"It all started with the fans," says 72-year-old actor Mark Hamill, in a montage of fans and actors in a newly-released video commemorating this year's Star Wars day.
Or, as Tom's Guide writes, "It's such a nice feeling to be a part of a huge community since fans are the ones who created this special day (by using "may the force be with you" as a pun for the date we all look forward to every year)."
Lucasfilm and its owner Disney approved of this occasion, and now, we hold both official and unofficial celebrations to honor the beloved franchise... There are plenty of Star Wars Day deals to shop, movies, and TV shows that you can be a part of this year... [The new animated series] Star Wars: Tales of the Empire will explore the dark side of the galaxy by focusing on two warriors navigating the Galactic Empire... Stream Tales of the Empire on Disney Plus starting May 4.
But there's more. Friday the official Star Wars site wrote that this Star Wars Day "is a big one for gamers." This weekend will see the release of a free Zynga game by Nintendo called Star Wars: Hunters on iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch, while the game Brawlhalla will add Darth Maul as a playable character for the next three weeks. There's also an upgrade to "vehicular soccer" game Rocket League which enables the unlocking of Star Wars-themed items like Anakin's Podracer Decal and the Darth Maul Decal.
There's also discounts on games like EA's Star Wars Triple Bundle, Star Wars Battlefront II, and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, as well as discounts on games with Star Wars-themed content like Minecraft and The Sims 4. And the franchise has even "returned to Fortnite, "bringing a new collection of Star Wars content to the popular game, including LEGO® Fortnite, Battle Royale, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival."
There's more discounts on Star Wars-themed merchandise at Amazon and Macy's, as well as on books from Abrams Book and Chronicle books. In fact, there's special offers from a whole alphabet's worth of major brands including American Tourister luggage, Box Lunch, Corkcircle, Dark Horse... and even Hallmark, Target, and Walmart.
But ultimately the day is a celebration of the movies that fans have loved for 47 years, writes Tom's Guide:
Lucasfilm announced that on May 4th you can experience the entire Skywalker saga in movie theaters. This includes all nine episodic films in chronological order.
The site also points out that two new Star Wars series will be premiering later this year. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is an eight-episode seriues "focuses on four children who go on an adventure while making their way home across a dangerous galaxy. Accompanying them is a force user (who will be played by Jude Law)." And Star Wars: The Acolyte (set in a new time period, the Jedi glory days before the Skywalker saga) begins streaming on Disney Plus June 4. (Fans will get a preview of The Acolyte at 25th-anniversary screenings of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace happening now.)
And the site even makes one last geeky suggestion for those who don't feel like going out this year:
The official Star Wars website has released some unique and fun recipes you can make when May 4th rolls around. This includes a Chandrilan Squigs recipe inspired by Mon Mothma and even a Bad Batch of cookies you can decorate to your liking.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed. Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring. Flares are used by fossil fuel companies when capturing the natural gas would cost more than they can make by selling it. They release carbon dioxide and toxic pollutants when they burn as well as cancer-causing chemicals. Despite the health risks, regulators sometimes prefer flaring to releasing natural gas -- which is 90% methane -- directly into the atmosphere, known as "venting".
The World Bank, alongside the EU and other regulators, have been using satellites for years to find and document gas flares, asking energy companies to find ways of capturing the gas instead of burning or venting it. The bank set up the Zero Routine Flaring 2030 initiative at the Paris climate conference to eradicate unnecessary flaring, and its latest report stated that flaring decreased by 3% globally from 2021 to 2022. But since the initiative, "enclosed combustors" have begun appearing in the same countries that promised to end flaring. Experts say enclosed combustors are functionally the same as flares, except the flame is hidden. Tim Doty, a former regulator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said: "Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don't see. Enclosed flaring is still flaring. It's just different infrastructure that they're allowing.
