A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses Amazon of secretly tracking consumers' movements through their cellphones via its Amazon Ads SDK embedded in third-party apps, allegedly collecting sensitive geolocation data without consent. The complaint, filed by a California resident in a San Francisco federal court, claims Amazon violated state laws on unauthorized computer access in the process. Reuters reports: This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers live, work, shop and visit, revealing sensitive information such as religious affiliations, sexual orientations and health concerns. "Amazon has effectively fingerprinted consumers and has correlated a vast amount of personal information about them entirely without consumers' knowledge and consent," the complaint said. The complaint was filed by Felix Kolotinsky of San Mateo, California, who said Amazon collected his personal information through the "Speedtest by Ookla" app on his phone. He said Amazon's conduct violated California's penal law and a state law against unauthorized computer access, and seeks unspecified damages for millions of Californians.

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Longtime Slashdot reader nunya_bizns shares a report from Reuters: The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $14 billion deal to acquire networking gear maker Juniper Networks, arguing that it would stifle competition, according to a complaint filed on Thursday. The DOJ argued that the acquisition would eliminate competition and would lead to only two companies -- Cisco Systems and HPE -- controlling more than 70% of the U.S. market for networking equipment. More than a year ago, the server maker said that it would buy Juniper Networks for $14 billion in an all-cash deal, as it looks to spruce up its artificial intelligence offerings. "Juniper has also introduced innovative tools that have materially decreased the cost of operating a wireless network for many customers. This competitive pressure has forced HPE to discount its offerings and invest in its own innovation," the DOJ said in its complaint. Stiff competition from Juniper forced HPE to sell its products at a discount and spend to introduce new features under the "Beat Mist" campaign, named after the networking gear company's rival product, the DOJ wrote. "Having failed to beat Mist on the merits, HPE changed tactics and in January 2024 opted to try to buy Juniper instead," the agency added.

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The Register's Dan Robinson reports: Google promised a decade of updates for its Chromebooks in 2023 to stop them being binned so soon after purchase, but many are still set to reach the end of the road sooner than later. The appliance-like laptop devices were introduced by megacorp in 2011, running its Linux-based ChromeOS platform. They have been produced by a number of hardware vendors and proven popular with buyers such as students, thanks to their relatively low pricing. The initial devices were designed for a three-year lifespan, or at least this was the length of time Google was prepared to issue automatic updates to add new features and security fixes for the onboard software. Google has extended this Auto Update Expiration (AUE) date over the years, prompted by irate users who purchased a Chromebook only to find that it had just a year or two of software updates left if that particular model had been on the market for a while. The latest extension came in September 2023, when the company promised ten years of automatic updates, following pressure from the US-based Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The advocacy organization had recommended this move in its Chromebook Churn report, which criticized the devices as not being designed to last. PIRG celebrated its success at the time, claiming that Google's decision to extend support would "save millions of dollars and prevent tons of e-waste from being disposed of." But Google's move actually meant that only Chromebooks released from 2021 onward would automatically get ten years of updates, starting in 2024. For a subset of older devices, an administrator (or someone with admin privileges) can opt in to enable extended updates and receive the full ten years of support, a spokesperson for the company told us. This, according to PIRG, still leaves many models set to reach end of life this year, or over the next several years. "According to my research, at least 15 Chromebook models have already expired across most of the top manufacturers (Google, Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Asus, and Lenovo). Models released before 2021 don't have the guaranteed ten years of updates, so more devices will continue to expire each year," Stephanie Markowitz, a Designed to Last Campaign Associate at PIRG, told The Register. "In general, end-of-support dates for consumer tech like laptops act as 'slow death' dates," according to Markowitz. "The devices won't necessarily lose function immediately, but without security updates and bug patches, the device will eventually become incompatible with the most up-to-date software, and the device itself will no longer be secure against malware and other issues." A full ist of end-of-life dates for Chromebook models can be viewed here.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, OpenAI announced that it is deepening its ties with the US government through a partnership with the National Laboratories and expects to use AI to "supercharge" research across a wide range of fields to better serve the public. "This is the beginning of a new era, where AI will advance science, strengthen national security, and support US government initiatives," OpenAI said. The deal ensures that "approximately 15,000 scientists working across a wide range of disciplines to advance our understanding of nature and the universe" will have access to OpenAI's latest reasoning models, the announcement said. For researchers from Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Labs, access to "o1 or another o-series model" will be available on Venado -- an Nvidia supercomputer at Los Alamos that will become a "shared resource." Microsoft will help deploy the model, OpenAI noted. OpenAI suggested this access could propel major "breakthroughs in materials science, renewable energy, astrophysics," and other areas that Venado was "specifically designed" to advance. Key areas of focus for Venado's deployment of OpenAI's model include accelerating US global tech leadership, finding ways to treat and prevent disease, strengthening cybersecurity, protecting the US power grid, detecting natural and man-made threats "before they emerge," and " deepening our understanding of the forces that govern the universe," OpenAI said. Perhaps among OpenAI's flashiest promises for the partnership, though, is helping the US achieve a "a new era of US energy leadership by unlocking the full potential of natural resources and revolutionizing the nation's energy infrastructure." That is urgently needed, as officials have warned that America's aging energy infrastructure is becoming increasingly unstable, threatening the country's health and welfare, and without efforts to stabilize it, the US economy could tank. But possibly the most "highly consequential" government use case for OpenAI's models will be supercharging research safeguarding national security, OpenAI indicated. "The Labs also lead a comprehensive program in nuclear security, focused on reducing the risk of nuclear war and securing nuclear materials and weapons worldwide," OpenAI noted. "Our partnership will support this work, with careful and selective review of use cases and consultations on AI safety from OpenAI researchers with security clearances." The announcement follows the launch earlier this week of ChatGPT Gov, "a new tailored version of ChatGPT designed to provide US government agencies with an additional way to access OpenAI's frontier models." It also worked with the Biden administration to voluntarily commit to give officials early access to its latest models for safety inspections.

