An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC News: Online streaming services operating in Canada will be required to contribute five percent of their Canadian revenues to support the domestic broadcasting system, the country's telecoms regulator said on Tuesday. The money will be used to boost funding for local and Indigenous broadcasting, officials from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said in a briefing. "Today's decision will help ensure that online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content," wrote CRTC chief executive and chair Vicky Eatrides in a statement. The measure was introduced under the auspices of a law passed last year designed to make sure that companies like Netflix make a more significant contribution to Canadian culture. The government says the legislation will ensure that online streaming services promote Canadian music and stories, and support Canadian jobs. Funding will also be directed to French-language content and content created by official language minority communities, as well as content created by equity-deserving groups and Canadians of diverse backgrounds. The release also said that online streaming services will "have some flexibility" to send their revenues to support Canadian television directly. [...] The measure, which will start in the 2024-2025 broadcasting year, would raise roughly $200 million annually, CRTC officials said. It will only apply to services that are not already affiliated with Canadian broadcasters. The CMPA was among 20 screen organizations from around the world that signed a statement in January asking governments to impose stronger regulations on streaming companies operating in local markets. One of the demands was a measure that would force companies profiting from their presence in those markets to contribute financially to the creation of new local content."We are disappointed by today's decision and concerned by the negative impact it will have on Canadian consumers. We are assessing the decision in full, but this onerous and inflexible financial levy will be harmful to consumer choice," a spokesperson for Prime Video wrote to CBC News in a statement.

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After growing concerned about potential stock manipulation, E*Trade is "considering telling meme-stock leader Keith Gill he can no longer use its platform," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter. Gill, known online as "Roaring Kitty," gained notoriety for his role in the 2020 meme stock frenzy, where he encouraged amateur investors to buy GameStop shares, significantly driving up the stock price and challenging hedge funds. Just hours ago, Roaring Kitty announced he bought $116 million worth of GameStop options and stocks. Developing...

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The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided monthly internet bill credits for low-income Americans, will officially end on June 1 due to a lack of additional funding from Congress. This termination threatens nearly 60 million Americans with increased financial hardship, as the program's lapse leaves them without the subsidies that made internet access affordable. CNN reports: The 2.5-year-old ACP provided eligible low-income Americans with a monthly credit off their internet bills, worth up to $30 per month and as much as $75 per month for households on tribal lands. The pandemic-era program was a hit with members of both political parties and served tens of millions of seniors, veterans and rural and urban Americans alike. Program participants received only partial benefits in May ahead of the ACP's expected collapse. [...] On Friday, Biden reiterated his calls for Congress to pass legislation extending the ACP. He also announced a series of voluntary commitments by a handful of internet providers to offer -- or continue offering -- their own proprietary low-income internet plans. The list includes AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Charter's Spectrum and Verizon, among others. Those providers will continue to offer qualifying ACP households a broadband plan for $30 or less, the White House said, and together the companies are expected to cover roughly 10 million of the 23 million households relying on the ACP. "The Affordable Connectivity Program filled an important gap that provider low-income programs, state and local affordability programs, and the Lifeline program cannot fully address," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement, referring to the name of another, similar FCC program that subsidizes wireless and home internet service. "The Commission is available to provide any assistance Congress may need to support funding the ACP in the future and stands ready to resume the program if additional funding is provided."

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The free online tax filing program known as IRS Direct File will be made permanent for the 2025 tax season, with all 50 states and Washington D.C. invited to participate. Axios reports: Treasury announced earlier this month that more than 140,000 people participated in the Direct File pilot program in a dozen states claiming more than $90 million in refunds. The pilot exceeded its 100,000-person target during this past tax season. "President Biden is committed to saving Americans time and money and ensuring families receive the tax benefits they're owed," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. "Providing a free tool to all Americans who want the option to file directly with the IRS is key to achieving those goals." The pilot program targeted people with simple tax returns based on W-2 forms. In her remarks today Yellen said that over the next few years they will expand Direct File to support more situations. The announcement from the Treasury Department comes a week after the IRS' Free File program was extended through 2029. "Free file is where some of your tax dollars go to create the bridges between 3rd parties and the IRS filing system," notes Slashdot reader slack_justyb. "Direct file is the taxpayer to IRS direct system that we got a taste of this year. We want to keep on the direct file path, but the free file path helps breakup the larger entities out there that lobby hard to keep the return-free system from ever getting started."

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Minimachines.net en partenariat avec TopAchat.com

Le Trigkey S7 Pro est un MiniPC assez sobre, plus sage en tout cas que son homologue chez Beelink. Et c’est assez intéressant à suivre.

