Free Republic

Shield AI's X-BAT designed to counter China's strategy of destroying American aircraft before they leave the ground Analysts say China has developed a chilling strategy for fighting a war with the United States: destroy America’s fighter jets before they ever leave the ground. In nearly every modern conflict, disabling enemy aircraft on the ground has been the first move. When Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites earlier this year, it began by destroying Iranian runways — grounding Tehran’s air force before it could take off. Russia and Ukraine have done the same throughout their ongoing war, targeting airfields to cripple enemy...

Late in World War 2, in the European theater, the Germans hit the Allied air forces with something new: Jet fighters. Chief among them was the Messerschmitt Me-262, a big, brutal twin-engine beast packing four 30-mm cannons. It was considerably faster than the American P-51 Mustang, generally considered the best piston-engine fighter in the air at the time. It was near-impossible to defeat in the air, but it was slow and cumbersome on taxi, vulnerable during takeoff and landing, and required a long runway. So we went after them when they were on the ground, destroying aircraft and bases alike....

A new groundbreaking light therapy could kill cancer cells in just 30 minutes, scientists have discovered. In the new method, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin fired infrared light, a type of light invisible to the eye, from LED bulbs at test tubes that contained human skin cancer or colon cancer cells and healthy human skin cells. The tubes also contained nanoscopic flakes of tin oxide, or SnOx nanoflakes, which were absorbed by the cancer cells. The scientists found that when the light was fired at the cells, the nanoscopic flakes absorbed it and heated up, turning into...

BOOOOOOOM! Wow, wow! Testing Grokipedia! It is absolutely brilliant and will only get better. Bye, bye Wikipedia—don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Test it now: grokipedia.com

Created by Elon Musk, xAI's Grok has introduced AI ‘companions’ — and one of them targeted toward children refers users to Planned Parenthood, likening abortion to simply “turning off a light.” According to a July 2025 article from Tom's Guide, Grok's companions are "AI chatbots that are assigned specific personalities for you to interact with...." Tom's reviewer Alex Hughes adds, with concern, that "[M]ost of the larger AI companies with strong reputations have stayed clear of this world, primarily because of the pretty expansive ethical problems that come attached with providing people with ‘AI relationships’." Grok's companions, Hughes writes, each...

When you cross into Loudon County, Virginia, one of the first things you notice is the hum - that's the sound of 199 data centres whirring in the background. Few people have heard of this inconspicuous part of northern Virginia, which also happens to be the wealthiest county in the US. But Loudon was on everyone's radar earlier this week, when a massive global Amazon outage downed everything from crucial banking services to fun Snapchat streaks for millions. That's because the county is home to the world's largest swath of data storage and processing facilities - even outpacing China. Data...

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, October 20, 2025. Evaristo Sa / AFP. The persecution of ordinary citizens on behalf of the LGBT movement will be funded by the state—that is, by the taxpayers being targeted. President Lula da Silva’s Brazil has taken another step towards totalitarianism with the launch of a massive platform designed to streamline the prosecution of those who criticize LGBT ideology. With Orwellian irony, it has been called the ‘Platform of Respect.’ “The Ministry of Human Rights, in partnership with the NGO Aliança Nacional LGBTI+, launched a platform aimed at holding legally accountable authors of...

Whatever else its faults — and it has many — one of the good things you can say about Amazon is that it employs a whole heck of a lot of American workers. At least, it does for now. CNBC reports: Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a new robotic system that's capable of performing multiple tasks at once in the company's warehouses. The system, called Blue Jay, is made up of a series of robotic arms that are suspended from a conveyor belt-like track. Those arms are tipped with suction-cup devices that allow them to grab and sort items of varying...

Good news: U.S. tech companies are attacking the AI race like a modern Manhattan Project — spending unfathomable money and time to beat China to superintelligence.Bad news: The U.S. government, even if it weren't shut down, is doing nothing to prepare Americans for the coming, in some areas already-unfolding, economic and jobs shock.Why it matters: The gap between the AI giants, employees and investors and ordinary Americans is growing by the month. This gap, if it persists, will increasingly define American political debate in the coming months and years."This is an enormously transformational moment," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told Axios'...

Last February, Megan Garcia was putting her second-youngest son to bed when she heard what sounded like a mirror falling. She rushed down the hallway to the bathroom where her eldest son, Sewell, was taking a shower. Her husband, Alexander, was already standing in front of the locked door. “Sewell?” he called. “Sewell?” But there was no answer. From outside the bathroom, they heard the shower still running. Megan stuck the tip of a comb into the pinhole in the door handle and it opened. Sewell was lying facedown in the bathtub, his feet hanging over the edge. Megan thought,...

