When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. There's no two ways about it: Windows 11 is absurdly heavy. Writing as someone who has been here since the days of DOS 3.3, it is patently ridiculous how pathetic Windows 11 makes multi-gigahertz multicore machines look. I mean, yeah, Linux, but the download for Bazzite is like eight gigs, and it wants over fifty gigabytes of space once it's installed. What about something like the systems of my youth? Tiny Core Linux is the extreme alternative to Windows 11, a true example of just how small a functional desktop operating system can be, even now in 2025. That's not 23MB of installer data followed by gigabytes of packages, but 23MB for the entire bootable system with a graphical desktop—no Internet required. There's an even smaller "Core" version if you don't need a GUI, at just 17 MB. Tiny Core Linux is a real, maintained distribution with current kernels all the way up to 6.12, modern libraries, system extension repositories, and working support for contemporary hardware. Of course, Tiny Core Linux isn't the only ultra-lightweight distro out there. Meanwhile, Slax is specifically designed to run as a small, live-USB-friendly system aimed at physical portability; it's larger, but more compatible with mainstream Linux software. Those projects aim to be something more like "small but complete" out of the box. Tiny Core takes a different approach, as its base system is intentionally incomplete. Anything beyond the absolute minimum, including a browser, any multimedia support, extra drivers, et cetera — it all gets installed as an extension through Tiny Core's repository system, which functions kind of like a minimal app store. This modular approach is powerful, but it also means Tiny Core demands a certain level of Linux comfort. It's not a beginner-friendly distro, and doesn't try to be. The fun historical wrinkle is that 23MB used to be a luxury. Early 90s Linux distributions fit entire operating systems —with the kernel, its drivers, management tools, and X11 — onto a couple of floppy diskettes. The difference is that those systems didn't have to support modern hardware stacks, wireless networking, USB3 controllers, or graphics acceleration. Once you bring in contemporary kernels and libraries, even the most aggressively stripped-down environment gains weight. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Despite the novelty factor, though, Tiny Core Linux's diminutive dimensions aren't just a party trick. Its tiny footprint and RAM-centric design make it useful for resurrecting very old hardware, embedded or appliance-style systems, hyper-minimal rescue environments, extremely fast boot-to-desktop setups, and custom Linux builds where every byte counts. If you're comfortable configuring a system from the ground up, Tiny Core Linux remains one of the most flexible, smallest, and fastest ways to get a real desktop Linux environment running on almost anything, right down to that 90s-era beige box gathering dust in your closet. For most Linux users, though, we'd recommend starting with something more user-friendly. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Zak is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware with decades of PC benchmarking experience who has also written for HotHardware and The Tech Report. A modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.
The lovely bead-blasted metal wedge design of this computer will win retro-fans. But its AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, 96GB DDR5 RAM and ‘Workbench' Linux-based OS are also strong draws at $1,999. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. London-based Caligra recently showcased its c100 Developer Terminal, touted as a brand-new computer platform. At a San Francisco Bay Area event, interested parties were given a sneak peek of the retro-licious wedge form factor metal bead-blasted computer. “Designed from the ground up for experts,” the c100 targets those wanting a computer that is “made for making,” and is purposed to accelerate your work. San Francisco - this Thursday @coffeejunk and I are hosting a little meetup for @caligracomputer. Caligra is quite bold in its marketing of the c100, as you will already have grasped. Other essentials that it will have to get on target are the hardware specs, software, and pricing. That's retro-famously the GUI that was rolled out with the Commodore Amiga computer line, but is not at all related to it. To cut a long story short, this new Workbench is Linux-based. We like the approach of Workbench, billed as “An OS that does less,” so that your work can take center stage, and be what you focus on. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. “We've removed the distractions, so it's just you and your ideas. “With a focus unlike anything available from big tech, Workbench is entirely dedicated to accelerating your work.” Workbench uses an rpm-based core system, but while it is “not a distribution,” it is touted as an ideal host for containers and packages from open source and commercial repositories. Specifically, packages from the Fedora project can be added by root users, and tools like distrobox allow for software from other distros to be added. Unlike a truly bespoke, clean sheet, ‘new computer system,' if Workbench development ended one day, we don't see any reason that you wouldn't be able to use this hardware for a Windows, or other flavor of Linux, install. We did a rough calculation of the component hardware costs of the c100, and considered several unique parts central to this pleasing design. We think it would cost between $1,200 and $1,500 to make something similar, hardware-wise. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.
