AI

AI Could Affect 40% of Jobs and Widen Inequality Between Nations, UN Warns (cnbc.com) 40

An anonymous reader shares a report: AI is projected to reach $4.8 trillion in market value by 2033, but the technology's benefits remain highly concentrated, according to the U.N. Trade and Development agency. In a report released on Thursday, UNCTAD said the AI market cap would roughly equate to the size of Germany's economy, with the technology offering productivity gains and driving digital transformation. However, the agency also raised concerns about automation and job displacement, warning that AI could affect 40% of jobs worldwide. On top of that, AI is not inherently inclusive, meaning the economic gains from the tech remain "highly concentrated," the report added.

"The benefits of AI-driven automation often favour capital over labour, which could widen inequality and reduce the competitive advantage of low-cost labour in developing economies," it said. The potential for AI to cause unemployment and inequality is a long-standing concern, with the IMF making similar warnings over a year ago. In January, The World Economic Forum released findings that as many as 41% of employers were planning on downsizing their staff in areas where AI could replicate them. However, the UNCTAD report also highlights inequalities between nations, with U.N. data showing that 40% of global corporate research and development spending in AI is concentrated among just 100 firms, mainly those in the U.S. and China.

IT

Camera Makers Defend Proprietary RAW Formats Despite Open Standard Alternative (theverge.com) 65

Camera manufacturers continue to use different proprietary RAW file formats despite the 20-year existence of Adobe's open-source DNG (Digital Negative) format, creating ongoing compatibility challenges for photographers and software developers.

Major manufacturers including Sony, Canon, and Panasonic defended their proprietary formats as necessary for maintaining control over image processing. Sony's product team told The Verge their ARW format allows them "to maximize performance based on device characteristics such as the image sensor and image processing engine." Canon similarly claims proprietary formats enable "optimum processing during image development."

The Verge argues that this fragmentation forces editing software to specifically support each manufacturer's format and every new camera model -- creating delays for early adopters when new cameras launch. Each new device requires "measuring sensor characteristics such as color and noise," said Adobe's Eric Chan.

For what it's worth, smaller manufacturers like Ricoh, Leica, and Sigma have adopted DNG, which streamlines workflow by containing metadata directly within a single file rather than requiring separate XMP sidecar files.
Transportation

The Retro Subway Map That Design Nerds Love Makes a Comeback (nytimes.com) 38

The M.T.A. has unveiled on Wednesday a revamped New York City subway map -- the first major redesign in nearly 50 years. As reported by the New York Times, the map draws inspiration from the modernist but controversial 1972 Unimark version, prioritizing clarity over geographic precision. It's also a part of a broader effort to refresh the system's image amid calls for infrastructure upgrades and political tensions over transit funding and congestion pricing. From the report: The updated version blends elements of the Unimark design with a successor known to some as the Tauranac map, after John Tauranac, a well-regarded New York mapmaker. That design was led by the firm Michael Hertz Associates. The new map is already being displayed on digital monitors, and will be posted in subway cars and platforms over the next several weeks, the M.T.A. said.

For Janno Lieber, the authority's chairman, the occasion was also an opportunity to tie his ambitions for the system to a critical moment in its past. "This is a linchpin moment, like in 1979, when we started to fix the subway system," Mr. Lieber said, referring to the year before the M.T.A. debuted its first capital plan to upgrade the aging transit system. As then, the system is in dire need of new trains and infrastructure improvements. So far, the State Legislature has yet to fully fund the latest $68 billion plan.

The Unimark subway map released in 1972. The latest iteration of New York City's map takes cues from the design. Two of the biggest alterations address the legibility of transfer points at some of the busiest hubs and the depiction of the system's accessibility features, said Shanifah Rieara, the authority's chief customer officer. Mr. Lieber declined to say how much the redesign cost, but said it was paid for "entirely in house," without a stand-alone budget.

Piracy

Massive Expansion of Italy's Piracy Shield Underway (techdirt.com) 21

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Walled Culture has been following closely Italy's poorly designed Piracy Shield system. Back in December we reported how copyright companies used their access to the Piracy Shield system to order Italian Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to all of Google Drive for the entire country, and how malicious actors could similarly use that unchecked power to shut down critical national infrastructure. Since then, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), an international, not-for-profit association representing computer, communications, and Internet industry firms, has added its voice to the chorus of disapproval. In a letter (PDF) to the European Commission, it warned about the dangers of the Piracy Shield system to the EU economy [...]. It also raised an important new issue: the fact that Italy brought in this extreme legislation without notifying the European Commission under the so-called "TRIS" procedure, which allows others to comment on possible problems [...].

