Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Facebook and Instagram have begun promptly removing posts that offer abortion pills to women who may not be able to access them following a Supreme Court decision that stripped away constitutional protections for the procedure. Such social media posts ostensibly aimed to help women living in states where preexisting laws banning abortion suddenly snapped into effect on Friday. That's when the high court overruled Roe v. Wade, its 1973 decision that declared access to abortion a constitutional right. Memes and status updates explaining how women could legally obtain abortion pills in the mail exploded across social platforms. Some...

After receiving his son's mathematics results, a man in Henan, China, burst into tears — though not in a good way. A 12-second video of this man surfaced online last Thursday (June 23) on Weibo, where he can be seen sobbing away while pacing around a room. He then wipes off his tears with his sleeve, and grabs a towel off the bed to stop more tears from flowing. It seems that this man found out that his son — whom he had been painstakingly tutoring every night for a year — had scored a measly six out of 100...

On Saturday, June 18 the price of bitcoin fell to around $17,700… its lowest price since 2020, and a 74% drop from its all-time high last November.Now, it doesn’t take much for bitcoin and crypto critics to declare the end of crypto… so when bitcoin fell below $18,000 for the first time in years, you can imagine what happened.It was once again the death of bitcoin as we know it… and the fifteenth declaration of bitcoin’s demise in 2022, according to Bitcoin Obituaries.But regular Daily readers know that these headlines aren’t anything new… we see them all year long, regardless...

The MARSIS instrument on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, famous for its role in the discovery of signs of liquid water on the Red Planet, is receiving a major software upgrade that will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever before. Mars Express was ESA’s first mission to the Red Planet. Launched 19 years ago, on June 2, 2003, the orbiter has spent almost two decades studying Earth’s neighbor and revolutionizing our understanding of the history, present, and future of Mars. MARSIS – Water on the Red...

Hackers have stolen $100 million in cryptocurrency from Horizon, a so-called blockchain bridge developed by crypto start-up Harmony. It follows a series of similar attacks on blockchain bridges, including the $600 million Ronin Network heist and the $320 million stolen from Wormhole. In a follow-up tweet, Harmony said it’s working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and multiple cybersecurity firms to investigate the attack.

Something will happen this Friday that hasn’t happened since 1993: Joel Hodgson will officially host an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yes, the cult movie riffing show first created by Hodgson on Minneapolis public television in 1988 will see the long awaited, on-screen return of its creative leader, as Hodgson steps back into the role of “Joel Robinson” to riff a film alongside Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo. Some of the voices have changed, since Hodgson first left the series after Mitchell in the midst of MST3K season 5, and the series has changed quite a bit on...

Australian scientists have created the world's first-ever quantum computer circuit – one that contains all the essential components found on a classical computer chip but at the quantum scale.

Video has emerged showing a twin-boom tail configured drone crashing into a Russian oil refinery in Novoshakhtinsk, in the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, this morning. There is already much speculation that the incident was some kind of ‘kamikaze’ drone strike conducted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. While the identity of the mysterious drone is yet to be established, initial analysis suggests it may have been an adapted, commercially available product that is available on the Chinese marketplace website Alibaba. Footage of the incident apparently first appeared on the Telegram messaging service this morning before being distributed more...

If anyone can help me finish registering on Telegram I will be grateful. I tried before and it didn't take due to being send some strange code that I was supposed to scan. I do not have a scanner. I chose Telegram desktop. So I tried again yesterday and Telegram kept telling me they sent me a SMS code on my other (than laptop) device, which would be my phone. Nothing showed up. I tried numerous times; no code is ever sent. I want to register so I can read channels that are open only to users, etc. Any help...

China has concerns that such cars could enter a military base, or really any other high-security location, and capture footage. The footage captured by Tesla's in-car camera systems can be stored locally and then shared. Moreover, Tesla's vehicles send data back to the cloud, which could be cause for concern. We haven't heard much about the issue since Tesla's major concerns in China have seemed to subside. However, according to a recent report by Electrek, Tesla's vehicles are now banned from entering Beidaihe, a resort town near Shanghai. In fact, the town has banned all Tesla's EVs for the next...

The internet went into overdrive on Saturday after Joe Biden was filmed falling off his bike in front of a crowd of reporters. The moment inspired a flurry of memes and jokes at the 79-year-old president's expense. Biden was not injured in the tumble, aside than perhaps his pride. Donald Trump Jr., called the flub 'a perfect metaphor for the current state of our country'. 'Down goes Biden,' another Twitter user shared. Former Buzzfeed journalist Benny Johnson ,posted a tweet that showed the president riding his bike - with a pair of pink training wheels photoshopped on. 'Biden right back...

