Free Republic

Washington - There has been an astounding 32 per cent increase this year in the number of students flocking to American universities for higher studies. It is the biggest increase from any single country for the year, although in overall terms, China still tops the table in a big way. Figures just released by the US Student and Exchange Visitor Programme (SEVP) indicate that 149,987 Indian students are currently enrolled in American universities of a total of 1.05 million. Chinese students number 301,532. When it comes to the highly-coveted STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) stream, it is Indian students...

[Luddites and people with Marxist premises are wrong again.] The Robots of Labor DayEdward Hudgins Fear of robots has been rising: not just fear of the sci-fi killer kind but also fear that robots will take our jobs. But this Labor Day we should celebrate the fact that robots free us from the need to perform certain tasks, make our labor more valuable, and could usher in new age of prosperity and human flourishing. Robots are machinesRobots are special types of machines. They’re programmed electro-mechanical devices that perform various physical functions, ideally better than humans. They range from the types...

Heat-vision cameras have been used widely in many industries for decades: Soldiers find targets through heat-vision rifle sights, police mount them on helicopters to search for people on the ground and contractors use the sensors to look for cold air seeping into homes. Now you can buy a simple smartphone attachment to reveal the widely varying temperatures of the people and things around you. Maybe you’re not up for hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger, like the heat-seeing alien hunter in the classic 1987 film “Predator.” There are many practical home uses for the latest thermal camera accessories from Flir and Seek, too:...

Women, who outnumber men in college and are more likely to graduate, are underrepresented in computer science fields.  That’s female privilege, unless we condescendingly presume they are making the wrong choices in college.  Overall, women received 18 percent of Computer and Information Sciences undergraduate degrees in 2013, yet were 26% of the computing workforce in 2014 (PDF). Women make up 30% of the workforce at tech giant Apple; at Intel, they represent about 24%; 22% of leaderships positions at Google are held by women.  Compared to their rates of participation in STEM majors in college, women also receive disproportionately...

When I compose a comment here or on Facebook, the spelling check function underlines every single word in red. Problem began about 1 week ago and occurs only when I am using Opera. I went to the Opera settings, but I could not find a way to correct this. Sorry, I am not tech savvy, and I would appreciate advice from someone who is.

Stock markets around the world have been posting big losses for the last few days. The route was especially rough this morning, with the DOW Jones at one point falling 1,000 points in less than an hour. At the heart of the current slide is an issue which could impact many tech companies: economic weakness in China. Two weeks ago China's government made an aggressive move to devalue its currency. This followed several weeks of tumult in the Chinese stock market, during which the government had also interceded with force. Taken together, investors saw a Chinese market where growth was flagging. That...

Mildly nsfw A Chinese hardware hacker has built a penetration testing toolkit built into high-heeled shoes. The WiFi-popping platforms were forged in a 3D printer and contain spacing so that hacking hardware can be hidden to bypass strict security checks in place at datacentres and the like and later retrieved.The hacker and pen-tester, who goes by the handle "SexyCyborg", showcases the heels she dubs Wu Ying shoes, named after the famed "shadowless kick" that Chinese folk hero Wong Fei Hung used to distract opponents.The hacker showcased the shoes in a post (somewhat NFSW) showing how a router, backup battery, and...

Full yet Lonely – A Picture of the Modern Person, as Seen in a Video Msgr. Charles Pope • August 21, 2015 • One of the great “evils” of our time is satiation. I put the word “evil” inside quotation marks to emphasize that no particular good thing that God has made is, in itself, evil. But on account of our own inordinate drives, we accumulate and indulge beyond reason. And in becoming satiated, we leave little room for God or other people.The more materially affluent we get, the more spiritually poor we seem to become. The higher our standard...

American Chemical Society Summary: Finding a technology to shift carbon dioxide, the most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas, from a climate change problem to a valuable commodity has long been a dream. Now, a team of chemists says they have developed a technology to economically convert atmospheric CO2 directly into highly valued carbon nanofibers for industrial and consumer products.

For the last year, Google’s work force has increasingly been under attack from a herd of unicorns. The unicorns, a class of hot start-ups valued at $1 billion or more, are all aggressively pursuing the best and brightest minds in Silicon Valley with promises of talked-about workplaces and eye-popping payouts. Amid a general scramble for talent, Google, the Internet search company, has undergone specific raids from unicorns for engineers who specialize in crucial technologies like mapping. In particular, Uber — the largest unicorn, with a valuation of more than $50 billion — has plundered Google’s mapping unit over the last...

