Tech, in brief

Google will switch off its AI tools for school pupils' accounts until each school turns them on. [1]

A school that says no to AI also loses Google Search, because Google now counts Search as an AI tool. [2]

Schools that ban AI must now choose between Google's AI and no Google Search at all. [7]

Google's Chromebook laptops and school apps are among the most used in US classrooms. [3] Leaving Google Search may mean changing devices too, Engadget says. [4]

Competition lawyers call it tying when, as here, a school can have Google Search only with Google's AI. [3]

Almost every pupil needs Search, so making Search depend on AI pushes schools to turn the AI on. [3]

A cinema that sells tickets only with popcorn ends up selling popcorn to everyone who wants the film.

Engadget says schools can switch each tool on separately. [4] Ars Technica says there is no picking and choosing. [7]

Google's own post on X did not answer the claim that Search now requires AI, CNBC notes. [6]

Google says it will share the details and timing with schools in the coming months. [2]

Google has made Search and its AI one package for schools: a school that turns AI off loses Google Search too. [3]

"Off by default" sounds like Google handing schools a choice, so the second half of the choice, losing Search, is easy to miss.

Schools that want Search must switch its AI on, and Engadget reads the rule as a push for more AI users. [4]

They lose Google Search, and their schools may need another search engine or other devices. [4]

Whether a school can keep Google Search but switch off its AI answers.

Engadget says schools can turn each tool on separately, Ars Technica says it is all or none, and Google's own post did not answer. [4][7][6]

How many US schools will turn Google's AI on to keep Search.

The change rolls out in the coming months, and Google has given no figures. [2]

Canva, the Australian online design app, says 1,271 staff will lose their jobs, change roles or be asked to move. [21]

That is 22% of the company, its boss Melanie Perkins told staff. [22]

She did not say how many of the 1,271 will lose their jobs. [21]

More product teams will move to Canva's head office in Sydney, Australia. [21]

Canva's growth slowed this year for the first time in a decade, Perkins wrote. [21]

In August it cut its forecast for 2026 sales growth from 30% to 20%. [23]

It also faces new rivals in AI image tools from OpenAI and Google. [23]

Software firms such as Atlassian, with 1,600 redundancies, have also cut staff, the Guardian reports. [24]

Managers call it delayering when, as at Canva, a firm removes layers of management and merges overlapping teams. [21]

Canva is folding its product, growth and platform teams into one product team, with clearer ownership, Perkins says. [21]

A school that merges two classes needs one teacher in charge instead of two.

Perkins's memo never mentions AI, though it says new technology is changing what people expect. [21] The Guardian ties the cuts to software firms fighting cheaper AI rivals. [24]

From January, most hybrid staff will be expected in an office 2 to 3 days a week. [22]

Some lose their jobs, and others must change roles or move to Sydney. [22]

How many of Canva's 1,271 affected staff will actually lose their jobs.

Perkins gave the number affected, not the number leaving. [21][23]

Nvidia, the US maker of AI data-centre chips, has set a new rule for cloud firms, the FT reported. [25]

Chinese customers may fill at most 49% of their new business, so at least 51% must be others. [16]

Cloud firms rent out computing power that runs on Nvidia's chips. [16]

The rule covers new contracts anywhere in the world, not existing ones. [25]

Nvidia passed it on by word of mouth through its sales teams, not in writing. [16]

The US has limited sales of Nvidia's best chips to China since 2022. [16]

Many Chinese AI companies train their models on computers rented from cloud firms outside China. [16]

Trade experts call it the cloud loophole: a ban on selling chips to China does not stop renting them abroad. [16]

Nvidia's cap narrows that route through its own sales terms, not through a government rule. [25]

A library that limits how many books one card can borrow stops one card lending for a whole street.

Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied the rule when the news agency AFP asked. [16]

Whether Nvidia's 49% cap on Chinese business exists in writing.

It was passed on by sales staff by word of mouth, and Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied it. [16]

A smuggler told The Information how banned memory chips get from South Korea into China, Tom's Hardware reports. [17]

The chips are HBM, a high-end memory made by Samsung and SK Hynix; each AI chip needs 6 to 8. [17]

He fixes them to cheap, weak processors that are allowed to be exported. [17]

The rules judge only the processor's power, so the memory fixed to it passes too. [17]

In workshops in Shenzhen, technicians heat the boards and lift the memory chips off. [17]

A broker said one HBM chip now sells in China for about $4,000, against several hundred dollars a year ago. [17]

Huawei, which makes China's Ascend AI chips, has told buyers of its next AI chip to find the HBM themselves. [17]

Lawyers call it a loophole when, as here, a rule checks one part of a board and misses the rest. [17]

The rules were written about processors, so memory fixed to an allowed processor leaves the country legally. [17]

A bag check that only opens the main pocket misses whatever is in the side pocket.