Le Beelink SER 7 Pro

Depuis des années Trigkey sort des clones purs et durs des machines de Beelink. Même châssis, même fonctions et mêmes entrailles. Seule la marque sur le capot était modifiée. Mais en 2023 Beelink lance de nouvelles machines avec les SER 7 Pro. d’un point de vue technique, pas de gros changements. On retrouvait une évolution logique de compétences avec l’arrivée des Ryzen 7 7840HS. Ce qui changeait par contre c’étaient divers détails. Un châssis moins sobre, une double ventilation et un connecteur magnétique dont je n’ai toujours pas bien compris l’utilité. Ce design original ne semble pas avoir spécialement réussi à la marque qui en 2024 revient à des solutions plus classiques mais dans des boitiers sobres en métal avec les SEi14 sous Core Ultra ou des SER8 sous Ryzen 7 8845HS.

Le Trigkey S7 Pro est resté, quant à lui, dans la lignée très sage des précédents Beelink. On retrouve un design identique aux modèles SER5. Comme si Trigkey avait laissé son frère jumeau partir à l’aventure pendant qu’il restait sagement sur ses classiques. 

On retrouve donc ici un MiniPC performant construit autour d’un Ryzen 7 7840HS très performant proposant 8 cœurs Zen 4, 16 Threads et des fréquences allant de 3.8 à 5.1 GHz et un circuit AMD Radeon 780M composé de 12 cœurs RDNA 3. Associé à cette base on retrouve deux slots de mémoire vive en double canal équipés de 32 Go de DDR5-5600 qui pourra monter jusqu’à 64 Go. Deux ports M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 sont également disponibles dont un est équipé de 500 Go de stockage de base. La proposition reste très proche de Beelink en interne avec en gros la même proposition et un refroidissement composé de caloducs et d’un ventilateur en extraction.

En façade, on retrouve deux USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, un USB Type-C 3.2 Gen2, un jack audio combo 3.5 mm et un bouton de démarrage. A l’arrière des ports USB 3.2 et 2.0 Type-A supplémentaires, un Ethernet 2.5 Gigabit, un HDMI 2.0, un DisplayPort 1.4. Un module Wi-Fi6 et Bluetooth 5.2 est également intégré.

Rien de vraiment révolutionnaire donc pour cet engin commercialisé à 639€ sur Amazon après une sortie en prévente au dessus des 800€. Je vais suivre l’évolution de son tarif pour voir si des promos sont proposées. Il se situe à un tarif intéressant malgré tout par rapport aux autres MiniPC avec ce type de puce Ryzen 7 7840HS et  cet équipement.

Trigkey S7 Pro : un MiniPC Ryzen 7 7840HS très classique © MiniMachines.net. 2024.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has shared data on the most impersonated companies in 2023, which include Best Buy, Amazon, and PayPal in the top three. The federal agency detailed the top ten companies scammers impersonate and how much they make depending on the impersonation. By far the most impersonated corp was Best Buy and its repair business Geek Squad, with a total of 52k reports. Amazon impersonators came in second place with 34k reports, and PayPal a distant third with 10,000. Proportionally, the top three made up roughly 72 percent of the reports among the top ten, and Best Buy and Geek Squad scam reports were about 39 percent on their own. Though, high quantity doesn't necessarily translate to greater success for scammers, as the FTC also showed how much scammers made depending on what companies they impersonated. Best Buy and Geek Squad, Amazon, and PayPal scams made about $15 million, $19 million, and $16 million respectively, but that's nothing compared to the $60 million that Microsoft impersonators were able to fleece. [...] The FTC also reported the vectors scammers use to contact their victims. Phone and email are still the most common means, but social media is becoming increasingly important for scamming and features the most costly scams. The feds additionally disclosed the kinds of payment methods scammers use for all sorts of frauds, including company and individual impersonation scams, investment scams, and romance scams. Cryptocurrency and bank transfers were popular for investment scammers, who are the most prolific on social media, while gift cards were most common for pretty much every other type of scam. However, not all scammers ask for digital payment, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that even regular old mail is something scammers are relying on to get their ill-gotten gains.

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The IRS has extended the Free File program through 2029, "continuing its partnership with a coalition of private tax software companies that allow most Americans to file federal taxes for free," reports CNBC. From the report: This season, Free File processed 2.9 million returns through May 11, a 7.3% increase compared to the same period last year, according to the IRS. "Free File has been an important partner with the IRS for more than two decades and helped tens of millions of taxpayers," Ken Corbin, chief of IRS taxpayer services, said in a statement Wednesday. "This extension will continue that relationship into the future." "This multi-year agreement will also provide certainty for private-sector partners to help with their future Free File planning," Corbin added. IRS Free File remains open through the Oct. 15 federal tax extension deadline. You can use Free File for 2023 returns with an adjusted gross income of $79,000 or less, which is up from $73,000 in 2022. Fillable Forms are also still available for all income levels.

