"Images captured from space show the growth of Cuba's electronic eavesdropping stations," reported the Wall Street Journal this week, citing a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. But they added that the stations "are believed to be linked to China," including previously-unreported construction about 70 miles from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. (The Journal had previously reported China and Cuba were "negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, including establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility.") At the time, the Journal reported that Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island, according to U.S. officials, who didn't disclose their locations. It couldn't be determined which, if any, of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report. The concern about the stations, former officials and analysts say, is that China is using Cuba's geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to scoop up sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities, and military and commercial shipping. Chinese facilities on the island "could also bolster China's use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens," said Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University... Authors of the CSIS report, after analyzing years' worth of satellite imagery, found that Cuba has significantly upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and pinpointed four sites — at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay and Calabazar... "These are active locations with an evolving mission set," said Matthew Funaiole, a senior follow at CSIS and the report's chief author. The CSIS web site shows some of the satellite images. "Pinpointing the specific targets of these assets is nearly impossible," they add — but since Cuba has no space program, "the types of space-tracking capabilities observed are likely intended to monitor the activities of other nations (like the United States) with a presence in orbit." While China's own satellites could also benefit from a North America-based groundstation for communications, the Cuban facilities "would also provide the ability to monitor radio traffic and potentially intercept data delivered by U.S. satellites as they pass over highly sensitive military sites across the southern United States." The think tank points out that one possibly-installed system would be within range to monitor rocket launches from Cape Canaveral and NASA's Kennedy Space Center. "Studying these launches — particularly those of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy reusable first-stage booster rocket systems — is likely of keen interest to China as it attempts to catch up to U.S. leadership in space launch technology."

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"For two years, many unprofitable tech startups have cut costs, sold themselves or gone out of business," reports the New York Times. "But the ones focused on artificial intelligence have been thriving." Now, the AI boom that started in late 2022, has become the strongest counterpoint to the broader startup downturn. Investors poured $27.1 billion into AI startups in the United States from April to June, accounting for nearly half of all U.S. startup funding in that period, according to PitchBook, which tracks startups. In total, U.S. startups raised $56 billion, up 57% from a year earlier and the highest three-month haul in two years. AI companies are attracting huge rounds of funding reminiscent of 2021, when low interest rates pushed investors away from taking risks on tech investments... The startup downturn began in early 2022 as many money-losing companies struggled to grow as quickly as they did in the pandemic. Rising interest rates also pushed investors to chase less risky investments. To make up for dwindling funding, startups slashed staff and scaled back their ambitions. Then in late 2022, OpenAI, a San Francisco AI lab, kicked off a new boom with the release of its ChatGPT chatbot. Excitement around generative AI technology, which can produce text, images and videos, set off a frenzy of startup creation and funding. "Sam Altman canceled the recession," joked Siqi Chen, founder of the startup Runway Financial, referring to OpenAI's chief executive. Chen said his company, which makes finance software, was growing faster than it otherwise would have because "AI can do the job of 1.5 people...." An analysis of 125 AI startups by Kruze Consulting, an accounting and tax advisory firm, showed that the companies spent an average of 22% of their expenses on computing costs in the first three months of the year — more than double the 10% spent by non-AI software companies in the same period. "No wonder VCs are throwing money into these companies," said Healy Jones, Kruze's vice president of financial strategy. While AI startups are growing faster than other startups, he said, "they clearly need the money." Startups receiving funding include CoreWeave ($1.1 billion), ScaleAI ($1 billion), and the Elon Musk-founded xAI ($6 billion), according to the article. "For investors who back fast-growing startups, there is little downside to being wrong about the next big thing, but there is enormous upside in being right. AI's potential has generated deafening hype, with prominent investors and executives predicting that the market for AI will be bigger than the markets for the smartphone, the personal computer, social media and the internet."

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General Motors will pay nearly $146 million in penalties to the U.S. government, reports the Associated Press, "because 5.9 million of its older vehicles do not comply with emissions and fuel economy standards." The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement Wednesday that certain GM vehicles from the 2012 through 2018 model years did not comply with federal fuel economy requirements. The penalty comes after the Environmental Protection Agency said its testing showed the GM pickup trucks and SUVs emit over 10% more carbon dioxide on average than GM's initial compliance testing claimed. The EPA says the vehicles will remain on the road and cannot be repaired. The GM vehicles on average consume at least 10% more fuel than the window sticker numbers say, but the company won't be required to reduce the miles per gallon on the stickers, the EPA said... GM said in a statement that it complied with all regulations in pollution and mileage certification of its vehicles. The company said it is not admitting to any wrongdoing nor that it failed to comply with the Clean Air Act... The enforcement action involves about 4.6 million full-size pickups and SUVs and about 1.3 million midsize SUVs, the EPA said. The affected models include the Chevy Tahoe, Cadillac Escalade and Chevy Silverado. About 40 variations of GM vehicles are covered. GM will be forced to give up credits used to ensure that manufacturers' greenhouse gas emissions are below the fleet standard for emissions that applies for that model year, the EPA said. In a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, GM said it expects the total cost to resolve the matter will be $490 million. Because GM agreed to address the excess emissions, EPA said it was not necessary to make a formal determination regarding the reasons for the excess pollution. According to the article, David Cooke, senior vehicles analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, "said it's possible that GM owners could sue the company because they are getting lower gas mileage than advertised." The article also notes that in 2014, Hyundai and Kia "entered into a settlement in which they had to pay a $100 million civil penalty to end a two year investigation into overstated gas mileage on window stickers of 1.2 million vehicles."