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Over the past week I have published a number of GeForce RTX 5090 Linux compute benchmarks as well as the GeForce RTX 5080 on Linux. With that early NVIDIA R570 Linux driver build as part of the CUDA 12.8 package I was asked to wait on Linux gaming benchmarks until the proper RTX 50 Linux driver is released. Well, it was released this morning with the NVIDIA 570.86.16 Linux beta availability and have in turn been pushing the GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 through a number of Linux gaming/graphics benchmarks.

The company that Jeff Bezos founded has gone to court to keep the newspaper he owns from finding out too much about the inner workings of its business. From a report: Amazon is suing Washington state to limit the release of public records to The Washington Post from a series of state Department of Labor and Industries investigations of an Amazon Project Kuiper satellite facility in the Seattle area. The lawsuit, filed this week in King County Superior Court in Seattle, says the newspaper on Nov. 26 requested "copies of inspection records, investigation notes, interview notes, complaints," and other documents related to four investigations at the Redmond, Wash., facility between August and October 2024. It's not an unusual move by the company, and in some ways it's a legal technicality. Amazon says it's not seeking to block the records release entirely, but rather seeking to protect from public disclosure certain records that contain proprietary information and trade secrets about the company's satellite internet operations. The lawsuit cites a prior situation in which Amazon and the Department of Labor and Industries similarly worked through the court to respond to a Seattle Times public records request without disclosing proprietary information.

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Google is offering U.S. employees in its Platforms & Devices division a voluntary exit program with severance packages, following last year's merger of its Pixel hardware and Android software teams. The program affects staff working on Android, Chrome, Google Photos, Pixel, Fitbit, and Nest products, according to a memo from Senior Vice President Rick Osterloh. The move comes after the hardware division cut hundreds of roles last January when it reorganized into a functional model. Google said the program aims to retain employees committed to the combined organization's mission, though it does not coincide with any product changes.

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Last week saw the big set of Bcachefs updates merged for the Linux 6.14 kernel that included the last anticipated big on-disk format change as well as scalability improvements. It was a particularly big pull after Bcachefs missed out on any changes being upstreamed for Linux 6.13. This week a set of follow-on fixes/improvements have been merged for this experimental copy-on-write file-system...

One of the details not too widely talked about with Intel's newest Core Ultra Series 2 processors is the introduction of the Partner Security Engine, which is a new dedicated security engine on the SOC that is capable of running the Microsoft Pluton firmware and software. Intel today published more details around their Partner Security Engine...

