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Ireland’s forward-looking R&D tax credit must be protected

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Tax expert John Burke tells us why Ireland’s popular R&D tax credit could be significant for the country’s future.

Ireland’s research and development (R&D) tax credit is one of the most powerful tools in our tax system for driving innovation. For start-ups and scaling tech firms, it can be the difference between an idea staying on the whiteboard and becoming a market-ready product.

From 1 January, the credit has risen from 30pc to 35pc, following an increase from 25pc just last year. This is more than a tax tweak – it’s a signal that Ireland wants to double-down on innovation and position itself as a global hub for technology and knowledge-based industries.

Ireland’s tech ecosystem has grown rapidly in recent years, with homegrown start-ups in AI, fintech and deep tech attracting international attention. Yet early-stage founders often face a funding gap between seed and Series A. The R&D tax credit helps bridge that gap by injecting cash flow at a critical stage, enabling teams to hire engineers, accelerate product development and compete globally.

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But as the incentive grows, so too does the challenge: how do we protect the integrity of the system while ensuring it continues to fuel genuine innovation?

A lifeline for start-ups and scale-ups

The R&D tax credit allows companies engaged in qualifying R&D activities – such as developing new software platforms, AI-driven solutions, or advanced engineering processes – to claim a percentage of eligible expenditure as a cash refund rather than a tax offset. For early-stage tech firms, this feature is critical; it provides liquidity at a time when cash flow is tight and venture funding may be uncertain.

The popularity of the incentive has surged. Revenue figures show claims rose from 1,629 in 2021 to 1,804 in 2023 – the highest on record. Over the same period, the cost to the Exchequer almost doubled, climbing from €753m to €1.407bn. These numbers underline the regime’s importance but also highlight the need for strong governance to ensure every euro spent delivers real innovation and long-term economic value.

Lessons from the UK: a cautionary tale for tech founders

The UK’s experience in this area offers a warning. Fraudulent and erroneous R&D claims have cost its economy billions, with HMRC estimating losses of around £4bn between 2020 and 2024. Many of the cases investigated showed activities that barely resemble R&D. The fallout has included criminal prosecutions, reputational damage and a regulatory crackdown that forced advisory firms out of the market.

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For founders, this matters because investor confidence is tied to the credibility of the ecosystem. If a regime becomes associated with abuse, then capital providers hesitate, valuations suffer and legitimate innovators pay the price.

Ireland is not immune. As the credit becomes more attractive, new players may enter the advisory space – some less scrupulous than others. Revenue is already stepping up oversight, with practitioners reporting a four to fivefold increase in reviews of R&D claims year on year. For tech founders, this means compliance is not optional, but mission-critical.

Safeguarding the R&D tax credit

For companies, the message is clear: document everything, seek reputable advice and avoid stretching definitions of R&D. Incorrect claims can lead to penalties and reputational damage – risks that no start-up can afford.

For policymakers, proportionate measures are needed to protect the regime without stifling innovation.

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Ireland could learn from the UK by requiring companies to submit a report of the R&D activities underpinning each claim at the time of filing. As part of the R&D tax credit claim process, a disclosure section – asking whether the claim was prepared internally or with professional advice, and if so, by whom – could also be factored in.

Finally, Revenue should issue clearer, more practical guidance with real-world examples relevant to tech and software development, reducing ambiguity and helping founders navigate compliance confidently.

Looking ahead

The increase to 35pc is a strong signal that Ireland wants to be the best place in Europe to build and scale innovative businesses. For tech founders, this is an opportunity to invest in the future – but with responsibility. If the balance between incentive and integrity is struck, the R&D tax credit can remain a cornerstone of Ireland’s innovation ecosystem and a catalyst for the next generation of global tech leaders.

Ireland is competing with other innovation hubs – from London to Amsterdam to Stockholm – for talent and investment. A robust, well-governed R&D regime will not only attract start-ups but also anchor high-value jobs and research here at home. Done right, this is more than a tax credit; it’s a strategic lever for Ireland’s tech future.

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By John Burke

John Burke is a tax director at Forvis Mazars in Ireland. He specialises in tax incentive claims, particularly around R&D, for clients in fields such as software development, food science and fintech.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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Harnessing Plasmons for Alternative Computing Power

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27 minutes ago

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4 February 2026

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Much has been made of the excessive power demands of AI, but solutions are sparse. This has led engineers to consider completely new paradigms in computing: optical, thermodynamic, reversible—the list goes on. Many of these approaches require a change in the materials used for computation, which would demand an overhaul in the CMOS fabrication techniques used today.

Over the past decade, Hector De Los Santos has been working on yet another new approach. The technique would require the same exact materials used in CMOS, preserving the costly equipment, yet still allow computations to be performed in a radically different way. Instead of the motion of individual electrons—current—computations can be done with the collective, wavelike propagations in a sea of electrons, known as plasmons.

De Los Santos, an IEEE Fellow, first proposed the idea of computing with plasmons back in 2010. More recently, in 2024, De Los Santos and collaborators from University of South Carolina, Ohio State University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology created a device that demonstrated the main component of plasmon-based logic: the ability to control one plasmon with another. We caught up with De Los Santos to understand the details of this novel technological proposal.

How Plasmon Computing Works

IEEE Spectrum: How did you first come up with the idea for plasmon computing?