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An anonymous reader shared this report from Business Insider: It's a political tale as old as time: put up a campaign poster in your yard, and thieves come to snatch it. But according to The Wall Street Journal, those fed up with front lawn looting are embracing a modern solution. Apple's geo-tracking AirTag devices are helping owners find their signs — and sometimes, even the people who stole them. The practice has already led to charges. In one example cited by the outlet, Florida politician John Dittmore decided to hide the coin-sized gadget on one of his posters after waking up to a number of thefts in May... [Two teenagers were charged with criminal mischief and the theft of nine signs.] In other cited cases, stolen signs don't end up with teens, but in the homes of electoral opponents. After Chris Torre became the victim of poster snatching, AirTags led him to the residence of Renee Rountree, the Journal said. Both were running for a seat on the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors in Virginia. Her son-in-law was charged with a misdemeanor for stealing the property, while Rountree faced a misdemeanor for receiving stolen goods. In a December trial, she noted plans to return the signs. Rountree has since been ordered to 250 hours of community service. "I would like to think that this will have a huge deterrent effect," the trial's judge said in the court's transcript, quoted by WSJ.

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"After approximately seven years in development, the Eclipse Foundation's Theia IDE project is now generally available," writes ADT magazine, "emerging from beta to challenge Microsoft's similar Visual Studio Code (VS Code) editor." The Eclipse Theia IDE is part of the Eclipse Cloud DevTools ecosystem. The Eclipse Foundation calls it "a true open-source alternative to VS Code," which was built on open source but includes proprietary elements, such as default telemetry, which collects usage data... Theia was built on the same Monaco editor that powers VS Code, and it supports the same Language Server Protocol (LSP) and Debug Adapter Protocol (DAP) that provide IntelliSense code completions, error checking and other features. The Theia IDE also supports the same extensions as VS Code (via the Open VSX Registry instead of Microsoft's Visual Studio Code Marketplace), which are typically written in TypeScript and JavaScript. There are many, many more extensions available for VS Code in Microsoft's marketplace, while "Extensions for VS Code Compatible Editors" in the Open VSX Registry number 3,784 at the time of this writing... The Eclipse Foundation emphasized another difference between its Theia IDE and VS Code: the surrounding ecosystem/community. "At the core of Theia IDE is its vibrant open source community hosted by the Eclipse Foundation," the organization said in a news release. "This ensures freedom for commercial use without proprietary constraints and fosters innovation and reliability through contributions from companies such as Ericsson, EclipseSource, STMicroelectronics, TypeFox, and more. The community-driven model encourages participation and adaptation according to user needs and feedback." Indeed, the list of contributors to and adopters of the platform is extensive, also featuring Broadcom, Arm, IBM, Red Hat, SAP, Samsung, Google, Gitpod, Huawei and many others. The It's FOSS blog has some screenshots and a detailed rundown. ADT magazine stresses that there's also an entirely distinct (but related) project called the Eclipse Theia Platform (not IDE) which differs from VS Code by allowing developers "to create desktop and cloud IDEs using a single, open-source technology stack" [that can be used in open-source initiatives]. The Eclipse Theia platform "allows developers to customize every aspect of the IDE without forking or patching the code... fully tailored for the needs of internal company projects or for commercial resale as a branded product."

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La quantité nécessaire de mémoire vive embarquée sur les cartes graphiques est un débat qui n'en finit plus et sur lequel il est difficile de statuer tant les données changent d'un jeu à l'autre. Du côté de NVIDIA, on fait clairement le pari pour le moment de la parcimonie. Au lancement de sa gamme...

L'une des nouveautés mises en avant par la marque ASRock lors du Computex 2024 qui se tenait début juin était l'annonce des ASRock Radeon WS Series. Au programme deux cartes, la ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX WS et la ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XT WS. Leur particularité : faire les yeux doux au monde de l'int...

On vous rassure tout de suite, nous n'allons pas ici vous présenter une rumeur apocalyptique vous faisant croire qu'AMD aurait finalement laissé tomber l'architecture Zen 5 ou autre pour sa future et très attendue nouvelle gamme de Ryzen avec 3D V-Cache en AM5. Rien de toute cela et aucune nouvelle...