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In a memo sent to employees, T-Mobile said it will be raising prices on some of its older plans, starting with the next bill. CNET reports: The memo was sent out by Jon Freier, president of T-Mobile's consumer group. The note doesn't list which plans are affected, but Freier specifically says that those on the carrier's latest assortment of Go5G plans will not see their prices increase. The same goes for the "millions of customers" who are covered by T-Mobile's Price Lock guarantee, which he says will continue to be in effect for those people. Freier says in the memo that T-Mobile is raising prices on older plans "for the first time in nearly a decade" and that the increases are designed to "keep up with rising inflation and costs." It isn't known exactly how many people will be affected by the change. The note says that it will affect a "small portion" of T-Mobile's customers. Those with free lines from the carrier will not see increases on those lines, T-Mobile confirmed to CNET. The company expects to notify all affected customers on Wednesday. T-Mobile previously tried to move customers on older, generally cheaper plans to some of its newer, pricier ones last year, only to back off the plan amid backlash. Whereas with that move people had the option to call T-Mobile's support and push back against the change, a source familiar with the company's plans tells CNET that this option won't be available with this new rate hike.

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With JPMorgan and Mastercard piloting biometric payment options, a future where consumers can pay with their face is rapidly approaching. "Our focus on biometrics as a secure way to verify identity, replacing the password with the person, is at the heart of our efforts in this area," said Dennis Gamiello, executive vice president of identity products and innovation at Mastercard. Based on the positive feedback received thus far, Gamiello says the biometric checkout technology will roll out to more new markets later this year. CNBC reports: Biometric payment options are becoming more common. Amazon introduced pay-by-palm technology in 2020, and while its cashier-less store experiment has faltered, it installed the tech in 500 of its Whole Foods stores last year. Mastercard, which is working with PopID, launched a pilot for face-based payments in Brazil back in 2022, and it was deemed a success -- 76% of pilot participants said they would recommend the technology to a friend. Late last year, Mastercard said it was teaming with NEC to bring its Biometric Checkout Program to the Asia-Pacific region. A deal that PopID recently signed with JPMorgan is a sign of things to come in the U.S., said John Miller, PopID CEO, and what he thinks will be a "breakthrough" year for pay-by-face technology. The consumer case is tied to the growing importance of loyalty programs. Most quick-service restaurants require consumers to provide their loyalty information to earn rewards -- which means pulling out a phone, opening an app, finding the link to the loyalty QR code, and then presenting the QR code to the cashier or reader. For payment, consumers are typically choosing between pulling out their wallet, selecting a credit card, and then dipping or tapping the card or pulling out their phone, opening it with Face ID, and then presenting it to the reader. Miller says PopID simplifies this process by requiring just tapping an on-screen button, and then looking briefly at a camera for both loyalty check-in and payment. "We believe our partnership with JPMorgan is a watershed moment for biometric payments as it represents the first time a leading merchant acquirer has agreed to push biometric payments to its merchant customers," Miller said. "JPMorgan brings the kind of credibility and assurance that both merchants and consumers need to adopt biometric payments." Juniper Research forecasts over 100% market growth for global biometric payments between 2024 and 2028, and by 2025, $3 trillion in mobile, biometric-secured payments. Sheldon Jacobson, a professor in computer science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said he sees biometric identification as part of a technology continuum that has evolved from payment with a credit card to smartphones. "The next natural step is to simply use facial recognition," he said.

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Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Following Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund providing significant funding for GNOME, Rust Coreutils, PHP, a systemd bug bounty, and numerous other free software projects, the FFmpeg multimedia library is the latest beneficiary to this funding from the Germany government. The Sovereign Tech Fund notes that the FFmpeg project is receiving 157,580 euros for 2024 and 2025. An announcement on the FFmpeg.org project site notes: "The FFmpeg community is excited to announce that Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund has become its first governmental sponsor. Their support will help sustain the [maintenance] of the FFmpeg project, a critical open-source software multimedia component essential to bringing audio and video to billions around the world everyday."

