It kind of feels like the last six months of my job has just been telling you about all the different ways the “AI” industry is making life suck. And I’m just a guy who writes about computers! I barely even touch on its environmental impact or mental health issues. But I digress. Here’s the latest way in which the “AI” industry is making life suck for all of us: “AI” data centers are gobbling up all the hard drives. Yes, hard drives. Spinning disks that hold ones and zeroes. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a PC on a shelf that defaulted to hard drive storage—they’re really only relevant for consumers who have to store multiple terabytes of data. But “AI” models need to hold lots of data, too, which is why Western Digital is now out of hard drives for the rest of the year. “We’re pretty much sold out for calendar year 2026,” said CEO Irving Tan in the company’s latest earnings report. In context, that means sold out of production capacity for 2026, as the company earmarks its output for various customers. You can still find WD drives on digital storefronts and store shelves, at least for now. But it seems the company is following in the footsteps of memory and flash storage producers by prioritizing industrial supply over regular consumers. Here’s a long quote from Tan: “As AI capabilities expand, cloud continues to grow as well, and both are driving the search and demand for higher density storage solutions. In this new era where AI and cloud dominate, Western Digital has taken a customer-focused approach to managing this strong demand by working closely with our hyperscale customers, ensuring that we deliver reliable, high-capacity drives at scale to give them the best performance and total cost of ownership.” If you can’t parse the corporate speak, that means “we’re selling a lot of really big hard drives to data centers.” According to the data elsewhere in the report, just under 90 percent of Western Digital’s business is now supplying drives to cloud storage, with only 5 percent of revenue coming from consumers. It seems all too easy—almost inevitable—that WD could just exit the consumer market entirely. Memory producer Micron did just that, axing its Crucial brand of consumer RAM and storage, though the company insists it’s still selling RAM to PC manufacturers. Tom’s Hardware reports that hard drive prices are already jumping, up by almost 50 percent in the last five months. That’s not the nightmare spiral that RAM has seen, but it’s not a good thing, either. As I said, hard drives aren’t really a concern if you’re only buying a standard laptop or desktop. But for consumers who have a deep appetite for data, like those who roll their own network-attached storage (NAS) for home servers or streaming setups, or those who just prefer to keep their massive Steam libraries downloaded locally, hard drives are still very relevant. And they’re going to get a lot faster soon, if still nowhere near as speedy or efficient as flash storage. I wonder if we’ll ever be able to buy those fancy future devices on Amazon. Read...

The business committee will discuss whether to `take this investigation forward` when they meet next Tuesday, Byrne says. Read...

One business owner says she was approached by paramilitaries before her new shop even opened. Read...

One Identity appoints Michael Henricks as combined finance and operations chief to steer scaling identity security business growth. Read...

Sometimes you want to write an email now and have it delivered at a specific date (like outside business hours, for example). Both the classic and new versions of Outlook allow you to send a message at a later date and time. Here’s how to do it: In the classic version of Outlook, select the “New Email” on the “Home” ribbon, enter the recipient and subject, and write your message as usual. Next, switch to the “Options” ribbon and click “Delay delivery” in the “More options” section. In the following window, make sure the “Delay delivery until” option is checked in “Delivery options.” Set a date and time, and click “Close” to apply the settings. In the new version of Outlook, click “New Email,” then select “Open in new window” in the top right-hand corner of the mail window. The icon is a small square with an arrow pointing to the top right. Write your message, then switch to the “Options” ribbon. Next, click on the icon with the arrow pointing to the right in the toolbar; it is the third from the left. Alternatively, click the down arrow next to the “Send” button and select “Schedule Send.” The “Schedule Send” window already contains two entries: “Tomorrow” and a day in the following week, both set for 8 a.m. To select your own time, click “Custom Time” and choose a date and time. Select the desired date and click “Send” to confirm. Read...

It appears they won’t be getting their money back either, with news the business’s parent company has gone into liquidation. Meanwhile, its online store appears to be operational. Read...

The former prince`s alleged actions were `totally unacceptable`, the ex-business secretary says. Read...

TL;DR: ConvergeHub replaces scattered sales tools with a full CRM — pipeline tracking, automation, and reporting — for a one-time $49.99 purchase instead of a subscription. Most small businesses don’t fail because they lack leads — they fail because they lose track of leads. Conversations sit in inboxes, reminders live in someone’s head, and spreadsheets slowly turn into digital junk drawers. A proper CRM fixes that, but subscriptions add up quickly. ConvergeHub takes a different approach with a full Pro Plan lifetime license for $49.99, rather than another monthly bill. At its core, ConvergeHub organizes your entire sales process into one place. Visual deal pipelines show exactly where every opportunity stands. Contact history, files, and notes stay attached to each lead, so your team always knows what happened last and what needs to happen next. Automation handles the routine work. Follow-up reminders trigger automatically, workflows move deals forward, and real-time reports reveal what’s working. Everything lives inside a single dashboard. The platform is flexible enough for solo founders but structured enough for growing teams. Custom fields, workflows, and layouts adapt to how your business sells rather than forcing you into a rigid process. Don’t miss getting a lifetime subscription to the ConvergeHub Pro Plan while it’s just $49.99 (MSRP $499) for a limited time. ConvergeHub Sales CRM: Lifetime SubscriptionSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

Leadership and communication top 2026 workplace learning as employees prioritise human and business skills alongside rising AI adoption. Read...

TL;DR: The 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan combines GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, image tools, video tools, and more into one lifetime platform for $74.97 — replacing multiple AI subscriptions. AI tools are everywhere. GPT for writing. Another platform for images. Something else for video. A different tool for PDFs. Before long, you’re juggling tabs — and subscriptions. And that’s the problem 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan was built to solve. Instead of hopping between platforms, 1min.AI brings the biggest names in AI together in one dashboard. You can chat with models like GPT-4o, Claude 3, Gemini Pro, Llama, and more — all inside a single interface. You can generate blog posts, research keywords, rewrite content, summarize PDFs, translate documents, create images, upscale graphics, remove backgrounds, generate videos, clone voices, transcribe audio, and even turn text into speech or music. For business owners, marketers, creators, and teams, that means fewer tools to manage and more actual output. The Advanced Business Plan includes generous monthly credits, unlimited storage, unlimited brand voices, collaboration for up to 20 members. If you’ve been piecing together your AI stack one subscription at a time, this might be the moment to simplify everything — permanently. Get lifetime access to 1min.AI’s Advanced Business Plan for just $74.97 (MSRP $540) through Feb. 22. 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan Lifetime SubscriptionSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...