Free Republic

In a public notice released late yesterday, the FCC officially said that April will be the last full month for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) due to insufficient funding. The commission also said it will let providers know later this month about the amount to expect per customer in May, leaving the providers with a choice to make. Should they end their participation in the program after April? Should they pass on a partial benefit to customers for May and require the customers to pay the extra portion? Or should they offer a full ACP benefit in May by contributing...

4:46 in. The bar code expert’s team hacks the Georgia election voting system DURING the hearing.

After roaming around and studying downtown for a week, the Urban Land Institute’s advisory services panel provided Atlanta leaders with recommendations on how to move forward with the colossal proposed “Stitch” project. On Friday, ULI, which conducts land use research for cities around the globe, suggested the time is now to partner with local elected officials and philanthropic organizations to get the ball rolling on fundraising efforts for the potentially 14-acre project that would install a massive park and new construction above the Downtown Connector. But in order to be competitive for public and private funding—panelists expect the highway-capping project...

LAPORTE — Law enforcement in LaPorte County is preparing for the possibility of an already-congested and dangerous U.S. 20 being overrun with more semi-trucks as drivers avoid the 35 percent cost increase of traveling the Indiana Toll Road. Much of that stretch of highway being down to one lane in each direction for resurfacing adds to the concerns. LaPorte County Sheriff John Boyd said he’s reached out to Indiana State Police to help patrol U.S. 20 if an increase in truck traffic becomes too much for his staff to handle alone. “We’re going to prepare for it,” Boyd said. “We’re...

In the next decade, there will be tens of billions of connected devices—from thermostats and cell phones to parking meters and cars. Increasingly, these connected devices that make up the Internet of Things will be imbued with intelligence so that they can not only communicate, but transact, negotiate, collaborate and exchange value. The Internet of Things needs a Ledger of Things How will we handle this mind-boggling volume of data being transmitted, and do it in a secure way? “The Internet of Things needs a Ledger of Things,” says Alex Tapscott, coauthor with his father, Don Tapscott, of the "Blockchain...

Cables lying on the seafloor bring the internet to the world. They transmit 99 percent of international data, make transoceanic communication possible in an instant, and serve as a loose proxy for the international trade that connects advanced economies.Their importance and proliferation inspired Telegeography to make this vintage-inspired map of the cables that connect the internet. It depicts the 299 cables that are active, under construction, or will be funded by the end of this year. In addition to seeing the cables, you'll find information about "latency" at the bottom of the map (how long it takes for information...

Been having a LOT of problems with connectivity with FreeRepublic. Runs very slow, sometimes drops off. Is FR getting slammed and getting overloaded, or (black helicopter time) is it a conspiracy to interfere with FR?

New evidence shows that the brains of adults with autism are "wired" differently from people without the disorder, and this abnormal pattern of connectivity may be responsible for the social impairments that are characteristic of autism. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a team of researchers affiliated with the University of Washington's Autism Center also found that the most severely socially impaired subjects in the study exhibited the most abnormal pattern of connectivity among a network of brain regions involved in face processing. "This study shows that these brain regions are failing to work together efficiently," said Natalia Kleinhans, a research...

Sent/received packets are running at about 4:1 ratio (ideally the figures are about even, of course). Any computer geeks know how to solve this problem? As a result, internet connectivity is nil. Tech. support is not very helpful either. I knicked the line with my pipe wrench on Sunday, while realigning the dish, but I don't think that's the problem (as the issue didn't start until today).

I live in a rather remote area, where satellite internet is the only option for "high speed." I have noticed much slower download speeds over the past few days, however. I am used to getting 80-100 KB/sec. but now struggle to get 20-30 KB/sec. and sometimes hover as low as 5 KB/sec. I unplugged the modem for five minutes last night, then plugged it back in and rebooted and BAM! I was back to 100 KB/sec. for maybe an hour or so. The whole time, however, the icon in the bottom right of the screen said "Acquiring IP Address" (I...

A genetic "roadmap" will help to find treatments for diseases, by looking at the signatures that drugs leave behind. A newly developed genetic "roadmap" promises to streamline the drug discovery process. Called the Connectivity Map, this public database matches drug compounds with diseased cells and the processes occurring within them. "The reason it's so difficult to find those disease and drug connections is that the languages in which they are conventionally described are very different," says Justin Lamb, senior scientist at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA. "A physician would describe a disease in terms of its physical symptoms, whereas...

Recent U.S. Marine Corps deployments deep into Afghanistan for operation Enduring Freedom have demonstrated the service's growing digitalization. As troops disembarked to locations far from their amphibious ships, connectivity was maintained through a variety of mobile communications systems. On the tactical level, Marines used battlefield intranets to coordinate operations and send digital imagery to their commanders in near real time. The landing of two Marine expeditionary units (MEU's) at Camp Rhino and the Kandahar airport in November 2001 demonstrated the Corps' high mobility and the capability of its command, control, communications and computer (C4) systems. By deploying farther inland than...