Free Republic

Apple today introduced the new iPhone 3G S, the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet, packed with new features including improved speed and performance--up to twice as fast as iPhone 3G--with longer battery life, a high-quality 3 megapixel autofocus camera, easy to use video recording and hands free voice control. iPhone 3G S includes the new iPhone OS 3.0, the world's most advanced mobile operating system with over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS*, Spotlight Search, landscape keyboard and more. iPhone 3G S customers get access to more than 50,000 applications from Apple's revolutionary App Store, the...

A 15-cent monthly surcharge should be levied on Internet access across Louisiana to fight online criminal activity, the House voted 81-9 Thursday, over the opposition of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Enlarge ImageColor code. A new data-storage technique encodes multiple sets of data in the same area using different colors and polarizations of light.Credit: Adapted from Peter Zijlstra et al., Nature 459, 410 (2009) Better clear a shelf in your basement for that high-end Blu-ray DVD player you just bought. Researchers report that they can boost the amount of data stored on a disc 10,000-fold by using gold nanoparticles. If commercialized, the technology could allow a single disc to hold as many as 300 movies or 250,000 songs. Today's CDs and DVDs store data as a string of pits burned...

Global electricity use forecast to fall By Kate Mackenzie in London Published: May 21 2009 19:52 | Last updated: May 21 2009 19:52 Global electricity consumption will fall this year for the first time since 1945, according to the International Energy Agency. The watchdog for developed energy consuming countries will tell energy ministers from the Group of Eight leading economies on Sunday that electricity demand will fall 3.5 per cent in 2009. In China, where power use is seen as a more reliable barometer of economic activity than official economic measures, consumption will be more than 2 per cent lower...

Ever since I saw the F-35 demon helmet—which gives a 360-degree spherical view of the battlefield—I have wondered how it really looks inside, for the pilot. No more: Jump to minute 3:50.The helmet projects an augmented reality world inside its visor. This image is created by a visualization, targeting, and situational awareness marvel called Electro Optical Distributed Aperture System, which combines the feeds from six advanced infrared digital cameras located around the aircraft and other sensors—like radar—into a seamless 360-degree spherical panorama, all in real time.The panorama inside the helmet effectively makes the F-35 completely invisible to the pilot. In...

The Conficker Internet virus has infected important computerized medical devices, but governmental red tape interfered with their repair, an organizer of an antivirus working group told Congress on Friday. Rodney Joffe, one of the founders of an unofficial organization known as the Conficker Working Group, said that government regulations prevented hospital staff from carrying out the repairs. Joffe, who also is the senior vice president for the telecom clearinghouse Neustar, told a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that over the last three weeks, he and another Conficker researcher identified at least 300 critical medical devices from a...

URGENT - VOTING IN EU PARLIAMENT 5th of MAY 2009 Don't let the EU parliament lock up the Internet! There will be no way back! Act now! Internet access is not conditional Everyone who owns a website has an interest in defending the free use of Internet... so has everyone who uses Google or Skype... everyone who expresses their opinions freely, does research of any kind, whether for personal health problems or academic study ... everyone who shops online...who dates online...socialises online... listens to music...watches video... Millions of Europeans now depend on the Internet, directly or indirectly, for their livelihood....

"Maybe it’s just me (and my wife). "We still put spare change into a piggy bank (a red pig, actually), as we go. Pays for a nice dinner, every now and then. "So it floors me, still, when I see the dimensions of the federal budget and how we pay (or don’t) for what we do. "Check this, but the federal budget is now $3.5 trillion. Okay. But the deficit is … $1.7 trillion? "This means our federal government only pays for half of what it spends by taxing you and I for it. The rest has got to be...

1. “Deregulation is a joke— but it’s probably not as funny for you.” For years the cable business had acted like a typical monopoly, providing lessthan- ideal customer service, skyrocketing prices, and little choice of service. Then along came the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which opened the door for competition and promised weary cable customers relief at last. Too bad that relief never came. Nearly four years after the bill was passed, a mere 286 of the 30,000 U.S. cable markets were being served by more than one provider, according to the Federal Communications Commission. And in the FCC’s most...

