Microsoft offers buyouts to 7% of US staff. In the latest sign that tech jobs are not as stable as they once were, Microsoft will offer buyouts to US workers at the senior-director level and below whose years of employment and age add up to 70+. The voluntary retirement program is the first in the history of the 51-year-old company, which, like its fellow tech giants, is committing tons of cash to developing AI. Microsoft is also updating how it awards bonuses and stock options. Meanwhile, Meta confirmed yesterday that it will lay off about 10% of its workforce, cutting about 8,000 jobs.
Friday, 24 April 2026
Thursday, 23 April 2026
Bluesky Users Respond With Overwhelming Disgust to Platform’s New AI
Bluesky Users Respond With Overwhelming Disgust to Platform’s New AI
Futurism · 3 days ago
by Victor Tangermann · Artificial Intelligence
In its early days, Twitter alternative Bluesky tried to paint itself as a safe haven from the onslaught of AI, promising in November 2024 that it had “no intention” of scraping user-generated posts to train AI models.
It was a shot across the bow, clearly aimed at its rival X-formerly-Twitter, which had recently changed its terms of service to allow just that. And since then, backlash to AI slop and relentless AI integrations has grown to new heights.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bluesky’s abrupt foray into AI isn’t sitting well with its notoriously anti-AI user base.
Specifically, the company’s chief innovation officer Jay Graber, who stepped down as CEO earlier this month to focus on “exploring new ideas” at the company, announced a new AI app called Attie at a conference over the weekend.
Attie, which interim CEO Toni Schneider referred to as a “new product” that’s “not part of the Bluesky app” in an interview with TechCrunch, allows users to essentially vibe code their own custom feed using natural language prompts — or even build their own Bluesky app alternative on top of the service’s Atmosphere protocol, an ecosystem of interoperable social applications.
“You control it, you shape it, without having to write code or know how to set up these feeds,” Schneider enthused.
The CEO seemed well aware of the headwinds against launching consumer-facing AI products in 2026.
“It is an AI product, but it’s an AI product that’s very people-focused,” he told TechCrunch. “We think AI is a very powerful technology, but we want to make sure that we use it to build things that really benefit people.”
“We think AI should serve people, not platforms,” Graber told audiences at this weekend’s announcement. “An open protocol puts this power directly in users’ hands.”
However, given the immediate reactions to the new app, it may struggle to catch on.
“Thanks, we’re good, no need to explain it further,” one user replied to Graber after she announced it in a Saturday post.
“Cool!” another added. “How do we block it?”
“Me, looking for who the f*** wants this,” reads the caption of a meme a different user posted, showing a woman standing on a ladder and gazing into the distance.
Graber appeared to be aware of the inflood of hatred for the idea. When a user told her that “we don’t want it,” she replied with a curt: “then don’t use it — it’s a separate app.”
Graber also reshared a post by a different user who claimed people “on the left” were being “shortsighted” by being willfully blind about AI, and that the argument “‘hope it goes away’ doesn’t have a great track record as a strategy for contesting control of new political domains and technologies.” The implication: Bluesky users are wrong about their resentment over AI and should instead embrace it.
Schneider told TechCrunch that the company is still considering how to monetize its latest feature, and that a fee for using Attie, which is currently in private beta, is on the table.
But considering the outrage the app’s announcement has wrought, it’s unclear at best if any serious numbers of users are jumping to use it — even if it’s free, which could turn Attie into an expensive distraction and a largely ineffective way to draw new users in.
Futurism · 3 days ago
by Victor Tangermann · Artificial Intelligence
In its early days, Twitter alternative Bluesky tried to paint itself as a safe haven from the onslaught of AI, promising in November 2024 that it had “no intention” of scraping user-generated posts to train AI models.
It was a shot across the bow, clearly aimed at its rival X-formerly-Twitter, which had recently changed its terms of service to allow just that. And since then, backlash to AI slop and relentless AI integrations has grown to new heights.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bluesky’s abrupt foray into AI isn’t sitting well with its notoriously anti-AI user base.
Specifically, the company’s chief innovation officer Jay Graber, who stepped down as CEO earlier this month to focus on “exploring new ideas” at the company, announced a new AI app called Attie at a conference over the weekend.
Attie, which interim CEO Toni Schneider referred to as a “new product” that’s “not part of the Bluesky app” in an interview with TechCrunch, allows users to essentially vibe code their own custom feed using natural language prompts — or even build their own Bluesky app alternative on top of the service’s Atmosphere protocol, an ecosystem of interoperable social applications.
“You control it, you shape it, without having to write code or know how to set up these feeds,” Schneider enthused.
The CEO seemed well aware of the headwinds against launching consumer-facing AI products in 2026.
“It is an AI product, but it’s an AI product that’s very people-focused,” he told TechCrunch. “We think AI is a very powerful technology, but we want to make sure that we use it to build things that really benefit people.”
“We think AI should serve people, not platforms,” Graber told audiences at this weekend’s announcement. “An open protocol puts this power directly in users’ hands.”
However, given the immediate reactions to the new app, it may struggle to catch on.
“Thanks, we’re good, no need to explain it further,” one user replied to Graber after she announced it in a Saturday post.
“Cool!” another added. “How do we block it?”
“Me, looking for who the f*** wants this,” reads the caption of a meme a different user posted, showing a woman standing on a ladder and gazing into the distance.
Graber appeared to be aware of the inflood of hatred for the idea. When a user told her that “we don’t want it,” she replied with a curt: “then don’t use it — it’s a separate app.”
Graber also reshared a post by a different user who claimed people “on the left” were being “shortsighted” by being willfully blind about AI, and that the argument “‘hope it goes away’ doesn’t have a great track record as a strategy for contesting control of new political domains and technologies.” The implication: Bluesky users are wrong about their resentment over AI and should instead embrace it.