As well as Italy's failure to notify the Commission about its new legislation in advance, the CCIA believes that: this anti-piracy mechanism is in breach of several other EU laws. That includes the Open Internet Regulation which prohibits ISPs to block or slow internet traffic unless required by a legal order. The block subsequent to the Piracy Shield also contradicts the Digital Services Act (DSA) in several aspects, notably Article 9 requiring certain elements to be included in the orders to act against illegal content. More broadly, the Piracy Shield is not aligned with the Charter of Fundamental Rights nor the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU -- as it hinders freedom of expression, freedom to provide internet services, the principle of proportionality, and the right to an effective remedy and a fair trial.

Far from taking these criticisms to heart, or acknowledging that Piracy Shield has failed to convert people to paying subscribers, the Italian government has decided to double down, and to make Piracy Shield even worse. Massimiliano Capitanio, Commissioner at AGCOM, the Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees, explained on LinkedIn how Piracy Shield was being extended in far-reaching ways (translation by Google Translate, original in Italian). [...] That is, Piracy Shield will apply to live content far beyond sports events, its original justification, and to streaming services. Even DNS and VPN providers will be required to block sites, a serious technical interference in the way the Internet operates, and a threat to people's privacy. Search engines, too, will be forced to de-index material. The only minor concession to ISPs is to unblock domain names and IP addresses that are no longer allegedly being used to disseminate unauthorized material. There are, of course, no concessions to ordinary Internet users affected by Piracy Shield blunders.
In the future, Italy's Piracy Shield will add:
- 30-minute blackout orders not only for pirate sports events, but also for other live content;
- the extension of blackout orders to VPNs and public DNS providers;
- the obligation for search engines to de-index pirate sites;
- the procedures for unblocking domain names and IP addresses obscured by Piracy Shield that are no longer used to spread pirate content;
- the new procedure to combat piracy on the #linear and "on demand" television, for example to protect the #film and #serietv.
Bitcoin

Larry Fink Says Bitcoin Could Replace the Dollar as the World's Reserve Currency Because of National Debt (fortune.com) 153

With America's national debt sitting comfortably over the $36.2 trillion mark, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is warning the burden could one day be the reason the dollar is dethroned as the reserve currency of the world. From a report: He argues that decentralized currencies like Bitcoin could replace the dollar as worldwide organizations lose faith in national currencies and seek an independent solution. Fink explained his theory in his 2025 letter to shareholders, writing: "The U.S. has benefited from the dollar serving as the world's reserve currency for decades. But that's not guaranteed to last forever.

"The national debt has grown at three times the pace of GDP since Times Square's debt clock started ticking in 1989. This year, interest payments will surpass $952 billion -- exceeding defense spending. By 2030, mandatory government spending and debt service will consume all federal revenue, creating a permanent deficit. If the U.S. doesn't get its debt under control, if deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing that position to digital assets like Bitcoin."

United Kingdom

London Mayor Axes Cyber Crime Victim Support Line (ft.com) 29

London's mayor has axed a cyber crime helpline for the victims of online abuse, triggering a backlash from campaigners who argue that women and girls will be left struggling to access vital support. From a report: The service, which was shut down on Tuesday, assisted victims of fraud, revenge porn and cyberstalking to protect their digital identity. During its 18-months of operation it led to 2,060 cases being opened. The helpline was launched in 2023 as a one-year pilot scheme with $220,000 in funding from the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac), and was later extended by six months.

Conservative London Assembly member Emma Best said an informal evaluation showed the helpline "was working" and was going to be extended for another year. However, Sadiq Khan said that the scheme would be closed. "It was a pilot and pilots are what they say on the tinâ... we will receive an end of project report, we have collected the data and the results of that report will inform our future work," he said, speaking at Mayor's Question Time.

Facebook

What that Facebook Whistleblower's Memoir Left Out (restofworld.org) 42

A former Facebook director of global policy recently published "the book Meta doesn't want you to read," a scathing takedown of top Meta executives titled Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism.

