Free Republic

Can a computer problem get any weirder? I'm running a fast Dell laptop with Win 11 Pro. If I play audio from YouTube while browsing with Brave (or Chrome), System sounds, test tones from Windows' troubleshooter, etc., play over a bluetooth speaker just fine, but the audio on the YouTube vid plays only over the tiny laptop speakers. (Nothing is connected to the headphone jack.) I've been all through Windows troubleshooting, and even a session with a MS tech support rep, to no avail, other than doing a Shift + Shutdown now results with (after booting back up and returning...

Archaeologists in Denmark have unearthed a portion of a massive Viking hall that may be connected to King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, who reigned from A.D. 958 to 986, during the Viking Age. The structure, which is located in North Jutland, a region that encompasses Denmark's northernmost tip, is "the largest Viking Age find of this nature" in the past decade, and measures 131 feet (40 meters long). So far, only half of the building has been excavated, and archaeologists think it was built sometime between A.D. 950 and 1050... The hall's design is similar to those of other structures in...

The Massachusetts Public Health Department (DPH) allegedly “worked with” Google to install its COVID-19 contact tracing app onto more than one million android devices without users’ permission or knowledge, a New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) lawsuit claims. The app was first released in April 2021, but the DPH had a version secretly installed onto devices beginning that June after few Massachusetts residents installed it voluntarily, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts. The app allegedly causes devices to emit and receive Bluetooth signals even when users do not opt into COVID-19 exposure notifications, and...

On Christmas Day 1013, Danish ruler Sweyn Forkbeard was declared King of all England and the town of Gainsborough its capital. But why is so little known of the man who would be England's shortest-reigning king and the role he played in shaping the early history of the nation? For 20 years, Sweyn, a "murderous character" who deposed his father Harold Bluetooth, waged war on England. And exactly 1,000 years ago, with his son Canute by his side, a large-scale invasion finally proved decisive. It was a brutal time, which saw women burned alive, children impaled on lances and men...

A Bluetooth phone designed to evoke the carefree days of early childhood has been found to instead threaten the very adult prospect of being surveilled in your home. The phone is the Fisher Price Chatter Special Edition, a device that adds Bluetooth and a speaker to the smiling, brightly coloured, wheeled, rotary dial phone on which it's previously been possible to make calls only by using one's imagination. The phone also bears the name “60G LTE” – which stands for “60 great years, Let’s Talk Everywhere” and an infomercial for the handset opens with “The past has finally arrived” before...

In the past, the notion of human brain-machine interfaces (BMI) was confined to science fiction, depicted most recently in film and television shows like Anon and Altered Carbon. These two productions and others like them foretell of an age where human interactivity with machines will be seamless, providing enhanced data capabilities and beyond. The technology to make such BMIs a reality may not be as far-fetched as you might think. Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, is developing next-generation brain-machine interfaces with scalable neural channel density and real-time data processing. Some of the stated use cases for this technology...

China was once very dependent on US chips for its phones. The latest Chinese phones have no US parts. The Wall Street Journal reports Huawei Manages to Make Smartphones Without American Chips. American tech companies are getting the go-ahead to resume business with Chinese smartphone giant Huawei Technologies Co., but it may be too late: It is now building smartphones without U.S. chips. Huawei’s latest phone, which it unveiled in September—the Mate 30 with a curved display and wide-angle cameras that competes with Apple Inc.’s iPhone 11—contained no U.S. parts, according to an analysis by UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions,...

Cancer from wireless tech including the trendy in-ear headphones In 2018, Apple sold 29 million pairs of AirPods The tiny wireless Bluetooth headphones fit into the ear canal The close proximity of AirPods to the brain and inner ear may raise cancer risks Apple's popular wireless AirPods headphones may pose cancer risks to wearers, according to a United Nations and World Health Organization petition. Some 250 have signed the petition, which warns against numerous devices that emit radiofrequency radiation, which is used in WiFi, cellular data and Bluetooth. AirPods in particular are concerning because they sit deeply enough within the...

Security firm says 'BlueBorne' is only a risk if your device isn't updated VIDEO A recent report warned of a possible attack based on vulnerabilities found in Bluetooth, but Google, Microsoft, and Apple already addressed the issue.Bluetooth was originally created in 1998 to serve as a secure short-range wireless connection between two devices. It pairs our wireless mice to our laptops, our smartwatches to our smartphones, and so on. But a recent report published by security firm Armis points to eight Bluetooth-related vulnerabilities — four of which are critical — that reside on more than 5 billion Android, Windows, Linux, and...

