Electrek reports:

EV and battery supply chain research specialists Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reports that 2.0 million electric vehicles were sold globally in November 2025, bringing global EV sales to 18.5 million units year-to-date. That's a 21% increase compared to the same period in 2024.

Europe was the clear growth leader in November, while North America continued to lag following the expiration of US EV tax credits. China, meanwhile, remains the world's largest EV market by a wide margin. Europe's EV market jumped 36% year-over-year in November 2025, with BEV sales up 35% and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) sales rising 39%. That brings Europe's total EV sales to 3.8 million units for the year so far, up 33% compared to January-November 2024... In North America, EV sales in the US did tick up month-over-month in November, following a sharp October drop after federal tax credits expired on September 30, 2025. Brands including Kia (up 30%), Hyundai (up 20%), Honda (up 11%), and Subaru (232 Solterra sales versus just 13 the month before) all saw gains, but overall volumes remain below levels when the federal tax credit was still available... [North America shows a -1% drop in EV sales from January to November 2025 vs. January to November 2024]

Year-to-date, EV sales in China are up 19%, with 11.6 million units sold. One of the biggest headlines out of China is exports. BYD reported a record 131,935 EV exports in November, blowing past its previous high of around 90,000 units set in June. BYD sales in Europe have jumped more than fourfold this year to around 200,000 vehicles, doubled in Southeast Asia, and climbed by more than 50% in South America...

"Overall, EV demand remains resilient, supported by expanding model ranges and sustained policy incentives worldwide," said Rho Motion data manager Charles Lester.
Beyond China, Europe, and North America, the rest of the world saw a 48% spike in EV sales in 2025 vs the same 11 months in 2024, representing 1.5 million EVs sold.

"The takeaway: EV demand continues to grow worldwide," the article adds, "but policy support — or the lack thereof — is increasingly shaping where this growth shows up."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 1975, 23-year-old electrical engineer Steve Sasson joined Kodak. And in a new interview with the BBC, he remembers that he'd found the whole photographic process "really annoying.... I wanted to build a camera with no moving parts. Now that was just to annoy the mechanical engineers..."



"You take your picture, you have to wait a long time, you have to fiddle with these chemicals. Well, you know, I was raised on Star Trek, and all the good ideas come from Star Trek. So I said what if we could just do it all electronically...?"


Researchers at Bell Labs in the US had, in 1969, created a type of integrated circuit called a charge-coupled device (CCD). An electric charge could be stored on a metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS), and could be passed from one MOS to another. Its creators believed one of its applications might one day be used as part of an imaging device — though they hadn't worked out how that might happen. The CCD, nevertheless, was quickly developed. By 1974, the US microchip company Fairchild Semiconductors had built the first commercial CCD, measuring just 100 x 100 pixels — the tiny electronic samples taken of an original image. The new device's ability to capture an image was only theoretical — no-one had, as yet, tried to take an image and display it. (NASA, it turned out, was also looking at this technology, but not for consumer cameras....)

The CCD circuit responded to light but could only form an image if Sasson was somehow able to attach a lens to it. He could then convert the light into digital information — a blizzard of 1s and 0s — but there was just one problem: money. "I had no money to build this thing. Nobody told me to build it, and I certainly couldn't demand any money for it," he says. "I basically stole all the parts, I was in Kodak and the apparatus division, which had a lot of parts. I stole the optical assembly from an XL movie camera downstairs in a used parts bin. I was just walking by, you see it, and you take it, you know." He was also able to source an analogue to digital converter from a $12 (about £5 in 1974) digital voltmeter, rather than spending hundreds on the part. I could manage to get all these parts without anybody really noticing," he says....

The bulky device needed a way to store the information the CCD was capturing, so Sasson used an audio cassette deck. But he also needed a way to view the image once it was saved on the magnetic tape. "We had to build a playback unit," Sasson says. "And, again, nobody asked me to do that either. So all I got to do is the reverse of what I did with the camera, and then I have to turn that digital pattern into an NTSC television signal." NTSC (National Television System Committee) was the conversion standard used by American TV sets. Sasson had to turn only 100 lines of digital code captured by the camera into the 400 lines that would form a television signal.