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De Los Santos: I got the idea of plasmon computing around 2009, upon observing the direction in which the field of CMOS logic was going. In particular, they were following the downscaling paradigm in which, by reducing the size of transistors, you would cram more and more transistors in a certain area, and that would increase the performance. However, if you follow that paradigm to its conclusion, as the device sizes are reduced, quantum mechanical effects come into play, as well as leakage. When the devices are very small, a number of effects called short channel effects come into play, which manifest themselves as increased power dissipation.

So I began to think, “How can we solve this problem of improving the performance of logic devices while using the same fabrication techniques employed for CMOS—that is, while exploiting the current infrastructure?” I came across an old logic paradigm called fluidic logic, which uses fluids. For example, jets of air whose direction was impacted by other jets of air could implement logic functions. So I had the idea, why don’t we implement a paradigm analogous to that one, but instead of using air as a fluid, we use localized electron charge density waves—plasmons. Not electrons, but electron disturbances.

And now the timing is very appropriate because, as most people know, AI is very power intensive. People are coming against a brick wall on how to go about solving the power consumption issue, and the current technology is not going to solve that problem.

What is a plasmon, exactly?

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De Los Santos: Plasmons are basically the disturbance of the electron density. If you have what is called an electron sea, you can imagine a pond of water. When you disturb the surface, you create waves. And these waves, the undulations on the surface of this water, propagate through the water. That is an almost perfect analogy to plasmons. In the case of plasmons, you have a sea of electrons. And instead of using a pebble or a piece of wood tapping on the surface of the water to create a wave that propagates, you tap this sea of electrons with an electromagnetic wave.

How do plasmons promise to overcome the scaling issues of traditional CMOS logic?

De Los Santos: Going back to the analogy of the throwing the pebble on the pond: It takes very, very low energy to create this kind of disturbance. The energy to excite a plasmon is on the order of attojoules or less. And the disturbance that you generate propagates very fast. A disturbance propagates faster than a particle. Plasmons propagate in unison with the electromagnetic wave that generates them, which is the speed of light in the medium. So just intrinsically, the way of operation is extremely fast and extremely low power compared to current technology.

In addition to that, current CMOS technology dissipates power even if it’s not used. Here, that’s not the case. If there is no wave propagating, then there is no power dissipation.

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How do you do logic operations with plasmons?

De Los Santos: You pattern long, thin wires in a configuration in the shape of the letter Y. At the base of the Y you launch a plasmon. Call this the bias plasmon, this is the bit. If you don’t do anything, when this plasmon gets to the junction it will split in two, so at the output of the Y, you will detect two equal electric field strengths.

Now, imagine that at the Y junction you apply another wire at an angle to the incoming wire. Along that new wire, you send another plasmon, called a control plasmon. You can use the control plasmon to redirect the original bias plasmon into one leg of the Y.

Plasmons are charge disturbances, and two plasmons have the same nature: They either are both positive or both negative. So, they repel each other if you force them to converge into a junction. And by controlling the angle of the control plasmon impinging on the junction, you can control the angle of the plasmon coming out of the junction. And that way you can steer one plasmon with another one. The control plasmon simply joins the incoming plasmon, so you end up with double the voltage on one leg.

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You can do this from both sides, add a wire and a control plasmon on either side of the junction so you can redirect the plasmon into either leg of the Y, giving you a zero or a one.

Building a Plasmon-Based Logic Device

You’ve built this Y-junction device and demonstrated steering a plasmon to one side in 2024. Can you describe the device and its operation?

De Los Santos: The Y-junction device is about 5 square [micrometers]. The Y is made up of the following: a metal on top of an oxide, on top of a semiconducting wafer, on top of a ground plane. Now, between the oxide and the wafer, you have to generate a charge density—this is the sea of electrons. To do that, you apply a DC voltage between the metal of the Y and the ground plane, and that generates your static sea of electrons. Then you impinge upon that with an incoming electromagnetic wave, again between the metal and ground plane. When the electromagnetic wave reaches the static charge density, the sea of electrons that was there generates a localized electron charge density disturbance: a plasmon.

Now, if you launch a plasmon by itself, it will quickly dissipate. It will not propagate very far. In my setup, the reason why the plasmon survives is because it is being regenerated. As the electromagnetic field propagates, you keep regenerating the plasmons, creating new plasmons at its front end.

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What is left to be done before you can implement full computer logic?

De Los Santos: I demonstrated the partial device, that is just the interaction of two plasmons. The next step would be to demonstrate and fabricate the full device, which would have the two controls. And after that gets done, the next step is concatenating them to create a full adder, because that is the fundamental computing logic component.

What do you think are going to be the main challenges going forward?

De Los Santos: I think the main challenge is that the technology doesn’t follow from today’s paradigm of logic devices based on current flows. This is based on wave flows. People are accustomed to other things, and it may be difficult to understand the device. The different concepts that are brought together in this device are not normally employed by the dominant technology, and it is really interdisciplinary in nature. You have to know about metal-oxide-semiconductor physics, then you have to know about electromagnetic waves, then you have to know about quantum field theory. The knowledge base to understand the device rarely exists in a single head. Maybe another next step is to try to make it more accessible. Getting people to sponsor the work and to understand it is a challenge, not really the implementation. There’s not really a fabrication limitation.