Researchers disclosed a bevy of Bluetooth vulnerabilities Tuesday that threaten billions of devices from Android and Apple smartphones to millions of printers, smart TVs and IoT devices that us the short-range wireless protocol. Worse, according to researchers at IoT security firm Armis that found the attack vector, the so-called “BlueBorne” attacks can jump from one nearby Bluetooth device to another wirelessly. It estimates that there are 5.3 billion devices at risk. “If exploited, the vulnerabilities could enable an attacker to take over devices, spread malware, or establish a ‘man-in-the-middle’ to gain access to critical data and networks without user interaction,”...

More than 5 billion devices are vulnerable to a "highly infectious" malware attack. Go ahead, blame the internet of things. Armis Labs says more than 5 billion devices are vulnerable to attacks through newly discovered Bluetooth exploits.–Josh Miller/CNET More than 5.3 billion devices with Bluetooth signals are at risk of a malware attack newly identified by an internet of things security company. If you're not keeping count, that's most of the estimated 8.2 billion devices that use Bluetooth, which allows for our gadgets to connect and communicate wirelessly. Nearly every connected device out there has Bluetooth capability. Your phones, laptops,...

Ok all after doing the latest Microsoft Windows "Update" my Bluetooth speaker is not working(I use it for music/YouTube) I even went and purchased a new Speaker(nothing). It says it is paired and connected. O and YES I AM LOGGED IN(for all you SMARTA$$E$ out there). Any help will be appreciated.

What is in Hillary's ear during the forum?

I need some advice. I want to get "hands free" use of my iPhone in my 2003 Honda Accord. It's a 32 GB iPhone 4, NOT 4s. The car has a "cigarette lighter" power source, but DOES NOT HAVE Aux In. I'd like to hear the phone over the car's speakers (AM/FM/CD) with NO Aux In. I don't care about playing music from my iPhone. If it comes with whatever I buy, that's fine, but I really only care about using the phone hands free. I would strongly prefer a solution that does not require anyone to install anything, beyond...

FireChat is one of the most interesting new communications products to arrive in the past year. Mostly because it’s not another take on standard messaging. By which I mean it’s not another WhatsApp clone. FireChat is a hyperlocal chat tool that allows smartphones to connect to each other directly, without the need for WiFi hotspots or cellular networks. As long as two devices (or a bunch of devices in a small space) can connect to one another, using Bluetooth or their WiFi radios, they’ll be able to chat. (Typically, every communication your smartphone gets from another smartphone comes through an...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Danish museum officials say that an archaeological dig last year has revealed 365 items from the Viking era, including 60 rare coins. Danish National Museum spokesman Jens Christian Moesgaard says the coins have a distinctive cross motif attributed to Norse King Harald Bluetooth, who is believed to have brought Christianity to Norway and Denmark. Sixteen-year-old Michael Stokbro Larsen found the coins and other items with a metal detector in a field in northern Denmark.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, if there is anybody in this audience listening that writes for an Apple or high-tech blog -- or if there is anybody listening to this program that works for or at Apple, Incorporated -- you have to hear what happened to me this morning. Sadly, I can't prove it. (interruption) Well, you'll hear why in a moment. I was so discombobulated by what happened that I didn't save what showed up on my iPhone. Now, let me describe my setup for you. I have a car that has a Bluetooth mating system in it. So my...

Now I have an LG cell phone which I've had for about the last 8 months. When I first got it, the battery would last for up to five days or so before I needed to put it on the charger. In the last ten days or so, that was not the case. It was dying after about two days. So I ordered a new battery. Then I did some googling and one of the first things that popped up was "TURN BLUETOOTH OFF!!!" Checked my phone, and sure enough, I had forgot to turn it off last time I...

A new interface lets you keep your phone in your pocket and use apps or answer calls by tapping your hand. Over time, using your smart-phone touch screen becomes second nature, to the point where you can even do some tasks without looking. Researchers in Germany are now working on a system that would let you perform such actions without even holding the phone—instead you'd tap your palm, and the movements would be interpreted by an "imaginary phone" system that would relay the request to your actual phone. The concept relies on a depth-sensitive camera to pick up the tapping...

In what they describe as a 'sensational' discovery, archaeologists from Århus find the remains of 10th century king's royal residence. After speculating for centuries about its location, the royal residence of Harald Bluetooth has finally been discovered close to the ancient Jellinge complex with its famous runic stones in southern Jutland. The remains of the ancient wooden buildings were uncovered in the north-eastern corner of the Jellinge complex which consists of royal burial mounds, standing stones in the form of a ship and runic stones. Harald ruled Denmark between 940 and 985 AD and is reputed to have conquered Norway...