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PlayStation Prices Rise as US Tariffs Bite

US tariffs have left companies like PlayStation-maker Sony to choose whether to pass higher costs on to consumers or take a hit to their profit. Anthony WALLACE / AFP/File
US tariffs have left companies like PlayStation-maker Sony to choose whether to pass higher costs on to consumers or take a hit to their profit. Anthony WALLACE / AFP/File
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PlayStation Prices Rise as US Tariffs Bite

US tariffs have left companies like PlayStation-maker Sony to choose whether to pass higher costs on to consumers or take a hit to their profit. Anthony WALLACE / AFP/File
US tariffs have left companies like PlayStation-maker Sony to choose whether to pass higher costs on to consumers or take a hit to their profit. Anthony WALLACE / AFP/File

Sony on Wednesday said it is bumping up the price of PlayStation 5 video game consoles by $50 in the United States due to a "challenging economic environment."

Tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump hike the cost of goods brought into the US, leaving companies like Japan's Sony to decide whether to pass that on to consumers, AFP said.

"Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment," Sony Interactive Entertainment vice president of global marketing Isabelle Tomatis said in a post.

After initially being threatened with a 25 percent hike, Japan negotiated a 15 percent tariff with the Trump administration.

"As a result, we've made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US."

The new price for PS5 will be $550, with a "Digital Edition" priced at $500 and a Pro version for $750, according to Tomatis.

In May, Sony warned it was considering tweaking prices in the US, estimating that tariffs could wind up costing the company about $680 million in the fiscal year.

American companies are feeling the crunch, too.

New York-based cosmetics giant Estee Lauder recently estimated the impact of the new tariffs at around $100 million for the 2026 financial year and plans to adjust its prices to offset the additional cost.

US snack giant PepsiCo could increase prices of its soft drinks about 10 percent to mitigate effects of US tariffs, particularly those on imported aluminum used to make soda cans, according to trade magazine Beverage Digest.

Meanwhile, California-based energy drink maker Monster Beverages is considering raising prices due to a "complex and dynamic customs landscape," according to chief executive Hilton Schlosberg.

The Commerce Department this week said the US broadened its steel and aluminum tariffs, impacting hundreds more products that contain both metals such as child seats, tableware and heavy equipment.

Since returning to the presidency, Trump has imposed tariffs on almost all US trading partners.

Though the impact of Trump's tariffs on consumer prices has been limited so far, economists warn that their full effects are yet to be seen.

Some businesses have coped by bringing forward purchases of products they expected will encounter tariffs. Others have passed on additional costs to their consumers, or absorbed a part of the fresh tariff burden.

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Technology

Taiwan Probes 11 Chinese Firms for Illegal Poaching of Tech Talent

The Taipei 101 skyscraper is seen lit up before the Earth Hour in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/ Chiang Ying-ying)
The Taipei 101 skyscraper is seen lit up before the Earth Hour in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/ Chiang Ying-ying)
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Taiwan Probes 11 Chinese Firms for Illegal Poaching of Tech Talent

The Taipei 101 skyscraper is seen lit up before the Earth Hour in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/ Chiang Ying-ying)
The Taipei 101 skyscraper is seen lit up before the Earth Hour in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/ Chiang Ying-ying)

Taiwan said on Monday 11 Chinese firms are being investigated for alleged illegal poaching of semiconductor and other high-tech talent, stepping up efforts to curb technology outflows amid rising geopolitical tensions with Beijing.

More than 185 agents searched 49 locations and questioned 90 people this month in a coordinated investigation targeting Chinese firms suspected of recruiting Taiwanese engineers in Taiwan without approval, Taiwan's Investigation Bureau said.

It said Chinese companies under investigation disguised their ownership by setting up operations in Taiwan ⁠under the names of ⁠foreign-funded shell firms, or by establishing offices without authorization, to recruit talent and conduct business illegally in Taiwan.

Beijing claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan ⁠strongly objects to China's sovereignty claims and says only the island's people can decide their future.

Taiwanese law prohibits Chinese investment in some parts of the semiconductor supply chain, including chip design, and requires reviews for other areas such as chip packaging, making it difficult for Chinese chip companies to operate on the island legally.

The companies under investigation include electronics manufacturer Huaqin Technology, mobile power device maker Anker Innovations, semiconductor and printed circuit ⁠board equipment ⁠producer Circuit Fabology Microelectronics Equipment, power semiconductor manufacturer Yangzhou Yangjie Electronic Technology Co Ltd , and chip designer SG Micro.