The account rests on one smuggler and one broker, and neither is named. [17]

The smuggler expects South Korean and US officials to crack down soon. [17]

One broker makes $24,000 to $32,000 on the memory for each AI chip he supplies. [17]

Drax, the UK's biggest power station, plans an AI data centre on its Yorkshire site with Brookfield, an investment firm. [26]

Brookfield says the whole project could pass 20 billion pounds, chips included. [27]

The first phase would give 100 megawatts by early 2028, starting with 2.5 billion pounds. [13]

Later phases would take it past 1 gigawatt, which is 1,000 megawatts. [13]

Drax burns wood pellets and makes almost 5% of the UK's electricity. [26]

From 2027, the UK government will pay Drax only half its current subsidies. [26]

All of Britain's data centres today use about 2 gigawatts, the UK government estimates. [13]

Engineers call it a grid connection: the right to draw power from the national network, and Drax already holds one. [13]

Many builders struggle to get a connection, while the Drax site already has 4 gigawatts of grid access. [13]

A shop already open on the high street can start selling long before one still waiting for permission.

The 20 billion pound figure is more ambition than money so far, The Register says. [13]

Phase one still needs planning permission, approvals, a final decision to invest, and a tenant to rent it. [27]

The UK government does not count Drax's carbon, because Drax says growing trees absorb it. [26]

A data centre would help secure its future income as its subsidies are halved. [26]

Whether the Drax data centre is ever built.

Phase one still needs planning permission, network approvals, a final decision to invest, and a tenant. [13]

Some AI data centres are making their own power with old jet engines, the New York Times reported. [11]

The engines come from retired planes and are rebuilt to burn natural gas. [11]

Elon Musk's AI firm xAI runs 8 of them at a data centre in Mississippi. [12]

Each can make up to 50 megawatts, about enough for 15,000 homes. [12]

Connecting 100 megawatts to the grid in Northern Virginia takes about 7 years, the International Energy Agency says. [11]

With jet engines, a data centre can be running in 24 months, an analyst at Rystad Energy said. [11]

Microsoft dropped a UK data centre deal last month after the local utility said power would come in the 2030s. [11]

Engineers call it on-site generation when, like xAI, a site makes its own power instead of waiting for the grid. [11]

A family waiting months for a new kitchen cooks on a camping stove, even though it is worse.

A legal group, the Southern Environmental Law Center, has challenged Mississippi's approval of the engines. [12]

It says xAI undercounted the pollution the engines will cause. [12]

Across the rest of the day, AI data centres are buying so much memory and power that gamers, Apple and cheap-PC buyers pay more, and new data centres burn jet engines while they wait for the grid. [8][11]

Data centres stuck in the grid queue buy rebuilt engines; Crusoe ordered 13 from ProEnergy in April. [11]

The engines' permits allow 25% more of some pollutants. [12]

Nvidia is raising prices on its RTX 50 graphics cards again this week, ZDNet reports. [8]

It warned in August that the whole range would rise by up to 15%. [8]

The top card, the RTX 5090, gets nearly $500 more on a $6,000 price at Best Buy. [8]

The cheapest cards, the RTX 5050 and 5060, rise by $50 to $60. [8]

Graphics cards are the chips that draw games, and gamers and video makers buy them. [8]

ZDNet blames the global memory shortage caused by AI. [8]

Economists call it cost pass-through when, like Nvidia, a maker moves a rise in its costs onto its prices. [8]

AMD and Intel, Nvidia's rivals in graphics cards, have not raised their prices yet, ZDNet says. [8]

When flour costs more, a bakery with a queue outside can charge more for bread and still sell out.

Older RTX 40 and 30 cards are not part of this rise, though resellers may add their own, ZDNet says. [8]

Why Nvidia passes dearer memory on to gamers while Apple takes part of the hit

AI servers buy up memory chips, so memory gets far dearer

Every maker of cards, phones and PCs pays more for each device

A maker whose buyers keep buying puts the rise on its prices

A maker with a big margin pays part of the rise itself

Buyers who will not pay buy less, and software learns to need less

A dearer part does not always mean a dearer product. Nvidia put the rise on its card prices, and gamers who want its cards pay it.

Apple's gross margin: the share of each sale left after paying for the goods. The last bar is the middle of Apple's 45% to 46% forecast.

Nvidia moved the memory rise onto its card prices, up to 15%, so gamers carry it.

Apple has announced no new price rise this quarter and expects its margin to fall to 45% to 46%, paying part of the rise itself.

PC makers fit less memory as it gets dearer, so Microsoft retuned Windows to cope with 8GB.

Buyers facing dearer memory took less of it, and the share of 32GB PCs fell 5.16 points.

Absorbing a cost works only while the rise is short. Apple expects memory to keep getting dearer after this quarter, and its margin has already fallen from 50.1% to 47.9%.

A gamer paying $500 more for a card, an Apple shareholder whose company keeps less of each sale, and a family buying an 8GB laptop are all paying for the same AI servers.

