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Why more S’poreans are choosing jobs below their credentials

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1 in 5 Singaporeans are overqualified for their jobs, according to a new MOM study

Singapore workers are better educated than ever, but that doesn’t always translate into the jobs they take.

A new Ministry of Manpower (MOM) study, released on Apr 14, finds that nearly one in five (19.4%) of resident workers held qualifications higher than what their jobs required in 2025, up from 16.3% in 2015.

And most of them chose this path voluntarily, with about nine in 10 underemployed workers—equivalent to 17.7% of the resident workforce—saying they had done so by choice.

Many were motivated by factors such as job stability, opportunities to apply their skills, and more interesting work. Others cited preferences such as better work-life balance and working hours, personal interests, or higher earnings in roles like sales, rather than an inability to find jobs that matched their qualifications.

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NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Patrick Tay said many workers are making deliberate career choices that prioritise flexibility, fulfilment, or life-stage needs, reflecting a labour market that offers diverse pathways rather than one that is structurally misaligned.

Despite the rise in overqualification rates, the data suggests it is not driven by a shortage of suitable jobs, The Straits Times reported. Roles requiring tertiary education now account for 64.2% of the job market, closely matching the 64% share of tertiary-educated workers, up from 51.6% in 2015.

Only 1.7% of the resident workforce were involuntarily overqualified: a figure that has stayed below 3% for the past decade, according to MOM’s study, which draws on labour force surveys and international benchmarking. MOM said this suggests a limited structural mismatch in the labour market.

The report also found that overqualification was more common among younger workers, particularly those early in their careers. Among those who are involuntarily overqualified, more than one-third are under 35.

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MOM noted that this likely reflects career building, with younger workers gaining experience before moving into better-matched roles later on.

Overqualified tertiary-educated workers tend to cluster in sales jobs, which may offer high earning potential, or in administrative and financial-related roles, where younger workers gain experience in entry-level roles before progressing to higher positions.

Many are also found in clerical roles such as general office clerks and client information clerks, or private-hire car drivers.

For older workers aged 60 and above, voluntary overqualification rises, with some choosing less demanding roles or alternative paths as retirement nears.

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Employers are increasingly looking at skills and experience over paper qualifications

The studies also highlighted a shift in hiring trends, with employers increasingly favouring skills and experience over academic qualifications.

In 2025, academic credentials took a back seat for nearly 80% of vacancies. 48.2% of employers prioritised relevant experience, while 20.1% focused on skills instead.

At the same time, employers continue to face difficulties filling roles requiring specialised expertise, such as data scientists, teaching and training professionals, and civil engineers, pointing to skills gaps in the workforce.

These gaps have resulted in increased workloads for existing staff, missed business opportunities and slipping quality standards.

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MOM and NTUC pointed out that these findings point to “differences in perspective between workers and employers”. 

“This suggests the key issue is not excess qualifications per se but ensuring that workers’ skillsets remain aligned with evolving job requirements,” MOM added.

NTUC called for expanded worker support across all career stages, with particular focus on early-career assistance, multi-skilling opportunities, and transition programs for those entering new career phases.

  • Read more articles we’ve written on Singapore’s job trends here.

Featured Image Credit: Shadow_of_light/ depositphotos

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Audio Advice Live 2026 Returns to Raleigh August 7-9 With More Hi-Fi Than Sweet Tea

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Audio Advice Live 2026 returns to Raleigh, North Carolina from August 7-9, bringing three days of high-end audio and home theater demonstrations to one of the fastest-growing hi-fi events in the United States. Hosted by Audio Advice, the show will once again bring together leading audio brands, industry experts, and content creators for an immersive experience covering everything from two-channel systems and turntables to headphones and reference-level home theater installations.

For readers of eCoustics, the event is already on the radar. We were among the few publications to cover the show in-depth in 2025, with on-site reporting from Chris Boylan that captured the scale of the demonstrations and the growing enthusiasm around the Raleigh gathering. With its mix of serious gear, approachable demonstrations, and a healthy dose of Southern hospitality, Audio Advice Live has quickly become one of the more compelling destinations on the North American hi-fi calendar—hosted by one of the most influential specialty audio retailers in the country, whose footprint now stretches across the Southeast and into the Midwest and Nevada.

The company currently operates three retail locations in North Carolina; Raleigh, Charlotte, and Wilmington and recently expanded into the Midwest with the acquisition of a specialty audio store in the suburbs of St. Louis. A fourth company-owned showroom is also under development in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to its physical locations, the retailer runs a comprehensive online store featuring in-depth reviews, system planning tools, and step-by-step tutorials for home audio and home theater enthusiasts. Very few retailers offer that level of free knowledge and help in 2026.

