Free Republic

The tech industry has banded together in an attempt to reach out to Donald Trump, the president-elect it tried to defeat. Seventeen trade groups sent a letter to Trump Tuesday, asking him to consider principles the industry says will help growth and innovation. The groups pushed for government investment in tech infrastructure, tax reform and modernizing rules and laws, plus made recommendations for agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and more. They also felt the need to toot their own horn a little. “We are a powerful engine for economic growth and competitive strength, driving over...

THERE is a one in eight chance that the Earth will be hit by a huge solar storm by 2020 which could potentially leave the world without Internet, phone service and many more services that modern-day humans rely on. Researchers have warned that there is roughly a 12 per cent chance that a solar storm could smash into Earth by the end of the decade.(emphasis mine) The powerful event would likely be as huge as the Carrington Event, which occurred on 1859. The solar storm which hit 150 years ago was so powerful that its southern auroras could be seen...

Engineers at the University of Massachusetts are developing microprocessors which mimic biological synapses - the nerve cells which pass messages across the human body. The science fiction-style project is being undertaken by Joshua Yang and Qiangfei Xia, professors of electrical and computer engineering at the US college. Their work focuses heavily on memristors - a computer component which could change science forever, switching the focus from electronics to ionics.

<p>Theranos, the biotech company started by a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, has another hurdle to cross in its whole "we're totally a legit blood-testing company" campaign. This time, it turns out that tens of thousands of blood tests were voided, making them totally invalid. Whoops!</p>

MIT has a new nylon-based artificial muscle-like filament created by researchers that could eventually provide the basis for robots with bulging biceps. The filaments themselves look eerily similar to the ones extruded by the 3D printers used in the opening sequence of HBO’s Westworld, which is why Gizmodo and others are seeing parallels between potential applications of the tech and Westworld‘s lifelike hosts. MIT’s new solution isn’t the first artificial muscle technology developed, but it is simple and low cost, unlike existing offerings. The researchers developing the tech found that specific types of nylon fiber can reproduce some of the...

We haven't really written much about the insane Theranos scandal, though we discussed it on our podcast. The whole story is pretty crazy -- involving a heavily hyped up company that appeared to basically be flat out lying to everyone about what it could do. The company still exists, but barely. The company's founder and CEO, who was plastered across magazine covers and compared frequently to Steve Jobs, has been banned from running a lab for two years, and the company is now facing a $140 million lawsuit from its biggest partner, Walgreens, who claims that Theranos repeatedly lied to...

I for one give him my most open mind and wish him great success in his service to the country," Bezos tweeted, two days after the election. In August, prominent venture capitalist Chris Sacca knocked “Trump's erratic behavior, repeatedly demonstrated ignorance of economics, and reckless statements." Sacca now says he's willing to give Trump a chance. “We in the tech community are open to helping President Elect Trump in any way he needs to help those Americans who need it most,” Sacca wrote in an email to The Hill. “We are hopeful he will immediately reach out to the tech...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

It's worth asking why Elizabeth Holmes is still leading the embattled blood testing company Theranos Inc. But there may be a good reason why she still is in charge, one that has little to do with the scandal-ridden company's performance to date. Forget what venture capitalist Tim Draper — one of the first to invest in the Palo Alto company — implied this week that Holmes is being attacked because she's a young, female entrepreneur. The simple fact is that Theranos has not been able to deliver on its technology from a commercial, scientific or regulatory standpoint, and that falls...

2016 has not been too kind to Elizabeth Holmes, the Steve-Jobs wannabe in charge of fraudulent Theranos. She has thus far been banned for 2 years from operating labs, removed from hosting fundraisers for Hillary and lost her entire net worth. And now, the Wall Street Journal has published the "tell-all" story of the whistle-blower, 26 year old Tyler Shultz, who brought the the whole Theranos farce crashing down. It's a sordid tale complete with all the expected twists and turns of a Jason Bourne thriller including intimidation, coercion and private detectives. Tyler Shultz is the grandson of George Shultz,...

