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☕️ Amazon Store est bien une VLOP et donc soumis à des obligations

Amazon avait demandé à la Cour de Justice de l’Union européenne « l’annulation de la décision par laquelle la Commission avait désigné cette plateforme comme une « très grande plateforme en ligne » [ou VLOP, ndlr] au titre du DSA ». Le Tribunal de l’Union européenne rejette le recours.

La plateforme d’e-commerce contestait « la légalité de la disposition du règlement qui détermine les plateformes en ligne, dont les places de marché, qui doivent être désignées comme des grandes plateformes en ligne et qui soumet ces dernières à des obligations spécifiques de transparence, de coopération et d’accès aux données ».

Un œil symbolisant l'Union européenne, et les dissensions et problèmes afférents
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Selon Amazon, ces dispositions enfreignent « la liberté d’entreprise, le droit de propriété, le principe d’égalité devant la loi, la liberté d’expression et d’information, ainsi que le droit au respect de la vie privée et à la protection des informations confidentielles ».

Les motifs de rejet sont exposés dans ce communiqué. Dans son arrêt, la CJUE relève que que les obligations imposées par le DSA constituent bien une forme de contrainte ou d’ingérence dans certains de ces droits, mais estime que chacune d’entre elles répond de façon proportionnée à un objectif de prévention d’un risque ou de protection des consommateurs.

Amazon peut faire appel et compte bien utiliser ce droit, selon Euractiv : « En tant que place de marché en ligne, Amazon Store ne présente aucun risque systémique de ce type ; elle se contente de vendre des marchandises et ne diffuse ni n’amplifie aucune information, opinion ou point de vue », ajoute un porte-parole.

Zalando aussi avait contesté sa qualification de très grande plateforme. Début septembre, le même Tribunal confirmait que Zalando était bien une VLOP et donc soumise aux obligations. Zalando affirme à Euractiv avoir fait appel.

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☕️ Amazon Store est bien une VLOP et donc soumis à des obligations

Amazon avait demandé à la Cour de Justice de l’Union européenne « l’annulation de la décision par laquelle la Commission avait désigné cette plateforme comme une « très grande plateforme en ligne » [ou VLOP, ndlr] au titre du DSA ». Le Tribunal de l’Union européenne rejette le recours.

La plateforme d’e-commerce contestait « la légalité de la disposition du règlement qui détermine les plateformes en ligne, dont les places de marché, qui doivent être désignées comme des grandes plateformes en ligne et qui soumet ces dernières à des obligations spécifiques de transparence, de coopération et d’accès aux données ».

Un œil symbolisant l'Union européenne, et les dissensions et problèmes afférents
Flock pour Next

Selon Amazon, ces dispositions enfreignent « la liberté d’entreprise, le droit de propriété, le principe d’égalité devant la loi, la liberté d’expression et d’information, ainsi que le droit au respect de la vie privée et à la protection des informations confidentielles ».

Les motifs de rejet sont exposés dans ce communiqué. Dans son arrêt, la CJUE relève que que les obligations imposées par le DSA constituent bien une forme de contrainte ou d’ingérence dans certains de ces droits, mais estime que chacune d’entre elles répond de façon proportionnée à un objectif de prévention d’un risque ou de protection des consommateurs.

Amazon peut faire appel et compte bien utiliser ce droit, selon Euractiv : « En tant que place de marché en ligne, Amazon Store ne présente aucun risque systémique de ce type ; elle se contente de vendre des marchandises et ne diffuse ni n’amplifie aucune information, opinion ou point de vue », ajoute un porte-parole.

Zalando aussi avait contesté sa qualification de très grande plateforme. Début septembre, le même Tribunal confirmait que Zalando était bien une VLOP et donc soumise aux obligations. Zalando affirme à Euractiv avoir fait appel.

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Moss Spores Survive 9 Months Outside ISS

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Inspired by moss's resilience, researchers sent moss sporophytes -- reproductive structures that encase spores -- to the most extreme environment yet: space. Their results, published in the journal iScience on November 20, show that more than 80% of the spores survived nine months outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and made it back to Earth still capable of reproducing, demonstrating for the first time that an early land plant can survive long-term exposure to the elements of space. [Lead author Tomomichi Fujita of Hokkaido University and his team] subjected Physcomitrium patens, a well-studied moss commonly known as spreading earthmoss, to a simulated a space environment, including high levels of UV radiation, extreme high and low temperatures, and vacuum conditions. They tested three different structures from the moss -- protenemata, or juvenile moss; brood cells, or specialized stem cells that emerge under stress conditions; and sporophytes, or encapsulated spores -- to find out which had the best chance of surviving in space. The researchers found that UV radiation was the toughest element to survive, and the sporophytes were by far the most resilient of the three moss parts. None of the juvenile moss survived high UV levels or extreme temperatures. The brood cells had a higher rate of survival, but the encased spores exhibited ~1,000x more tolerance to UV radiation. The spores were also able to survive and germinate after being exposed to 196C for over a week, as well as after living in 55C heat for a month.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Advocacy Groups Urge Parents To Avoid AI Toys This Holiday Season