[Another pro-technology piece. Of course, we need free markets so entrepreneurs can do great things!] The Imperative of Technological Progress: Why Stagnation Will Necessarily Lead to Disaster and How Techno-Optimism Can Overcome It“He who moves not forward, goes backward.” -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe If the approximate technological and economic status quo persists, massive societal disintegration looms on the horizon. A Greece-style crisis of national-government expenditures may occur as some have predicted, but would only be a symptom of a greater problem. The fundamental driver of crisis since at least September 11, 2001, and more acutely since the Great Recession...

It may have fared badly in the recent robo-olympics, causing hilarity with a series on unexpected falls, but Google has revealed its humanoid robot has been set free in the woods to learn how to run through terrain. The Atlas robot created by Google-owned firm Boston Dynamics is a formidable figure at 6ft 2in tall and weighing in at 330lb. In the video, it is shown struggling to stay upright - but managing to traverse a forest path without falling.

Fifteen years ago, Fort Bonifacio in the Philippines was a former military base still dotted with barracks built in World War II. Thanks to an aggressive privatization and conversion program, Bonifacio Global City — as the base is known today — is a modern, bustling financial district lined with blocks of skyscrapers, shopping malls, and luxury condos. The Southeast Asia city’s rapid growth echoes the story of the so-called “unicorns” — technology start-ups that rapidly grew to a billion-dollar valuation and beyond. So far, 2015 has produced 30 unicorns. But as start-ups mature, the grow-at-all-cost narrative will be replaced by...

Faulty Stagefright patch and newly reported sandbox bypass leave users exposed. Link only due to copyright infringement issues from Ars Technica. Read more at the link. READ THE ARTICLE AT ARS TECHNICA: Android security on the ropes with one-two punch from researchers

Supported Android 5.1 Devices that might be updated to patch security issues and All Others that will not be updated. LINK TO THE ARTICLE: Editorial: Android's update strategy doesn't scale, and that's recipe for disaster. Read the article at the link above. . . cannot be posted on FreeRepublic due to copyright issues.

Android biometric banks more Fort Nope than Fort Knox. Four FireEye researchers have found a way to steal fingerprints from Android phones packing biometric sensors such as the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the HTC One Max.The team found a forehead-slapping flaw in HTC One Max in which fingerprints are stored as an image file (dbgraw.bmp) in a open "world readable" folder. "Any unprivileged processes or apps can steal user’s fingerprints by reading this file," the team says, adding that the images can be made into clear prints by adding some padding.It is one of four vulnerability scenarios in which biometric...

With Google creating its own parent company, Alphabet, there's a bit of moving about in the Google boardroom. Larry Page is now chief executive of Alphabet. Sergey Brin is its president. And moving up to be in charge of Google is 43-year-old Sundar Pichai. Great news for Pichai, and good news too for India - his appointment makes him the latest Indian to earn a massively high-profile job in the US technology industry. Microsoft's Satya Nadella is the other notable example. Pichai's life story is remarkable, and his rise to the top of Google is a glowing endorsement of India's...

A Navy sailor assigned to a nuclear-powered submarine has been accused of using his cellphone to snap revealing photos of the sub’s top-secret inner spaces. Prosecutors say Machinist Mate 1st Class Kristian Saucier took the photos aboard the attack submarine Alexandria, the Navy Times reported Saturday. He has been charged with unauthorized retention of defense information and destroying his laptop and a camera to thwart an FBI probe.

Later today, July 27, German scientists will present new experimental results on the controversial, "impossible" EM Drive, at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum in Orlando. The presentation is titled "Direct Thrust Measurements of an EmDrive and Evaluation of Possible Side-Effects." Presenter Martin Tajmar is a professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, interested in space propulsion systems and breakthrough propulsion physics. A Revolutionary Development for Space Travel The EM Drive (Electro Magnetic Drive) uses electromagnetic microwave cavities to directly convert electrical energy to thrust without the need to expel...

Ten Apple patents that may or may not see the light of day. For example this patent for a virtual reality headset capable of linking to an exterior device such as an iPhone or Mac filed in 2008. . .