Free Republic

The U.S. is No. 1 for the foreseeable future. With the landscape littered with failed banks and fallen corporate icons, and with U.S. households and Washington deep in debt, writing America's obituary is back in vogue. Just as popular is the coronation of China as the world's new economic superpower. From the ashes of the U.S.-led global financial meltdown, a new world order is in the making. According to popular opinion, America is declining, while China is rising. The consensus could be wide of the mark. Yes, there is plenty wrong with the U.S. The economic challenges before the nation...

The Personal Democracy Forum held its eighth annual gathering in New York City this year on June 3 and June 4. According to its website, PDF describes itself as: One hub for the conversation already underway between political practitioners and technologists, as well as anyone invigorated by the potential of all this to open up the process and engage more people in all the things that we can and must do together as citizens. We value your input and ideas. PDF has a reputation of being dominated by liberal progressives who attend the yearly event. However, PDF founder Andrew Rasiej...

China's $1T USD high speed rail gambit leaps aheadHigh speed rail is right up there with electric vehicles when it comes to promising green solutions to transportation in the new millennium. High speed rail uses electricity and mass-transit to drastically cut emissions when compared to automobile travel. And it's expected to be far faster and more cost effective transportation method, albeit with some big up front costs for infrastructure. Much as the original coal-burning locomotive and oil-burning automobile revolutionized transportation in the 19th and 20th centuries, the electric locomotive looks to transform society in the 21st century. The U.S. under...

The Google doodle has marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of Dennis Gabor, the Nobel Prize winner who invented holography. The Hungarian-born electrical engineer won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1971 for the invention - a system of lensless, three-dimensional photography that has many applications. In 1949 Gabor joined the faculty of London's Imperial College of Science and Technology. In 1958 he became professor of applied electron physics. His other work included research on high-speed oscilloscopes, communication theory, physical optics, and television. Gabor was awarded more than 100 patents.

* Russian technology hub wins $250 mln investment Stocks | Global Markets * "Silicon Valley" project part of plan to diversify economy MOSCOW, May 28 (Reuters) - Russia's "Silicon Valley" has won its first $250 million investment from a U.S. private equity group this week as the Kremlin pushes ahead with a key project to diversify the economy away from oil and gas. Top U.S. venture funds, their combined $25 billion capital sought by Russia as it attempts to build high tech industries from scratch, met Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev and leading firms to examine the country's nano-industries and meet...

...an e-mail fell into the inbox from Allegra Hawksmoor who told us about a band called The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. One track of their next album, called Now That's What I Call Steampunk - Volume One, will be available on a wax cylinder. The CD album and single wax cylinder track will be available from 1 June. "As far as we're aware, it's the first album to be sold with (at least a partial) wax cylinder release for the best part of a century," she said. Anyone buying one of the 40 copies of the...

www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-assistant-president-homeland-security-and-counterterrorism-john-brennan-csi # Note: The following text is a quote: Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release May 26, 2010 Remarks by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan at CSIS “Securing the Homeland by Renewing American Strength, Resilience and Values” Thank you very much John, and I would like to take a moment to express my appreciation to CSIS for inviting me back. You invited me here a little after six months after I came into this administration and I greatly appreciate the invitation...

BEIJING - US Commence Secretary Gary Locke said on Friday that the US government is expected to completely overhaul its export control policies by this summer, which might pave the way for the sale of more high-technology goods to China. "We are reviewing the entire list of our export control system as some of the protections and restrictions make very little sense," Locke said at a press briefing in Beijing. The US government is loosening controls over some commonly available high-tech goods, but will give more protection to the sensitive technologies that are important to national security, he said. Locke...

John Shepherd-Barron, 84, the Scotsman often credited with devising an ancestor of the modern automated teller machine, died May 15 at a hospital in Inverness, Scotland. No cause of death was reported. ATMs had been attempted for decades before Mr. Shepherd-Barron, then an employee of a company that specialized in printing technology, came up with his idea for a workable machine while taking a bath.

SNIPPET: "Based on "the number of casualties and amount of property damage, VBIEDs [vehicle-born improvised explosive devices] have been the most successful means of terrorist attack both domestically and internationally, except for the Sept., 11, 2001, attacks," wrote Ruth Doherty of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, in a 2009 document. There is no effective way to detect such bombs from a safe distance, government officials say, though a number of federal agencies have been seeking proposals to help develop one. Here are five of the technologies being pursued:"

More than any other state, Michiganders identify with the Great Lakes. They are essential to the state's tourism industry and provide extensive recreational opportunities to boaters, fisherman, and those who stroll the many miles of pristine beaches. It seems hard to believe that anyone would want to put the Great Lakes at risk for the unproven development of off-shore wind energy. On-shore wind energy is expensive and off-shore wind energy even more so. A study done for the Heritage Center for Data Analysis titled "A Renewable Electricity Standard: What It Will Really Cost Americans," quantifies the economic cost of wind...

A study of 4,000 consumers also placed the Apple smart phone - which has sold 42 million units since its launch in 2007 - ahead of the car, camera and flushing toilet. The wheel was voted as the most important invention in history, with the aeroplane in second place, the lightbulb third, the worldwide web fourth and computers fifth.

Last month, a federal appeals court put a halt to the Federal Communications Commission's attempt to exert its authority over the Internet and its power play to regulate the companies who provide access to it. According to the Heritage Foundation, "The decision, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, centers around the FCC's efforts to enact 'net neutrality,' a policy that would prevent ISPs such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from managing the flow of traffic on the Internet by discriminating among content and applications that put a high load on their networks." So what...

Sources close to Seagate roadmaps have leaked the potential of a 3TB SAS drive being released this year.The quest for storage is almost a never ending saga.  Dubbed the Constellation-ES, the replacement for the Seagate Barracuda-ES, the drive is expected to arrive later this year with a 7200 RPM rotation speed, and a 6Gbit/s SAS interface.  A 1TB version of the 2.5" Barracuda-ES is also expected to arrive around the mid year point.

The first laser light was produced on May 16, 1960 at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California when Theodore Maimen switched on his fist-sized device that flashed a bright red spot onto a photo-detector. Since then, lasers have become smaller, more powerful, and ubiquitous in modern technology. This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of the first working laser. Today, lasers can be found almost everywhere, from telephone lines to cutting edge scientific research, supermarket scanners, and even cat toys.

President Barack Obama told Hampton University’s graduating class on Sunday that he does not “know how to work” an iPod. Last July, however, after pop-star Michael Jackson’s death, Obama told the Associated Press (see video below) that he had Jackson’s music on his iPod. “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” Obama told the graduates. “And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations--none of which I know how to...

US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy...

Mr Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing on superficial coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress. "You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Mr Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia. "With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, - none of which I know how to work - information becomes a distraction,...

President Barack Obama cited the influx of new technology as "putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy" in a commencement address to graduates at Virginia's Hampton University on Sunday. "You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said. "With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations; information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment. "All of this is not only...

Mr President, isn't that what America is all about? A free and open exchange of Ideas? Instead The President thinks that "information becomes a distraction" So basically he's bummed that free speech exists. With all this "information" distracting the American people from it's purpose (serving the State). I propose we shut down all this evil technology and create a new government agency. We can call it the "Ministry of Information". That way our all knowing leader will decide what information is distracting and thus detrimental to the State. And all information that is deemed by the Ministry of Information to...