Changing your idea of what robots can do – that’s the slogan of Boston Dynamics. Founded in 1992 by Marc Raibert as a spin-off company from MIT, its early days were spent making training videos for the navy. Only later did the company begin delving into the world of robots – amassing a level of expertise unsurpassed throughout the industry.In fact, Boston Dynamics’s achievements look like the opening montage from a science fiction movie. Starting with the cumbersome BigDog – a quadruped robot designed for the military – the company has seen each new generation of robots surpass the last...

Microsoft has recently added a new privacy feature that allows Windows 11 users to get a list of all the apps that have recently accessed their sensitive info and devices, including their camera, microphone, and contacts. Added in one of the June Windows 11 Preview Builds, it can now be tested by Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. Besides requests to access the users' contacts, the newly included privacy feature also keeps track of apps that have accessed other sensitive information linked to your location, phone calls, messaging, and screenshots in the last week. The list of nosy apps is...

Ultrasonic sound waves have been used to levitate objects in crowded rooms to make hologram-like displays. Such acoustic levitation was previously only practical in empty spaces, but a new algorithm can quickly readjust the sound waves when they encounter an obstacle to keep the object in the air. Sound waves are comprised of air particles moving together. If manipulated in the right way, they can pick up and move objects. However, if the sound waves run into some other object that reflects or scatters them, the levitating object can come tumbling down. Ryuji Hirayama at University College London and his...

For years, TikTok has responded to data privacy concerns by promising that information gathered about users in the United States is stored in the United States, rather than China, where ByteDance, the video platform's parent company, is located. But according to leaked audio from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings, China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users — exactly the type of behavior that inspired former president Donald Trump to threaten to ban the app in the United States. The recordings, which were reviewed by BuzzFeed News, contain 14 statements from nine different TikTok...

Under the newest version of a code of conduct originally established in 2018, nearly three dozen entities vowed to step up efforts to detect false claims, to label political advertising more transparently and to restrict advertising around disinformation, among other moves. Demonetizing disinformation is the “cornerstone” of the new initiative, said Thierry Breton, a European commissioner and one of the EU’s top digital regulators. Many of the biggest platforms signing onto Thursday’s agreement had already been operating under the older set of 21 commitments, which ranged from supporting fact-checking to scrutinizing ad placement. This week’s expansion grows the list of...

We'd all have done it one time or another - plug our battery-dying handphone to a portable power bank and continued chatting or watching a show. That was exactly what a Singaporean woman in Australia did when she took a video call last Thursday (June 16). More from AsiaOne Read the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite. In a telephone interview with TNP, the woman, who wanted to be known as Ms Leong, recounted the incident: "My handphone battery was running low, so I plugged it to the power bank and placed them on the...

Are you a newcomer to Linux? Not sure which Linux distribution to choose to begin your Linux journey? This article is for you!For the average PC user who has been using the established desktop operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and macOS, Linux can be somewhat confusing. Furthermore, the perception that Linux is mainly used by “pro” users and is “very complex” plays against it.Of course, neither of the preceding two statements is true. Linux is a complex operating system, just like any other. And, as always, it all depends on the individual.We’re all accustomed to working in our comfort...

A flying COW ("cellular on wings") is providing a 5G network in areas with limited infrastructure and after natural disasters. The technology convergence of drones and 5G is an interesting test case for rapid, flexible network deployments that provide a useful stopgap in critical areas. "We had intermittent, weak LTE signal at the flight location before we launched the 5G Flying COW," said Ethan Hunt, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Principal Program Manager, AT&T, about a recent test. "We flew the drone up to about 300 feet, turned on the signal and it began transmitting strong 5G coverage to approximately 10...

We've been watching GPU prices fall since the start of the year, but the past few weeks suggest things could get a lot worse — for the graphics card manufacturers and GPU vendors, that is — in the near future. GPU prices dropped 15% in May, and we've seen similar 10–15% drops each month for the past several months. We saw the best graphics cards come back into stock (at retail) as GPU mining profitability has plummeted — and that was before Bitcoin and Ethereum crashed again, dropping Bitcoin from around $30,000 to the low $20,000s and Ethereum from around...