Free Republic

For a guy who spends his time behind the wheel of a car going upwards of 200 miles per hour, you might wonder what else it takes to get NASCAR Driver Ryan Newman’s adrenaline pumping. Apparently it’s operating a massive Cat® mining machine. Newman, who races the No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet in the Sprint Cup Series, remotely operated a D11T Dozer from a trailer at the Phoenix International Raceway on November 13. The 230,000 pound machine (one of the largest in the world) was at the Caterpillar Tinaja Demonstration & Learning Center in Tucson, Arizona. While the concept seems like...

The only item missing from the secret e-mail server run by Hillary Clinton appears to be the welcome mat for hackers. According to the Associated Press, the Clintons set up remote-control operations of its server without ever bothering to build in the normal security that would accompany those functions in a professional setting — if one could even find a professional setting that would allow those functions to operate at all: Clinton’s server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled...

Installing smart-home automation systems can be pricey, which is why designer Roger Yiu is giving consumers a back door to controlling your home on your mobile — the Smart Power Strip app. The Smart Power Strip lets you power on and off any device you can plug into a conventional wall outlet. You can also set timers and read your electricity usage in real-time, all from your smartphone.

It may only take a minute or two to boil a kettle, but the agonizing wait for that reassuring click is now over, with the launch of the world’s first WiFi version. The ultimate in mod cons for the consumer too busy—or lazy—to enter the kitchen and do the job manually, the iKettle can be switched on from your smartphone from anywhere in the home. The technology promises to cater for any “urgent hot drink scenario”, enabling the user to remain on the sofa, or in bed in the morning, until the water is ready to pour. …

Forget hacking accounts, computers or mobile devices - security engineers from Indiana have managed to hack the software inside the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape. Using a laptop wirelessly connected to the car's electronics, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek were able to remotely control the brakes, the accelerate, change the speedometer, switch the headlights on and off, tighten the seatbelts and even blast the horn. The project was funded by a grant from the U.S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to highlight the security risks affecting modern-day cars. Miller, a security engineer at Twitter, and Valasek, Director of Security Intelligence...

Civil Discourse about Israel by Ari Bussel An interesting question was raised at a Jewish Federation event in Greater Los Angeles: Should Jews who do not live, pay taxes or risk their lives in Israel have a say in Israel’s affairs? While the community is debating this question, Israel has long been struggling with the reverse question: Should Israelis living overseas have the ability to vote in Israeli elections. There are many hundreds of thousands of Israelis whose permanent residence is outside of Israel (in the Greater Los Angeles area alone there are rumored to be some 350,000 Israelis). An...

SNIPPET: "A remote-controlled bomb that hit a bus carrying Turkish soldiers and civilians has killed five people and left at least 12 injured in Istanbul. The explosion took place when the vehicle was passing through the Halkali district on the outskirts of the city. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), believed to be an offshoot of the PKK Kurdish rebel group, later claimed responsibility for the attack. The PKK has recently stepped up its attacks on Turkish military targets."

Wholesale gadget site Chinavasion has a product called the RC plane camera that will let you convert your remote-controlled aircraft into an overhead spy camera. This cylindrical device attaches to your hobby airplane or helicopter and lets you shoot VGA-quality video or photos at 1,280x960 resolution. It probably won't give you the quality military unmanned aerial vehicles are capable of, but hey, capturing aerial views of your neighborhood is still pretty cool. Why spend money on something like that when almost everyone owns a regular compact digicam? Well, a Canon Ixus or Sony Cyber-shot, however small, will still weigh about...

A video advertisement on CBS's Web site that "mashes" material from the iconic "Frosty the Snowman" Christmastime cartoon with two of the network's comedy series is offensive and should be pulled, media analysts told FoxNews.com. The video ad, "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman," takes authentic dialogue from CBS' "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men" and dubs it on top of the cartoon classic, changing well-known "Frosty" scenes to contain suggestions that the snowman and his friends visit a "strip club." The mash-up also discusses Frosty's "porn collection" and contains repeated mentions of prior sexual conquests. The...

