Engadget

06.11.2022 19:50 For the second time this year, the uncontrolled remnants of a Chinese Long March 5B came crashing to Earth. On Friday morning, US Space Command confirmed pieces of the rocket that carried the third and final piece of China's Tiangong space station to orbit had re-entered the planet’s atmosphere over the south-central Pacific Ocean, reports The New York Times. The debris eventually plunged into the body of water, leaving no one harmed.The episode marked the fourth uncontrolled re-entry for China’s most powerful heavy-lift rocket following its debut in 2020. Unlike many of its modern counterparts, including the SpaceX Falcon 9, the Long March 5B can’t reignite its engine to complete a predictable descent back to Earth. The rocket has yet to harm anyone . Still, each time China has sent a Long March 5B into space, astronomers and onlookers have anxiously followed its path back to the surface, worrying it might land somewhere people live. On Friday, Spain briefly closed parts of its airspace over risks posed by the debris from Monday’s mission, leading to hundreds of flight delays.As he did earlier this year following China’s Wentian mission, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson criticized the country for not taking the appropriate precautions to prevent an out-of-control re-entry. “It is critical that all spacefaring nations are responsible and transparent in their space activities, and follow established best practices, especially, for the uncontrolled re-entry of a large rocket body debris — debris that could very well result in major damage or loss of life,” he said.Space debris landing on Earth isn’t a problem unique to China. In August, for instance, a farmer in rural Australia found a piece of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that landed on his farm. However, many experts stress that those incidents differ from the one that occured on Friday. “The thing I want to point out about this is that we, the world, don’t deliberately launch things this big intending them to fall wherever,” Ted Muelhaupt, an Aerospace Corporation consultant, told The Times. “We haven’t done that for 50 years.” China will launch another Long March 5B rocket next year when it attempts to put its Xuntian space telescope into orbit.

06.11.2022 19:50 Apple is working to simplify how users interact with Siri, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The company has reportedly spent the past few months training the digital assistant to respond to “Siri” instead of “Hey Siri.” On the surface, that’s a simple change, but one that Gurman says involves a “significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work.” The reason for that is that a two-word trigger phrase like “Hey Siri” increases the likelihood of the software responding to a request.The change would make it easier to string together multiple commands one after another. Critically, it would help Apple catch up with Amazon and Google, which offer digital assistants with more robust capabilities. Alexa, for instance, is already capable of responding to just its name instead of “Hey Alexa.” Google Assistant, meanwhile, still requires you to say “Hey Google” or “Ok Google,” but can register back-to-back commands without the need for you to repeat a wake word every time.According to Gurman, Apple is also working to integrate Siri more deeply with third-party apps and services. All those changes could take some time to roll out, with Gurman noting the tweak to Siri’s wake phrase likely to come either next year or in 2024.

