Free Republic

Monday’s order follows a ruling from U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis, who on Friday transferred the case back to Louisiana after Psaki attempted to fight the deposition in a Virginia court where she lives and would be deposed. Biden’s Justice Department supported her effort. "Ms. Psaki’s effort to eliminate or delay her deposition in this action had failed because of the swift action of two judges in widely dispersed courts, one in Virginia and one in Louisiana, and by the implausibility of her reasons for not testifying as to Federal efforts to censure social media that made quick resolution possible,"...

Consumers spent a record amount of money on online purchases on Black Friday, surpassing $9 billion, according to Adobe Analytics data. Adobe found that $9.12 billion was spent on Friday, marking a 2.3 percent rise year over year. Electronics sales were a large driver of the increase, with such online sales up 221 percent from the average day in October. Items such as audio equipment, toys and exercise equipment also sold well, with sales of each up more than 200 percent from an average day last month.

It seems like an eternity ago, but it’s just been a year. At this time in 2021, the Nasdaq Composite had just peaked, doubling since the early days of the pandemic. Rivian’s blockbuster IPO was the latest in a record year for new issues. Hiring was booming and tech employees were frolicking in the high value of their stock options. Twelve months later, the landscape is markedly different. Not one of the 15 most valuable U.S. tech companies has generated positive returns in 2021. Microsoft has shed roughly $700 billion in market cap. Meta’s market cap has contracted by over...

On my last night in Montana, I gave a talk on transhumanism to a right-wing organization. This was the third meeting I’d attended, held in the basement of an old Eagles Lodge. It really was a great honor. There were about forty people in the audience, I’d say, and about twenty holstered pistols. You don’t say the wrong thing to a crowd like that. Any more, I open my talks on transhumanism by noting that what we’re talking about is mostly fantasy. Genetic engineering on demand, sentient artificial superintelligence, commercial brain-computer interfaces—these are all disturbing ideas that exist, by and...

So, after dodging it for nearly three years (and precisely 14 days post-omicron booster), the little SOB finally got me. Pretty crappy timing if you ask me. Rather than bitch and moan about how lousy I feel (plenty), I found something else to bitch and moan about: Digital thermometers. I hate them on the molecular level because, in my limited experience, they work properly about 0% of the time. And what could be a better opportunity for generating a superior dataset than neurotically checking my temperature every 17 seconds? But it did not go well. I experienced thermomageddon at the...

A little noticed federal lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, is uncovering astonishing evidence of an entrenched censorship scheme cooked up between the federal government and Big Tech that would make Communist China proud. So far, 67 officials or agencies - including the FBI - have been accused in the lawsuit of violating the First Amendment by pressuring Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor users for alleged misinformation or disinformation. Victims of the Biden-Big Tech’s “censorship enterprise” include The Post, whose Hunter Biden laptop exposé was suppressed by Facebook and then Twitter in October 2020 after the FBI went to Facebook warning...

Government agencies and private security companies in the U.S. have found a cost-effective way to engage in warrantless surveillance of individuals, groups and places: a pay-for-access web tool called Fog Reveal. The tool enables law enforcement officers to see “patterns of life” – where and when people work and live, with whom they associate and what places they visit. The tool’s maker, Fog Data Science, claims to have billions of data points from over 250 million U.S. mobile devices. Fog Reveal came to light when the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit that advocates for online civil liberties, was investigating...

The FBI team that was in communication with Facebook before the social media company censored the original Hunter Biden laptop story has been identified, according to a new court filing. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, identified the team as the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), according to an updated complaint entered late on Oct. 6. Meta named the team after receiving a subpoena in a case alleging the federal government pressured Big Tech firms to censor users. “Pursuant to the third-party subpoena, Meta has identified the FBI’s FITF, as supervised by Laura Dehmlow, and Elvis Chan as involved in the...

Google employees are receiving regular notifications from management of Covid-19 infections, causing some to question the company’s return-to-office mandates. The employees, who spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity, said since they have been asked to return to offices, infections notifications pop up in their email inboxes regularly. Employees are reacting with frustration and memes. The company began requiring most employees to return to physical offices at least three days a week in April. Since then, staffers have pushed back on the mandate after they worked efficiently for so long at home while the company enjoyed some of its...

The Senate’s high-tech funding bill will create high-tech jobs for people in heartland America, not just in immigration-inflated Silicon Valley and other coastal sites, according to Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), the leading Republican behind the bill. “This bill will establish regional technology hubs across our country, which will become centers for the research, development, entrepreneurship, and manufacturing of new key technologies,” Young said in a Wednesday speech shortly before the bill was approved.