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Why Audio Advice Live Is Worth the Trip — and Why Raleigh Makes It Even Better

Audio shows can sometimes feel like insider events for industry veterans, but Audio Advice Live has carved out a reputation as one of the most accessible and hands-on hi-fi gatherings in North America. Across more than 60 listening and home theater demonstration rooms, attendees can experience everything from affordable two-channel setups and turntables to statement-level loudspeakers and reference home theater systems.

Major brands such as Sony, Epson, NAD, JVC, MartinLogan, McIntosh, Focal, Bowers & Wilkins, and JBL regularly participate, giving visitors the chance to hear new products demonstrated in carefully tuned rooms while speaking directly with product managers, engineers, and calibration specialists. For enthusiasts curious about system setup, room acoustics, streaming platforms, or even full home theater calibration, the show offers a rare opportunity to get practical advice from the people who actually design the gear.

The setting helps, too. Raleigh has quietly become one of the most appealing destinations for a summer audio trip, with a vibrant downtown filled with restaurants, breweries, museums, and excellent shopping within easy reach of the show. Visitors flying in will appreciate the convenience of Raleigh-Durham International Airport, widely considered one of the most efficient and traveler-friendly airports in the country.

The event routinely draws attendees from across the Southeast, but it also attracts serious hobbyists willing to travel from Florida and Texas to the Mid-Atlantic and even the DelMarVa region, for three days of immersive listening, industry insight, and a little Southern hospitality in the middle of summer.

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Where and How to Attend Audio Advice Live 2026

Audio Advice Live 2026 will take place August 7-9, 2026 at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel in downtown Raleigh, placing attendees within walking distance of restaurants, bars, museums, and shopping in the city’s revitalized downtown district.

Early bird tickets are already available, with several options depending on how much time you want to spend exploring the show’s listening rooms, seminars, and demonstrations.

Ticket Options (Early Bird Pricing):

  • 3 Day All Access Pass: $45
  • 1 Day Pass (Friday): $25
  • 1 Day Pass (Saturday): $25
  • Child / Student Pass (with valid ID): Free

The three day pass offers the best value, giving attendees full access to more than 60 listening rooms, home theater demonstrations, seminars, and live presentations from industry experts across the entire weekend.

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Tickets can be purchased in advance through the event’s official website, and early registration is recommended as Audio Advice Live has grown rapidly and regularly attracts enthusiasts from across the South and Mid-Atlantic region.

The Bottom Line

If you’re serious about high performance audio, home theater, headphones, or vinyl, Audio Advice Live 2026 is one of the most accessible and hands on events in North America to experience it all in one place. The show runs August 7-9, 2026 at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel in downtown Raleigh, where more than 60 listening rooms and seminars will showcase everything from attainable systems to ultra high end gear. Expect strong coverage from us on the show floor. We’ll be there listening, asking questions, and reporting on the best systems and surprises from one of the South’s fastest growing hi-fi events.

For more information: live.audioadvice.com

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Apple Will Pay $250 Million For Failing To Deliver Its AI-Powered Siri On Time

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Apple has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class action lawsuit that claims the company misled iPhone buyers in the US that the updated version of Siri it announced alongside Apple Intelligence would launch in 2024, The Financial Times writes. The company originally showed off its more “personalized” Siri at WWDC 2024, but has failed to ship the new AI assistant almost two years later.

Assuming it’s approved by a judge, the settlement will cover a class that includes US buyers of the iPhone 16 lineup and the iPhone 15 Pro. The settlement will offer financial relief to anyone who expected Siri on their new iPhone, but Apple’s proposal notably doesn’t require the company to actually admit fault for advertising AI features it hasn’t shipped.

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The company slowly rolled out components of the text editing, image generation and ChatGPT integration it pitched as Apple Intelligence throughout 2024 and 2025, but a version of Siri that understands the context of what’s on your device and can take action in apps on your behalf never arrived. Apple didn’t publicly acknowledge it would have to delay that Siri update until March 2025, over five months after the iPhone 16 launched, a phone the company sold as being able to run Apple Intelligence.

After Apple announced the delay, it pulled ads it had run in the lead-up to the iPhone launch showing off the new Siri feature. The company now plans to finally offer the new Siri this year, largely thanks to a partnership with Google that lets Apple use the company’s Gemini models. The new Siri, along with a collection of other AI features, will reportedly be included in iOS 27.