New research identifies more than thirty vulnerabilities across AI coding tools, revealing a universal attack chain that affects every major AI-integrated IDE tested. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. A six-month investigation into AI-assisted development tools has uncovered over thirty security vulnerabilities that allow data exfiltration and, in some cases, remote code execution. The findings, described in the IDEsaster research report, show how AI agents embedded in IDEs such as Visual Studio Code, JetBrains products, Zed, and numerous commercial assistants can be manipulated into leaking sensitive information or executing attacker-controlled code. According to the research, 100% of tested AI IDEs and coding assistants were vulnerable. Products affected include GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Kiro.dev, Zed.dev, Roo Code, Junie, Cline, Gemini CLI, and Claude Code, with at least twenty-four assigned CVEs and additional advisories from AWS. The core issue comes from how AI agents interact with long-standing IDE features. These editors were never designed for autonomous components capable of reading, editing, and generating files. When AI assistants gained these abilities, previously benign features became attack surfaces. “All AI IDEs... effectively ignore the base software... in their threat model. However, once you add AI agents that can act autonomously, the same features can be weaponized into data exfiltration and RCE primitives,” said security researcher Ari Marzouk, speaking to The Hacker News. According to the research report, this is an IDE-agnostic attack chain, beginning with context hijacking via prompt injection. Hidden instructions can be planted in rule files, READMEs, file names, or outputs from malicious MCP servers. The final stage abuses built-in features to extract data or execute attacker code across any AI IDE sharing that base software layer. Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDEs, and Zed all exhibited this behavior. Even developer safeguards like diff previews did not suppress the outbound request. Another case study demonstrates full remote code execution through manipulated IDE settings. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Mitigations exist for both developers and tool vendors, but the long-term fix requires fundamentally redesigning how IDEs allow AI agents to read, write, and act inside projects. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.
New research identifies more than thirty vulnerabilities across AI coding tools, revealing a universal attack chain that affects every major AI-integrated IDE tested. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. A six-month investigation into AI-assisted development tools has uncovered over thirty security vulnerabilities that allow data exfiltration and, in some cases, remote code execution. The findings, described in the IDEsaster research report, show how AI agents embedded in IDEs such as Visual Studio Code, JetBrains products, Zed, and numerous commercial assistants can be manipulated into leaking sensitive information or executing attacker-controlled code. According to the research, 100% of tested AI IDEs and coding assistants were vulnerable. Products affected include GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Kiro.dev, Zed.dev, Roo Code, Junie, Cline, Gemini CLI, and Claude Code, with at least twenty-four assigned CVEs and additional advisories from AWS. The core issue comes from how AI agents interact with long-standing IDE features. These editors were never designed for autonomous components capable of reading, editing, and generating files. When AI assistants gained these abilities, previously benign features became attack surfaces. “All AI IDEs... effectively ignore the base software... in their threat model. However, once you add AI agents that can act autonomously, the same features can be weaponized into data exfiltration and RCE primitives,” said security researcher Ari Marzouk, speaking to The Hacker News. According to the research report, this is an IDE-agnostic attack chain, beginning with context hijacking via prompt injection. Hidden instructions can be planted in rule files, READMEs, file names, or outputs from malicious MCP servers. The final stage abuses built-in features to extract data or execute attacker code across any AI IDE sharing that base software layer. Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDEs, and Zed all exhibited this behavior. Even developer safeguards like diff previews did not suppress the outbound request. Another case study demonstrates full remote code execution through manipulated IDE settings. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Mitigations exist for both developers and tool vendors, but the long-term fix requires fundamentally redesigning how IDEs allow AI agents to read, write, and act inside projects. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.