Schneider told TechCrunch that the company is still considering how to monetize its latest feature, and that a fee for using Attie, which is currently in private beta, is on the table.
But considering the outrage the app’s announcement has wrought, it’s unclear at best if any serious numbers of users are jumping to use it — even if it’s free, which could turn Attie into an expensive distraction and a largely ineffective way to draw new users in.
Wednesday, 22 April 2026
In the Gulf, GPS jamming leaves delivery drivers navigating blind
In the Gulf, GPS jamming leaves delivery drivers navigating blind
The war has led to mass GPS-jamming, forcing drivers to rely on memory, landmarks, and phone calls.
iStock/Rest of World
By DIVSHA BHAT
2 APRIL 2026 • DUBAI, THE UAE
TRANSLATE
As war raged across the Persian Gulf in the first week of March, delivery driver Saeed Ahmed continued making deliveries in Dubai. Navigating down Al Asayel street, the 32-year-old driver for Lulu Hypermarket followed the blue navigation line on his phone as it guided him to a customer. Then, without warning, the route on his map shifted. The street he was on became invisible.
Ahmed pulled over and called the customer. The address was correct. The map was not.
As the conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran rages on for the second month, gig workers say these kinds of GPS-related disruptions have become routine. Military forces across the region are increasingly deploying electronic systems that interfere with Global Navigation Satellite System signals, including GPS, to defend against drones and missile attacks. These systems can jam signals entirely or spoof them by feeding false location data to receivers. The interference often spills into civilian life, disrupting the lives of millions of people who rely on tools like maps. For delivery drivers, the breakdown is both immediate and disorienting.
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The impact of GPS jamming extends beyond consumer-oriented mapping tools. Recent data by maritime intelligence firm Windward indicates that GPS jamming affected more than 1,650 ships in the Middle East on March 7, up 55% from the previous week. Vessels were incorrectly placed on land and at sea in Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Nearly 1,100 ships were impacted within 24 hours following U.S. strikes on Iran on February 28.
“Any jamming and spoofing signals will affect any GNSS receiver within range,” Thomas Withington, an independent electronic warfare specialist, told Rest of World. “This includes smartphones and any device capable of receiving such signals.”
GPS blocking and jamming have become so common that drivers can no longer trust their maps, they told Rest of World. Ahmed said even routine trips have become unpredictable. “We found it very troublesome. Usually, we verify the building name because we know the roads. But in unfamiliar areas, we have to keep calling the customers. Deliveries get delayed, and customers get annoyed.”
Switching between navigation apps offers little relief. “I tried using other apps such as Waze and 2GIS, but it was the same,” he said. “In some areas like Dubai Marina and Downtown, it still doesn’t work properly.”
Veteran drivers rely on memory to navigate. Muhammad Asif, who has been driving in Dubai for more than 20 years, said that “sometimes the location shifts far away. A short trip suddenly looks much longer.” When that happens, he ignores the map and navigates manually. “The map shows 40 minutes, when I’m about to reach in five.”
Newer delivery drivers face the steepest learning curve. Vansh Gupta, who has been working for online shopping and delivery app Noon for just eight months, said he has had to adapt quickly. “I used to struggle a lot initially, but now I follow the full address and somehow reach based on that,” he said. “Most customers understand if deliveries are delayed.”
Muhammad Azam, who works for food delivery app Keeta, said disruptions have decreased since early March, but still persist. “It creates uncertainty on the road,” he said.
Rest of World reached out to Keeta and Noon for comment but did not receive a response.
“From a geospatial intelligence standpoint, this is clearly a persistent regional phenomenon,” Nidal H. Saliba, an independent geospatial intelligence consultant, told Rest of World. “It is patterned and clustered.”
“High-powered interference often spills into civilian areas,” he said. On the ground, that translates into two main problems: instability and inaccuracy. Devices may freeze or lose signal entirely, or they may continue functioning while reporting incorrect positions, said Saliba.
GPS jamming and spoofing are not confined to one region. The International Telecommunication Union, together with the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, issued a joint statement expressing “grave concern” over the rising harmful interference. Such disruption is increasingly affecting satellite navigation systems used in aviation and maritime operations worldwide.
On logistics platforms, inaccurate location data can trigger a cascade of problems. Delivery drivers may appear in the wrong place, leading to incorrect order assignments. Pickup and delivery times become harder to predict. Automated systems that depend on precise positioning begin to misfire.
“Core logistics systems are highly dependent on accurate real-time location data,” Raman Pathak, CEO and co-founder of UAE-based logistics company Jeebly, told Rest of World. “During GPS interference incidents, we’ve seen significant operational impact.”
“Auto-assignment logic gets disrupted,” he said.
Operations teams often have to intervene manually, increasing coordination efforts and slowing down workflows. In some cases, companies shift away from automated processes altogether, relying instead on human oversight to manage deliveries.
The disruptions highlight how deeply modern logistics systems depend on GPS, and how vulnerable that dependence can be.
“GPS signals originate from satellites roughly 20,000 kilometers [12,400 miles] above Earth. By the time they [signals] reach the ground, they are extremely weak, making them relatively easy to interfere with,” Jim Stroup, head of growth at SandboxAQ’s navigation system, AQNav, told Rest of World.
“It doesn’t take much to override that signal,” he said. “A stronger ground-based signal can make a receiver believe it’s somewhere else entirely.”
In the meantime, workers on the ground are coping as best as they can. “Before, we followed the map,” said Ahmed. “Now, we follow the roads we remember.”
Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Data Centers Causing Huge Temperature Spikes for Miles Around Them
Data Centers Causing Huge Temperature Spikes for Miles Around Them, Study Suggests
Not very cool.
