This week the Linux Foundation announced a new organization for decentralized systems and technologies, with an aim of "fostering innovation and collaboration" in both their development and deployment. It will build on existing Linux Foundation blockchain and digital identity projects, according to the announcement, while supporting "a rapidly growing decentralized technology landscape." To foster this broader ecosystem, LF Decentralized Trust will encompass the growing portfolio of Hyperledger projects and host new open source software, communities, standards, and specifications that are critical to the macro shift toward decentralized systems of distributed trust.... LF Decentralized Trust's expanded project and member ecosystem will be both essential to emerging tokenized assets classes and networks, as well as to modernizing the core infrastructure for finance, trade, government, healthcare, and more. LF Decentralized Trust will serve as a neutral home for the open development of a broad range of ledger, identity, security, interoperability, scale, implementation, and related technologies... LF Decentralized Trust will also include new directed funding models that will drive strategic investments by members into individual projects and project resources. "With LF Decentralized Trust, we're expanding our commitment to open source innovation by embracing a wider array of decentralized technologies," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. "This new, elevated foundation will enable the community to build a more robust ecosystem that drives forward transparency, security, and efficiency in global infrastructure." "After eight years of advancing the development of blockchain, decentralized identity and related technologies via the Hyperledger community, the time has come to broaden our effort and impact," said Daniela Barbosa, General Manager, Blockchain and Identity, the Linux Foundation. "Ledgers and ledger technologies are but one component of the decentralized systems that will underpin a digital-first global economy. LF Decentralized Trust is where we will gather and grow an expanded community and portfolio of technologies to deliver the transparency, reliability, security and efficiency needed to successfully upgrade critical systems around the world." The announcement includes quotes of support from numerous companies including Oracle, Siemens, Visa, Accenture, Citi, and Hitachi. Some highlights: "The formation of the LF Decentralized Trust reflects the growing demand for open source resources that are critical to the management and functionality of decentralized systems." — CEO of Digital Asset "The adoption of decentralized infrastructure is at an inflection point, reflecting the increasing demand from both enterprises and consumers for more secure and transparent digital transactions. As the industry leader for onchain data, blockchain abstraction, and interoperability, we're excited to see the formation of the LF Decentralized Trust and to expand our collaboration with leading financial institutions on advancing tokenized assets and the onchain economy at large." — CMO at Chainlink Labs. "As a founding member of the Hyperledger Foundation, and given our unique position in the financial markets, we recognize the vast potential for open-source innovation and decentralized technologies when it comes to reducing risk, increasing resiliency and improving security. The expansion of Hyperledger Foundation into LF Decentralized Trust represents an exciting opportunity to continue expanding these groundbreaking technologies." — a managing director at DTCC

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In November of 2022, "More than 800 people were selected to participate in the Denver Basic Income Project," reports the Colorado Sun, "while they were living on the streets, in shelters, on friends' couches or in vehicles. One group received $1,000 a month, according to the article, while a second group received $6,500 in the first month, and then $500 for the next 11 months. (And a "control" group received $50 a month.) Amazingly, about 45% of participants in all three groups "were living in a house or apartment that they rented or owned by the study's 10-month check-in point, according to the research." The number of nights spent in shelters among participants in the first and second groups decreased by half. And participants in those two groups reported an increase in full-time work, while the control group reported decreased full-time employment. The project also saved tax dollars, according to the report. Researchers tallied an estimated $589,214 in savings on public services, including ambulance rides, visits to hospital emergency departments, jail stays and shelter nights... The study, which began in November 2022 with payments to the first group of participants, has been extended for an additional eight months, until September, and organizers are attempting to raise money to extend it further.

