I'm briefly showing the Voltcraft DOV704 digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) with the Joranalogue Generate 3 eurorack module's various outputs. While the oscilloscope is good for its price, it has a very annoying fan running, and I don't know what to do about it.
Max, das bunte Strickhorn, schaut begeistert am tastaturlosen Flachrechner zu, wie im 3D-Röntgenmikroskop eine Probe nach erfoglreicher Messung zurückgedreht wird. Neben dem Webcam-Videostream gibt es eine kleine Animation mit Live-Daten des aktuellen Winkels; der rotierende Pfeil zieht eine bunte Spur hinter sich her.
China launched its crewed Shenzhou-23 spacecraft and eased it into a successful docking with a space station early Monday as part of Beijing’s ambitions to send humans to the Moon by 2030, state media said.
During this mission, a Chinese astronaut is scheduled to spend a full year in orbit on the Tiangong space station, a crucial first in the Chinese lunar landing programme.
The Long March 2-F rocket blasted off in a cloud of flames and smoke on time at 11:08 pm (1508 GMT) Sunday night from the Jiuquan launch centre in China’s northwestern Gobi Desert, video from state broadcaster CCTV showed.
The spacecraft separated from the rocket around 10 minutes later and entered orbit, the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said on social media.
“The astronauts are in good condition, and the launch has been a complete success,” it added.
The craft docked successfully with the Tiangong space station after a flight of about 3.5 hours, the state news agency Xinhua reported, quoting CMSA.
The mission marks the first spaceflight by an astronaut from Hong Kong: 43-year-old Li Jiaying (Lai Ka-ying in Cantonese), who previously worked for the Hong Kong police.
The two other crew members are 39-year-old space engineer Zhu Yangzhu and 39-year-old Zhang Zhiyuan, a former air force pilot, who is travelling into space for the first time.
Cheering crowds waved Chinese flags at a farewell ceremony ahead of the launch, while a band played and the three astronauts saluted on stage.
The crew is set to carry out numerous scientific projects in life sciences, materials science, fluid physics and medicine.
A key experiment of Shenzhou-23 will be the full-year stay in orbit by one of the crew in order to study the effects of a long stay in microgravity.
The experiment is part of China’s preparations for future lunar missions, as well as missions to Mars.
The astronaut selected for this one-year mission will be named at a later date, depending on the progress of the Shenzhou-23 mission, a spokesperson for the CMSA said on Saturday.
The main challenges will involve long-term effects on humans, including bone density loss, muscle wasting, radiation exposure, sleep disturbances, behavioural and psychological fatigue, said Richard de Grijs, an astrophysicist and professor at Macquarie University in Australia.
He also underlined the importance of reliable water and air recycling systems, as well as the ability to manage potential medical emergencies far from Earth.
China is “steadily” building operational experience for “sustained occupation” of its Tiangong space station, and year-long missions are an important step towards future lunar and potentially deep-space ambitions, de Grijs told AFP.
“A year in orbit pushes both hardware and humans into a different operational regime compared with the shorter Shenzhou missions of the programme’s earlier phases,” he said.
Crews aboard Tiangong have until now largely remained in orbit for six months before being replaced.
The Shenzhou-23 mission is part of China’s goal to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, a race in which the United States is also competing with its Artemis programme.
China is testing the equipment required for its goal, with an orbital test flight of its new Mengzhou spacecraft set for 2026.
The Mengzhou craft will replace the ageing Shenzhou line, and will carry China’s astronauts to the Moon.
Beijing hopes to have built the first phase of a manned scientific base by 2035, known as the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).
China also plans to welcome its first foreign astronaut, from Pakistan, aboard the Tiangong station by the end of this year.
The Asian giant has significantly expanded its space programmes over the last 30 years, injecting billions of dollars into the sector in order to catch up with the United States, Russia and Europe.
In 2019, China landed a spacecraft, the Chang’e-4 probe, on the far side of the Moon — a world first.
Then in 2021, it landed a small rover on Mars.
China has been formally excluded from the International Space Station (ISS) since 2011, when the United States banned NASA from collaborating with Beijing, prompting the Asian giant to develop its own space station project.
Meta has removed a series of scam ads impersonating the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) following HKFP’s enquiries.
The ads, targeting Hongkongers, appeared for weeks on Facebook. They urged users to get in touch with the global policing body if they wished to retrieve funds previously lost to scams – however, the ads were fraudulent.