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‘I Actually Thought He Was Going to Hit Me,’ OpenAI’s Greg Brockman Says of Elon Musk

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In August 2017, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever gathered at Elon Musk’s self-described “haunted mansion,” a 47-acre, $23 million estate in Hillsborough, south of San Francisco, to discuss the future of OpenAI. Actor Amber Heard, Musk’s then-girlfriend, had served the group whiskey and then dashed off with a friend, Brockman, OpenAI’s cofounder and president, testified in federal court during the trial for Musk v. Altman on Tuesday.

Ahead of the meeting, Musk gifted Brockman and Sutskever, OpenAI’s cofounder and former chief scientist, new Tesla Model 3 cars. “It felt like he was buttering us up,” Brockman said on the stand. “He wanted us to feel indebted to him in some way.” Sutskever tried to reciprocate for the occasion. The amateur artist presented Musk with a painting of a Tesla. Musk and the other cofounders wanted to establish a for-profit arm to entice investors to give them billions of dollars to pay for compute. But Musk also wanted control of the company, and Sutskever and Brockman objected to granting the Tesla CEO what they believed would be a “dictatorship” over the future of AI development. They proposed having shared control.

After several minutes of deliberation, Musk rejected their offer. “He stood up and stormed around the table,” Brockman recalled. “I actually thought he was going to hit me, physically attack me.” Musk grabbed the painting, said he would cut off his funding of the nonprofit until Brockman and Sutskever quit, and left the room, according to Brockman’s testimony. But that night, Musk’s so-called chief of staff Shivon Zilis called Brockman and Sutskever “to say it’s not over,” Brockman testified. “There were discussions of futures that included us.”

The story of the heated negotiations emerged as Brockman wrapped up his testimony on Tuesday. To OpenAI, the events at the mansion are representative of repeated instances of erratic behavior by Musk that they believe undermine his arguments about the company. Musk contends his roughly $38 million in donations to OpenAI were abused by Brockman and others on the path to creating the $852 billion for-profit venture now known for services such as ChatGPT and Codex. Brockman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and OpenAI deny any wrongdoing, and the jury in Musk v. Altman could begin deliberating on an advisory ruling as soon as next week.

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After Tuesday’s testimony, William Savitt, an attorney for OpenAI, told reporters that what Brockman had learned in 2017 was how tough it can be to meet one’s heroes. Brockman admired and respected Musk’s business acumen, but his desire for control was absolute and concerning, Savitt said. Marc Toberoff, an attorney for Musk, told reporters that the true concern was Brockman’s motivations for sharing control, with his desire for wealth having faced scrutiny in court a day earlier.

For his part, Brockman offered another story on Tuesday to underscore why he thought Musk was not up to the task of controlling an AI company. Brockman recalled then-OpenAI researcher Alec Radford showing Musk an early version of an AI chatbot that didn’t generate responses that he liked. Musk “kept saying this system is so stupid, that a kid on the internet could do better,” Brockman said. Radford “was absolutely crushed” and “demoralized” to the point that he almost quit the AI research field altogether, Brockman said. Brockman and Sutskever “spent a lot of time” rebuilding his confidence. Musk’s inability to see the potential in the early technology—which eventually became the basis for ChatGPT—made him unfit to control OpenAI, in Brockman’s view. “You needed to dream a little bit,” Brockman said. And Musk hadn’t shown that he could.

Boardroom Fights

Brockman said Tuesday that he, Sutskever, and Altman considered voting Musk off the OpenAI nonprofit board as negotiations with him about a for-profit sibling company dragged on for months. They would meet again over whiskey at Musk’s mansion to discuss alternative funding options. There was agreement over what not to do, but little on what to do instead. But Brockman and Sutskever decided removing Musk felt “wrong,” Brockman testified. Eventually, Musk left on his own after deeming OpenAI was on a path of “certain failure,” according to an email he wrote in early 2018.

Zilis, then an adviser to both OpenAI and Musk, kept him informed about developments at the AI venture in the years to come. “She was proxy Elon in some ways,” Brockman said, referring to her as “a friend” who he had first met in 2012 or 2013.

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Intel previews Computex 2026 lineup across handhelds, desktops, and servers as 18A process becomes foundry calling card

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TL;DR

Intel is taking Panther Lake handhelds, a 52-core Nova Lake desktop preview, and 288-core Clearwater Forest servers to Computex 2026, all built on the 18A process that underpins its foundry pitch to Apple, Amazon, and Musk’s Terafab.