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: They're cute, even cuddly, and promise learning and companionship -- but artificial intelligence toys are not safe for kids, according to children's and consumer advocacy groups urging parents not to buy them during the holiday season. These toys, marketed to kids as young as 2 years old, are generally powered by AI models that have already been shown to harm children and teenagers, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to an advisory published Thursday by the children's advocacy group Fairplay and signed by more than 150 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators. "The serious harms that AI chatbots have inflicted on children are well-documented, including fostering obsessive use, having explicit sexual conversations, and encouraging unsafe behaviors, violence against others, and self-harm," Fairplay said. AI toys, made by companies including Curio Interactive and Keyi Technologies, are often marketed as educational, but Fairplay says they can displace important creative and learning activities. They promise friendship but disrupt children's relationships and resilience, the group said. "What's different about young children is that their brains are being wired for the first time and developmentally it is natural for them to be trustful, for them to seek relationships with kind and friendly characters," said Rachel Franz, director of Fairplay's Young Children Thrive Offline Program. Because of this, she added, the trust young children are placing in these toys can exacerbate the types of harms older children are already experiencing with AI chatbots. A separate report Thursday by Common Sense Media and psychiatrists at Stanford University's medical school warned teenagers against using popular AI chatbots as therapists. Fairplay, a 25-year-old organization formerly known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, has been warning about AI toys for years. They just weren't as advanced as they are today. A decade ago, during an emerging fad of internet-connected toys and AI speech recognition, the group helped lead a backlash against Mattel's talking Hello Barbie doll that it said was recording and analyzing children's conversations. This time, though AI toys are mostly sold online and more popular in Asia than elsewhere, Franz said some have started to appear on store shelves in the U.S. and more could be on the way. "Everything has been released with no regulation and no research, so it gives us extra pause when all of a sudden we see more and more manufacturers, including Mattel, who recently partnered with OpenAI, potentially putting out these products," Franz said. Last week, consumer advocates at U.S. PIRG called out the trend of buying AI toys in its annual "Trouble in Toyland" report. This year, the organization tested four toys that use AI chatbots. "We found some of these toys will talk in-depth about sexually explicit topics, will offer advice on where a child can find matches or knives, act dismayed when you say you have to leave, and have limited or no parental controls," the report said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fired Techie Admits Sabotaging Ex-Employer, Causing $862K In Damage

An Ohio IT contractor pleaded guilty to breaking into his former employer's network after being fired, impersonating another worker and using a PowerShell script to reset 2,500 passwords -- an act that locked out thousands of employees and caused more than $862,000 in damage. He faces up to 10 years in prison. The Register reports: Maxwell Schultz, 35, impersonated another contractor to gain access to the company's network after his credentials were revoked. Announcing the news, US attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei did not specify the company in question, which is typical in these malicious insider cases, although local media reported it to be Houston-based Waste Management. The attack took place on May 14, 2021, and saw Schultz use the credentials to reset approximately 2,500 passwords at the affected organization. This meant thousands of employees and contractors across the US were unable to access the company network. Schultz admitted to running a PowerShell script to reset the passwords, searching for ways to delete system logs to cover his tracks -- in some cases succeeding -- and clearing PowerShell window events, according to the Department of Justice. Prosecutors said the attack caused more than $862,000 worth of damage related to employee downtime, a disrupted customer service function, and costs related to the remediation of the intrusion. Schultz is set to be sentenced on Jan 30, 2026, and faces up to ten years in prison and a potential maximum fine of $250,000.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IBM, Cisco Outline Plans For Networks of Quantum Computers By Early 2030s

IBM and Cisco plan to link quantum computers over long distances by the early 2030s, "with the goal of demonstrating the concept is workable by the end of 2030," reports Reuters. "The move could pave the way for a quantum internet, though executives at the two companies cautioned that the networks would require technologies that do not currently exist and will have to be developed with the help of universities and federal laboratories." From the report: The challenge begins with a problem: Quantum computers like IBM's sit in massive cryogenic tanks that get so cold that atoms barely move. To get information out of them, IBM has to figure out how to transform information in stationary "qubits" -- the fundamental unit of information in a quantum computer -- into what Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and an IBM fellow, told Reuters are "flying" qubits that travel as microwaves. But those flying microwave qubits will have to be turned into optical signals that can travel between Cisco switches on fiber-optic cables. The technology for that transformation -- called a microwave-optical transducer -- will have to be developed with the help of groups like the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, led by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, among others. Along the way, Cisco and IBM will also publish open-source software to weave all the parts together.

