fidzu : geek

What's going on with the U.S. job market? "The economy is growing. Unemployment is low," notes the Washington Post. "And yet, for millions of workers, finding a job has become harder than at almost any other point in decades," with the hiring rate "well below pre-pandemic levels for more than a year." Part of the problem? "Of the net 369,000 positions added across the entire economy since the start of 2025, health care alone accounted for nearly 800,000 - meaning every other sector, taken together, shed jobs." By the end of 2025 nearly half of college graduates ages 22 to 27 were working at jobs that didn't require a degree, according to stats from New York's Federal Reserve Bank. The headline unemployment rate, at 4.2%, looks healthy. But that figure has been buoyed by a shrinking labor force: Fewer people are actively looking for work, which keeps the rate down even as hiring slows... [Some large tech companies] are trying to recalibrate after their hiring sprees of 2021 and 2022, when many had raised pay, offered flexible schedules and signed people quickly... Higher interest rates have also made expansion more expensive, pushing many firms to invest in technology rather than headcount. Another reason hiring has slowed is uncertainty about AI. Even though the technology has not yet replaced large numbers of workers, it is already shaping how companies think about hiring. "I don't think this is AI displacement," said Ben Zweig, chief executive of Revelio Labs, a workforce data company. "What we're seeing is anticipatory." Instead of rushing to bring on new workers, some firms are waiting to see how the technology evolves and which tasks it will eventually take over. A 39-year-old web developer tells the Post it took 453 job applications to get a handful of interviews and two offers. And a journalism school graduate said they'd sent hundreds of job applications but most led nowhere, and they're now couch-surfing to save money. But the problem seems even worse for young people. One 18-year-old told the Post that in a year and a half of job searching, they'd yet to even meet an employer in person. The unemployment rate for people ages 22 to 27 who recently completed college hit 5.6% in the final months of 2025 - well above the 4.2% rate for all workers, according to national data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York... At one point last summer, new workforce entrants made up a larger share of the unemployed than at any point since the late 1980s - higher even than during the Great Recession. When hiring slows, the door closes first on those without an existing foothold. For the class of 2026, the timing could hardly be worse. "It is getting increasingly clear that young people are being more affected by AI than older workers," Zweig said. Companies are not eliminating jobs at scale, but many are slow to hire junior workers. At the same time, older workers are staying in the labor force longer, leaving fewer openings for new arrivals. Even when jobs are available, the bar has shifted. Positions once considered entry level now often require several years of experience, technical expertise and familiarity with AI tools. With fewer openings and more applicants, companies are holding out for candidates who can do the job immediately and need little training... Employers are also looking for a different mix of skills. An analysis of millions of job postings by Indeed found that communication skills now appear in nearly 42% of all listings, while leadership skills feature in nearly a third - capabilities that are harder to prove on a résumé and harder still to demonstrate without an existing professional network. Christine Beck, a career coach who works with early-career job seekers, said employers are asking more of the people they do hire.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 May 2026 2:34pm GMT

The Linux 7.1 kernel has added new documentation clarifying what qualifies as a security bug and how AI-assisted vulnerability reports should be handled. Phoronix reports: Stemming from the recent influx of security bugs to the Linux kernel as well as an uptick in bug and security reports from discoveries made in full or in part with AI, additional documentation was warranted. Longtime Linux developer Willy Tarreau took to authoring the additional documentation around kernel bugs. To summarize (since the documentation is a bit too lengthy for a Slashdot story), the AI-assisted vulnerability reports should "be treated as public" because such findings "systematically surface simultaneously across multiple researchers, often on the same day." It adds that reporters should avoid posting a reproducer openly, instead "just mention that one is available" and provide it privately if maintainers request it. The guidance also tells AI-assisted reporters to keep submissions concise and plain-text, focus on verifiable impact rather than speculative consequences, include a thoroughly tested reproducer, and, where possible, propose and test a fix. As for what qualifies as a security bug, the documentation says the private security list is for "urgent bugs that grant an attacker a capability they are not supposed to have on a correctly configured production system" and are easy to exploit, creating an imminent threat to many users. Reporters are told to consider whether the issue "actually crosses a trust boundary," since many bugs submitted privately are really ordinary defects that belong in the normal public reporting process. All the new documentation can be read via this commit.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 May 2026 11:00am GMT