But Wednesday RestofWorld.org published additional thoughts from Meta's former head of public policy for Bangladesh (who is now an executive director at the nonprofit policy lab Tech Global Institute). Though their time at Facebook didn't overlap, they first applaud how the book "puts a face to the horrific events and dangerous decisions."

But having said that, "What struck me is that what isn't included in Careless People is more telling than what is." By 2012 — one year after joining Facebook — Wynn-Williams had ample evidence of the platform's role in enabling violence and harm upon its users, and state-sanctioned digital repression, yet her memoir neither mentions these events nor the repeated warnings to her team from civil society groups in Asia before the situation escalated... In recounting events, the author glosses over her own indifference to repeated warnings from policymakers, civil society, and internal teams outside the U.S. that ultimately led to serious harm to communities.

She briefly mentions how Facebook's local staff was held at gunpoint to give access to data or remove content in various countries — something that had been happening since as early as 2012. Yet, she failed to grasp the gravity of these risks until the possibility of her facing jail time arises in South Korea — or even more starkly in March 2016, when Facebook's vice president for Latin America, Diego Dzodan, was arrested in Brazil. Her delayed reckoning underscores how Facebook's leadership remains largely detached from real-world consequences of their decisions until they become impossible to ignore.

Perhaps because everyone wants to be a hero of their own story, Wynn-Williams frames her opposition to leadership decisions as isolated; in reality, powerful resistance had long existed within what Wynn-Williams describes as Facebook's "lower-level employees."

Yet "Despite telling an incomplete story, Careless People is a book that took enormous courage to write," the article concludes, calling it an important story to tell.

"It goes to show that we need many stories — especially from those who still can't be heard — if we are to meaningfully piece together the complex puzzle of one of the world's most powerful technology companies."
Businesses

Reddit's 50% Stock-Price Plunge Fails to Entice Buyers as Growth Slows (yahoo.com) 38

Though it's stock price is still up 200% from its IPO in March of 2024 — last week Reddit's stock had dropped nearly 50% since February 7th.

And then this week, it dropped another 10%, reports Bloomberg, citing both the phenomenon of "volatile technology stocks under pressure" — but also specifically "the gloomy sentiment around Reddit..." The social media platform has struggled to recover since an earnings report in February showed that it is failing to keep up with larger digital advertising peers such as Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which have higher user figures. Reddit's outlook seemed precarious because its U.S. traffic took a hit from a change in Google's search algorithm.

In recent weeks, the short interest in Reddit — a proxy for the volume of bets against the company — has ticked up, and forecasts for the company's share price have fallen. One analyst opened coverage of Reddit this month with a recommendation that investors sell the shares, in part due to the company's heavy reliance on Google. Reddit shares fell more than 5% in intraday trading Friday. "It's been super overvalued," Bob Lang, founder and chief options analyst at Explosive Options said of Reddit. "Their growth rate is very strong, but they still are not making any money." Reddit had a GAAP earnings per share loss of $3.33 in 2024, but reported two consecutive quarters of positive GAAP EPS in the second half of the year...

At its February peak, Reddit's stock had risen over 500% from the $34 initial public offering price last March. Some of the enthusiasm was due to a series of deals in which Reddit was paid to allow its content to be used for training artificial intelligence models. More recently, though, there have been questions about the long-term growth prospects for the artificial intelligence industry.

"On Wall Street, the average price target from analysts has fallen to about $195 from $207 a month ago," the article points out. "That still offers a roughly $85 upside from where shares closed following Thursday's 8% slump..."

Meanwhile Reuters reported that more than 33,000 U.S. Reddit users experienced disruptions on Thursday according to Downdetector.com. "A Reddit spokesperson said the outage was due to a bug in a recent update, which has now been fixed."
IT

Are Tech-Driven 'Career Meltdowns' Hitting Generation X? (nytimes.com) 141

"I am having conversations every day with people whose careers are sort of over," a 53-year-old film and TV director told the New York Times: If you entered media or image-making in the '90s — magazine publishing, newspaper journalism, photography, graphic design, advertising, music, film, TV — there's a good chance that you are now doing something else for work. That's because those industries have shrunk or transformed themselves radically, shutting out those whose skills were once in high demand... When digital technology began seeping into their lives, with its AOL email accounts, Myspace pages and Napster downloads, it didn't seem like a threat. But by the time they entered the primes of their careers, much of their expertise had become all but obsolete.

