If you are planning to buy a new smartphone or PC next year, there is a good chance it will cost more than you expect. A global shortage of RAM is tightening supply across the tech industry, and researchers say the situation is likely to drag on for years.
According to a new report from the International Data Corporation, the current memory crunch is expected to persist well into 2027. The firm warns that the era of cheap and plentiful memory is effectively over, at least for now.
The price surge is being driven by a major shift in how memory is allocated. Companies like Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix are prioritizing massive orders from AI firms building large scale data centers. Those customers require enormous amounts of high performance memory, leaving less supply available for consumer devices.
PC gamers were among the first to feel the impact as RAM upgrades became dramatically more expensive. Now the ripple effects are spreading to phones, laptops, and tablets.
Smartphone pricing is especially vulnerable. IDC says the cost of a phone is heavily dependent on the type and amount of memory it uses. As RAM prices climb, phone makers are being forced to either raise prices, cut specifications, or do both.
Budget focused brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Honor, and Huawei are expected to pass higher costs directly to consumers. These companies already operate on thin margins and have limited flexibility to swap out components. Xiaomi and Honor have already raised prices on some tablets, and Xiaomi has publicly warned that smartphone price increases are coming next.
Apple and Samsung are in a slightly stronger position. Because they lock in memory supply a year or more in advance, they have more control over pricing in the short term. Even so, IDC notes that flagship devices are unlikely to push past 12GB of RAM any time soon, despite rising software demands.
IDC estimates that average smartphone prices could rise between 3 and 5 percent under moderate conditions. In a worse case scenario, that increase could reach 6 to 8 percent.
The PC market faces an equally challenging setup. The memory shortage is colliding with Microsoft ending support for Windows 10 and a broader industry push toward AI powered PCs that require significantly more RAM. Dell, HP, Acer, and Asus have already confirmed upcoming price hikes.
AI focused machines such as Copilot Plus PCs may be hit hardest. These systems require a minimum of 16GB of RAM, leaving manufacturers with little room to cut costs. IDC projects PC prices could climb between 4 and 6 percent in a moderate scenario and as much as 8 percent if supply constraints worsen.
What This Means for Everyday People
For consumers, this means fewer true budget options and more compromises. Entry level phones may ship with less memory, while PCs that once felt affordable could move out of reach. Even if you do not care about AI features, you may end up paying for the infrastructure that supports them.
The RAM shortage is also a reminder that shifts in enterprise and AI investment eventually show up in everyday purchases. What happens in data centers today shapes the price of the devices people rely on tomorrow.
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If you are tracking how supply chain pressure is reshaping consumer tech, these Laterstack stories connect the dots
Google and Apple Warn Visa Holding Employees to Avoid International Travel
New York Governor Kathy Hochul Signs RAISE Act to Regulate AI Safety
Sequoia Partner’s False Brown Shooting Claims Put New Leadership to the Test
TikTok Hands Control of Its US Business to American Investors After Years of Pressure
Google and Apple have reportedly warned some employees to avoid leaving the United States if they need a visa stamp to return, citing growing delays and unpredictable processing times at U.S. embassies.
According to Business Insider, law firms representing both companies issued internal guidance advising caution. BAL Immigration Law, which works with Google, and Fragomen, which represents Apple, warned that employees without valid H-1B visa stamps could face extended delays if they travel abroad.
One memo reviewed by Business Insider stated that recent changes have created a risk of lengthy and uncertain wait times for re entry into the United States. Employees were strongly advised to postpone international travel unless absolutely necessary.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Business Insider that embassies are now prioritizing more extensive vetting of visa applications, even if that results in slower processing.
The issue appears to be affecting workers well beyond major tech firms. Salon reported that hundreds of Indian professionals who traveled home in December to renew U.S. work visas have seen embassy appointments canceled or pushed back. Those disruptions are reportedly tied to expanded requirements for social media screening and background checks.
Google and Apple have not yet publicly commented, but this is not the first time large tech employers have raised alarms. In September, both companies issued similar warnings after the White House announced that employers would be required to pay a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications.