Intel will arrive at Computex 2026 in Taipei on 2 June with something it has not had in a decade: a product in every computing category built on a single manufacturing story. Panther Lake, the laptop chip launched at CES in January, is expanding to handhelds with Arc G3 and Arc G3 Extreme processors designed for the gaming handheld market. Nova Lake, a 52-core desktop chip with a new socket and new CPU architecture, will be previewed for a second-half launch. Clearwater Forest, a 288-core server processor that shipped at MWC in March, rounds out the Xeon lineup for data centres and cloud inference. All of them are built on or designed around Intel 18A, the 1.8-nanometre process node that combines RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors with PowerVia backside power delivery and represents the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing capability produced entirely in the United States. CEO Lip-Bu Tan will deliver the keynote. The venue is 40 kilometres from TSMC’s headquarters. The message is not subtle.

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The products

Panther Lake launched as Core Ultra Series 3 at CES in January and is already shipping in more than 200 laptop designs. The chip delivers 180 total platform TOPS, combining 120 TOPS from its Xe3 integrated GPU with 50 TOPS from the NPU 5 neural processing unit, and claims a 60 per cent improvement in multi-threaded performance over its predecessor at equivalent power. The Computex expansion brings Panther Lake to gaming handhelds through the Arc G3 platform: a 14-core design with two performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and four low-power cores paired with a 10 or 12-core Xe3 GPU in a configurable power envelope of 25 to 80 watts. MSI, OneXPlayer, GPD, and Acer are expected to showcase handheld devices running the Arc G3 chips at the event, with reports suggesting a Microsoft Xbox-branded handheld may also appear.

Nova Lake, branded Core Ultra Series 4, is Intel’s next desktop platform and will be previewed at Computex ahead of a late-2026 launch. The chip scales from 8 to 52 cores using new Coyote Cove performance cores and Arctic Wolf efficiency cores, introduces the LGA 1954 socket, and integrates Xe3 graphics, Thunderbolt 5, and Wi-Fi 7. The power range spans 35 to 175 watts, reflecting a design that covers both mainstream desktops and high-performance workstations. Nova Lake adopts what Intel calls a “big last level cache” architecture, a design approach inspired by AMD’s success with large L3 caches that prioritises keeping data close to the CPU cores. Intel’s first-quarter earnings revealed that AI-driven CPU demand is real: data centre and AI revenue grew 22 per cent year on year to 5.1 billion dollars as agentic AI workloads shift processing requirements back toward CPUs and away from the GPU-only model that defined the training era.

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Clearwater Forest, formally launched at MWC in March as Xeon 6+, is Intel’s most architecturally ambitious server processor. It packs 288 Darkmont efficiency cores across 12 compute chiplets manufactured on 18A, assembled using Foveros Direct 3D stacking on base tiles built on Intel 3. The IPC uplift is 17 per cent over the prior generation, and the chip targets the cloud inference and dense computing workloads that are expanding as AI deployments move from training to production. The shift toward agentic AI is driving demand for inference compute across every major cloud provider: Meta has committed more than 140 billion dollars to chip procurement from Nvidia, AMD, and Amazon, and the inference workloads those chips serve increasingly require CPU resources for orchestration, memory management, and the real-time decision-making that autonomous AI agents demand.

Intel’s server story at Computex also includes updates on Crescent Island, its dedicated inference accelerator, and Jaguar Shores, a rack-scale computing platform designed for the AI data centre of the late 2020s. Neither product has been formally launched, but both are expected to receive architectural details at Tan’s keynote. The inference accelerator is Intel’s attempt to compete directly with Nvidia’s inference-optimised products rather than conceding the AI accelerator market entirely. Whether Intel can build a competitive inference chip while simultaneously ramping its foundry business and launching three client platforms is the operational question that Computex will not answer but cannot avoid raising.

The process

The thread connecting every product at Computex is 18A. Panther Lake is the first consumer chip built on the node. Clearwater Forest is the first server chip. The Arc G3 handheld processors are the first gaming-focused silicon. Nova Lake will be the first desktop chip, though reports indicate that more than 90 per cent of Nova Lake’s compute tiles will be manufactured by TSMC on its N2 process rather than on Intel’s own fabs, a concession to the reality that Intel’s foundry capacity is not yet sufficient to supply both internal demand and external customers simultaneously.