"Enclosed flaring is, in truth, probably less efficient than a typical flare. It's better than venting, but going from a flare to an enclosed flare or a vapor combustor is not an improvement in reducing emissions." The only method of detecting flaring globally is by using satellite-mounted tools called Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite of detectors (VIIRS), which find flares by comparing heat signatures with bright spots of light visible from space. But when researchers tried to replicate the database, they saw that the satellites were not picking up the enclosed flares. Without the satellite data, countries were forced to rely mostly on self-disclosed reporting from oil and gas companies, researchers said. Environmentalists fear the research community's ability to understand pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector could be jeopardized.
Senior Department arms control official Paul Dean on Thursday urged China and Russia to declare that artificial intelligence would never make decisions on deploying nuclear weapons. Washington had made a "clear and strong commitment" that humans had total control over nuclear weapons, said Dean. Britain and France have made similar commitments. Reuters reports: "We would welcome a similar statement by China and the Russian Federation," said Dean, principal deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability. "We think it is an extremely important norm of responsible behaviour and we think it is something that would be very welcome in a P5 context," he said, referring to the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Apple reported fiscal second-quarter earnings that topped estimates, despite a 10% drop in iPhone sales. The company also announced that its board had authorized $110 billion in share repurchases, "a 22% increase over last year's $90 billion authorization," notes CNBC. "It's the largest buyback in history, ahead of Apple's previous repurchases." From the report: Apple did not provide formal guidance, but Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC's Steve Kovach that overall sales would grow in the "low single digits" during the June quarter. Apple posted $81.8 billion in revenue during the year-ago June quarter and LSEG analysts were looking for a forecast of $83.23 billion. On an earnings call with analysts, Apple finance chief Luca Maestri said the company expected the current quarter will deliver double-digit year-over-year percentage growth in iPad sales. What's more, he said the Services division is forecast to continue growing at about the current high rate it's achieved during the past two quarters.
Apple reported net income of $23.64 billion, or $1.53 per share, down 2% from $24.16 billion, or $1.52 per share, in the year-earlier period. Cook told CNBC that sales in the fiscal second quarter suffered from a difficult comparison to the year-earlier period, when the company realized $5 billion in delayed iPhone 14 sales from Covid-based supply issues. "If you remove that $5 billion from last year's results, we would have grown this quarter on a year-over-year basis," Cook said. "And so that's how we look at it internally from how the company is performing."
Apple said iPhone sales fell nearly 10% to $45.96 billion, suggesting weak demand for the current generation of smartphones, which were released in September. The sales were in line with analyst estimates, and Cook said that without last year's increased sales, iPhone revenue would have been flat. Mac sales were up 4% to $7.45 billion, but they are still below the segment's high-water mark set in 2022. Cook said sales were driven by the company's new MacBook Air models which were released with an upgraded M3 chip in March. Other Products, which is how Apple reports sales of its Apple Watch and AirPods headphones, was down 10% year over year to $7.9 billion.
Wine 9.8 is out today as the newest bi-weekly development release of this open-source software for enjoying Windows games/applications on Linux / Chrome OS, macOS, and other platforms...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent, published last month: Humans now share the web equally with bots, according to a major new report -- as some fear that the internet is dying. In recent months, the so-called "dead internet theory" has gained new popularity. It suggests that much of the content online is in fact automatically generated, and that the number of humans on the web is dwindling in comparison with bot accounts. Now a new report from cyber security company Imperva suggests that it is increasingly becoming true. Nearly half, 49.6 per cent, of all internet traffic came from bots last year, its "Bad Bot Report" indicates. That is up 2 percent in comparison with last year, and is the highest number ever seen since the report began in 2013. In some countries, the picture is worse. In Ireland, 71 per cent of internet traffic is automated, it said.
Some of that rise is the result of the adoption of generative artificial intelligence and large language models. Companies that build those systems use bots scrape the internet and gather data that can then be used to train them. Some of those bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Imperva warned. More and more of them come from residential internet connections, which makes them look more legitimate. "Automated bots will soon surpass the proportion of internet traffic coming from humans, changing the way that organizations approach building and protecting their websites and applications," said Nanhi Singh, general manager for application security at Imperva. "As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent."
