As part of its strategy to catch up with leaders in EV technology, Toyota is preparing to introduce its first electric vehicle equipped with an advanced self-driving system. GAC Toyota, a joint venture between Toyota Motor and Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC), announced that it will launch an EV with capabilities similar to Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system next year in China.
The latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey highlights a troubling trend: a majority of developers are dissatisfied with their jobs, with anecdotal evidence suggesting that plumbers and farmers are happier. The survey, which gathered responses from over 65,000 developers across 185 countries, focused on technologies, tools, artificial intelligence (AI), and workplace experiences. This year, dissatisfaction in the workplace emerged as a prominent theme, with more developers expressing discontent than ever before.
Intel is reducing its workforce by over 15 percent, which means more than 15,000 job cuts from its current 125,000 employees. This action is part of a broader $10 billion cost-saving plan set for 2025. As part of this strategy, the company plans to cut its research and development (R&D) and marketing budgets by billions annually through 2026, reduce capital expenditures by more than 20 percent this year, and restructure its operations to eliminate non-essential work. Additionally, Intel will review all active projects and equipment to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently.
Google is retiring the Chromecast brand and removing its Chromecast hardware from the market after 11 years, but it is not exiting the streaming device business. Instead, Google is introducing a new product called the Google TV Streamer, designed to compete with high-end streaming boxes like the Apple TV and Roku Ultra.
Amazon is intensifying its expectations for corporate employees to adhere to office hours. Business Insider, referencing sources familiar with the matter, reported that Amazon is monitoring the time corporate employees spend in the office. Certain teams, including those in the retail and cloud computing sectors, received notifications via Slack that they must spend at least two hours in the office for their attendance to be counted. Other teams are required to be present for at least six hours.
Big tech companies continue to encourage employees to return to physical offices, but many workers resist. A recent report indicates that Dell has encountered significant challenges in this effort.
Earlier this year, Dell introduced a new return-to-office policy requiring employees to designate themselves as either remote or hybrid. Those choosing the hybrid option must work in a physical office 39 days per quarter, roughly three days per week. Conversely, remote workers are ineligible for promotions or new roles within the company.
The global technology outage caused by CrowdStrike’s faulty update is estimated to cost US Fortune 500 companies $5.4 billion, according to insurers. CrowdStrike has committed to implementing changes to prevent a recurrence. The projected losses do not include Microsoft, which also experienced widespread system failures due to the crash. Insurer Parametrix indicates that companies in banking, healthcare, and major airlines will be most affected. The total insured losses for non-Microsoft Fortune 500 companies are estimated between $540 million and $1.08 billion.
On Friday morning, shortly after midnight in New York, a global disaster began to unfold. In Australia, shoppers encountered Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) messages at self-checkout aisles. In the UK, Sky News suspended its broadcast after servers and PCs started crashing. Airport check-in desks in Hong Kong and India also failed. By morning in New York, millions of Windows computers had crashed, sparking a worldwide tech crisis.
OpenAI has announced the launch of its new AI model, GPT-4o mini, aimed at broadening the use of its popular chatbot. The company described the new release as the most capable and cost-efficient small model available today, with future plans to incorporate image, video, and audio capabilities.
According to a report from Search Engine Land, the latest feature to be discontinued by Google is continuous scrolling on search results. As we discussed in a previous article, originally introduced for mobile devices in October 2021 and extended to desktop search results in late 2022, this feature mimicked the endless scrolling behavior seen on social media feeds.