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But in my opinion, the usual approaches are just doomed, for two reasons. First, they are not reversible, meaning information is lost in the computation, which results in energy loss. Second, as the devices shrink energy dissipation increases, posing an insurmountable barrier. In contrast, plasmon computation is inherently reversible, and there is no fundamental reason it should dissipate any energy during switching.

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Apple AirTag (2026) review: Simply better

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50 minutes ago

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4 February 2026

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It’s hard to tell the difference between Apple’s second-generation AirTag and the almost-five-year-old original just by looking at them. In fact, the only way to tell is the many scratches on my old tracker, picked up from all those years attached to my keyring, living in my pocket.

While the price is still $29, Apple’s latest tracker packs some core upgrades. The new AirTag has a second-generation ultra-wideband (UWB) chip that extends its Precise Finding range up to 50 percent, though it requires an iPhone 15 or newer to do so. It’s also apparently 50 percent louder and has a new, higher-pitched chime. Still no keyring hole, though.

Image for the large product module

Apple/Engadget

Apple has improved its Bluetooth tracker in practically every way, making it louder and extending its detection range.

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Pros
  • Precise Finding is far more useful
  • Louder and easier to hear
  • Same price as the original AirTag
Cons
  • Still lacks a keyring hole
  • Apple’s AirTag accessories are too expensive

The new AirTag looks… the same. It’s arguably the most understated hardware design Apple has ever made, with no buttons or ports, just a company logo on one side. It’s made from a combination of a stainless steel plate and a (now 85-percent recycled) plastic enclosure. It’s like a thick coin, a little bigger than a quarter, and slips into any small pocket or wallet. The battery can be replaced by rotating the backing off, but it’s still solid enough that I never felt there was a risk of coming off accidentally.

Apple’s accessories to attach the AirTag to your keys are still more expensive than the tracker itself. However, compared to when the original tracker launched, there’s now a rich collection of third-party options from the likes of Mophie, Belkin and more, many of which are more reasonably priced at around $15. A $35 keyring for a $29 tracker is a very tough sell, Apple.

Apple's new AirTag promises increased range and a louder ring chime.

Apple’s new AirTag promises increased range and a louder ring chime. (Mat Smith for Engadget)

Setting up a new AirTag is just as effortless as its predecessor. Pull out the plastic tag, connecting the battery, and a notification will pop up on your nearby iPhone. You can then name it, assign it to an item and it’ll join your list of findable Apple hardware.

I’ve been testing the range of the new AirTag, and if anything, the 50 percent increase in Precision Finding range is a conservative estimate. Naturally, tracking can be affected by building structure, walls, a lack of nearby Find My network devices and other interference, but the next-generation AirTag’s “getting closer” screen consistently appeared on my phone when I was around 80 feet away. The older tracker, however, needed me to be around 30-40 feet away to do the same. The benefit of Precision Finding was limited on the debut AirTag, because its range was so tiny — especially in busy environments. The hardware upgrades now make it truly useful. The new AirTag is also faster to connect and more responsive to my movements and sudden turns, thanks, I expect, to the new ultra-wideband chip.

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You can now also use newer Apple Watches (Series 9, Ultra 2 and up) with precision location detection. After updating her Apple Watch Series 11 to the latest software, my colleague Cherlynn Low reported that locating the new AirTag was pretty much the same as on an iPhone. She did find it slightly counterintuitive to have to first add the Find My shortcut to the Control Center on the watch instead of going to the Find My Items app to do so, but ultimately, once she did that, it mirrored the existing setup for Precision Finding on iPhones.

Apple's new AirTag promises increased range and a louder ring chime.

Apple’s new AirTag promises increased range and a louder ring chime. (Mat Smith for Engadget)

Apple also redesigned the AirTag’s speaker assembly, which it says makes sounds 50 percent louder. Possibly the most effective audio upgrade is a higher-pitched chime that’s easier to hear over ambient noise and in busy public spaces. I could hear it ringing out from the other side of my gym’s locker room, while inside a locker, over music playing in the background. My old AirTag was inaudible until I was a few feet away from my locker. I always thought the sound on the original AirTag was a little too low-key for something you were urgently trying to find. (I’d love to be able to customize the chime, though.)

It’s the Find My network that makes the AirTag shine. Apple’s massive footprint of over a billion devices, from iPhones to Macs, continues to offer a tracking range and finer precision than GPS and Bluetooth alone. If anything, this network is even more built out since the launch of the first Apple tracker.

Since we tested the first AirTag, Apple has added multiple new features, usually through iOS updates, that expanded the utility and versatility of its trackers. In iOS 17, you could share an AirTag through Family Sharing. In iOS 18.2, Share Item Location allowed you to share your tracking information with third parties (such as airlines or train companies), improving the chances of finding the AirTag.

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There have also been subsequent safety upgrades, including expanding unknown tracker alerts to Android devices without needing to install an app. Apple also reduced the time an AirTag takes to emit a sound when separated from its owner, shifting the interval to a random range between 8 and 24 hours. At launch, this was a three-day span.

Wrap-up

Apple's second-gen AirTag.

Apple’s second-gen AirTag is still $29. (Mat Smith for Engadget)

Do you need the new AirTag? While improved in every way, it’s pretty much the same device. However, the AirTag’s simplicity and ease of use are second to none when it comes to Bluetooth trackers. If you already own a single AirTag for your keys or wallet, upgrading to the second-gen iteration and repurposing the old one to track, say, your luggage, makes a lot of sense. You get the more precise location tracking and sensing for your smaller item, while you can reduce your bag anxiety if your suitcase doesn’t make it to your destination.

