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Device Memory "DMEM" Cgroup Support Ready For Linux 6.14 To Allow Limiting GPU vRAM  Phoronix

CXL Block Device "CBD" Looking Very Promising For The Linux Kernel In 2025  Phoronix

How to set up a print server on your home network with Linux  ZDNet

America's aging elevators are facing significant repair delays and rising costs, creating accessibility challenges and leaving vulnerable populations stranded. Experts argue that implementing federal standards and modernizing systems could address these issues. However, fixing the nation's approximately one million elevators is "becoming a heavy lift," reports Axios. From the report: America's aging elevators are time-consuming and costly to fix. The workforce of technicians who know how to fix them is aging. And buildings with elevators in need of repair often need to wait ages for replacement parts due to arcane supply-chain issues. [...] Elevator parts shortages appear to stem largely from two issues: Parts suppliers often prioritize their biggest customers, which in this case happens to be builders in China, where the vast majority of the world's new elevators are installed, according to [Stephen Smith, executive director of the Center for Building in North America]. And parts are often no longer available for aging -- and often obsolete -- elevators, meaning they often have to be custom made. "In some cases, the entire elevator system may need to be modernized or replaced, leading to substantial costs and potential disruptions to building operations," an advisory called The Elevator Consultants reports. A patchwork of state regulations and union rules make it laborious for building owners and contractors to comply with current standards, according to Smith. who said the U.S. would benefit from federal elevator standards. "The feds have not involved themselves in regulations of the construction industry since Reagan took an axe to it in the 1980s," Smith said. The good news is that "about 80 percent of reliability issues can be solved by replacing the doors," Joseph Bera, at VP at Schindler Elevators, tells commercial real estate publication Propmodo.

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Logging Baby’s Day In Linux  Hackaday

AI darling Nvidia trots out new RTX 50 series, robots, and Linux desktop at CES  Malay Mail

The most common reader question about my personal portfolio is definitely the fact that the allocation to international stocks has been a drag on performance relative to owning 100% US stocks. This is kind of a repeat topic, so I won’t dive into the full debate again, but wanted to offer some expanded and updated thoughts to my response to a comment from reader John. All numbers below are taken as of January 2025.

The divergence between the performance of US stocks and the rest of the world started around 2009, which of course coincided with most of my investing lifetime so far. 😒 Here’s a chart from the Bloomberg article Global Diversification Has Disappointed. Don’t Give Up on It (gift article for next 7 days). Worth a read.

As noted in my portfolio updates, my asset allocation floats along with total world market cap breakdown, as tracked according to the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT). I remember a time when it was only 45% US and 55% Rest of the World (World ex-US). As of the end of 2024, it is now at 65% US and 35% World ex-US.

In practical terms, this means that I used to own about the same amount of Vanguard Total US Stock Market ETF (VTI) and Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS), a 1:1 ratio. But as of the end of 2024, I now own about double the amount of VTI relative to VXUS, a 2:1 ratio. So my performance isn’t exactly that of the chart above due to ongoing investments over time, but it’s still been much lower than if I used owned 100% US stocks.

I can’t change the past. The question is: Should I change my asset allocation now?

Let’s look closer. A significant chunk (not all) of the outperformance has been due to a higher P/E ratio. Below is a Yardeni chart of the P/E ratio of US stocks vs. International stocks. The gap looks like the greatest in 25 years. Can this trend continue? I don’t know, and I don’t think anyone really knows.

Are US stocks simply a better investment, forever? They might be. The US definitely offers a very business-friendly environment overall. That’s why I just let it float. If the US manages to continue this outperformance in the future, then one day my allocation might grow to 75%/25% (3:1 ratio) or even 80%/20% (4:1 ratio). My portfolio adjusts.

This is the same theory as owning all of the companies in a market-weighted S&P 500 index fund: you own all the winners, and you also own the losers, but owning the winners is good enough to pull everything up overall. If the US keeps being a huge winner, I’ll own a lot of the US. If not, I still own the entire haystack. Therefore, I plan to continue holding a chunk of international stocks according to the investable market-cap float with maybe a slight home bias.

