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Defense Company Announces an AI-Powered Dome to Shield Cities and Infrastructure From Attacks
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:
Italian defense company Leonardo on Thursday unveiled plans for an AI-powered shield for cities and critical infrastructure, adding to Europe's push to ramp up sovereign defense capabilities amid rising geopolitical tensions.
The system, dubbed the "Michelangelo Dome" in a nod to Israel's Iron Dome and U.S. President Donald Trump's plans for a "Golden Dome," will integrate multiple defense systems to detect and neutralize threats from sea to air including missile attacks and drone swarms... Leonardo's dome will be built on what CEO Roberto Cingolani called an "open architecture" system meaning it can operate alongside any country's defense systems... Leonardo's dome will be built on what CEO Roberto Cingolani called an "open architecture" system meaning it can operate alongside any country's defense systems.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Archinstall 3.0.14 Allows UEFI Bootloader Installation to Removable Locations - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
The Battle Over Africa's Great Untapped Resource: IP Addresses
In his mid-20s, Lu Heng "got an idea that has made him a lot richer," writes the Wall Street Journal.
He scooped up 10 million unused IP addresses, mostly form Africa, and then leases them to companies, mostly outside Africa, "that need them badly."
[A]round half of internet traffic continues to use IPv4, because changing to IPv6 can be expensive and complex and many older devices still need IPv4. Companies including Amazon, Microsoft and Google still want IPv4 addresses because their cloud-hosting businesses need them as bridges between the IPv4 and IPv6 worlds... Africa, which has been slower to develop internet infrastructure than the rest of the world, is the only region that still has some of the older addresses to dole out... He searches for IPv4 addresses that aren't being used — by ISPs or anyone else that holds them — and uses his Hong Kong-based company, Larus, to lease them out to others.
In 2013, Lu registered a new company in the Seychelles, an African archipelago in the Indian Ocean, to apply for IP addresses from Africa's internet registry, called the African Network Information Centre, or Afrinic. Between 2013 and 2016, Afrinic granted that company, Cloud Innovation, 6.2 million IPv4 addresses. That's more addresses than are assigned to Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. A single IPv4 address can be worth about $50 on its transfer to a company like Larus, which leases it onward for around 5% to 10% of that value annually. Larus and its affiliate companies, Lu said, control just over 10 million IPv4 addresses. The architects of the internet don't appear to have contemplated the possibility that anyone would seek to monetize IP addresses...
Lu's activities triggered a showdown with Africa's internet registry. In 2020, after what it said was an internal review, Afrinic sent letters to Lu and others seeking to reclaim the IP addresses they held. In Lu's case, Afrinic said he shouldn't be using the addresses outside Africa. Lu responded that he wasn't violating rules in place when he got the addresses... After some back-and-forth, Lu sued Afrinic in Mauritius to keep his allocated addresses, eventually filing dozens of lawsuits... One of the lawsuits that Lu filed in Mauritius prompted a court there to freeze Afrinic's bank accounts in July 2021, effectively paralyzing the organization and eventually sending it into receivership. The receivership choked off distributions of new IPv4 addresses, leaving the continent's service providers struggling to expand capacity...
In September, Afrinic elected a new board. Since then, some internet-service providers have been granted IPv4 addresses.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Don't set up Linux from scratch, these Turnkey distros do it for you - How-To Geek
Categories: Linux
Solus Linux 4.8 Released With Python 2 Finally Removed, Abandons Solus Software Center - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
Hundreds of Free Software Supporters Tuned in For 'FSF40' Hackathon
The Free Software Foundation describes how "After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together on November 21 for a global online hackathon to support free software projects and "put a spotlight on the difficult and often thankless work that free software hackers carry out..."
Based on how many of you dropped in over the weekend and were incredibly engaged in the important work that is improving free software, either as a spectator or as a participant, this goal was accomplished. And it's all thanks to you!
Friday started a little rocky with a datacenter outage affecting most FSF services. Participants spread out to work on six different free software projects over forty-eight hours as our tech team worked to restore all FSF sites with the help and support of the community. Over three hundred folks were tuned in at a time, some to participate in the hackathon and others to follow the progress being made. As a community, we got a lot done over the weekend...
It was amazing to see so many of you take a little (or a lot of!) time out of your busy schedules to improve free software, and we're incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. It really energizes us and shows us how much we can accomplish when we work together over even just a couple days. Not only was this a fantastic sight to see because of the work we got done, but it was also a very fitting way to conclude our fortieth anniversary celebration events. Free software has been and always will be a community effort, one that continues to get better and better because of the dedicated developers, contributors, and users who ensure its existence. Thank you for celebrating forty years of the FSF and fighting for a freer future for us all.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
63% of Americans Polled Say Four-Year College Degrees Aren't Worth the Cost
Almost two-thirds of registered U.S. voters "say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost," according to a new NBC News poll:
Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is "worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime," while 63% agree more with the concept that it's "not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off." In 2017, U.S. adults surveyed were virtually split on the question — 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it wasn't. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not. The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI...