There are some monitors that force you to involuntarily pucker your lips and utter a silent “ooh.” That normally happens long after you fit the base and arm into the display and turn it on for the first time. When unboxing the 40-inch 4K Samsung Odyssey G7, I found I was much more excited by the promise of its fine black exterior and RGB ring light, not to mention its massive frame and sweeping 1,000R curve. I first laid eyes on the Odyssey G75F (model number LS40FG75DENXZA) earlier this year. It was an odd middle child between the 27-inch OLED Odyssey G6 with its blistering 360Hz refresh rate and the 27-inch OLED Odyssey G8 with its 4K, 240Hz panel (2025 was filled to the brim with this type of monitor). This monitor is also solid with its 140 ppi (pixels per inch) density, meaning it can offer a relatively crisp image despite its size. While it may lack the prestine picture of OLED, Samsung's Odyssey G7 is still a big and engrossing 40-inch gaming monitor. Just don't use it near any open windows. There are some consumers who prefer LCD technology to OLED. I'm not here to debate the merits of higher-brightness LCDs versus typically lower-brightness, more energy-dependent OLED. Samsung's Odyssey monitors—and its TVs for that matter—are usually more expensive than most other brands with the same technology. For any price, there are still trade-offs aplenty. You're mainly looking at this monitor for its size. On our office gaming desk we set up for testing PCs, its wingspan manages to nearly consume the table from port to starboard. Its 1,000R curve is far more dramatic than other, smaller 1800R curved monitors. The curve nearly captures your eyes in its embrace. For gamers, it's a truly different experience than if you're used to flatter displays. The 4K monitor actually reaches a wider 5,120 x 2,160 resolution (sometimes called WUHD) than the typical 4K size of 3,840 x 2,160 (UHD). The Odyssey G7 sports a 21:9 aspect ratio supported by some, but not all games. It's a similar story for streaming content as well. Some movies and shows on your favored streaming platform may support the ultrawide aspect ratio, but others won't. The monitor only comes with two HDMI 2.1 and a single DisplayPort 1.4 input. There are an additional two USB-A 3.2 ports and a headphone jack. Still, I'd hardly call that port-rich for the size of this monitor. For some odd reason, Samsung doesn't make managing your cables too easy. There's a single rubber strap across the back of the monitor stand that Samsung expects to contain all your miscellaneous cables. I would have preferred some more permanent loop that could hold fmore cables without straining. That fun, circular light strip on the monitor's rear panel can be programmed with a few preset patterns, but it's mainly there to offer some background glow to the wall behind it. That little bit of attention to detail is consistent with Odyssey monitors, though I would have still enjoyed some speakers on the G7. The sound quality on a monitor likely won't shiver my spine with bass, but I enjoy speakers being there in a pinch. The one issue you'll run into with compatibility is Samsung's screens don't support Dolby Vision. Some noteworthy games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 will use HDR10+. Its stated typical brightness sits at around 350 nits. With the sunlight beaming in from a nearby window, the picture quality on Samsung's monitor took a hit. In other environments, the monitor may look a little cheap despite its size. OLED normally has a faster response time, though it will be a little more dim depending on the quality of the display. What actually matters is what the content eventually looks like, and in that regard it's a much better experience. In peak conditions, the black levels avoid the problems on other monitors that make dark tones look gray. A game like Hollow Knight: Silksong supports the 21:9 aspect ratio and looks very nice once you can see so much of your surroundings. The contrast may not be as strong as some may wish, but it certainly doesn't look bad either. A title like Total War: Warhammer III supports the WUHD resolution, but it requires you to manually scale the UI and text size so it's manageable. Also, you need to remember that consoles like the PlayStation 5 don't naturally support ultrawide aspect ratios. They merely stretch a 4K image to fit the screen. It's not so much reflective, as any ambient light tends to diffuse over the surface and mar any of those clear visuals you were hoping for. Sure, having a 40-inch display will naturally let you shove as many apps on it at once. That's the benefit of a large screen, although I find the problem with excess is how quickly it may fill up. The Odyssey G7 does allow swivel and tilt to a surprising degree. You can push the monitor up from -5 to 20 degrees and swing it around another 20 degrees to the left and right. No, sorry, you're not going to twist this display vertically unless you create a creative mount for your