The solution was a Motorola microprocessor, and by December 1975, the camera and its playback unit was complete, the article points out. With his colleague Jim Schueckler, Sasson had spent more than a year putting together the "increasingly bulky" device, that "looked like an oversized toaster."



The camera had a shutter that would take an image at about 1/20th of a second, and — if everything worked as it should — the cassette tape would start to move as the camera transferred the stored information from its CCD [which took 23 seconds]. "It took about 23 seconds to play it back, and then about eight seconds to reconfigure it to make it look like a television signal, and send it to the TV set that I stole from another lab...." In 1978, Kodak was granted the first patent for a digital camera. It was Sasson's first invention. The patent is thought to have earned Eastman Kodak billions in licensing and infringement payments by the time they sold the rights to it, fearing bankruptcy, in 2012...

As for Sasson, he never worked on anything other than the digital technology he had helped to create until he retired from Eastman Kodak in 2009.


Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

De Financial Times maakt jaarlijks een lijst met aanbevolen wijnen voor de feestdagen. Het is de krant voor mensen met geld, dus er zitten dure flessen bij. Maar ook flessen die redelijk zijn geprijsd. In de lijst lopen de prijzen op. Van 12,50 tot 265 euro

De prijzen zijn in ponden en euro's

Je kunt alle wijnen terugzoeken via Wine‑Searcher

Feestwijn

Undurraga Cauquenes Estate Carignan 2022 Maule – £10,95 ≈ €12,50

Bodegas Care Garnacha Nativa 2022 Cariñena – £12 ≈ €13,70

Ch de Pitray 2022 Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux – £12,50 ≈ €14,25

Dom de Laguille Merlot, Rouge de Plaisir 2023 Côtes de Gascogne – £12,55 ≈ €14,30

Bodegas San Martín, Alma de Unx Garnacha 2023 Navarra – £13,45 ≈ €15,35

Xanadu, Point Break Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 Margaret River – £13,50 ≈ €15,40

Boutinot, Réserve des Hospitaliers 2024 Cairanne – £13,50 ≈ €15,40

Ch Les Gravières de de Brandille 2020 Bordeaux Supérieur – £13,75 ≈ €15,70

Ch Tanunda, The Oath Shiraz 2023 Barossa – £14 ≈ €16,00

Bideona, Viña Ecay Crianza Tempranillo Orgánico 2021 Rioja – £14 ≈ €16,00

Piedra Fluida, Magec 2023 Tenerife – £14,95 ≈ €17,00

La Compagnie de Burgondie, Les Vignes de de la Croix 2023 Bourgogne Côte Chalonnaise – £15 ≈ €17,10

Cave de Tulette, Les Trois Couronnes 2023 Vinsobres – £15 ≈ €17,10

Bird in Hand, Two in the Bush Shiraz 2023 Adelaide Hills – £16 ≈ €18,25

Château de Pizay 2023 Régnié – £16 ≈ €18,25

Calçada, Duris Reserva 2021 Douro – £16 ≈ €18,25

Ch de Francs 2018 Francs — Côtes de Bordeaux – £16 ≈ €18,25

Tesco Finest Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon 2023 Napa Valley – £16,96 ≈ €19,35

Ch Tayet, Cuvée Prestige 2018 Bordeaux Supérieur – £17 ≈ €19,40

Ch Fourcas-Borie 2016 Listrac – £17 ≈ €19,40

Mascota, Unánime Gran Vino 2021 Mendoza – £17,50 ≈ €19,95

Pisano, Family Selection Grand Reserve Tannat 2023 Uruguay – £17,50 ≈ €19,95

Ch Bellerive 2016 Médoc – £17,95 ≈ €20,50

Famille Guerin, La Vigne de Mon Père 2023 Moulin-à-Vent – £18 ≈ €20,50

Le Moulin Rose de Malescasse 2020 Haut-Médoc – £18 ≈ €20,50

Ch Lancyre, Clos des Combes 2023 Pic Saint Loup – £18,40 ≈ €21,00

Distant Noises Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 Yarra Valley – £18,95 ≈ €21,60

