• Buyers of cheap travel deals often face canceled bookings and lost money
• Fraudulent travel reservations can appear legitimate until banks freeze accounts unexpectedly
• Cardholders discover unauthorized charges after multiple bookings have already been completed

Holiday discounts can look tempting, especially when flights and hotels feel overpriced during peak seasons – but experts have warned some of the cheapest deals circulating online are tied to criminal networks operating so-called buy-for-you schemes.

These operations rely on stolen credit card data to secure real bookings, which are later resold at steep discounts to unsuspecting buyers.

Block opened a new strategic European hub in Dublin late last month.

Block is cutting 4,000 jobs – or around 40pc of its global workforce – as company co-founder, head and chair Jack Dorsey said that AI tools and flatter teams are proving more productive.

In a lengthy post on X, Dorsey stated that he made the decision to cut jobs after realising how small teams and intelligence tools have enabled a “new way of working” that “fundamentally changes” the company’s future landscape.

He maintained that the job cuts were not a cost saving measure. “Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow … and profitability is improving,” he said.

He also doubled down on his decision in a letter to Block’s shareholders, stating that a “majority of companies” will reach similar conclusions around smaller teams and make similar structural changes “within the next year”.

As pointed out by major publications, Block has conducted several rounds of layoffs in recent years, but it has never cited AI as a reason for redundancies before.

The company previously laid off Irish employees in 2024 as part of its then plans to cut around 1,000 jobs globally.

The new layoffs come after the global fintech giant opened a new Dublin office late last month where it plans to situate 300 of its workers. SiliconRepublic.com has asked Block what impact the layoffs would have on its Irish employees.

Block shares rose by more than 24pc following the announcement, which came alongside a Q4 report boasting 24pc year-over-year growth in gross profit, marked by 51pc growth in its financial solutions and 10pc growth in its bitcoin ecosystem divisions.

As of the end of 2025, Block had 10,205 full-time employees globally, with 2,472 of them working from outside the US. According to Block’s US government filings, the layoffs will be mostly complete by the end of Q2 of the 2026 financial year and will cost the company anywhere between $450m and $500m.

Block, formerly known as Square until 2021, is the operator behind popular fintech services including the consumer-focused Cash App and seller-focused Square.

Just last month, Amazon announced that it is cutting 16,000 roles across its departments internationally to, according to the company, reduce organisational layers and remove bureaucracy.

The company employs more than 6,000 across various sites in Dublin, Cork and Drogheda. RTÉ reported that around 300 Ireland-based jobs would be at risk.

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Jack Dorsey, 2018. Image: © Mark Warner via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

[Joshua Clay] recently unveiled his newest RC Nerf Dart Robot and talks through his design choices, pointing out that in his aim to have it launch darts fast and hard he may have somewhat overshot the mark. He found out first hand during testing that it shoots hard enough to leave welts through a sweatshirt and probably should be downgraded a bit. Thankfully, one of the features of his new unit is a highly modular design that makes iterating easier than ever.

This model is an evolution of his first Nerfbot, and the new one is a smaller, tighter design that trades a wheeled base for a tracked one, among other changes.

The tank platform is one example of [Joshua] using affordable, off-the-shelf solutions where it makes sense to do so. For example, the inexpensive tank-track platform means he can focus on the rest of the bot without having to design or make his own tank treads. Similarly, to control the bot he opts for a PlayStation 4 controller, paired to the bot over Bluetooth. It’s high quality, inexpensive, commonly available, and easily interfaced with the RP2040 that runs the show.

[Joshua] aims for a modular, LEGO-inspired mechanical assembly that makes maintenance, wiring, and iteration as easy as possible. We especially like how the battery, wiring, and things like gears for the pan-and-tilt mechanism of the Nerf launcher are easily accessible.

The dart launcher uses two flywheels to grip and propel each dart fed from a high-capacity magazine, and you can watch it move and shoot around the 9:44 mark in the video, embedded below. It’s plenty loud, but the camera is barely able to register darts leaving the barrel.

If you like the looks of [Joshua]’s newest Nerfbot, keep an eye out because he’s got more to share about it and is considering other features like a camera. In the meantime, there are a few more photos on his website.

Representatives for the organisation stated that recent investments are driving the expansion of the Dublin-based European headquarters and the creation of new jobs.

UK neobank Monzo has announced plans to grow its Ireland-based team to 70 employees by mid-2027, nearly doubling its current headcount. Over the last two years, Monzo has invested €83.5m into its Irish operations, expanding the Dublin premises – which is also the European headquarters. 