Aujourd'hui, outre le fait que nous avions le lancement des RTX 5080 Customs, nous avons dégoté quelques bonnes informations concernant AMD. Cela a commencé avec les tarifs de gros des RX 9070 et RX 9070 XT, qui donnent donc une indication des tarifs en boutique. Maintenant, il est temps de s'attaquer à un autre gros chantier des rouges, les processeurs Ryzen 9 9900X3D et Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Deux processeurs qui ont été annoncés au dernier CES, en même temps qu'un très intéressant 9955HX3D, sans oublier les Ryzen AI 300 MAX. […]

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Sacrilège !

WinGet est un outil en ligne de commande permettant d’installer et mettre à jour bon nombre d’applications tierces. Des développeurs tiers en ont fait UniGetUI (anciennement WinGetUI). Nous vous proposons un petit tutoriel pour vous apprendre les bases d’un outil qui pourrait bien vous faire gagner beaucoup de temps.

Pendant la majeure partie de sa vie, Windows n’a pas eu de dépôt centralisé pour gérer ses applications tierces. Sur le système de Microsoft, on procède autrement : on télécharge un exécutable depuis un site web et on suit la procédure d’installation après avoir double-cliqué sur le fichier. Depuis l’arrivée du Store, une autre voie s’est ouverte. Pourtant, depuis 2020, Microsoft propose encore un autre outil : WinGet.

Cet outil en ligne de commande permet de chercher une application, de l’installation et d’effectuer diverses autres opérations, dont ses mises à jour et ses désinstallations. Sa syntaxe est aisée à retenir et permet d’enchainer les installations sans avoir à ouvrir à chaque fois le site correspondant.

Si l’outil était très discret initialement, avec peu d’applications, la situation a beaucoup évolué en bientôt cinq ans. Un grand nombre de logiciels sont présents et il devient simple de trouver ce que l’on veut en quelques lignes. L’outil est compatible avec Windows 10, 11 et Server 2025. Il est intégré dans Windows 11 et peut donc être utilisé dans le terminal sans manipulations particulières.

Si vous appréciez l’idée d’un dépôt centralisé, mais préférez les interfaces graphiques, UniGetUI pourrait être fait pour vous, d’autant qu’il supporte davantage que WinGet. Nous y reviendrons.

Dans ce tutoriel, nous allons voir comment apprendre facilement les bases de ces deux outils. Nous verrons également, dans une dernière partie, les limitations d’un outil qui, s’il reprend l’idée d’un dépôt centralisé « à la Linux », n’en a pas les caractéristiques techniques.

WinGet : installer rapidement des applications

Si vous avez besoin d’une application, à moins qu’il s’agisse de gros logiciels de type Office ou la suite Adobe, il y a de bonnes chances qu’elle soit disponible sur le dépôt. Pour commencer à vous en servir, appuyez simplement sur la touche Windows, tapez les premières lettres de Terminal pour le faire apparaitre et validez avec Entrée.

Nearly 90% of Oracle Java customers are looking to abandon the software maker's products following controversial licensing changes made in 2023, according to research firm Dimensional Research. The exodus reflects growing frustration with Oracle's shift to per-employee pricing for its Java platform, which critics called "predatory" and could increase costs up to five times for the same software, Gartner found. The dissatisfaction runs deepest in Europe, where 92% of French and 95% of German users want to switch to alternative providers like Bellsoft Liberica, IBM Semeru, or Azul Platform Core.

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Just ahead of the GNOME 48 feature freeze this weekend, gdctl has been merged into GNOME's Mutter as the GNOME Display Control Utility...

Undying est le jeu offert par le store d'Epic Games, vous avez jusqu'au 6 février pour l'ajouter ici.Infectée par un zombie, les jours d'Anling sont comptés. Elle doit désormais se battre pour survivre, pas pour elle-même, mais pour son jeune fils, Cody. Garantissez la survie de Cody dans ce monde infesté de zombies, en le protégeant, cherchant des lieux sûrs et en lui enseignant des compétences précieuses. […]

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Comment Discord, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Meta, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, X (ex-Twitter) ou encore YouTube ont mis concrètement en place le droit d’accès aux données personnelles de leurs utilisateurs ? Le Laboratoire d’innovation numérique de la CNIL (LINC) s’est penché sur ces 10 réseaux sociaux pour voir quelles étaient les pratiques sur le terrain.

Le LINC a analysé les parcours d’accès aux copies des données personnelles de ces réseaux sociaux en s’appuyant sur une grille d’analyse de 27 critères. L’idée est de « recenser les bonnes pratiques mises en place » et d’attribuer un score pour chacun des réseaux.

