Tech News — 2026-05-02#

Story of the Day#

Spirit Airlines has abruptly ceased operations and canceled all flights after 34 years in business, citing a massive spike in jet fuel prices triggered by Trump’s war on Iran. The sudden collapse of the ultra-low-cost carrier strands countless travelers mid-itinerary and leaves a massive void in the budget travel market.

Top Stories#

GameStop Is Preparing Offer For eBay · Slashdot In an audaciously ambitious play, meme-stock darling GameStop is readying a buyout offer for the e-commerce giant eBay. With eBay valued at roughly $46 billion—nearly four times GameStop’s $12 billion market cap—CEO Ryan Cohen is reportedly prepared to bypass the board and take the offer directly to shareholders if rebuffed.

Amazon Stuck With Months of Repairs After Drone Strikes On Data Centers · Slashdot Iranian drone strikes have damaged three Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers across the UAE and Bahrain, forcing the company to suspend regional billing while it undertakes months of repairs. The attacks highlight the severe physical vulnerabilities of cloud infrastructure as geopolitical conflicts spill over into the data sector, prompting AWS to urge customers to migrate resources to other regions.

Meta’s historic loss in court could cost a lot more than $375 million · The Verge After losing a landmark $375 million child safety lawsuit in New Mexico, Meta is heading into a three-week public nuisance trial that could force sweeping architectural changes to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The state attorney general is seeking aggressive injunctions, including age verification mandates, daily usage caps, and prohibiting end-to-end encryption for users under 18.

Uber wants to turn its millions of drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies · TechCrunch Uber’s CTO revealed plans to transform the company’s massive fleet of human drivers into a roaming sensor grid to capture training data for autonomous vehicle companies. The initiative, operating under Uber’s new AV Labs program, represents a strategic pivot to monetize its sprawling physical footprint by feeding the data-hungry self-driving industry.

Chinese Court Rules Firms Can’t Lay Off Workers on AI Grounds · Bloomberg As global labor markets grapple with automation anxiety, a Chinese court has ruled that companies cannot terminate employees simply to replace them with artificial intelligence systems. The judicial decision signals a government effort to balance its aggressive pursuit of AI supremacy with the immediate need to stabilize domestic employment.

DuckLake 1.0: Data Lake Format with SQL Catalog Metadata · InfoQ DuckDB Labs has officially launched DuckLake 1.0, a new data lake format that shifts table metadata from sprawling object storage files directly into a SQL database. The production-ready release aims to solve the “small file problem” by keeping metadata operations fast and coordinated, positioning itself as a streamlined challenger to Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake.

AI-generated actors and scripts are now ineligible for Oscars · TechCrunch In a decisive move for the entertainment industry, AI-generated actors and scripts have officially been ruled ineligible for Academy Awards consideration. The ban draws a hard line against the encroachment of synthetic generation in prestigious filmmaking.

Also Worth Knowing#

• The $19B “Nuclear AI” Energy Startup That Couldn’t Sign a Single Client: Fermi, a buzzy nuclear-powered data center startup that went public at a $19 billion valuation, just fired its CEO after entirely failing to secure any customers for its unbuilt Texas facility.
• Farewell, Jeeves: Ask.com shuts down: The IAC-owned legacy search engine is officially discontinuing its search business.
• Disneyland Now Uses Face Recognition on Visitors: The Happiest Place on Earth is expanding its surveillance footprint by implementing facial recognition technology for park attendees.
• Retina Scan for Diabetes Could Also Reduce Deaths During Pregnancy: Portable AI retinal scanners designed for diabetes are now being successfully adapted to flag deadly pre-eclampsia risks in pregnant women across rural South Asia and Africa.
• OpenAI introduces AI-generated pets for its Codex app: OpenAI has launched a modern, useful spiritual successor to Microsoft’s Clippy in the form of AI-generated coding pets.