Right-wing provocateur Candace Owens made her boldest claim yet about her former friend Charlie Kirk's assassination in a video posted online Wednesday. After weeks of spewing conspiracy theories about the assassination, Owens now appears to be explicitly blaming President Donald Trump and members of his administration for Kirk's murder. 'He gave so much of his life to Trump and to politics, and they were just like NOPE. That's it,' Owens said. 'So here's a holiday. What is with them giving them a holiday after they kill them? As soon as they give you a holiday, they definitely killed you. There's...

Atlas browser challenges Google's Chrome dominanceAtlas offers AI features like content summarization and task automationAnalysts see ad competition riskOpenAI on Tuesday unveiled ChatGPT Atlas, a long-anticipated artificial intelligence-powered web browser built around its popular chatbot, in a direct challenge to Google Chrome's dominance.The launch marks OpenAI's latest move to capitalize on 800 million weekly active ChatGPT users, as it expands into more aspects of users' online lives by collecting data about consumers' browser behavior. It could accelerate a broader shift toward AI-driven search, as users increasingly turn to conversational tools that synthesize information instead of relying on traditional keyword-based results...

As many of us have seen, Windows 11 is introducing AI into PCs programmed with that O/S. Granted, there are methods of removing it. Installing W11 with Rufus software is a common way of doing it. Using Flyoobe is another option. There is also software out there to remove unwanted components once W11 is installed. Regardless, I, and I'm sure many others, are trying to find ways of running Windows software on a Linux system. I've run across a few software packages in Linux that try to accomplish this. Bottles, Wine, Winapps and PlayonLinux are just a few things I've...

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is in talks with several quantum-computing companies to take equity stakes in exchange for federal funding, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Companies including IonQ (IONQ.N), Rigetti Computing (RGTI.O), and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS.N), are discussing the government becoming a shareholder as part of the agreements, the report said, adding that the discussions include minimum funding awards from Washington of $10 million each. Other companies such as Quantum Computing (QUBT.O), and Atom Computing are considering similar arrangements, the Journal added. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Earlier this...

I own four computers. Two desktops. One laptop. One Microsoft notebook. Three have Win 11. One has 10. Lately, on a desktop w/11, frequently, when I'm searching google for data, when I type in the phrase or business or topic, I'll get a captcha test. It's becoming more frequent. I always clear my cache, run ccleaner, clear history, etc. It's still happening. And none of my other computers are doing it. When it happens, it starts with the "I'm not a robot" box which I check. Directly underneath it has some computer lingo with the word "google" in it. And...

A quickie? After many other things coming up the last couple weeks, I'm finally ready to clone my boot drive onto a 2nd SSD. A bit later, my plan is to acquire an "industrial" reliability Samsung NVMe SSD and replace the used Micron NVMe drive now housing my boot disk. I have Macrium Reflect Free Edition installed and running, and basically just poked around a bit to brush up - it's been a little while since I've cloned a drive / disk. Disk 3, the NVMe, "houses" "C:" & shows 4 partitions: 1 - No Name (None) Primary - FAT32...

The male flight attendant had just arrived at Atlanta Airport and was in his uniform when he began accusing the female gate agent of displaying unprofessionalism and being 'ghetto.' As the pair walk through the terminal, he says: 'This is ridiculous. This is the worst airport, and y'all make Southwest look horrible. 'That customer service is ridiculous.' As the woman veers away from him and walks toward the gate, the Delta employee follows behind her, rolling his suitcase after her as he adds: 'It's ghetto. 'That's because it's Atlanta, y'all have no respect for customer service. Y'all need to clean...

Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia millions of people treat as an authoritative source of information, is systemically biased against conservative, religious, and other points of view, according to the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger.Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and former philosophy professor, among stacks of reference books at a library in Columbus, Ohio, on March 26, 2007. Kiichiro Sato/AP PhotoSanger, 57, who now heads the Knowledge Standards Foundation, believes Wikipedia can be salvaged either by a renewed emphasis on free speech within the organization or by a grassroots campaign to make diverse viewpoints heard.Failing that, Sanger said, government intervention may be...

Surely many people would like the option of viewing the first score of text characters like it always used to be.

Nvidia, the American semiconductor giant, has seen its dominance in China’s advanced chip market vanish, with its market share dropping from 95% to Zero due to stringent US export controls, according to CEO Jensen Huang. Speaking at a Citadel Securities event in New York earlier this month, Huang revealed that Nvidia is completely barred from selling its high-performance AI chips, including the A100, H100, and H200 models, to Chinese companies since restrictions began in 2022. A video of the interview was released recently. Huang expressed hope for a policy shift, stating, “We will continue to explain and inform and hold...