An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Some members of the maker community are distraught about Arduino's new terms of service (ToS), saying that the added rules put the company's open source DNA at risk. Arduino updated its ToS and privacy policy this month, which is about a month after Qualcomm announced that it's acquiring the open source hardware and software company. Among the most controversial changes is this addition: "User shall not: translate, decompile or reverse-engineer the Platform, or engage in any other activity designed to identify the algorithms and logic of the Platform's operation, unless expressly allowed by Arduino or by applicable license agreements ..." In response to concerns from some members of the maker community, including from open source hardware distributor and manufacturer Adafruit, Arduino posted a blog on Friday. Regarding the new reverse-engineering rule, Arduino's blog said: "Any hardware, software or services (e.g. Arduino IDE, hardware schematics, tooling and libraries) released with Open Source licenses remain available as before. Restrictions on reverse-engineering apply specifically to our Software-as-a-Service cloud applications. Anything that was open, stays open." But Adafruit founder and engineer Limor Fried and Adafruit managing editor Phillip Torrone are not convinced. They told Ars Technica that Arduino's blog leaves many questions unanswered and said that they've sent these questions to Arduino without response. "Why is reverse-engineering prohibited at all for a company built on openly hackable systems?" Fried and Torrone asked in a shared statement. There are also concerns about the ToS' broad new AI-monitoring powers, which offer little clarity on what data is collected, who can access it, or how long it's retained. On top of that, the update introduces an unusual patent clause that bars users from using the platform to identify potential infringement by Arduino or its partners, along with sweeping, perpetual rights over user-generated content. This could allow Arduino, and potentially Qualcomm, to republish, modify, monetize, or redistribute user uploads indefinitely.

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Cela faisait quelques semaines qu’il y avait des rumeurs d’une annonce autour du prochain casque de réalité virtuelle de Valve. C’est effectivement arrivé jeudi, par le biais d’une page dédiée sur Steam ainsi que d’une vidéo : en 2026, nous verrons arriver le Steam Frame et la Steam Machine.

Le Steam Frame

On ne va pas prétendre qu’on est experts en réalité virtuelle, mais on peut tout de même donner quelques infos. La résolution sera de 2160 x 2160 par œil, soit à peu près l’équivalent du Quest 3, mais sans l’écosystème Meta qui donne envie de se pendre avec un câble USB. Il tournera sous SteamOS, avec toute la compatibilité que cela implique. Il sera plus léger et sa batterie sera située à l’arrière du strap. Pour la connexion avec le PC, Valve a prévu un dongle spécifique, ce qui est plutôt malin pour garantir un bon débit. Pas de capteurs relous à disperser dans la pièce, Valve embrasse le futur en utilisant plusieurs caméras pour la position du casque. Comme elles ne seront qu’en noir et blanc, la réalité augmentée ne sera sans doute pas trop mise en avant. Reste une inconnue : le prix. Des rumeurs parlent d’un tarif proche de celui de l’Index à sa sortie, soit autour des 1 000 €. Pour la fiche technique du Steam Frame, rendez-vous sur la page dédiée.

La Steam Machine

Même si on n’est pas forcément directement la cible de la Steam Machine, il faut reconnaître que le form factor est plutôt alléchant. Cette petite boîte, déjà surnommée Gabecube, embarque un CPU et un GPU AMD développés spécialement pour Valve. Au niveau des perfs, il ne faudra pas s’attendre à des merveilles : on nous parle de 4K 60 FPS avec du FSR4, mais ce ne sera certainement pas le cas pour les jeux Unreal Engine 5, par exemple. Cependant, pour du 1080p 144hz, pourquoi pas – si tant est que le jeu soit compatible avec SteamOS. Ça ressemble à une console, mais ça reste bien un PC, avec la possibilité d’installer les applications qu’on souhaite dessus et surtout d’y brancher clavier et souris. Gamers Nexus nous permet d’en voir l’intérieur, et on sent qu’il y a eu un peu de travail pour que tout rentre sans que ça se transforme en appareil à raclette. Même l’alim est à l’intérieur ! Le prix n’est pas non plus évoqué, et pour le coup, difficile de prédire. S’il n’est pas trop élevé, ça pourrait être le dernier clou dans le cercueil des Xbox, que Microsoft semble saboter avec le Game Pass depuis l’augmentation des tarifs. Pour la fiche technique de la Steam Machine, rendez-vous sur la page dédiée.

D’après l’annonce de Valve, le Steam Frame comme la Steam Machine devraient être livrés dès le début de l’année 2026.