Remembering Ken Ober, The Voice Of 'Remote Control' Posted 41 minutes ago by Kyle Anderson in Music, Television This was a sad day at MTV, as we had a death in the family. Ken Ober, the longtime comedian, television producer and host of early MTV game show "Remote Control," passed away at age 52. Arguably, Ober's most indelible legacy is "Remote Control," which premiered in 1987 and was one of MTV's first attempts at crafting an original television series. The premise was delightfully low-fi: Ober posited that he hosted a media-obsessed game show out of the basement of his parents'...

Computers Researchers Remote Control Flying Beetles Via Electrodes by Terrence O'Brien (RSS feed) — Sep 27th 2009 at 3:01PM The military and researchers across the country have been working on putting tiny bots in the air for quite some time. They've talked robotic spy-bats, dreamed up cyborg crickets, dragonflies, and all matter of other bug-sized bots. In fact, they've successfully implanted electrodes into the brains of crickets, moths, and beetles to exercise some control over their movements -- they even got a beetle to briefly take flight. But until now, the amount of control over motions has been very limited....

So Michael Vick is an Eagle now. That’s ok with me. I’m a Giants fan. Or I was a Giants fan, when I could stand to follow pro football. For a long time now, I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch more than a few games a season. These days, I feel nearly as out-of-place at a Super Bowl party as I would at an Oscar party. Here in the DC area, the Redskins religion has begun its sacramental advent count-down to opening Sunday. I wish I could share the excitement. Part of the problem is that I’m...

China uncovered seven "terror cells" in the western frontier city of Kashgar in the first four months of 2009, the China Daily said on Wednesday, citing the city's party secretary. The historic oasis city in the arid region of Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighurs, an ethnic group that often chafes under Chinese rule and resents an influx of Han Chinese workers from central China. The area borders Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as central Asian states.

OnStar, the unit behind General Motors' GPS-based in-vehicle security system, offers Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology: An OnStar operator can send a signal to a vehicle, restricting its fuel and slowing it to 3-5 mph. The technology is available on about 1 million 2009 GM vehicles, OnStar spokesman Jim Kobus says. Another company, Virginia Beach-based StarChase, is field-testing its Pursuit Management System. It's a launcher on the front of a police car that fires projectiles that stick on a fleeing vehicle targeted by laser, enabling police to track it by GPS. The system, which has been tested by police in Columbus,...

New McCain Web Ad contains clips of the Dims saying what they thought about Obama, as well as various wars on the background.

Californians may soon have to deal with climate change on a different scale -- and this time the culprit isn't greenhouse gas. The California Energy Commission is proposing a plan which allows the government to regulate household thermostats in the event of an "energy crisis." Under the proposed rules, all new thermostats will be fitted with technology that will allow the government to adjust the temperature of someone's home by plus or minus four degrees. Originally the plans called for mandatory compliance; however, amid public outcry, the plans have been slightly altered to allow an individual to turn off the...

Baghdad, 6 June (AKI) - Iraqi insurgents have experimented a "corpse bomb", a police official in the Nineveh province has told the pan Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat. According to Major Al-Karim al-Jibburi a group of armed men beheaded a local police officer near Mosul late Sunday, and then rigged his body with explosives and loaded it into a police car. When the policeman's colleagues came to retrieve his body- al Jibburi said - the insurgents triggered the device by remote control. It's not the first time that a corpse in Iraq has been booby-trapped with explosives but local security officials...

Bird-brained China scientists learn to fly pigeons Tue Feb 27, 12:53 AM ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong University of Science and Technology said ther electrodes could command them to fly right or left or up or down, Xinhua news agency said. "The implants stimulate different areas of the pigeon's brain according to signals sent by the scientists via computer, and force the bird to...

BOISE, Idaho – Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote has died. Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday. In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime. The National Academy of Television...

By any measure, 2006 has been a momentous year in American history. The nation's population surpassed 300 million. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high. And the vice president shot someone in the face. More importantly, it marks the 50th anniversary of the world's first wireless television remote control. That's right, the remote - a k a channel changer, clicker, flipper switcher, god stick, zapper - is 50 years young. In November of 1956, Zenith issued its revolutionary Space Command, spawning a new breed of human sloths: the American couch potato. In the post-WWII years, changing the channel...