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Tom's Hardware reports that Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (working with the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies and Nokia Bell) set a 402 terabits per second data transfer record — over commercially available optical fiber cables. The NICT and its partners were able to transmit signals through 1,505 channels over 50 km (about 31 miles) of optic fiber cable for this experiment. It used six types of amplifiers and an optical gain equalizer that taps into the unused 37 THz bandwidth to enable the 402 Tb/s transfer speed. One of the amplifiers this was demonstrated with is a thulium-based doped fiber amplifier, which uses C-band or C+L band systems. Additionally, semiconductor optical amplifiers and Raman amplifiers were used, which achieved 256 Tb/s data rate through almost 20 THz. Other amplifiers were also used for this exercise which provided a cumulative bandwidth of 25 THz for up to 119 Tb/s data rate. As a result, its maximum achievable result surpassed the previous data rate capacity by over 25 percent and increased transmission bandwidth by 35 percent. "This is achievable with currently available technology used by internet service providers..." the article points out. "With 'beyond 5G' potential speeds achievable through commercially available cables, it will likely further a new generation of internet services."

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SK hynix early in Friday announced that the company has finished the development of it's PCB01 PCIe Gen5 SSD, the company's forthcoming high-end SSD for OEMs. Based on the company's new Alistar platform, the PCB01 is designed to deliver chart-topping performance for client machines. And, as a sign of the times, SK hynix is positioning the PCB01 for AI PCs, looking to synergize with the overall industry interest in anything and everything AI.

The bare, OEM-focused drives have previously been shown off by SK hynix, and make no attempt to hide what's under the hood. The PCB01 relies on SK hynix's Alistar controller, which features a PCIe Gen5 x4 host interface on the front end and eight NAND channels on the back end, placing it solidly in the realm of high-end SSDs. Paired with the Alistar controller is the company's latest 238-layer TLC NAND (H25T1TD48C & H25T2TD88C), which offers a maximum transfer speed of 2400 MT/second. Being that this is a high-end client SSD, there's also a DRAM chip on board, though the company isn't disclosing its capacity.

As with other high-end PCIe 5.0 client SSDs, SK hynix is planning on hitting peak read speeds of up to 14GB/second on the drive, while peak sequential write speeds should top 12GB/second (with pSLC caching, of course) – performance figures well within the realm of possibility for an 8 channel drive. As for random performance, at Computex the company was telling attendees that the drives should be able to sustain 4K random read and write rates of 2 million IOPS, which is very high as well. The SSDs are also said to consume up to 30% less power than 'predecessors,' according to SK hynix, though the company didn't elaborate on that figure. Typically in the storage industry, energy figures are based on iso-performance (rather than peak performance) – essentially measuring energy efficiency per bit rather than toal power consumption – and that is likely the case here as well.

At least initially, SK Hynix plans to release its PCB01 in three capacities – 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. The company has previously disclosed that their 238L TLC NAND has a capacity of 512Gbit, so these are typical capacity figures for single-sided drives. And while the focus of the company's press release this week was on OEM drives, this is the same controller and NAND that is also going into the company's previously-teased retail Platinum P51 SSD, so this week's reveal offers a bit more detail into what to expect from that drive family as well.

Specs aside, Ahn Hyun, the Head of the N-S Committee at SK hynix, said that multiple global CPU providers for on-device AI PCs are seeking collaboration for the compatibility validation process, which is underway, so expect PCB01 drives inside PCs in this back-to-school and holiday seasons.

"We will work towards enhancing our leadership as the global top AI memory provider also in the NAND solution space by successfully completing the customer validation and mass production of PCB01, which will be in the limelight," Ahn Hyun said.

"Stars very close to the center of our galaxy could be fueled by dark matter in perpetuity," writes Gizmodo, "according to a team of astronomers who recently studied the distant light sources." The group of stars, known as S-cluster stars, is just three light-years from the center of the Milky Way (for reference, we are about 26,000 light-years from the center of our galaxy, which hosts a supermassive black hole at its core). The stars are surprisingly young for their galactic neighborhood, yet they don't look like stars that simply migrated to this part of the Milky Way after forming in another location... As reported by Space.com, the research team posits that these weird stars may be accreting dark matter, which they then use as fuel to keep burning. Since models estimate there is plenty of dark matter near the galaxy's core, the stars are "forever young," as study lead author Isabelle John, an astrophysicist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology told Space.com. Effectively, the stars have a long, long way to go before they start running low on fuel. The team's paper is currently hosted on the preprint server arXiv, meaning it has not yet gone through the process of peer review. Dark matter is only "seen" through its effects on other objects, the article points out — leading to lots of theories as to where it's actually located. "Earlier this year, a different team of researchers proposed that neutron stars — extremely dense stellar remnants — could actually be a source of dark matter. Last July, yet another team suggested that the Webb Telescope had detected stars that were powered by dark matter."