By Frank Landymore
Published Apr 1, 2026 9:03 AM EDT
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The data centers at the heart of the AI boom are producing so much heat that they’re spiking land temperatures for miles around them by up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, new research suggests. The effect is so pronounced that the researchers say they’re creating entire “heat islands.”
The findings, detailed in a study that’s yet-to-be-peer-reviewed, add to an already grim picture of the environmental impact of these sprawling facilities, the largest of which consume enough energy to power entire cities. Their commensurate greenhouse gas emissions, however, apparently aren’t the only way data centers are heating up the world around them.
The researchers focused on roughly 8,400 so-called “hyperscalers,” the term used to describe data centers of incredible size that offer cloud computing and AI services. Their construction has surged in the past decade, and the AI boom has pushed their demand and scope to new heights; Meta’s new “Hyperion” data center, for example, cost $27 billion to build and has an expected computing capacity of five gigawatts, an appetite that takes ten gas-powered plants to sate.
Since temperature can be affected by other environmental factors, the researchers examined data centers in more remote locations. When they mapped their locations against regional temperature data over the past 20 years collected by satellites, a clear pattern emerged. Land surface temperatures, meaning the heat of the ground itself rather than the air or climate, increased by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit after a data center went online in an area — and in the most extreme cases, the temperature surged by an extraordinary 16 degrees.
The effects were local, but far reaching. The researchers found that the temperature increases were felt up to 6.2 miles away — though they dropped off with distance — in all affecting more than 340 million people. CNN‘s coverage notes that the trend held globally: Mexico’s burgeoning data center hub in Bajio saw an uptick of around 3.6 degrees over the past 20 years, as did Aragon, Spain, itself a hot new hub for hyperscalers.
Study lead author Andrea Marinoni, an associate professor with the Earth Observation group at the University of Cambridge, told CNN that data centers “could have dramatic impacts on society” in terms of the environment, people’s welfare and the economy.
Other experts were intrigued but cautious about the findings. Ralph Hintemann, a senior researcher at the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability, called the figures “interesting” but “very high,” underscoring the need to verify the results.
The mechanism behind the heating also isn’t immediately clear. “It would be worth doing follow-up research to understand to what extent it’s the heat generated from computation versus the heat generated from the building itself,” Chris Preist at the University of Bristol in the UK told New Scientist, suggesting that sunlight hitting the buildings could be producing the heating effect. This is part of a well-documented phenomenon researchers called the “urban heat island.”
Among other commentators, however, the temperature of response was much more heated. Andy Masley, a writer who frequently “debunks” claims of AI’s environmental impact, called the paper the “single worst writing and research on AI and the environment that I have read” in a lengthy takedown, claiming that the heating effect from sunlight hitting the buildings was powerful enough to look like it was emanating from the ground in satellite data. (Part of his analysis relied on feeding the paper to Claude, however, so make of that what you will.)
Whatever’s going on, it’d be remiss to lose sight of the facilities’ broader environmental impact.
“As far as climate change is concerned, the emissions generated by power generation for data centres remain the more alarming aspect,” Hintemann told CNN.
Monday, 20 April 2026
To the moon, we return... with a historic toilet milestone
 |
Image: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani |
To the moon, we return... with a historic toilet milestone, too |
NASA's Artemis II mission just launched, and it will take astronauts on a journey around the moon for a 10-day mission. It's a risky and historic return since the Apollo era, but another huge milestone is the toilet. Instead of bags and funnels, astronauts now have access to bathrooms with doors that work for both genders without any challenges, and for the first time, the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) can hold urine and poop simultaneously. |
Sunday, 19 April 2026
Is grad school worth it?
Joseph Prezioso/Getty Images
Here’s something to send to your friends who keep saying they are thinking about grad school after two cocktails. While graduate degrees in medicine, law, and pharmacy have high returns on investment, secondary degrees in fields including social work and psychology can actually yield negative returns, according to a new study released this week by the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University. The researchers examined income before and after grad school for 800,000 students who attended public universities in Texas between 1992 and 2019. They factored in the cost of programs and how much pay they missed out on by being in school:
Big picture: Lists that show only post-degree earnings can be deceiving, as the cost of attending graduate school has ballooned in recent decades. The researchers acknowledged that some people choose to pursue grad school for reasons other than pay bumps, like getting a special certification, building out their networks, or longing to use the word pedagogy more. |
Introducing a business productivity suite that puts your privacy first | Proton
Introducing a business productivity suite that puts your privacy first | Proton
Introducing Proton Workspace: An encrypted suite for team collaboration
For business
Product updates
Proton news
When Proton was created in Switzerland in 2014, our mission was clear: restore digital agency to people who had lost control of their data to Big Tech. Over the past decade, more than 100 million people worldwide have trusted Proton to reclaim their privacy.
But we soon saw that this challenge extended far beyond individuals. In the same 10 years, over 100,000 businesses — from agile start ups to global enterprises — adopted Proton’s secure services. Today our encrypted email, password manager, VPN, cloud storage, and AI assistant(new window) are used by organizations ranging from small teams and startups to United Nations agencies and Fortune 500 companies.
Recently, demand for Proton’s business solutions has surged, and companies have shifted from using individual services to adopting our entire, ever-growing ecosystem. That’s why, today, we’re launching Proton Workspace: a fully integrated suite that brings all of Proton’s privacy-first services into a single offering.
With Proton Workspace, businesses can finally break free from Big Tech dependency and take back complete control of their data.
What’s new in Proton Workspace
Proton Workspace combines Proton’s longstanding products with our new security-first services, including Proton Meet, Sheets, Docs and Lumo AI, across two new plans:
Workspace Standard
Everything you need for a secure collaborative workspace: Proton Mail, Calendar (now with appointment scheduling), Drive, Docs and Sheets, Meet, VPN, and Pass.