Remarkably, less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013... The upshot is that interest in technical, vocational and two-year degree programs has soared.
"The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Solus 4.8 Released with Linux Kernel 6.17, GNOME 49, KDE Plasma 6.5, and More - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
Solus 4.8 Released with Linux Kernel 6.17, GNOME 49, KDE Plasma 6.5, and More - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
Solus 4.8 Released with Linux Kernel 6.17, GNOME 49, KDE Plasma 6.5, and More - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
Solus 4.8 Released with Linux Kernel 6.17, GNOME 49, KDE Plasma 6.5, and More - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
Solus 4.8 Released with Linux Kernel 6.17, GNOME 49, KDE Plasma 6.5, and More - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
Uber Launches Driverless Robotaxi Service in Abu Dhabi, and Plans Many More
"A year after launching a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company WeRide and partner Uber can finally call that service driverless," reports TechCrunch.
A company official hailed it as "a historic transportation milestone, as the first driverless AV deployment outside of the U.S. or China." But TechCrunch notes that's just the beginning:
Uber has spent the past two years locking up partnerships with 20 autonomous vehicle technology companies in various countries, including the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.
Those partnerships have expanded beyond the realm of robotaxis as well. Uber's deals span the full range of self-driving applications, including delivery and trucking. This year alone, it announced partnerships withAnn Arbor, Michigan-basedMay MobilityandVolkswagen, Chinese self-driving firms Momenta,Pony.ai, and Baidu, as well as a recent deal to create a premium robotaxi service using Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with a self-driving system from San Francisco-based startup Nuro.
These deals are finally beginning to materialize into commercial services. For instance, Uber and Waymo launched a robotaxi service earlier this year in Austin. Now, Uber has expanded to the Middle East with WeRide in Abu Dhabi — with even more cities to come, including Dubai. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi forecast in the company's third-quarter earnings report that there would be autonomous vehicle deployments on the Uber network in at least 10 cities by the end of 2026. Uber and WeRide have previously shared plans to expand to 15 cities throughout the Middle East and Europe, eventually scaling to thousands of robotaxis. That would represent a massive leap for WeRide, which today has more than 150 robotaxis in the region.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CachyOS ISO Snapshot for November 2025 Improves the Installation Experience - 9to5Linux
Categories: Linux
How Bad Will RAM and Memory Shortages Get?
Digital Trends reports:
A wave of shortages now threatens to ripple across RAM, SSDs, and even hard drives, affecting not only performance-hungry rigs but also everyday systems.
— CyberPowerPC has publicly confirmed it will raise prices on all systems starting December 7th due to RAM costs spiking by 500% and SSD prices doubling since October.
— Memory suppliers warn of a global DRAM and SSD shortage running into late 2026 or even 2027, driven heavily by AI server demand.
— As reported by Bloomberg, Lenovo has already stockpiled memory to ride out the crunch and maintain steadier PC pricing.
— Among other OEMs, HP, in its recent earnings call, flagged possible price increases or lower-spec models on the back of rising component costs.
But Apple "may also be in a good position to weather the shortage," reports Ars Technica, since "analysts at Morgan Stanley and Bernstein Research believe that Apple has already laid claim to the RAM that it needs and that its healthy profit margins will allow it to absorb the increases better than most."
Ars Technica also shows how much RAM and storage prices have jumped — sometimes as much as 2x or even 3x in just three months. "In short, there's no escaping these price increases, which affect SSDs and both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM kits of all capacities (though higher-capacity RAM kits do seem to be hit a little harder)."
Memory and storage shortages can be particularly difficult to get through. As with all chips, it can take years to ramp up capacity and/or build new manufacturing facilities... And memory makers in particular may be slow to ramp up manufacturing capacity in response to shortages. If they decide to start manufacturing more chips now, what happens if memory demand drops off a cliff in six months or a year (if, say, an AI bubble deflates or pops altogether)? It means an oversupply of memory chips — consumers benefit from rock-bottom prices for components, but it becomes harder for manufacturers to cover their costs... The upshot is: Not only are memory prices getting bad now, but it's exceptionally difficult to predict when shortage-fueled price hikes might end...
Tom's Hardware reports that AMD has told its partners that it expects to raise GPU prices by about 10 percent starting next year and that Nvidia may have canceled a planned RTX 50-series Super launch entirely because of shortages and price increases.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.