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The Economic Divide Between Big and Small Companies Is Growing
While America's largest corporations are riding a wave of surging profits and AI-fueled stock market enthusiasm to record highs, small businesses across the country are cutting staff and scaling back operations as years of high inflation, cautious consumers and tariff confusion take their toll.
Private firms with fewer than 50 workers have steadily shed jobs over the past six months, according to payroll processor ADP, cutting 120,000 positions in November alone. Midsize and large firms continued adding jobs during the same period. The divergence mirrors what's happening among American consumers.
The Federal Reserve's latest beige book noted that overall consumer spending declined further even as higher-end retail spending remained resilient. Workers at small businesses tend to earn less than those at large companies, and stock market gains from large public company shares flow mostly to wealthier Americans. Small businesses -- those with up to 500 workers -- employ nearly half the American workforce and represent more than 40% of GDP, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But their profits are slightly lower than a year ago, per a Bank of America Institute analysis. Net income at S&P 500 companies rose 12.9% from a year earlier in the third quarter.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CachyOS wants to be your NAS operating system - How-To Geek
CachyOS wants to be your NAS operating system How-To Geek
Categories: Linux
Retreating From EVs Could Be Hazardous For Western Carmakers
Western carmakers retreating from electric vehicles amid softening government mandates could find themselves in a precarious position as Chinese rivals continue gaining ground in the EV market they're choosing to de-prioritize. The EU on December 16th dropped its earlier plan to ban petrol car sales outright from 2035, instead requiring carmakers to cut emissions from new vehicles by 90% from 2021 levels. The day before, Ford announced a $19.5 billion asset writedown as it rethinks its EV strategy and ends sales of the all-electric F-150 pickup.
In the U.S., the Trump administration has rolled back incentives and other measures that supported EVs. But Chinese brands controlled 10.7% of the all-electric car market in western Europe in the first ten months of 2025, up a percentage point from a year earlier, despite EU tariffs on Chinese EVs imposed in October 2024. Sales of Chinese hybrids, which aren't subject to those tariffs, have surged. EVs will eventually become the cheaper option as production expands and costs fall, meaning Western carmakers that slow down now risk giving competitors an unassailable lead.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AI's Hunger For Memory Chips Could Shrink Smartphone and PC Sales in 2026, IDC Says
The global smartphone and PC markets face potential contractions of up to 5.2% and 8.9% respectively in 2026, according to downside risk scenarios from IDC that trace the problem to memory chip manufacturers shifting production capacity away from consumer electronics toward AI data centers. Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology have pivoted their limited cleanroom space toward high-bandwidth memory for AI servers, restricting supply of the conventional DRAM and NAND used in phones and laptops.
IDC expects 2026 DRAM supply growth to hit 16% year-on-year, below historical norms. The smartphone industry's decade-long trend of bringing flagship features to affordable devices is reversing. Memory represents 15-20% of the bill of materials for mid-range phones, and thin-margin vendors like Xiaomi, Realme and Transsion will bear the brunt. Apple and Samsung have long-term supply agreements securing components up to 24 months ahead. PC vendors including Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer and ASUS have warned clients of 15-20% price increases heading into the second half of 2026.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I tried dozens of Linux apps in 2025, but these are the ones I still use - How-To Geek
Categories: Linux
Linux Foundation’s Safe Harbour for the Agentic AI Era - Analytics India Magazine
Linux Foundation’s Safe Harbour for the Agentic AI Era Analytics India Magazine
Categories: Linux
China Launches $21 Billion Venture Capital Funds To Invest in 'Hard Technology'
An anonymous reader shares a report: China on Friday launched three venture capital funds to invest in "hard technology" areas, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The capital contribution plans for the funds have been finalised, each with more than 50 billion yuan ($7.14 billion), according to the report. The funds will primarily invest in early-stage startups and the targets should be valued at less than 500 million yuan, an official said on Friday, adding that no single investment would amount to more than 50 million yuan.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Runtime Standby ABI Proposed For Linux Akin To Microsoft Windows' "Modern Standby" - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
'Memory is Running Out, and So Are Excuses For Software Bloat'
The relentless climb in memory prices driven by the AI boom's insatiable demand for datacenter hardware has renewed an old debate about whether modern software has grown inexcusably fat, a column by the Register argues. The piece points to Windows Task Manager as a case study: the current executable occupies 6MB on disk and demands nearly 70MB of RAM just to display system information, compared to the original's 85KB footprint.