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Visa is rolling out new technology that will allow the payments giant to share more information about customers' preferences [non-paywalled source] based on their shopping history with retailers as it seeks to remain a top player in the competitive e-commerce space. From a report: The data will be shared via the payments giant's proprietary "tokens," which provide an added layer of security between a consumer's bank information and a merchant. Shopping inclinations and other information based on past transactions -- such as preferred categories, like movies or golf -- will be shared via token with retailers with the consent of consumers. "It's almost entirely blind to almost all consumers," Visa Chief Executive Officer Ryan McInerney said in an interview of the company's token technology. "They just know their payments work better." The sharing of shopping data via token is one of a handful of innovations Visa unveiled at a conference in San Francisco, where it's based. Visa, one of the largest e-commerce technology companies in the world, is finding itself increasingly fending off competitors seeking larger slices of the fees merchants must pay to carry out consumer transactions.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: According to data analyzed by Morgan Stanley and Pitchbook, the number of active venture capital firms worldwide surged from 2014 levels, more than doubling by 2021, before sharply contracting to below 2014 figures in a stunning reversal.

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More than 90% of stablecoin transaction volumes aren't coming from genuine users, according to a new metric co-developed by Visa, suggesting such crypto tokens may be far away from becoming a commonly used means of payment. Bloomberg: The dashboard from Visa and Allium Labs is designed to strip out transactions initiated by bots and large-scale traders to isolate those made by real people. Out of about $2.2 trillion in total transactions in April, just $149 billion originated from "organic payments activity," according to Visa. Visa's finding challenges stablecoin proponents' argument that the tokens, pegged to an asset like the dollar, are poised to revolutionize the $150 trillion payments industry. PayPal and Stripe are among the fintech giants making inroads into stablecoins, with Stripe co-founder John Collison in April citing "technical improvements" for being bullish on the tokens. [...] Visa itself, which handled more than $12 trillion worth of transactions last year, is among companies that could stand to lose out should stablecoins become a generally accepted means of payment.

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Last month Reuters reported that Venezuela's state-run oil company "plans to increase digital currency usage in its crude and fuel exports as the U.S. reimposes oil sanctions on the country, three people familiar with the plan said." [The oil company] since last year had been slowly moving oil sales to USDT, a digital currency also known as Tether whose value is pegged to the U.S. dollar and designed to maintain a stable value. The return of oil sanctions is speeding up the shift, a move to reduce the risk of sale proceeds getting frozen in foreign bank accounts due to the measures, the people said... Tether said in an email it respects the U.S. Treasury's list of sanctioned entities and "is committed to working to ensure sanction addresses are frozen promptly." This week Reuters reported that now experts are saying the situation "will require greater scrutiny by regulators and law enforcement." They spoke to Kristofer Doucett, national security leader at U.S. blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, who said "Structures must be set up to combat this type of money laundering." Reuters writes: Technology for digital transactions is changing fast and transactions are rapidly growing in developing regions including Latin America and Africa benefiting people without access to the banking system. But some corrupt governments are moving faster, making it difficult to prevent fraud, the experts said. Doucette and Sigal Mandelker, a lawyer who previously worked at the U.S. Treasury Department, said during a conference organized by the Wilson Center in Washington that the U.S. administration is making efforts to increase regulation and encourage other countries to improve supervision. Slashdot reader RossCWilliams asks a loaded question. Whether this is "the beginning of the end of unregulated cryptocurrencies... the recognition of cryptocurrency as a national security threat that threatens international financial controls."

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The free tax filing pilot from the IRS that rolled out in 12 states last month saved filers an estimated $5.6 million in tax preparation fees for federal returns, said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. CNBC reports: This season, more than 140,000 taxpayers successfully filed returns using IRS Direct File, a free tax filing pilot from the IRS, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the IRS. Direct File surveyed more than 15,000 users, around 90% of whom rated their experience as "excellent," the agencies reported. "We have not made a decision about the future of Direct File," Werfel said, noting the agency still needs to analyze data and get feedback from a "wide variety of stakeholders." The IRS plans to release a more detailed report about the Direct File pilot "in the coming days," he added. If Direct File were expanded for the next season, the program could add additional states and tax situations, according to a senior IRS official. The agency expects to decide the future of Direct File later this spring, Werfel said.

