Free Republic

More than 100 companies in China have stepped into the development of virtual reality (VR) devices, focusing on entry-level products initially, according to trade sources.A number of vendors showcased their VR products at the recently concluded Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2016 (Spring Edition), with FOB prices of entry-level models ranging from US$2-3 per unit and mid-range ones at US$25-80, the sources indicated.China-based makers are taking Google's CardBoard as reference design and turning out their VR devices using a plastic helmet attached with a pair of lenticular sheets for the low-end market, indicated the sources.Some vendors were showcasing VR products for...

Many hundreds of Amazon Kindle Fire users are reporting their Kindle registration data and all account information stored on their Kiindle electronic readers have been wiped clean - the kindle has been returned back to zero-zero or original empty. No name, no account, no stored books, no stored videos or audio or music, not even a single piece of anything loaded on the device. On the Amazon feedback site, there is no solution. No one has reported losing power or physical harm (dropped the kindle, dipped it in water or a tub, lost power completely, nor did anything but "turned...

... Telstra has invested $10.3 million in San Francisco-based open source web developer Nginx, the telco revealed today. Telstra Ventures chief Mark Sherman said the decision to invest was driven by Nginx's increasing global popularity, and technology leadership in the web application delivery and deployment market. Telstra's websites run on Nginx currently. Nginx was developed by Kazakhstan-born, Russian developer Igor Sysoev, and can be used to serve web pages, and act as a reverse proxy and load balancer for sites. The server runs on the Unix, Linux, BSD, Apple OS X, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX and Microsoft WIndows operating systems.

I, and a few tens of millions of other Ubuntu users, have been waiting for the new release of Ubuntu 16.04 and our wait is over. The latest version of this popular desktop, server, and cloud Linux is here.This new edition comes with the new 'snap' package format and LXD 2.0 pure-container hypervisor. While desktop users might like these, the main audience for these features is the enterprise. As Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, said in a statement "The leading cloud-based operations and the most advanced robotics run largely on Ubuntu, and this new release is the...

The plane was on course to land in Mountain View, California, in about three days Two pilots are slowly carving their way into a new future of solar-powered flight as one embarks on the latest leg of their around-the-world journey in a plane powered only by the sun. After some uncertainty about winds, the Solar Impulse team took off from Hawaii on Thursday, and hours later it was still ascending over the Pacific attempting to reach a high altitude before night sets in. The Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2 was on course to land in Mountain View, California, in about...

See story at link, I'm mobile and not sure what the posting requirements for Scripps is.

I have a new computer, on which I'm running Windows 10 and using Firefox version 45.0.2 as my browser. My FR account is set to "convenient," which is supposed to mean that I remain logged on even when I close my browser. But I keep finding that I'm logged when I close and later reopen Firefox. I don't have this problem on my other computers or my smartphone, so I'm thinking this is a Windows 10 or Firefox issue. Any ides as to what Firefox or Windows settings I need to adjust? Thanks.

I'm working on an MS PowerPoint slide deck (Office 10). Some of the slides have videos on them that I have inserted from files on my hard drive. I never had any trouble playing these videos in the slide deck, or inserting new ones, until I uninstalled Quicktime per advice from a number of articles I've recently seen here on FR. So now when I try to play the existing videos or install new ones that I have on file, I get a message that says: "PowerPoint cannot insert a video from the selected file. Verify that the path and...

We’ve been hearing mixed reports about iPhone SE sales in general, but Apple’s latest 4-incher does appear to be a big hit in China. After a previous report claimed third-party retailers in the country received 3.4M preorders before the phone went on sale, a new supply-chain report says that local brands like Xiaomi and Huawei are being hit hard by Apple offering its cheapest-ever iPhone. The launch of relatively low-priced iPhone SE in China has squeezed market share from local brands, including Huawei, Xiaomi Technology, Vivo and Oppo, affecting the earning performance of these brands, said the sources. The source is...

UCI chemist Reginald Penner (shown) and doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai have developed a nanowire-based technology that allows lithium-ion batteries to be recharged hundreds of thousands of times. Credit: Daniel A. Anderson / UCI ========================================================================================================== University of California, Irvine researchers have invented nanowire-based battery material that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times, moving us closer to a battery that would never require replacement. The breakthrough work could lead to commercial batteries with greatly lengthened lifespans for computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft. Scientists have long sought to use nanowires in batteries. Thousands of times thinner than a human...

The results of Stack Overflow’s annual survey show the most popular programming languages among developers. Stack Overflow recently published the results of its annual developer survey, revealing its findings on the most popular programming languages.Over 50,000 developers from 173 countries responded to the survey.Stack Overflow said it also augmented some of the results with insights from the activity of its 40 million monthly visitors.It found that JavaScript remains the most popular technology among developers, with SQL and SQL Server a close second.“PHP appears to be falling out of favour as Node and Angular emerge,” said Stack Overflow. Most popular tech...