Valve is ready to rejoin the VR hardware race with the Steam Frame, a lightweight standalone SteamOS headset that can run games locally or stream wirelessly from a PC using new "foveated streaming" tech. It's set to launch in early 2026. Ars Technica reports: Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor with 16 GB of RAM, the Steam Frame sports a 2160 x 2160 resolution display per eye at an "up to 110 degrees" field-of-view and up to 144 Hz. That's all roughly in line with 2023's Meta Quest 3, which runs on the slightly less performant Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor. Valve's new headset will be available in models sporting 256GB and 1TB or internal storage, both with the option for expansion via a microSD card slot. Pricing details have not yet been revealed publicly. The Steam Frame's inside-out tracking cameras mean you won't have to set up the awkward external base stations that were necessary for previous SteamVR headsets (including the Index). But that also means old SteamVR controllers won't work with the new hardware. Instead, included Steam Frame controllers will track your hand movements, provide haptic feedback, and offer "input parity with a traditional game pad" through the usual buttons and control sticks. For those who want to bring desktop GPU power to their VR experience, the Steam Frame will be able to connect wirelessly to a PC using an included 6 GHz Wi-Fi 6E adapter. That streaming will be enhanced by what Valve is calling "foveated rendering" technology, which sends the highest-resolution video stream to where your eyes are directly focused (as tracked by two internal cameras). That will help Steam Frame streaming establish a "fast, direct, low-latency link" to the machine, Valve said, though the company has yet to respond to questions about just how much additional wireless latency users can expect. Further reading: Valve Enters the Console Wars

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A curious engineer discovered that his iLife A11 smart vacuum was remotely "killed" after he blocked it from sending data to the manufacturer's servers. By reverse-engineering it with custom hardware and Python scripts, he managed to revive the device to run fully offline. Tom's Hardware reports: An engineer got curious about how his iLife A11 smart vacuum worked and monitored the network traffic coming from the device. That's when he noticed it was constantly sending logs and telemetry data to the manufacturer -- something he hadn't consented to. The user, Harishankar, decided to block the telemetry servers' IP addresses on his network, while keeping the firmware and OTA servers open. While his smart gadget worked for a while, it just refused to turn on soon after. After a lengthy investigation, he discovered that a remote kill command had been issued to his device. He sent it to the service center multiple times, wherein the technicians would turn it on and see nothing wrong with the vacuum. When they returned it to him, it would work for a few days and then fail to boot again. After several rounds of back-and-forth, the service center probably got tired and just stopped accepting it, saying it was out of warranty. Because of this, he decided to disassemble the thing to determine what killed it and to see if he could get it working again. [...] So, why did the A11 work at the service center but refuse to run in his home? The technicians would reset the firmware on the smart vacuum, thus removing the kill code, and then connect it to an open network, making it run normally. But once it connected again to the network that had its telemetry servers blocked, it was bricked remotely because it couldn't communicate with the manufacturer's servers. Since he blocked the appliance's data collection capabilities, its maker decided to just kill it altogether. "Someone -- or something -- had remotely issued a kill command," says Harishankar. "Whether it was intentional punishment or automated enforcement of 'compliance,' the result was the same: a consumer device had turned on its owner." In the end, the owner was able to run his vacuum fully locally without manufacturer control after all the tweaks he made. This helped him retake control of his data and make use of his $300 software-bricked smart device on his own terms. As for the rest of us who don't have the technical knowledge and time to follow his accomplishments, his advice is to "Never use your primary WiFi network for IoT devices" and to "Treat them as strangers in your home."

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Longtime Slashdot reader dbialac shares a report from EL PAIS: For decades, the progress of electronics has followed a simple rule: smaller is better. Since the 1960s, each new generation of chips has packed more transistors into less space, fulfilling the famous Moore's Law. Formulated by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, this law predicted that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit approximately doubles each year. But this race to the minuscule is reaching its physical limits. Now, an international team of scientists is proposing a solution as obvious as it is revolutionary: if we can't keep reducing the size of chips, let's build them up. Xiaohang Li, a researcher at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, and his team have designed a chip with 41 vertical layers of semiconductors and insulating materials, approximately ten times higher than any previously manufactured chip. The work, recently published in the journal Nature Electronics, not only represents a technical milestone but also opens the door to a new generation of flexible, efficient, and sustainable electronic devices. "Having six or more layers of transistors stacked vertically allows us to increase circuit density without making the devices smaller laterally," Li explains. "With six layers, we can integrate 600% more logic functions in the same area than with a single layer, achieving higher performance and lower power consumption."