There’s no doubt the second-gen AirTags are improved, and thankfully, upgrading to the new capabilities doesn’t come at too steep a cost.

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EDR killer tool uses signed kernel driver from forensic software

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58 minutes ago

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4 February 2026

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EDR killer tool uses signed kernel driver from forensic software

Hackers are abusing a legitimate but long-revoked EnCase kernel driver in an EDR killer that can detect 59 security tools in attempts to deactivate them.

An EDR killer is a malicious tool created specifically to bypass or disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, along with other security solutions. They typically use vulnerable drivers to unhook the protections on the system.

Usually, attackers rely on the ‘Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver’ (BYOVD) technique, where they introduce a legitimate but vulnerable driver and use it to gain kernel-level access and terminate security software processes.

Wiz

The technique is well-documented and very popular, but despite Microsoft introducing various defenses over the years, Windows systems are still vulnerable to effective bypasses.

Encase is a digital investigation tool used in law enforcement forensic operations that enables extracting and analyzing data from computers, mobile devices, or cloud storage.

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Huntress researchers responding to a cybersecurity incident earlier this month noticed the deployment of a custom EDR killer that was disguised as a legitimate firmware update utility and used an old kernel driver.

The attackers breached the network using compromised SonicWall SSL VPN credentials and exploiting the lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA) for the VPN account.

After logging in, the attackers performed aggressive internal reconnaissance, including ICMP ping sweeps, NetBIOS name probes, and SMB-related activity, SYN flooding exceeding 370 SYNs/sec.

The EDR killer used in this case is a 64-bit executable that abuses ‘EnPortv.sys,’ an old EnCase kernel driver, to disable security tools running on the host system.

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The driver’s certificate was issued in 2006, expired in 2010, and was subsequently revoked; however, because the Driver Signature Enforcement system on Windows works by validating cryptographic verification results and timestamps, rather than checking Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs), the operating system still accepts the old certificate.

Although Microsoft added a requirement in Windows 10 version 1607 that kernel drivers must be signed via the Hardware Dev Center, an exception was made for certificates issued before July 29, 2015, which applies in this case.

The kernel driver is installed and registered as a fake OEM hardware service, establishing reboot-resistant persistence.

Establishing persistence on the host
Establishing persistence on the host
Source: Huntress

The malware uses the driver’s kernel-mode IOCTL interface to terminate service processes, bypassing existing Windows protections such as Protected Process Light (PPL).

There are 59 targeted processes related to various EDR and antivirus tools. The kill loop executes every second, immediately terminating any processes that are restarted.

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KillProc implementation
KillProc implementation
Source: Huntress

Huntress believes that the intrusion was related to ransomware activity, although the attack was stopped before the final payload was deployed.

Key defense recommendations include enabling MFA on all remote access services, monitoring VPN logs for suspicious activity, and enabling HVCI/Memory Integrity to enforce Microsoft’s vulnerable driver blocklist.

Additionally, Huntress recommends monitoring for kernel services masquerading as OEM or hardware components and deploying WDAC and ASR rules to block vulnerable signed drivers.


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Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.

In this new Tines guide, learn how your team can reduce hidden manual delays, improve reliability through automated response, and build and scale intelligent workflows on top of tools you already use.

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Segway Cube 1000 Handles Everything From Weekend Camping Trips to Keeping Essential Home Circuits Running During an Outage

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1 hour ago

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4 February 2026

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Segway Cube 1000 Portable Power Station
Segway designed the Cube 1000 power station, priced at $330 (was $500), around a 1024Wh LiFePO4 battery, which can last for over 4,000 charge cycles without significantly losing capacity, equating to around a decade of regular operation. The starting capacity is 1 kWh, but customers can connect up to four additional 1 kWh expansion packs wirelessly, with no wires required, for a total of 5 kWh as needed.



The power station can deliver 2200 watts consistently from the AC side, with a unique R-Drive mode capable of handling brief 4400 watt power surges. That is more than enough to cover most common household appliances, including refrigerators, microwaves, power tools, and even medical equipment such as CPAP machines. There are three AC outlets to go with a decent array of DC options: plenty of USB-A and USB-C ports (one of which is a 100 W fast charge connector for laptops), a 12v car-style plug, and some other DC outputs for flexibility.

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Segway Portable Power Station Cube 1000, 2200W AC Outlets, 1024Wh LiFePO4 Battery, Expandable Battery...

Segway Portable Power Station Cube 1000, 2200W AC Outlets, 1024Wh LiFePO4 Battery, Expandable Battery…
  • High-Power Performance: The Segway Cube 1000 from the Cube Series boasts an impressive 2200W AC power, expandable to 4400W with R-drive function,…
  • Robust Build: With an IP56-rated design and a LiFePO4 battery capable of lasting over 4000 cycles, the Cube 1000 guarantees durability and reliability…
  • Rapid Recharging: Enjoy quick recharging with 1kWh in just 1.2 hours, supporting 1250W AC and 800W Solar Charging with an exceptional 97% efficiency…


Filling it up is also simple, as it can be fully charged in around an hour and a half to two hours using a 1250w AC input, or you can just connect it to some solar panels to get up to 800w at 97% efficiency. Car charging is also accessible, albeit at a slower rate. One useful feature is that the unit can accept both AC and solar input in many circumstances, allowing you to charge more quickly during the day.