06.11.2022 19:50 The impact of Japanese RPGs on pop and gaming culture cannot be overstated. From Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star to Chrono Trigger, NieR, and Fire Emblem — JRPGs have spanned console generations, bridged the Japanese and North American markets, spawned entire universes of IP and delivered critical commercial hits for nearly four decades. Modern gaming simply wouldn't exist as it does today if not for the influence of JRPGs. In his newest book, Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs, Aidan Moher takes a wondrous in-depth look at the history of Japanese role playing games, their initial rise in the East, the long road to acceptance in the West and ultimate cultural impact the world over. In the excerpt below, Moher explores how Pokemon grew from Gameboy screens to become a multi-billion dollar entertainment juggernaut.Running PressExcerpted from Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs by Aidan Moher. Published by Running Press. Copyright © 2022 by Aidan Moher. All rights reserved.Pokémon, GoThough it takes many cues from Japanese games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact was developed and published by Chinese developer/ publisher miHoYo. Thanks to gorgeous visuals, free-to-play accessibility, multi-platform release, and easy-to-pick-up-impossible-to-put-down gacha-based gameplay, it took the gaming world by storm after its 2020 release.Game Boy not only provided greater access to video games thanks to its low price, but it subsequently changed the way we play games. About the size of a mass-market paperback novel, and just barely pocketable, the Game Boy leaned heavily on Nintendo franchises, including Mario and Donkey Kong, and—equally important for a device marketed for children—a ton of tie-in games for popular television shows and movies like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Jurassic Park, and Star Trek.The appeal for kids? Gaming where mom and dad couldn’t see the action — a private world of adventure. The appeal for adults? Appealing puzzle games, fewer back spasms from sitting cross-legged on the floor two feet from the TV, and a smaller, quieter way to keep the kids distracted before dinner.“Game Boy had the advantage of being the first on the market before other major competitors,” explained Smithsonian Magazine. Though Sega and Atari soon followed with their own consoles, complete with color screens, they faced an uphill battle against Nintendo’s aggressive strategy of leaning into tech that was older, but also more efficient, affordable, and reliable. Like many ’90s kids, my first game console was the Game Boy. I was a computer game fiend, and we’d rent a NES with a couple of games now and then, but those were ephemeral promises of living room gaming that wouldn’t become reality for a few more years.After its debut, the Game Boy was rife with puzzle games and character platformers, but by 1993, it had blossomed into a full-fledged adventuring machine thanks to familiar franchises like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and even Wizardry. The game that really sold the system’s capabilities, however, was a new entry in Nintendo’s ambitious The Legend of Zelda series. And, like many others, I was already a big Zelda fan by the time Link’s Awakening released in August 1993 thanks to its Super NES predecessor The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.What living room game consoles offered in scope, visual pop, and impressive technology, portables matched with their flexibility, bite-sized content, and on-the-go possibilities. Every morning, my friend and I would meet under a blanket of dew at our elementary school. Sitting side by side for warmth, Game Boys clutched in chilled fingers, we’d explore Koholint Island on individual journeys to waken the Wind Fish. The intimacy of this youthful bonding cemented Link’s Awakening as a core gaming experience in my life, all made possible by the Game Boy.Though A Link to the Past and the entire Legend of Zelda series no doubt influenced a lot of JRPGs, especially puzzle-based games like Wild Arms or Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, its categorization as a JRPG is debatable. Personally, I don’t quite consider it a JRPG due to its lack of customizability, but there’s definitely enough overlap in mechanics, pacing, story construction, and so on to create an overlapping Venn diagram of fans.Imagine the giddy power rush of being a kid with a whole universe in your pocket, out of sight of parents and siblings, with no lobbying for TV screen time required. At first blush, the handheld’s small screen might be considered a flaw, but the paradoxical reality was that the smallness leant to the understanding that it was a personal-sized portal to another world. Only room for one. Plus, you could pop in the cheap Nintendo-provided headphones and the world outside disappeared entirely.Link’s Awakening was a revelation, a journey into the unknown that belonged only to me.Wake up.A dream.Wake up.It was euphoric.Wake up.And then . . . there was Pokémon.In a video review of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest , YouTube channel Austin Eruption examined Square’s failed attempts at catalyzing the Western JRPG market during the early ’90s. “The concept of the entry RPG would be more successful . . . not with Square, but with Nintendo’s wildly popular Pokémon,” they said. “It turns out kids are super down to play RPGs, they just gotta have cute and cool monsters to collect.”In 1996, Japanese schoolyards were buzzing thanks to the new Game Boy game published by Nintendo called Pocket Monsters. Kids traded tips, creatures, and blows across Game Boys connected by a link cable. These newly trained Pokémon trainers, as they’re called in the game, couldn’t get enough of the 151 unique, cute, and catchable creatures.Before it was about catching monsters, however, Pocket Monsters was conceptualized by its insect-obsessed