wall. If you're looking for even more multitasking, the Samsung Odyssey G7 also allows for a picture-in-picture mode that will allows input from two separate devices. I tried this out with a PlayStation 5 and PC at once. If, for some reason, you want to have your PC's Discord chat up on the same screen as your game, this is an option. I would still much rather keep a laptop or tablet handy nearby, but I don't mind having options. What's left is a monitor that will certainly work well for some gamers and creators who prefer to live in the dark. In the right environment, the picture quality is good enough that I wasn't always pining for something more. But as soon as a little light hit the screen, I could sense a feeling of annoyance twitching behind my eye. I have been spoiled by the number of OLED displays from this year, as the screen technology has become much more prevalent—and cheaper—in recent years. Subscribe and interact with our community, get up to date with our customised Newsletters and much more. And it's making us even more excited for the rumored PlayStation 6 handheld. With prices for PC parts skyrocketing, maybe streaming your games isn't so bad... if you can stomach the subscription. For $130 you can get some of the best-sounding wireless earbuds I've listened to all year. The Antigravity A1 drone offers an experience akin to being in a glass orb hovering 500 meters above the earth.
In theory, all organically grown utterances and snippets of text are safe from that label. But our shared linguistic ecosystem may be so AI-saturated, we now all sound like AI. Worse, in some cases AI-infected speech is being spouted by (ostensibly human) elected officials. Back in July of this year, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development's Center for Adaptive Rationality released a paper on this topic titled “Empirical evidence of Large Language Model's influence on human spoken communication.” As Gizmodo noted at the time, it quantified YouTube users' adoption of words like “underscore,” “comprehend,” “bolster,” “boast,” “swift,” “inquiry,” and “meticulous.” That exercise unearthed a plausible—but hardly conclusive—link between changes to people's spoken vocabularies over the 18 months following the release of ChatGPT and their exposure to the chatbot. But two new, more anecdotal reports, suggest that our chatbot dialect isn't just something that can be found through close analysis of data. It might be an obvious, every day fact of life now. Over on Reddit, according to a new Wired story by Kat Tenbarge, moderators of certain subreddits are complaining about AI posts ruining their online communities. It's not new to observe that AI-armed spammers post low-value engagement bait on social media, but these are spaces like r/AmItheAsshole, r/AmIOverreacting, and r/AmITheDevil, where visitors crave the scintillation or outright titillation of bona fide human misbehavior. If, behind the scenes, there's not really a grieving college student having her tuition cut off for randomly flying off the handle at her stepmom, there's no real fun to be had. The mods in the Wired story explain how they detect AI content, and unfortunately their methods boil down to “It's vibes.” But one novel struggle in the war against slop, the mods say, is that not only are human-written posts sometimes rewritten by AI, but mods are concerned that humans are now writing like AI. Humans are becoming flesh and blood AI-text generators, muddying the waters of AI “detection” to the point of total opacity. After parsing chatbots' strange tics and tendencies—such as overusing the word “delve” most likely because it's in a disproportional number of texts from Nigeria, where that word is popular— Kriss refers to a previously reported trend from over the summer. The thinking goes that ChatGPT-written speeches contained the phrase “I rise to speak,” an American phrase, used by American legislators. “On a single day this June, it happened 26 times,” he notes. While 26 different MPs using ChatGPT to write speeches is not some scientific impossibility, it's more likely an example of chatbots, “smuggling cultural practices into places they don't belong,” to quote Kriss again. So when Kriss points out that when Starbucks locations were closing in September, and signs posted on the doors contained tortured sentences like, “It's your coffeehouse, a place woven into your daily rhythm, where memories were made, and where meaningful connections with our partners grew over the years,” one can't state with certainty that this is AI-generated text (although let's be honest: it probably is). One can state pretty categorically, however, that the sign is written in a new style of annoying prose that has only existed since the release of ChatGPT. And at least some of that annoying new style may be embedded in all of our brains now whether we like it or not. How far are we from a chatbot president? A wrongful death suit alleges that the chatbot encouraged Raine's April suicide.