Annual price: $12.99 / €12.99 | Monthly price: $14.99 / €14.99
Get Workspace Standard
Workspace Premium
Includes all Workspace Standard features plus expanded storage, email data retention policies, higher participant limits per Meet call, and Lumo, our privacy‑first AI assistant.
Annual price: $19.99 / €19.99 | Monthly price: $24.99 / €24.99
Get Workspace Premium
Existing Proton Business Suite customers benefit from a free upgrade to Workspace Standard, including the addition of Proton Meet, at no additional cost.
Why Proton Workspace
With Proton Workspace, businesses finally have a trustworthy alternative to Big Tech that keeps sensitive business data secure.
Private (and encrypted) by default
Unlike Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which were created by companies that harvest user data as their business model, Proton has always-on end-to-end encryption and zero‑access encryption, meaning even we do not have access to your data.
Safer by design
Proton’s encryption makes our ecosystem safer by design. Because we do not have access to your encrypted data, an attacker that compromises Proton cannot access it either. Proton Workspace also includes advanced security tools to protect your organization from compromise, such as Proton Sentinel, which is successfully protecting some of the most highly targeted users in the world.
Open source and audited
Because our code is open source, anyone can independently verify that our encryption works as advertised and that there are no backdoors. All Proton apps are regularly independently audited and security tested.
Sovereign and shielded from US surveillance
Based in Europe, Proton ensures your data is protected by some of the world’s strongest privacy laws. Because Proton isn’t a US‑based company, we can’t be compelled by laws such as the US CLOUD Act(new window) to hand over your data to the US government or terminate your services. It is impossible for Proton to independently decrypt your data and share it with any third parties, including governments. Proton also operates our own infrastructure which is independent from Big Tech.
Protected from AI training
Proton’s encryption ensures we do not and cannot use your data for AI training, eliminating any chance that your private data gets publicly leaked through an AI output. Proton’s Lumo AI(new window) also uses zero-access encryption, meaning we do not have access to your saved chats, ensuring they’re never leaked or repurposed for AI model training. With Proton, there is no risk that your confidential business data becomes business intelligence for Big Tech, which is used later to compete with you.
Built with compliance in mind
Our advanced encryption shields your business from accidental leaks, data breaches, and state surveillance, while also helping you meet strict regulations. Proton Workspace simplifies compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA. It is also ISO 27001 and SOC2 certified, providing an additional layer of assurance for security conscious teams and clients.
Security beyond collaboration
Unlike other productivity suites, both Workspace Standard and Workspace Premium include Proton Pass and Proton VPN — two essential cybersecurity tools for your business. These tools feature breach detection alerts to notify you if a third-party tools you use suffers a data breach, and Dark Web Monitoring which automatically warns you if your data is being sold on the dark web.
Better value for money
Even though Proton Workspace includes additional valuable cybersecurity tools, it is less expensive than comparable Big Tech bundles and far cheaper than purchasing each service individually. Proton puts people ahead of profits, meaning we don’t do annual price increases. For over a decade, we have never raised prices on existing customers.
Get Proton Workspace
Make the switch to a privacy-first workspace
The need for privacy and security-centric business solutions is becoming increasingly urgent as geopolitical tensions rise and businesses face increasing resilience, surveillance, and cybersecurity risks.
Whether it’s your customers’ credit cards, your proprietary knowledge, or the trust of your partners, your most valuable assets are information. That’s why data breaches(new window) and ransomware attacks are at record highs, impacting both small and large organizations, and costing over $4 million per incident on average.
When you choose Workspace Standard or Workspace Premium, you’re not just protecting your business and saving money, you’re also supporting better independent technology that’s creating a more ethical and responsible digital ecosystem.
Proton has long stood for privacy, freedom, and democracy, principles which are safeguarded by our primary shareholder, the nonprofit Proton Foundation based in Switzerland. Our mission will continue to be providing the trusted, neutral foundation necessary to protect data in an unsecure world.
Switching to Proton Workspace is simple and seamless. Get in touch with our business team to get started today.
Share this page:
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Andy Yen
Andy is the founder and CEO of Proton. He is a long-time advocate for privacy rights and has spoken at TED, Web Summit, and the United Nations about online privacy issues. Previously, Andy was a research scientist at CERN and has a PhD in particle physics from Harvard University.
Introducing Proton Workspace: An encrypted suite for team collaboration
For business
Product updates
Proton news
When Proton was created in Switzerland in 2014, our mission was clear: restore digital agency to people who had lost control of their data to Big Tech. Over the past decade, more than 100 million people worldwide have trusted Proton to reclaim their privacy.
But we soon saw that this challenge extended far beyond individuals. In the same 10 years, over 100,000 businesses — from agile start ups to global enterprises — adopted Proton’s secure services. Today our encrypted email, password manager, VPN, cloud storage, and AI assistant(new window) are used by organizations ranging from small teams and startups to United Nations agencies and Fortune 500 companies.
Recently, demand for Proton’s business solutions has surged, and companies have shifted from using individual services to adopting our entire, ever-growing ecosystem. That’s why, today, we’re launching Proton Workspace: a fully integrated suite that brings all of Proton’s privacy-first services into a single offering.
With Proton Workspace, businesses can finally break free from Big Tech dependency and take back complete control of their data.
What’s new in Proton Workspace
Proton Workspace combines Proton’s longstanding products with our new security-first services, including Proton Meet, Sheets, Docs and Lumo AI, across two new plans:
Workspace Standard
Annual price: $12.99 / €12.99 | Monthly price: $14.99 / €14.99
Get Workspace Standard
Workspace Premium
Includes all Workspace Standard features plus expanded storage, email data retention policies, higher participant limits per Meet call, and Lumo, our privacy‑first AI assistant.
Annual price: $19.99 / €19.99 | Monthly price: $24.99 / €24.99
Get Workspace Premium
Existing Proton Business Suite customers benefit from a free upgrade to Workspace Standard, including the addition of Proton Meet, at no additional cost.