creator, Satoshi Tajiri, as a bug-catching simulator. Known to his classmates as “Mr. Bug,” Tajiri spent his childhood dreaming of becoming an entomologist and studying bugs for a living . . . that is until he discovered arcade games like Space Invaders. Though his professional ambitions shifted focus to bits, bytes, and programming scripts, his love for bug collecting remained, and at just twenty-four years old he came up with the idea for what would eventually become Pocket Monsters.Before his buggy dreams became a reality, Tajiri founded Game Freak in 1989 with Masuda and artist Ken Sugimori, and released his first game, Mendel Palace, the same year. A grid-based puzzler, this game was completely unlike Pocket Monsters, but its success encouraged Tajiri and helped solidify Game Freak. The following year, Tajiri saw two Game Boys tethered by a link cable, and his concept for a bug-catching simulator sprang to life. He saw opportunity not only for players to be able to share and collect bugs, but to competitively face off against one another on their linked Game Boys.It took over two years after its Japanese release for Pocket Monsters to reach western shores, finally releasing in September 1998 as Pokémon. With its release on the ten-year-old handheld and with the more powerful Game Boy Advance on the horizon, Nintendo released Pokémon on a whim, expecting the series to arrive as a chunky, but relatively unnoticed, oddity before the Game Boy Advance took over. Then, to everyone’s surprise, the weird little Japanese phenomenon appealed to kids in the West just as much as it had to children in its home country. Playgrounds across the United States and Canada were suddenly crawling with kids obsessing over Pikachus, Charmanders, and Mewtwos.“Although it was made in Japan,” wrote culture writer Matt Alt for the BBC, “for a moment at the turn of the 21st Century, no corner of the world was immune from what came to be called ‘Pokémania.’” Scrambling in the wake of this unexpected success, Nintendo quickly localized the anime spinoff for an American audience to further capitalize on the video game’s hype. A short year later, the follow-up movie adaptation was so popular that phone boards were overwhelmed as tens of thousands of parents and fans sought tickets.Pokémon’s defining feature was its dual-cartridge release: PokémonRed Version and PokémonBlue Version. The catch was that while each version had most of the same Pokémon available to catch, there were a few dozen available only in one version or the other. To “catch ’em all,” as the game’s tagline implored young Pokémon trainers, you had to find another player who owned the other cartridge. I chose PokémonBlue, and with a set of fully charged AA batteries powering my Game Boy, I started a new game and settled on Bulbasaur as my starting companion. What followed was an experience that made Link’s Awakening feel like The Hobbit—and now I was playing Lord of the Rings. I soon caught more Pokémon for my party: a cute bird called Pidgey, a caterpillar that ensnared foes in silk webbing, and a bucktooth rodent known as Rattata. By the end of my first play session, these little critters became so much more than characters in a game; they tapped into that Tamagotchiesque sense of ownership and quickly became as beloved as my childhood pets.This wasn’t a party of adventurers; it was a family.Pokémon put players in the role of a newly minted trainer named Red. Alongside rival Blue, Red arrives at Professor Oak’s Pokémon lab to choose one of the three starter Pokémon: the aforementioned Bulbasaur and Charmander, and the terrapin-like Squirtle. New Pokémon in tow, you leave your hometown on an adventure through Kanto region—a fictional game universe based loosely on Japan’s own Kanto region. With the goal of becoming the region’s greatest Pokémon trainer, you visit Kanto’s eight gyms, wherein you challenge their leaders, powerful Pokémon trainers who focus on particular types of Pokémon, like water-type or electric-type, to earn badges. Conquering the gym leaders then gives you the right to challenge the Elite Four. Defeat them, and the title of Pokémon Champion awaits.Pokémon combined the sprawling adventure of the JRPG with a narrative focused on personal conflict and growth—not the end of the world. If anything, Kanto felt idyllic, a Star Trek–esque utopia where humans had moved beyond such pettiness as war or raising vengeful gods to destroy their enemies. With nothing else to do, Kanto’s inhabitants could spend their days training the critters crawling through tall grass, prowling in dark caves, and lurking beneath the waves.Link’s Awakening felt like a limitless adventure at the time, but in reality, there was one critical path to victory, and each player solved the game by following the same steps in roughly the same order. Pokémon was different. Placing the player in a vast world populated by 151 collectable Pokémon, it created an experience that was as unique and individualized as each of its players. Love cute Pokémon and want to fill your team with Pikachus and Eevees? It’s possible. Want to overpower your starter Pokémon, grind your way through the game, and defeat the Elite Four through brute force? Go for it. Obsessed with Psyduck? Um, sure. I guess.Pokémon offered so much variety and customization for how the player approached building and training their team that each kid could play it in their own way, opening the door to a new style of accessibility lacking in similar games. Kids cared for their Pokémon, and being able to show off a rare or powerful catch on the playground was a badge of honor. And because of its portable nature, Pokémon was able to experience the same social dynamics that drove other popular schoolyard phenomena. It was like Tamagotchi—without the midnight wake-up calls. While other JRPGs gave the player some customization options for their party characters, it was nowhere near the endless possibility of Pokémon’s gotta-catch-’em-all depth.

