Free Republic

Investor’s Business Daily charged in an editorial on Thursday that net neutrality advocates unintentionally “made the case” for regulating Google and Facebook. This week a coalition of large tech giants, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, urged a U.S. appeals court to challenge the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) repeal of the agency’s 2015 net neutrality rule. The editorial board found regarding the agency’s Obama-era net neutrality, “Those 2015 rules were supposed to protect the ‘free and open’ internet by forbidding ISPs from, as the filing puts it, ‘engaging in discriminatory practices that limit consumer choice, competition, and innovation online.'” The business...

Yup, looks like the QFD has been removed just a few days before @jack testifies to Congress. Time to have some fun!

A net neutrality bill that would prohibit internet providers from a host of discriminatory practices cleared the California Assembly on Thursday, setting up a potential showdown with the Trump administration over the rules of the road for the internet. The legislation, which passed in a 59-18 vote, will now go to the Senate, where a vote is expected next week. It would then go to Governor Jerry Brown. California is also the largest state to pass net neutrality legislation in response to the Republican-led FCC’s move late last year to dismantle many of the existing rules. Democrats have seized on...

Must be linked...

Is Google manipulating its algorithm to prioritize left-leaning news outlets in their coverage of President Trump? It sure looks that way based on recent search results for news on the president.Conservatives and Trump supporters have for the last several years questioned whether Google was deprioritizing conservative news sites, hiding them from users who utilize their search engine. Google has maintained that all outlets are treated fairly, but nevertheless, conservative sites have reported reduced search traffic and, in the case of Google-owned YouTube, content creators have been banned and demonetized. Google's high-profile firing of conservative James Damore, purportedly over his conservative...

Representatives from a host of the biggest US tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter, have scheduled a private meeting for Friday to share their tactics in preparation for the 2018 midterm elections.

Intel has been scarred by another major security glitch that takes advantage of the same technology behind the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. The new set of vulnerabilities, labeled Foreshadow, allows passwords and other confidential information to be swiped from memory caches in Intel’s processors. On Tuesday, the Santa Clara, California-based company said it had released microcode to protect potentially vulnerable devices in personal computers and data centers. The company said that the changes, coupled with new updates for operating systems and hypervisor software made available on Tuesday, would protect most customers. “We are not aware of reports that any of...

Attorney Josh Smith discusses his proposal for a legislative fix for the social media censorship problem. An image of his working paper that summarizes the act can be seen here: https://twitter.com/HalenIndus/status/1027328349176180736 (The text is in a JPEG image. For reasons unknown, FR cannot display it.)

It’s hard for the average citizen to read the news these days and not be worried for the future of the planet. We are told that 13 of the last 16 years have been the warmest on record. We hear that coastal cities such as New York and Atlantic City, as well as nearly all of Florida, are at risk of flooding due to unprecedented sea-level rise. We are told that the wildfires in California and Greece are the worst ever recorded, and that these fires represent a “new normal” because of man-made climate change.But to get a good gauge of...

About five years ago or so, 3D-printing stocks were red-hot. But the good times quickly fizzled. However, lately there have been signs of life, as a variety of the operators in the industry have experienced rejuvenated growth rates. And, more importantly, the long-term trends look quite favorable for the 3D-printing space. According to IDC, the spending in the market — on a global basis — is expected to hit about $12 billion this year. And by 2021, the forecast is for the market to reach $20 billion. Much of the growth will come from physical printers and materials, but there...

Happy Homelands is back this Saturday with a can’t miss episode. Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab, will join us to discuss Free Speech and Big Tech.

WASHINGTON: There are quite a few things you need a Federal ID to do. Cash a check. Board an airplane. Purchase alcohol. But buy an ad on Facebook? Yes. As a business owner, there are Facebook Advertising policies before this, or any other publication can promote a post on Facebook. Or purchase an advertisement on their page. The process to purchase an ad on Facebook includes proving your identity. This is a response to the Russian “meddling” but in reality, it is an ages-old advertising policy. The physical requirement has changed somewhat. Now we electronically send in a scan of...

