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In a stunning reversal, the tech industry—once the unstoppable engine of modern innovation—has laid off over 124,000 workers in 2024 alone. What’s driving this wave of layoffs, and what does it mean for the future of work in one of the world’s most dynamic sectors? The Layoff Landscape In August 2024, Intel sent shockwaves through the market by announcing a 15% reduction in its global workforce—roughly 15,000 jobs. Just days later, Cisco Systems announced plans to lay off 7% of its employees, marking its second round of job cuts this year as the company shifts focus to rapidly growing areas...

The first successful demonstration of quantum teleportation over a fiber optic cable has been achieved, according to groundbreaking new research. The breakthrough, made by engineers at Northwestern University and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), presents new potentials in the realm of quantum communication by allowing it to be combined with existing cables used for providing Internet. This innovative approach reduces the requirement for additional infrastructure needed for quantum computing or quantum sensing technologies. Previously thought to be impossible, the Northwestern team responsible for the breakthrough says their work showcases the next stage in leveraging a single fiber...

CIA Whistleblower Comes Forward.. Former Intelligence Officer Claims Career Ending Injuries Caused By Foreign Directed Energy Weapon Leaked Defense Department Letter Acknowledges Injuries and Experiences “Are Real” “It’s a Cover Up...It Should Be Terrifying for All Americans.” Government Gaslighting 1:25 Foreign Adversary Likely Behind National Security Officials’ Havana Syndrome Injuries 2:40 High Powered Microwave System Weapon 3:37 Under Attack In Africa 4:01 Multiple Weapons Suspected 4:54 Crippling Cognitive + Neurological Symptoms Reported 5:43 CIA Director Privately Blames Russia 6:20 2023 Intelligence Report Betrayal 7:07 Government Gaslighting 8:11 $100K Medical Debt: Labor Dept. Labels Traumatic Brain Injury “Work Injury” 8:50 Cancer,...

Feb 04, 2015 About 500 IT jobs are cut at utility through layoffs and voluntary departures Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs. The employees are upset and say they can’t understand how H-1B guest workers can be used to replace them. The IT organization’s “transition effort” is expected to result in about 400 layoffs, with “another 100 or so employees leaving voluntarily,” SCE said in a statement. The “transition,” which began in...

With everything going on in the world, I wanted to reach out to see what other Freepers are doing online to protect yourselves, whether its subscribing to a monitoring service for activity under your name, using VPN (which one & why), password managers, multi-factor authentication etc. What else should a person consider?

My Top Tech Gadgets of 2024! | 15:04Lon.TV | 367K subscribers | 16,130 views | December 7, 2024

Samsung is offloading their messenger text app users to the Google text app. Is there a better option

In March, a Wharton professor who studies artificial intelligence and start-ups claimed on X, “The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The road runs to the two mines that are the sole supplier of the quartz required to make the crucibles needed to refine silicon wafers.” Ethan Mollick noted at the time, “There are no alternative sources known” if supply disruptions were seen in Spruce Pines.

Republican FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak published a statement on Thursday expressing concern with Big Tech facilitating content harmful to children, but also warning that the Biden-Harris FTC could take actions that result in the censorship of Americans’ online speech. “How social media companies view and treat users increasingly shapes civic discourse and determines the extent of Americans’ freedoms to participate in the modern public square,” Holyoak said. In 2020, during the Trump administration, the FTC issued orders to nine tech companies — Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, WhatsApp, Snap, Discord, Reddit, Twitter, and Amazon — seeking to examine their data practices and...

The US has blocked export of Nvdia chips to China. But where there’s profit, there’s a way.Sanctions Fail Again and AgainThe Wall Street Journal reports China’s AI Engineers Are Secretly Accessing Banned Nvidia ChipsChinese artificial-intelligence developers have found a way to use the most advanced American chips without bringing them to China.One entrepreneur helping Chinese companies overcome the hurdles is Derek Aw, a former bitcoin miner. He persuaded investors in Dubai and the U.S. to fund the purchase of AI servers housing Nvidia’s powerful H100 chips.In June, Aw’s company loaded more than 300 servers with the chips into a data...