"Players who made Steam purchases of Helldivers 2 are now, months after the fact, being told by Sony that their games will be useless unless linked to a PSN account," writes longtime Slashdot reader Baron_Yam. From a report: Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment announced today that Helldivers 2 players on Steam will soon be required to link their in-game profiles to a PlayStation Network account -- a feature that was optional at launch due to "technical issues" -- or risk losing access to the game. SIE explained that account linking allows players to take advantage of "safety and security" provided by PlayStation, as it can more easily protect folks from "griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behavior."
Many Steam players haven't responded well to the news. As of the time of writing, over 2,500 negative user reviews have been submitted to the game's storefront page today, blemishing an otherwise spotless "Very Positive" rating. Some reviews cite data harvesting and security concerns as potential worries. Others point to the fact that Sony waited months after launch to make account linking mandatory. How this affects players in regions that don't have access to the PlayStation Network is a bigger concern, though. In the Helldivers 2 Discord, community manager Thomas 'Twinbeard' Petersson said they aren't yet sure what these rule changes meant for players in areas without PSN access, which could be another factor contributing to the negative downturn.
A bipartisan group of senators, led by Jeff Merkley, John Kennedy, and Roger Marshall, is advocating for limitations on the Transportation Security Administration's use of facial recognition technology due to concerns about privacy and civil liberties. PBS reports: In a letter on Thursday, the group of 14 lawmakers called on Senate leaders to use the upcoming reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration as a vehicle to limit TSA's use of the technology so Congress can put in place some oversight. "This technology poses significant threats to our privacy and civil liberties, and Congress should prohibit TSA's development and deployment of facial recognition tools until rigorous congressional oversight occurs," the senators wrote.
The effort, led by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., John Kennedy, R-La., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan., "would halt facial recognition technology at security checkpoints, which has proven to improve security effectiveness, efficiency, and the passenger experience," TSA said in a statement. The technology is currently in use at 84 airports around the country and is planned to expand in the coming years to the roughly 430 covered by TSA.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Late last year, an artificial intelligence engineer at Amazon was wrapping up the work week and getting ready to spend time with some friends visiting from out of town. Then, a Slack message popped up. He suddenly had a deadline to deliver a project by 6 a.m. on Monday. There went the weekend. The AI engineer bailed on his friends, who had traveled from the East Coast to the Seattle area. Instead, he worked day and night to finish the job. But it was all for nothing. The project was ultimately "deprioritized," the engineer told CNBC. He said it was a familiar result. AI specialists, he said, commonly sprint to build new features that are often suddenly shelved in favor of a hectic pivot to another AI project.
The engineer, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said he had to write thousands of lines of code for new AI features in an environment with zero testing for mistakes. Since code can break if the required tests are postponed, the Amazon engineer recalled periods when team members would have to call one another in the middle of the night to fix aspects of the AI feature's software. AI workers at other Big Tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, told CNBC about the pressure they are similarly under to roll out tools at breakneck speeds due to the internal fear of falling behind the competition in a technology that, according to Nvidia
CEO Jensen Huang, is having its "iPhone moment."
This week Samsung Electronics and Synopsys announced that Samsung has taped out its first mobile system-on-chip on Samsung Foundry's 3nm gate-all-around (GAA) process technology. The announcement, coming from electronic design automation Synopsys, further notes that Samsung used the Synopsys.ai EDA suite to place-n-route the layout and verify design of the SoC, which in turn enabled higher performance.
Samsung's unnamed high-performance mobile SoC relies on 'flagship' general-purpose CPU and GPU architectures as well as various IP blocks from Synopsys. SoC designers used Synopsys.ai EDA software, including the Synopsys DSO.ai to fine-tune design and maximize yields as well as Synopsys Fusion Compiler RTL-to-GDSII solution to achieve higher performance, lower power, and optimize area (PPA).
And while the news that Samsung has developed a high-performance SoC using the Synopsys.ai suite is important, there is another, even more important dimension to this announcement: this means that Samsung has finally taped out an advanced smartphone application processor on its cutting-edge 3nm GAAFET process.