The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

China's scramble for chip talent and expertise has intensified as Beijing pushes for self-reliance in advanced semiconductors, amid a deepening tech rivalry with the US. A special task force set up in late 2020 has handled more than 100 similar cases involving suspected illegal recruitment and business activities by Chinese companies, the bureau said.

Technology

China's DeepSeek AI Chatbot Suffers Longest Outage since Viral Rise in Early 2025

DeepSeek app logo (Reuters)
DeepSeek app logo (Reuters)
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China's DeepSeek AI Chatbot Suffers Longest Outage since Viral Rise in Early 2025

DeepSeek app logo (Reuters)
DeepSeek app logo (Reuters)

China's ‌popular DeepSeek artificial intelligence chatbot suffered on Monday its longest outage since the viral rise of its flagship R1 and V3 models early last year.

DeepSeek's status website showed that the chatbot suffered a "major outage" lasting 7 hours and 13 minutes, from the ‌early hours of Monday ‌morning until 10:33 ‌a.m. ⁠local time (0233 GMT), when ⁠the incident was marked as resolved.

As per company protocol, no reason was given for the outage. Such incidents can be caused by a wide range ⁠of issues, from malfunctioning servers to ‌bugs ‌stemming from an update to the AI chatbot, said Reuters.

DeepSeek ‌data shows that its ‌API service, a function mostly used by developers to integrate the chatbot into custom applications, saw consecutive day-long outages ‌in late January 2025, at the height of its viral ⁠moment.

But ⁠its webpage where ordinary users can ask the chatbot questions directly had not experienced a major outage longer than two hours until Monday, according to the startup's status website.

The global AI industry is eagerly awaiting the release of DeepSeek's next-generation model, but the company has given no indication of a timeline.

Technology

Life With AI Causing Human Brain 'Fry'

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration created on February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration created on February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Life With AI Causing Human Brain 'Fry'

FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration created on February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration created on February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Heavy users of artificial intelligence report being overwhelmed by trying to keep up with and on top of the technology designed to make their lives easier.

Too many lines of code to analyze, armies of AI assistants to wrangle, and lengthy prompts to draft are among the laments by hard-core AI adopters, said AFP.

Consultants at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have dubbed the phenomenon "AI brain fry," a state of mental exhaustion stemming "from the excessive use or supervision of artificial intelligence tools, pushed beyond our cognitive limits."

The rise of AI agents that tend to computer tasks on demand has put users in the position of managing smart, fast digital workers rather than having to grind through jobs themselves.

"It's a brand-new kind of cognitive load," said Ben Wigler, co-founder of the start-up LoveMind AI. "You have to really babysit these models."

People experiencing AI burnout are not casually dabbling with the technology -- They are creating legions of agents that need to be constantly managed, according to Tim Norton, founder of the AI integration consultancy nouvreLabs.

"That's what's causing the burnout," Norton wrote in an X post.

However, BCG and others do not see it as a case of AI causing people to get burned out on their jobs.

A BCG study of 1,488 professionals in the United States actually found a decline in burnout rates when AI took over repetitive work tasks.

Coding vigilance

For now, "brain fry" is primarily a bane for software developers given that AI agents have excelled quickly at writing computer code.

"The cruel irony is that AI-generated code requires more careful review than human-written code," software engineer Siddhant Khare wrote in a blog post.

"It is very scary to commit to hundreds of lines of AI-written code because there is a risk of security flaws or simply not understanding the entire codebase," added Adam Mackintosh, a programmer for a Canadian company.

And if AI agents are not kept on course by a human, they could misunderstand an instruction and wander down an errant processing path, resulting in a business paying for wasted computing power.

'Irritable'

Wigler noted that the promise of hitting goals fast with AI tempts tech start-up teams already prone to long workdays to lose track of time and stay on the job even deeper into the night.

"There is a unique kind of reward hacking that can go on when you have productivity at the scale that encourages even later hours," Wigler said.

Mackintosh recalled spending 15 consecutive hours fine-tuning around 25,000 lines of code in an application.

"At the end, I felt like I couldn't code anymore," he recalled.

"I could tell my dopamine was shot because I was irritable and didn't want to answer basic questions about my day."

A musician and teacher who asked to remain anonymous spoke of struggling to put his brain "on pause", instead spending evenings experimenting with AI.

Nonetheless, everyone interviewed for this story expressed overall positive views of AI despite the downsides.

BCG recommends in a recently published study that company leaders establish clear limits regarding employee use and supervision of AI.

However, "That self-care piece is not really an America workplace value," Wigler said.

"So, I am very skeptical as to whether or not its going to be healthy or even high quality in the long term."