Tech industry is in tariff hell, even if refunds are automated

Tech industry is in tariff hell, even if refunds are automated

fivenewscrypto    mars 07, 2026   

It has been two weeks since the Supreme Court blocked Donald Trump's emergency tariffs, but an estimated 300,000 US businesses still have no idea if or when they will receive refunds.

Economists have estimated that more than $175 billion was unlawfully collected, and the US could end up owing substantially more than that the longer the refund process is dragged out, since the US must pay back daily interest on the funds. According to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, a conservative estimate showed that "$700 million in interest is added to the final bill every month that the government delays tariff refunds, or around $23 million per day."

The US is aware that interest is compounding daily on tariffs, as the Trump administration argued against an injunction that would have temporarily blocked the tariffs much sooner by noting that no one would be harmed, since tariffs would be repaid with interest if deemed unlawful. However, now that the court has ruled against tariffs, the Trump administration seems to be dragging its feet in finding a way to return all the ill-gotten funds.

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AI startup sues ex-CEO, saying he took 41GB of email and lied on résumé

AI startup sues ex-CEO, saying he took 41GB of email and lied on résumé

fivenewscrypto    mars 07, 2026   

Hayden AI, a San Francisco startup that makes spatial analytics tools for cities worldwide, has sued its co-founder and former CEO, alleging that he stole a large quantity of proprietary information in the days leading up to his ouster from the company in September 2024.

In a lawsuit filed late last month in San Francisco Superior Court but only made public this week, Hayden AI claims that former CEO Chris Carson undertook what it called “numerous fraudulent actions,” which include “forged board signatures, unauthorized stock sales, and improper allocation of personal expenses.” (Ars covered Hayden AI’s recent product expansion in Santa Monica, Calif.)

Carson, who has since founded a rival company called EchoTwin AI, did not respond to Ars’ request on Wednesday for comment sent via LinkedIn, email, and text message.

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Which of these two arcades is the "world largest"—and does it matter?

Which of these two arcades is the "world largest"—and does it matter?

fivenewscrypto    mars 07, 2026   

In New Hampshire, just off the western shore of the vacation destination Lake Winnipesaukee, there's a town called Laconia. With a population somewhere south of 17,000, it's barely a blip on a map—except on Bike Week, when around 300,000 motorcyclists swarm the place. On the other, quieter weeks of the year, Laconia is best known as the unlikely home of Funspot, the world's largest arcade.

Meanwhile, in Brookfield, Illinois, about 45 minutes west of Chicago and the shores of Lake Michigan, you'll find Galloping Ghost Arcade, a sprawling suburban palace with a nondescript exterior hiding a mind-blowing collection. With over 1,000 arcade cabinets (plus a further 46 pinball machines), Galloping Ghost is the world's largest arcade.

Yes, there are two arcades in the US labeled as the world's largest, and while that may seem a bit paradoxical, a visit to both proves that while only one can be the biggest, both are the greatest.

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Netflix cedes Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount: “No longer financially attractive”

Netflix cedes Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount: “No longer financially attractive”

fivenewscrypto    mars 01, 2026   

Netflix backed out of its deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD’s) streaming and movie studios businesses on Thursday night. After increasing its bid for all of WBD by $1 per share on Tuesday, Paramount Skydance is poised to become the new owner of WBD, including Game of Thrones, DC Comics, and other IP, as well as the HBO Max streaming service and cable channels CNN and TBS.

Netflix and WBD announced merger intentions on December 5. Netflix was going to pay an equity value of $72 billion, or an approximate total enterprise value of $82.7 billion, for part of WBD. At the time, NBC News reported that WBD’s total market value was $60 billion.

But Paramount has reportedly been eyeing WBD for years and followed December's merger announcement with an aggressive hostile takeover bid. On Tuesday, in addition to raising its offer to buy all of WBD, Paramount also agreed to pay a $7 billion regulatory termination fee should a Paramount-WBD merger fail to close due to antitrust regulation, as well as a $0.25 per share ticking fee for every quarter that the deal doesn’t close, starting on September 30.

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NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return

NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return

fivenewscrypto    mars 01, 2026   

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced sweeping changes to the Artemis program on Friday morning, including an increased cadence of missions and cancellation of an expensive rocket stage.

The upheaval comes as NASA has struggled to fuel the massive Space Launch System rocket for the upcoming Artemis II lunar mission, and Isaacman has sought to revitalize an agency that has moved at a glacial pace on its deep space programs. There is ever-increasing concern that, absent a shake-up, China's rising space program will land humans on the Moon before NASA can return there this decade with Artemis.

"NASA must standardize its approach, increase flight rate safely, and execute on the president’s national space policy," Isaacman said. "With credible competition from our greatest geopolitical adversary increasing by the day, we need to move faster, eliminate delays, and achieve our objectives."

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How to downgrade from macOS 26 Tahoe on a new Mac

How to downgrade from macOS 26 Tahoe on a new Mac

fivenewscrypto    mars 01, 2026   

An Ars Technica colleague recently bought a new M4 MacBook Air. I have essentially nothing bad to say about this hardware, except to point out that even in our current memory shortage apocalypse, Apple is still charging higher-than-market-rates for RAM and SSD upgrades. Still, most people buying this laptop will have a perfectly nice time with it.

But for this colleague, it was also their first interaction with macOS 26 Tahoe and the Liquid Glass redesign, the Mac's first major software design update since the Apple Silicon era began with macOS 11 Big Sur in 2020.

Negative consumer reaction to Liquid Glass has been overstated by some members of the Apple enthusiast media ecosystem, and Apple's data shows that iOS 26 adoption rates are roughly in line with those of the last few years. But the Mac's foray into Liquid Glass has drawn particular ire from longtime users (developers Jeff Johnson and Norbert Heger have been tracking persistently weird Finder and window resizing behavior, to pick two concrete examples, and Daring Fireball's John Gruber has encouraged users not to upgrade).

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Block lays off 40% of workforce as it goes all-in on AI tools

Block lays off 40% of workforce as it goes all-in on AI tools

fivenewscrypto    mars 01, 2026   

Block, the fintech group headed by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, will cut its workforce by “nearly half” in one of the clearest signs of the sweeping changes AI tools are having on employment.

Shares in the payment company soared more than 25 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday as it announced it would shed more than 4,000 jobs from its 10,000-strong workforce.

“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company. We’re already seeing it internally,” Dorsey wrote in a letter to shareholders.

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