Why Proton Workspace
With Proton Workspace, businesses finally have a trustworthy alternative to Big Tech that keeps sensitive business data secure.
Private (and encrypted) by default
Unlike Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, which were created by companies that harvest user data as their business model, Proton has always-on end-to-end encryption and zero‑access encryption, meaning even we do not have access to your data.
Safer by design
Proton’s encryption makes our ecosystem safer by design. Because we do not have access to your encrypted data, an attacker that compromises Proton cannot access it either. Proton Workspace also includes advanced security tools to protect your organization from compromise, such as Proton Sentinel, which is successfully protecting some of the most highly targeted users in the world.
Open source and audited
Because our code is open source, anyone can independently verify that our encryption works as advertised and that there are no backdoors. All Proton apps are regularly independently audited and security tested.
Sovereign and shielded from US surveillance
Based in Europe, Proton ensures your data is protected by some of the world’s strongest privacy laws. Because Proton isn’t a US‑based company, we can’t be compelled by laws such as the US CLOUD Act(new window) to hand over your data to the US government or terminate your services. It is impossible for Proton to independently decrypt your data and share it with any third parties, including governments. Proton also operates our own infrastructure which is independent from Big Tech.
Protected from AI training
Proton’s encryption ensures we do not and cannot use your data for AI training, eliminating any chance that your private data gets publicly leaked through an AI output. Proton’s Lumo AI(new window) also uses zero-access encryption, meaning we do not have access to your saved chats, ensuring they’re never leaked or repurposed for AI model training. With Proton, there is no risk that your confidential business data becomes business intelligence for Big Tech, which is used later to compete with you.
Built with compliance in mind
Our advanced encryption shields your business from accidental leaks, data breaches, and state surveillance, while also helping you meet strict regulations. Proton Workspace simplifies compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA. It is also ISO 27001 and SOC2 certified, providing an additional layer of assurance for security conscious teams and clients.
Security beyond collaboration
Unlike other productivity suites, both Workspace Standard and Workspace Premium include Proton Pass and Proton VPN — two essential cybersecurity tools for your business. These tools feature breach detection alerts to notify you if a third-party tools you use suffers a data breach, and Dark Web Monitoring which automatically warns you if your data is being sold on the dark web.
Better value for money
Even though Proton Workspace includes additional valuable cybersecurity tools, it is less expensive than comparable Big Tech bundles and far cheaper than purchasing each service individually. Proton puts people ahead of profits, meaning we don’t do annual price increases. For over a decade, we have never raised prices on existing customers.
Get Proton Workspace
Make the switch to a privacy-first workspace
The need for privacy and security-centric business solutions is becoming increasingly urgent as geopolitical tensions rise and businesses face increasing resilience, surveillance, and cybersecurity risks.
Whether it’s your customers’ credit cards, your proprietary knowledge, or the trust of your partners, your most valuable assets are information. That’s why data breaches(new window) and ransomware attacks are at record highs, impacting both small and large organizations, and costing over $4 million per incident on average.
When you choose Workspace Standard or Workspace Premium, you’re not just protecting your business and saving money, you’re also supporting better independent technology that’s creating a more ethical and responsible digital ecosystem.
Proton has long stood for privacy, freedom, and democracy, principles which are safeguarded by our primary shareholder, the nonprofit Proton Foundation based in Switzerland. Our mission will continue to be providing the trusted, neutral foundation necessary to protect data in an unsecure world.
Switching to Proton Workspace is simple and seamless. Get in touch with our business team to get started today.
Share this page:
(new window)(new window)(new window)(new window)Copy link
Andy Yen
Andy is the founder and CEO of Proton. He is a long-time advocate for privacy rights and has spoken at TED, Web Summit, and the United Nations about online privacy issues. Previously, Andy was a research scientist at CERN and has a PhD in particle physics from Harvard University.
Saturday, 18 April 2026
Amazon CEO defends AI spend, pokes at rivals
Amazon CEO defends AI spend, pokes at rivals
Noah Berger/Getty Images
The annual letter to Amazon shareholders was 5,000 words, but it could be summed up in seven: We’re gonna keep throwing money at AI. Yesterday, CEO Andy Jassy doubled down on the company’s plan to spend more than any other tech company this year on AI, data centers, chips, robotics, and satellites. “We’re not investing approximately $200 billion in capex in 2026 on a hunch,” Jassy wrote. The letter said:
Jassy warned that Amazon is OK with being strapped for cash flow in the short term because it anticipates a major payoff from AI, which Jassy called a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” “We’re not going to be conservative in how we play this,” he said. Where the capex will go: Reiterating Amazon’s previously announced plans, Jassy said its hefty AI investing will support efforts to further robotize its warehouses, grow its soon-to-launch network of Starlink-competing satellites, and expand rural and drone-aided delivery. Zoom out: Shares of Amazon had been down this year as investors questioned its $200 billion capex plan, but yesterday’s remarks putted the stock into the green. |
A secure and private suite for team collaboration
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Anthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source code
Anthropic leaks part of Claude Code’s internal source code
Published Tue, Mar 31 20264:56 PM EDT
Ashley Capoot@/in/ashley-capoot/
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Key Points
Anthropic accidentally leaked part of the internal source code for its coding assistant Claude Code, according to a spokesperson.
The leak could help give software developers, and Anthropic’s competitors, insight into how it built the viral coding tool.
“No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed,” the spokesperson said.
The Anthropic logo appears on a smartphone screen with multiple Claude AI logos in the background. Following the release of Claude Opus 4.6 on February 5, Anthropic continues to challenge its main competitors in the generative AI market in Creteil, France, on February 6, 2026.
Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Anthropic leaked part of the internal source code for its popular artificial intelligence coding assistant, Claude Code, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
“No sensitive customer data or credentials were involved or exposed,” an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement. “This was a release packaging issue caused by human error, not a security breach. We’re rolling out measures to prevent this from happening again.”
A source code leak is a blow to the startup, as it could help give software developers, and Anthropic’s competitors, insight into how it built its viral coding tool. A post on X with a link to Anthropic’s code has amassed more than 21 million views since it was shared at 4:23 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
The leak also marks Anthropic’s second major data blunder in under a week. Descriptions of Anthropic’s upcoming AI model and other documents were recently discovered in a publicly accessible data cache, according to a report from Fortune on Thursday.
Anthropic was founded by a group of former OpenAI executives and researchers in 2021, and it’s best known for developing a family of AI models called Claude.
The company released Claude Code to the general public in May, and it helps software developers build features, fix bugs and automate tasks.
Claude Code has seen massive adoption over the last year, and its run-rate revenue had swelled to more than $2.5 billion as of February.
The tool’s success has prompted companies like OpenAI, Google and xAI to pour resources into developing competing offerings.
Friday, 17 April 2026
Nike just can’t do it in China
Nick Iluzada
Nike’s turnaround has hit a huge wall in China—and that’s anything but great for shareholders. The company’s earnings call this week revealed that sales in China fell for the seventh consecutive quarter, and that they’re expected to remain weak for the rest of the year. The company’s shares crashed by ~15% in response to its bleak outlook in China, even though Nike’s fiscal Q3 earnings and revenue beat expectations. The recovery remains in progressCEO Elliott Hill was brought on board in 2024 to return Nike to its glory days by refocusing the brand on sports. Some progress has been made, as revenue in North America grew for a second straight quarter. But overseas problems had Hill venting in an all-hands meeting that “I’m so tired, and I know you are too, of talking about fixing this business,” according to Bloomberg:
Nike also cited US tariffs eating into the company’s bottom line. Looking ahead…the company is expecting continued growth in North America and plans to offer longer-term guidance to investors this fall. |
Thursday, 16 April 2026
Privacy watch and updates
Privacy watch
News and updates about online privacy
- Google, Apple, and Meta shared data from more than 3.5 million user accounts with US authorities over the past decade through routine requests alone, a 770% increase since reporting began. When FISA disclosures are included, the total rises to roughly 6.7 million. See the details of the investigation.
- Another Proton study found that nearly one in four small and medium businesses suffered a cyberattack in the past 12 months. Cyber risk is shaped by human error, inconsistent use of security tools, and giving more data to cloud and AI platforms. See our recommendations for businesses.
- Apple’s latest iPhone update in the UK introduces age verification at the operating-system level, requiring some people to prove they are over 18 with a credit card or government-issued ID. The move comes after pressure from regulators under the Online Safety Act to do more to protect children online. What it means beyond the UK.
- The Trump administration is poised to renew a surveillance law known as Section 702 that gives the government the power to spy on people without a warrant. The law is especially controversial in the US because it can be used to target American citizens, who would normally be protected from warrantless surveillance by the Constitution.
- Instagram is dropping end-to-end encryption for chats, despite years of Meta presenting it as the future of private messaging. Uncertainty remains around what happens to currently encrypted chats.
- Google has settled a $68 million lawsuit alleging that Google Assistant improperly recorded private conversations after false activations and used that data for targeted ads. It is one more entry in the long line of privacy cases Google has chosen to settle rather than fight in court and risk admitting wrongdoing.
Can countries replace SWIFT?
Can countries replace SWIFT? Evidence from Russia suggests not easily
The Conversation – Articles (CA) · a day ago
by Mesbah Sharaf, Professor of Economics, University of Alberta
When Russian banks were cut off from the SWIFT messaging system in 2022, the move was seen as one of the strongest financial sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
The measure, taken by the European Union and its allies, targeted major Russian banks and aimed to disrupt the country’s ability to conduct international transactions.
SWIFT — the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — allows more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries to send secure, standardized payment instructions to one another. Without it, cross-border transactions become slower, more difficult and more expensive.
But what happens if a country is pushed out of the world’s main financial messaging network? Can it simply build an alternative? Our recent research suggests the answer is no — or at least not nearly as easily as some claims suggest.
Russia’s workaround
Russia had been preparing for the risk of being cut off from global financial infrastructure for years. After earlier sanctions in 2014, it developed its own domestic system, known as the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), to reduce its reliance on foreign financial infrastructure and make itself less vulnerable to future sanctions.
While SPFS was built mainly for the Russian market, the Bank of Russia says foreign users can also connect either directly or through a service bureau. This suggests an effort to extend its use beyond Russia, even if its international reach has remained limited.
When Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT in 2022, SPFS was presented as part of that fallback strategy. Other workarounds included capital controls, rules requiring exporters to sell part of their foreign-currency earnings and greater reliance on domestic payments infrastructure such as Mir.
At first glance, the strategy appeared to work. Russian exports remained high in the months after the sanctions, leading some observers to argue that the shock had been contained and that financial workarounds were doing their job. The Financial Times, for example, noted the surprising resilience of the Russian economy.
But our findings point to a more complicated reality.
What the data shows
Using monthly data from March 2020 to February 2024, we examined what happened to two key indicators after Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT: merchandise exports and international reserves.
The results showed a clear split between trade and finance. Export revenues stayed high for a time, but much of that was tied to the global surge in oil prices rather than to the strength of SPFS itself. Once oil prices were taken into account, the apparent export resilience became much weaker.
In other words, Russia benefited from unusually favourable market conditions. High energy prices helped keep export earnings afloat at exactly the moment when the country was facing major financial disruption. That is not the same thing as showing that a domestic payment system had replaced the role SWIFT normally plays in international finance.