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Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced new rules for the airline industry that will require airlines to automatically give cash refunds to passengers for canceled and significantly delayed flights. They will also require airlines to give cash refunds if your bags are lost and not delivered within 12 hours. "This is a big day for America's flying public," said Buttigieg at a Wednesday morning news conference. According to Buttigieg, the new rules are the biggest expansion of passenger rights in the department's history. ABC News reports: Airlines can no longer decide how long a delay must be before a refund is issued. Under the new DOT rules, the delays covered would be more than three hours for domestic flights and more than six hours for international flights, the agency said. This includes tickets purchased directly from airlines, travel agents and third-party sites such as Expedia and Travelocity. The refunds must be issued within seven days, according to the new DOT rules, and must be in cash unless the passenger chooses another form of compensation. Airlines can no longer issue refunds in forms of vouchers or credits when consumers are entitled to receive cash. Airlines will have six months to comply with the new rules. The DOT said it is also working on rules related to family seating fees, enhancing rights for wheelchair-traveling passengers for safe and dignified travel and mandating compensation and amenities if flights are delayed or canceled by airlines. Buttigieg said the DOT is also protecting airline passengers from being surprised by hidden fees -- a move he estimates will have Americans billions of dollars every year. The DOT rules include that passengers will receive refunds for extra services paid for and not provided, such as Wi-Fi, seat selection or inflight entertainment.

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CNBC visited a small group of bitcoin miners who "set up shop at the site of an extinct volcano" near Kenya's Hell's Gate National Park. Their mine "consists of a single 500-kilowatt mobile container that, from the outside, looks like a small residential trailer." But what's more interesting is it's operated by a startup called Gridless. (According to its web site Gridless "designs, builds, and operates bitcoin mining sites alongside small-scale renewable energy producers in rural Africa where excess energy is not utilized...") Backed by Jack Dorsey's Block, Gridless electrifies its machines with a mix of solar power and the stranded, wasted energy from a nearby geothermal site. It's one of six mines run by the company in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, powered by a mix of renewable inputs and working toward a broader mission of securing and decentralizing the bitcoin network... In early 2022, [the three Gridless co-founders] began brainstorming creative solutions for the divide between power generation and capacity, and the lack of access to electricity in Africa. They landed on the idea of bitcoin mining, which could potentially solve a big problem for renewable energy developers by taking their stranded power and spreading it to other parts of the continent. In Africa, 43% of the population, or roughly 600 million people, lack access to electricity.... Africa is home to an estimated 10 terawatts of solar capacity, 350 gigawatts of hydro and another 110 gigawatts of wind. Some of this renewable energy is being harnessed already, but a lot isn't because building the specialized infrastructure to capture it is expensive. Even with 60% of the best solar resources globally, Africa only has 1% of installed solar PV capacity. Enter bitcoin miners. Bitcoin gets a bad rap for the amount of energy it consumes, but it can also help unlock these trapped renewable sources of power. Miners are essentially energy buyers, and co-locating with renewables creates a financial incentive to bolster production. "As often happens, you'll have an overage of power during the day or even at night, and there's nobody to soak that power up," said Hersman. He said his company's 50-kilowatt mining container can "take up whatever is extra throughout the day...." Demand from bitcoin miners on these semi-stranded assets is making renewables in Africa economically viable. The power supplier benefits from selling energy that previously had been discarded, while the energy plants will sometimes lower costs for the customer. At one of the Gridless pilot sites in Kenya, the hydro plant dropped the price of power from 35 cents per kilowatt hour to 25 cents per kWh. The buildout of capacity is also electrifying households. Gridless says its sites have powered 1,200 houses in Zambia, 1,800 in Malawi and 5,000 in Kenya. The company's mines also have delivered power for containerized cold storage for local farmers, battery charging stations for electric motorcycles and public WiFi points.

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A software glitch in the "ticket in, cash out" (TICO) machines at Star Casino in Sydney, Australia, saw it inadvertently give away $2.05 million over several weeks. This glitch allowed gamblers to reuse a receipt for slot machine winnings, leading to unwarranted cash payouts which went undetected due to systematic failures in oversight and audit processes. The Register reports: News of the giveaway emerged on Monday at an independent inquiry into the casino, which has had years of compliance troubles that led to a finding that its operators were unsuitable to hold a license. In testimony [PDF] given on Monday to the inquiry, casino manager Nicholas Weeks explained that it is possible to insert two receipts into TICO machines. That was a feature, not a bug, and allowed gamblers to redeem two receipts and be paid the aggregate amount. But a software glitch meant that the machines would return one of those tickets and allow it to be re-used -- the barcode it bore was not recognized as having been paid. "What occurred was small additional amounts of cash were being provided to customers in circumstances when they shouldn't have received it because of that defect," Weeks told the inquiry. Local media reported that news of the free cash got around and 43 people used the TICO machines to withdraw money to which they were not entitled -- at least one of them a recovering gambling addict who fell off the wagon as the "free" money allowed them to fund their activities. Known abusers of the TICO machines have been charged, and one of those set to face the courts is accused of association with a criminal group. (The first inquiry into The Star, two years ago, found it may have been targeted by organized crime groups.)

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