More than a dozen members of Generation X interviewed for this article said they now find themselves shut out, economically and culturally, from their chosen fields. "My peers, friends and I continue to navigate the unforeseen obsolescence of the career paths we chose in our early 20s," Mr. Wilcha said. "The skills you cultivated, the craft you honed — it's just gone. It's startling." Every generation has its burdens. The particular plight of Gen X is to have grown up in one world only to hit middle age in a strange new land. It's as if they were making candlesticks when electricity came in. The market value of their skills plummeted...

Typically, workers in their 40s and 50s are entering their peak earning years. But for many Gen-X creatives, compensation has remained flat or decreased, factoring in the rising cost of living. The usual rate for freelance journalists is 50 cents to $1 per word — the same as it was 25 years ago... As opportunities and incomes dwindle, Gen X-ers in creative fields are weighing their options. Move to a lower-cost place and remain committed to the work you love? Look for a bland corporate job that might provide health insurance and a steady paycheck until retirement?

The article includes several examples of the trend:
  • One magazine's photo studio director says professional photographers have been replaced by "a 20-year-old kid who will do the job for $500."
  • The article adds that "When photography went digital, photo lab technicians and manual retouchers were suddenly as inessential as medieval scribes." (And "In advertising, brands ditched print and TV campaigns that required large crews for marketing plans that relied on social media posts."")
  • An editor at Spin magazine remembers the day its print edition folded...

And besides competition from influencers, there's also AI, "which seems likely to replace many of the remaining Gen X copywriters, photographers and designers. By 2030, ad agencies in the United States will lose 32,000 jobs, or 7.5 percent of the industry's work force, to the technology, according to the research firm Forrester."

Meanwhile the cost of living has skyrocketed, the article points out — even while Gen X-ers "are less secure financially than baby boomers and lack sufficient retirement savings, according to recent surveys..."


Facebook

'An Open Letter To Meta: Support True Messaging Interoperability With XMPP' (xmpp.org) 31

In 1999 Slashdot reader Jeremie announced "a new project I recently started to create a complete open-source platform for Instant Messaging with transparent communication to other IM systems (ICQ, AIM, etc)." It was the first release of the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, and by 2008 Slashdot was asking if XMPP was "the next big thing." Facebook even supported it for third-party chat clients until 2015.

And here in 2025, the chair of the nonprofit XMPP Standards Foundation is long-time Slashdot reader ralphm, who is now issuing this call to action at XMPP.org: The European Digital Markets Act (DMA) is designed to break down walled gardens and enforce messaging interoperability. As a designated gatekeeper, Meta—controlling WhatsApp and Messenger—must comply. However, its current proposal falls short, risking further entrenchment of its dominance rather than fostering genuine competition. [..]

A Call to Action

The XMPP Standards Foundation urges Meta to adopt XMPP for messaging interoperability. It is ready to collaborate, continue to evolve the protocol to meet modern needs, and ensure true compliance with the DMA. Let's build an open, competitive messaging ecosystem—one that benefits both users and service providers.

It's time for real interoperability. Let's make it happen.

AI

First Trial of Generative AI Therapy Shows It Might Help With Depression 42

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The first clinical trial of a therapy bot that uses generative AI suggests it was as effective as human therapy for participants with depression, anxiety, or risk for developing eating disorders. Even so, it doesn't give a go-ahead to the dozens of companies hyping such technologies while operating in a regulatory gray area. A team led by psychiatric researchers and psychologists at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College built the tool, called Therabot, and the results were published on March 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Many tech companies are building AI therapy bots to address the mental health care gap, offering more frequent and affordable access than traditional therapy. However, challenges persist: poorly worded bot responses can cause harm, and forming meaningful therapeutic relationships is hard to replicate in software. While many bots rely on general internet data, researchers at Dartmouth developed "Therabot" using custom, evidence-based datasets. Here's what they found: To test the bot, the researchers ran an eight-week clinical trial with 210 participants who had symptoms of depression or generalized anxiety disorder or were at high risk for eating disorders. About half had access to Therabot, and a control group did not. Participants responded to prompts from the AI and initiated conversations, averaging about 10 messages per day. Participants with depression experienced a 51% reduction in symptoms, the best result in the study. Those with anxiety experienced a 31% reduction, and those at risk for eating disorders saw a 19% reduction in concerns about body image and weight. These measurements are based on self-reporting through surveys, a method that's not perfect but remains one of the best tools researchers have.