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Segway Cube 1000 Portable Power Station
It’s also a nice-looking product, with an IP56 rating on the battery pack (the entire unit is IPX3), which means it can survive dust and strong water jets, making it ideal for use outside or in the garage. Durable construction combines with a simple, cube design that keeps everything stable even when piled together.

Segway Cube 1000 Portable Power Station
The Segway-Ninebot app allows you to check battery levels, alter settings, and manage power flow remotely. The item has a clear display that allows you to see the important information at a glance. Standard safety features include overload, short circuit, and temperature extremes protection; it can even withstand temperatures of up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit.

Segway Cube 1000 Portable Power Station
You get a total of 12 outputs to power all of your devices, from phones to laptops to lights to tiny fridges, without having to continually juggle cords. In practical terms, that 1024Wh base can recharge your phone about 80 to 90 times, power a small fridge for many hours, or power a laptop and some lights for the evening.

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Coinbase reveals insider breach did take place, customer info compromised

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1 hour ago

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4 February 2026

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  • Coinbase contractor improperly accessed data of ~30 customers without authorization
  • Insider was fired; victims notified and offered identity theft protection services
  • Incident echoes 2025 case where cybercriminals bribed support agents to steal customer data worth $400 million

Coinbase has confirmed it experienced an insider breach when a contractor accessed data on roughly 30 customers, without proper authorization.

“Last year our security team detected that a single Coinbase contractor improperly accessed customer information, impacting a very small number of users (approximately 30),” a Coinbase spokesperson told BleepingComputer.

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Waiting for memory prices to drop? Intel CEO says the shortage isn’t easing anytime soon

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2 hours ago

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4 February 2026

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If you’ve been waiting for the global memory shortage to ease anytime this year and hardware prices to drop, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has some bad news. Speaking at a recent Cisco Systems conference, Tan said the crunch will likely last at least two more years.

According to Bloomberg, Tan cited information from two key players in the memory space who reportedly told him, “There’s no relief until 2028.” The timeline aligns with recent comments from Micron’s Christopher Moore, VP of Marketing for its Mobile and Client Business Unit, who said tight supply conditions are likely to linger for the foreseeable future.

The prolonged shortage is being driven largely by the explosive growth of AI infrastructure, which is soaking up memory at an unprecedented scale. With memory manufacturers increasingly focused on serving data centers and AI workloads, supply for consumer devices is being squeezed. For buyers, that could mean paying more for laptops, phones, PC components, and even TVs.

AI demand could keep your next hardware upgrade expensive

Nvidia’s next wave of AI hardware could make the situation even worse. According to Tan, the company’s latest Rubin platform will drive demand even higher. AI is going to “suck up a lot of memory,” Tan said, which could further tighten supply for consumer electronics.

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For consumers, this means the pressure on hardware pricing is unlikely to ease anytime soon. Devices may continue to ship with higher price tags or more modest memory configurations unless memory supply expands significantly or demand from AI infrastructure slows. Until then, buyers may need to plan upgrades carefully or hold onto existing hardware longer than usual.

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You’re over 50 and just got laid off from Big Tech: Here’s what to do next

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2 hours ago

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4 February 2026

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(Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash)

My inbox is filled with friends and colleagues looking to discuss life after Big Tech. It’s no surprise that older workers seem to be disproportionately affected by recent layoffs in Seattle as tech companies (Amazon, Meta, Expedia, etc.) are rolling out layoffs driven by over-hiring in the pandemic, the shift to AI and performance-related house cleaning.

Most 50-somethings who just got laid off from Amazon are in full frenzy mode. They are hit by the shock of a broken promise. They worked their butts off to get into Big Tech. They have been paid handsomely for 10, 20, or 30 years. And now they find themselves on a list and a Zoom meeting with an HR admin doing mass layoffs. Kids are in college or headed there at $60-100k per year. Health care costs are running $2-3k per month for the family. You stretched to buy that Seattle or Bellevue home with the $5-6k monthly payment. Aging parents need support. Your spouse is asking how he or she can help. 

Panic. The instinct is to move fast, fill the calendar, make something happen. Send out resumes. Call back that recruiter from six months ago. Network like crazy. Hit LinkedIn. The adrenaline rush to figure it out right now.

My advice: Stop. Take a breath.

At 50+, this isn’t just another job transition. This may be your last chapter. You’ve got one more career opportunity and maybe 25-to-30 healthy years left, if you’re lucky. 

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Time is the most precious resource. Why would you spend any of them doing something that doesn’t light you up?

People come out of big tech companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Google — with incredible skills and experience. They can do almost anything. And that becomes the problem. When you can do anything, how do you choose?

Find the horizon with the Four Elements

Every business needs a strategy. You are now a “business of one.” It’s important to do the hard work to figure out where you want to go before you hit the road and start driving. There are many ways to determine your goals and priorities in life. I am a big fan of Career Coach Tim Butler from Harvard Business School and his latest book called “The Four Elements.” 

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The framework is simple but powerful:

Step 1: Find your flow
Think about three times in your career when you were completely engaged. Lost track of time. Felt like you were doing exactly what you were meant to do. Write down what made those moments special. Synthesize the commonalities into one sentence.

