Cruise, the autonomous vehicle unit from General Motors, named Amazon and Microsoft executive Marc Whitten as its new CEO, replacing former CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt. CNBC reports: Whitten was a founding engineer at Microsoft's Xbox before leaving the company after more than 17 years to become chief product officer of audio company Sonos in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile. He then worked at Amazon as vice president of entertainment devices and services before his most recent role as chief product and technology officer for software development company Unity's Create. His appointment comes at a crucial time for Cruise, which is testing and relaunching its autonomous vehicles on public roadways. It ceased operations weeks after an Oct. 2 accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi. A third-party probe into the October incident ordered by GM and Cruise found that culture issues, ineptitude and poor leadership fueled regulatory oversights that led to the accident. The probe also investigated allegations of a cover-up by Cruise leadership, but investigators did not find evidence to support those claims. During that time, San Francisco-based Cruise was attempting to expand its operations into a revenue-generating business for GM, which has been a majority owner of the company since acquiring it in 2016. Other investors now include Honda Motor, Microsoft, T. Rowe Price, and Walmart. As of this month, Cruise has resumed supervised driving in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, in addition to its ongoing testing in Dubai. It has not relaunched in San Francisco, where it remains under investigation related to the accident.

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Volkswagen today announced it will invest up to $5 billion in U.S. electric-vehicle maker Rivian as part of a new, equally controlled joint venture to share EV architecture and software. Shares surged 40% in extended Nasdaq trading after the announcement. Reuters reports: The investment will provide Rivian - known for its flagship R1S SUVs and R1T pickups - the funding it needs to develop its less-expensive and smaller R2 SUVs that are set to roll out in 2026, CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters. Volkswagen will initially invest $1 billion in Rivian and a further $4 billion in investments later, the companies said. The partnership will help Volkswagen accelerate its plans to develop software-defined vehicles (SDV), with Rivian licensing its existing intellectual property rights to the joint venture.

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ChatGPT developer OpenAI has sent out emails to users based in countries it considers "unsupported," saying it will block their access for good starting July 9. From a report: The email, reproduced on the OpenAI community forum here, includes a brief statement. "Our data shows that your organization has API traffic from a region that OpenAI does not currently support," it reads. "We will be taking additional measures to block API traffic from regions that are not on our supported countries and territories list starting on July 9." "To continue using OpenAI's services, you will need to access the service in a supported region," it concludes. Much of the world has access to OpenAI including virtually the entire West, most of Eastern Europe, South Asia, and about half of Africa. However, there are some notable absences on the list such as Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and mainland China.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Slack announced a significant change to its platform, saying it will "begin deleting messages and files more than one year old from free workspaces on a rolling basis." Slack's prior policy involved keeping messages and files for the lifetime of a free workspace, although accessing that full history required switching to a paid account. Under the new policy, Slack reserves the right to delete content from free workspaces after one year.

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Google is switching back to pagination for its search results, abandoning the continuous scroll feature introduced in 2022 for desktop and 2021 for mobile. The change, effective immediately for desktop users, aims to improve search result loading speeds, Google said, adding that infinite scrolling did not significantly enhance user satisfaction. Mobile users will see the change in coming months.

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Federal regulators have given Amazon key permission that will allow it to expand its drone delivery program, the company announced Thursday. From a report: In a blog post published on its website, Seattle-based Amazon said that the Federal Aviation Administration has given its Prime Air delivery service the OK to operate drones "beyond visual line of sight," removing a barrier that has prevented its drones from traveling longer distances. With the approval, Amazon pilots can now operate drones remotely without seeing it with their own eyes. An FAA spokesperson said the approval applies to College Station, Texas, where the company launched drone deliveries in late 2022. Amazon said its planning to immediately scale its operations in that city in an effort to reach customers in more densely populated areas. It says the approval from regulators also "lays the foundation" to scale its operations to more locations around the country. Businesses have wanted simpler rules that could open neighborhood skies to new commercial applications of drones, but privacy advocates and some airplane and balloon pilots remain wary.

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China brought a capsule full of lunar soil [non-paywalled link] from the far side of the moon down to Earth on Tuesday, achieving the latest success in an ambitious schedule to explore the moon and other parts of the solar system. From a report: The sample, retrieved by the China National Space Administration's Chang'e-6 lander after a 53-day mission, highlights China's growing capabilities in space and notches another win in a series of lunar missions that started in 2007 and have so far been executed almost without flaw. "Chang'e-6 is the first mission in human history to return samples from the far side of the moon," Long Xiao, a planetary geologist at China University of Geosciences, wrote in an email. "This is a major event for scientists worldwide," he added, and "a cause for celebration for all humanity." Such sentiments and the prospects of international lunar sample exchanges highlighted the hope that China's robotic missions to the moon and Mars will serve to advance scientific understanding of the solar system. Those possibilities are contrasted by views in Washington and elsewhere that Tuesday's achievement is the latest milestone in a 21st-century space race with geopolitical overtones. In February, a privately operated American spacecraft landed on the moon. NASA is also pursuing the Artemis campaign to return Americans to the lunar surface, although its next mission, a flight by astronauts around the moon, has been delayed because of technical issues. China, too, is looking to expand its presence on the moon, landing more robots there, and eventually human astronauts, in the years to come.