Braunewell Spätburgunder 2020 Rheinhessen – £19 ≈ €22,00

Zulal Areni 2021 Armenië – £19,30 ≈ €22,00

Manoella 2023 Douro – £19 ≈ €22,00

Catena, DV Catena Malbec 2022 La Consulta – £20 ≈ €22,80

Terre da Vino 2020 Barolo – £21 ≈ €24,00

Dom Torraccia, Porto Vecchio 2021 Vin de Corse – £21 ≈ €24,00

Tenuta Casenuove 2020 Chianti Classico – £22,50 ≈ €25,70

Ch La Croix de Marbuzet 2022 St Estèphe – £22 ≈ €25,10

Camins2Dreams, Yilá Red 2023 Santa Barbara County – £22 ≈ €25,10

Kelly Washington, La Monella Pinot Noir 2024 Marlborough – £23 ≈ €26,20

Hoddles Creek Pinot Noir 2023 Yarra Valley – £23,50 ≈ €26,80

Dom Fontaine Gagnard 2023 Bourgogne Passetoutgrains – £23,60 ≈ €26,90

Michelini i Mufatto, GY Gualtallary Malbec/Cabernet Franc 2022 Uco Valley – £23,95 ≈ €27,30

I Fabbri 2022 Chianti Classico – £23,95 ≈ €27,30

Ch Musar, Aana 2020 Bekaa Valley – £24,50 ≈ €28,00

Col di Lamo 2022 Rosso di Montalcino – £24,95 ≈ €28,50

Bannockburn Shiraz 2022 Geelong – £25 ≈ €28,60

The Chocolate Block 2023 Swartland – £25 ≈ €28,60

Contino Reserva 2020 Rioja – £27 ≈ €30,80

Coste del Vivo, Rosso No 1 NV IGT Toscana – £27,50 ≈ €31,40

Dom Pierre Gaillard, Clos de Cuminaille 2020 St Joseph – £32,60 ≈ €37,20

Yaban Kolektif, Erciş Karası 1770 2023 Oost-Anatolië – £33 ≈ €37,70

Albert Bichot 2022 Fixin – £37 ≈ €42,20

Dom René Bouvier, Le Finage 2022 Marsannay – £37 ≈ €42,20

Fogwell Syrah 2023 West-Kaap – £42 ≈ €47,90

Dom de Perdiguier, Cuvée en Auger 2016 IGP Coteaux d'Ensérune (magnum) – £43 ≈ €49,00

Turley Old Vines Zinfandel 2022 Lodi – £44 ≈ €50,20

Dom de Bellene, Teurons Premier Cru 2019 Beaune – £49 ≈ €55,90

Ch Grand Puy Lacoste 2009 Pauillac – £100 (Trove) ≈ €114,00 / £120 (Hedonism) ≈ €137,00

Domaine Jamet 2011 Côte Rôtie – £230 ≈ €262,00–€265,00

DEN HAAG (ANP) - De vrijlating van 123 politieke gevangenen in Belarus is volgens demissionair minister David van Weel (Buitenlandse Zaken, VVD) "goed nieuws", maar hij wijst er ook op dat nog veel tegenstanders van president Aleksandr Loekasjenko vastzitten.

"Families zijn herenigd", aldus de bewindsman op X. "Tegelijkertijd zitten er nog steeds ruim 1000 anderen gevangen en leven nog veel Belarussen in angst om onterecht gearresteerd te worden."

Onder de mensen die zijn vrijgelaten zijn bekende namen. Het gaat onder anderen om Ales Bjaljazki die drie jaar geleden een van de winnaars van de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede was, en Maria Kolesnikova die bij de grote betogingen in 2020 in Belarus een vooraanstaande rol speelde. Ze zijn allemaal het land uitgezet naar Litouwen en Oekraïne.

De politieke gevangenen kwamen vrij na bemiddeling van de speciale Amerikaanse gezant John Coale. De Amerikanen schrapten in ruil daarvoor handelssancties op potas (een belangrijke grondstof voor kunstmest) uit Belarus.

DanÅke Carlsson posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

“Deze video heeft meer likes dan pixels”, merkt iemand op in de comments. Eh, ja, om de beeldkwaliteit hoeft u dit clipje van Therion niet te bekijken. Maar de muziek, oh, die muziek! Een heerlijke eclectische mengelmoes van klassiek en metal, door een band die ooit begon als death metal – maar daar is ten tijde van dit nummer heel weinig meer van over. Heel fijne muziek.

En hier kunnen jullie ze ook nog live bewonderen op het Wacken Festival: