Chegg To Lay Off 22% of Workforce as AI Tools Shake Up Edtech Industry Chegg said on Monday it would lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees, to cut costs and streamline its operations as students increasingly turn to AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT over traditional edtech platforms. From a report: The company, an online education firm that offers textbook rentals, homework help and tutoring, has been grappling with a decline in web traffic for months and warned that the trend would likely worsen before improving. Google's expansion of AI Overviews is keeping web traffic confined within its search ecosystem while gradually shifting searches to its Gemini AI platform, Chegg said, adding that other AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic were courting academics with free access to subscriptions. As part of the restructuring announced on Monday, Chegg will also shut its U.S. and Canada offices by the end of the year and aim to reduce its marketing, product development efforts and general and administrative expenses. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Chegg+To+Lay+Off+22%25+of+Workforce+as+AI+Tools+Shake+Up+Edtech+Industry%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F1649229%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F1649229%2Fchegg-to-lay-off-22-of-workforce-as-ai-tools-shake-up-edtech-industry%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
Chegg To Lay Off 22% of Workforce as AI Tools Shake Up Edtech Industry - Slashdot
Chegg said on Monday it would lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees, to cut costs and streamline its operations as students increasi...
 at Slashdot.
Chegg To Lay Off 22% of Workforce as AI Tools Shake Up Edtech Industry - Slashdot
Chegg said on Monday it would lay off about 22% of its workforce, or 248 employees, to cut costs and streamline its operations as students increasi...
Climate Crisis Threatens the Banana, the World's Most Popular Fruit The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world's most popular fruit, as almost two-thirds of banana-growing areas in Latin America and the Caribbean may no longer be suitable for growing the fruit by 2080, new research has found. From a report: Rising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid's new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World's Favourite Fruit. Bananas are the world's most consumed fruit -- and the fourth most important food crop globally, after wheat, rice and maize. About 80% of bananas grown globally are for local consumption, and more than 400 million people rely on the fruit for 15% to 27% of their daily calories. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Climate+Crisis+Threatens+the+Banana%2C+the+World's+Most+Popular+Fruit%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F1535204%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F1535204%2Fclimate-crisis-threatens-the-banana-the-worlds-most-popular-fruit%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
Climate Crisis Threatens the Banana, the World
The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world
 at Slashdot.
Climate Crisis Threatens the Banana, the World
The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world
Western Digital Invests in Ceramic Storage Firm That Claims 5,000-Year Data Retention Western Digital has made a strategic investment in German startup Cerabyte, a company developing nearly indestructible ceramic-based data storage technology. The partnership aims to accelerate commercialization of Cerabyte's ceramic-on-glass material, which the company claims can preserve data for 5,000 years. Cerabyte recently demonstrated its technology's resilience by boiling storage devices in salt water and subjecting them to oven-level heat. The company states its ceramic storage withstands fire, moisture, UV light, radiation, corrosion, and EMP bursts. Beyond durability, Cerabyte aims to enable massive capacity increases as the industry moves toward what it calls the "Yottabyte era," while targeting storage costs below $1 per TB by 2030. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Western+Digital+Invests+in+Ceramic+Storage+Firm+That+Claims+5%2C000-Year+Data+Retention%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F1519209%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fhardware.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F1519209%2Fwestern-digital-invests-in-ceramic-storage-firm-that-claims-5000-year-data-retention%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
Western Digital Invests in Ceramic Storage Firm That Claims 5,000-Year Data Retention - Slashdot
Western Digital has made a strategic investment in German startup Cerabyte, a company developing nearly indestructible ceramic-based data storage t...
 at Slashdot.
Western Digital Invests in Ceramic Storage Firm That Claims 5,000-Year Data Retention - Slashdot
Western Digital has made a strategic investment in German startup Cerabyte, a company developing nearly indestructible ceramic-based data storage t...
US and China Agree To Temporarily Slash Tariffs The United States and China said Monday they reached an agreement to temporarily reduce the tariffs [non-paywalled source] they have imposed on each other in an attempt to defuse the trade war threatening the world's two largest economies. From a report: In a joint statement, the countries said they would suspend their respective tariffs for 90 days while they negotiate. Under the agreement, the United States would reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to 30 percent from its current 145 percent, while China would lower its import duty on American goods to 10 percent from 125 percent. "We concluded that we have a shared interest," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at a news conference in Geneva where U.S. and Chinese officials met over the weekend. "The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling," he said. The agreement breaks an impasse that had brought trade between China and the United States to a halt. Many American businesses had suspended orders, holding out hope that the two countries could strike a deal to bring down the tariff rates while raising the spectre of price increases. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=US+and+China+Agree+To+Temporarily+Slash+Tariffs%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F0826256%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F0826256%2Fus-and-china-agree-to-temporarily-slash-tariffs%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
US and China Agree To Temporarily Slash Tariffs - Slashdot
The United States and China said Monday they reached an agreement to temporarily reduce the tariffs [non-paywalled source] they have imposed on eac...
 at Slashdot.
US and China Agree To Temporarily Slash Tariffs - Slashdot
The United States and China said Monday they reached an agreement to temporarily reduce the tariffs [non-paywalled source] they have imposed on eac...
Videogame's Players Launch Boycott Over Bugs, Story Changes, Monetization It's been a mobile-only game for decades. Then a little more than a week ago Infinity Nikkireleased its 1.5 update (which introduced multiplayer and customization options) and launched the game on Steam. But it "didn't go over as planned," writes the worker-owned gaming site Aftermath, citing some very negative reactions on Reddit. (Some players say that in response the game's publisher is now even censoring the word "boycott" on its official forums and community spaces...) Infinity Nikki players were immediately incensed by a bevy of bugs and general game instability, and made even more angry by several baffling changes to both the story and its monetization structure... Players globally are vowing to stay off the game until Infold Games addresses their concerns, including at least one Infinity Nikki creator who is part of the game's partner program... [T]he Chinese Infinity Nikki community — as well as others — has been flooding Steam with negative reviews of the game... [T]he complaints are also impacting Infinity Nikki's review score on the Google Play Store... The company said it's working to fix the patch's performance issues, which have caused game-breaking bugs for some players.... [T]he Infinity Nikki team also gave players some free currency, but there's been problems there, too: Players say Infold had a bug in this distribution, which awarded players too much free currency. Instead of letting players keep that — it was Infold's mistake, after all — they deducted the currency, some of which players had already spent, putting them in the negative. But the community is looking for more from the studio; it wants an acknowledgement of the "dumpster fire" of a situation, as one Infinity Nikki player told Aftermath, but also wants some of the biggest problems reversed... Beyond the problematic monetization strategy, players Aftermath spoke with said they're also pissed off at a major change to the start of the game... Infold Games removed the game's original start with the update; the new intro drops players into Infinity Nikki with little context and a new, unexplained character who is supposed to be a guide as Nikki is dropped into intergalactic limbo. While the spend-to-upgrade-your-character model has always been inherently predatory, as one player put it, the new update pushed the system "much too far for a lot of players," according to the article — "something made more egregious by the numerous bugs and strange gameplay changes." The article now describes some players as "upset that the trust they've given Infold Games thus far has been broken." "Infold Games has not responded to a request for comment." <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Videogame's+Players+Launch+Boycott+Over+Bugs%2C+Story+Changes%2C+Monetization%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F0042210%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fgames.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F12%2F0042210%2Fvideogames-players-launch-boycott-over-bugs-story-changes-monetization%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
Videogame
It
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Videogame
It