The travel guidance underscores growing anxiety across the tech industry as immigration rules tighten and processing times become less predictable. For foreign workers, especially those in high demand engineering and AI roles, a routine trip home now carries the risk of being stranded outside the country for weeks or even months.
What This Means for Everyday People
For tech workers on visas, the warning highlights how fragile international mobility has become. A single delayed appointment can interrupt careers, separate families, and disrupt entire teams. More broadly, the situation shows how immigration policy changes ripple through the economy, affecting startups, innovation pipelines, and hiring at the largest tech companies alike.
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These Laterstack stories explore the bigger picture
New York Governor Kathy Hochul Signs RAISE Act to Regulate AI Safety
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the RAISE Act into law, making New York the second state in the country to pass sweeping artificial intelligence safety legislation.
State lawmakers originally passed the bill in June. After heavy lobbying from the tech industry, Hochul proposed revisions to scale back the legislation. According to the New York Times, Hochul ultimately agreed to sign the original version of the bill while lawmakers committed to revisiting her proposed changes next year.
The RAISE Act requires large AI developers operating in New York to publicly disclose details about their safety protocols and report serious AI related incidents to the state within 72 hours. The law also establishes a new office within the New York Department of Financial Services dedicated to monitoring AI development and enforcement.
Companies that fail to submit required safety reports or provide false information can face fines of up to $1 million. Repeat violations can result in penalties of up to $3 million.
Hochul referenced California’s recent AI safety law when announcing the signing, positioning New York and California as the leading states shaping AI oversight in the absence of federal action.
“This law builds on California’s recently adopted framework, creating a unified benchmark among the country’s leading tech states as the federal government lags behind,” Hochul said. “New Yorkers deserve common sense protections as AI becomes more powerful and more widespread.”
State Senator Andrew Gounardes, one of the bill’s sponsors, took a more confrontational tone. In a public post, he said major tech companies attempted to derail the legislation through lobbying efforts but failed. He described the RAISE Act as the strongest AI safety law passed in the United States so far.
Support for the law has not been uniform across the tech industry. Both OpenAI and Anthropic publicly backed the bill while also urging Congress to move faster on federal AI regulation. Anthropic’s head of external affairs, Sarah Heck, told the New York Times that the passage of AI transparency laws in two of the country’s largest states should push lawmakers in Washington to act.
At the same time, opposition has emerged from powerful venture interests. A super PAC backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman is reportedly preparing to challenge Assemblyman Alex Bores, who co sponsored the bill. Bores responded publicly by saying he appreciated how direct the opposition had been.
The law also arrives amid escalating tension between states and the federal government. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order directing federal agencies to challenge state level AI regulations. The order, backed by Trump’s AI policy lead David Sacks, is expected to face legal challenges and has intensified debate over whether states should be allowed to regulate AI independently.
What This Means for Everyday People
For the public, the RAISE Act signals a shift toward transparency and accountability as AI systems become more embedded in daily life. From automated decision making to financial services and healthcare tools, the law aims to ensure companies disclose risks, respond quickly to failures, and face consequences when systems cause harm. While legal battles are likely, the legislation gives consumers clearer guardrails at a moment when AI is moving faster than national regulation.
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Sequoia Capital is once again facing scrutiny after partner Shaun Maguire falsely accused a Palestinian student of carrying out the December 13 mass shooting at Brown University and the subsequent killing of an MIT professor.
In posts shared on X and later deleted, Maguire claimed it was “very likely” the student was responsible, citing what he described as Brown University scrubbing the student’s online presence. Authorities later identified the shooter as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48 year old Portuguese national who was found dead days later in a New Hampshire storage facility. Brown officials said the student’s digital footprint was removed as a protective measure amid escalating online threats.
Fast Company republished two of Maguire’s deleted posts, noting that he has previously left similar inflammatory content online. In earlier remarks, Maguire suggested without evidence that the MIT professor was targeted because he was Jewish. Those comments were not deleted.
The episode is the latest in a series of controversies tied to Maguire’s social media activity. Over the past year, he has posted repeatedly about Muslims and pro Palestine activists, including a July post labeling New York City Mayor elect Zohran Mamdani an “Islamist.” That comment sparked a backlash that led nearly 1,200 founders and tech workers to sign an open letter urging Sequoia to intervene. A separate open letter was later published in support of Maguire.
