Free Republic

Lawmakers need to regulate and develop sound policies regarding today's digital technology, specifically targeting the problems of child pornography, personal data violations, cyber attacks on critical infrastructures and fake news, Pope Francis told Catholic and Christian legislators. "Prudent legislation can guide the development and application of technology in the service of the common good," he said during an audience at the Vatican Aug. 27. "I heartily encourage you, therefore, to make every effort to undertake serious and in-depth moral reflection on the risks and possibilities associated with scientific and technological advances, so that the international laws and regulations governing them...

Artificial intelligence research company OpenAI has announced the development of an AI system that translates natural language to programming code—called Codex, the system is being released as a free API, at least for the time being. Codex is more of a next-step product for OpenAI, rather than something completely new. It builds on Copilot, a tool for use with Microsoft's GitHub code repository. With the earlier product, users would get suggestions similar to those seen in autocomplete in Google, except it would help finish lines of code. Codex has taken that concept a huge step forward by accepting sentences written...

China has passed a sweeping data protection law that is set to impose strict control measures on the private sector’s handling of personal data, building on an already expansive crackdown on the country’s tech sector that has rattled global stock markets.The personal information protection law, passed through the Chinese Communist Party’s ceremonial legislature on Aug. 20, will require organizations and individuals to have a clear and reasonable purpose to “collect, use, process, transfer, trade, provide, or publicize other people’s personal information,” according to the text released by the National People’s Congress. It also requires companies to obtain individuals’ consent before...

Could your next lawyer be a robot? It sounds far fetched, but artificial intelligence (AI) software systems - computer programs that can update and "think" by themselves - are increasingly being used by the legal community. Joshua Browder describes his app DoNotPay as "the world's first robot lawyer". It helps users draft legal letters. You tell its chatbot what your problem is, such as appealing against a parking fine, and it will suggest what it thinks is the best legal language to use. "People can type in their side of an argument using their own words, and software with a...

I. The Latest DiscoveryNow, in their latest paper, they describe the ability for not just an electronic mesh to be injected into living tissue, but to be fully integrated into a brain for an extended period of time.In this case, the electronic component was implanted into a mouse brain and recorded neurological activity over 8 months, nearly the entire life of the mouse. Extrapolate that into a human’s life and you start to get a sense of the cyborg future we might all be living in.Charles Lieber of Harvard is the leader of this new approach, recognized as the leading...

China is in the process of expanding the "social credit" system they have been rolling out in phases since 2014 Much like what we have for our financial credit ratings, China's "social credit" system attaches a positive point value to behavior that the government views as praiseworthy (showing integrity, responsibility and/or trustworthiness) and a negative point value for behavior it wants to discourage. "Bad" behavior includes spending too much time playing video games, not caring for aging parents, poor driving, jaywalking, not paying one's debts and, of course, criticizing the government. The enormity of this effort is impossible to overstate....

I was just reminiscing over palmtops, becuase in some limited ways, they had their charm over cellphones and I found a site where you can still buy a modernized one.

Officials with battery maker Form Energy have announced the development of the Iron-Air 100-hour storage battery—a battery meant to store electricity created from renewable sources such as solar and wind. As part of their announcement, they note that their new battery is based on iron, not lithium, and thus is much less expensive to produce. The team at Form Energy describe their new battery as a multi-day energy storage system—one that can feed electricity to the grid for approximately 100 hours at a cost that is significantly lower than lithium-ion batteries. The basic idea behind the iron-air battery is that...

Study of a Power Source Based on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs) Using Hydrogen Pressurized Nanoparticles Miley G.H., University of Illinois, US We are studying anomalous heat, attributed to Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENRs), generated from metal alloy nanoparticles loaded with hydrogen (or deuterium) through pressurizing the vessel containing the particles [1]. The primary result thus far is that the excess energies observed in experiments to date are all well above maximum estimation of what could be attributed to known chemical reactions. The discovery of ultra-high-density hydrogen cluster formation in void and dislocation loops has allowed us to develop host...

