Free Republic

Ireland will probably face censure from European authorities within months in relation to its tax dealings with Apple, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. A finding against Ireland will spark a legal battle that may last years, as the government is ready to fight the decision in the European Union Court of Justice, it’s understood. In preliminary findings last year, European antitrust authorities said Apple’s tax arrangements were improperly designed to give the iPhone maker a financial boost in exchange for jobs in the country. Apple said in 2013 it had paid an effective tax rate of...

 "[Hillary] Clinton goes full satire with call for more transparency in political donations", opines Jazz Shaw at Hot Air. Through the "fox guarding the chicken house" metaphor, the topic leads naturally to Bubba’s first, baby-steps scandal as Arkansas Governor, involving allegations of favoritism about watershed contamination by Tyson Foods chicken farms operations--chicken litter. Search GOOGLE for "bill clinton chicken litter" - for the world`s largest search engine, the issue has disappeared down Winston Smith`s memory hole (George Orwell, 1984). "Your search - bill clinton chicken litter - did not match any documents."Zero. Zilch. $000,000,000.00 / 0 = #DIV/0! (ERROR!)  You can find it...

Have a TomTom 4ET03 car GPS. Cannot locate anywhere on the net the option to download/update the map database. Can anyone give me a pointer? Thanks.

A malicious Android app that held people to ransom has been found by US security firm Zscaler. Adult Player appeared to offer pornography, but secretly took pictures of users with the phone's front-facing camera. It then locked the user's device and displayed a demand for $500 (£330) which was difficult to bypass. One security expert told the BBC that ransomware was a lucrative and growing area of cybercrime. Ransomware The Adult Player app demanded a payment of $500 (£330). Apps which demand money from people with a threat to release private information, or wipe a device, are known as ransomware....

(CNN)—NASA's rockets are astounding machines, capable of blasting into space at thousands of miles per hour and withstanding temperatures twice the melting point of steel. But they can't take off underwater. Rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps threaten to disrupt a handful of NASA launch sites along U.S. coastlines, the space agency warns. In the coming years, launch facilities at Florida's Kennedy Space Center and other places may need to be retrofitted or even moved inland, NASA says. "Every NASA center has its own set of vulnerabilities, and some are more at risk than others," NASA climatologist...

Children are being raped, citizens murdered, and lost souls trafficked for sex and the police can't do anything about it thanks to Apple and Google, senior government lawyers and a top cop have claimed. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr; Adrian Leppard, commissioner of the City of London Police; Paris' chief prosecutor François Molins; and Javier Zaragoza, chief prosecutor of the High Court of Spain, said that the current situation is unsupportable and legal changes are needed to keep the public safe. "The new encryption policies of Apple and Google have made...

Analysis America's broadband watchdog is suffering a backlash over plans to control software updates to Wi-Fi routers, smartphones, and even laptops. In a proposed update [PDF] to the regulator's rules over radiofrequency equipment, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would oblige manufacturers to "specify which parties will be authorized to make software changes." In addition, it proposes that "modifications by third parties should not be permitted unless the third party receives its own certification." While the intent is to make the FCC's certification of the next generation of wireless equipment faster and more flexible, open source advocates were quick to notice...

African Americans make up 17.4 percent of the federal workforce, as compared to 10.1 percent of the civilian labor force. But the percentage of African Americans drops dramatically with each rise in job grade. They hold 27.6 percent of the lowest positions (GS 1-4), 25.8 percent of GS 5-8, 15.7 percent of GS 9-12, 10.9 percent of GS 13-15 and just 6.9 percent of Senior Pay levels. Advance Your Career Hispanics make up just 7.3 percent of the federal workforce versus 12.6 percent of the civilian labor force. They hold about 9 percent of the GS 1-4 and 5-8 job...

While rushing from class to class this fall, Santa Clara University students might soon be able to hitch a ride on a golf cart that -- without the benefit of a driver -- will traverse the palm-tree-lined campus. No, the shuttle won't be driven by a poltergeist. Sunnyvale-based startup Auro Robotics has chosen the university as the location to test its new vehicle for three months. The shuttle, operated by an onboard computer, has laser cameras that will have a 360-degree view of the campus and can detect pedestrians within 200 meters to avoid hitting them. People will be able...

'Hey Siri, take me home tonight' Using your smartphone while behind the wheel is a terrible idea. It’s distracting, it’s clumsy, and it’s just plain unsafe for you, your passengers, and other people on the road. But since the smartphone is the epicenter of our digital lives, it’s really hard not to want to use it while driving. After all, it’s a navigation, entertainment, and communication device that slips into our pockets. This year, Apple and Google are finally making it possible to use your smartphone safely while driving. Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto integrate with a vehicle’s existing...