The posts were published by a since-removed fake news outlet page called “Hong Kong Daily,” which falsely claimed to share an office address with HKFP.
INTERPOL told HKFP that such ads should be reported to the local police. “To confirm that INTERPOL never contacts members of the public directly, never demands money from people and never asks for bank details or any money transfer,” it said on Thursday. “Any such request or advert is fake. Members of the public should not engage and report any such emails or adverts to the local police.”
In response to HKFP on Friday, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong Police Force said they have been “actively engaging relevant authorities to verify and remove suspicious or fraudulent websites. In the process of removing such websites, cooperation with concerned parties, including various service providers, is essential. The Hong Kong Police Force is committed to safeguarding the interests of the public by working with these service providers to suppress fraudulent messages.”
The police force is part of the INTERPOL Member State of China.
Last year, Meta banned over 3.7 million items of ad content in Hong Kong and 134 million instances globally. Also in 2025, the tech giant took down 10.9 million accounts associated with scam centres. The company owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
A spokesperson for Meta told HKFP on Friday that ads which impersonate organisations or seek to defraud people go against its policies.
“The flagged Facebook Page and associated ads have been removed for violating our policies,” the spokesperson said. “Fighting scams on our platforms is one of our top priorities and as scammers have grown in sophistication in recent years, so have our efforts. We use AI-powered detection technology to identify and remove scam ads at scale, and we also encourage anyone who encounters suspicious ads to report them through our in-app tools.”
Nevertheless, according to a report by Reuters news agency, Meta earns US$3.5 billion (HK$27.4 billion) from just a portion of scam ads every six months.
Citing internal Meta documents, Reuters said that the social media company projected that 10 per cent of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, amounting to US$16 billion (HK$124.8 billion).
Other fraudulent ads, appearing to target scam victims, remained online as of Monday, according to HKFP’s checks.
One ad targeting Hongkongers, published by a page called “Law Help,” urged those “affected by online fraud or an unregulated broker” to submit their details.
Scammers have been posing as law enforcement officers to defraud victims.
In March, Nikkei Asia reported that mock police stations and banks had been set up at scam centres, used to fool victims interacting via video call.
US authorities on Wednesday seized 13 internet domains they suspect were used by Chinese agents to obtain classified information from Americans with security clearances.
Last week, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — composed of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — issued a rare warning that Chinese military intelligence services were using LinkedIn and other job platforms to pry secret information.
In a statement on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice announced the seizure of domain names allegedly used by sham consulting sites to target Americans with access to classified information.
“Today’s seizures send a clear message that any attempts to exploit Americans trusted with access to our nation’s most sensitive information will be exposed and dismantled,” said US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro.
Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said the seizures illustrate “the lengths the Chinese government’s intelligence services will go to as they try to use AI-generated content to trick, recruit, or coerce current and former US security clearance holders into sharing sensitive information.”
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg warned Americans they should treat any offers of quick income for vague consulting “with extreme caution and remain vigilant for warning signs of malicious targeting.”
The unnamed conspirators behind the websites “have denied any involvement by any foreign government,” according to the Justice Department statement.
A global cyberattack on online learning platform Canvas has compromised the personal information of more than 72,000 students and staff at Hong Kong schools and universities, according to the city’s privacy watchdog.
The data breaches are part of a global attack that hit almost 9,000 educational institutions worldwide, involving data from 275 million users, according to the platform’s developer, Instructure.
Seven local institutions, including three public universities, have reported the breaches to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD).
They are: the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), City University of Hong Kong (CityU), the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Hong Kong Art School, the Hong Kong Institute of Construction (HKIC), and Hong Kong Education City Limited.
The ShinyHunters hacker group allegedly held Instructure to ransom, threatening to leak the information unless the company paid, according to international media.
Instructure said it had reached an agreement with the hacker group to prevent a public leak and gave assurances that no personal information had been compromised.
The CityU breach involved 28,000 students, according to the university’s report to the PCPD, the privacy watchdog said in a statement on Monday. The leaked data may have included student names, email addresses, student IDs, and messages.
The breach also affected 42,000 students and staff at PolyU, with their names and email addresses potentially compromised, according to the PCPD.
The watchdog “has advised the relevant organisations to notify those affected as soon as possible and to provide assistance as appropriate in each case, in order to prevent the breach from escalating,” it said.
Some 2,500 students and staff at the HKIC and 71 students at the Hong Kong Art School were hit by the breach. The other three institutions have yet to confirm the number of people affected.
