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European Leaders Condemn US Visa Bans as Row Over 'Censorship' Escalates

European leaders including Emmanuel Macron have accused Washington of "coercion and intimidation," after the US imposed a visa ban on five prominent European figures who have been at heart of the campaign to introduce laws regulating American tech companies. From a report: The visa bans were imposed on Tuesday on Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner and one of the architects of the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA), and four anti-disinformation campaigners, including two in Germany and two in the UK. The other individuals targeted were Imran Ahmed, the British chief executive of the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate; Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German non-profit HateAid; and Clare Melford, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index. Justifying the visa bans, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, wrote on X: "For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organised efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship." Macron condemned the visa ban in furious terms. "These measures amount to intimidation and coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty," he wrote, also on X. "The European Union's digital regulations were adopted following a democratic and sovereign process by the European Parliament and the Council. They apply within Europe to ensure fair competition among platforms, without targeting any third country, and to ensure that what is illegal offline is also illegal online. The rules governing the European Union's digital space are not meant to be determined outside Europe."

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25.2% of Energy EU Used in 2024 Came From Renewables

An anonymous reader shares a report: In 2024, 25.2% of gross final energy consumption in the EU came from renewable sources, up by 0.7 percentage points compared with 2023. This share is 17.3 pp short of meeting the 2030 target (42.5%), which would require an annual average increase of 2.9 pp from 2025 to 2030. Among the EU countries, Sweden recorded the highest share of its gross final energy consumption coming from renewable sources (62.8%). Sweden primarily relied on solid biomass, hydro and wind. Finland followed with 52.1%, relying on solid biomass, wind and hydro, while Denmark came in third with 46.8%, with most of its renewable energy sourced from solid biomass, wind and biogas. The lowest shares of renewables were recorded in Belgium (14.3%), Luxembourg (14.7%), and Ireland (16.1%).

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Europe's Public Institutions Are Quietly Ditching US Cloud Providers

European public institutions are quietly migrating away from American cloud providers and office software, driven less by policy ambitions in Brussels than by the mundane legal reality that GDPR-mandated risk assessments keep flagging the US CLOUD Act as an unacceptable threat to citizen data. Austria's Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism moved 1,200 employees to the open-source platform Nextcloud in four months. Germany's Schleswig-Holstein has already transitioned 24,000 of its 30,000 civil servants to LibreOffice, Nextcloud and Thunderbird. The International Criminal Court in The Hague announced in November 2025 that it would replace Microsoft office software after chief prosecutor Karim Khan was temporarily locked out of his Outlook account. Competition economist Cristina Caffarra estimates that 90% of Europe's digital infrastructure is now controlled by non-European companies. Forrester predicts no European enterprise will fully abandon US hyperscalers in 2026, but these targeted migrations for sensitive government applications are already underway.

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Je me suis fait pirater mon compte PlayStation et j’ai découvert un énorme problème de sécurité chez Sony

ps5 playstation 5

Malgré une clé d'accès (passkey) et une double authentification avec un gestionnaire de mots de passe, un hacker a réussi à me dérober mon compte PlayStation Network à deux reprises en seulement quelques heures. J'ai réussi à le contacter : il m'explique que Sony est beaucoup trop laxiste et attribue la paternité d'un compte sans vérifier le mot de passe ou l'identité.

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Nintendo Switch, PS5 ou Xbox Series : quelle console prendre en 2025 ?

Noël approche et vous ne savez pas encore quelle console mettre au pied du sapin ? Les PS5, Xbox et Switch ont toutes leurs arguments et choisir son camp n'est jamais simple. Le choix dépendra surtout du prix, du catalogue de jeux mais aussi des performances. Si vous hésitez, voici tout ce qu'il faut savoir sur chaque console.

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Google Faces Fines Over Google Play If It Doesn't Make More Concessions

EU regulators say Google's Play Store changes still don't meet fairness rules and are preparing a potentially hefty 2026 fine unless Google makes deeper concessions. Reuters reports: Google Play has been in the European Commission's crosshairs since March, with regulators singling out technical restrictions preventing app developers from steering users to other channels for cheaper offers. Another issue is the service fee charged by Google for facilitating an app developer's initial acquisition of a new customer via Google Play which the regulator said goes beyond what is justified. Tweaks to Google Play announced in August to make it easier for app developers to direct customers to other channels and choose a fee model are still falling short, the people said, with the EU antitrust regulator viewing Apple's recent changes to its App Store as a benchmark. [...] Google can still offer to make more changes before regulators impose a fine, likely in the first quarter of the next year, the people said, adding that the timing of any sanction can still change. "We continue to work closely with the European Commission in its ongoing investigation but have serious concerns that further changes would put Android and Play users at risk of malware, scams and data theft. Unlike iOS, Android is already open by design," a Google spokesperson said.