(Based Underground)—In a strategic move to circumvent U.S. export restrictions, Chinese AI developers are tapping into global computing resources, bypassing the need to import high-end American chips like those from Nvidia directly into China. This workaround involves collaborating with brokers to access computing power abroad, often under the cover of anonymity techniques borrowed from the cryptocurrency sector. The U.S. has imposed stringent export controls on advanced chips, particularly Nvidia’s powerful H100 chips, aiming to curb technological advancements in China that could have military applications. However, the demand for these chips in China remains high, leading to innovative solutions like those...

Sandia National Laboratories’ four-channel, silicon photonic single-sideband modulator chip, measuring 8 millimeters on each side and marked with a green Sandia thunderbird logo, sits inside packaging that incorporates optical fibers, wire bonds, and ceramic pins. Credit: Craig Fritz, Sandia National Laboratories ==================================================================== A milestone in quantum sensing is drawing closer, promising exquisitely accurate, GPS-free navigation. Peel apart a smartphone, fitness tracker or virtual reality headset, and inside you’ll find a tiny motion sensor tracking its position and movement. Bigger, more expensive versions of the same technology, about the size of a grapefruit and a thousand times more accurate, help navigate...

A team of scientists from the University of Singapore has announced the creation of a prototype energy-harvesting device that draws usable electricity seemingly out of thin air. Designed to leverage nanoscale spin rectifier technology to capture what the device’s inventors term “waste RF” signals that exist in the air due to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5G, and traditional radio signals, the novel energy harvesting system can convert those signals into enough usable direct current (DC) electrical energy. Similar RF energy harvesting technologies have been developed in recent years, including one invented by researchers from the University of South Florida. However, the team...

1980s technology is not adequate for the purpose of running for election

Falcon Sensor putting hosts into deathloop - but there's a workaround icon Simon Sharwood Fri 19 Jul 2024 // 06:46 UTC UPDATED An update to a product from infosec vendor CrowdStrike is bricking computers running Windows. The Register has found numerous accounts of Windows 10 PCs crashing, displaying the Blue Screen of Death, then being unable to reboot. “We're seeing BSOD Org wide that are being caused by csagent.sys, and it's taking down critical services. I'll open a ticket, but this is a big deal,” wrote one user. Forums report that Crowdstrike has issued an advisory with a URL that...

Google will shutter Mineral, its agricultural technology operation...Mineral was launched as a separate business in January, 2023, after five years of development by X, Alphabet’s innovation lab. With a mission to help scale sustainable agriculture., the Mineral team’s work included robots designed to inspect every plant in a field and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI to help companies tackle the challenges of food waste, forecasting and the collection of high-quality data. Mineral CEO Elliott Grant wrote, “Our mission has always been to make a meaningful, positive difference to the global food system - which we knew...

Open source projects are about more than lines of code; they’re fuled by passionate people creating lasting change.In June 1994, several of us had a pretty neat idea: Let’s create an Open Source version of the DOS operating system. On June 29, 2024, the FreeDOS Project will turn 30 years old.What is DOS, anyway?If you don’t know about FreeDOS, let me briefly set the clock back to the 1980s. When IBM sold its first IBM Personal Computer 5150 in 1981, they needed an operating system to run on it. IBM contracted with Microsoft, who in turn worked with Seattle Computing...

The Wall Street Journal has an article this week on the grim job market for computer science majors...Students were told the myths about the great shortage of computer workers and they responded by flocking to computer science programs. Now they are discovering that the shortage claims were a sham when they apply for after-graduation jobs. [Link to WSJ article in Comment #1 - my computer hits a Pay Wall]

The Big Apple has become so unaffordable, even six-figure salary earners are finding themselves priced out. That’s according to a new report from real estate listings website StreetEasy, which says that New York City apartments have become so expensive, it’s not just lower income households struggling to pay rent. Those in the tech sector, where annual wages are $135,089 — 52% higher than average — could afford only one in three NYC rentals on the market in 2023. For entry-level tech workers, who make an average salary of $75,262, only 2.1% of studio and one-bedroom rentals were within reach, which...