The new roles will span a range of areas including operations, risk and compliance, technology and engineering, financial crime prevention, and product development. 

The European expansion, which is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland, is being led by Michael Carney, Monzo’s EU CEO. He is supported by a leadership team that includes EU chief financial officer Nicola O’Brien, EU chief operating officer Sonia Flynn, and Elaine Deehan, the country manager for Ireland.

Commenting on the expansion news, the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris, TD said: “Monzo’s decision to expand its team and establish its European headquarters in Dublin is testament to the country’s reputation as a hub for innovation and financial services.   

“This significant investment not only brings new jobs and opportunities but also strengthens Ireland’s position within the European banking sector. I look forward to seeing Monzo contribute to our vibrant economy and deliver innovative banking solutions.”

Carney added: “We’re excited to see our founding Dublin team grow, welcoming experts who bring together the best of banking and technology. Ireland’s deep and expanding talent pool offers the world-class expertise needed to support Monzo’s expansion ambitions across Europe.

“As we take our mission to make money work for everyone in Europe, we’re proud to kick-start that journey in Ireland, with individuals and small businesses now able to join the waitlist.”

In December, Monzo became the first digital bank to secure a full European banking licence through the Central Bank of Ireland. This enables the company to bring its fully regulated personal and business banking products to customers across the EU, starting in Ireland. 

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OpenAI has reached an agreement with the Defense Department to deploy its models in the agency’s network, company chief Sam Altman has revealed on X. In his post, he said two of OpenAI’s most important safety principles are “prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems.” Altman claimed the company put those principles in its agreement with the agency, which he called by the government’s preferred name of Department of War (DoW), and that it had agreed to honor them.

The agency has closed the deal with OpenAI, shortly after President Donald Trump ordered all government agencies to stop using Claude and any other Anthropic services. If you’ll recall, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously threatened to label Anthropic “supply chain risk” if it continues refusing to remove the guardrails on its AI, which are preventing the technology to be used for mass surveillance against Americans and in fully autonomous weapons.

It’s unclear why the government agreed to team up with OpenAI if its models also have the same guardrails, but Altman said it’s asking the government to offer the same terms to all the AI companies it works with. Jeremy Lewin, the Senior Official Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom, said on X that DoW “references certain existing legal authorities and includes certain mutually agreed upon safety mechanisms” in its contracts. Both OpenAI and xAI, which had also previously signed a deal to deploy Grok in the DoW’s classified systems, agreed to those terms. He said it was the same “compromise that Anthropic was offered, and rejected.”

Anthropic, which started working with the US government in 2024, refused to bow down to Hegseth. In its latest statement, published just hours before Altman announced OpenAI’s agreement, it repeated its stance. “No amount of intimidation or punishment from the Department of War will change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons,” Anthropic wrote. “We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.”

Altman added in his post on X that OpenAI will build technical safeguards to ensure the company’s models behave as they should, claiming that’s also what the DoW wanted. It’s sending engineers to work with the agency to “ensure [its models’] safety,” and it will only deploy on cloud networks. As The New York Times notes, OpenAI is not yet on Amazon cloud, which the government uses. But that could change soon, as company has also just announced forming a partnership with Amazon to run its models on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for enterprise customers.

The NASDAQ-listed company can access discretionary funds through a 36-month agreement with New Jersey’s Yorkville Advisors.

Irish health diagnostic solutions company Trinity Biotech has secured new funding of up to $25m through a standby equity purchase agreement (SEPA), with proceeds going towards R&D programmes and commercialisation initiatives.

The SEPA deal in conjunction with Yorkville Advisors – based in New Jersey, US – gives Trinity Biotech the option, but with no obligation, to sell up to $25m of newly issued American depositary shares to Yorkville at its discretion over a period of up to 36 months.

John Gillard, Trinity Biotech president and CEO, said: “Our key strategic objectives at Trinity Biotech are to grow our existing business profitably and to advance our exciting innovation agenda, including our flagship development CGM+.”

CGM+ is the company’s new continuous glucose monitoring platform, currently in the later stages of device development, which uses a “proprietary needle-free glucose sensor” that eliminates the need for “finger-stick calibration” by users, the company said.

“This financing agreement provides us with significant additional capability to progress these objectives,” Gillard added.