I could sit here and lament how big my portfolio would have been if I had bet on 100% US for the last 15 years, but honestly the stock markets have been kind to me as a business owner (although I’d say at the expense of the average worker bee) even with my international stocks and bond holdings. The 10-year trailing average annualized return has been 9.33% for VT vs. 12.50% for VTI. Owning a mix of winners and losers has still worked out just fine, and I was covered in case history turned out differently. I have no complaints.

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Before NASA Administrator Bill Nelson retires in a couple of weeks, he has one final message for the next administration: Don't give up on the agency's Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon. In an interview with Ars Technica's Eric Berger, Nelson discussed his time in office, the major decisions he made, and his concerns for the space agency's future under the Trump administration. Here's an excerpt from the interview: Ars: I wanted to start with the state of Artemis. You all had an event a few weeks ago where you talked about Artemis II and Artemis III delays. And you know, both those missions have slipped a couple of years now since you've been administrator. So I'm just wondering, do you know how confident we should be in the current timeline? Bill Nelson: Well, I am very confident because this most recent [delay] was occasioned by virtue of the heat shield, and it has been unanimous after all of the testing that they understand what happened to Orion's heat shield. The chunks came off in an irregular pattern from the Artemis I heat shield. With the change in the re-entry profile, they are unanimous in their recommendation that we can go with the Artemis II heat shield as it is. And I must say that of the major decisions that I've made, that was an easy one for me because it was unanimous. When I say it was unanimous, it was unanimous in the IRT, the independent review team, headed by Paul Hill. It wasn't to begin with, but after all the extensive testing, everybody was on board. It was unanimous in the deputy's committee. It was unanimous in the agency committee, and that brought it to me then in the Executive Council, and it was unanimous there. So I'm very confident that you're going to see Artemis II fly on or around April of 2026, and then if the SpaceX lander is ready, and that, of course, is a big if -- but they have met all of their milestones, and we'll see what happens on this next test... If they are ready, I think it is very probable that we will see the lunar landing in the summer of 2027. Ars: Do you think it's appropriate for the next administration to review the Artemis Program? Bill Nelson: Are you implying that Artemis should be canceled? Ars: No. I don't think Artemis will be canceled in the main. But I do think they're going to take a look at the way the missions are done at the architecture. I know NASA just went through that process with Orion's heat shield. Bill Nelson: Well, I think questioning what you're doing clearly is always an issue that ought to be on the table. But do I think that they are going to cancel, as some of the chatter out there suggests, and replace SLS with Starship? The answer is no. Ars: Why? Bill Nelson: Put yourself in the place of President Trump. Do you think President Trump would like to have a conversation with American astronauts on the surface of the Moon during his tenure? Ars: Of course. Bill Nelson: OK, let me ask you another question. Do you think that President Trump would rather have a conversation with American astronauts during his tenure rather than listening to the comments of Chinese astronauts on the Moon during his tenure? My case is closed, your Honor, I submit it to the jury. Further reading: Elon Musk: 'We're Going Straight to Mars. The Moon is a Distraction.'

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: John Deere is going all in on autonomous tractors. The company, which first introduced a driverless vehicle in 2022, said self-driving machines will revolutionize the field and address labor shortages. It will soon be selling self-driving dump trucks, more driverless tractors, and a robot lawn mower. "When we talk about autonomy, we mean full autonomy," Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere, said at CES on Monday, according to The Verge. "No one's in the machine." Hindman said the company wants "more of our machines to safely run autonomously in these unique and complex environments that our customers work in every day." John Deere says many farmers in the states currently utilize the first model of its driverless tractor, The Verge reported. "Those tractors are already being used by farmers to prepare the soil for planting in the next year," Hindman said. By 2030, the company is hoping to sell a fully self-driving corn and soybean farming system. Between now and then, John Deere says its articulated dump truck will hit the market. That vehicle can carry more than 92,000 pounds at a time, The Verge reported, and the company says it will improve safety and productivity in sites like quarries. "It's unsupervised, it's capable of making decisions and operating safely on its own," Maya Sripadam, senior product manager of John Deere's subsidiary Blue River Technology, said. John Deere also plans to release driverless tractors that can spray nut orchards with pesticides, growth regulators, and nutrients for the trees. It thinks those vehicles will have a particular benefit to the California nut farming industry, which has faced labor shortages. [...] John Deere hasn't said how much the vehicles will cost. Further reading: Software Fees To Make Up 10% of John Deere's Revenues By 2030