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India is set to embark on an ambitious $168 billion project to link its major rivers, aiming to address water scarcity and boost agriculture in the world's most populous nation. The National River Linking Project, conceived over a century ago, plans to construct 30 canals to transfer an estimated 7 trillion cubic feet of water annually across the country. While government officials tout the project's potential to irrigate farmland and generate hydroelectric power, scientists and environmental experts have raised concerns about its ecological impact. Recent research suggests the project could disrupt monsoon patterns, potentially exacerbating water stress in some regions.

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Birth rates in the world's rich economies have more than halved since 1960 to hit a record low, according to a study that urged countries to prepare for a "lower fertility future." From a report: The average number of children per woman across the 38 most industrialised countries has fallen from 3.3 in 1960 to 1.5 in 2022, according to a study by the OECD published on Thursday. The fertility rate is now well below the "replacement level" of 2.1 children per woman -- at which a country's population is considered to be stable without immigration -- in all the group's member countries except for Israel. "This decline will change the face of societies, communities and families and potentially have large effects on economic growth and prosperity," warned the Paris-based organisation. Faltering population growth acts as a drag on economic expansion. Across the EU, the rise in overall labour force participation will soon not be enough to compensate for its falling working-age population, exacerbating labour shortages, according to the IMF and European Commission's 2024 ageing report. Coupled with rising life expectancy, low births also put pressure on public finances as they leave fewer people contributing the tax revenues needed to pay for the rising costs of an ageing population. A lack of pupils is also driving an increase in school closures across Europe, Japan and South Korea.

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Boozt, an online Nordic department store, has banned thousands of customers for returning an excessive number of purchased items. From a report: The retailer has blocked about 60,000 of a total 3.5 million customers, in a bid to reduce the significant costs associated with "serial returners," the company said in a statement. "Their behavior is too expensive for both the company and the environment," it added. Returns are costly for retailers both in lost revenue and in the cost of trying to turn around an item to be sold again. In some instances items returned aren't fit to be sold again, leading to waste.

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Engineers at consulting firm Igalia are exploring NUMA emulation for ARM64 (AArch64) due to the potential of "significant" performance uplift as observed on the popular Raspberry Pi 5 single board computer...

Oups

Microsoft a reconnu, auprès de l’autorité de la police écossaise, qu’elle ne pouvait pas garantir la souveraineté des données hébergées dans son infrastructure Azure. L’information fait écho aux inquiétudes en France sur la Plateforme de données de santé (HDH). Pour le député Philippe Latombe, c’est la preuve que les données sensibles ne peuvent pas être confiées à Microsoft.

Avec le cloud, on le sait, les données voyagent. Les règles souples qui gouvernent la plupart des « hyperscalers » raisonnent en termes d’efficacité et de rapidité de traitement, avant toute autre considération. Quand la sensibilité et la souveraineté des données deviennent des paramètres prépondérants, les ennuis commencent.

Au Royaume-Uni, la partie 3 de la Data Protection Act (DPA) de 2018 pose que pour les entreprises traitant des données très sensibles et pour les administrations, les informations ne doivent pas sortir des frontières du pays. Si elles sont placées sur des serveurs, ces derniers doivent se trouver sur le sol britannique. C’est notamment le cas pour la police.

Or, selon des documents partiellement révélés, Microsoft ne peut garantir la souveraineté des données de police stockées dans Azure. Explications.

Les données ne tiennent pas en place

Le H7 de NZXT est donc de retour à la Ferme du Hardware avec une nouvelle version Flow. Ce nouveau boitier, qui est compatible ATX et E-ATX, exploite un nouveau châssis et se veut respirant. Doté de base de trois ventilateurs de 120 mm classiques ou RGB, ce nouveau fleuron de la marque veut offrir une vue imprenable sur vos composants, sans perdre en efficacité. Disponible à partir de 139.90 euros, en noir ou en blanc, ce nouveau modèle orienté grand tour saura-t-il s'imposer ?

