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EnCharge claims 150 TOPS/watt, a 20x performance-per-watt edge

Interview AI chip startup EnCharge claims its analog artificial intelligence accelerators could rival desktop GPUs while using just a fraction of the power. Impressive — on paper, at least. Now comes the hard part: Proving it in the real world.…

White-collar workers are facing their deepest hiring slump in a decade, with one in four U.S. job losses last year hitting professional workers, according to S&P Global. A 2024 Vanguard report shows hiring for employees earning over $96,000 has fallen to its lowest level since 2014. The downturn has been particularly severe for job seekers â" 40% of applicants failed to secure even a single interview in 2024, according to a survey of 2,000 respondents by the American Staffing Association and The Harris Poll. Technology and high interest rates appear to be driving the decline, with companies reassessing their workforce needs amid AI adoption and economic pressures. While hiring remains steady for those earning under $55,000 annually, the market continues to be especially challenging for mid-career professionals and higher earners.

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Reddit moderators are struggling to police AI-generated content on the platform, according to ArsTechnica, with many expecting the challenge to intensify as the technology becomes more sophisticated. Several popular Reddit communities have implemented outright bans on AI-generated posts, citing concerns over content quality and authenticity. The moderators of r/AskHistorians, a forum known for expert historical discussion, said that AI content "wastes our time" and could compromise the subreddit's reputation for accurate information. Moderators are currently using third-party AI detection tools, which they describe as unreliable. Many are calling on Reddit to develop its own detection system, the report said.

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If MS-DOS could play Doom, surely a battleship gray button was a possibility?

Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen has responded to suggestions that the Windows 95 setup was overly complicated. People wanted to know: Why not just do that whole thing in MS-DOS?…

A tech enthusiast has successfully transplanted the internal components of an iPhone SE 3 into the body of a Nokia Lumia 1020 Windows Phone, according to a post on Reddit's r/hackintosh forum. The modification preserves all key functions of the iPhone SE 3, including its 12-megapixel camera, 5G capabilities, and Touch ID sensor, which has been relocated to the back of the device. The project retains the Lumia 1020's distinctive design while upgrading its outdated microUSB port to Apple's Lightning connector. The creator adapted the Lumia's original camera shutter button to work as a secondary volume control that can trigger photos in the iPhone's camera app. The only significant feature lost in the conversion was the headphone jack.

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Flaky demand for PCs and smartphones blamed

NAND flash prices are expected to slide due to oversupply, forcing memory chipmakers to cut production to match lower-than-expected orders from PC and smartphone manufacturers.…

Ten years after publishing his influential book on data privacy, security expert Bruce Schneier warns that surveillance has only intensified, with both government agencies and corporations collecting more personal information than ever before. "Nothing has changed since 2015," Schneier told The Register in an interview. "The NSA and their counterparts around the world are still engaging in bulk surveillance to the extent of their abilities." The widespread adoption of cloud services, Internet-of-Things devices, and smartphones has made it nearly impossible for individuals to protect their privacy, said Schneier. Even Apple, which markets itself as privacy-focused, faces limitations when its Chinese business interests are at stake. While some regulation has emerged, including Europe's General Data Protection Regulation and various U.S. state laws, Schneier argues these measures fail to address the core issue of surveillance capitalism's entrenchment as a business model. The rise of AI poses new challenges, potentially undermining recent privacy gains like end-to-end encryption. As AI assistants require cloud computing power to process personal data, users may have to surrender more information to tech companies. Despite the grim short-term outlook, Schneier remains cautiously optimistic about privacy's long-term future, predicting that current surveillance practices will eventually be viewed as unethical as sweatshops are today. However, he acknowledges this transformation could take 50 years or more.

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Apple is exploring ways to monetize its Maps app by introducing paid business listings and prioritized search results, Bloomberg News reports, citing an internal company meeting with the Maps team. The initiative would allow businesses to pay for higher placement in search results and more prominent display on maps, similar to Google Maps' advertising model. While no timeline has been set and no active development is underway, the move would mark Apple's first attempt to generate direct revenue from its mapping service. The potential Maps monetization comes as Apple expands its advertising business across other services. The company has previously increased its focus on search ads in the App Store and recently added advertising to its News and Stocks apps, as well as its sports content.