Last year, studies presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting showed that IBM Watson was pretty darn good at creating treatment plans for cancer patients. Turns out, however, that the AI is still far from perfect: according to internal documents reviewed by health-oriented news publication Stat, some medical experts working with IBM on its Watson for Oncology system found "multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations." In one particular case, a 65-year-old man was diagnosed a drug that could lead to "severe or fatal hemorrhage" even though he was already suffering from severe bleeding. The report...

THE CENSORSHIP MASTER PLAN DECODED (i.e. “The Adams Report”) The blueprint for how tech giants covertly silence online speech, and how America can fight back against corporate tech monopolists Part One: The Societal Cost of Censorship and the Denial of the Right to Exist Part Two: The Fight for Reality (censorship motivations and justifications) Part Tree: The Fallacy of “Fake News” Part Four: Decentralization and the Structure of News Consumption Part Five: Technological and Psychological Methods of Overt and Covert Censorship Part Six: Legislative and Regulatory Solutions to Techno-Tyranny

Identity theft protection firm LifeLock — a company that’s built a name for itself based on the promise of helping consumers protect their identities online — may have actually exposed customers to additional attacks from ID thieves and phishers. The company just fixed a vulnerability on its site that allowed anyone with a Web browser to index email addresses associated with millions of customer accounts, or to unsubscribe users from all communications from the company. The upshot of this weakness is that cyber criminals could harvest the data and use it in targeted phishing campaigns that spoof LifeLock’s brand. Of...

Samsung announced an "unbreakable" smartphone display on Thursday. It uses plastic instead of glass and is flexible. It's for smartphones and other gadgets, and may be used in Samsung's first foldable phone. Samsung Samsung's unbreakable display __________________________________________________________________________ Samsung said on Thursday that it has developed an "unbreakable" and flexible display that may soon be used in smartphones and other gadgets. Unlike traditional smartphone displays, which are typically covered in glass that can be prone to cracking or shattering, Samsung coats its new panels with a "fortified plastic window." The solution didn't break in drop tests from 4-6 feet, Samsung said,...

Not even James Bond had an Aston Martin like this. The British sports car maker revealed a concept version of a flying car, the Volante Vision Concept, at the Farnborough Airshow this week. Aston Martin has billed the futuristic vehicle as a luxury car for the skies. The autonomous hybrid-electric vehicle, which has room for three passengers, is designed for urban and inter-city travel, the company said. It’s also capable of vertical take-offs and landings. The vehicle could fly at top speeds of around 200 miles per hour, according to Reuters.

Rolls-Royce has released plans for a flying taxi that could be taking to the skies in the early 2020s. The British manufacturer will unveil its designs for an electric vertical take-off and landing (EVTOL) vehicle at the Farnborough Airshow, which will be officially opened by Prime Minister Theresa May tomorrow. The air show is one of the biggest events in the aviation calendar, and May is expected to use the occasion to announce a slew of new initiatives to boost employment and growth in the UK’s aerospace industry, and to protect the supply chains that companies such as Bombardier, Rolls-Royce...

The U.S. Army will unveil details about its largest reorganization in 45 years Friday, senior service officials said, as they create a new organization in an attempt to adapt more quickly to technology and address expensive failures in weapons acquisitions. Army Futures Command is being established in part to address concerns about the more than $32 billion the Army has spent since 1995 on programs that it canceled early with little to nothing to show for them. The new power center will be on par with other influential Army organizations, such as Training and Doctrine Command and Forces Command, and...

Universities and other institutions are watering down requirements in order to attract more women and minorities. Identity politics has engulfed the humanities and social sciences on American campuses; now it is taking over the hard sciences. The STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math—are under attack for being insufficiently “diverse.” The pressure to increase the representation of females, blacks, and Hispanics comes from the federal government, university administrators, and scientific societies themselves. That pressure is changing how science is taught and how scientific qualifications are evaluated. The results will be disastrous for scientific innovation and for American competitiveness. A scientist at...