iRobot Roomba vacuums are deeply discounted on Amazon If you've ever dreamed of delegating floor cleaning to a robot assistant, now's your moment to act. Some of iRobot's most popular Roomba models are steeply discounted — up to 58% off — on Amazon, meaning you can finally snag a high-tech vacuum that handles daily messes [...]
Large language models are very good at predicting the next word in a sequence. That’s because they’ve been trained on The post Kumo’s new foundation model replaces months of data science engineering with plain-English queries appeared first on The New Stack .
**media[93568]** NIGHT OWL The Philippines does not need to be in recession to prepare for one. In fact, the right time to prepare is when growth is still positive. The IMF still projects 5.6 percent growth in 2026, but the recent trend is not comforting: full-year GDP growth slowed to 4.4 percent in 2025 from 5.7 percent in 2024, fourth-quarter growth was only 3.0 percent, March 2026 inflation climbed to 4.1 percent, and February unemployment was 5.1 percent, higher than a year earlier. That is not a collapse. It is a warning that the economy has become more vulnerable to the next shock. One reason is obvious: energy. DOE data show imported energy supplied about 55 percent of total primary energy in 2024, while overall self-sufficiency slipped to 45 percent. In power generation, self-sufficiency fell from 42 percent to 39 percent even as total generation rose to 126,941 gigawatt-hours. For an import-dependent country, that means every external fuel shock leaks into transport, food, electricity and business costs. A global downturn does not have to begin in Manila to hurt Filipino households; it can arrive through fuel prices and electric bills. That is why the current energy policy is not working well enough for the country’s long-term prospects. On paper, the direction is correct: the DOE says it is targeting a 35 percent renewable share in the power mix by 2030 and 50 percent by 2040. In reality, coal still generated 79,359 GWh in 2024, or about 62.5 percent of Philippine power, while renewables supplied 28,193 GWh, or 22.2 percent. Renewable installed capacity did rise to 9,520 MW, and solar capacity jumped 63.9 percent in a year. But targets are not the same as delivery. The bottleneck is no longer ambition; it is execution. The World Bank says transmission development has become a major constraint, that delays in grid expansion are already stranding new renewable assets, and that weak implementation of electricity-market reforms has kept competition incomplete. The IMF echoes the same problem list: weak grid infrastructure, high capital costs, land acquisition delays and skills shortages. In other words, the Philippines is adding policy announcements faster than it is adding a power system that can absorb them. The result is a punishing cost structure. The World Bank says the Philippines had the second-highest average electricity tariff in ASEAN, after Singapore, based on July 2024 data. Residential and industrial tariffs were about US¢21 and US¢13 per kilowatt-hour, higher than Indonesia’s US¢9 and US¢6, and Vietnam’s US¢12 and US¢10. The same report warns that limited competition in generation and retail, plus red tape and lengthy permitting, have helped keep electricity expensive enough to hurt affordability and competitiveness. That is not a small policy failure. It is a long-term growth problem. The gas strategy also deserves skepticism. Natural gas can be a transition fuel, but the Philippines is increasingly replacing one imported dependency with another. A U.S. Commerce market note says gas already accounts for 22 percent of the power mix, that 46 percent of Philippine natural gas now comes from imported LNG, and that LNG demand could rise from 1.7 GW in 2023 to 11.3 GW by 2040. That is not energy security. Preparing for a possible recession therefore means more than saving money. It means speeding up the grid, lowering power costs, and treating domestic clean energy as economic defense, not just climate policy. If the next downturn comes, countries with cheaper, more reliable power will bend; countries with expensive imported energy will break first. The Philippines still has time to decide which it will be.