That concession matters because the 18A node is not just a manufacturing process. It is the product Intel is selling to Apple, Amazon, Musk’s Terafab, and every other company that has signed or is negotiating a foundry agreement. Intel recently hired Qualcomm veteran Alex Katouzian to lead a new Client Computing and Physical AI group, a signal that the company sees local AI inference, the kind of processing that runs on PCs, handhelds, and edge devices rather than in cloud data centres, as the next wave of chip demand. The Computex product lineup is the proof of concept: if 18A can produce competitive chips across laptops, handhelds, desktops, and servers, the foundry pitch to external customers becomes significantly more credible than a roadmap slide.

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The market

GitHub paused new Copilot sign-ups after agentic AI workflows consumed more compute than users paid for, an early signal that the economics of agentic AI will push processing toward local hardware. If AI agents run continuously on cloud infrastructure, the costs scale linearly with usage and eventually become unsustainable at flat subscription prices. If those agents run locally, on a laptop with 180 TOPS of AI processing power or a desktop with 52 cores and a large cache, the economics shift from per-query cloud charges to a one-time hardware purchase. Intel’s bet is that the AI PC is not a marketing label but an architectural requirement: the agentic era needs local compute, and Intel’s chips are designed to provide it.

The competition is real. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite has established itself in the thin-and-light Windows market with superior power efficiency. AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 and 400 series compete directly with Panther Lake in laptops and with Arrow Lake Refresh on desktops. Apple’s M-series processors remain the benchmark for integrated performance in the consumer market. Nvidia’s server GPUs sell for a million dollars each in China despite export controls, reflecting a level of demand that Intel’s data centre products have never generated. Intel’s advantage at Computex is not that its chips are the best in any single category. It is that it has chips in every category, all manufactured on a process node that also serves as the foundation of a foundry business, and the foundry business is the reason Apple is in talks, Musk is building a 25 billion dollar fab, and the US government owns 10 per cent of the company.

The stakes

Computex has been Intel’s event for decades. The show takes place in Taipei, the heart of the global semiconductor supply chain, and Intel has traditionally used it to announce the products that define each generation of PC computing. The difference in 2026 is that Intel is no longer just a chip designer presenting products manufactured in its own fabs. It is a foundry operator competing with the host country’s most valuable company for the right to manufacture other people’s chips. Tan’s keynote will be watched not just for what Intel announces about its own products but for what those products reveal about 18A’s readiness to serve external foundry customers. Every Panther Lake laptop that ships without defects, every Clearwater Forest server that meets its performance claims, every Arc G3 handheld that runs within its thermal envelope is a data point for Apple, Amazon, and every other company evaluating whether to trust Intel with their silicon.

In 2016, Intel was the world’s largest semiconductor company by revenue. By 2024, it had fallen to eighth, behind Nvidia, TSMC, Samsung, Broadcom, Qualcomm, AMD, and Texas Instruments. Its manufacturing process had fallen two generations behind TSMC. Its CEO was forced out by a board that had lost confidence in the turnaround. The stock hit 18 dollars. Fourteen months later, Intel is at an all-time high, its foundry has anchor customers including Apple and Musk’s Terafab, and it is going to Computex with a product in every category for the first time in a decade. The turnaround is real, but it is also incomplete: the foundry loses 2.4 billion dollars per quarter, external revenue is 174 million dollars against TSMC’s 20 billion, and 90 per cent of the desktop chip Intel is previewing at Computex will be manufactured by the competitor it is trying to displace. The 18A node is Intel’s answer to all of those problems. Computex is where it starts proving the answer works.

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Apple’s iPhone 20 may finally ditch the design we’ve known for years

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The iPhone’s journey began in 2007 by changing the smartphone market forever, replacing physical keyboards with a 3.5-inch multi-touch display. Now, as the device moves toward its 20th anniversary, Apple may be preparing for another major design shift, a seamless, completely buttonless iPhone.

Is Apple planning its biggest iPhone redesign in years?

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has added fresh weight to the iPhone 20 redesign rumors. In the Q&A section of his Power On newsletter, Gurman said Apple’s 20th-anniversary iPhone overhaul is internally referred to by some as “Glasswing,” a name inspired by the glasswing butterfly and its transparent wings.

According to Gurman, the design includes glass edges that curve smoothly into the display on all four sides. Gurman also said Apple’s Liquid Glass interface is being shaped around this hardware direction, with the software designed to visually blend into the iPhone’s glass-heavy body. The idea appears to be a tighter connection between the device and the operating system.