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Longtime Slashdot reader zuki writes: According to a recent report over at Tom's Hardware, a number of those among early buyers who have been able to put the highly-coveted $4,000.00 DGX Spark mini-AI workstation through its paces are reporting throttling at 100W (rather than the advertised 240W capacity), spontaneous reboots, and thermal issues under sustained load. The workstation came under fire after John Carmack, the former CTO of Oculus VR, began raising questions about its real-world performance and power draw. "His comments were enough to draw tech support from Framework and even AMD, with the offer of an AMD-driven Strix Halo-powered alternative," reports Tom's Hardware. "What's causing this suboptimal performance, such as a firmware-level cap or thermal throttling, is not clear," the report adds. "Nvidia hasn't commented publicly on Carmack's post or user-reported instability. Meanwhile, several threads on Nvidia's developer forums now include reports of GPU crashes and unexpected shutdowns under sustained load."

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BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Micro Center and iFixit have announced a partnership that combines the DIY repair giant's guides, parts, and toolkits with Micro Center's nationwide chain of computer and electronics stores. Customers browsing iFixit online can now find local Micro Center locations through a built-in locator and even stop in for a free consultation with a certified technician. Inside stores, shoppers will see iFixit toolkits and parts on shelves, while Micro Center's in-house technicians begin using iFixit's gear for professional repairs.

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Très apprécié par les devs indés, Unity se présente comme un logiciel de développement de jeux vidéo multi-plateformes accessible et simple à prendre à main. Cependant, en 2024, Marc Whitten, le Président de la compagnie, a eu l’excellente d’idée d’écorner l’image de son produit en appliquant une politique de tarifs prohibitifs qui auraient pu faire couler des studios ainsi que leurs jeux. Face à la levée de bouclier et bien que le mal avait déjà été fait, ce dernier s’était finalement rétracté.

En 2025, Unity revient sur le devant de la scène dans un article de Frandroid annonçant que des chercheurs indépendants ont découvert une faille majeure de sécurité présent depuis 2017. Conséquence, de nombreux éditeurs et studios doivent mettre à jour leur jeu pour éviter que des actes malveillants se produisent et impactent des milliers, voire des millions de joueurs dans le monde. Ne soyez donc pas étonnés de voir votre bibliothèque de jeux inondée de mise à jour sur les semaines à venir.

Cependant, rien ne dit que des hackers ne se soient pas déjà servis de cette faille par le passé. Il est également très probable qu’une partie des jeux vidéo concernés ne soient plus supportés par leur équipe de dev depuis un bon moment et ne seront donc pas mis à jour. À moins que vous vous en foutiez, la prudence est de mise.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: iFixit today disassembled the AirPods Pro 3, giving us a look at what's inside and how the AirPods Pro 3 have changed in comparison to the AirPods Pro 2. [...] To get a look at other components inside the AirPods Pro 3, iFixit essentially had to destroy them because Apple didn't design them to be repaired. Since the first version of the AirPods launched, they've included a battery that is sealed shut with glue, and that hasn't changed with the AirPods Pro 3. iFixit says battery replacements are so difficult that many repair shops won't even attempt to do it. The AirPods Pro Charging Case has the same glued-in battery. There's no way to attempt a battery repair without causing blemishes on the plastic of the earbuds and the casing, because they have to be pried open. Heat needs to be used to melt the adhesive, and there's no easy way to disconnect the flex cable that's inside each earbud. With the need for specialized equipment and the inability to repair the earbuds and the case without causing damage, the AirPods Pro 3 earned a 0 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit.

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Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon X2 Elite and Extreme chips, claiming they're the "fastest and most efficient processors for Windows PCs." Built on 3nm with up to 18 cores and a 5GHz Arm CPU boost, the chips promise 31% more CPU power, up to 2.3x GPU performance, stronger AI processing, and "multi-day battery life," with devices expected in the first half of 2026. The Verge reports: There's also a new 80 TOPS Hexagon NPU, for AI tasks, that offers 37 percent more performance with a 16 percent power consumption improvement, the company claims. Qualcomm's characterizing all of this as a "legendary leap in performance," claiming the Elite Extreme in particular offers "up to 75 percent faster CPU performance" at the same power. But it doesn't say who the competition is, or which chip it was up against, at least not in the press release. And while Qualcomm claims these power savings will lead to "multi-day battery life," that's also what the company said about last year's Snapdragon X Elite.

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