Big Tech is setting in motion its plans for the next gen of lead designers, engineers, AI chiefs, and even CEOs. In Cupertino, Apple execs with familiar faces are retiring or reducing responsibilities. Well, chief operating officer Jeff Williams retired in November, and the speculation is that CEO Tim Cook could follow in the near term. Lisa Jackson, who has led Apple's sustainability efforts since 2013, is now set to retire in January too. There's also the squad of Apple staffers who have been lured away to work with OpenAI, notably Apple's former chief design officer Jony Ive after his independent stint at LoveFrom. In 2024, Molly Anderson was named industrial design leader, heading up a team of mostly fresh faces. Others have gone to Meta, such as Apple's VP of human interface design, Alan Dye, who just this week was poached to head up a new Reality Labs design studio. At Apple, he's been replaced by long-time UI designer Stephen Lemay. WIRED asked Apple for comment but didn't hear back before publication. Alongside a steady drip of “leaks” on succession planning and Ternus' position at the front of the pack, since 2023, Ternus has been given more prominence at product launch events. He announced the iPhone Air onstage this past September, and has appeared alongside other senior Apple leaders in press interviews and in-store Apple events. “I think they're testing to see what sentiment is like. So these ‘leaks,' they're not happening unintentionally,” suggests Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. I think it might actually be a net positive because it will create a fresh crop of people that have more power now than they did before.” It's always tricky to pick up an individual's contributions at Apple, beyond the odd detail, such as John Ternus himself reportedly being behind the MacBook's TouchBar. Bertrand Nepveu worked in the Apple Vision Pro team from 2017 to 2021, after Apple acquired his VR headset startup Vrvana, and now runs Montreal-based VC firm Triptyq Capital. “John Ternus, even though I never worked with him, the feedback I got is that he's a great product person,” he says, “and I think that's what is needed for the next phase of Apple, especially with AI and with XR.” With this future in mind, Nepveu sees the combination of Ternus-as-CEO working well with other personnel moves at Apple, including the news in March that Rockwell was taking over development of Siri from the head of AI, John Giannandrea. In another major future-facing reshuffle, Giannandrea was replaced this week by Amar Subramanya, who spent 16 years at Google, including work on Gemini and DeepMind, before a six-month stint at Microsoft. “Mike Rockwell, I worked with him in the Vision Pro group, I think he's the right person for that because they [XR and AI] work in tandem,” says Nepveu. I liked him because he didn't drink the Kool-Aid. I think in tandem with someone who is more product-focused [Ternus], it's the way to go for Apple.” While people can create apps via Figma for the iPhone, vibe coding on small budgets, for XR the “technical bar is much higher,” with almost game-developer levels of expertise required—people who understand spatial, 3D, Unity: “The promise of AI is to make that more accessible, more user-friendly.” Another key name is Fletcher Rothkopf, recently promoted to VP of hardware engineering. According to Mark Gurman's reporting, Rothkopf is “overseeing much of the hardware engineering for upcoming glasses,” after the team shifted from a lighter “Vision Air” headset, following the surprisingly positive response to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and Orion prototype. The Bloomberg reporting also cites Apple insiders offering a critique of John Ternus' experience in that he has joined existing projects during his tenure rather than originating them; case in point, on Vision Pro, Rockwell reported to Dan Riccio, who semi-retired back in October 2024. Within UI design, “with Alan Dye leaving, I think that shows the future is hardware, because you see now Meta is pushing for hardware and Google with their TPU,” Nepveu says, of the high-profile Meta coup. Anshel Sag sees a good fit here: “There's no cohesion across Meta's ecosystem, and some of those apps have terrible experiences. Dye's successor as VP of human interaction design is another name to know, the low-profile Stephen Lemay, a UI designer with Apple since 1999. He's named on hundreds of Apple patents and was reportedly nicknamed “Margaret” by Steve Jobs to avoid confusion in meetings. Apple human interface designer Chan Karunamuni posted, following the announcements, “Steve's been my