The incident lands at a sensitive moment for Sequoia. New managing partners Alfred Lin and Pat Grady assumed leadership last month, inheriting a firm already divided over how much latitude partners should have online. Former managing partner Roelof Botha defended Maguire during an October appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt, arguing that Sequoia values free speech and “spiky” personalities among its partners.
Botha acknowledged that Maguire’s behavior comes with costs but framed those trade offs as acceptable. He also pointed to Maguire’s appeal among certain founders, particularly in defense technology and artificial intelligence. Maguire has led investments connected to Elon Musk’s companies and oversees Sequoia’s stakes in Neuralink, SpaceX, The Boring Company, X, and xAI.
Not everyone inside the firm has shared that view. Sequoia chief operating officer Sumaiya Balbale left the company in August, citing frustration with leadership’s response to Maguire’s anti Muslim posts, according to reporting by the Financial Times.
The Council on American Islamic Relations has called for Maguire’s firing, describing his accusations as dangerous and irresponsible. Sequoia has not publicly commented on the incident, and its new leadership has yet to signal whether any change in policy or enforcement is coming.
What This Means for Everyday People
When powerful tech investors spread false accusations, the consequences extend far beyond social media. Misinformation can put innocent people at real physical risk, erode trust in institutions, and normalize reckless behavior from those shaping the companies that influence daily life. For the broader public, this raises hard questions about accountability in tech leadership and whether influence in Silicon Valley comes with responsibility or immunity.
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Resolve AI Hits $1 Billion Valuation as Investors Bet on Autonomous Software Maintenance
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Resolve AI, a startup building an autonomous site reliability engineer, has reached a headline valuation of $1 billion in a Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to people familiar with the deal.
The funding marks one of the most aggressive bets yet on AI systems designed to maintain and repair software infrastructure without human intervention. Resolve AI’s product automatically identifies, diagnoses, and resolves production issues in real time, a role traditionally handled by highly trained site reliability engineers.
Sources said the round used a multi tranched structure that has become common among in demand AI startups. In this setup, part of the investment was priced at a $1 billion valuation, while the remainder was purchased at a lower price, resulting in a blended valuation below the headline figure.
Resolve AI’s annual recurring revenue is approximately $4 million, according to two people familiar with the company’s finances. The total size of the funding round was not disclosed. Resolve AI and Lightspeed declined to comment.
The company was founded less than two years ago by Spiros Xanthos, a former Splunk executive, and Mayank Agarwal, Splunk’s former chief architect for observability. The two met more than two decades ago while studying at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and previously co founded Omnition, which Splunk acquired in 2019.
Their new startup tackles a growing pain point across the tech industry. As software systems spread across increasingly complex cloud environments, companies struggle to hire enough experienced reliability engineers to keep systems running. Outages are costly, reputation damaging, and difficult to predict.
Resolve AI’s pitch is simple but ambitious. Replace reactive human troubleshooting with automated systems that can detect problems early and fix them instantly. By reducing downtime and cutting operational overhead, companies can shift engineering talent away from constant firefighting and toward building new products.
The startup raised a $35 million seed round last October led by Greylock, with participation from World Labs founder Fei Fei Li and Google DeepMind scientist Jeff Dean. It now competes with Traversal, another AI powered SRE startup that raised a $48 million Series A led by Kleiner Perkins with backing from Sequoia.
Investor appetite suggests that autonomous infrastructure management is becoming a core layer of the modern software stack, not a niche tool.
What This Means for Everyday People
For everyday users, autonomous reliability tools could quietly change how digital services behave. Fewer outages, faster fixes, and more stable apps mean less frustration when banking apps crash, healthcare portals fail, or workplace software freezes mid task. At the same time, these systems reduce the need for human oversight, raising questions about accountability when automated tools control the backbone of daily digital life.
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Cursor Buys Graphite as AI Coding Arms Race Accelerates
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Cursor, the fast growing AI coding assistant company valued at $29 billion, has acquired Graphite, a startup focused on AI powered code review and debugging. The deal continues Cursor’s aggressive acquisition strategy as competition intensifies in developer tooling.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but Axios reported that Cursor paid significantly more than Graphite’s last valuation of $290 million. That figure was set earlier this year when the five year old startup raised a $52 million Series B.