Cybersecurity officials have called on institutions to suspend use of the online learning platform and remain vigilant against potential follow-up phishing attacks.
The Hong Kong Productivity Council chief digital officer Edmond Lai said at a press conference on Monday that such attacks could lead to further data leaks or unauthorised transactions.
He also said that the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre is using artificial intelligence tools to identify phishing websites potentially linked to the Canvas hack.
Meanwhile, Chief Superintendent Raymond Lam said at a press conference on Tuesday that two police reports had been made in relation to the Canvas hack.
One report was filed by a local institution, while the other involved people who used the incident as a pretence to deceive a resident.
A new UN study has named Hong Kong’s data centres as some of the most carbon-intensive in the world, blaming the city’s heavy dependence on a fossil-fuel-powered energy grid.
The report, titled “Environmental Cost of AI’s Energy Use,” examined the global carbon, land and water impacts of the infrastructure powering AI, saying that by 2030, data centres could consume 945 terawatt-hours.
That is “nearly triple the combined annual electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, countries collectively home to more than 650 million people,” according to a UN press release.
“Indonesia, India, and Hong Kong (SAR) are among the most carbon-intensive grids with carbon footprints 62%, 51%, and 43% higher than the global average, respectively. Poland and Mainland China rank lower with carbon intensities at 30% and 21% higher than the global average,” the UN University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health said in a report on Wednesday.
In comparison, the carbon footprint of electricity in the US, Germany, and Italy is 18 per cent, 24 per cent, and 32 per cent below the global average, respectively.
Energy in Hong Kong is 67 per cent derived from fossil fuels, 32 per cent from nuclear and just 1 per cent from renewables, the report said.
There is also a water footprint for cooling heat-intensive data centres, as well as a land footprint. “AI-related water consumption could equal the basic annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people by the end of the decade, while its land footprint may exceed 14,500 square kilometres – roughly twice the size of the Jakarta metropolitan area,” the UN said.
However, Hong Kong was ranked among the lightest for water and land consumption, mostly because its energy mix does not rely on renewable energy sources, which require large amounts land.
As a trade and logistics hub, with around 300 internet service providers, Hong Kong remains a prime location for data centres. Its telecommunication networks connect to 12 external submarine optical fibre cable systems, with more under construction, according to the city’s Digital Policy Office.
The government is building a new 110,00 square metre data facility in Sandy Ridge, 90 per cent of which will be dedicated to data centres, according to a government press release in March.
The UN report said that day-to-day use of AI models accounted for around 80 to 90 per cent of total energy demand, as opposed to just model training. It cited the case of ChatGPT, which was processing around 2.5 billion prompts per day, with image generation requiring a thousand times more energy than a simple text query.
“China’s DeepSeek, launched in January 2025, attracted more than 20 million daily active users within three weeks, and had about 125 million monthly active users by mid-2025,” the report said.
According to the Digital Policy Office website, “data centre operators are all striving to enhance energy efficiency , so as to reduce their power consumption, their operating expense and also their environmental impacts.”
It cites existing policies by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD), which set rules for ensuring the energy efficiency of buildings and regulate the use of fresh water in cooling towers for air conditioning systems.
The EMSD’s Green Data Centres Practice Guide lays out initiatives for efficient data centre design, procurement, operations and disposal, whilst also promoting the use of assessment tools to measure environmental impacts.
🇬🇧 Plasma 6.7: You can now remove apps from the Kickoff Application Launcher’s Favorites view by dragging them out of the view and over any part of the rest of the widget. (Christoph Wolk, plasma-desktop MR #3662)
🇩🇪 Plasma 6.7: Sie können nun Apps aus der Ansicht Favoriten des Kickoff Anwendungsstarters entfernen, indem Sie sie aus der Ansicht heraus und auf einen beliebigen Teil des restlichen Widgets ziehen. (Christoph Wolk, plasma-desktop MR #3662)
Watch me try to backport the newer Godot SDL3 gamecontroller driver to the OpenBSD port of Godot 3. This will use Godot 3 game Brotato to test the controller layout.
Es ist der Versuch der Verfolgung einer ferngesteuerten Piper eines Vereinskollegen mit einer 5 Zoll Freestyle Drone (Analog, yay!). Das Videomaterial hier wurde von einer Runcam Thumb 2 erstellt, die Nachbearbeitung fand in Davinci Resolve statt.