06.11.2022 00:31 Twitter will soon include a feature allowing users to append long-form text to their tweets, company owner and CEO Elon Musk announced on Saturday. Musk didn't say when the functionality would arrive, but promised it would end the "absurdity of notepad screenshots." He added that the company also plans to work on additional tools for creator monetization and enhancements to the platform's search functionality. "Search within Twitter reminds me of Infoseek in '98! That will also get a lot better pronto," he wrote. Twitter will soon add ability to attach long-form text to tweets, ending absurdity of notepad screenshots— Elon Musk November 5, 2022The announcement comes on the same day that the company began putting in place some of the infrastructure needed to support its revamped Twitter Blue subscription. The service will allow users to pay $8 per month to verify their account and gain access to a handful of other features, including the ability to post longer videos and see fewer ads. Musk previously promised Twitter would work on supporting content creators but has yet to share details on how the company plans to do that. Since his takeover of the company, a number of high-profile users have left Twitter, including Nibellion, the owner of one of the most popular gaming news accounts on the platform.

06.11.2022 00:31 Jack Dorsey says he can “understand” if current and former Twitter employees blame him for the state of the company under Elon Musk. The co-founder and former CEO of Twitter took to the platform on Saturday to say he was to blame for the situation. “Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment,” Dorsey said on Saturday. “I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.”Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment. I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.— jack November 5, 2022Dorsey went on to add he was grateful to everyone who had ever worked at Twitter. “I don’t expect that to be mutual in this moment… or ever… and I understand,” he wrote. Dorsey posted the apology after The New York Post published a story earlier in the day claiming he is now “hated at Twitter.” Many employees reportedly “blame” him for Musk’s takeover and the company-wide layoffs that will see about 50 percent of Twitter’s workforce cut.The thread marks Dorsey’s first public comment on Twitter since Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy the company on October 27th. When the SpaceX founder first announced the takeover, Dorsey put his support behind it. “Elon is the singular solution I trust,” he said at the time. “This is the right path… I believe it with all my heart.” Dorsey was quiet after Musk attempted to renege on the acquisition, but in texts that became public in September, it became clear that he had wanted Musk to take a more active role at Twitter for some time.

06.11.2022 00:31 Twitter has begun rolling out support for the new, more expensive version of its Blue subscription. As of Saturday, the company’s iOS app now reflects the fact users can pay $8 per month to obtain a verified account. The changelog notes people who sign up for Twitter Blue will receive a checkmark, “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.”Twitter shipped its new Blue subscription for verification ahead of Musk’s Monday deadline given to employees. I updated and verified accounts are now the first tab of notifications. pic.twitter.com/xfTl3b3GYk— Alex Heath November 5, 2022However, it looks like Twitter is still rolling out the necessary backend changes to support the change more broadly. There are reports of users not seeing a blue checkmark on their account even after signing up for the new subscription. Additionally, Twitter has yet to update its Android app, and the other perks Elon Musk promised would be part of the revamped Twitter Blue, such as the ability to post longer videos, are listed as “coming soon.” What the updated iOS app does include is a tweaked notification tab that features a column dedicated to displaying tweets solely from verified users.It’s unclear when all the elements Musk promised will be in place, but he reportedly gave employees working on making verification a paid feature until November 7th to complete the work or else lose their jobs. On Friday, the company began laying off about 50 percent of its workforce, leaving entire teams gutted.

06.11.2022 00:31 As recently as October 24th, Ukraine’s military suffered a partial internet outage after 1,300 Starlink terminals went offline due to a funding shortage, reports CNN. The blackout occurred amid ongoing talks between SpaceX and the Department of Defense that continue despite Elon Musk having said his company would continue to foot the bill for the country’s Starlink usage.“Negotiations are very much underway. Everyone in our building knows we’re going to pay them,” a senior Pentagon official told the network, adding that the Defense Department wants to get something in writing “because we worry he’ll change his mind.”In September, SpaceX sent a letter to the Pentagon, asking the Defense Department to take over paying expenses related to Ukraine’s usage of its Starlink internet service. On October 15th, following public outcry, Musk appeared to backtrack on the decision to ask the US government for assistance. “To hell with it… we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free,” Musk tweeted, later telling The Financial Times the company would do so “indefinitely.”According to CNN, last month’s outage was a “huge problem” for Ukraine’s military. In March, the country purchased the 1,300 terminals from a British company. SpaceX reportedly charged Ukraine $2,500 per month to keep each unit operational. The country eventually couldn’t afford to pay the $3.25 million monthly bill anymore and asked for financial aid from the British Ministry of Defence. After some discussion, the two agreed to prioritize other military expenses.“We support a number of terminals that have a direct tactical utility for Ukraine’s military in repelling Russia’s invasion,” a British official told CNN. “We consider and prioritize all new requests in terms of the impact contributions would have in supporting Ukraine to defend its people against Putin’s deplorable invasion.”Should SpaceX and the US Department of Defense eventually sign an agreement, it’s unclear if the Pentagon will have greater control over Starlink service in Ukraine. The company currently decides where Ukrainian troops can use the terminals.