A fleet of self-driving trucks rumbles across Europe Trucks "platooning" across the Netherlands. Credit: Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment Platooning in the U.S. still four to five years out By Lucas Mearian Computerworld | Apr 7, 2016 2:24 PM PT A caravan of about a dozen self-driving, semi-trailer trucks for the first time finished a trip across parts of Europe this week. The autonomous truck challenge was organized by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment and included rigs from six manufacturers, including Volvo, Daimler and Volkswagen subsidiary Scania. The convoy journeyed from manufacturing facilities in Belgium,...

THE Headstart Technologies Company of Great Neck, L.I., has introduced two new personal computers equipped with CD-ROM drives, becoming the first maker of personal computers to offer low-cost CD-ROM technology to the home, education and small-business markets... CD-ROM stands for compact disk read only memory, a laser-based system of storing and replaying large amounts of text, graphics or sound on a single five-inch platter. For example, one CD-ROM disk can hold the entire contents of an encyclopedia, or a shelf's worth of other reference books. For $2,999, Headstart is offering the Headstart III-CD, which differs from the LX-CD in that...

Fixstars' Olive is like the Raspberry Pi of servers, but with a twist -- it packs 13TB of solid-state drive storage in a system that can be held in one hand. Olive could be viewed as a full-fledged computer crammed into a 2.5-inch SSD drive. The 13TB drive makes it one-of-a-kind in a market where compact computers are hungry for storage. Some unique features make the server better suited for businesses than homes. It is customizable, with an FPGA (field-programmable gate array), which can be reprogrammed for specific tasks. It can also be used as a portable server to dish...

Windows 7 will start but when it goes to Google Chrome, it will freeze up within 5 on any and everything. On Internet Explorer, it doesn't freeze but graphics don't work properly. Example, go to any site with a moving weather radar and it won't load. Or any site where you have a box to search within the site, you can't type or click in the box. Also, say on yahoo.com homepage, the ads and other junk on the left and right sides don't show up but the headlines do and you can click them and to the sites.

European Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestager addresses a news conferenceBrussels, Belgium, January 11, 2016. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir - The European competition commission is gearing up to charge Google with giving unfair prominence to its own apps like search and maps in supplementary software licensing deals it strikes with mobile phone makers running its Android operating system, four sources familiar with the process said on Monday. Google generated an estimated $11 billion (9.73 billion euros) last year from sales of ads running on Android phones featuring Google apps. Android has become the dominant software in recent years, running most of the world's smartphones....

Can you believe that it’s been over 2 years since the last stable release of Clementine?It’s also been over 4 years since we last mentioned the popular open-source music player on this site!New Features in Clementine 1.3 Ripened for release this weekend, Clementine 1.3 brings a punnet’s worth of improvements, features and bug fixes to the cross-platform Qt-based music player.It is also the first release of the app to formally support Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, which is due for release next week.More than 150 changes are present in all, with some of the more notable being: Support for Vk.comSeafile support (server >= 4.4.1)Ampache compatibility (via Subsonic service)New “Rainbow Dash” analyser“Psychedelic Colour”...

CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, left, with hacker Karsten Nohl Update: Rep. Ted Lieu has now written to the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requesting a formal investigation into the vulnerability. In his letter, the Congressman says that the flaw threatens ‘personal privacy, economic competitiveness and U.S. national security.’ The full text of his letter can be found at the bottom of the piece.Apple may take iOS security so seriously that it’s willing to do battle with the FBI over it, but German hackers have demonstrated that all phones – even iPhones – are susceptible...

Apparently, we’re in the middle of a “global infidelity crisis,” a crisis that can only be solved by a smart mattress that pings your phone when it’s being used for sex. Wait, what? Smarttress is a real-looking product from Spanish company Durmet, which claims to use ultrasonic sensors to detect when two people are going at it on a bed. It then pings your phone to inform you of this fact. I’m still partly convinced that this is a late April Fool’s, but working on the terrifying assumption that it’s not, let’s look at this idea on its merits. On...

Robot Waiters Fired for Incompetence in China Customers liked them, but they couldn't carry soup. Adam Toobin April 6, 2016 The world may not be ready for restaurant robots — yet. At least two restaurants in Guangzhou, China have fired their teams of artificially intelligent robot waiters after discovering the machines were unable to keep up with their human staff. “The robots weren’t able to carry soup or other food steady and they would frequently break down. The boss has decided never to use them again,” an employee at one of the restaurants told the Worker’s Daily. The humanoid bots...