NZXT lève le voile ce jour sur son nouveau boitier PC, le H7 Flow en édition 2024. Un boitier Dual-Chamber, qui se veut Airflow et qui est livré de base avec trois ventilateurs de 120 mm. Doté d'un panneau en verre trempé, de l'USB Type-C et d'un câble management poussé, ce dernier est-il intéressant ? Réponse ici même : Test boitier NZXT H7 Flow 2024 ou sur la source. […]

Lire la suite

Nous vous proposons de découvrir aujourd'hui, le nouveau boitier H7 Flow de NZXT, dans sa version 2024. Un boitier Airflow ATX/E-ATX, qui est livré avec un panneau en verre trempé à gauche et trois ventilateurs de 120 mm. Ce dernier est de type Dual-Chamber, il sera disponible en noir ou blanc et en version classique ou RGB. Son tarif, pour la version de base, est de 139.90 euros. En partenariat avec GVGMALL : Windows 10 Pro (13U+20AC) : https://biitt.ly/c8V0M Windows 11 Pro (19U+20AC) : https://biitt.ly/7ctfn […]

Lire la suite

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the weekend, a clip from a recent interview with Telegram's founder Pavel Durov went semi-viral on X (previously Twitter). In the video, Durov tells right-wing personality Tucker Carlson that he is the only product manager at the company, and that he only employs "about 30 engineers." Security experts say that while Durov was bragging about his Dubai-based company being "super efficient," what he said was actually a red flag for users. "Without end-to-end encryption, huge numbers of vulnerable targets, and servers located in the UAE? Seems like that would be a security nightmare," Matthew Green, a cryptography expert at Johns Hopkins University, told TechCrunch. (Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn disputed this, saying it has no data centers in the UAE.) Green was referring to the fact that -- by default -- chats on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted like they are on Signal or WhatsApp. A Telegram user has to start a "Secret Chat" to switch on end-to-end encryption, making the messages unreadable to Telegram or anyone other than the intended recipient. Also, over the years, many people have cast doubt over the quality of Telegram's encryption, given that the company uses its own proprietary encryption algorithm, created by Durov's brother, as he said in an extended version of the Carlson interview. Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a longtime expert in the security of at-risk users, said that it's important to remember that Telegram, unlike Signal, is a lot more than just a messaging app.

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Double chambre à l'honneur NZXT maintient son rythme de renouvellement tous les 24 mois environ, et nous propose cette fois une évolution du H7 Flow (2022). Si le nom reste identique (sic), la structure change fondamentalement puisqu'on a désormais affaire à un boitier double chambre, ce qui donne la possibilité d'ajouter un flux d'air vertical... [Tout lire]

Tais-toi que je t’écoute

Il existe un règlement international sur les émissions d’ondes afin de garder certaines bandes de fréquences « vierges » et ainsi pouvoir écouter les signaux venant de la terre et des confins de l’espace. Cela permet à la fois de comprendre l’univers, mais aussi de prévoir des événements climatiques comme des tempêtes tropicales. Les intérêts scientifiques côtoient les intérêts financiers de grandes sociétés et ceux d’autres pays.

Le règlement des radiocommunications (RR) définit certaines bandes dites passives, c’est-à-dire dans lesquelles aucun service actif n’est autorisé. De plus, les services actifs sur les bandes adjacentes doivent se conformer à certains niveaux de puissance afin de limiter la « pollution » lors des mesures. Les émissions à mesurer sont en effet « extrêmement fiables ».

Tout cela est défini dans la résolution 750 de l’ITU (Union internationale des télécommunications), intitulée : « compatibilité entre le service d’exploration de la Terre par satellite (passive) et les services actifs concernés ».

Il existe également des bandes dites partagées, à l’intérieur desquelles les services actifs ne doivent pas dépasser certaines valeurs en émission. La résolution 751 définit les critères de partage dans la bande 10,6 à 10,68 GHz, tandis que la 752 fait de même pour la 36 à 37 GHz.

C’est « assez compliquées de les protéger, mais on peut y arriver », explique Thibault Caillet (expert en ingénierie du spectre à l’ANFR) lors du 9e atelier des fréquences – Les fréquences pour la science : l’Odyssée de l’espace –, de l’Agence nationale des fréquences.

Il y a enfin une troisième catégorie de bandes avec une attribution « reconnue », indiquant simplement que certaines « observations sont déclarées dans ces bandes », mais sans qu’aucune protection réelle ne soit mise en place.

L’importance des mesures des raies spectrales

Je danse le IA

Udio et Suno, deux startups d’IA générative spécialisées dans la musique font face à des plaintes de l’industrie musicale : l’association américaine des maisons de disque RIAA ainsi que Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment et Warner Records les ont attaqués pour violation de copyright « en masse » et demandent 150 000 dollars par titre.

Deux startups Udio et Suno se sont lancées dans l’IA générative de musique avec un certain succès. Suno peut, par exemple, générer une chanson à partir d’un prompt avec un style de musique demandé et des paroles. Elle peut aussi générer elle-même des paroles en utilisant l’API d’OpenAI. Elles ont toutes les deux levé plusieurs millions de dollars et la valeur de Suno est évaluée à près de 500 millions de dollars.

Jusque-là, d’autres avaient déjà sorti des applications, mais elles ne donnaient pas de résultat probant. Comme l’explique le Youtubeur Florent Garcia, « la plupart des outils […] n’étaient pas capables de faire des morceaux qui avaient une tonalité cohérente, une signature rythmique cohérente, des parties rythmiques qui auraient du sens ». Mais, ces deux applications se rapprochent de sons publiés par des majors de l’édition numérique.

Génération de morceaux très proches d’originaux