Although Samsung Foundry has been producing chips on its GAA-equipped SF3E (3 nm-class, 'early' node) process for almost two years now, Samsung Electronics has never used this technology for its own system-on-chips for smartphones or other complex devices. To date, SF3E has been used mainly for cryptocurrency mining chips, presumably due to the inevitable early teething and yield issues that come with being the industry's first commercial GAAFET process.
For now, Samsung isn't disclosing what specific process node is being used for the SoC; the official Samsung/Synposys announcement only notes that it's for a GAA process node. Along with their first-generation 3nm-class SF3E, Samsung Foundry has a considerably more sophisticated SF3 manufacturing technology that offers numerous improvements over SF3E, and is due to be used for mass production in the coming quarters. Given the timing of the announcement, the reasonable bet is that they're using SF3.
As for Samsung's tooling partnership with Synopsys, the latter's tools are being credited for delivering some significant performance improvements to the chip's design. In particular, the two firms are crediting those tools for improving the chip's peak clockspeed by 300MHz while cutting down on dynamic power usage by 10%. To accomplish that, Samsung Electronics' SoC developers used design partitioning optimization, multi-source clock tree synthesis (MSCTS), and smart wire optimization to reduce signal interference, along with a simpler hierarchical approach. And by using Synopsys Fusion Compiler, they did all this while being able to skip weeks of 'manual' design work, according to the joint press release.
"Our longstanding collaboration has delivered leading-edge SoC designs," said Kijoon Hong, vice president of SLSI at Samsung Electronics. "This is a remarkable milestone to successfully achieve the highest performance, power and area on the most advanced mobile CPU cores and SoC designs in collaboration with Synopsys. Not only have we demonstrated that AI-driven solutions can help us achieve PPA targets for even the most advanced GAA process technologies, but through our partnership we have established an ultra-high-productivity design system that is consistently delivering impressive results."
An anonymous reader shares a report: Relations between Russia and Germany were already tense, with Germany providing military support to Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Russian state hackers were behind a cyberattack last year that targeted the Social Democrats, the leading party in the governing coalition. "Russian state hackers attacked Germany in cyberspace," she said at a news conference in the Australian city of Adelaide. "We can attribute this attack to the group called APT28, which is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia."
"This is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences," she said. The Russian Embassy in Germany on Friday denied Moscow was involved in a 2023 cyberattack. In a statement the embassy said its envoy "categorically rejected the accusations that Russian state structures were involved in the given incident ... as unsubstantiated and groundless." The Council of the EU later said that Czechia's institutions have also been a target of the cyber campaign. In a statement by the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, the bloc's nations said they "strongly condemn the malicious cyber campaign conducted by the Russia-controlled Advanced Persistent Threat Actor 28 (APT28) against Germany and Czechia." Further reading: EU and NATO Condemn Russian Cyber Attacks Against Germany and Czechia.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill this week banning and criminalizing the manufacture and sale of lab-grown meat in the state. From a report: The legislation joins similar efforts from three other states -- Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee -- that have also looked to stop the sale of lab-grown meat, which is believed to still be years away from commercial viability. "Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals," DeSantis said. "We will save our beef."
Lab-grown meat, also known as cultivated meat, has attracted considerable attention in recent years as startups have raised millions of dollars to improve the technology meant to create a climate-friendly alternative to traditional meat sources. Cultivated meat is usually grown in a metal vessel from a sample of animal cells. They multiply in a container called a bioreactor while being fed with water, amino acids, vitamins and lipids -- a process that can be difficult to do at scales large enough to create enough food for commercial sale. Still, some companies have made strides, with two California startups receiving approval from U.S. regulators last year to sell lab-grown chicken. Those companies said Florida's bill stifles innovation in a space that is becoming competitive globally.
The UK government's climate action plan is unlawful, the high court has ruled, as there is not enough evidence that there are sufficient policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. From a report: The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, will now be expected to draw up a revised plan within 12 months. This must ensure that the UK achieves its legally binding carbon budgets and its pledge to cut emissions by more than two-thirds by 2030, both of which the government is off track to meet. The environmental charities Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth took joint legal action with the Good Law Project against the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) over its decision to approve the carbon budget delivery plan (CBDP) in March 2023.