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A 65-year-old patient in the United States with underlying medical conditions has died from bird flu. According to NBC News, "health officials considered the case to be the "country's first severe human H5N1 infection." From the report: The Louisiana Department of Health said the patient had been exposed to a combination of a backyard flock and wild birds. "The Department expresses its deepest condolences to the patient's family and friends as they mourn the loss of their loved one," it said in a statement. "Due to patient confidentiality and respect for the family, this will be the final update about the patient." All but one of the [67] human bird flu infections confirmed so far in the U.S. were diagnosed in the last 10 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases have been relatively mild, with symptoms including pinkeye, coughs or sneezes. The majority of the patients became sick after exposure to infected cattle or poultry. The Louisiana patient was the first case linked to exposure to a backyard flock. [...] The CDC maintains that the immediate risk to public health is low. Public health officials have not found any evidence that the virus has spread person-to-person, which would mark a dire step in bird flu's evolution. "While tragic, a death from H5N1 bird flu in the United States is not unexpected because of the known potential for infection with these viruses to cause severe illness and death," the agency said in a statement on Monday. "There are no concerning virologic changes actively spreading in wild birds, poultry, or cows that would raise the risk to human health," the statement added. However, samples of the virus collected from the Louisiana patient showed signs of mutations that could make it more transmissible to humans, according to the agency.

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Google DeepMind is forming a new team to develop AI models capable of simulating the physical world. It's being led by former OpenAI Sora co-lead Tim Brooks and builds on Google's Gemini, Veo, and Genie projects. "DeepMind has ambitious plans to make massive generative models that simulate the world," Brooks wrote on X. "I'm hiring for a new team with this mission." TechCrunch reports: According to job listings Brooks linked to in his post, the new modeling team will collaborate with and build on work from Google's Gemini, Veo, and Genie teams to tackle "critical new problems" and scale models "to the highest levels of compute." Gemini is Google's flagship series of AI models for tasks like analyzing images and generating text, while Veo is Google's own video generation model. As for Genie, it's Google's take on a world model -- AI that can simulate games and 3D environments in real time. Google's latest Genie model, previewed in December, can generate a massive variety of playable 3D worlds. "We believe scaling [AI training] on video and multimodal data is on the critical path to artificial general intelligence," reads one of the job descriptions. Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, generally refers to AI that can accomplish any task a human can. "World models will power numerous domains, such as visual reasoning and simulation, planning for embodied agents, and real-time interactive entertainment." Per the description, Brooks' new team will look to develop "real-time interactive generation" tools on top of the models they build, and study how to integrate their models with existing multimodal models such as Gemini.