These results ... are about what one finds in randomized control trials of psychotherapy with 16 hours of human-provided treatment, but the Therabot trial accomplished it in about half the time. "I've been working in digital therapeutics for a long time, and I've never seen levels of engagement that are prolonged and sustained at this level," says [Michael Heinz, a research psychiatrist at Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Health and first author of the study].
Bitcoin

FDIC Rescinds Guidance Around Banks and Crypto 48

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says banks no longer need prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities, such as holding digital currency assets or partnering with companies in the industry. Axios reports: After publishing a general caution against banks participating in the industry just two years ago, the FDIC is the latest Trump administration regulator to change its tune entirely amid the president's warm embrace of crypto. "With today's action, the FDIC is turning the page on the flawed approach of the past three years," FDIC acting chairman Travis Hill said in a statement.

The OCC was the first of those regulators to revise their guidance, telling banks it supervises earlier this month that they no longer need permission to engage in certain common cryptocurrency-related activities. The Fed as of Friday had not issued any update, though chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers during a congressional hearing last month that the central bank would take a fresh look at the guidance. The new policy clarifies that "FDIC-supervised institutions may engage in permissible activities, including ... digital assets, provided that they adequately manage the associated risks."
Twitter

xAI Acquires X 54

Elon Musk says its xAI company has acquired the social media platform X in an all-stock transaction. "The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion debt)," said Musk. He writes on X: Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale. X is the digital town square where more than 600M active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth and, in the last two years, has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth.

xAI and X's futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X's massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn't just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.

I would like to recognize the hardcore dedication of everyone at xAI and X that has brought us to this point. This is just the beginning. Thank you for your continued partnership and support.
United Kingdom

UK Govt Data People Not Technical, Says Ex-Downing St Data Science Head (theregister.com) 11

An anonymous reader shares a report: A former director of data science at the UK prime minister's office has told MPs that people working with data in government are not typically technical and would be unlikely to get a similar job in the private sector.

In a hearing designed to illuminate the challenges facing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as it strives to become the digital centre for government, MPs quizzed Laura Gilbert, head of AI for Government, at the Ellison Institute and former director of data science at 10 Downing Street, the prime ministers' office.

Members of the House of Common's Science, Innovation and Technology Committee wanted to know about the performance of the Government Digital Service, which in January was moved from the Cabinet Office to DSIT and merged with Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), the Incubator for AI (i.AI). Gilbert, a particle physicist who has worked in a number of tech industry roles, said one of the challenges was understanding the level of tech skills in the civil service in central government.

AI

H&M To Use Digital Clones of Models In Ads and Social Media (bbc.com) 52

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Fashion retailer H&M is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create digital "twins" of 30 models. It says it will use the AI doppelgangers in some social media posts and marketing in the place of humans, if given permission by models. "We are curious to explore how to showcase our fashion in new creative ways -- and embrace the benefits of new technology -- while staying true to our commitment to personal style," said its chief creative officer Jorgen Andersson in a statement.

The initiative was first reported by industry publication Business of Fashion. H&M told the outlet that models would retain rights over their digital replicas and their use by the company and other brands for purposes such as marketing. Its images are likely to be initially used in social media posts, with watermarks that make their AI use clear, it added. H&M also said models would be compensated for use of their digital twins in a similar way to current arrangements -- which sees them paid for use of their images based on rates agreed by their agent.

Nintendo

Nintendo Unveils Digital Game Sharing (venturebeat.com) 21

Nintendo has announced plans to introduce Virtual Game Cards for its Switch console in late April, allowing users to share digital games across multiple systems, the Japanese gaming company said during its Nintendo Direct event. The new feature will enable players to virtually load and eject digital games between Nintendo Switch consoles, mimicking the flexibility of physical game cartridges.

Users can play a single digital title on up to two systems, requiring only a one-time local connection between devices. The company has also confirmed that Virtual Game Cards will be compatible with both current and next-generation hardware. The system will also feature a family sharing option, allowing users to lend digital games to family members for two-week periods before automatically returning to the owner's account.
Science

Inside arXiv - the Most Transformative Platform in All of Science (wired.com) 13

Paul Ginsparg, a physics professor at Cornell University, created arXiv nearly 35 years ago as a digital repository where researchers could share their findings before peer review. Today, the platform hosts more than 2.6 million papers, receives 20,000 new submissions monthly, and serves 5 million active users, Wired writes in a profile of the platform.