In a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Sheldon upheld four of the five grounds of the groups' legal challenge, stating that the decision by the former energy security and net zero secretary Grant Shapps was "simply not justified by the evidence." He said: "If, as I have found, the secretary of state did make his decision on the assumption that each of the proposals and policies would be delivered in full, then the secretary of state's decision was taken on the basis of a mistaken understanding of the true factual position."
The judge agreed with ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth that the secretary of state was given "incomplete" information about the likelihood that proposed policies would achieve their intended emissions cuts. This breached section 13 of the Climate Change Act, which requires the secretary of state to adopt plans and proposals that they consider will enable upcoming carbon budgets to be delivered. Sheldon also agreed with the environment groups that the central assumption that all the department's policies would achieve 100% of their intended emissions cuts was wrong. The judge said the secretary of state had acted irrationally, and on the basis of an incorrect understanding of the facts. This comes after the Guardian revealed the government would be allowing oil and gas drilling under offshore wind turbines, a decision criticised by climate experts as "deeply irresponsible."
Nous étions passés à côté de cette information il faut le dire pas vraiment essentielle mais néanmoins assez singulière à nos yeux pour vous être transmise même avec un peu de retard : ASUS a lancé sans faire de bruit, fin avril 2024, la toute première gamme de AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 Go et AMD Rad...
China launched an uncrewed lunar mission Friday that aims to bring back samples from the far side of the moon for the first time, in a potentially major step forward for the country's ambitious space program. From a report: The Chang'e-6 probe -- China's most complex robotic lunar mission to date -- blasted off on a Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China's Hainan island, where space fans had gathered to watch the historic moment. The country's National Space Administration said the launch was a success. The launch marks the start of a mission that aims to be a key milestone in China's push to become a dominant space power with plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 and build a research base on its south pole.
It comes as a growing number of countries, including the United States, eye the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration in an increasingly competitive field. China's planned 53-day mission would see the Chang'e-6 lander touch down in a gaping crater on the moon's far side, which never faces Earth. China became the first and only country to land on the moon's far side during its 2019 Chang'e-4 mission. Any far-side samples retrieved by the Chang'e-6 lander could help scientists peer back into the evolution of the moon and the solar system itself -- and provide important data to advance China's lunar ambitions.
Google Summer of Code 2024 (GSoC '24) accepted projects have been announced with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) seeing seven student developers engaging this summer with several of them focused on enhancing GCC's Rust front-end...
An anonymous reader shares a report: A software engineer has been keeping nearly 7,500 Firefox tabs open on her Mac computer for over two years -- and doesn't plan on closing them anytime soon. The Firefox power user, who goes by the pseudonym "Hazel" online, posted a screenshot showing 7,470 tabs open earlier this week after finding the browser initially unable to restore all the tabs. Hazel was able to bring the tabs back to life via a Firefox profile cache, however, and tells PCMag that reloading the full session took "no more than a minute."
"I feel like a part of me is restored," Hazel wrote on X once the Firefox tabs had returned. The Firefox fan tells PCMag in a message that she keeps so many tabs open for nostalgia reasons. "I like to scroll back and see clusters of tabs from months ago -- it's like a trip down memory lane on whatever I was doing/learning about/thinking about," she says. Surprisingly, all those tabs haven't impacted the computer's performance. "Firefox is quite memory efficient and isn't actually loading the websites unless I click on the tab -- so it's not very resource intensive," Hazel says.
Alors qu’il règne toujours un certain flou autour de la cause première des plantages des Core i9 de 13e et 14e génération, Intel est officiellement sortie du bois. Le fondeur nous fait suivre ses recommandations officielles et ne cherche pas à « imputer la faute aux partenaires d’Intel ». Dans tous les cas, l’enquête continue.
Il y a quelques semaines, nous revenions sur le cas des plantages à répétitions avec certains Core i9 de 13e et 14e génération. Plusieurs éditeurs de jeux vidéo étaient sortis du bois, notamment Epic Games qui expliquait que « Fortnite plante fréquemment sur les processeurs i9-13900K/KF/KS et i9-14900K/KF/KS ».