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Mozilla Says It's Finally Done With Two-Faced Onerep

Mozilla is officially ending its partnership with Onerep after more than a year of controversy over the company's founder secretly running people-search and data-broker sites. Monitor Plus will be discontinued by December 2025, existing subscribers will receive prorated refunds, and Mozilla says it will focus on privacy tools it fully controls. KrebsOnSecurity reports: In a statement published Tuesday, Mozilla said it will soon discontinue Monitor Plus, which offered data broker site scans and automated personal data removal from Onerep. "We will continue to offer our free Monitor data breach service, which is integrated into Firefox's credential manager, and we are focused on integrating more of our privacy and security experiences in Firefox, including our VPN, for free," the advisory reads. Mozilla said current Monitor Plus subscribers will retain full access through the wind-down period, which ends on Dec. 17, 2025. After that, those subscribers will automatically receive a prorated refund for the unused portion of their subscription. "We explored several options to keep Monitor Plus going, but our high standards for vendors, and the realities of the data broker ecosystem made it challenging to consistently deliver the level of value and reliability we expect for our users," Mozilla statement reads.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Major Music Labels Strike Deals With New AI Streaming Service

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The world's largest music companies have licensed their works to a music startup called Klay, which is building a streaming service that will allow users to remake songs using artificial intelligence tools. Klay is the first music AI service to reach a deal with all three major record labels, Universal Music Group NV, Sony Music and Warner Music Group Corp., according to people familiar with the deals. Klay plans to announce its agreements in the coming days, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential plans. Klay is building a product that will offer the features of a streaming service like Spotify, amplified by AI technology that will let users remake songs in different styles. Klay has licensed the rights to thousands of hit songs so that it can train its large language model. The company has positioned itself as a friend of the industry, offering assurances that the artists and labels will have some control over how their work is used. Klay is led by music producer Ary Attie and also employs former executives from Sony Music and Google's DeepMind, an AI laboratory.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Roblox Blocks Children From Chatting To Adult Strangers

Roblox is rolling out mandatory facial age-verification for chat features to prevent children from communicating with adult strangers. The platform will restrict chat to verified age groups, expand parental controls, and become the first major gaming platform to require facial age checks for messaging. The BBC reports: Mandatory age checks will be introduced for accounts using chat features, starting in December for Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, then the rest of the globe from January. [...] Rani Govender, policy manager for child safety online at the NSPCC, said action had been needed because young people had been exposed to "unacceptable risks" on Roblox, "leaving many vulnerable to harm and online abuse." The charity welcomed the platform's latest announcement but called on Roblox to "ensure they deliver change for children in practice and prevent adult perpetrators from targeting and manipulating young users." The platform averaged more than 80 million daily players in 2024, about 40% of them under the age of 13. [...] Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer for Roblox, told a press briefing the age estimation technology is "pretty accurate." He claimed the system can make close estimates of "within one to two years" bracket for users aged between five and 25. Currently it can be used voluntarily by anyone in the world.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Employee Well-Being Hit New Low In 2024, Survey Reveals

alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: New research from the Human Capital Development Lab at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School analyzes the state of the American workforce in 2024 and shows an overall decline in employee well-being compared to years prior. [...] The latest research confirms a decline in general employee well-being since 2020. In 2024, employees reported the lowest well-being scores on record, as opposed to 2020, when employees reported the highest well-being scores. "In some cases, the lower scores represent a reduction in employee flexibility for either flexible hours or remote work," the latest research states. "In other cases, these scores could be related to challenges associated with greater economic shifts related to inflation or productivity needs." In prior years, well-being scores for managers and employees were comparable to one another, and during the pandemic, managers and top leaders often reported lower scores due to the extra burden of that time period. However, one of the most noteworthy shifts the current data shows is a rise in well-being scores for managers and senior leaders, while well-being for employees and individual contributors decreased in 2024. Rick Smith, director of the Human Capital Development Lab and author of the study, says that the increase in well-being scores for managers could reflect the return to regular operating conditions since the pandemic, which may be indicative of the distance between leadership and workers. "What we're seeing is a growing gap between how leaders and their teams experience the workplace," said Smith. "Managers may feel a return to normalcy, but that doesn't mean their employees do. Leaders must be cautious not to assume their own well-being reflects the broader workforce at their organization. The data shows a potential disconnect, and that's a signal for action."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google's New Nano Banana Pro Uses Gemini 3 Power To Generate More Realistic AI Images