manager for my entire 15 year career so far at Apple and I could not be more excited for this new era.” And former Apple designer Ben Hylak posted that Lemay is “by far the best designer I have ever met or worked with in my entire life. literally taught me what design is.” And, later: “he's the guy you've all been praying for.” Daring Fireball's John Gruber has canvassed Apple designers on the switch, concluding that Lemay is “well liked personally and deeply respected talent-wise” and more focused on interaction than pure visual aesthetics, as compared to Dye, signaling a change in direction for UI leadership. Within ID, Molly Anderson, who has served as Apple's industrial design lead since 2024, appeared at September's event, narrating the iPhone 17 Pro video and wearing an iPhone Air crossbody in the knitted Issey Miyake Pocket. She's given interviews about the Apple Watch, where she discussed her “reverence for watches as beautiful objects” and commissioned young designers at this year's Design Miami | Paris, noting, “It's a way for us to acknowledge how we in the design team are inspired by the outside world.” In 2024, Anderson described the design process for the M4 iPad Pro: “We've designed it almost like a spine, radiating out … an incredibly beautiful kind of structural backbone which makes it rigid and also distributes the thermals.” Rather than Ive-continuity, it's less clear what kind of identity Anderson will bring to emerging categories like smart glasses. While it's mostly a team for Anderson to shape, and Abidur Chowdhury, who helped to develop the iPhone Air, has also recently left Apple ID, old-hand Richard Howarth, who was one of Jony Ive's first hires at Apple, remains with Anderson on the ID team. But it's time for a swing back into innovation and for “a product guy,” like hardware engineering bod John Ternus, to take Apple through the next decade. Rashid suggests that long-term in-house staffers “tend to have a myopathy about the brand” so that instead of taking risks (and “that was why Apple became what it was”) they tend to stay safe, repeating the vernacular and the way they produce things: “So you look back ... when Tim Cook was in, I think Apple didn't progress whatsoever in regards to creating or pushing the boundary of delivering really beautiful products. The minor improvements, one object after another, generally are quite banal.” Tom Emrich, Remix Reality founder and former senior Horizon OS manager at Meta, says Ternus' background in engineering, design, and hardware “feels like the right mix to me”: “Ternus has been inside the company through major transitions, including the move to Apple silicon ... Understanding long product cycles and what it takes to ship complex hardware at scale will matter as Apple moves deeper into spatial computing and AI-driven devices.” “I even think some investors want there to be a hardware person at the helm. Because fundamentally hardware is how a lot of what Apple does gets achieved.” But the general consensus is that it's a green light for most people.” The real unknown in this interaction innovation race is OpenAI. As many as 25 former Apple staffers have jumped ship to work with OpenAI and Jony Ive on AI hardware devices, including Evans Hankey and Tang Tan, OpenAI's chief hardware officer. Sam Altman and Ive have been vague on which form factors the products will take. At OpenAI's developer conference in October, Ive said, “I don't think we have an easy relationship with our technology at the moment.” “But the ecosystem has told me they're looking [at glasses]. So I think they don't want to admit that they can't do a pair of glasses first, or it's taking longer, or it's more difficult than they thought.” Nepveu predicts a Humane AI Pin-style gadget “with that Jony Ive magic.” He adds: “Knowing the culture at Apple, I think they'll release it when it's perfect or really, really good.” On the big-picture next decade of Apple, “I think this streamlined Apple has been more efficient, but when you're too efficient, you're less creative,” says Nepveu. “In a lot of corporations, there's no real ringleader who is the overriding visionary,” says Rashid. In its golden age, Apple marshaled masses of creative talent toward a singular goal, and that's what Rashid believes is needed to repeat the trick: “My argument is, you need a dictator, you need Steve Jobs. The question that underlines all this discourse is whether nonfounders can bring the same level of intensity and creativity as—whatever you think of their ethics or politics—the original founders themselves. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.