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" Ginsparg quotes from The Godfather, reflecting his inability to fully hand over the platform despite numerous attempts. If arXiv stopped functioning, scientists worldwide would face immediate disruption. "Everybody in math and physics uses it," says Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. "I scan it every night."

ArXiv revolutionized academic publishing, previously dominated by for-profit giants like Elsevier and Springer, by allowing instant and free access to research. Many significant discoveries, including the "transformers" paper that launched the modern AI boom, first appeared on the platform. Initially a collection of shell scripts on Ginsparg's NeXT machine in 1991, arXiv followed him from Los Alamos National Laboratory to Cornell, where it found an institutional home despite administrative challenges. Recent funding from the Simons Foundation has enabled a hiring spree and long-needed technical updates.
Bitcoin

Fidelity Prepares To Unveil Its Own Stablecoin (binance.com) 32

According to the Financial Times, Fidelity Investments is in advanced stages of developing its own stablecoin. Binance reports: The Boston-based financial services giant plans for the token to serve as a form of digital cash, according to the report, which cites two people close to the matter. The token would form part of company's strategy to enter the tokenized government bonds market. Stablecoins are a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to a real-world asset such as the U.S. dollar or gold. They provide a convenient way for crypto traders to preserve their fiat value without having to cash out of the market.

The news emerges just days after Fidelity filed paperwork to register a blockchain-based version of its U.S. dollar money market fund. The company seeks to register an "OnChain" share class of its Treasury Digital Fund (FYHXX), which holds cash and U.S. Treasury securities and is available only to Fidelity's hedge fund and institutional clients. A Fidelity stablecoin could fill the role of cash in this fund.
The report comes a day after World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by Donald Trump and his family, launched a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin called USD1.
Bitcoin

Trump's Crypto Venture Introduces a Stabelcoin 77

World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture backed by Donald Trump and his family, has launched a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin called USD1. The token is backed by U.S. Treasuries and cash equivalents and will soon go live on the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain networks. CNBC reports: The development comes as the market cap for dollar-backed stablecoins -- cryptocurrencies that promise a fixed value peg to another asset -- has been climbing to new all-time-highs this year and has grown more than 46% in the past year, according to CryptoQuant. The market has long been dominated by Tether (USDT) and, more recently, Circle's USDC. "USD1 provides what algorithmic and anonymous crypto projects cannot -- access to the power of DeFi underpinned by the credibility and safeguards of the most respected names in traditional finance," said World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff. "We're offering a digital dollar stablecoin that sovereign investors and major institutions can confidently integrate into their strategies for seamless, secure cross-border transactions."

Alex Thorn is head of firmwide research at Galaxy Digital, said at the Digital Asset Summit: "Stablecoins are seen as more politically easy to do in Congress but actually will be dramatically more impactful to the United States and the world than market structure [legislation]. Who regulates who is important ... if you're one of the people that's going to be regulated, but the stablecoin bill could solidify dollar dominance for 100 years."
IT

2 In 5 Tech Workers Quit Over Inflexible Workspace Policies (theregister.com) 58

Two in five tech workers quit in the past year due to inflexible workplace policies around hours, location, and workload intensity, with most citing a desire for remote work and greater autonomy. The Register reports: The findings come from a survey of 26,000 plus staff that operate in 35 markets, including 2,548 respondents in tech, and fly in the face of more and more corporations issuing return to office mandates and demanding long working hours. Amsterdam-based recruitment biz Randstad, which commissioned the research, says 40 percent of the tech people it polled said they resigned due to hardline policies, and 56 percent threatened to seek an alternative if their requests for flexibility were ignored.

Almost three-quarters claim remote work boosts a "sense of community" with colleagues -- versus the average of 58 percent across other sectors -- and 68 percent say they'd trust their employer more if they were more easy going on hours, the intensity of the work and the place where they can work.
Graig Paglieri, Randstad Digital boss, said the "IT sector has shown that personalized work benefits and flexible options are essential not only for attracting top talent but also for retaining them in competitive markets. Policies should align with organizational, team and individual needs, ensuring a flexible and tailored approach."

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