Apple's iPhone Plans for 2027: Foldable, or Glass and Curved. (Plus Smart Glasses, Tabletop Robot) An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge: This morning, while summarizing an Apple "product blitz" he expects for 2027, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter that Apple is planning a "mostly glass, curved iPhone" with no display cutouts for that year, which happens to be the iPhone's 20th anniversary... [T]he closest hints are probably in Apple patents revealed over the years, like one from 2019 that describes a phone encased in glass that "forms a continuous loop" around the device. Apart from a changing iPhone, Gurman describes what sounds like a big year for Apple. He reiterates past reports that the first foldable iPhone should be out by 2027, and that the company's first smart glasses competitor to Meta Ray-Bans will be along that year. So will those rumored camera-equipped AirPods and Apple Watches, he says. Gurman also suggests that Apple's home robot — a tabletop robot that features "an AI assistant with its own personality" — will come in 2027... Finally, Gurman writes that by 2027 Apple could finally ship an LLM-powered Siri and may have created new chips for its server-side AI processing. Earlier this week Bloomberg reported that Apple is also "actively looking at" revamping the Safari web browser on its devices "to focus on AI-powered search engines." (Apple's senior VP of services "noted that searches on Safari dipped for the first time last month, which he attributed to people using AI.") <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Apple's+iPhone+Plans+for+2027%3A++Foldable%2C+or+Glass+and+Curved.+(Plus+Smart+Glasses%2C+Tabletop+Robot)%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fapple.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F11%2F2355205%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fapple.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F11%2F2355205%2Fapples-iphone-plans-for-2027-foldable-or-glass-and-curved-plus-smart-glasses-tabletop-robot%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
Apple
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge: This morning, while summarizing an Apple &#34;product blitz&#34; he expects for 2027, Bloom...
 at Slashdot.
Apple
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Verge: This morning, while summarizing an Apple &#34;product blitz&#34; he expects for 2027, Bloom...
How Spaceport America Will Grow 18 years ago Slashdot covered the creation of Spaceport America. Today Space.com hails it as "the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in the world." But engineer/executive director Scott McLaughlin has plans to grow even more. Already home to an array of commercial space industry tenants, such as Virgin Galactic, SpinLaunch, Up Aerospace, and Prismatic, Spaceport America is a "rocket-friendly environment of 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace, low population density, a 12,000-foot by 200-foot runway, vertical launch complexes, and about 340 days of sunshine and low humidity," the organization boasts on its website... Space.com: What changes do you see that make Spaceport America even more viable today? McLaughlin: I think opening ourselves up to doing different kinds of work. We're more like a civilian test range now. We've got high-altitude UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles]. We're willing to do engine production. We believe we're about to sign a data center, one that's able to provide services to our customers who want low-latency, artificial intelligence, or high-powered computing. You'll be able to rent some virtual machines and do your own thing and have it be instantaneous at the spaceport. So I think being more broadminded about what we can do at the spaceport is helping generate customers and revenue... Our goal is to see Virgin Galactic fly in a year or so, hopefully flying twice a week, and that will have a big impact on the spaceport... [W]e're trying to be open-minded as we're partnered with White Sands Missile Range to use that airspace. We're even looking at things like an electromagnetic pulse facility. It's a customer that I can't identify yet... We are working on a "reentry" license too. We recently discussed this with specialists and we think we have a site relatively close to the spaceport that's flat and free of mesquite bushes and such, so we can do capsule return and other types of return. And of course we have the runway. So I'd think we'd be the only spaceport that does vertical and horizontal launch and reentry.... We're never going to have the throughput that the Cape in Florida has. But we'll be a good alternative especially if you're going to do a small to medium-sized launch, and you need to do it quickly, and perhaps do it more securely than you would if you were to fly over water. That's why the Department of Defense is showing interest in the inland spaceport. <a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=How+Spaceport+America+Will+Grow%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F11%2F2040256%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png"></a> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F05%2F11%2F2040256%2Fhow-spaceport-america-will-grow%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook" rel="nofollow"><img src="https://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png"></a>
How Spaceport America Will Grow - Slashdot
18 years ago Slashdot covered the creation of Spaceport America. Today Space.com hails it as &#34;the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in ...
 at Slashdot.
How Spaceport America Will Grow - Slashdot
18 years ago Slashdot covered the creation of Spaceport America. Today Space.com hails it as &#34;the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in ...