05.11.2022 19:41 Expect to see a fair number of ads when Apple begins streaming Major League Soccer games next year. According to Bloomberg, the company is building an advertising network to support its 10-year agreement with the league. Apple has reportedly held talks with MLS sponsors about airing ads during games and accompanying programming the company has planned for next season.It also sounds like diehard fans won’t be able to escape commercial breaks by paying more. Bloomberg reports the company currently plans to air spots across all three tiers of the partnership, meaning you’ll see ads whether you pay for a dedicated package, access the games through your existing TV+ subscription or catch the occasional free match on the company’s TV app.The move is part of a broader push by Apple to increase how much it earns from advertising. The company’s ad unit currently generates about $4 billion in annual revenue. Todd Teresi, the head of the division, has reportedly pushed to increase that number to $10 billion and above. To that end, Apple recently began showing more ads in the App Store and is testing search advertisements within its Maps app.

05.11.2022 19:41 It's time to bid farewell to the androids of Westworld. HBO has cancelled the sci-fi title after four seasons, even though showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were hoping for a fifth to reach the ending they had in mind. Nolan and Joy were trying to negotiate for a last season as recently as October, but their discussions clearly did not pan out. In a statement, HBO said:"Over the past four seasons, Lisa and have taken viewers on a mind-bending odyssey, raising the bar at every step. We are tremendously grateful to them, along with their immensely talented cast, producers and crew, and all of our partners at Kilter Films, Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television. It’s been a thrill to join them on this journey."Westworld used to be one of HBO's tentpole projects, with 54 Emmy nominations and even a win for Thandiwe Newton as Outstanding Supporting Actress. Its ratings and viewership have plummeted over the years, however, and it never quite recovered. For fans, the fact that the show hadn't been renewed immediately after the latest season ended was already a bad sign.As The Hollywood Reporter notes, approximately 12 million viewers tuned in to watch the show's critically acclaimed first season across platforms. And, while we thought that Westworldreturned to form in its third season, its numbers kept on tumbling until only 4 million viewers stuck around to watch the latest episodes. That's most likely not enough for HBO to justify a renewal. Apparently, the fourth season cost the network $160 million for eight episodes, which is more than what it spent on House of Dragons. The Game of Thrones prequel had ten episodes and averaged 29 million viewers for each one.

05.11.2022 15:12 The former executives in charge of MoviePass have been indicted in what the Justice Department calls "a scheme to defraud investors." Ex-MoviePass CEO J. Mitchell Lowe and Theodore Farnsworth, who used to be the chairman of the service's former parent company Helios and Matheson Analytics , have been charged with one count of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud. Federal authorities accuse them of making materially false and misleading claims regarding MoviePass' business in press releases, interviews and even SEC filings in a bid to artificially inflate HMNY's stocks and entice new investors. According to the newly unsealed court documents, Farnsworth and Lowe allegedly knew from the start that the business' $9.95 "unlimited" plan was a temporary gimmick to attract new subscribers and, hence, artificially inflate HMNY's stock prices. They also falsely claimed that the business model was tested to be sustainable and that it was possible to become profitable on subscription fees alone, the feds said. In addition, the executives allegedly claimed that HMNY had "big data" and AI technologies that could be used to generate revenue for the company by analyzing data collected from MoviePass subscribers. The indictment accuses them of making the claim even though they knew that HMNY did not have the technology or the capability to monetize subscriber data. Another allegation against the executives is that they'd made false representations that MoviePass was earning considerable money from multiple revenue streams. The business did not have a non-subscription revenue stream that would make it self-sufficient or offset its losses, according to authorities. Farnsworth and Lowe were also accused of implementing various tactics to prevent certain subscribers from being able to use their "unlimited" service. If you'll recall, MoviePass had to settle with the FTC in 2021 over allegations that it invalidated subscriber passwords on purpose to give it sufficient reason to freeze accounts of frequent users. In a statement made to The Verge, the spokesperson for Farnsworth said: "The indictment repeats the same allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Commission's recent complaint filed on September 27th against Mr. Farnsworth, concerning matters that were publicly disclosed nearly three years ago and widely reported by the news media. As with the SEC filing, Mr. Farnsworth is confident that the facts will demonstrate that he has acted in good faith, and his legal team intends to contest the allegations in the indictment until his vindication is achieved."The SEC sued MoviePass for fraud back in September and also accused the executives of misleading investors about the viability of the company's $9.95-per-month business model. Despite its tumultuous past and all the accusations the former people in charge still have to face, MoviePass is back. Stacy Spikes, its original co-founder, purchased it back after HMNY filed for bankruptcy. The service relaunched in September 5th and now charges subscribers $10 a month for up to three movies, $20 a month for up to four and $30 for a maximum of five movies a month. As for Farnsworth and Lowe, they're now facing a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count of securities and wire fraud.