The Russians that have successfully surrendered have claimed their officers will shoot their own soldiers for surrendering in view of them. In addition the Ukrainians have to treat anyone who doesn't follow directions as potential perfidy - fake surrenders - there's several videos of Russians pretending to surrender and continuing to fight when the Ukrainians get close.One is pretty much screwed once they are sent to the frontlines on the Russian side. In both cases, the word is out and these people should have known better, but maybe they were desperate, or naive, I think we can have a little human empathy. Kenyans have access to internet, they can use google and quickly find out what happened to others who took the "job". Most of them would be found on CombatFootage, lucky ones would be found in Ukrainian channels doing interviews with POWs You clearly haven't been paying attention.Not only is Russia luring immigrants with false promises of employment and naturalization to pull a bait and switch and press them into the frontline roles, they are also coercing immigrants who they deem have expired visas to serve as cannon fodder. Not only is Russia luring immigrants with false promises of employment and naturalization to pull a bait and switch and press them into the frontline roles, they are also coercing immigrants who they deem have expired visas to serve as cannon fodder. I think the fault lies in those who essentially coerce and threaten to kill you themselves if you don't go to the front lines of an invasion to execute suicide missions. Kenyans are not stupid, they are going to Russia voluntarily, expecting that they will work or study somewhere in Russia while ignoring a all the evidence that they will most likely be sent to a meat grinder on the frontlines. It's pretty clear it's the other way around: claiming that Kenyans are pressed to Russia's frontline because they are too stupid to Google the job proposals they accept is undescribable. They even do this to Russians who sign military contracts, who are promised cushy logistics positions back in Russia but then they see themselves rushed to the front lines to form suicide assault groups. This is poor young men being willfully naive hoping for a chance to support family and self. These poor young Estonians are being willfully naive, they just want to support their family, so they joined the 20th SS division. Do you think that they got any sympathy from allies? https://statskenya.co.ke/at-stats-kenya/about/number-of-peop...The rest are not completely uninformed nor stupid. News does still tend to trickle out over 11 years. "Mum, the job we were told we came to do has been changed, but even this one is not bad" News does still tend to trickle out over 11 years. "Mum, the job we were told we came to do has been changed, but even this one is not bad" "Mum, the job we were told we came to do has been changed, but even this one is not bad"
A year after being pushed out of Intel, Pat Gelsinger is still waking up at 4 a.m., still in the thick of the semiconductor wars — just on a different battlefield. Now a general partner at venture firm Playground Global, he's working with 10 startups. But one portfolio company has captured an outsized share of his attention: xLight, a semiconductor startup that last Monday announced it has struck a preliminary deal for up to $150 million from the U.S. Commerce Department, with the government set to become a meaningful shareholder. It's a nice feather in the cap of Gelsinger, who spent 35 years across two stints at Intel before the board showed him the door late last year owing to a lack of confidence in his turnaround plans. But the xLight deal is also shining a spotlight on a trend that's making people in Silicon Valley quietly uncomfortable: the Trump administration taking equity stakes in strategically important companies. “What the hell happened to free enterprise?” California Governor Gavin Newsom asked at a speaking event this week, capturing the unease that's rippling through an industry that has long prided itself on its free-market principles. He's more focused on his bet that xLight can solve what he sees as the semiconductor industry's biggest bottleneck: lithography, the process of etching microscopic patterns onto silicon wafers. The startup is developing massive “free electron lasers” powered by particle accelerators that could