Step 2: Identify your signature skills
What were you particularly effective at? Not what your job description said you should be good at – what actually energized you and created impact? Think of three times when you were maximally effective. What patterns do you see?

Step 3: Define your ideal environment
Come up with five adjectives that describe where you feel at home at work. Then write the opposites. For me? Playful vs. Serious. Team vs. Individualistic. Mission Driven vs. Bureaucratic. Those polarities tell you a lot.

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Step 4: Map your constraints (Horizons)
Who needs you right now? Spouse/kids/parents/siblings. What are your financial obligations? Mortgage/college/parents/children. What matters most in this next phase of life? Money? Giving back? Spirituality? Friendships? Travel?

Step 5: Brainstorm with AI
Take the data from Steps 1-4 and have a conversation with your favorite LLM. Mine is Claude, but this exercise works with ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot. I also uploaded the swaths of personality tests and work output that I have been most proud of in my career (strategies, business plans, presentations, execution reports). My personal project on Claude now knows me, my strengths and weaknesses better than anyone on the planet (save my wife ☺).

When I did this exercise and looked at my answers, a pattern emerged. I thrive in rapid-growth, high risk environments with strong teams, focused on customer value, with lots of freedom to experiment and execute. I need work that feels mission-critical. And at this stage, I want to work on things I’m curious about, with people I like, with a strong social purpose.

Nikesh Parekh. (LinkedIn Photo)

Career Sprints: Test before you commit

After you’ve done the soul searching, here’s the next part most people skip: run experiments.

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I call them “career sprints.” Come up with a thesis – two or three directions you might want to go. Then figure out low-cost ways to test them before you commit to another five years.

Want to buy a home services business? Find someone who runs one and offer to work for free for three months. See if it actually gives you energy or if it just seemed like a good idea.

Thinking about working in retail? Same thing. Use your severance to do full-time work either free or paid and go deep enough to know if you’d want to spend the next five years doing it.

I did this in 2015. I got tired of selling ads and software in online real estate. I wanted to find my purpose. I thought maybe I wanted to work at a nonprofit, so I spent three months at a large homeless shelter. Loved the mission and the people. But the work? Too slow and not enough strategic execution. I felt like was just turning the crank and I wasn’t excited enough about the day-to-day work. Then I tried venture capital for six months (my third time in VC). VC involves lots of meetings, lots of ego, and lots of social events. Personally, I really like building new businesses and working with a team to charge the hill. I like being on the field and not on the sideline or in the owner’s box. So investing wasn’t a fit for me.

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Those experiments saved me from making expensive and time-consuming mistakes. (Or at least making those mistakes as I have made plenty others).

At 50+, with kids launching and maybe 5-to-15 good working years left, you can’t afford to waste time on something that doesn’t energize you. You could probably slot back into a product management role without thinking too hard. You could go make bombs or drones. There’s demand for all of it.

But is that how you want to write your last chapter?

If you’re laid off at 50+, here’s what I’d do:

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1. Take 30 days minimum (90 is better) to clear your brain
Don’t take meetings. Don’t send resumes. Don’t start networking. Don’t take that recruiter call. Just let yourself breathe. Give yourself the grace of not having it all figured out immediately.

2. Do the Four Elements exercise
Get the book or use the free exercises online. Upload your answers into Claude or ChatGPT and have a conversation about it. AI isn’t going to tell you what to do, but it’ll help you see patterns you might miss.

3. Come up with a thesis
Based on what you learned, what are 2-to-3 directions that actually excite you? Not what makes logical sense. What makes you want to wake up in the morning?

4. Run career sprints to test your thesis
Before you commit, find ways to experiment. Work for someone in that space for free. Shadow people. Get your hands dirty. See if it gives you energy or drains you.

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5. Set the strategy, then get tactical
Once you know the direction, then you can update the resume and start networking with purpose. 

When you’re 50+ and laid off, people treat it like a crisis. 

You’ve been given a gift — the chance to reset, to choose differently, to not just optimize for salary and title but for meaning and energy and the kind of life you actually want to live. Take the time. Do the work. Figure out what chapter you want to write before you start writing it.

And if you found this helpful, consider reaching out to and helping a friend who has been laid off recently or is going through a hard transition.

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Databricks’ serverless database slashes app development from months to days as companies prep for agentic AI

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Five years ago, Databricks coined the term ‘data lakehouse’ to describe a new type of data architecture that combines a data lake with a data warehouse. That term and data architecture are now commonplace across the data industry for analytics workloads.

Now, Databricks is once again looking to create a new category with its Lakebase service, now generally available today. While the data lakehouse construct deals with OLAP (online analytical processing) databases, Lakebase is all about OLTP (online transaction processing) and operational databases. The Lakebase service has been in development since June 2025 and is based on technology Databricks gained via its acquisition of PostgreSQL database provider Neon. It was further enhanced in October of 2025 with the acquisition of Mooncake, which brought capabilities to help bridge PostgreSQL with lakehouse data formats.

Lakebase is a serverless operational database that represents a fundamental rethinking of how databases work in the age of autonomous AI agents. Early adopters, including easyJet, Hafnia and Warner Music Group, are cutting application delivery times by 75 to 95%, but the deeper architectural innovation positions databases as ephemeral, self-service infrastructure that AI agents can provision and manage without human intervention.