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Very unlikely, but could make for a neat light show if it does

There is a chance, albeit slim, that asteroid 2024 YR4 could hit the Moon, creating a new crater and an explosion that might just be visible from Earth.…

Junior software developers' overreliance on AI coding assistants is creating knowledge gaps in fundamental programming concepts, developer Namanyay Goel argued in a post. While tools like GitHub Copilot and Claude enable faster code shipping, developers struggle to explain their code's underlying logic or handle edge cases, Goel wrote. Goel cites the decline of Stack Overflow, a technical forum where programmers historically found detailed explanations from experienced developers, as particularly concerning.

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Known for popping zero-days of yesteryear, Microsoft puts Apple devs on high alert

Microsoft says there's a new variant of XCSSET on the prowl for Mac users – the first new iteration of the malware since 2022.…

'Satisfied' the risk to national security is 'a real and significant one' that should not be 'prolonged'

The High Court of Justice in the UK has rejected a plea from a China-owned operation for a temporary injunction on a government order requiring it to sell its stake in a Scottish chip design business.…

"Amazon required employees to work from the office five days a week starting January 2nd," writes the Seattle Times, "a change from the company's three-day in-office mandate that had been in effect since May 2023." And as Seattle's largest employer (with 50,000 Seattle-based workers), this had an impact, according to data the Times cites from the nonprofit Downtown Seattle Association: In January, downtown Seattle recorded the second-highest daily average for weekday worker foot traffic since March 2020. It also saw 2 million unique visitors on its sidewalks last month. That represents 94% of the visitors downtown Seattle saw in January 2019, the Downtown Seattle Association found... In a statement Friday, Amazon said "we're excited by the innovation, collaboration and connection we've seen already with our teams working in person together...." Jon Scholes [the president of the Downtown Seattle Association] said Amazon's return has been a boon for downtown Seattle. As the city's largest employer, its mandate instantly brought more people to shop and dine around South Lake Union, the Denny Triangle and surrounding neighborhoods... "I think we're seeing people get reacquainted with the reasons they liked working downtown prepandemic," Scholes said. He expects to continue seeing an uptick in foot traffic over the course of the year as more companies follow Amazon's lead and the weather warms up. But Seattle magazine says the statistics show foot traffic in neighborhoods where Amazon's offices are located (South Lake Union and Denny Regrade) "at 74% of that of January 2019. Overall, downtown-area foot traffic was 9% higher than it was a year ago, though only 57% of the pre-pandemic average."

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A 'synthesizer for websites' lets you experiment and improvize your way to CSS

Interview Loken is a new type of tool which aims to let website designers feel their way towards a design in the same sort of way as musicians do with a software synthesizer.…

Old Lady of Threadneedle Street to pay millions for 'amended implementation methodology'

The Bank of England has nearly doubled the money it is dedicating to partner spending for an Oracle cloud transformation, which it began imagining in 2020.…

Trade body wants recommendations fast-tracked and fabs designated critical national infrastructure

Almost two years after the British government published its National Semiconductor Strategy, calls are growing for bolder action and a faster implementation of its recommendations to deliver on its stated goals.…

Today Seoul's Personal Information Protection Commission "said DeepSeek would no longer be available for download until a review of its personal data collection practices was carried out," reports AFP. A number of countries have questioned DeepSeek's storage of user data, which the firm says is collected in "secure servers located in the People's Republic of China"... This month, a slew of South Korean government ministries and police said they blocked access to DeepSeek on their computers. Italy has also launched an investigation into DeepSeek's R1 model and blocked it from processing Italian users' data. Australia has banned DeepSeek from all government devices on the advice of security agencies. US lawmakers have also proposed a bill to ban DeepSeek from being used on government devices over concerns about user data security. More details from the Associated Press: The South Korean privacy commission, which began reviewing DeepSeek's services last month, found that the company lacked transparency about third-party data transfers and potentially collected excessive personal information, said Nam Seok [director of the South Korean commission's investigation division]... A recent analysis by Wiseapp Retail found that DeepSeek was used by about 1.2 million smartphone users in South Korea during the fourth week of January, emerging as the second-most-popular AI model behind ChatGPT.

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When asked to offer honest feedback, maybe pause to ponder how well you play office politics

Who, Me? Welcome to a fresh Monday, and therefore a new installment of "Who, Me?", our reader-contributed column that shares your stories of making workplace mistakes and scraping your way to safety afterwards.…

Shhh. Don’t tell Hock Tan about those Xeons that unlock functions when you pay a fee

Broadcom is reportedly contemplating a play for Intel.…

DevOps team did the dirty on a database

Data management vendor Veeam has admitted to an embarrassing oopsie: messing up a restoration job and erasing data.…