The Register's Simon Sharwood reports: Broadcom has lost another sizable customer for its VMware platform: Austrian cloud provider Anexia has moved 12,000 VMs, some of them rented by major European businesses, to an open-source system based on the KVM hypervisor. Anexia was founded in 2006, is based in Austria, and provides cloud services from over 100 locations around the world by placing equipment in third party datacenters. Clients include remote access and control vendor TeamViewer, and airline Lufthansa -- plus plenty more outfits that need reliable hosting and service to match.

CEO Alexander Windbichler told The Register that after Broadcom acquired VMware, increased licensing costs, and made big changes to its partner program, Anexia remained eligible to operate a VMware-powered cloud. But Windbichler felt he couldn't afford to continue, because Broadcom offered new terms that saw the cost of VMware licenses rise sharply. The CEO preferred not to enumerate the increase precisely however The Register understands it exceeded 500 percent. Whatever the actual figure, Windbichler said the cost increase "Would have been existential for us."

"We used to pay for VMware software one month in arrears," he said. "With Broadcom we had to pay a year in advance with a two-year contract." That arrangement, the CEO said, would have created extreme stress on company cashflow. "We would not be able to compete with the market," he said. "We had customers on contracts, and they would not pay for a price increase." Windbichler considered legal action, but felt the fight would have been slow and expensive. Anexia therefore resolved to migrate, a choice made easier by its ownership of another hosting business called Netcup that ran on a KVM-based platform.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch, written by Ivan Mehta: Decentralized social network organization Mastodon said Monday that it is planning to create a new nonprofit organization in Europe and hand over ownership of entities responsible for key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components. This means one person won't have control over the entire project. The organization is trying to differentiate itself from social networks controlled by CEOs like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. While exact details are yet to be finalized, this means that Mastodon's current CEO and creator, Eugen Rochko, will hand over management bits of the organization to the new entity and focus on the product strategy.

The organization said that it will continue to host the mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers, which users can sign up for and join the ActivityPub-based network. Mastodon currently has 835,000 monthly active users spread across thousands of servers. [...] Last year, the company formed a U.S.-based nonprofit to get more funds and grants with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on the board. At the same time, the organization lost its nonprofit status in Germany. [...] The blog post noted that the new Europe-based nonprofit entity will wholly own the Mastodon GmbH for-profit entity. The organization is in the process of finalizing the place where the new entity will be set up. "We are taking the time to select the appropriate jurisdiction and structure in Europe. Then we will determine which other (subsidiary) legal structures are needed to support operations and sustainability,â Mastodon said in a blog post. "Throughout, we will focus on establishing the appropriate governance and leadership frameworks that reflect the nature and purpose of Mastodon as a whole, and responsibly serve the community."

Microsoft is raising Microsoft 365 subscription prices by up to 46% across six Asian markets to fund AI features. In Australia, annual Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions will increase to AU$179 ($110) from AU$139, while Personal subscriptions will jump to AU$159 ($98) from AU$109. The price hikes also affect New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand customers.

One in five online job postings may be "ghost jobs" that companies never intend to fill, according to new data from hiring platform Greenhouse examining its clients' recruitment patterns in 2024. The analysis found that 18-22% of advertised positions across technology, finance, and healthcare sectors went unfilled, while nearly 70% of companies posted at least one ghost job in the second quarter of 2024.

Construction, arts, food and beverage, and legal industries showed the highest rates of ghost listings. In response, Greenhouse and LinkedIn have introduced verification systems for job postings. LinkedIn reports more than half its listings are now tagged as "verified," indicating confirmed open positions. Companies maintain ghost listings for various reasons, including projecting growth, keeping options open for exceptional candidates, or meeting federal posting requirements, said Jon Stross, Greenhouse's president and co-founder.

Sonos Chief Executive Patrick Spence stepped down on Monday, following a tumultuous period marked by a botched app rollout that angered customers and hurt sales of its new headphones. Board member Tom Conrad, a former Pandora chief technology officer, will serve as interim CEO while the audio equipment maker searches for a permanent replacement, the company said.

