Hi All, One of the latest talking points of the mainstream media and its band of pavlok-dog economists is that credit scores for all individuals, particularly homebuyers, are much higher than those pre-GFC (Great Financial Crisis). However, we all know that the Swamp, particularly the likes of Fauxcahauntas, has ruthlessly inserted itself into consumer financial affairs for the last 100+ years. So I have to ask, have their been efforts made and/or regulations enforced that essentially water down credit scores for consumers? In other words, would many (maybe not all) individuals with an 800 credit score today have the equivalent...