The memory shortage reaches them through Nvidia's card prices. [8]

Apple's boss, John Ternus, said: "What we're seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented." [28]

Apple expects to pay even more for memory this quarter, and after it. [28]

Its promises to buy parts rose by $33 billion between June and September, as it locks in supply. [28]

Its stock of goods and parts reached $14.54 billion, up 154% in a year. [29]

Apple expects Macs and iPads to be in short supply this quarter, mainly because of memory. [28]

Apple raised prices on Macs and iPads in June and on iPhones in September, which softened the blow. [30]

Its gross margin went from 50.1% in June to 47.9% in September, and it expects 45% to 46% next. [31]

Accountants call it gross margin: the share of each sale left after paying for the goods. [31] Apple's is absorbing part of the rise. [31]

With nearly half of each sale left over, Apple has not announced another round of price rises. [30][31]

A family with savings can pay for a dearer weekly shop for a while. A family without savings must buy less at once.

An analyst at Futurum says absorbing the costs may get hard as memory keeps rising into 2027. [30]

Apple has announced no new price rise this quarter and expects its margin to fall to 45% to 46%, paying part of the rise itself.

When memory stops getting dearer.

Apple expects higher memory costs beyond December and gave no date for relief. [28]

Microsoft has updated Windows 11 to run better on PCs with only 8GB of memory. [10]

In its own lab tests, such PCs are up to 20% more responsive and 40% faster with several apps open. [32]

Windows now keeps up to 2GB more active data in memory, instead of moving it to slower storage. [10]

Tabs in Edge, Microsoft's browser, now go to sleep after 15 minutes instead of 2 hours. [10]

Makers are selling more 8GB machines because a shortage of parts has made memory dear. [32]

Microsoft's own Copilot+ PCs, which it sells for AI, need at least 16GB. [10]

Programmers call it memory management when, as here, Windows decides which data stays in fast memory. [10]

Keeping more open apps and tabs in memory means they reload less often from the slower disk. [32]

A student with a small desk keeps only today's books on it and puts the rest on a shelf.

The speed figures come from Microsoft's own tests, in favourable conditions, Tom's Hardware notes. [32]

PC makers fit less memory as it gets dearer, so Microsoft retuned Windows to cope with 8GB.

Makers are cutting the parts they put in each machine, so buyers get less memory for the money. [32]

Microsoft shipped a Windows 11 update that makes cheap PCs with only 8GB of memory feel faster, and lets other companies' apps use the same savings.

The share of gamers' PCs with 32GB of memory fell by 5.16 points in a month, Valve's Steam survey shows. [9]

Steam is Valve's online shop for PC games, and it surveys its users' computers. [9]

A month earlier, 32GB was the most common amount; now more gamers have 8GB or 16GB. [9]

Gamers' PCs with at least 1TB of storage also fell, by 4.68 points. [9]

Upgraders now pay about $450 for 32GB of fast DDR5 memory, Tom's Hardware's price tracker shows. [9]

Economists call it the law of demand when, as here, a higher price leads people to buy less. [9]

Gaming PCs on sale now often come with just 16GB as standard, Tom's Hardware found. [9]

When bus fares rise, some people walk the short trips they used to ride.

Valve posts the survey without comment, so the memory shortage as the cause is Tom's Hardware's reading. [9]

Buyers facing dearer memory took less of it, and the share of 32GB PCs fell 5.16 points.

Revolut, a British money app, cut its AI coding costs by about 90% in under a year, it says. [33]

It stopped relying mainly on paid services such as Anthropic's Claude Code. [33]

It now runs a model called GLM on its own 56 Nvidia B200 chips, for about 2,000 engineers. [33]

Running it this way costs about a tenth as much as Claude Code or OpenAI's Codex. [33]

Some engineers had been spending $1,000 to $10,000 a month on AI, Revolut said. [33]

With cheap AI, engineers also let it handle bug-fixing and work tickets, Revolut said. [33]

Economists call it the make-or-buy choice, and Revolut faced it over AI coding. [33] It weighed running models itself against paying per use. [33]

Once its own chips were paid for, each extra AI task cost Revolut very little. [33]

A family with a coffee machine stops counting cups, while a family buying from a cafe counts every one.

The savings and the faster coding are Revolut's own figures, given at a conference. [33]

Fal, a San Francisco start-up that runs AI image, video and audio models for others, raised $1.3 billion. [34]

The deal values it at $16 billion, double the $8 billion it was worth in April, Bloomberg reported. [34]

Its yearly sales passed $800 million earlier this year. [34]

Inference means running a trained AI model to make its answers, and that is what Fal sells. [34]

This summer Fal could not serve all its customers and had to limit their use, its boss said. [35]

Economists call it economies of scale when, as Fal's boss argues, the biggest firm is likeliest to win. [35]

Fal will spend the money on more computing power and on staff beyond its 185 people. [35]

A big pizza shop buying flour by the tonne pays less per pizza than a small shop buying bags.

The sales figure comes from one person familiar with it, not from Fal's accounts. [35]

Their stakes were priced at double April's value in the latest round. [34]

Apple will give every dating app, and AI companion apps with romantic or sexual content, an 18+ rating. [18]

AI companions are chatbots that play a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend, as Replika does. [18]

Developers must answer the new questions about their apps from 16 November. [36]