"Its successor is not orders of magnitude more functional," the column notes. The author draws a parallel to the 1970s fuel crisis, when energy shortages spurred efficiency gains, and argues that today's memory crunch could force similar discipline. "Developers should consider precisely how much of a framework they really need and devote effort to efficiency," the column adds. "Managers must ensure they also have the space to do so."
The article acknowledges that "reversing decades of application growth will not happen overnight" but calls for toolchains to be rethought and rewards given "for compactness, both at rest and in operation."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Cursor CEO Warns Vibe Coding Builds 'Shaky Foundations' That Eventually Crumble
Michael Truell, the 25-year-old CEO and cofounder of Cursor, is drawing a sharp distinction between careful AI-assisted development and the more hands-off approach commonly known as "vibe coding." Speaking at a conference, Truell described vibe coding as a method where users "close your eyes and you don't look at the code at all and you just ask the AI to go build the thing for you." He compared it to constructing a house by putting up four walls and a roof without understanding the underlying wiring or floorboards. The approach might work for quickly mocking up a game or website, but more advanced projects face real risks.
"If you close your eyes and you don't look at the code and you have AIs build things with shaky foundations as you add another floor, and another floor, and another floor, and another floor, things start to kind of crumble," Truell said. Truell and three fellow MIT graduates created Cursor in 2022. The tool embeds AI directly into the integrated development environment and uses the context of existing code to predict the next line, generate functions, and debug errors. The difference, as Truell frames it, is that programmers stay engaged with what's happening under the hood rather than flying blind.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple's App Course Runs $20,000 a Student. Is It Really Worth It?
Apple's Developer Academy in Detroit has spent roughly $30 million over four years training hundreds of people to build iPhone apps, but not everyone lands coding jobs right away, according to a WIRED story published this week.
The program launched in 2021 as part of Apple's $200 million response to the Black Lives Matter protests and costs an estimated $20,000 per student -- nearly twice what state and local governments budget for community colleges. About 600 students have completed the 10-month course at Michigan State University. Academy officials say 71% of graduates from the past two years found full-time jobs across various industries.
The program provides iPhones, MacBooks and stipends ranging from $800 to $1,500 per month, though one former student said many participants relied on food stamps. Apple contributed $11.6 million to the academy. Michigan taxpayers and the university's regular students covered about $8.6 million -- nearly 30% of total funding. Two graduates said their lack of proficiency in Android hurt their job prospects. Apple's own US tech workforce went from 6% Black before the academy opened to about 3% this year.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Gmail Users May Soon Be Able To Change Their Email Address and Keep the Old One
Google appears to be testing a feature that would let users change their @gmail.com address for the first time, according to an official support document. The support page exists only in Hindi, suggesting an India-first rollout, and Google notes that users will "gradually begin to see this option."
The feature would let users switch to a new @gmail address while retaining full access to their old one, effectively giving a single account two working email addresses. Emails sent to either address would arrive in the same inbox, and existing data in Drive and Photos would remain unaffected. Users who switch cannot register another new address for 12 months. Google has not officially announced the feature.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple Settles Brazilian Antitrust Case, Must Allow Third-Party App Stores and External Payment Links
Apple has agreed to a settlement with Brazil's antitrust regulator that will require the company to allow third-party app stores on iPhones and permit developers to direct users to external payment options, marking another country where Apple's tightly controlled App Store model is being pried open by government action.
Brazil's Administrative Council of Economic Defense approved the settlement this week, resolving an investigation that began in 2022 into whether Apple's restrictions on app distribution and payments limited competition. Under the new rules, developers can offer third-party payment methods within their apps alongside Apple's own system. The fee structure varies: purchases through Apple's system remain subject to a 10% or 25% commission plus a 5% transaction fee. Apps that include a clickable link to external payment will face a 15% fee, while static text directing users elsewhere incurs no charge. Third-party app stores will pay a 5% Core Technology Commission.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Fake MAS Windows Activation Domain Used To Spread PowerShell Malware
An anonymous reader shares a report: A typosquatted domain impersonating the Microsoft Activation Scripts (MAS) tool was used to distribute malicious PowerShell scripts that infect Windows systems with the 'Cosmali Loader'. BleepingComputer has found that multiple MAS users began reporting on Reddit yesterday that they received pop-up warnings on their systems about a Cosmali Loader infection.
Based on the reports, attackers have set up a look-alike domain, "get[dot]activate[dot]win," which closely resembles the legitimate one listed in the official MAS activation instructions, "get[dot]activated[dot]win." Given that the difference between the two is a single character ("d"), the attackers bet on users mistyping the domain.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