NASDAQ-listed Trinity Biotech, based in Bray, Co Wicklow, is a commercial stage biotech company focused on diabetes management solutions and human diagnostics, including wearable biosensors. It sells direct in the US and through a network of distributors and partners in more than 75 countries.

The company reported revenues of $48.6m over a trailing 12-month period ended September 30 2025, and said it expects continued operational and financial progress into 2026, based in significant part on it catering to continued global demand for HIV testing provisions.

Innovations currently in development at Trinity Biotech include a cancer monitoring technology and a biomarker-based bioinformatics diagnostic platform.

In April 2023, Trinity Biotech agreed to sell its life sciences supply business to Switzerland’s Biosynth for $30m. A year earlier, a $45m investment in the Trinity Biotech from South Korea’s MiCo saw it take a 29.9pc share of the Irish company.

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Microsoft is rolling out new Windows 11 Insider Preview builds that improve security and performance during batch file or CMD script execution.

As Microsoft explained today, IT administrators can now enable a more secure processing mode that prevents batch files from being modified while they run by adding the LockBatchFilesInUse registry value under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor.

Policy authors can also enable this mode using the LockBatchFilesWhenInUse application manifest control.

This change is designed to boost performance and security in enterprise environments where admins rely heavily on scripted workflows.

“We are giving administrators and Application Control for Business policy authors additional controls over the processing of batch files and CMD scripts. Starting with this release, administrators may enable a more secure mode for processing batch files that ensures they do not change during execution,” the Windows Insider team said.

“This enhances the performance and security of batch file processing when code integrity is enabled, as signature validation will only be required to be performed a single time, instead of per statement executed in the batch file.”

With today’s Windows Insider builds, Microsoft has also improved the Shared audio feature, introduced in October, which allows sharing audio between two headphones, speakers, earbuds, or hearing aids.

Previously, volume adjustments affected both users equally, but the new update adds individual volume sliders for each listener and device. A new taskbar indicator also appears during active sharing sessions to provide a visual reminder and a one-click shortcut to sharing settings.

The compatible device lineup has also expanded to include more Bluetooth LE Audio accessories, with the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro, Sony WF-1000XM6, and Xbox Wireless Headset now also supporting the feature.

These new capabilities are rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Beta and Dev channels who have installed Windows 11 Preview Build 26220.7934 (KB5077242) and Windows 11 Preview Build 26300.7939 (KB5077243), respectively.

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Sodium Chloride has a melting point of 801 C (1,474 F), putting it comfortably between commonly-cast materials like aluminum and bronze. Which led to [Robinson Foundry] asking the question: can you cast salt like a metal? The answer, surprisingly, was yes!

[Robinson] tries casting the salt with two different methods: like it was glass, and like it was metal. In the glass-like casting, he packs a ceramic mold with salt and tosses it into an electric kiln, there to melt and very slowly cool. In metal-like casting, he just tosses salt into a crucible and melts it in the same beer-can kiln we saw when we featured his lost-pla casting a while back. The molten salt is poured very carefully into sand casting molds. If you’re familiar with the technique, you can skip to about 5:20 when he does the reveal.

As it turns out, the sand casting works out much better. While the glass-style casting in the electric kiln grew much larger crystals and so is more translucent, it’s also stuck completely inside the porous ceramic. Perhaps the ceramic would need glazed to pull off that technique?

On the other hand, the sand reacts with the salt in some way– molten salt isn’t exactly a noble gas, after all–to create a lovely gunmetal finish to the parts. They almost look like metal, though the brittleness gives away the game when he opens the mold to show a dagger in several pieces. For the decorative busts and megalodon teeth in the test, though, it is a great success.

Now, we’re not going to say this video came about because of high metal prices, or comment on what sort of trade policies might be driving up the price of metals like aluminum in the USA, but we do think this a great hack. While salt-based castings are obviously going to have very different physical properties than metal, for decorative work, it creates a lovely finish out of a material that’s cheap as dirt. Hopefully he comes back to the glass-style casting; we would not want to trust that black coating around food, and a salt crystal salt shaker sounds too good to pass up.

The only times we’ve seen molten salt around here is in nuclear reactors, and in homemade batteries, though that first one obviously wasn’t table salt.

There have been skirmishes in the desert nations and a plethora of small stage races on the Iberian Peninsula but this is where the warm-up ends and proper racing begins. This is Belgium, and this is the opening weekend.

Read on and we’ll show you how to watch a 2026 Omloop Nieuwsblad live stream from anywhere with a VPN, and potentially for FREE.

2026 Omloop Nieuwsblad event preview