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At CES 2025, AMD unveiled the Z2, Z2 Go, and Z2 Extreme chipsets -- all powered by Zen 5 CPU cores and designed for handheld gaming PCs. IGN reports: The AMD Zen 2 Extreme, along with lower-specced cousins the Z2 and Z2 Go, are powered by Zen 5 CPU cores. While the Zen 2 Extreme is using a RDNA 3.5-based GPU, the Z2 and Z2 Go are still using RDNA 3 and RDNA 2, respectively. This creates an entire family of APUs (Advanced Processing Units) for handheld gaming PCs that should hopefully cause the price of handhelds to go down a bit. With the Z2 Extreme, AMD is hoping to dramatically improve battery life, while also delivering console-like gaming performance to devices like the Lenovo Legion Go. By and large, the biggest limiting factor of these handhelds, especially at the high end, is how quickly their batteries drain when playing demanding games away from a wall outlet. The company also introduced the "Fire Range" HX3D processors for gaming laptops, leveraging 3D V-cache technology for enhanced gaming performance and efficiency. "All of these mobile chipsets, from 'Fire Range' HX3D to the AMD Z2 Extreme, will end up in gaming laptops and handhelds over the next few months," adds IGN. AMD published a press release with additional details and specifications.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Defense Department said on Monday it has added Chinese tech giants including gaming and social media leader Tencent Holdings and battery maker CATL to a list of firms it says work with China's military. The list also included chip maker Changxin Memory Technologies, Quectel Wireless and drone maker Autel Robotics, according to a document published on Monday. The annually updated list (PDF) of Chinese military companies, formally mandated under U.S. law as the "Section 1260H list," designated 134 companies, according to a notice posted to the Federal Register. U.S.-traded shares of Tencent, which is also the parent of Chinese instant messaging app WeChat, fell 8% in over-the-counter trading. Tencent said in a statement that its inclusion on the list was "clearly a mistake." It added: "We are not a military company or supplier. Unlike sanctions or export controls, this listing has no impact on our business." CATL called the designation a mistake, saying it "is not engaged in any military related activities." A Quectel spokesperson said the company "does not work with the military in any country and will ask the Pentagon to reconsider its designation, which clearly has been made in error." While the designation does not involve immediate bans, it can be a blow to the reputations of affected companies and represents a stark warning to U.S. entities and firms about the risks of conducting business with them. It could also add pressure on the Treasury Department to sanction the companies. Two previously listed companies, drone maker DJI and Lidar-maker Hesai Technologies, both sued the Pentagon last year over their previous designations, but remain on the updated list. The Pentagon also removed six companies it said no longer met the requirements for the designation, including AI firm Beijing Megvii Technology, China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, China State Construction Group Co and China Telecommunications Corporation.

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What's your favorite self-hosted service?  XDA Developers

Toyota's Woven City, a $10 billion "living laboratory" on the site of a former car factory, is set to welcome its first 100 residents in fall 2025. The first residents will be Toyota employees and affiliates, but the city aims to expand to include "external inventors and their families." The Verge reports: Toyota said it completed "phase 1" of the construction, with the official launch planned for 2025. "Woven City is more than just a place to live, work, and play," Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said during today's press conference at CES. "Woven City is a place where people can invent and develop all kinds of new products and ideas. It's a living laboratory where the residents are willing participants, giving inventors the opportunity to freely test their ideas in a secure, real-life setting." [...] In fall 2025, Toyota said it will welcome the first 100 residents to Woven City, all of whom will be employees of Toyota or its subsidiary, Woven by Toyota. The community will gradually expand to include "external inventors and their families" who will be invited to relocate to the new city. In total, the first phase of the city will eventually house 360 residents, Toyota says. Toyota dubs these first residents "Weavers," adding that they are people who "share a passion for the 'expansion of mobility' and a commitment to building a more flourishing society. Through their participation in co-creation activities, Weavers will contribute to realizing the full potential of Woven City." That said, the first "inventors" confirmed for Woven City are mostly in the food services business, including a vending machine company and a startup that wants to explore "the potential value of coffee through futuristic cafe experiences." Toyoda mentioned several other ideas during his press conference, including high-powered motorized wheelchairs for people with disabilities who want to experience the thrill of racing. He also pitched the idea of a personal drone that follows joggers for added security, and "pet robots" for elderly people. The Woven City site, which is located at the base of Mount Fuji, includes buildings that are designed by famed Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. The goal, through phase 2 and subsequent phases, is to build enough housing and facilities for up to 2,000 people to live year-around, with utilities powered by the company's hydrogen fuel cell technology. The site is private for now, though Toyota says it plans on inviting the general public to see it in 2026. The name "Woven City" is a reference to weaving together three different types of streets or pathways, each for a specific type of user. One street would be for faster vehicles only. The second would be a mix of lower-speed personal mobility vehicles, like bikes and scooters, as well as pedestrians. And the third would be a park-like promenade for pedestrians only. Japan first announced the "prototype city of the future" at CES 2020.