Tens of thousands of people around the world are now using a free personal-safety mobile app that allows friends to virtually walk you home at night. The Companion app, created by five students from the University of Michigan, enables users to request a friend or family member to keep them company virtually and track their journey home via GPS on an online map. Although they can do so, the friend or family member does not need to have installed the Companion app, which is available for both Android and iOS. The user can send out several requests to different phone...

People all over the world are waking up this morning to a little present in their Windows 7 (and Server 2008 R2) Windows Update boxes: KB 3083324, which describes itself as “Windows Update Client for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: September 2015.” Here’s what the KB article says: This article describes an update that contains some improvements to Windows Update Client in Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. That’s it. If there’s any further description, I can’t find it. In particular, as of this writing anyway, it isn’t even listed in the...

Microsoft is using a new tactic to keep Windows 10 users from switching away from its Edge browser. The first time Edge users search for “chrome” or “firefox” using Bing — presumably with the intent of downloading those browsers from Google or Mozilla, respectively — they are shown a serious-looking message at the top of the search results. “Microsoft recommends Microsoft Edge for Windows 10,” it says. A “Learn why” button next to that message brings you to a website showing off Edge’s features... The message only showed up the first time I searched for “chrome” and “firefox” in Edge,...

(Reuters Health) - Devices like tablets, smartphones and laptops can reflect ultraviolet light from the sun and may indirectly increase users' exposure to the cancer-causing wavelengths, according to a new study. “These devices are generally used for communication or entertainment, so it can be easy to overlook their reflective properties unless you happen to catch the glare off a screen,” said Mary E. Logue of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who coauthored the research with Dr. Barrett J. Zlotoff. They wondered whether, like those old-fashioned tanning reflectors, personal electronics could also pose skin health risks, Logue told Reuters...

'Julia Caesar', an anonymous right-wing blogger who has blasted Swedish journalists for writing an "epoch of lies" about the benefits of immigration, is herself a former reporter for Sweden's biggest broadsheet, Dagens Nyheter, according to a Swedish tabloid. The controversial writer, who has sought to keep her identity secret, has been causing a huge stir on social media since 2010. Her blog posts lay into mainstream politicians and what she describes as "the corrupt media" for promoting what she argues is an "epoch of lies" about immigration. They also praise the rise of the nationalist Sweden Democrat Party. "It simply...

Apple fanboys have often been accused of worshipping anything that comes from the brand, even though the rest of the world is saying it sucks or it’s nothing special anymore (I guess that’s why they call them fanboys). Some Dutch humor artists decided to test this out, pretending to show them the new iOS9, which is in fact just an Android OS loaded onto an iPhone, Predictably, the results were hilarious. Well, it would be funny if you were an Android fan or even user, not so much if you were one of said fanboys. What these humor artists did...

Hi, techies, I'm having trouble helping a friend assign a name to her YouTube channel (e.g., YouTube.com/MyChannelName). It just won't work. I'm generally very good at this sort of thing, and two years ago named my own YouTube channel. But I couldn't get it to work this time, and found out that, according to some sources (including YouTube's own help pages), YouTube requires 500 subscribers to obtain a channel name. I'm finding it hard to believe that, but am stumped. None of the online sources are helping. If you have experience and knowledge of this, could you please help? Thank...

OK FReepers, I am becoming frustrated FReeping on my iPad. Ever since the most recent update to Safari (iPad 8.4), whenever I click to read an article and then click back to the forum page my browser goes to the top of the page instead of back to the point at which I clicked away. This makes for excessive scrolling just to get back to where I left off. Any of you iPad users experiencing this or is it just me? (I am logged in) I read other forums where this does not happen, and the boss says nothing has...

It's no wonder cities like New York have been so hostile to Uber. As economist Mark Perry details in a post on his Carpe Diem site, the introduction of Uber and other app-based ride-sharing services has led to a collapse in the price of New York City's taxi medallions. For those who don't know, a cabbie needs one of these limited-edition medallions to operate in the city. As a result, the price for a New York taxicab medallion has been astronomical — reaching more than $1 million in 2013. There's even a company, Medallion Financial, that handles loans needed to...

Before you install Microsoft Windows 10 you need to ask yourself one question. If they are giving the software away for free, how do they make back the money invested in development and sustainment?