revolutionize chip manufacturing. “You know, I have this long-term mission to continue to see Moore's law in the semiconductor industry,” Gelsinger said, referencing the decades-old principle that computing power should double every two years. “We think this is the technology that will wake up Moore's law.” The xLight deal is the first Chips and Science Act award under Trump's second term, using funding earmarked for early-stage companies with promising technologies. “We've agreed in principle on the terms, but like any of these contracts, there's still work to get done,” he said. The company plans to build machines roughly 100 meters by 50 meters — about the size of a football field — that will sit outside semiconductor fabrication plants. Before founding xLight, Kelez led quantum computer development efforts at PsiQuantum (a Playground Global portfolio company) and spent two decades building large-scale X-ray science facilities at national labs including SLAC and Lawrence Berkeley, where he was Chief Engineer for the Linac Coherent Light Source. Back then, only a handful of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines existed, and the industry had already sunk tens of billions into the incumbent technology. “It just wasn't the time to take on something completely new and orthogonal.” Now, with EUV ubiquitous in leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing and existing light source technology hitting its limits, the timing looks better. The key innovation, according to Kelez, is treating light like a utility rather than building it into each machine. “We go away from building an integrated light source with the tool, which is what [ASML does] now and that fundamentally constrains you to make it smaller and less powerful,” he said. We build outside the fab at utility scale and then distribute in.” There are, naturally, hurdles, though right now, competing with ASML directly does not appear to be one of them. When asked whether Intel or other major chipmakers have committed to purchasing xLight's technology, Gelsinger said they have not: “Nobody has committed yet, but the work is going on with everybody on the list that you would expect, and we're having intense conversations with all of them.” In October, Substrate — a semiconductor manufacturing startup backed by Peter Thiel — announced it raised $100 million to develop U.S. chip fabs, including an EUV tool that sounds awfully similar to xLight's approach. Gelsinger is unapologetic, framing it as necessary for national competitiveness. Many of our competitive countries don't have such debates. They're moving forward with the policies that are necessary to accomplish their competitive outcomes.” “How many nuclear reactors are being built in the US today? For xLight, the government stake comes with minimal strings attached. The Commerce Department won't have veto rights or a board seat, says Kelez (pictured above). xLight has raised $40 million from investors including Playground Global and is planning another fundraising round next month, in January. Unlike fusion or quantum computing startups that need billions, Kelez said xLight's path is more manageable. The company also signed a letter of intent with New York to build its first machine at the New York CREATE site near Albany, though that agreement also needs finalization. For Gelsinger, xLight is clearly more than just another portfolio company. It's a chance to cement his relevance in the semiconductor industry that he helped build, even if his methods put him at odds with Silicon Valley's traditional ethos. “CEOs and companies should neither be Republican or Democrat,” he said. And as a result, you need to be able to figure out what policies are beneficial on the R side or what policies are beneficial in the D side, and be able to navigate through them.” He added separately of that $150 million from the Trump administration, “Taxpayers will do well.” When asked if working across 10 startups is enough for someone who used to run Intel, Gelsinger was emphatic: “Absolutely. He paused, then added with a grin: “And I gave my wife back her weekends.” Show your CFO the marketing proof they want!Join a free webinar hosted by Pantheon on Tuesday December 9 at 10am PT to learn where spend delivers & how to build a 2026 strategy grounded in real results. 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