05.11.2022 04:40 Twitter’s top safety executive says election integrity is a “top priority” for the company even as the company has shed half of its staff in the last 24 hours. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and one of the company leaders to survive mass layoffs, took to Twitter to downplay moderation concerns raised by activists and advertisers in recent days.“Yesterday’s reduction in force affected approximately 15% of our Trust Safety organization , with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact,” Roth tweeted. “With early voting underway in the US, our efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority.”Roth’s comments come hours after the NAACP joined a coalition of activists and civil rights organizations to call for advertisers to suspend spending with Twitter. While Musk met with civil rights leaders earlier this week, those calling for a boycott said the company’s deep staff cuts undermined his promise to maintain Twitter’s election protection policies and its hate speech rules.More than 80% of our incoming content moderation volume was completely unaffected by this access change. The daily volume of moderation actions we take stayed steady through this period. pic.twitter.com/rSGKtq0e3J— Yoel Roth November 4, 2022Roth, who is so far the only Twitter executive besides Musk to publicly weigh in on the company’s policies following Musk’s takeover, also tried to address reports about the impact staff cuts would have on safety.“Last week, for security reasons, we restricted access to our internal tools for some users, including some members of my team,” he said. “Most of the 2,000+ content moderators working on front-line review were not impacted, and access will be fully restored in the coming days.” But while much of Roth’s Trust and Safety team may have been spared, numerous other teams whose work touches on safety issues were not.As NBC News reported, Twitter’s curation team, which worked to counter misinformation on the platform, was axed entirely. Many engineering roles that deal with safety issues were also cut, as were numerous workers in policy and communications.Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press.— Elon Musk November 4, 2022On Friday, Musk said that the layoffs were necessary. “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” he tweeted, adding that employees were offered three months of severance. “Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.”

05.11.2022 04:40 Something’s going on at Virgin Hyperloop, the startup attempting to bring Elon Musk’s vision of high-speed trains to life. At some point in the last few weeks, the company has quietly changed its name back to Hyperloop One, the brand it used between 2016 and 2017. Its website has been scrubbed clean, too, using an old stock image of the XP-1 test pod and the claim that “It’s a new day at Hyperloop One,” too.This isn’t just a website issue, as the Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram accounts have all reverted to the old logo and name as well. And the change has to be fairly recent — a tweet posted October 22nd still carried the Virgin logo and name. While we can't speculate on precisely what prompted the change, it appears to be a deliberate effort towards de-branding. Seemingly, Richard Branson and Virgin are now no longer willing to share a brand with the logistics company. The company has certainly seen a number of changes through this year, laying off 111 staffers and abandoning its much-hyped attempt to build a passenger system. After that, majority owner DP World said that it would pivot toward using the technology for logistics, enabling the construction of "inland ports" to ferry cargo containers to their eventual destination faster than the present system.We have reached out to Virgin, Hyperloop One and DP World in the hope of getting some sort of clarification on the change, and will update this if we hear back.