As Uber aggressively pushed into markets around the world, the ride-sharing service lobbied political leaders to relax labor and taxi laws, used a "kill switch'' to thwart regulators and law enforcement, channeled money through Bermuda and other tax havens and considered portraying violence against its drivers as a way to gain public sympathy, according to a report released Sunday. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit network of investigative reporters, scoured internal Uber texts, emails, invoices and other documents to deliver what it called "an unprecedented look into the ways Uber defied taxi laws and upended workers' rights.'' **SNIP**...

(video) In 2020 I became immersed in the marvelous world of quadrupedal robots. Viewing YouTube videos of robots such as SPOT by Boston Dynamics, and the MIT Mini Cheetah has inspired me to make my very own. These cleverly crafted bots are known for their dynamic movements and realistic appearances. Over the past year, I've made it my personal goal to create my very own affordable quadrupedal robot. One that could function similar to the high-end quadrupeds. Here I present ARES, a fully 3D printed 12 DOF robot dog capable of omni directional travel as well as many other maneuvers....

LVIV, Ukraine: Ukraine’s IT sector is booming despite the Russian invasion. Workers with stickers on their laptops recline on beach chairs outside a warehouse for startups in the west Ukraine city of Lviv giving off major Silicon Valley vibes. But the atmosphere inside is different. Through the glass doors of the complex, young Ukrainians zig-zag between stacks of bulletproof vests and cardboard boxes filled with helmets ready for the front. They are part of Ukraine’s burgeoning tech sector which was forced to adapt after Russia’s invasion and has become key to supporting the war effort. “Most tech companies had...

Chrome OS isn’t just for Chromebooks now. It’s not pleasant seeing a once-beloved laptop (or desktop) computer slowly slide into obsolescence as it gets too old and tired to keep up with the demands of modern-day computing, but Google has now provided an option for these ailing machines in the form of Chrome OS Flex. Chrome OS Flex is the standard Chrome OS that runs on Chromebooks, in a form that you can install on computers that aren’t Chromebooks. The idea is that the lightweight operating system won’t weigh your old device down to the same extent as Windows or...

Apple and Facebook reportedly provided sensitive customer information to hackers who faked being law enforcement officials in 2021. Facebook parent company Meta and Apple gave the hackers basic customer details — such as phone numbers, home addresses, and IP addresses — in response to forged "emergency data requests," Bloomberg reported. Typically, such data requests can only be granted through search warrants or subpoenas provided by a judge, but emergency requests don't require a full-court order. The hackers who duped the companies are affiliated with cybercrime groups known as “Recursion Team,” who have a history of using fake legal requests to...

In almost every field of science, and technology, US and Russia have always been competitors. Occasionally, though, stuff gets a little crazy.Well, no don’t have to worry because there are no hostilities between them.But the vibes are not calm. It is no secret that Elon Musk is famous for his technological abilities.Therefore, Russia is getting a little jealous of his success and is trying to make things less exciting, and Musk is threatening them in response.The Russian space chief watched in awe as billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson took off into space in vehicles they helped fund - and...

BRUSSELS - The European Union set the stage for a stepped-up crackdown on big tech companies with an agreement on landmark digital rules to rein in online “gatekeepers” such as Google and Facebook parent Meta. EU officials agreed late Thursday on wording for the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, part of a long-awaited overhaul of its digital rulebook. The act, which still needs other approvals, seeks to prevent tech giants from dominating digital markets, with the threat of whopping fines or even the possibility of a company breakup. For instance, they face tighter restrictions on using people’s data for targeted online...

A revelation buried in a cache of documents opens a new and potentially important investigative corridor for Special Counsel John Durham. The shady tech executive who featured prominently in the federal indictment of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was also communicating with a covert group of computer scientists skilled in mining internet data. This revelation raises concerns that the man referred to in special counsel documents as Tech Executive-1, Rodney Joffe, may have shared sensitive government and private internet data more broadly than previously thought. Joffe’s role in Spygate represents one of the most recent developments exposed by the...

The White House is warning the chip industry to diversify its supply chain in case Russia retaliates against threatened U.S. export curbs by blocking access to key materials, people familiar with the matter said. The potential for retaliation has garnered more attention in recent days after Techcet, a market research group, published a report on Feb. 1 highlighting the reliance of many semiconductor manufacturers on Russian and Ukrainian-sourced materials like neon, palladium and others. According to Techcet estimates, over 90% of U.S. semiconductor-grade neon supplies come from Ukraine, while 35% of U.S. palladium is sourced from Russia.

Is this the bubble burst many were expecting once The Federal Reserve starting raising rates? Well, if today’s market opening is an indication, the answer is yes. The NASDAQ Composite Index is down 1.36% and West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil futures prices are down 2%. But if you think the US equities are deflating, look at European equities. The Euro Stoxx 50 index is down 3.20%. Is this a Don Ho “Tiny Bubble” burst? Or a slow deflation of asset prices as The Fed removes its stimulus?