Wie es ausschaut gibt es dort eine Menge zu lernen 😃
Agentic Coding ist der letzte Schrei im Bereich der KI-gestützten Entwicklung. In dieser Episode sprechen Eberhard Wolff und Ralf D. Müller mit Tobias Wagner und Yadullah Duman von MaibornWolff über Best Practices für Agentic Coding wie Context oder Harness Engineering - und welche Produktivitätsvorteile sich aus diesem Ansatz tatsächlich in der Praxis ergeben.
Links
By Danny Kemp
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned his US counterpart Donald Trump that missteps on Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict”, a stark opening salvo as they met in Beijing on Thursday at a superpower summit.
Trump had arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend”, as he predicted that their countries would have “a fantastic future together”.
But beyond the pomp as he welcomed Trump, Xi in less effusive tones said the two sides “should be partners and not rivals”, while highlighting the issue of self-ruled democratic Taiwan — which Beijing claims as its territory — straight off the bat.
“The Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,” Xi said, according to remarks published by Chinese state media shortly after talks began.
“If mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a highly perilous situation,” he added at the opening talks that lasted around two hours and 15 minutes.
Trump’s trip to Beijing is the first by a US president in nearly a decade, with the grand reception belying a host of unresolved trade and geopolitical tensions between the two countries.
Xi greeted Trump with a red-carpet welcome at the opulent Great Hall of the People, with military band fanfare, a gun salute and a host of schoolchildren jumping and chanting “welcome!”.
Seemingly enjoying the ceremony, Trump said “the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before”.
Xi instead referenced an ancient Greek political theory about the risks of war when a rising power rivals a ruling power.
“Can China and the United States transcend the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations,” Xi asked, adding that “cooperation benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both”.
There has been plenty of the latter since Trump’s last visit in 2017, with the two countries having spent much of 2025 embroiled in a dizzying trade war and at odds on many major global issues.
Taiwan is a longstanding sore point.
The United States recognises only Beijing but under domestic law is required to provide weapons to Taiwan so that it can defend itself.
China has sworn to take the self-ruled democracy and has not ruled out using force, ramping up military pressure in recent years.
Following Xi’s comments on Thursday, Taipei called China the “sole risk” to regional peace, and insisted that “the US side has repeatedly reaffirmed its clear and firm support”.
But Trump said Monday he would speak to Xi about US arms sales to Taiwan, a departure from historic US insistence that it will not consult Beijing on the matter.
Adam Ni, editor of newsletter China Neican, told AFP that while such “blunt language” was not uncommon in Chinese foreign policy, it was unusual coming from Xi himself.
“Xi wants to make it very clear… he thinks the Taiwan issue is the potential powder keg between the two superpowers,” Ni added.
China has been “signalling a desire for US compromise on Taiwan in the lead up to the summit,” the National University of Singapore’s Chong Ja Ian told AFP.
Xi’s demand could suggest “they see some opportunity to convince Trump”, he said.
A new addition to the list of contentious issues to be discussed, the Iran war, threatens to weaken Trump’s position, having already forced him to postpone his trip from March.
The US president said he expected a “long talk” with Xi about Iran, which sells most of its US-sanctioned oil to China, but insisted that “I don’t think we need any help” from Beijing.
However, his secretary of state Marco Rubio, historically a fierce opponent of Beijing, said the US side was hoping “to convince (China) to play a more active role”.
Trump is also hoping for business deals on agriculture, aircraft and other sectors.
Elite businessmen in his delegation, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Tesla’s Elon Musk, were on the stairs of the Great Hall of the People on Thursday for the welcome ceremony.
Musk told reporters afterwards the meeting had been “wonderful”, while Huang said the two presidents “were incredible”.
Xi later told the delegation that his country’s “doors to the outside world will open wider and wider” and that US companies would enjoy “even brighter prospects in China”.
On the eve of the summit, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met in South Korea to seek progress in ending a long-simmering trade war between the two.
Xi said the talks “reached results that were generally balanced and positive”, and urged both sides to “safeguard the current hard-won positive momentum”.
Trump and Xi are set to discuss extending a one-year tariff truce reached during their last meeting in South Korea in October.
China’s controls on rare earth exports and AI rivalry are among other topics expected to be taken up.
After their morning meeting, the two men took a break from negotiations, heading to the Temple of Heaven, a World Heritage site where China’s emperors once prayed for good harvests.
The two will return to the Great Hall of the People this evening for a state banquet.
Login