The word has taken on even greater meaning in the age of social media, where we have unparalleled access to the lives of influencers, online personalities, and celebrities via phones. Take Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's engagement. The news triggered mass hysteria online, with many displaying genuine raw emotion for a couple they've never even met. Or British singer Lily Allen, whose latest album West End Girl details a breakup and sparked a "parasocial interest in her love life," according to the Cambridge Dictionary.
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel has officially put the new Flemish Tier-1 supercomputer Sofia into operation. For the first time in history, the VUB will manage the Flemish supercomputer, located at the Nexus Data Center in Zellik, for the next 6 years. The investment of 8.6 million euros should help Flanders further in AI and HPC research. The Flemish government is investing €8.6 million in Sofia, which was developed by NEC. The system was selected primarily for its energy efficiency.
It makes for a weaker starting point, as companies see new opportunities around the corner to use AI to automate their work. It's not a new trend: These sectors showed weak job creation or outright job losses for the last couple of years of the Biden administration. But it is striking that a GDP surge fueled by data center and AI investment hasn't been enough to generate more robust hiring.
The Future unlocked report explores how connectivity can unlock growth, boost job satisfaction, enhance customer experiences and supercharge productivity. It comprises three pillars: value creation, employee experience and consumer expectation. This involves creating an economic model that quantifies the socio-economic impacts of an increasingly digitally connected UK economy by 2030. Opinion research was conducted with 2,000 employees in four sectors - retail; banking and finance; healthcare; and the public sector - to assess employee expectations on the future of workplace technologies
Dynatrace connects its observability platform to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore. The integration provides real-time insight into autonomous AI agents within AWS environments. For developers, this means better control over agentic workflows and their performance. Amazon Bedrock AgentCore helps build and deploy AI agents without requiring infrastructure management. The integration with Dynatrace ensures that agent telemetry is converted into insights. Teams can use this to monitor the reliability and responsiveness of agents at the trace level. Intelligent alerts for key metrics become possible.
"I think there's a bubble but there again I always think there's a bubble," Edwards told Bloomberg's Merryn Somerset Webb in a recent appearance on her podcast Merryn Talks Money, noting that during each cycle, there is always a "very plausible narrative, very compelling." However, he was unwavering in his conclusion: "it will end in tears, that much I'm sure of."
If your life becomes more productive and if the things that you're doing with great difficulty become simpler, it is very likely because you have so many ideas you'll have more time to pursue things,
Growth in U.S. markets helped Swedish fintech firm Klarna to achieve a 26% jump in third-quarter revenue, beating expectations in its first report as a public company and forecasting revenue above $1 billion in the current quarter, the company said on Tuesday. The buy now, pay later lender, which went public in September in New York, reported revenue of $903 million, beating analysts' expectations of $882 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
I think about hiring the same way. Like a stat sheet, a résumé might list someone's achievements, but it won't show how they adapt under pressure or support a team. Yet in the age of AI, companies often overlook that, prioritizing technical skills instead. According to a 2024 report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, 71% of employers said they would choose an AI-fluent candidate with less experience over someone more experienced but with limited AI knowledge.