Previous reporting has also pointed to Apple exploring a return to curved-screen styling. The design may aim for a seamless visual effect rather than bringing back the sharply sloped waterfall displays seen on some older Android phones.

Could the iPhone 18 start the shift earlier?

The buttonless part of the story comes from an earlier Weibo leak by Chinese tipster Instant Digital from October 2025. The tipster claimed Apple’s solid-state button plan had completed functional verification and was being prepared for mass production on the 2027 iPhone 20.

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According to that leak, the power button, volume buttons, Action button, and Camera Control button could all move to solid-state controls with localized vibration feedback. That would allow the iPhone to simulate a physical click without using traditional moving buttons.

Instant Digital also claimed Apple may begin the transition earlier with the iPhone 18. The Camera Control button is said to get a simpler structure by removing the capacitive sensing layer and keeping pressure recognition.

Ming-Chi Kuo had previously reported that Apple was working on solid-state power and volume buttons for the iPhone 15 Pro. However, the feature was later shelved due to technical and manufacturing issues. If Apple has managed to fix those issues, the iPhone 20 might finally be the one to go fully buttonless.

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Valve Releases Design Files For Its Out-Of-Stock Steam Controller

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The Steam Controller has been a hot topic for the PC gaming world for the past few weeks, and a new tidbit could keep the conversation going: Valve released the CAD files for the gamepad’s shell. They’re free to download under a Creative Commons license, meaning people can now design and construct their own accessories for the Steam Controller and its puck.

The files are only for the device’s exterior; you won’t be able to 3D print yourself the innards to build your entire controller from scratch. That means that if you are on the hunt for a Steam Controller, you may be waiting for a bit while the sold-out gamepad is restocked. Fortunately, since Valve hasn’t given a release window yet for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR headset, it’s probably not an essential purchase right this instant for most gamers. But it is a good controller if you can find one, and it’s a nifty idea for Valve to let people get creative with the casing.

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Telehealth Abortion Is Still Possible Without Mifepristone

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Abortion provider Carafem’s phones were ringing nonstop over the weekend after a US federal appeals court reinstated a nationwide requirement that the drug mifepristone, one of two pills used for a medication abortion, must be obtained in person. The decision, handed down on Friday, left patients unsure if they could gain access to their treatment through telehealth. “People are afraid, and they’re angry,” says Carafem’s chief operations officer, Melissa Grant. “I had people contact us saying, This can’t be true. Do you still have the medication available? Can’t you just give it to me? They were bargaining.”

With the restriction in place, Carafem quickly pivoted to a backup approach. Instead of prescribing the two-drug protocol typical for a medication abortion—mifepristone, which blocks progesterone and prevents the pregnancy from progressing, and then misoprostol, which causes the uterus to contract—the organization began prescribing misoprostol on its own. While slightly less effective than the dual-pill option, it’s been widely used in the past. “We feel comfortable prescribing it,” says Grant.

Some Planned Parenthood clinics also pivoted to the misoprostol-only regimen this weekend. “Planned Parenthood providers are doing everything they can to make sure patients know that medication abortion is still safe, legal, and available,” says Danika Severino, vice president of care and access at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

On Monday, the Supreme Court offered a temporary reprieve, pausing the appeals court ruling for a week. The measure allows patients to once again get mifepristone through virtual clinics at least until May 11, when SCOTUS will take another look at the case. Carafem and Planned Parenthood say they are prepared to shift back to misoprostol-only if necessary. Other providers, including the digital abortion clinic HeyJane, have confirmed that they will also take that approach if necessary.

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Mifepristone was developed in the 1980s in France and has been extensively studied for safety and efficacy. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000. Under President Joseph Biden, the FDA first allowed the drug to be obtained by mail instead of in person in April 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The agency permanently lifted the in-person dispensing requirement in 2023.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending the constitutional right to an abortion, medication abortion via telehealth became a more sought-after option, especially for patients in states that adopted abortion restrictions. Approximately one in three abortions that took place in the first half of 2025 used abortion pills obtained through telehealth, according to public health nonprofit Plan C.

Access to mifepristone has become the next major battleground in reproductive health, with anti-abortion politicians and lobbyists seeking to reinstate in-person dispensing requirements on the drug and, by doing so, make medication abortion harder to obtain.

After conflicting legal rulings in 2023 sparked confusion over whether mifepristone would be available from virtual clinics, some of them planned to temporarily shift to offering misoprostol-only medication abortions. Some virtual clinics have offered single-pill options even before that. Carafem offered misoprostol-only medication abortions beginning in 2020, in an effort to provide patients with options for virtual care during the early days of Covid.

