SATURDAY, 27 DECEMBER 2025, 23:46
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...
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...
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...
Texas governor among those to call for expanded access to ibogaine, said to help with treating veterans with PTSD
For half a century, psychedelics largely belonged to the cultural left: anti-war, anti-capitalist, suspicious of the church and state. Now, one of the most politically consequential psychedelic drugs in the US – ibogaine – is being championed by evangelical Christians,...
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...
A tech C.E.O. explains why A.I. probably won’t cure diseases anytime soon. Hint: You still need humans.
In Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack and Will use an overturned dinghy to hold air underwater. Madness or brilliance?
Ricoh’s cult-inspiring pocketable camera gets a small update, with important improvements in autofocus and image quality.
Surgeon leading xenotransplantation trial aimed at solving shortage of human organs says edits can lessen risk of rejection
A leading surgeon behind a clinical trial of transplanting pig kidneys into living humans has said they could one day be superior to those from human donors.
Dr Robert Montgomery, the director of NYU Langone’s Transplant Institute, said the first transplant of the trial...
Wintering Well boxes to counter effects of low light on mental health are ‘super popular’, says island librarian
“Boxes of light” are being used to help people who struggle with low winter mood while living in one of Scotland’s darkest communities as part of a wider research initiative to support the million-plus sufferers of seasonal affective disorder across Britain.
Residents of the Orkney...
This legacy brand brings its beds into the modern era with 100 firmness levels and in-depth sleep tracking.
Savvy countries will discover there’s a way to mitigate the harm incurred by Trump’s tariffs—and it’ll boost their own economies while making goods cheaper too.
Militias and far-right extremists believed they would be central to Trump’s mass deportation plans. Instead he militarized law enforcement agencies.
Our circadian cycle doesn’t just affect our sleeping and waking, but our motivations, mood, behaviour and alertness. Whether you are a lark or an owl, here’s how to recognise your own rhythm
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It’s easy to hate clocks. Their unstoppable forward churn wakes us up and shames us for running late. They are a constant reminder that every...
Billed as a workstation (and priced accordingly), HP’s Zbook 8 falls short of dazzling.
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...
South Africa uses three kinds of speed traps on its roads and one is very hard to avoid.
A non-Japanese-speaking first-time visitor used Apple’s new in-ear translation feature to connect with locals at bars, sushi classes and even a fire ritual.
On the hunt for the perfect mattress (and pillow)? Save on your soon-to-be favorite brand, Purple, with these coupons and deals.
A MyBroadband product review gives South Africans trusted insight into why your product deserves their attention.
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...