The acquisition reflects a growing reality inside engineering teams. Code generated by AI often ships with errors, forcing developers to spend hours reviewing and fixing what machines produce. While Cursor already offers AI powered code review through its Bugbot product, Graphite brings specialized tooling designed for modern development workflows.
One of Graphite’s standout features is its stacked pull request system. This allows developers to work on multiple dependent changes at the same time without waiting for approvals, reducing bottlenecks and speeding up deployment cycles.
By combining AI code generation with AI driven review and debugging, Cursor is positioning itself as a full stack platform that takes engineers from first draft to production faster than traditional tools.
The deal also highlights how crowded the AI code review space has become. Competitors include CodeRabbit, which reached a $550 million valuation in September, and Greptile, a smaller player that raised a $25 million Series A this fall.
Cursor CEO and co founder Michael Truell has longstanding ties to Graphite’s founding team. He first met co founders Merrill Lutsky, Greg Foster, and Tomas Reimers through Neo Scholar, a selective program run by Ali Partovi’s venture firm Neo. Neo backed Graphite at the seed stage.
Both companies also share major investors, including Accel and Andreessen Horowitz, reinforcing how tightly connected the AI developer ecosystem has become.
This acquisition follows a series of recent moves by Cursor. In November, the company bought Growth by Design, a firm focused on technical recruiting strategy. Earlier this year, it absorbed talent from AI powered CRM startup Koala in a deal that valued Koala at $129 million, according to PitchBook.
Together, these deals suggest Cursor is not just building a product, but assembling an end to end system around how software gets built, reviewed, staffed, and shipped.
What This Means for Everyday People
For everyday users, this shift matters even if they never write a line of code. As AI tools increasingly build the software behind banking apps, healthcare portals, and workplace systems, the pressure to ship faster can clash with the need for reliability. Consolidation like this aims to reduce errors, but it also concentrates power over how digital infrastructure is created. The tools shaping the modern internet are being decided by fewer companies, faster timelines, and higher stakes.
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After years of political threats, court battles, and behind-the-scenes negotiations, TikTok has finally agreed to something the US government has been pushing for all along. The platform will give up substantial control of its American business to a group of US based investors.
According to an internal memo from ByteDance CEO Shou Chew, TikTok will operate under a newly formed entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. The arrangement gives American investors forty five percent ownership of TikTok’s US operations. ByteDance will retain just under twenty percent.
The investor group includes Oracle, private equity firm Silverlake, and MGX, an Abu Dhabi based investment company with a growing focus on artificial intelligence. Oracle is set to play a central role as the platform’s designated security partner once the deal closes.
The new joint venture will oversee data protection, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurance for TikTok’s US users. Oracle will be responsible for auditing and validating compliance with national security requirements outlined by the federal government.
The deal is expected to close on January 22, 2026.
While the structure may sound new, the logic behind it is familiar. US officials have long argued that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a national security risk, particularly due to concerns about user data and algorithmic influence. The government’s position has been consistent across administrations, even as the political framing shifted.
This agreement closely mirrors language used in a previous executive order that approved the forced restructuring of TikTok’s US operations. Until now, ByteDance had avoided confirming any specific terms, stating only that it would comply with US law to keep the app available.
What makes this moment different is not just the ownership breakdown, but the precedent it sets. A foreign owned social platform with more than one hundred million American users has effectively been reshaped under political pressure, without being fully banned and without a traditional acquisition.
TikTok remains online. The algorithm remains influential. The interface stays the same. But control has quietly changed hands.
This shift raises larger questions about how power actually works in the digital economy. Governments may not always shut platforms down. Instead, they can squeeze them into new shapes, redistribute ownership, and redefine who is trusted to guard the data and the code.
For TikTok users, nothing will appear different when they open the app. But behind the screen, decisions about moderation, recommendation systems, and data handling will increasingly flow through American corporate and political frameworks.
What This Means for Everyday People
For everyday users, this deal is a reminder that the apps shaping culture, politics, and attention are not neutral tools. They are strategic assets. Control can change without consent, without votes, and without visible disruption. The content may feel the same, but the incentives behind it rarely are.