Magnifique prix en solde chez LDLC sur un boîtier PC de la célèbre marque HYTE. Alors évidemment il faut commencer par le commencement et déjà la question se pose : ce HYTE Y40 rouge/noir est-il à votre goût ?Si la réponse est clairement "non", eh bien navré pour la petite perte de temps. Mais si vo...

On se répète évidemment, mais pour rappel, si votre compte en banque pour vous monter un nouvelle configuration ne sourit pas trop, que vous avez un budget CPU de l'ordre de 100 à 150 € et visez un processeur aussi performant que possible en jeu et qui ne démérite pas pour autant en usage productif,...

Le souci des packs comme celui que nous vous proposons aujourd'hui en Bon plan est d'être concerné par l'offre. En effet, tout le monde n'est pas à la fois dans le besoin d'un kit de DDR4-3600 et, dans le même temps, d'un SSD SATA 2 To. Mais si par le plus grand des hasards cette situation est la vô...

Non non, ce n'est pas une blague, un jeu de mot ou une quelconque métaphore. Le début de l'histoire remonte à la période de la pandémie du Covid-19. Le gouvernement japonais avait alors été pointé du doigt par son propre peuple pour ses difficultés à gérer la crise et notamment mettre en place des l...

10 caloducs sur un seul ventirad, il fallait oser tout de même ! C'est pourtant bel et bien ce que la société CRYORIG vient de mettre au point et non seulement sur un refroidisseur CPU à double tour, mais également sur une variante à une seule tour !Leurs petits noms : les CRYORIG OE10 et CRYORIG TE...

Voilà le genre d'histoire qui ne fait pas du bien à l'image d'une société et on imagine que ASRock, GIGABYTE et ZOTAC auront tous trois à cœur de rapidement satisfaire la demande qui leur a expressément été faite, afin de montrer leur bonne intention à faire avancer les choses dans le sens de leurs...

Cette semaine, le mardi 2 juillet 2024 pour être précis, sortait The First Descendant, le nouveau FPS propulsé par l'Unreal Engine 5 de NEXON. Un jeu free-to-play qui plus est, donc de très nombreux joueurs étaient là pour tester le bestiau le jour J en se disant qu'ils n'avaient rien à perdre à l'e...

Fin septembre 2023, une perquisition avait lieu dans les locaux français de NVIDIA, sur demande de l'Autorité de la concurrence. Si vous aviez manqué cette information ou souhaitez en savoir les détails, Matthieu vous précisait début octobre les données qui avaient alors fuité. L'ADLC refusait de co...

Vous avez un budget de 100 € pour l'achat de votre SSD NVMe 2 To ? Actuellement, malheureusement, il faut non seulement guetter les promotions , mais de plus accepter le plus souvent de jeter son dévolu sur un modèle d'entrée de gamme PCIe 3.0 et à NAND 3D QLC, moins qualitative et endurante que la...

In 1994, college student Jim Hall created FreeDOS (in response to Microsoft's plan to gradually phase out MS-DOS). After celebrating its 30th anniversary last week, Hill wrote a new article Saturday for OpenSource.net: "What I've learned about Open Source community over 30 years." Lessons include "every Open Source project needs a website," but also "consider other ways to raise awareness about your Open Source software project." ("In the FreeDOS Project, we've found that posting videos to our YouTube channel is an excellent way to help people learn about FreeDOS... The more information you can share about your Open Source project, the more people will find it familiar and want to try it out.") But the larger lesson is that "Open Source projects must be grounded in community." Without open doors for new ideas and ongoing development, even the most well-intentioned project becomes a stagnant echo chamber... Maintain open lines of communication... This can take many forms, including an email list, discussion board, or some other discussion forum. Other forums where people can ask more general "Help me" questions are okay but try to keep all discussions about project development on your official discussion channel. The last of its seven points stresses that "An Open Source project isn't really Open Source without source code that everyone can download, study, use, modify and share" (urging careful selection for your project's licensing). But the first point emphasizes that "It's more than just code," and Hall ends his article by attributing FreeDOS's three-decade run to "the great developers and users in our community." In celebrating FreeDOS, we are celebrating everyone who has created programs, fixed bugs, added features, translated messages, written documentation, shared articles, or contributed in some other way to the FreeDOS Project... Here's looking forward to more years to come! Jim Hall is also Slashdot reader #2,985, and back in 2000 he answered questions from Slashdot's readers — just six years after starting the project. "Jim isn't rich or famous," wrote RobLimo, "just an old-fashioned open source contributor who helped start a humble but useful project back in 1994 and still works on it as much as he can." As the years piled up, Slashdot ran posts celebrating FreeDOS's 10th, 15th, and 20th anniversary. And then for FreeDOS's 25th, Hall returned to Slashdot to answer more questions from Slashdot readers...

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Ce n'est certes pas la NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER la plus séduisante du marché, son refroidisseur basique à deux ventilateurs ne faisant pas de miracles notamment au niveau des nuisances sonores. Cependant, cette Gainward GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Ghost en promotion chez Top Achat est de loin la moi...