In an August 2019 article titled “Silicon Valley Censorship and the Coming Global Police State,” I wrote the following: “If you love freedom and liberty, recent actions from high tech companies should have you worried. In pursuit of profit, the mega-companies of Silicon Valley have created products that invade user privacy. And they easily cave to the demands of totalitarian governments.” Unfortunately, recent events reveal the United States is now among those totalitarian governments. On July 15, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced White House officials were “meeting with social media platforms” and had “increased disinformation research and tracking.”...

A quick test of the 3.4GHz PCB yagi that came with the SG-lab (http://www.sg-lab.com/amateur.html) 3.4GHz transverter. I also compare it to the WA5VJB LPDA 2-11GHz model, PCB antenna

Folks: Pardon the vanity, but I've found over the years that many Freepers are tech-savvy people that have come to my aid in the past on a wide range of subjects. Here's the situation I'm in, and the question at the end: 1. I am working to develop some analytical tools for a project I am working on. This project involves travel data for a fleet of delivery vehicles that are tracked by the company managers and archived for their own records. 2. Before I download the client's data I am using my own GPS data to test the tools...

A couple of weeks ago, word arrived that 120 new missile silos had been discovered in the desert of Northern China. While the press made much of this evidence that China is busy expanding its nuclear weapons program, they did not look at who found the silos and how he did it. As it happens, the silos were spotted by Decker Eveleth, an undergrad at Reed College. He spent weeks poking around on satellite imagery until he happened upon the silos’ distinctive inflatable dome coverings. (Which, in turn, has led some people to describe them as “bouncy houses of death.”)...

An absence of specs has caught the attention of skeptics. A new "free speech and privacy first" phone unveiled this week is raising red flags, with one report suggesting it's just a rebranding of a budget Chinese phone. The $500 Freedom Phone was launched Wednesday by Erik Finman, a self-proclaimed "bitcoin millionaire," as an alternative to popular devices from Google, Apple and other Big Tech companies. The website for the Freedom Phone is void of the usual technical specs but says the gadget works with all major US carriers and is supported by an "uncensored" app store. The phone apparently...

We just had some Major Announcements about ARM Development that changes Intels X86 future! Here's what we found out! (spoiler alert -- they have met the enemy and it is them)

Many argue rural America has been in steady decline for decades. It was particularly hard hit by the “Great Recession of 2007-09,” according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Task Force on Agricultural and Rural Prosperity, which was created by Executive Order in April of 2017. The report found that rural Americans working in agriculture still lacked access to electronic connectivity, technology-oriented jobs, and businesses that otherwise improve quality of life in metro areas. The effects of the Great Recession, the report concluded, “still permeate throughout rural life, particularly for communities with high poverty rates, low...

Patch antennas are regularly used in ATVs, beacons, MIMO, wi-fi applications, AMSAT, GPS, repeaters, wireless systems and dish feeds. But what are the pros and cons of using them?

Superconductors are highly desirable, especially when it comes to reducing energy consumption. They show quantum properties on the scale of ordinary items. This makes them exciting candidates for building computers that use quantum physics. However, qubits, the elementary units of quantum computers, are extremely sensitive. When contact electromagnetic fields, heat, and collisions with air molecules, qubits lose their quantum properties. The addition of more resilient qubits using topological superconductors can protect qubits from losing their properties. In a new study, scientists led by Kent and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have reported about the discovery of a new rare topological...

I received a log periodic antenna designed by ham radio operator WA5VJB from Kent Electronics. They are rated from 2 to 11 GHz, so this model will cover several of the ham bands. These antennas are made on PCB's and are ideal for use in the amateur microwave bands as compromise dish feeds. In this video I do a test of such a feed versus my patch antenna on the 3.4 GHz band. https://www.wa5vjb.com/products1.html I mounted one in place of the original dipole feed on a 2.4 GHz (13cm) gridpack at the same focal point. Whilst gain will be down...

Dong Jingwei is a Chinese defector working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). He served as Vice Minister of State Security in the Chinese Ministry of Defense. Before defecting, he was responsible for the counterintelligence efforts in China. He was in a position to know about all things “espionage” in China and is perhaps the highest-level Chinese defector the U.S. has ever had. Even though the legacy media is playing it down, this is a big deal. It speaks volumes that the man who knows the identity of all the Chinese spies in our country chose to defect to the...