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Le processeur Intel Core i3-12100F est à son prix le plus bas vu en France : 77,01 € et avec la livraison offerte par Amazon. Alors oui, avec ses 4 cœurs uniquement (4 P-cores et 0 E-cores) il ne fait pas forcément rêver mais, si vous avez un tout petit budget et viser avant tout un usage gaming pou...

Que ce soit pour une dernière mise à jour de votre configuration AM4 actuelle, ou tout simplement parce que c'est ce qui colle le mieux à votre budget, voici une très belle offre sur l'un des processeurs les plus performant que cette plateforme d'AMD propose : le Ryzen 9 5900X. Il vous est possible...

Lian Li a introduit 3 nouvelles références de watercooling AIO pour refroidir votre CPU à l’eau. Elles sont toutes basées sur un radiateur de 360 mm complétés de ventilateurs de 120 mm et compatibles L-Connect, mais il y a des différences au niveau de l’épaisseur, des ventilateurs fournis et des per...

Bon, cette semaine, comme toutes les semaines, ce n'est pas le panard. Chez AMD une seule et unique baisse, sur la RX 7700 XT qui baisse de 5 euros et qui passe donc de 419.90 euros à 414.90 euros... Waaaooouuhh. Attention, nous avons une baisse chez Intel, ce qui est rare. C'est la A770 qui passe de 363.90 euros à 329.90 euros, une baisse de 34 euros tout de même ce qui n'est pas rien. […]

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Plutôt une grosse semaine pour les vidéos, avec pas moins de 4 productions. Nous avons commencé par vous présenter l'écran PHILIPS Evnia 42M2N8900, un énorme 42 pouces avec une dalle OLED. Ensuite, nous avons passé un peu de temps avec le boitier NZXT H7 FLOW dans sa version 2024. Après, il a été question de watercooling AIO ASUS avec les ROG Strix LC III. […]

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For the Branch History Injection variant of Spectre (Spectre BHI) there is a patch pending to add a new mitigation option for that two year old CPU security vulnerability...

Petit aparté au hardware — Vous vous êtes peut être réveillé ce matin avec votre machine a café connectée en carafe, votre frigo incapable de vous signaler que vous êtes en panne de beurre de baratte et surtout de Get 27 au congélo — chacun ses problèmes, hein —, votre PS5 en PLS, votre système Philips HUE ne répond plus aux ordres d'allumage, ou encore votre navigateur vous signalant que vos DNS sont à la rue. Si ce n'est pas le cas, c'est que vous n'utilisez pas de services DNS tiers ou que si vous en utilisez, OpenDNS ne fait pas partie du lot... [Tout lire]

ou je tue le chien

Si vous étiez passé à côté de la nouvelle : la voici.

Je vous laisse, j’ai rendez-vous chez le barbier.

Bon weekend à tous !

Cette chronique est financée grâce au soutien de nos abonnés. Vous pouvez retrouver comme toutes les précédentes publications de Flock dans nos colonnes.

The Open-Source Firmware Foundation is out with an interesting blog post by Google firmware engineer Subrata Banik around adapting the Coreboot-based Chrome AP Firmware for 64-bit booting. The transition to 64-bit booting is happening for the system firmware powering Chromebooks and other Chrome devices and is driven in part for Intel Panther Lake generation hardware...

This Week in GNOME is out with the latest summary to highlight all of the interesting changes this week...

Vous aviez complètement oublié que ce titre avait existé à une époque lointaine ? Personne ne vous en voudra. D’une part, il était sorti il y a déjà 22 ans et à cette époque, uniquement sur PlayStation 2 et GameCube. D’autre part, malgré certains aspects positifs tels que le gameplay et le level des...