04.11.2022 23:11 You're about to get your last chance at witnessing a total lunar eclipse for quite some time. NASA has pointed out that the last such eclipse until March 2025 begins in the early morning hours of November 8th in North America. Parts of Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America can also get a glimpse. The partial eclipse will start at 4:09AM Eastern, with totality lasting from 4:16AM through 5:42AM. The ending partial phase will finish at 6:49AM. Those on the eastern US coast will miss some or all of that last segment as the Moon sets. However, you might not have to venture outside if it's too chilly — there are ways to watch from the warmth of home.Livestreams will be available. Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona will offer multiple telescope views of the total lunar eclipse starting at 4AM Eastern. Timeanddate.com will have streams in multiple cities, including its own view from Roswell, New Mexico as well as feeds from San Diego and Perth in Australia. The Virtual Telescope Project will also provide international coverage.You'll want to have a look even if 2025 doesn't seem that far away. Total lunar eclipses earn their "blood Moon" nickname due to the optical tricks that paint the lunar surface a dramatic red. Where short-wavelength blue light tends to get caught in the particles of Earth's atmosphere, the longer wavelengths of red, orange and yellow help them complete the cosmic journey. It's a stunning effect you can see with your naked eyes. And if you have a telescope, you may even spot Uranus in the distance.There will be partial and penumbral lunar eclipses during the interval. The first visible in the Americas will take place on October 28th, 2023, with others due on March 25th and September 18th the following year. You're not completely out of luck, then, even if those events won't be quite so eye-catching.

04.11.2022 23:11 As Elon Musk looks for new ways to make money from Twitter’s he’s facing a much more urgent problem: advertisers are fleeing the platform. Musk said Friday that “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue” due to advertisers’ concerns about content moderation and other issues raised by activists.A number of major companies have paused ads in recent days, including GM, Audi, Pfizer, General Mills, Volkswagen and other big names who are wary of potential changes to Twitter’s policies as well as the departure of top executives. Industry groups have also expressed concern about brand safety under Musk, and The New York Times reported this week that “IPG, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, issued a recommendation … for clients to temporarily pause their spending on Twitter.”On Friday, the NAACP joined other civil rights groups in calling for an advertiser boycott of the platform. “It is immoral, dangerous, and highly destructive to our democracy for any advertiser to fund a platform that fuels hate speech, election denialism and conspiracy theories,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.It is immoral, dangerous, and highly destructive to our democracy for any advertiser to fund a platform that fuels hate speech, election denialism and conspiracy theories. Until actions are taken to make this a safe space, we call on companies to pause all advertising on Twitter.— Derrick Johnson November 4, 2022Advertisers' pullback amid calls for an ad boycott show just how quickly Twitter’s ad business has deteriorated under Musk. It also comes barely a week after Musk tried to reassure the industry he didn’t want to turn the platform into a “free-for-all hellscape.” Twitter saw a significant spike in hate speech and racial slurs immediately following the news of Musk’s take over of the company. Twitter’s head of safety later blamed the activity on a coordinated trolling campaign. But the activity further fueled the concerns of civil rights groups, prompting Musk to meet with civil rights leaders this week.On Friday he seemed to blame the drop in ad revenue on many of the same activists. “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” he tweeted.Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.— Elon Musk November 4, 2022But a coalition of civil rights groups and activists rejected Musk’s characterization. During a call with reporters on Friday, they said that Musk’s mass layoffs of Twitter staff, including people who work in moderation and safety, undermine the commitments he made following their meeting.“When you lay off almost 50% of your staff, including teams that are in charge of actually tracking, monitoring and enforcing content moderation rules, that necessarily means that content moderation has changed,” said Jessica González, co-CEO of Free Press.The group also raised concerns about Musk's amplification of far-right conspiracies regarding the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband; it also cited reports the now-CEO could chip away at current Twitter rules protecting trans users. "If Twitter does not take immediate concrete actions that illustrate a true commitment to maintaining best practices that protect users that companies then companies will not support with ad dollars and we're seeing it happen in real time,” said GLAAD CEO Sarah Ellis.

04.11.2022 23:11 Folks who access Xbox Cloud Gaming through a browser on ChromeOS and Linux systems will likely now have an improved experience. The game-streaming service should be available at a higher resolution on those platforms. It should run more smoothly as well.As spotted by Windows Central, an Xbox employee who goes by CohenJordan wrote on Reddit that the update marks the end of a transition to a different type of streaming tech, though they didn't explain exactly what that entails. According to CohenJordan, the good news is that, if you use a browser to access Xbox Cloud Gaming on any device , you should have a more consistent experience.Along with Linux and ChromeOS, Xbox Cloud Gaming works on Xbox consoles, smartphones, tablets, computers and some smart TVs. Microsoft and Meta are bringing it to Meta Quest 2 headsets as well. Microsoft is eager for Steam Deck users to access Xbox Cloud Gaming. It hasn't released an Xbox app for the system as yet, but the company has published a guide that should help you set up the service on Steam Deck.