Spence's departure comes eight months after Sonos released a revamped app that launched with missing features and technical problems, leading to widespread customer complaints and necessitating an extensive fix-it effort. The company will pay Spence, who joined Sonos in 2012 as chief commercial officer, a $1.875 million severance package. He will remain as a strategic advisor until June 30, earning $7,500 monthly, according to a regulatory filing.

"Nuclear you can trust," reads the web page promoting "The Egg, an at home nuclear reactor."

Yes, Enron.com is now announcing "a micro-nuclear reactor made to power your home." (A quick reminder from CNN in December. "A company that makes T-shirts bought the Enron trademark and appears to be trying to sell some merch on behalf of the guy behind the satirical conspiracy theory "Birds Aren't Real....")

Does that explain how we got a product reveal for "the world's first micro-nuclear reactor for residential suburban use"? (Made possible "by the Enron mining division, which has been sourcing the proprietary Enronium ore...") Enron's new 28-year-old CEO Connor Gaydos insists they're "making the world a better place, one egg at a time."

The Houston Chronicle delves into the details: Supposedly a micro-nuclear reactor capable of powering a home for up to 10 years, the Enron Egg would be a significant leap forward for both energy technology and humanity's understanding of nuclear physics — if, of course, such a thing were actually feasible. "With our current understanding of physics, this will never be possible," said Derek Haas, an associate professor and nuclear and radiation engineering researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. "We can make a nuclear reactor go critical at about the size of the egg that I saw on the pictures. But we can't capture that energy and turn it into useful electric heat, and shield the radiation that comes off of the reactor." [Haas adds later that nuclear reactors require federal licenses to operate, which take two to nine years to procure and "typically require several hundred pages of documentation to be allowed to build it, and then another thousand pages of safety documents to be allowed to turn it on."]

The outlandish claims Enron has made in the weeks since its brand revival have left many to speculate that the move is part of some large-scale joke similar to Birds Aren't Real — a gag conspiracy movement that Connor Gaydos, Enron's 28-year-old CEO, published a book on alongside co-author and movement founder Peter McIndoe. In an exclusive interview with the Houston Chronicle, Gaydos asked that people look past the limitations — be they in the form of regulations or physics — and embrace the impossible....

Several since-deleted blurbs — both on the company's website and on social media — have alluded to Enron potentially expanding into the world of cryptocurrency. Gaydos said he hasn't ruled it out, but the company currently does not have any plans in the works to debut an Enron-themed coin. "I think in a lot of ways, everything feels like a crypto scam now, but thankfully, we are a completely real company," Gaydos said.
When announcing the Egg, Gaydos stressed Enron was now revolutionizing not just the power industry, but also two others — the freedom industry, and the independence industry. And Gaydos reminded his audience that their home micro-nuclear was "safe for the whole family."

"Preorder now," adds the Egg's web page at Enron.com. "Sign up for our email newsletter and be the first to know when we launch..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: On Saturday, Triplegangers CEO Oleksandr Tomchuk was alerted that his company's e-commerce site was down. It looked to be some kind of distributed denial-of-service attack. He soon discovered the culprit was a bot from OpenAI that was relentlessly attempting to scrape his entire, enormous site. "We have over 65,000 products, each product has a page," Tomchuk told TechCrunch. "Each page has at least three photos." OpenAI was sending "tens of thousands" of server requests trying to download all of it, hundreds of thousands of photos, along with their detailed descriptions. "OpenAI used 600 IPs to scrape data, and we are still analyzing logs from last week, perhaps it's way more," he said of the IP addresses the bot used to attempt to consume his site. "Their crawlers were crushing our site," he said "It was basically a DDoS attack."

Triplegangers' website is its business. The seven-employee company has spent over a decade assembling what it calls the largest database of "human digital doubles" on the web, meaning 3D image files scanned from actual human models. It sells the 3D object files, as well as photos -- everything from hands to hair, skin, and full bodies -- to 3D artists, video game makers, anyone who needs to digitally recreate authentic human characteristics. [...] To add insult to injury, not only was Triplegangers knocked offline by OpenAI's bot during U.S. business hours, but Tomchuk expects a jacked-up AWS bill thanks to all of the CPU and downloading activity from the bot. Triplegangers initially lacked a properly configured robots.txt file, which allowed the bot to freely scrape its site since the system interprets the absence of such a file as permission. It's not an opt-in system.