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's meme-friendly Nano Banana image-generation model is getting an upgrade. The new Nano Banana Pro is rolling out with improved reasoning and instruction following, giving users the ability to create more accurate images with legible text and make precise edits to existing images. It's available to everyone in the Gemini app, but free users will find themselves up against the usage limits pretty quickly. Nano Banana Pro is part of the newly launched Gemini 3 Pro -- it's actually called Gemini 3 Pro Image in the same way the original is Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, but Google is sticking with the meme-y name. You can access it by selecting Gemini 3 Pro and then turning on the "Create images" option. Google says the new model can follow complex prompts to create more accurate images. The model is apparently so capable that it can generate an entire usable infographic in a single shot with no weird AI squiggles in place of words. Nano Banana Pro is also better at maintaining consistency in images. You can blend up to 14 images with this tool, and it can maintain the appearance of up to five people in outputs. Google also promises better editing. You can refine your AI images or provide Nano Banana Pro with a photo and make localized edits without as many AI glitches. It can even change core elements of the image like camera angles, color grading, and lighting without altering other elements. Google is pushing the professional use angle with its new model, which has much-improved resolution options. Your creations in Nano Banana Pro can be rendered at up to 4K.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Future Google TV Devices Might Come With a Solar-powered Remote

An anonymous reader shares a report: Epishine, a company that makes solar cells optimized for indoor lighting, has announced its technology is being used in a new remote control for Google TV devices, as spotted by 9to5Google. The remote will rely on rechargeable batteries instead of disposable ones, and thanks to the use of solar cells on both sides it may only run out of power when it gets buried and forgotten in the dark abyss of your couch cushions.

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Canonical Gets Flutter Up And Running On RISC-V For Ubuntu

Canonical has been bullish on RISC-V with Ubuntu being one of the most common Linux distributions endorsed by RISC-V board vendors. Canonical also has been bullish on the Flutter toolkit for crafting their desktop installer UI and other modern UI/app interfaces. But these two together haven't panned out with Flutter not currently supporting RISC-V. Canonical has submitted pull requests now for enabling RISC-V support with Flutter...
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Microsoft Open-Sources Classic Text Adventure Zork Trilogy

Microsoft has released the source code for Zork I, II, and III under the MIT License through a collaboration with Team Xbox and Activision that involved submitting pull requests to historical source repositories maintained by digital archivist Jason Scott. Each repository now includes the original source code and accompanying documentation. The games arrived on early home computers in the 1980s as text-based adventures built on the Z-Machine, a virtual machine that allowed the same story files to run across different platforms. Infocom created the Z-Machine after discovering the original mainframe version was too large for home computers. The team split the game into three titles that all ran on the same underlying system. The code release covers only the source files and does not include commercial packaging or trademark rights. The games remain available commercially through The Zork Anthology on Good Old Games and can be compiled locally using ZILF, a modern Z-Machine interpreter.

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Nvidia Brings Ad-free Cloud Gaming To New Chromebooks

Nvidia and Google announced today a new cloud gaming plan called GeForce Now Fast Pass that is exclusive to Chromebooks. Anyone who purchases a new Chromebook will receive a year of the service included with their device at no additional charge. Fast Pass allows Chromebook owners to stream more than 2,000 games from their existing Steam, Epic or Xbox libraries. The service removes ads and lets users skip the queue that typically adds two minutes or more of wait time on GeForce Now's free tier. Users get 10 hours of cloud gaming each month. Up to five unused hours can roll over to the following month. Nvidia offers other paid plans starting at $9.99 per month that support higher resolutions, faster frame rates, RTX ray-tracing, and access to a larger game library that includes thousands of additional titles. The companies did not announce pricing for Fast Pass after the first year ends.

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[Bon plan] Casque sans fil Logitech G435 à 29,99€ livré

Si vous cherchez un casque-micro sans fil à bas prix, voici le meilleur tarif vu à ce jour sur un modèle d'une marque réputée qui plus est : le Logitech G435.C'est un casque-micro qui semble en tout cas apprécié par ceux qui l'ont acheté, qui ne manquent pas de citer en qualité majeure sa légèreté (...

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Digital Foundry analyse en détail le FSR Ray Regeneration dans COD: Black Ops 7, et n'est pas tendre avec AMD...

Il y a trois jours, Thibaut vous présentait un premier retour sur le FSR Ray Regeration d'AMD via un test de ComputerBase. Petit rappel rapide en passant, le FSR Ray Generation sera l'une des composante du nouveau FSR 'Resdtone', qui sera présenté officiellement par AMD le 10 décembre 2025.Le FSR Ra...

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CDC Changes Webpage To Say Vaccines May Cause Autism, Revising Prior Language

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage that previously made the case that vaccines don't cause autism now says they might. WSJ: The contents of the webpage came up during Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Senate confirmation process. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) in February said Kennedy had assured him that, if he was confirmed, the CDC would "not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism." The revised webpage says: "The claim 'vaccines do not cause autism' is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities." The new text posted Wednesday also notes that the Department of Health and Human Services has launched "a comprehensive assessment" to probe the causes of autism.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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