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Originally developed to treat gastric ulcers, misoprostol has been used for medication abortion since the late 1980s. It remains the primary method of medication abortion in many parts of the world where access to mifepristone is limited.

“Mifepristone and misoprostol are both very safe medications, and in general, having mifepristone increases the efficacy and decreases complication rates of medication abortion,” says Rachel Jensen, a fellow with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which endorses the misoprostol-only protocol when mifepristone isn’t available. The single-drug regimen is also endorsed by the World Health Organization, the Society of Family Planning, and the National Abortion Federation.

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Educators: Why Are You Thinking of Leaving the Field?

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School’s (almost) out for summer.

When it comes time to throw open campus doors for the new school year in the fall, research tells us one out of every seven teachers won’t be returning — either because they moved schools or left the profession entirely.

But when the going gets tough, teachers don’t necessarily want to leave. Even when they’re burned out, they still love what they do.

So, the concerning data throughout the country tells a story about how stark the conditions of the teacher workforce are. In Wisconsin, for instance, teachers say they are exiting the profession at the highest rate in 25 years thanks to a range of issues, from poor leadership to safety concerns like students bringing guns to school.

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Worse, shrinking student populations and rising costs have forced school districts like Portland Public Schools to make staff cuts in the face of astronomically high budget gaps. Early career teachers are thinking hard about whether they even want to continue in their chosen field.

That’s why we at EdSurge want to hear from educators who have recently left or plan to leave their jobs for another sector: What was the deciding factor? What could your school (or district or state-level leaders) have done differently to change your mind?

Your responses will help shape our coverage, and we may be in contact for an interview.

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Microsoft’s new Xbox chief nixes Gaming Copilot for mobile and console, shakes up leadership

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Asha Sharma was named Xbox CEO in February after leading Microsoft’s CoreAI group. (Microsoft Photo)

Microsoft is pulling the plug on its AI-powered Copilot assistant for Xbox, winding down the feature on mobile and canceling its planned launch on consoles.

The pullback, announced Tuesday by new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, comes barely a year after the company debuted the gaming chatbot as a centerpiece of its AI push into gaming, demonstrating the limits of Microsoft’s strategy of embedding AI across its product lineup.

Microsoft first unveiled Copilot for Gaming at the Game Developers Conference in March 2025, pitching it as an AI sidekick that could offer gameplay tips, coaching, and recaps of where players left off. A beta launched on the Xbox mobile and PC apps and later on the ROG Xbox Ally handheld. The console version was expected to arrive later this year.

Sharma’s decision to kill the feature aligns with the AI strategy she outlined in an April 30 post on X, where she said Xbox was “refocusing our AI efforts to solving player problems like enhancing real-time graphics, improving discovery, and deepening personalization.” 

She pointed to Automatic Super Resolution, which boosts image quality and performance in the background, as an example of AI done right — a contrast with the chatbot approach.

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Microsoft’s Copilot for Gaming on a mobile device alongside an Xbox controller. (Xbox Image)

It’s part of a broader set of changes by Sharma, who told employees in a memo Tuesday that she’s overhauling Xbox’s leadership team, including bringing in executives from the Microsoft CoreAI engineering group where she previously worked.

“Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers,” Sharma wrote on X, noting that the company promoted leaders who helped build Xbox while bringing in new voices to the gaming unit. 

According to CNBC, which saw the memo, the changes include the addition of four executives from CoreAI: 

  • Jared Palmer, formerly a vice president of product in CoreAI and a senior vice president at GitHub, will work on engineering, developer tools, and infrastructure.
  • Tim Allen, a vice president of design who previously led design and research at Instacart, will lead Xbox design.
  • Jonathan McKay, a former Meta director and head of growth for ChatGPT at OpenAI, will lead Xbox growth.
  • Evan Chaki, a general manager, will run a forward-deployed engineering team focused on simplifying development.

In addition, David Schloss, a senior director of product and growth at Instacart, will take charge of Xbox’s subscription and cloud business.

Two execs with more than two decades each at Microsoft are departing: Kevin Gammill, who oversaw Xbox user experience and game development platforms, and Roanne Sones, who led devices and ecosystem and will take a leave of absence before moving to an advisory role.

Sharma took over as Xbox CEO in February, replacing Phil Spencer, who retired after 38 years at the company. She had been running Microsoft’s CoreAI product organization and previously served as chief operating officer at Instacart and as a vice president at Meta.