Once the file was updated with specific tags to block OpenAI's bot, along with additional defenses like Cloudflare, the scraping stopped. However, robots.txt is not foolproof since compliance by AI companies is voluntary, leaving the burden on website owners to monitor and block unauthorized access proactively. "[Tomchuk] wants other small online business to know that the only way to discover if an AI bot is taking a website's copyrighted belongings is to actively look," reports TechCrunch.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized Apple's innovation record and business practices in a Joe Rogan podcast interview on January 10, claiming the iPhone maker has not "invented anything great in a while" and is "just sitting" on its flagship product 20 years after Steve Jobs created it.

Zuckerberg accused Apple of using arbitrary App Store rules and 30% developer fees to offset declining iPhone sales. He also said Apple blocks competitors from accessing iPhone protocols, citing Meta's failed attempt to integrate its Ray-Ban smart glasses with Apple's connectivity features. The Meta chief also criticized Apple's $3,500 Vision Pro headset, calling it inferior to Meta's $300-400 device.

Amazon said it is halting some of its diversity and inclusion initiatives, joining a growing list of major corporations that have made similar moves in the face of increasing public and legal scrutiny. From a report: In a Dec. 16 internal note to staffers that was obtained by CNBC, Candi Castleberry, Amazon's VP of inclusive experiences and technology, said the company was in the process of "winding down outdated programs and materials" as part of a broader review of hundreds of initiatives.
"Rather than have individual groups build programs, we are focusing on programs with proven outcomes -- and we also aim to foster a more truly inclusive culture," Castleberry wrote in the note, which was first reported by Bloomberg. Castleberry's memo doesn't say which programs the company is dropping as a result of its review. Further reading: Meta Kills DEI Programs.

TechCrunch's Rebecca Szkutak reports: TechCrunch recently surveyed 20 VCs who back startups building for enterprises about what gives an AI startup a moat, or what makes it different compared to its peers. More than half of the respondents said that the thing that will give AI startups an edge is the quality or rarity of their proprietary data. Paul Drews, a managing partner at Salesforce Ventures, told TechCrunch that it's really hard for AI startups to have a moat because the landscape is changing so quickly. He added that he looks for startups that have a combination of differentiated data, technical research innovation, and a compelling user experience.

Jason Mendel, a venture investor at Battery Ventures, agreed that technology moats are diminishing. "I'm looking for companies that have deep data and workflow moats," Mendel told TechCrunch. "Access to unique, proprietary data enables companies to deliver better products than their competitors, while a sticky workflow or user experience allows them to become the core systems of engagement and intelligence that customers rely on daily." Having proprietary, or hard-to-get, data becomes increasingly important for companies that are building vertical solutions.

Scott Beechuk, a partner at Norwest Venture Partners, said companies that are able to home in on their unique data are the startups with the most long-term potential. Andrew Ferguson, a vice president at Databricks Ventures, said that having rich customer data, and data that creates a feedback loop in an AI system, makes it more effective and can help startups stand out, too. [...] Beyond just data, VCs said they look for AI teams led by strong talent, ones that have existing strong integrations with other tech, and companies that have a deep understanding of customer workflows.

Amazon is shutting down its "Prime Try Before You Buy" service on January 31, according to a notice on its website. The offering operated similarly to apparel subscription services like Stitch Fix and Rent the Runway, allowing Prime members to try out apparel-related products and only pay for items they wanted to keep. CNBC reports: An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the move, which was first reported by The Information. "Given the combination of Try Before You Buy only scaling to a limited number of items and customers increasingly using our new AI-powered features like virtual try-on, personalized size recommendations, review highlights, and improved size charts to make sure they find the right fit, we're phasing out the Try Before You Buy option, effective January 31, 2025," the spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

Amazon rolled out the service, which was previously called Prime Wardrobe, in 2017. It was only available to members of Amazon's $139-per-year Prime subscription program, which also includes perks such as speedy shipping and access to streaming services. Users could test out a mix of luxury, staple and Amazon-owned brands, and return whatever they didn't want to keep for free within seven days of receiving the items. The service operated similarly to wardrobe subscription services including Stitch Fix and Rent the Runway, as well as newer entrants such as Urban Outfitters' Nuuly.

ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced today that it will not launch the Venu live sports streaming service. "After careful consideration, we have collectively agreed to discontinue the Venu Sports joint venture and not launch the streaming service," the companies said in a joint statement. "In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels. We are proud of the work that has been done on Venu to date and grateful to the Venu staff, whom we will support through this transition period." The Verge reports: ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery first announced Venu last year, and it was supposed to launch in the fall of 2024. The service would've given viewers access to a swath of live games from the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and more from several linear channels, including ESPN, ABC, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, TNT, and others.

But then Venu hit a legal roadblock: an antitrust lawsuit from the live TV streaming service Fubo, accusing the trio of engaging in "a years-long campaign to block Fubo's innovative sports-first streaming business" due to restrictive sports licensing agreements. Lawmakers also asked regulators to investigate Venu and its potential to become a monopoly in televised sports.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: JPMorgan Chase is summoning all staff back to the office, becoming the latest corporate giant to call time on era of remote and hybrid working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The US's largest bank, which has some 316,000 employees worldwide, announced on Friday that all workers on hybrid work schedules will be required to return to the office five days a week from March. [...] Few top executives have been more vocal in making the case for working from the office than Jamie Dimon, the veteran CEO of JPMorgan, who -- as early as 2021 -- sought to restore pre-pandemic working habits. "And everyone is going to be happy with it," he told a Wall Street Journal event that year. "And yes, the commute -- you know, people don't like commuting. But so what?"

Even before Friday's announcement, more than half of employees at JPMorgan had already been required to work from the office full-time. In an internal memo to staff, seen by the Guardian, Dimon and other executives acknowledged that "some of you prefer a hybrid schedule" and said they "respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision." "We are now a few years out of the pandemic and have had the time to evaluate the benefits and challenges of remote and hybrid working," they wrote. "We feel that now is the right time to solidify our full-time in-office approach. "We think it is the best way to run the company. As we've discussed before, the benefits of working together in person are substantial and irreplaceable, and as we spend more time together, the more advantages we gain."

Sales of electric vehicles in Japan fell 33% year-on-year to 59,736 cars in 2024, the first decline in four years, according to data from car dealers and importers compiled by Nikkei on Thursday. From the report: EVs' share of all vehicle sales fell below 2% in Japan, the lowest among major advanced economies. While global EV sales are still growing, albeit more slowly, Japan's reluctance to adopt EVs is becoming increasingly apparent.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Global banks will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as artificial intelligence encroaches on tasks currently carried out by human workers, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Chief information and technology officers surveyed for BI indicated that on average they expect a net 3% of their workforce to be cut, according to a report published Thursday. Back office, middle office and operations are likely to be most at risk, according to Tomasz Noetzel, the BI senior analyst who wrote the report. Customer services could see changes as bots manage client functions, while know-your-customer duties would also be vulnerable. "Any jobs involving routine, repetitive tasks are at risk," he said. "But AI will not eliminate them fully, rather it will lead to workforce transformation."

Nearly a quarter of the 93 respondents predict a steeper decline of between 5% and 10% of total headcount. The peer group covered by BI includes Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The findings point to far-reaching changes in the industry, feeding through to improved earnings. In 2027, banks could see pretax profits 12% to 17% higher than they would otherwise have been -- adding as much as $180 billion to their combined bottom line -- as AI powers an increase in productivity, according to BI. Eight in ten respondents expect generative AI to increase productivity and revenue generation by at least 5% in the next three to five years. Results from a recent World Economic Forum survey also predicted a reduction in the workforce due to AI. According to the survey, 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks.

Unlike the survey results from 2023, this year's report did not say that most technology, including AI, were expected to be a "net positive" for job numbers.