Japan's worsening bear problem has created a shortage of handmade "Monster Wolf" robots, which are $4,000 solar-powered scarecrow-like devices with glowing eyes, sensors, and blaring sounds designed to frighten the animals away. "We make them by hand. We cannot make them fast enough now. We are asking our customers to wait two to three months," company president Yuji Ohta recently told the AFP. Popular Science reports: First released in 2016 by the manufacturer Ohta, Monster Wolf was originally designed to ward off the agricultural foes like boars, deer, and the island nation's Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and brown bear (Ursus arctos) populations. The creative solution quickly went viral for its red LED eyes and menacing fangs -- as well as its admittedly odd, furry pipe frame. Starting at around $4,000, each bespoke Monster Wolf is now equipped with battery power, solar panels, and detection sensors. Its speakers are programmed with over 50 audio clips including human voices and sirens audible over half a mile away. These aren't assembly line products, however. Each Monster Wolf is custom made, and Ohta simply can't keep up with the current demand. [...] Ohta told the AFP that amid the ongoing crisis, there has been "growing recognition" that Monster Wolf is "effective in dealing with bears." The main customer base remains farmers, but orders are also coming from golf courses and rural workers. Upgraded versions will soon include wheels to actually chase animals and patrol preset routes. There are also plans to release a handheld version for outdoor enthusiasts and schoolchildren. Until Ohta catches up with its orders, residents and visitors are encouraged to review the Japanese government's own bear safety tips.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

16 May 2026 7:00am GMT

Universities promise no frontline duty and perks if students enlist in military.

15 May 2026 10:19pm GMT

Lawyers accused of rushing historic settlement to seize $320 million in fees.

15 May 2026 9:51pm GMT

WHO announced today that the operation to safely transfer passengers is complete.

15 May 2026 9:31pm GMT

Google recently launched something called Health Coach, an "AI" thing that's part of the company's new Fitbit products. Let's check in with how that's going. Put simply, Google's paid replacement for Fitbit Premium immediately began hallucinating, even admitting to having made up the data before asking if, you know, maybe I'm the one who actually forgot to input a run. Remember, this is my very first report from this thing, making for an awful first impression. Even after this correction, the run data continues to exist within the AI-powered home screen layout, despite no record actually appearing within my account. It's not exactly a great advertisement for a platform that costs $10 per month or $100 annually. ↫ Will Sattelberg at 9To5Google The entire US' - and thus much of the world's - economic growth is built on this trash. What could possibly go wrong?

15 May 2026 8:53pm GMT

One of the top pieces of customer feedback in the graphics driver area is clear: "Windows Update downgrades my drivers." Today, we are announcing a policy change to how display drivers are published through Windows Update - allowing 2-Part HWID + Computer Hardware ID (CHID) targeting for new devices. This change gives customers more control over their display driver of choice while preserving OEM control over the devices they ship. ↫ Garrettd at Microsoft's Hardware Dev Center Windows Update randomly downgrading your graphics drivers seems to be a common enough occurrence that its supposed fix deserves its own feature announcement and blog post. This is a real operating system that runs on most of the world's PCs.

15 May 2026 8:47pm GMT

The EU's Digital Markets Act has been in effect for a mere two years, but despite all the obstructionism, malicious compliance, and steady stream of lies from US tech companies and Apple in particular, it seems this rather basic consumer protection legislation is already bearing fruit. In a two-year review report on the DMA, the European Commission notes that alternative browser usage has soared, data portability solutions are spreading, alternative application stores are growing, and much more. On top of that, end users can now opt out of companies combining various data sources for profiling, and a "significant share" of EU users have apparently done so. Furthermore, end users in the EU can now remove preinstalled applications (whereas American users cannot) and they can download their data from big technology companies and authorise other companies to use that data. Mozilla published a blog post detailing how it has profited from the Digital Markets Act, and it ain't no peanuts: every ten seconds, someone on iOS chooses Firefox on iOS' browser choice screen, which amounts to more than six million Firefox users on iOS. They also tend to stick with Firefox on iOS, as retention is five times higher when this browser is chosen through a browser choice screen. Academic analysis points the same way. Independent researchers compared Firefox daily active users in the EU with 43 non-EU countries. Comparing the 15 months before and after browser choice screens rolled out on iOS, they found that Firefox daily active users (DAU) were 113% higher in the EU than it would have been without the DMA. On Android, it was 12% higher. The smaller Android effect is due to the fact that Firefox usage there started from a much higher base, and the Android rollout has been more uneven than on iOS. The research also shows that the DMA's effect is growing over time. ↫ Gemma Petrie and Tasos Stampelos on the Mozilla blog Both the underlying data in the EC report and the data Mozilla provides indicates that the Digital Markets Act is having real and tangible effects, for end users, developers, and companies alike. The neverending barrage of anti-EU and anti-DMA propaganda from Apple, the US government, and their PR attack dogs seems to have been weirdly justified, from the American perspective: basic consumer protection legislation does, indeed, work to lessen the stranglehold major technology companies have on our lives. And considering just NVIDIA's market cap alone is now equal to more than 17% of the United States' GDP, it makes sense the Americans are unhappy with the DMA. That's going to make one hell of a sound when it pops.

14 May 2026 8:47pm GMT

Just trying to answer one simple question: What if the terminal was 3D?

11 May 2026 12:00am GMT

Break the pattern today or the loop will repeat tomorrow.

18 Apr 2026 12:00am GMT

My thoughts on AI-assisted programming.

11 Apr 2026 12:00am GMT