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Since arriving, she has moved quickly, cutting Game Pass prices, dropping the “Microsoft Gaming” name in favor of Xbox, and adopting daily active players as the division’s new internal success metric.

The changes come as Xbox faces a sustained revenue slump. Gaming revenue totaled $5.3 billion in the most recent quarter, down from $5.7 billion a year earlier, and has declined in four of the past six quarters. Hardware revenue fell 33%.

Microsoft’s recent 10-Q filing also disclosed impairment charges in the gaming business, meaning the company has written down the value of some gaming assets, suggesting that parts of its gaming portfolio aren’t performing as expected.

Sharma described the decision to wind down Copilot on mobile and stop its development for consoles as part of a plan to “retire features that don’t align with where we’re headed.” Her post did not address the status of the Copilot beta on the Xbox PC app or the ROG Xbox Ally handheld.

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The feature drew skepticism from the start. Gaming writer Thomas Wilde called it “a solution looking for a problem” in a March 2025 analysis on GeekWire, questioning whether players wanted an AI chatbot alongside their games.

More recently, Wilde raised additional concerns about the feature pulling guide content from the open internet without attribution, writing that Gaming Copilot was “eating its own seed corn” by undermining the ecosystem of online guides it depended on.

The feature’s full lifecycle, from announcement to cancellation, spanned roughly 14 months.

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Lawsuit over delayed Siri features reaches $250M settlement

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Apple has settled a class-action lawsuit over its delayed Siri features.

While Apple’s promised Siri overhaul is still nowhere to be found, shareholders who sued over the delay can now rest easy, thanks to a huge settlement.

At WWDC 2024, as part of its Apple Intelligence announcements, Apple previewed major enhancements for Siri. The virtual assistant was supposed to receive an AI-powered cognitive boost, allowing for advanced in-app actions, contextual awareness, and more.

The company went so far as to feature Siri’s new capabilities in its marketing materials, including video advertisements. Things went south in a matter of months, however.

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Apple had to delay its planned Siri update, which led to a class-action lawsuit that was settled in December 2025. On Tuesday, as noted by The Financial Times, the settlement details were finally revealed.

The parties settled for $250 million, offering U.S. Settlement Class Members $25 per eligible device. Still, Apple could be forced to pay up to $95 per device if the number of claims filed is low. Part of Apple’s $250 million settlement will also go toward administrative costs and attorneys’ fees.

Eligible devices include iPhone models with Apple Intelligence support, purchased between June 10, 2024, and March 29, 2025, in the United States. This encompasses the entire iPhone 16 range, along with the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Those who wish to submit a claim will need to provide proof of purchase, the serial number of the eligible device, their phone number, and Apple Account information. Apple will begin inviting claim submissions within 45 days, as of May 5, 2026.

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Apple also provided a statement on the matter, as shared by 9to5mac.

“Since the launch of Apple Intelligence, we have introduced dozens of features across many languages that are integrated across Apple’s platforms, relevant to what users do every day, and built with privacy protections at every step. These include Visual Intelligence, Live Translation, Writing Tools, Genmoji, Clean Up, and many more.

Apple has reached a settlement to resolve claims related to the availability of two additional features. We resolved this matter to stay focused on doing what we do best, delivering the most innovative products and services to our users.”

As one would expect, Apple’s statement largely praises the currently available Apple Intelligence features, while treating the Siri-related settlement as little more than a footnote.

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The now-settled class-action lawsuit accused Apple of promoting “AI capabilities that did not exist at the time, do not exist now, and will not exist for two or more years.”

It was also said that Apple’s advertisements “saturated the internet, television, and other airwaves to cultivate a clear and reasonable consumer expectation that these transformative features would be available upon the iPhone’s release.”

At the time of writing, the long-overdue Siri features are still not available to end users. They are expected to roll out with the iOS 27 update, which is set to debut at WWDC 2026 on June 8.

However, Apple’s legal issues over its delayed Siri features are set to continue via a separate class-action lawsuit. This one is led by South Korea’s National Pension Service, which argues that Apple’s delays have cost billions in stock market losses.

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“It is no secret that Apple faced challenges and weathered ups and downs in its stock price in 2025, like many major companies,” Apple said in a February 2026 request to dismiss the suit. “But plaintiff takes a massive and unsupported leap by claiming that securities fraud caused the temporary price drops.”

Ultimately, it remains to be seen if this lawsuit will be dismissed or if Apple will reach a similar settlement as it did in its other Siri-related case.

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