AI is coming for your job: 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks, a World Economic Forum survey showed Wednesday. From a report: Out of hundreds of large companies surveyed around the world, 77% also said they were planning to reskill and upskill their existing workers between 2025-2030 to better work alongside AI, according to findings published in the WEF's Future of Jobs Report. But, unlike the previous, 2023 edition, this year's report did not say that most technologies, including AI, were expected to be "a net positive" for job numbers.

"Advances in AI and renewable energy are reshaping the (labor) market -- driving an increase in demand for many technology or specialist roles while driving a decline for others, such as graphic designers," the WEF said in a press release ahead of its annual meeting in Davos later this month. Writing in the wide-ranging report, Saadia Zahidi, the forum's managing director, highlighted the role of generative AI in reshaping industries and tasks across all sectors. The technology can create original text, images and other content in response to prompts from users.

Engineering and construction group Larsen & Toubro Chairman S.N. Subrahmanyan has urged employees in India to work 90 hours weekly, including Sundays, surpassing Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy's recent 70-hour workweek proposal.

"What do you do sitting at home? Go to the office and start working," Subrahmanyan said in a leaked internal video. He cited a conversation about Chinese workers' 90-hour weeks versus Americans' 50 hours to justify the stance.

Microsoft kicks off the new year with more job cuts, as fewer than 1% of employees reportedly face the axe. From a report: As first reported by Business Insider, Microsoft is trimming its workforce again, including roles in its security division, with the cuts targeting underperforming employees. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the layoffs with BI but declined to specify how many staffers are affected, stating, "At Microsoft, we focus on high-performance talent."

"We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action," the spokesperson told The Register.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Italy is in advanced talks with Elon Musk's SpaceX for a deal to provide secure telecommunications for the nation's government -- the largest such project in Europe, people with knowledge of the matter said Sunday. Discussions are ongoing, and a final agreement on the five-year contract hasn't been reached, said the people, who asked not to be identified citing confidential discussions. The project has already been approved by Italy's Intelligence Services as well as Italy's Defense Ministry, they said. Italy on Monday confirmed discussions are ongoing, saying no deal had yet been reached. "The talks with SpaceX are part of normal government business," the government said.

The negotiations, which had stalled until recently, appeared to move forward after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on Saturday. The Italian government said the two didn't discuss the issue during their meeting. Italian officials have been negotiating on a $1.6 billion deal aimed at supplying Italy with a full range of top-level encryption for telephone and Internet services used by the government, the people said. The plan also includes communications services for the Italian military in the Mediterranean area as well as the rollout of so-called direct-to-cell satellite services in Italy for use in emergencies like terror attacks or natural disasters, they said. The possible deal has been under review since mid-2023. It's been opposed by some Italian officials concerned about how the services may detract from local carriers.

Delta Air Lines has partnered with YouTube to provide ad-free YouTube Premium and YouTube Music to SkyMiles members on flights. "The deal includes a selection of curated content from key YouTube creators," notes Variety. The airline also said it would upgrade its fleet with better Wi-Fi and 4K HDR QLED displays, alongside AI-driven enhancements like a personal assistant on the Fly Delta app to improve travel experiences. From the report: Delta executives announced the YouTube deal and other flight-experience enhancements to its Delta Sync platform as the aviation giant gave an expansive presentation Tuesday evening at the Sphere in Las Vegas, in connection with the Consumer Electronics Show. Delta touted plans to mark the company's 100th anniversary this year, noting that it is the first airline to reach the centennial mark.

It's also no surprise that Delta is leaning hard into AI tech. The company hopes its Delta Concierge AI-powered personal assistant feature that is rolling out this year on its Fly Delta app will make strides in improving the overall customer experience. The goal is that with repeated use the Concierge tool will come to anticipate individual consumers' needs and help them streamline the logistics of travel -- or what Delta dubbed "contextualized guidance" on everything from departure gates to baggage claim details to alerting travelers to weather conditions at their destinations. [...]

Mary Ellen Coe, chief business officer of YouTube, emphasized that the ad-free YouTube offering will allow viewers to access streaming content as well as podcasts and music. She also asserted that consumers are increasingly gathering travel tips and inspiration through YouTube creators. "Creators are producing the must-see TV of today," Coe said.