Are Algorithms the New Austerity? Inside Big Tech’s AI-Powered Job Cuts
Source: TechRound
If you thought the ’90s era downsizing was rough, try this: nearly 90,500 tech jobs evaporated during the first half of 2025. Alan Cohen has been peering into this trend and sees AI efficiency as the main culprit. Companies like Microsoft are shuffling their workforce deck despite record AI investments. As AI takes the wheel, traditional tech roles in coding and customer support start to feel the ax’s edge. It raises the big ethical question: is progress at the cost of human jobs really progress? For the workers affected, this is an uncomfortable throwback to the days when ‘saving space’ meant prising the cassette out of the drive.
Batten Down, Britain: A Summer of Cyber Onslaught Awaits Retailers
Source: TechRadar Pro
Dr. Lena Petrov, a guru in things tech attacks, is ringing the alarm bell for UK retailers this summer. In an age where hackers have all but retired their script-kiddie status, she predicts an assault via unpatched payment systems and rusty supply-chain software. Recent mishaps-you know, the ones that turned contactless payments into a nightmare-underline just how precarious it is. The National Cyber Security Centre clocks a 200% spike in breach attempts this year. Petrov’s advice? Spruce up those outdated systems before the blitz begins, because in this digital age storm, complacency is your worst enemy.
Smart Data: The £27.8bn Silver Bullet UK Can’t Ignore
Source: MSN Technology
Picture a world where secure data-sharing pumps a colossal £27.8bn into the UK economy by 2030. That’s the vision of the Smart Data Group, a new initiative that lets consumers seamlessly share banking, energy, and telecom data with third-party apps. Think of Open Banking, but on steroids. This framework is predicted to pave the way for 300,000 fintech roles while slashing SME costs. Now imagine legislative gears grinding towards mandatory industry adoption by the end of 2025. It’s Ceefax meets super app, minus the wait for the page to load. Just mind your data, because it’s more teletext than text these days.
Switch 2 Racket: Nintendo’s Console Craze Continues
Source: MSN Gaming
The Nintendo Switch 2 has landed, and gamers are losing the plot-again. Rolled out on 5 June, it’s momentarily gracing Amazon UK’s stocks, complete with that Mario Kart World bundle you didn’t know you needed. Demand’s been so ballistic that keeping it in stock is akin to finding a mint-condition SNES in your attic. With its lush OLED screen and snazzy motion controls, nostalgia-laden hands are snapping them up with alacrity. But fear not-Nintendo expects supply to stabilise by August. Till then, third-party sellers have-surprise, surprise-jacked up the prices by 30%.
Excavating Old Gold: Currys’ Tech Recycling Revival
Source: MSN Money
Currys is doubling down on tech recycling, offering £10 off towards a minimum spend of £50 when you hand over any tech with a battery or plug – because one man’s junk is another’s tech discount. The campaign is a bid to rescue 500 tonnes of electronic waste from Mother Earth’s clutches by August. Hand over that ancient laptop or smartphone and walk away with vouchers for spanking new tech. This venture fits snugly within the UK’s circular economy drive; think of it as your old laptops last chance to shine, not as a museum piece, but as fodder for the next tech wave.
Reflecting on Pascal’s Legacy: From Calculating Boy to Pocket Titans
On this day in 1623, Blaise Pascal was born-while his name might not be in neon lights of the digital streets, this teenage prodigy carved out a legacy that echoes through every bit of binary code today. Faced with monotonous account logs at home, Pascal invented the Pascaline- one of the world’s first mechanical calculators. The Pascaline (a clever name, admittedly) could do more than add and subtract; it foreshadowed the incredible possibilities of automated calculation long before chips and motherboards became common parlance. So here’s to Pascal, the lad who foresaw the time we’d transcend paper for computation-paving the way with a whirr, a click, and a lot less human maths.
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