This isn’t just another managed Postgres service. Lakebase treats operational databases as lightweight, disposable compute running on data lake storage rather than monolithic systems requiring careful capacity planning and database administrator (DBA) oversight.

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 “Really, for the vibe coding trend to take off, you need developers to believe they can actually create new apps very quickly, but you also need the central IT team, or DBAs, to be comfortable with the tsunami of apps and databases,” Databricks co-founder Reynold Xin told VentureBeat. “Classic databases simply won’t scale to that because they can’t afford to put a DBA per database and per app.”

92% faster delivery: From two months to five days

The production numbers demonstrate immediate impact beyond the agent provisioning vision. Hafnia reduced delivery time for production-ready applications from two months to five days — or 92% — using Lakebase as the transactional engine for their internal operations portal. The shipping company moved beyond static BI reports to real-time business applications for fleet, commercial and finance workflows.

EasyJet consolidated more than 100 Git repositories into just two and cut development cycles from nine months to four months — a 56% reduction — while building a web-based revenue management hub on Lakebase to replace a decade-old desktop app and one of Europe’s largest legacy SQL Server environments.

Warner Music Group is moving insights directly into production systems using the unified foundation, while Quantum Capital Group uses it to maintain consistent, governed data for identifying and evaluating oil and gas investments — eliminating the data duplication that previously forced teams to maintain multiple copies in different formats.

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The acceleration stems from the elimination of two major bottlenecks: database cloning for test environments and ETL pipeline maintenance for syncing operational and analytical data.

Technical architecture: Why this isn’t just managed Postgres

Traditional databases couple storage and compute — organizations provision a database instance with attached storage and scale by adding more instances or storage. AWS Aurora innovated by separating these layers using proprietary storage, but the storage remained locked inside AWS’s ecosystem and wasn’t independently accessible for analytics.

Lakebase takes the separation of storage and compute to its logical conclusion by putting storage directly in the data lakehouse. The compute layer runs essentially vanilla PostgreSQL— maintaining full compatibility with the Postgres ecosystem — but every write goes to lakehouse storage in formats that Spark, Databricks SQL and other analytics engines can immediately query without ETL.

“The unique technical insight was that data lakes decouple storage from compute, which was great, but we need to introduce data management capabilities like governance and transaction management into the data lake,” Xin explained. “We’re actually not that different from the lakehouse concept, but we’re building lightweight, ephemeral compute for OLTP databases on top.”

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Databricks built Lakebase with the technology it gained from the acquisition of Neon. But Xin emphasized that Databricks significantly expanded Neon’s original capabilities to create something fundamentally different.

“They didn’t have the enterprise experience, and they didn’t have the cloud scale,” Xin said. “We brought the Neon team’s novel architectural idea together with the robustness of the Databricks infrastructure and combined them. So now we’ve created a super scalable platform.”

From hundreds of databases to millions built for agentic AI

Xin outlined a vision directly tied to the economics of AI coding tools that explains why the Lakebase construct matters beyond current use cases. As development costs plummet, enterprises will shift from buying hundreds of SaaS applications to building millions of bespoke internal applications.

“As the cost of software development goes down, which we’re seeing today because of AI coding tools, it will shift from the proliferation of SaaS in the last 10 to 15 years to the proliferation of in-house application development,” Xin said. “Instead of building maybe hundreds of applications, they’ll be building millions of bespoke apps over time.”

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This creates an impossible fleet management problem with traditional approaches. You cannot hire enough DBAs to manually provision, monitor and troubleshoot thousands of databases. Xin’s solution: Treat database management itself as a data problem rather than an operations problem.

Lakebase stores all telemetry and metadata — query performance, resource utilization, connection patterns, error rates — directly in the lakehouse, where it can be analyzed using standard data engineering and data science tools. Instead of configuring dashboards in database-specific monitoring tools, data teams query telemetry data with SQL or analyze it with machine learning models to identify outliers and predict issues.

“Instead of creating a dashboard for every 50 or 100 databases, you can actually look at the chart to understand if something has misbehaved,” Xin explained. “Database management will look very similar to an analytics problem. You look at outliers, you look at trends, you try to understand why things happen. This is how you manage at scale when agents are creating and destroying databases programmatically.”

The implications extend to autonomous agents themselves. An AI agent experiencing performance issues could query the telemetry data to diagnose problems — treating database operations as just another analytics task rather than requiring specialized DBA knowledge. Database management becomes something agents can do for themselves using the same data analysis capabilities they already have.

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What this means for enterprise data teams

The Lakebase construct signals a fundamental shift in how enterprises should think about operational databases — not as precious, carefully managed infrastructure requiring specialized DBAs, but as ephemeral, self-service resources that scale programmatically like cloud compute. 

This matters whether or not autonomous agents materialize as quickly as Databricks envisions, because the underlying architectural principle — treating database management as an analytics problem rather than an operations problem — changes the skill sets and team structures enterprises need.

Data leaders should pay attention to the convergence of operational and analytical data happening across the industry. When writes to an operational database are immediately queryable by analytics engines without ETL, the traditional boundaries between transactional systems and data warehouses blur. This unified architecture reduces the operational overhead of maintaining separate systems, but it also requires rethinking data team structures built around those boundaries.