La semaine dernière, l’affaire est revenue sur le devant de la scène avec, notamment, ce qui serait un communiqué officiel d’Intel mis en ligne par Igor’s Lab, le site d’Igor Wallossek qui s’occupait auparavant de Tom’s Hardware Germany. Si on utilise le conditionnel, c’est que – comme plusieurs de nos confrères (notamment AnandTech) – nous n’avons pas pu obtenir la confirmation qu’il s’agissait (ou non) d’une déclaration officielle.
Un communiqué peut en cacher un autre
Quoi qu’il en soit, la tendance de fond est de rejeter la faute sur les fabricants de cartes mères et sur les paramètres des BIOS/UEFI qui joueraient avec les limites et/ou désactiveraient certaines protections. Un des points mis en avant serait l’augmentation des PL1 (Power Limit1, en mode normal) et PL2 (Power Limit2, en mode turbo) au-delà des recommandations d’Intel.
Les mises à jour déployées par certains fabricants de cartes mères ainsi que les changements proposés dans les BIOS vont dans le sens de paramètres un peu trop généreux sur l’overclocking. La question reste de savoir si Intel encourage et autorise ces pratiques (en permettant à ses partenaires de jouer avec les limites) ou bien s’il s’agit de mesures mises en place par les fabricants pour aller toujours plus vite (et être les premiers dans les benchmarks au passage).
Seule certitude, la définition du mot « par défaut » n’est pas la même pour tout le monde.
Les conseils d’Intel pour améliorer la stabilité
Si nous en parlons aujourd’hui, c’est qu’Intel France nous a transmis le communiqué suivant (sans préciser ce qu’il en était de celui mis en ligne par Igor’s Lab) : « Les communications récemment publiées entre Intel et ses partenaires concernant les paramètres des cartes mères pour les processeurs Intel Core de 13e et 14e génération de la série K visent à fournir des conseils sur les paramètres par défaut recommandés par Intel ».
« Nous continuons d'enquêter avec nos partenaires sur les récents rapports d'utilisateurs faisant état d'instabilité de certaines charges de travail sur ces processeurs », ajoute l’entreprise. Intel joue donc la carte de l’apaisement avec ses partenaires : « Ces conseils sur les paramètres par défaut du BIOS visent à améliorer la stabilité des processeurs, pendant qu'Intel continue d'enquêter sur la cause première, et non à imputer la faute aux partenaires d'Intel ».
Intel nous fait suivre une liste de paramètres recommandés dans les BIOS/UEFI pour les processeurs de 13e et 14e génération de la série K :
La petite « * » renvoie vers la datasheet des processeurs concernés. On remarque qu’Intel ne cite aucun fabricant de cartes mères dans son communiqué. Le fondeur précise enfin qu’il « continue de travailler avec ses partenaires pour développer des mesures d'atténuation appropriées à l'avenir ».
Les fabricants de cartes mères réagissent
Quoi qu’il en soit, les fabricants de cartes mères n’ont pas attendu et certains ont déjà déployé des mises à jour de leur BIOS/UEFI depuis plusieurs jours.
Asus était visiblement le premier à réagir. Sur les notes de version du BIOS 2202 du 19 avril de la ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX (un modèle parmi bien d’autres), il est indiqué : « La mise à jour introduit l'option Intel Baseline Profile, permettant aux utilisateurs de revenir aux paramètres d'usine Intel par défaut pour les fonctionnalités de base, des limites de puissance inférieures et une amélioration de la stabilité dans certains jeux ».
Pas de nouveaux BIOS pour le moment chez MSI, mais une liste de recommandations à suivre pour paramétrer sa carte mère. Il est notamment question de revenir à une limite PL1 de 253 watts, alors qu’elle peut être de 288 watts et même de… 4096 watts.
Gigabyte aussi a réagi. La version F2d du BIOS de la Z790 Aorus Xtreme X ICE est disponible depuis le 23 avril. Il est question de l’ajout dans le menu Turbo Power Limites d’un profil « Intel BaseLine », pour les processeurs de 13e et 14e génération de la série K. Cela pourrait être un retour aux spécifications de base d’Intel, mais aucun détail n’est donné.