XRP is pushing against demand levels as the market finds some relief. The attempt is real. The market it is happening in has not been this thin since 2021 — and that changes what the push actually means. Related Reading: Ethereum Profit-Loss Indicator Is Hovering Just Below Neutral – The Market Waits for A Catalyst An Arab Chain report tracking XRP’s liquidity structure on Binance has identified a condition that reframes the current price action from both directions simultaneously. The liquidity index has fallen to approximately 0.053 — its lowest reading since 2021 — while the 30-day trading volume has contracted to approximately 3.77 billion XRP, one of the lowest levels recorded in recent years. The market is operating with a fraction of the participation that characterized XRP’s most active periods. That thinness is the context that makes the current relief attempt both fragile and potentially powerful. In a liquid market, the push above demand levels requires sustained, deep buying to hold. In a market this thin, the same move requires far less buying to succeed — because there is far less selling available to absorb. The order book that would normally resist a breakout has been depleted to a four-year low. XRP pushing above demand levels in a near-empty market is not the same as pushing above demand levels in a full one. The entry conditions are different. So is the potential outcome. The Price and the Liquidity Are Telling the Same Story. Neither Is Comfortable The Arab Chain analysis connects the liquidity reading to the price action in a way that is more precise than it initially appears. XRP trading near $1.33 with limited price movements is not a coincidence alongside the lowest liquidity reading since 2021 — it is a direct consequence of it. Thin markets produce narrow ranges. When fewer participants are present, and trading volumes are compressed, the forces required to move the price in either direction are reduced — but so is the market’s ability to sustain any move that does begin. The quiet is structural, not accidental. The report identifies this condition as reflective of a specific investor posture: caution combined with anticipation. Holders are not acting. They are watching. The market has reached a state of suspension where the absence of catalysts has produced the absence of activity — and the absence of activity has produced the absence of volatility. Each condition reinforces the others. What the report identifies as the defining characteristic of this phase is its temporary nature. Liquidity at four-year lows does not persist indefinitely. Markets in suspension eventually find a catalyst — macro clarity, a demand surge, a shift in institutional positioning — that breaks the equilibrium and ends the quiet. When that catalyst arrives in a market this thin, the response will not be gradual. The depth that would normally absorb and slow a directional move has been removed. What replaces quiet in a near-empty market is not noise. It is movement — and at current liquidity levels, the scale of that movement will be determined less by the size of the catalyst than by the absence of resistance to it. Related Reading: A Historic Ethereum Signal Just Fired – Discover What Happens Next XRP Pushes Higher Within a Weak Structure XRP is attempting a modest recovery, trading near $1.37 after weeks of compression following the February breakdown. The chart shows a clear transition from aggressive selling into a tight consolidation range between roughly $1.25 and $1.45. This range defines the current structure, with price repeatedly testing the upper boundary but failing to generate follow-through. Despite the recent push, the broader trend remains bearish. XRP continues to trade below the 50-day (blue), 100-day (green), and 200-day (red) moving averages, all trending downward. The 50-day average is now acting as immediate resistance, capping short-term upside attempts and reinforcing the presence of overhead supply. Related Reading: Ethereum Mirrors A 2023 Setup As Buyers Take Control Of Derivatives On Binance Volume dynamics provide important context. The February capitulation event, marked by a sharp spike in volume, suggests forced liquidations that likely cleared weak hands. Since then, volume has declined steadily, indicating reduced participation rather than strong accumulation. Structurally, XRP is showing signs of stabilization but not strength. The repeated inability to break above $1.45 highlights a lack of conviction from buyers. A confirmed shift in momentum would require a sustained move above $1.50, while a break below $1.25 would expose the market to another leg lower. Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com
First City Monument Bank (FCMB) is positioning culture as an economic engine, leveraging platforms such as the Ibadan Cultural Festival to support small businesses, deepen inclusion, and connect local enterprises to broader markets.
Sony's new open-back wired gaming headset is lighter in weight and on the wallet.
SAP Cloud Transport Management is a SAP BTP service that enables you to manage transports of development artifacts and application-specific content between between accounts of different environments (such as Cloud Foundry, ABAP, and Neo), by transporting them across various runtimes. This includes a...
Elyse Betters Picaro/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Android Messages finally has a Trash option. When you delete a message, it now goes to Trash. This feature is available in the latest update. Admit it. You’ve accidentally deleted an important text message and were desperate to get it back. [...]
Congressman says keeping gas supplies at home could lower costs for Americans amid price hikes sparked by war Amid historic jumps in gas prices triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, California congressman Ro Khanna is to introduce legislation on Tuesday that would ban the export of gasoline during price spikes. “The country is crying out for a new energy policy,” said Khanna in an interview with the Guardian, “that doesn’t have us subject to the whims of the profits of big oil companies.” Continue reading...
In this article AMZN GSAT Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is on the launch pad carrying Amazon’s
.png%3Fitok%3DE2-5JPaz)
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Hong Kong is adopting a digital approach to tax administration, with the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) gradually rolling out electronic filing (e‐filing) for profits tax returns. This shift is part of a wider initiative to modernise tax compliance, simplify administrative processes, and strengthen oversight, particularly for businesses with increasingly complex structures. Who is required to e‐file? The initial phase...
The Iranian economy was teetering before the war, and is on the verge of imploding. Even if the war stops...