After working at Theranos Inc. for eight months, Tyler Shultz decided he had seen enough. On April 11, 2014, he emailed company founder Elizabeth Holmes to complain that Theranos had doctored research and ignored failed quality-control checks. The reply was withering. Ms. Holmes forwarded the email to Theranos President Sunny Balwani, who belittled Mr. Shultz’s grasp of basic mathematics and his knowledge of laboratory science, and then took a swipe at his relationship with George Shultz, the former secretary of state and a Theranos director. “The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this...

Ever wanted to make Natalie Portman yell obscenities at your neighbors? What if Garey Busey could leave your mother a sexy voicemail on her birthday? Wanted to prank your little brother by forcing him to call his crush and profess his love? Adobe has you covered. When Adobe released photoshop in 1990, it dreamed of a world where movie studios and photo editors could do in minutes what once took hours. It never dreamed the world would take the digital editor and use it to put celebrity heads on porn star bodies, distort women’s bodies in magazine cover, and create...

With all this buzz about technology leading the way in helping make lives better in our society like the one in Africa. Bill Gates donated money to create a technology that can turn poop into water. But, what about for the farmers in the U.S., some farmers rely on selling fertilizers, its their livelihood. Its a good thing DIY is still the tech that most farmers know. Fertilizing your food plot has never been easier or more economical. It’s still a do-it-yourself world! Taking care of your business has never had more meaning than in this fun and, well, disgusting...

I'll bet you're growing tired of the ongoing cancer that is the Hillary Clinton campaign of corruption, cover-ups and criminality. Fear not. I've got something you may not have heard before. I hadn't heard of it until an hour or so ago. It's a technical acronym, related to Internet email, that most lay people wouldn't quite grok. The inimitable Karl Denninger offers us the single, critical tidbit of data that makes all the difference. It relates to a statement that tech billionaire Mark Cuban made on CNBC: This "newly discovered" laptop is very likely to be literal nuclear waste for...

DMV records, plus a cavalier approach to mugshot databases, puts half of the US in the system Half of all American adults are already in some sort of facial recognition network accessible to law enforcement, according to a comprehensive new study. Conducted over a year and relying in part on Freedom of Information and public record requests to 106 law enforcement agencies, the study, conducted by Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, found American police use of facial recognition technology is a scattered, hodgepodge network of laws and regulations.

ARLINGTON, Va. — When the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz emerged from an extended period in a shipyard last week, it featured a new installation of an anti-torpedo system. Nimitz is the Navy’s fifth carrier to have the Anti-Torpedo-Defense System installed. The system includes the Torpedo Warning System, an acoustic sensor that detects an incoming torpedo; a tactical control station; and the Countermeasure Anti-Torpedo (CAT). The CAT, a small torpedo designed to intercept an incoming torpedo, was developed by Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Lab. Compared with air- or ship-launched cruise missiles, anti-ship torpedoes are much more difficult for a...

Samsung to Permanently Discontinue Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone Move halts production and sale of defective premium phone; investors digest possibility smartphone giant could abandon Galaxy Note series By Jonathan Cheng and Eun-Young Jeong Updated Oct. 11, 2016 7:23 a.m. ET SEOUL— Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday that it would permanently discontinue production and sales of its embattled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, pulling the plug on a premium product whose botched recall has brought headaches to consumers and inflicted damage on the Samsung brand. Samsung said in a filing with South Korean regulators that it would permanently cease production and sales...

Apple’s Phil Schiller thinks it’s sad that people use 5-year-old computers. Well, Phil, there’s an auto repair shop in Poland that’s going to send you spiraling into a long depression.Why? Because one of the computers they’re using on a day-to-day basis is a Commodore 64, and I don’t mean one of the slick nostalgic remakes. I’m talking about a classically beautiful beige C64 and its whirring, clunking 5.25″ floppy disk drive.It’s been there for more than 25 years. See, not everyone finds the idea of using an old computer sad. Some, like the mechanics at this shop in Gdansk, treat...

...Trump called the trade agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States “the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country” during the first presidential debate against Hillary Clinton. Earlier this year, Bernie Sanders leveled a similar criticism, calling it disastrous when debating the former secretary of date... ...But whether NAFTA has been good or bad for the U.S. economy depends largely on who you ask... ...NAFTA “means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement,” then-President Clinton said in 1993. Fast forward more than two decades later and NAFTA...