When lakehouse launched, competitors rejected the concept before eventually adopting it themselves. Xin expects the same trajectory for Lakebase. 

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“It just makes sense to separate storage and compute and put all the storage in the lake — it enables so many capabilities and possibilities,” he said.

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Oregon theater marquee joked about ‘Melania’ movie, and manager says Amazon pulled the film

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The Lake Theater & Cafe marquee after Amazon complained about a previous message that took a shot at the new film “Melania.” (Lake Theater & Cafe Photo via Instagram)

The new “Melania” documentary film was released by Amazon MGM Studios to 1,778 theaters across the country. Make that 1,777 now.

The manager of the Lake Theater & Cafe in Lake Oswego, Ore., just outside of Portland, said a marquee he put up for the theater’s screening of the film about First Lady Melania Trump managed to upset Amazon enough that the company pulled the film.

“To defeat your enemy, you must know them. Melania starts Friday,” read the marquee, as seen in a photograph accompanying a story in The Oregonian.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Lake Theater & Cafe said “the higher ups” at Amazon were upset with the marketing move and that Sunday was the last showing of “Melania” at the theater. A new marquee said Amazon got “mad” and all “Melania” shows were canceled, and that patrons could show their support instead at a nearby Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market.

GeekWire reached out to Amazon for comment, and we’ll update if we hear back.

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Marquee messages are apparently a running joke at the Lake Theater. On the theater’s website about page, there are numerous voicemails from passersby reacting to previous messages. The page also has a photo of a marquee that read, “Not getting the Taylor Swift movie because her music’s not even good.”

In a blog post, manager Jordan Perry expounded on why the theater even booked a two-week run of “Melania,” the reaction from both sides of the political spectrum, and how much money the screening made for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

“To fill a screen, why not get this inexplicable vanity piece from the current president’s wife?” Perry wrote. “I mean, it just seems so weird that it even exists (who wants a movie about Melania lol?), and wouldn’t it then be exponentially weirder, to the point of being funny, to show it here, at your obviously anti-establishment, occasionally troublemaking, neighborhood cinema?”

Perry said he had no interest in trying to get people to vote one way or another. He said he was more interested in helping people be more “open-minded, compassionate, and well-informed.” He added that for each $11 ticket sold, $5.50 went to Amazon MGM Studios.

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“We contributed, in all, $196 to the Jeff Bezos Trust Fund this week (far more to the ‘Hamnet’ Trust Fund, thank you, ‘Hamnet’ lovers),” Perry said.

“Melania” pulled in much more than that in a total weekend box office of $7 million — the largest opening haul for a non-concert documentary in 14 years, according to The New York Times. The film finished third for the weekend behind horror thriller “Send Help” ($20 million) and horror sci-fi mashup “Iron Lung” ($18 million).

Amazon spent $75 million to acquire the rights and market the film, which was directed by Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour,” “X-Men: The Last Stand”) and provides an inside look at the 20 days leading up to the 2025 presidential inauguration.

Backlash around the film was not limited to a small theater in Oregon. Critics torched the film as propaganda in early reviews. Bus stop ads and billboards in Los Angeles have been defaced. And Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Apple CEO Tim Cook were among those who took heat for attending a private White House screening of the film on the same day protester Alex Pretti was killed in Minneapolis by federal agents.

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Watch the “Melania” trailer below:

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The OnePlus 16 could have a much better zoom camera and a massive battery

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OnePlus is tipped to deliver a major camera upgrade with its upcoming flagship, the OnePlus 16, expected later in 2026.

According to a new leak, the device will feature a 200MP telephoto sensor measuring 1/1.56 inches, a significant jump from the 50MP 1/2.76-inch telephoto lens found on the OnePlus 15. This change could dramatically improve zoom performance and image detail, while also introducing telephoto macro capabilities for close-up shots.

The leak, shared by @OnePlusClub on X, suggests OnePlus is finally addressing criticism of the OnePlus 15’s scaled-down camera system. That model shipped with smaller sensors and lacked Hasselblad colour tuning, leaving photography enthusiasts underwhelmed despite strong performance elsewhere.

The OnePlus 16’s rumoured telephoto upgrade would put it in line with rivals such as Oppo’s Find X9 series, which already offers telephoto macro functionality. 

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Beyond the camera, the OnePlus 16 is rumoured to pack a 9,000mAh battery, up from 7,300mAh on its predecessor, alongside a display refresh rate exceeding 200Hz. These specifications suggest OnePlus is targeting both endurance and gaming performance.

The handset is also expected to run Qualcomm’s next flagship chipset, though it remains unclear whether it will use the rumoured Snapdragon 8 Gen 6 or the top-end 8 Elite Gen 6. For those weighing up their next upgrade, our best Android phones guide offers a broader look at the competition.

Leaks around the OnePlus 16 highlight a shift in priorities. The OnePlus 15 impressed with raw performance thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and a larger battery, but its camera compromises were seen as a step back from the OnePlus 13.

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Therefore, the rumoured 200MP telephoto sensor could mark a return to form, especially for users who value versatile photography. However, until OnePlus confirms details, these specifications remain speculative.

These leaks suggest OnePlus is preparing to position the OnePlus 16 as a more balanced flagship, combining performance with meaningful camera improvements. If accurate, the upgrade could make the device one of the most compelling Android options in 2026, particularly for those who demand strong zoom capabilities without sacrificing everyday usability.

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