The deeper strain showed up in Russia’s international reserves. Reserves are one of the clearest signs of a country’s external financial strength. They support currency stability, underpin investor confidence and provide a buffer against economic shocks.
Russia’s reserves fell sharply and stayed under pressure after the SWIFT exclusion, suggesting the financial damage ran deeper than the export numbers alone might imply.
Alternatives to SWIFT have limits
This helps explain why alternatives like SPFS have limits. A domestic system may help preserve some continuity and allow certain transactions to keep moving inside the country or with a limited group of foreign partners.
But it does not automatically recreate the wider ecosystem that makes SWIFT powerful: global reach, liquidity, institutional trust and the network effects that come from being used almost everywhere.
The more institutions that use a system, the more valuable it becomes. Replicating that scale requires broad international participation and confidence, which are difficult to build quickly.
The future of global payments
Around the world, governments are paying much closer attention to financial sovereignty, sanctions risk and dependence on payment systems they do not control.
Countries such as Russia and China have tried to build alternatives, and debates about payment fragmentation are becoming more common.
In simple terms, payment fragmentation means the global financial system breaking into separate networks that do not fully connect with each other, making cross-border transactions more complex, costly and less predictable.
Yet building a domestic alternative is not the same as reproducing a global network built on decades of legal standards, co-ordination and trust.
Sanctions are still effective
The broader lesson is that payment technologies derive their value not simply from their design, but from who uses them, how widely they are accepted and whether people trust them in practice.
That is why Russia’s experience should be interpreted carefully. It does not demonstrate that countries can easily escape the economic force of sanctions by building local substitutes.
Instead, it shows that while some adjustment is possible — especially when helped by high commodity prices — the advantages of a global network are much harder to replace.
So can countries build alternatives to SWIFT? Yes.
Can they quickly build alternatives with the same reach, trust and financial weight? Russia’s experience shows that while a country may be able to keep some payments moving for a time, that is very different from preserving full financial resilience.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Conversation – Articles (CA) · a day ago
by Mesbah Sharaf, Professor of Economics, University of Alberta
When Russian banks were cut off from the SWIFT messaging system in 2022, the move was seen as one of the strongest financial sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine.
The measure, taken by the European Union and its allies, targeted major Russian banks and aimed to disrupt the country’s ability to conduct international transactions.
SWIFT — the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication — allows more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries to send secure, standardized payment instructions to one another. Without it, cross-border transactions become slower, more difficult and more expensive.
But what happens if a country is pushed out of the world’s main financial messaging network? Can it simply build an alternative? Our recent research suggests the answer is no — or at least not nearly as easily as some claims suggest.
Russia’s workaround
Russia had been preparing for the risk of being cut off from global financial infrastructure for years. After earlier sanctions in 2014, it developed its own domestic system, known as the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), to reduce its reliance on foreign financial infrastructure and make itself less vulnerable to future sanctions.
While SPFS was built mainly for the Russian market, the Bank of Russia says foreign users can also connect either directly or through a service bureau. This suggests an effort to extend its use beyond Russia, even if its international reach has remained limited.
When Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT in 2022, SPFS was presented as part of that fallback strategy. Other workarounds included capital controls, rules requiring exporters to sell part of their foreign-currency earnings and greater reliance on domestic payments infrastructure such as Mir.
At first glance, the strategy appeared to work. Russian exports remained high in the months after the sanctions, leading some observers to argue that the shock had been contained and that financial workarounds were doing their job. The Financial Times, for example, noted the surprising resilience of the Russian economy.
But our findings point to a more complicated reality.
What the data shows
Using monthly data from March 2020 to February 2024, we examined what happened to two key indicators after Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT: merchandise exports and international reserves.
The results showed a clear split between trade and finance. Export revenues stayed high for a time, but much of that was tied to the global surge in oil prices rather than to the strength of SPFS itself. Once oil prices were taken into account, the apparent export resilience became much weaker.
In other words, Russia benefited from unusually favourable market conditions. High energy prices helped keep export earnings afloat at exactly the moment when the country was facing major financial disruption. That is not the same thing as showing that a domestic payment system had replaced the role SWIFT normally plays in international finance.
The deeper strain showed up in Russia’s international reserves. Reserves are one of the clearest signs of a country’s external financial strength. They support currency stability, underpin investor confidence and provide a buffer against economic shocks.
Russia’s reserves fell sharply and stayed under pressure after the SWIFT exclusion, suggesting the financial damage ran deeper than the export numbers alone might imply.
Alternatives to SWIFT have limits
This helps explain why alternatives like SPFS have limits. A domestic system may help preserve some continuity and allow certain transactions to keep moving inside the country or with a limited group of foreign partners.
But it does not automatically recreate the wider ecosystem that makes SWIFT powerful: global reach, liquidity, institutional trust and the network effects that come from being used almost everywhere.
The more institutions that use a system, the more valuable it becomes. Replicating that scale requires broad international participation and confidence, which are difficult to build quickly.
The future of global payments
Around the world, governments are paying much closer attention to financial sovereignty, sanctions risk and dependence on payment systems they do not control.
Countries such as Russia and China have tried to build alternatives, and debates about payment fragmentation are becoming more common.
In simple terms, payment fragmentation means the global financial system breaking into separate networks that do not fully connect with each other, making cross-border transactions more complex, costly and less predictable.
Yet building a domestic alternative is not the same as reproducing a global network built on decades of legal standards, co-ordination and trust.
Sanctions are still effective
The broader lesson is that payment technologies derive their value not simply from their design, but from who uses them, how widely they are accepted and whether people trust them in practice.
That is why Russia’s experience should be interpreted carefully. It does not demonstrate that countries can easily escape the economic force of sanctions by building local substitutes.
Instead, it shows that while some adjustment is possible — especially when helped by high commodity prices — the advantages of a global network are much harder to replace.