This is how modern power moves. Quietly. Structurally. And often without asking permission.
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Celeste Amadon and Asher Allen did not set out to rebuild dating. They were originally working on a tool that used artificial intelligence to book restaurants for dates. Somewhere along the way, they noticed something more revealing than availability calendars or cuisine preferences. People wanted to talk, and when they did, they revealed far more about themselves than any profile ever could.
That observation became Known, a San Francisco based dating startup built around voice AI instead of swipes. The app replaces forms and bios with long, open-ended conversations that feel closer to an interview than onboarding. Early users spend an average of twenty six minutes talking to the system. One user stayed engaged for over an hour and a half.
For Amadon, that time spent talking is the product. She believes it allows the platform to understand users well enough to suggest dates that actually make sense, while cutting down on rejection, endless chatting, and ghosting.
Known’s early testing appears to support that theory. In its San Francisco beta, the company says eighty percent of introductions resulted in in-person dates. That performance helped the startup raise $9.7 million from investors including Forerunner, NFX, Pear VC, and Coelius Capital. It also marked Forerunner’s first investment in a dating app.
Forerunner partner Eurie Kim says the appeal lies in Known’s understanding of a demographic that dating apps often miss. She describes Amadon as deeply attuned to the unspoken needs of young women, many of which never make it into profiles but emerge naturally in conversation. In the past, extracting that kind of nuance required an expensive human matchmaker. Known is attempting to do it with software.
The app’s flow is deliberately constrained. After onboarding, users receive suggested matches and can ask AI agents questions about those profiles. If both parties express interest, they have twenty four hours to accept the introduction and another twenty four hours to commit to a date. The goal is momentum, not endless messaging.
Known still incorporates its original restaurant concept. The app suggests venues based on user preferences and integrates with calendars to help coordinate schedules. During beta, the company charged thirty dollars per successful date, though Amadon says pricing is still experimental.
Behind the scenes, Known remains a small operation. The team includes three full-time engineers, a go-to-market group, and several contractors. Both founders dropped out of Stanford to build the company. With new funding, they plan to expand cautiously.
The timing is not accidental. Amadon openly frames Known as a response to what many researchers describe as a loneliness crisis, especially among younger adults. Dating apps promised connection but often delivered something closer to gamified isolation. Known positions itself as a correction rather than an upgrade.
Competition is heating up. New dating startups are leaning on AI to mimic bespoke matchmaking services that once cost thousands of dollars. Established players like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge are also rolling out AI features. Amadon welcomes it. She sees competition as confirmation that swipe-based dating has reached its limits.
Known is currently testing in San Francisco and plans a broader launch early next year.
What This Means for Everyday People
Known reflects a broader shift in how technology is being reconsidered. For years, efficiency meant faster, shallower interactions. This startup is betting that slowing users down and asking them to speak instead of perform may lead to better outcomes. For everyday people, it suggests a future where technology does not just optimize behavior, but encourages presence, commitment, and real-world connection.
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You download a new app and hurry past the sign-in page, ignoring the pop-ups for the premium version. Almost immediately, the app asks you to agree to a privacy policy that reads like a short novel. Most people click yes without a second thought.
This scenario is increasingly common as gadgets, from smart lights to kitchen appliances, rely on companion apps. Sex toys are no exception. The global sex toy market is projected to exceed eighty billion dollars by 2030, and app pairing has become a standard feature. But what happens to the data these apps collect?
“App-connected sex toys could be collecting highly sensitive data,” says Ray Walsh, digital privacy expert at Comparitech. This includes sexual behavior, usage frequency, intensity settings, partner connections, location data, and IP addresses. If a toy allows remote play with a partner, the app could collect data from both users.
Many companies claim data is collected to improve products. If most users keep a toy on its highest setting, for example, future models may adjust to meet that preference. Some brands, like Lelo, use the data for marketing purposes. Yet data may also end up in the hands of brokers. “Brokers can sell the data to anyone who can pay, including advertisers, private investigators, and governments,” explains Chris Hauk of Pixel Privacy.