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On a joué à Assassin’s Creed Shadows sur Switch 2 : la prouesse à peaufiner

Ubisoft a lancé Assassin's Creed Shadows sur Nintendo Switch 2 au début du mois de décembre 2025. Si on pouvait craindre le pire en matière de rendu visuel et de performances, il faut reconnaître que le jeu ambitieux s'en tire bien. Mais il va falloir quelques mises à jour supplémentaires pour valider la prouesse, notamment quand on souhaite jouer sur sa télévision.

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Meta Pledge To Use Less Personal Data For Ads Gets EU Nod, Avoids Daily Fines

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Meta's proposal to use less personal data for targeted advertising in its pay-or-consent model that will be rolled out next month won the approval of EU antitrust regulators on Monday, signaling the company will not face daily fines after all. [...] The U.S. tech giant has been locked in discussions with the European Commission after getting hit with a $233 million fine in April for breaching the Digital Markets Act aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech. The violation covered Facebook and Instagram in the period from November 2023 to November 2024, after which Meta tweaked its pay-or-consent model to use less personal data for targeted advertising. The EU executive has been examining the changes to see if they comply with the DMA, with Meta risking daily fines of as much as 5% of its average daily worldwide turnover if found to be still in breach of the law. The tweaks are in wording, design and transparency to remind users of the two options. Meta did not plan on any substantial changes to its November proposal despite the risk of EU fines, people with direct knowledge of the matter had told Reuters. The Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, acknowledged Meta's November proposal, saying that it will monitor the new ad model and seek feedback, with no more talk of periodic fines. "Meta will give users the effective choice between consenting to share all their data and seeing fully personalized advertising, and opting to share less personal data for an experience with more limited personalized advertising," the Commission said in a statement.

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EU Urged to Soften 2035 Ban on Internal Combustion Engine Cars

Friday six European Union countries "asked the European Commission to water down an effective ban on the sale of internal combustion engine cars slated for 2035," reports Reuters The countries have asked the EU Commission to allow the sale of hybrid cars or vehicles powered by other, existing or future, technologies "that could contribute to the goal of reducing emissions" beyond 2035, a joint letter seen by Reuters showed on Friday. The letter was signed by the prime ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Slovakia. They also asked for low-carbon and renewable fuels to be included in the plan to reduce the carbon emissions from transportation... Since they adopted a regulation that all new vehicles from 2035 should have zero emissions in March 2023, EU countries are now having second thoughts. Back then, the outlook for battery electric vehicles was positive, but carmakers' efforts have later collided with the reality of lower-than-expected demand and fierce competition from China. Car and Drive reports that Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany also "wants to allow exceptions for plug-in hybrids, extended-range EVs, and 'highly efficient' combustion vehicles beyond the current 2035 deadline." They cite a report in Automotive News. The European Commission hasn't made any official changes yet, but mounting pressure suggests that a revised plan could be coming soon.... Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, was cited by the German paper Handelsblatt as saying that the EU "will take all technological advances into account when reassessing fleet emission limits, including combustion engines running on e-fuels and biofuels." And these renewable products will apparently be key pieces of the puzzle. BMW uses a vegetable-oil-derived fuel called HVO 100 in its diesel products throughout Europe. The plant-oil-based fuel reportedly reduces tailpipe emissions by 90 percent compared with traditional diesel. For its part, Porsche has been working on producing synthetic fuel at a plant in Chile since 2022. The European Commission is set to meet on December 10. At that time, the body is expected to assemble a package of proposals to help out the struggling European automotive industry, though the actual announcement may be pushed to a later date. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

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La Xbox 360 a 20 ans : quand Microsoft battait Sony sur son propre terrain

Qu'y a-t-il de mieux pour faire vaciller un géant qu'un autre géant ? Fort d'un double succès historique sur le marché des consoles de jeux vidéo avec ses deux premières PlayStation, Sony pouvait se sentir légitimement invincible il y a 20 ans. Pourtant, au moment d'enfoncer le clou et d'obéir à la règle du « jamais deux sans trois », le constructeur japonais faisait face à un obstacle de taille qu'il avait sans doute négligé du fait de débuts timides dans son secteur : Microsoft et sa nouvelle console, la Xbox 360, la seule à avoir réussi à battre PlayStation.

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