So can countries build alternatives to SWIFT? Yes.
Can they quickly build alternatives with the same reach, trust and financial weight? Russia’s experience shows that while a country may be able to keep some payments moving for a time, that is very different from preserving full financial resilience.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
US economy grew a sluggish 0.5% in fourth quarter
The
US economy grew a sluggish 0.5% in the fourth quarter, the government says, downgrading its previous estimate
Gas prices are displayed at a gasoline station, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
By PAUL WISEMAN
Updated 7:29 AM GMT-7, April 9, 2026
Leer en español
WASHINGTON (AP) — The American economy, slowed by last fall’s 43-day government shutdown, grew at a sluggish 0.5% annual pace from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in downgrade of its previous estimate.
U.S. gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — decelerated in the fourth quarter after registering impressive growth of 4.4% from July through September and 3.8% from April through June. The latest number was marked down from the Commerce Department’s previous estimate of 0.7% fourth-quarter growth.
Federal government spending and investment fell at a 16.6% annual pace because of the shutdown, lopping 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP growth. Consumer spending expanded 1.9%, down a notch from the previous estimate and from 3.5% in the second quarter. Spending on goods — such as cars and clothing — grew just 0.3%, down from 3% in the July-September period.
For all of 2025, the economy grew 2.1% last year, slower than 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2023.
Business investment, excluding housing, increased at a 2.4% pace, likely reflecting money being poured into artificial intelligence, but the increase was down from 3.2% in the third quarter.
First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature
First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature
First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature
If Governor Janet Mills signs it, it will block construction of new data centers over 20 MW.
BY MIKE PEARLPUBLISHED APRIL 14, 2026, 11:18 PM ET
READING TIME 2 MINUTES
Actually a data center in Oregon. © Hrach Hovhannisyan via Shutterstock
READ LATER COMMENTS (10)
On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled state legislature in Maine passed a ban on large data centers. It wasn’t exactly close. The state’s House passed it 79-62, and the Senate passed it 21-13—along party lines with a few exceptions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Governor Janet Mills’ signature is still needed before it becomes law, and the Journal says she has signaled interest in signing such a ban under certain circumstances.
This ban passed in spite of—or perhaps because of—relatively low data center activity in Maine. Business Insider maps likely data centers construction by tracking permit requests for certain generators, and Maine appears to only have two such projects. However, data center demand drives up home energy costs, and the website Electric Choice ranks Maine fourth highest in electricity prices.
Insider also notes that similar legislative efforts have stalled or failed outright in Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Plenty of other cities and states are still considering laws like this one.
Maine’s ban has frequently been described as a ban on “large” data centers, but the threshold is 20 megawatts, which is actually pretty low, and effectively blocks construction of what is commonly known as an AI data center. According to the Regional Plan Association, while data centers used about two megawatts of electricity when the concept of a data center was new, the average contemporary data center uses about 40 megawatts.
Maine’s bill places a moratorium on construction until November of 2027, and also creates a council whose job will be to evaluate the cost of data centers on the people of Maine.
First Statewide Data Center Ban Passed by Maine Legislature
If Governor Janet Mills signs it, it will block construction of new data centers over 20 MW.
BY MIKE PEARLPUBLISHED APRIL 14, 2026, 11:18 PM ET
READING TIME 2 MINUTES
Actually a data center in Oregon. © Hrach Hovhannisyan via ShutterstockREAD LATER COMMENTS (10)
On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled state legislature in Maine passed a ban on large data centers. It wasn’t exactly close. The state’s House passed it 79-62, and the Senate passed it 21-13—along party lines with a few exceptions, according to the Wall Street Journal. Governor Janet Mills’ signature is still needed before it becomes law, and the Journal says she has signaled interest in signing such a ban under certain circumstances.
This ban passed in spite of—or perhaps because of—relatively low data center activity in Maine. Business Insider maps likely data centers construction by tracking permit requests for certain generators, and Maine appears to only have two such projects. However, data center demand drives up home energy costs, and the website Electric Choice ranks Maine fourth highest in electricity prices.
Insider also notes that similar legislative efforts have stalled or failed outright in Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Plenty of other cities and states are still considering laws like this one.
Maine’s ban has frequently been described as a ban on “large” data centers, but the threshold is 20 megawatts, which is actually pretty low, and effectively blocks construction of what is commonly known as an AI data center. According to the Regional Plan Association, while data centers used about two megawatts of electricity when the concept of a data center was new, the average contemporary data center uses about 40 megawatts.
Maine’s bill places a moratorium on construction until November of 2027, and also creates a council whose job will be to evaluate the cost of data centers on the people of Maine.
We are paying more for a PlayStation
The Guardian · 19 minutes agoby Keza MacDonald · Games
We are paying more for a PlayStation so that idiots can use ChatGPT to mislead people on dating apps – something is rotten in the state of gaming
• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here
When the PlayStation 5 launched almost five and a half years ago, it was listed at £449 in the UK. If you were to buy one at the recommended retail price today, it would be £569.99, or £789.99 for the updated Pro model. Sony has just raised the price of its console by another £90, the latest in a series of hikes. This is unprecedented: consoles have always decreased in price over time (until they become retro collectibles – the other day, I saw someone asking £200 for a SNES on Vinted). So, what’s going on?
Unfortunately, this is another case of artificial intelligence ruining things for everyone. AI data centres need lots and lots and lots of computing power to be able to present you with lies whenever you Google anything, and this has pushed up demand and pricing for RAM and storage. This isn’t the only reason prices are rising – the wars in Ukraine and Iran have caused global economic disruption, and rampant inflation has eaten into many companies’ bottom line. But AI is the cause that’s easiest to get angry about, because it doesn’t need to be this way.Continue reading...
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Income taxes are highest in these states
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