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on April 8 it has received enough H-1B applications to meet the congressionally mandated cap of 85,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2009. The H-1B visas are given to foreign workers in “specialty occupations” (science, engineering, law, medicine, computer programming, etc.) where U.S. employers have filed petitions claiming there are not qualified U.S. applicants to fill the jobs. The total current 85,000 includes an annual 65,000 “cap” and an additional 20,000 exemptions for applicants with advanced degrees. If precedent holds, other exemptions will add tens of thousands more; in 2008 the number...

I.B.M. withdrew its $7 billion bid for Sun Microsystems on Sunday, one day after Sun’s board balked at a reduced offer, according to three people close to the talks. The deal’s collapse after weeks of negotiations raises questions about Sun’s next step, since the I.B.M. offer was far above the value of the Silicon Valley company’s shares when news of the I.B.M. offer first surfaced last month. Sun, an innovative pioneer in computer workstations, servers and Internet-era software, has struggled in recent years and spent months trying to secure a suitor. With I.B.M. and others shying away from a deal,...

Kind of weird there right now. Either they are playing a April Fools joke on everybody or they have been hacked, I don't think it's conficker. They are pretty liberal at that site though so if they are hacked no tears from me.

People like to publish top-10 lists of all sorts. And "reasons to switch to Linux" is no exception. Many of those have been published, and the latest entry is here. However, I think the author completely forgot a very important point. Also, some of the points he makes should be examined a bit more closely and critically. The comments on the original article reflect some valid and some unfounded criticism. Let me just run through those points (italics are quotes from the original 10-point list, my comments are directly below each point) and provide my own take on those: Free: ...

Japan gave its military the green light on Friday to shoot down any incoming North Korean rocket, with tensions high ahead of a planned launch that the US and allies say will be an illegal missile test.Japanese and US warships have already deployed ahead of the April 4-8 window, when the secretive North has said it will launch a communications satellite -- warning that shooting it down would be seen as an act of war. But South Korea, Japan and the United States have all warned the North that any launch would be unacceptable, amid fears the regime is actually...

give these little girls a listen...they can sing!

Apologies if this has been covered - haven't seen it in any of the Mac / PC wars. :) Could be some other FReepers have wondered the same thing. Any big concerns one should be aware of, regarding adding an additional, new DDR memory "card" into a dinosaur PC notebook?

Jerry Jalava has built a special prosthetic finger which contains computer storage for photos, movies and other useful files. While the prosthetic looks like a normal finger Jerry can peel it back from the 'nail' and plug it into the USB slot on his computer using it as an additional hard drive. ...snip... Using a traditional prosthetic finger Jerry has been able embed a 'USB key' - like the ones used in traditional flash drives - giving him the world's only two gigabyte finger. The finger is not permanently attached to his hand meaning it can be removed when plugged...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday ordered a former District of Columbia employee facing corruption charges to remain jailed in a case that prompted his former boss to take a brief leave of absence as President Barack Obama's computer chief. Yusuf Acar, who was the acting chief security officer in D.C.'s technology office, is accused of defrauding the city through a sophisticated bribery and fraud scheme. The allegations include billing the city for items that were never delivered and "ghost" contract employees who didn't work. Authorities say Acar approved falsified bills and split the money with vendors who submitted...

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- A quarter-century ago, American rocket scientists proposed the "Star Wars" defense system to knock Soviet missiles from the skies with laser beams. Some of the same scientists are now aiming their lasers at another airborne threat: the mosquito. In a lab in this Seattle suburb, researchers in long white coats recently stood watching a small glass box of bugs. Every few seconds, a contraption 100 feet away shot a beam that hit the buzzing mosquitoes, one by one, with a spot of red light.The insects survived this particular test, which used a non-lethal laser. But if these...

Here is an example of a new 3d browser http://www.mb3dengine.com/ Be nice to the site, it almost can's handle more then a few users and make sure you give it time to load. Also use your scroll mouse.