The ability to opt out of data collection varies by location. In California, for instance, businesses must disclose if personal information is sold and allow consumers to opt out. Other regions may not offer the same protections.
Protecting Your Privacy
Start by treating the app like a physical product. Research app reviews on the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and forums. Look for transparency about what data is collected and how it is used.
After downloading, review the permissions the app requests. Disable access to your camera, microphone, GPS, and contacts if you are uncomfortable granting them. Guest modes offered by some apps, including We-Vibe and Svakom, can minimize data collection.
Review privacy policies carefully. Look for clear terms such as “no third-party sharing,” “end-to-end encryption,” and “data anonymization.” Consider how long the app retains data and whether you can delete it. Satisfyer Connect, for instance, deletes logs every sixty days, whereas others retain information indefinitely unless you contact the company.
Even with permissions limited, behavioral data like app interactions, frequency of use, and navigation patterns may still be collected. Scanning privacy policies for vague phrases such as “we may share data with trusted partners” can reveal potential exposure.
Deleting the app alone does not remove your data. To ensure complete removal, delete your account and request deletion from company servers.
What This Means for Everyday People
Everyday users of connected devices, from sex toys to smart home gadgets, should understand that convenience often comes at the cost of privacy. Awareness and intentional action can limit data exposure, prevent tracking, and reduce the risk of sensitive information being monetized without your knowledge. Critical thinking about the technology we invite into our lives is essential for navigating the digital age.
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In the scrubby desert of western Nevada, nothing on the surface suggests the energy lying beneath. Utah-based startup Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals recently announced it discovered a 250-degree Fahrenheit geothermal reservoir using artificial intelligence. The company named the site Big Blind, reflecting its status as a “blind” system, which shows no surface signs of geothermal activity and has not been explored before.
Big Blind is the first blind site discovered by the industry in over 30 years. Carl Hoiland, co-founder and CEO of Zanskar, explained that the common belief that geothermal resources are depleted is inaccurate. He expects many more hidden sites across the western United States. Geothermal energy is a near-limitless and constant source of power. Unlike solar or wind, it does not depend on the weather and produces almost no carbon emissions. The challenge has been finding and scaling these underground reservoirs.
Geothermal systems require specific underground conditions, including porous rocks and reservoirs of hot water or steam that can be brought to the surface to generate power. In the 1970s and 1980s, oil and gas companies invested heavily in drilling for these systems. By the mid-1980s, many abandoned the effort due to high costs and low success rates.
Joel Edwards, co-founder and CTO of Zanskar, describes the search for these systems as a classic needle-in-a-haystack problem. There is no single indicator for a blind geothermal system. The startup’s AI models analyze decades of data from known sites and integrate information such as rock composition, heat flow, and magnetic fields to identify potential reservoirs. Drilling over the summer confirmed that Big Blind contains hot, porous rock suitable for commercial energy production.
Zanskar estimates that electricity from Big Blind could be generated within three to five years, pending permitting and grid connection. Experts see the discovery as significant. James Faulds, professor of geosciences at the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, points out that three-quarters of US geothermal resources are blind, suggesting a vast untapped potential in the western states alone.
Government studies from 2008 estimated undiscovered geothermal resources in the United States could provide around 30 gigawatts of power. Zanskar believes the real figure could be at least ten times higher. Over the past three years, the startup has identified numerous additional hotspots with similar characteristics to Big Blind.
Beyond its energy potential, geothermal is gaining political support. Unlike solar and wind, it has largely avoided regulatory scrutiny and is expected to grow rapidly. Zanskar’s approach uses conventional geothermal techniques combined with modern data analysis to uncover sites that have been hidden for decades.
This discovery is part of what some experts are calling a geothermal renaissance. While next-generation geothermal methods, including enhanced drilling techniques, are gaining attention, Zanskar demonstrates that traditional methods still have untapped potential. Success at Big Blind may serve as a model for the industry and encourage further investment.
For everyday people, these developments mean that more of the energy powering homes, businesses, and even data centers could come from a clean, constant, and domestic source. Geothermal energy could reduce reliance on fossil fuels, stabilize electricity costs, and contribute to climate goals without major lifestyle changes.
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