Comme le rappelle la CNIL dans un communiqué de presse, le RGPD prévoit, pour les utilisateurs, un droit d’accès à leurs données personnelles qui s’applique aux réseaux sociaux et aux plateformes. «  Il permet de savoir si vos données personnelles sont traitées et d’en obtenir la communication dans un format compréhensible. Il permet également de contrôler l’exactitude des données et, au besoin, de les faire rectifier ou effacer », explique l’autorité.

Le laboratoire de l’autorité publie son analyse effectuée en février 2024. Il précise que « l’étude ne tient pas compte des changements qui ont pu être réalisés depuis ». Entre autres, ils ont mesuré que « le temps d’attente est en moyenne de 19 heures et 23 minutes avant réception de la copie des données pour 9 des réseaux sociaux étudiés ».

« Le LINC a échangé avec ces réseaux sociaux à la fin de l’année 2024, ce qui a permis de réajuster quelques points de la méthodologie », indique la CNIL, ce qui pourrait expliquer une publication presque un an après. Espérons que le laboratoire renouvellera régulièrement son étude en y ajoutant d’autres réseaux sociaux comme Bluesky et Mastodon, et en publiant rapidement les résultats pour obtenir un réel observatoire de ces parcours.

Comment Discord, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Meta, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, X (ex-Twitter) ou encore YouTube ont mis concrètement en place le droit d’accès aux données personnelles de leurs utilisateurs ? Le Laboratoire d’innovation numérique de la CNIL (LINC) s’est penché sur ces 10 réseaux sociaux pour voir quelles étaient les pratiques sur le terrain.

Le LINC a analysé les parcours d’accès aux copies des données personnelles de ces réseaux sociaux en s’appuyant sur une grille d’analyse de 27 critères. L’idée est de « recenser les bonnes pratiques mises en place » et d’attribuer un score pour chacun des réseaux.

Comme le rappelle la CNIL dans un communiqué de presse, le RGPD prévoit, pour les utilisateurs, un droit d’accès à leurs données personnelles qui s’applique aux réseaux sociaux et aux plateformes. «  Il permet de savoir si vos données personnelles sont traitées et d’en obtenir la communication dans un format compréhensible. Il permet également de contrôler l’exactitude des données et, au besoin, de les faire rectifier ou effacer », explique l’autorité.

Le laboratoire de l’autorité publie son analyse effectuée en février 2024. Il précise que « l’étude ne tient pas compte des changements qui ont pu être réalisés depuis ». Entre autres, ils ont mesuré que « le temps d’attente est en moyenne de 19 heures et 23 minutes avant réception de la copie des données pour 9 des réseaux sociaux étudiés ».

« Le LINC a échangé avec ces réseaux sociaux à la fin de l’année 2024, ce qui a permis de réajuster quelques points de la méthodologie », indique la CNIL, ce qui pourrait expliquer une publication presque un an après. Espérons que le laboratoire renouvellera régulièrement son étude en y ajoutant d’autres réseaux sociaux comme Bluesky et Mastodon, et en publiant rapidement les résultats pour obtenir un réel observatoire de ces parcours.

The Authors Guild -- one of the largest associations of writers in the US -- has launched a new project that allows authors to certify that their book was written by a human, and not generated by artificial intelligence. From a report: The Guild says its "Human Authored" certification aims to make it easier for writers to "distinguish their work in increasingly AI-saturated markets," and that readers have a right to know who (or what) created the books they read. Human Authored certifications will be listed in a public database that anyone can access.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: SoftBank is in talks to invest as much as $25 billion into OpenAI [non-paywalled source], in a deal that would make it the ChatGPT maker's biggest financial backer, as the pair partner on a huge new artificial intelligence infrastructure project. The two companies announced last week they would lead a joint venture that would spend $100 billion on Stargate -- a sprawling data centre project touted by US President Donald Trump -- with the figure rising to as much as $500 billion over the next four years. SoftBank is in talks to invest $15 billion to $25 billion directly into OpenAI on top of its commitment of more than $15 billion to Stargate, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the negotiations.

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Internet tech company Yandex announced the open-source release today of Perforator as a tool to help identify and evaluate code inefficiencies at scale. They say Perforator can lead to businesses saving "billions of dollars a year on server infrastructure."..

Days after a DRM driver developer orphaned his drivers due to health reasons in stepping down, the sole maintainer at large of the Linux wireless (WiFi) drivers is stepping down and without any immediate replacement...