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A forthcoming peer-reviewed study (PDF) from Rutgers University's Network Contagion Research Institute argues that TikTok surfaces fewer anti-CCP posts compared to Instagram and YouTube, despite higher user engagement with such content. It also found that heavy TikTok usage correlates with more favorable views of China's human rights record. The findings come a Supreme Court hearing later this week on whether the federal government can ban TikTok. Gizmodo reports: The new peer-reviewed paper, which was first reported by The Free Press, begins by examining whether content on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube related to the keywords "Tiananmen," "Tibet," "Uyghur," and "Xinjiang" tends to display pro- or anti-CCP sentiment. The researchers found that TikTok's algorithm didn't necessarily surface more pro-CCP content in response to searches for those terms, but it delivered fewer anti-CCP posts than did Instagram or YouTube and significantly more posts that were irrelevant to the subject. In the second stage of their study, the NCRI team tested whether the lower performance of anti-CCP content was a result of less user engagement (likes and comments) with those posts. They found that TikTok users "liked or commented on anti-CCP content nearly four times as much as they liked or commented on pro-CCP content, yet the search algorithm produced nearly three times as much pro-CCP content" while there was no similar discrepancy on Instagram or YouTube. Finally, the researchers surveyed 1,214 Americans about their social media usage and their views on China's human rights record. The more time users spent on any social media platform, the more likely they were to have favorable views of China's human rights record, the survey showed. Users were particularly more likely to have favorable views if they spent more than three hours a day using TikTok. The researchers wrote that they could not definitively conclude that spending more time on TikTok resulted in more positive views of China, but "taken together, the findings from these three studies raise the distinct possibility that TikTok is a vehicle for CCP propaganda."

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Budgie 10.10 Desktop Will Be Wayland-Only as Work Continues on Budgie 11  9to5Linux

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After ditching the traditional Dell XPS laptop look in favor of the polarizing design of the XPS 13 Plus released in 2022, Dell is killing the XPS branding that has become a mainstay for people seeking a sleek, respectable, well-priced PC. This means that there won't be any more Dell XPS clamshell ultralight laptops, 2-in-1 laptops, or desktops. Dell is also killing its Latitude, Inspiron, and Precision branding, it announced today. Moving forward, Dell computers will have either just Dell branding, which Dell's announcement today described as "designed for play, school, and work," Dell Pro branding "for professional-grade productivity," or be Dell Pro Max products, which are "designed for maximum performance." Dell will release Dell and Dell Pro-branded displays, accessories, and "services," it said. The Pro Max line will feature laptops and desktop workstations with professional-grade GPU capabilities as well as a new thermal design. Dell claims its mid-tier Pro line emphasizes durability, "withstanding three times as many hinge cycles, drops, and bumps from regular use as competitor devices." The statement is based on "internal analysis of multiple durability tests performed" on the Dell Pro 14 Plus (released today) and HP EliteBook 640 G11 laptops conducted in November. Also based on internal testing conducted in November, Dell claims its Pro PCs boost "airflow by 20 percent, making these Dell's quietest commercial laptops ever." Within each line are base models, Plus models, and Premium models. In a blog post, Kevin Terwilliger, VP and GM of commercial, consumer, and gaming PCs at Dell, explained that Plus models offer "the most scalable performance" and Premium models offer "the ultimate in mobility and design." By those naming conventions, old-time Dell users could roughly equate XPS laptops with new Dell Premium products. [...] Dell will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals (Dell acquired Alienware in 2006). The changes were made to create more "unified branding" that will make it "easier and faster to find the right PCs, accessories, and services," said Dell in a press release. It also serves to push the company's "AI PCs" onto consumers. Dell notes that it will maintain its Alienware line of gaming PCs and peripherals "that's been service PC gamers for nearly 30 years."

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Computer scientists are using hypothetical devices called "oracles" to advance the field of computational complexity theory, exploring fundamental questions about problem-solving difficulty. These theoretical tools, which instantly provide correct yes-or-no answers to specific questions, help researchers understand relationships between different classes of computational problems. Oracles have proved particularly valuable in studying quantum computing, leading to breakthroughs like Peter Shor's 1994 quantum algorithm for factoring large numbers. The technique has also helped researchers rule out certain approaches to solving the longstanding P versus NP problem, a central question in computer science.

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How to Install Linux Kernel 6.12 LTS on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 24.10  9to5Linux