From a report: A replica of the Palace of Versailles, medieval turrets, and spires rise across Huawei's new campus in southern China, a monument to the telecom giant's growing fortune -- and the benefits of state aid. The fairytale-like facilities rest on land that was sold by the local government at cut-rate prices to woo and bolster a strategic, high-tech company like Huawei. It is the kind of government largesse that has fanned US frustrations at China's industrial policies -- subsidies are a sticking point in protracted trade talks between the world's top two economies.

Huawei has become a major flashpoint in the trade war, with President Donald Trump taking steps to block the company's dealings with US companies, threatening its global ambitions. With the dispute shining a spotlight on China's technological shortcomings, the subsidies are a window into the kind of measures Beijing may step up as trade negotiations founder. Huawei's annual reports and public records show that it has received hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, heavily subsidised land to build facilities and apartments for loyal employees, bonuses to top engineers, and massive state loans to international customers to fund purchases of Huawei products. [...] Over the past 10 years, Huawei has received 11 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in grants, according to its annual reports.

An anonymous reader shares a report: The median rent for a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco has reached a new peak of $3,690, according to survey data from Zumper, a home and apartment rental app. That's also a rise of nearly 9 percent from the same time last year, the survey found. Not only are those figures high enough to make your bank account cringe, but they're also nearly 30 percent higher than New York City and more than double the prices in Miami. Seattle, home to Amazon and Microsoft, rang in at $1,970 and Washington, DC, hit $2,150.

Oh, and by the way, while San Francisco's prices rose, the median price of one bedroom apartments across the US dropped nearly half a percent during this same time. That means while San Francisco's prices climbed, the country's prices fell. "Though there may be a ton of cash flowing through the city and surrounding areas soon, many of these workers will not immediately invest in a home and may, instead, take their money to both travel and upgrade their rental situation," Zumper wrote in a blog post Thursday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: A unit of Google's parent company Alphabet is proposing to turn a rundown part of Toronto's waterfront into what may be the most wired community in history -- to "fundamentally refine what urban life can be." Sidewalk Labs has partnered with a government agency known as Waterfront Toronto with plans to erect mid-rise apartments, offices, shops and a school on a 12-acre (4.9-hectare) site -- a first step toward what it hopes will eventually be a 800-acre (325-hectare) development. High-level interest is clear: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alphabet's then-Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt appeared together to announce the plan in October. But some Canadians are rethinking the privacy implications (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) of giving one of the most data-hungry companies on the planet the means to wire up everything from street lights to pavement. And some want the public to get a cut of the revenue from products developed using Canada's largest city as an urban laboratory.

"The Waterfront Toronto executives and board are too dumb to realize they are getting played," said former BlackBerry chief executive Jim Balsillie, a smartphone pioneer considered a national hero who also said the federal government is pushing the board to approve it. "Google knew what they wanted. And the politicians wanted a PR splash and the Waterfront board didn't know what they are doing. And the citizens of Toronto and Canada are going to pay the price," Balsillie said. Complaints about the proposed development prompted Waterfront Toronto to re-do the agreement to ensure a greater role for the official agency, which represents city, provincial and federal governments. So far the project is still in the embryonic stage. After consultations, the developers plan to present a formal master plan early next year. Sidewalk Labs' CEO, Dan Doctoroff, says the company isn't looking to monetizing people's personal information in the way that Google does now with search information. He said the plan is to invent so-far-undefined products and services that Sidewalk Labs can market elsewhere. "People automatically assume because of our relationship to Alphabet and Google that they will be treated one way or another. We have never said anythingâ about the data issue, he said. "To be honest people should give us some time. Be patient."

EagleEyez asks: "We're running a wireless network (802.11g) in our apartment: four computers connecting to a Linksys wireless router. But living in a high-rise building in a major city (NYC) there are at least 3 other wireless networks nearby, plus numerous microwaves and cordless phones in the apartments around us -- all of which make the wireless network less than stable. We've pumped up the signal strength on our router, but we lose the connection from time to time disrupting our internet connection and LAN games. What other options are there to help ensure a consistent and reliable network connection? We've tracked the channels the other networks use and chosen one that doesn't conflict, but there's little we can do to prevent the interference from cordless phones, in other people's apartments. As more and more people go wireless, especially in denser urban areas, there has to be some sort of solution..." If you've run into this problem before, did you find any way to solve (or at least mitigate) the outside interference?

pease1 writes: "The owners of Chicago's Palmolive Building decided it would be cool to recreate the famous 'Lindbergh Beacon' that was used for aviation navigation for many years. Except, to compete with the modern glarey lights of downtown Chicago, they increased the candle power to 7 billion, up from the original 2 billion candle power. During a recent test, they appeared surprised by the backlash described in this recent Chicago Tribune article. Residents of nearby high rise buildings were surprised when a really huge flashlight started to shine in their apartments!

This Thanksgiving, I was far from home, visting with two young geeks who set across the country with $10 extra bucks looking for good computer jobs. On Thanksgiving eve, they helped me to my first online gaming kill, thus inspiring me to recount the many ways in which I give thanks for geeks.