Bien évidemment, ces changements ont des conséquences sur les performances, qui sont variables selon les « optimisations » qui étaient en place. La différence est néanmoins notable, comme l’indiquent HardwareLuxx et Phoronix pour ne citer que ces deux-là.
La CNIL vient de préciser les « circonstances exceptionnelles » et « conditions cumulatives » qu’un établissement d’hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes (Ehpad) doit remplir « avant d’envisager » la mise en place d’un dispositif de vidéosurveillance dans des chambres de ses résidents.
La CNIL rappelle que sa recommandation, également publiée au Journal officiel, fait suite à « plusieurs demandes de conseil » qui lui avait été adressées suite à la médiatisation de cas de maltraitance au sein d’Ehpad, et aux « nombreuses interrogations juridiques et éthiques » que cela peut poser :
« Un tel dispositif est en effet susceptible de porter atteinte tant aux droits des salariés qu’à ceux des personnes hébergées pour lesquelles la chambre représente le seul espace d’intimité dans lequel elles peuvent poursuivre leur vie affective et familiale. »
Elle avait alors, en février 2023, une consultation publique afin de « mieux comprendre les enjeux du secteur et de trouver un équilibre entre la sécurité des résidents, le respect de leur intimité et les droits et libertés des salariés ».
Elle estimait alors que, « d’une manière générale », l’installation d’un dispositif de vidéosurveillance dans la chambre d’une personne hébergée était « disproportionnée ».
Pour autant, et « en cas de suspicions fortes de maltraitance » à l’encontre d’une personne hébergée, basées sur un faisceau d’indices concordants (hématomes, changements comportementaux, etc.), elle reconnaissait qu’un organisme « devrait pouvoir installer de manière ponctuelle » un dispositif de vidéosurveillance « pour la prévention des incidents », et « sous réserve de garanties appropriées (limiter l’activation dans le temps, restreindre la prise d’images dans les lieux d’intimité, etc.) ».
Les nombreuses contributions reçues lui ont depuis « permis de mieux comprendre les préoccupations du public et les besoins du secteur », et donc d’enrichir sa recommandation définitive.
Un dernier recours, en cas de mauvais traitements avérés
« En principe », souligne la CNIL, l'installation d'un système de vidéosurveillance dans les chambres d’Ehpad « ne peut être envisagée que pour assurer la sécurité des personnes hébergées dans le cadre d’une enquête pour maltraitance (conditions cumulatives) seulement » :
« en cas de suspicion étayéede mauvais traitements » (hématomes constatés, changements comportementaux, etc.) malgré les dispositifs alternatifs mis en place pour assurer la sécurité des personnes hébergées (par exemple, un bouton d’appel d’urgence sans fil, des procédures de signalement et de suivi d’événements préoccupants, la création d’équipe de travail afin de permettre l’intervention des soignants en binôme) ;
« ET après échec des procédures d’enquêtes » n’ayant pas permis de détecter une situation de maltraitance, dès lors qu’un doute subsiste.
La (longue) liste de garanties cumulatives préalables
La CNIL insiste, de plus, sur les garanties que les établissements devront avoir pris « avant la mise en place d’un dispositif de vidéosurveillance », afin de :
limiter l’activation dans le temps ;
désactiver le dispositif de vidéosurveillance lors des visites des proches, sauf si le soupçon de maltraitance porte sur ces derniers ;
établir et appliquer un cadre interne quant aux conditions justifiant l’installation d’un dispositif de vidéosurveillance (il doit par exemple s’agir d’une demande émanant des proches de la personne hébergée à l’établissement faisant suite à des cas de suspicions fortes et avérées de maltraitance, etc.) ;
informer les salariés de manière individuelle et collective quant à la possibilité que des dispositifs de vidéosurveillance soient installés au sein des chambres des résidents ;
recueillir le consentement des personnes hébergées ou lorsque la personne n’est pas en mesure de consentir, celui-ci devra être recueilli dans le respect des règles spécifiques liées à la protection des majeurs ;
« flouter », dans la mesure du possible, les parties intimes de la personne concernée dès lors que les soins qui lui sont apportés sont réalisés dans son lit ;
insérer au sein du règlement intérieur la possibilité qu’un dispositif de vidéosurveillance soit mis en place dans la chambre d’un résident en cas de suspicions fortes de maltraitance et y faire notamment figurer les modalités de visionnage (accès aux images strictement limité au seul personnel habilité ; conditions d’accès aux images par la famille ; etc.) ;
lorsque la demande émane de la famille ou des proches, l’installation d’un tel dispositif devrait être réalisée en concertation avec l’établissement, tenant compte des procédures d’enquêtes, du respect du cadre interne en matière de faisceaux d’indices, de l’information du personnel, le cas échéant ;
sensibiliser et former le personnel chargé de gérer et de mettre en œuvre ces dispositifs.
La durée de conservation devra, au surplus, être « limitée à quelques jours » si les images ne révèlent pas de maltraitance à l’égard du résident ou, dans le cas contraire, à la durée de la procédure contentieuse.
Des caméras jusque dans les WC en cas de « forte suspicion »
La CNIL précise que la prise d’images dans les lieux d’intimité (toilettes, douches) « doit être proscrite sauf circonstances exceptionnelles », à savoir lorsque les procédures d’enquêtes internes et le dispositif de vidéosurveillance installé au sein de la chambre n’ont pas permis de détecter une situation de maltraitance, alors qu’il subsiste « une forte suspicion » que de tels actes y soient perpétrés.
Au regard des « risques élevés » susceptibles d’être engendrés pour les droits et libertés des personnes concernées, les organismes mettant en œuvre ce type de dispositif « devront réaliser une analyse d’impact relative à la protection des données (AIPD) », précise la CNIL, qui se met à la disposition des organismes pour les accompagner à cet effet, et qui invite les Ehpad à commencer à y réfléchir sans attendre de cas de maltraitance :
« Une telle AIPD ne pouvant être réalisée en urgence, cela implique d’avoir réfléchi à la possibilité d’utilisation d’un tel dispositif à l’avance, en cas de suspicion de maltraitance. »
L’organisme mettant en œuvre le dispositif devra dès lors et plus particulièrement insister sur :
les raisons l’ayant conduit à considérer que des moyens alternatifs moins intrusifs s'avéraient inefficaces ;
les garanties qu’il met en œuvre pour ne pas mettre sous surveillance continue les salariés travaillant dans l’établissement ;
les mesures pour assurer la confidentialité des données ;
les précautions prises pour protéger la vie privée des personnes hébergées.
La vidéosurveillance devra être consentie
La CNIL rappelle par ailleurs qu'il est « en principe » interdit d’installer des caméras pour « améliorer » le service offert à la personne concernée en renforçant son « confort » (afin, par exemple, d'améliorer le temps d'intervention rapide à la demande des résidents), « même lorsqu’elle a donné son consentement ».
Elle précise aussi que les proches des résidents ne sont pas habilités à installer de caméras, y compris pour assurer la sécurité du membre de leur famille, et que « seul l’établissement peut en principe mettre en place le dispositif, afin que celui-ci soit le plus respectueux des droits et libertés de chacun ».
La CNIL relève en outre que des dispositifs alternatifs peuvent également être mis en place pour assurer la sécurité des personnes hébergées en cas de chute ou d’accident, tels que des capteurs de présence placés sous le sol et susceptibles de détecter la moindre anomalie, bracelets susceptibles de détecter une chute brutale grâce à un accéléromètre, capteurs/boitiers infrarouges capables de détecter une chute et d’envoyer un message d’alerte au personnel, « sous réserve du recueil du consentement » de la personne hébergée ou, lorsqu’elle n’est pas en mesure de consentir, dans le respect des règles spécifiques liées à la protection des majeurs.
Le consentement de la personne concernée devra en tout état de cause être recueilli avant l’installation du dispositif de vidéosurveillance, « y compris lorsque la demande provient de ses proches ».
Si l’initiative émane de l’établissement, il devra aussi permettre à la personne concernée de refuser son installation.
Connexion