Ces derniers jours ont été intenses pour le programme Windows Insider, qui a levé le voile sur une nouvelle build dans chacun de ses quatre canaux. Après avoir détaillé en pratique toutes les nouveautés attendues pour la grosse mise à jour 24H2 prévue pour octobre prochain, attardons-nous sur tous les micro-changements apportés par ces pré-versions. De la synchronisation avec votre smartphone à la réorganisation du menu Démarrer en passant par la sauvegarde automatique de vos captures vidéo, ils ont tous pour point commun de hisser d'un cran l'ergonomie du système. Rien de sensationnel à la clé, mais plusieurs détails et des optimisations qui pourraient vous simplifier la vie au quotidien. Pour rappel, ces nouveautés ne sont pas toutes susceptibles d'être poussées vers la version “release” ; elles sont avant tout conçues pour être testées par les utilisateurs ayant (gratuitement) adhéré au programme, mais certaines d'entre elles pourraient être diffusées à travers un nouveau “Moment” précédent la mise à jour majeure. Si vous souhaitez les essayer à votre tour, authentifiez-vous sur ce lien avec votre compte Microsoft. Et rendez-vous ensuite sur la page des téléchargements pour récupérer leur ISO complète, à déployer de préférence sur une machine virtuelle. […]

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Peter Scarfe, a researcher at the University of Reading's School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, conducted an experiment testing the vulnerability of their examination system to AI-generated work. Using ChatGPT-4, Scarfe's team submitted over 30 AI-generated answers across multiple undergraduate psychology modules, finding that 94 percent of these submissions went undetected and nearly 84 percent received higher grades than human counterparts. The findings have been published in the journal PLOS One. Ars Technica reports: Scarfe's team submitted AI-generated work in five undergraduate modules, covering classes needed during all three years of study for a bachelor's degree in psychology. The assignments were either 200-word answers to short questions or more elaborate essays, roughly 1,500 words long. "The markers of the exams didn't know about the experiment. In a way, participants in the study didn't know they were participating in the study, but we've got necessary permissions to go ahead with that," Scarfe claims. Shorter submissions were prepared simply by copy-pasting the examination questions into ChatGPT-4 along with a prompt to keep the answer under 160 words. The essays were solicited the same way, but the required word count was increased to 2,000. Setting the limits this way, Scarfe's team could get ChatGPT-4 to produce content close enough to the required length. "The idea was to submit those answers without any editing at all, apart from the essays, where we applied minimal formatting," says Scarfe. Overall, Scarfe and his colleagues slipped 63 AI-generated submissions into the examination system. Even with no editing or efforts to hide the AI usage, 94 percent of those went undetected, and nearly 84 percent got better grades (roughly half a grade better) than a randomly selected group of students who took the same exam. "We did a series of debriefing meetings with people marking those exams and they were quite surprised," says Scarfe. Part of the reason they were surprised was that most of those AI submissions that were detected did not end up flagged because they were too repetitive or robotic -- they got flagged because they were too good. Out of five modules where Scarfe's team submitted AI work, there was one where it did not receive better grades than human students: the final module taken by students just before they left the university. "Large language models can emulate human critical thinking, analysis, and integration of knowledge drawn from different sources to a limited extent. In their last year at the university, students are expected to provide deeper insights and use more elaborate analytical skills. The AI isn't very good at that, which is why students fared better," Scarfe explained. All those good grades Chat GPT-4 got were in the first- and second-year exams, where the questions were easier. "But the AI is constantly improving, so it's likely going to score better in those advanced assignments in the future. And since AI is becoming part of our lives and we don't really have the means to detect AI cheating, at some point we are going to have to integrate it into our education system," argues Scarfe. He said the role of a modern university is to prepare the students for their professional careers, and the reality is they are going to use various AI tools after graduation. So, they'd be better off knowing how to do it properly.

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Niri 0.1.7 is out today as the latest version of this scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. While the version number may not signify it, Niri 0.1.7 is quite a notable feature update...