Category: Technology

At least three Twitter employees who survived the mass layoffs that cut the company’s workforce in half have been fired after calling out their new boss on the platform. One of them is Eric Frohnhoefer, who responded to Elon Musk’s tweet apologizing for Twitter being slow in many countries. “App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!” Musk wrote. Frohnhoefer responded that after six years of working on Twitter for Android, he can say that Musk’s statement “is wrong.” 

The multi-company executive then asked him what the right number was and what has he done to fix Twitter for Android, which has been “super slow.” He replied with the work his team has done for the app and listed a few reasons on why it’s slow: “First it’s bloated with features that get little usage. Second, we have accumulated years of tech debt as we have traded velocity and features over perf. Third, we spend a lot of time waiting for network responses.”

Their exchange went on in several threads, and when one user told Frohnhoefer that he should’ve informed his boss privately, he replied: “Maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe using Slack or email.” After that, Musk informed everyone on Twitter that Fronhoefer had been fired.

The former Twitter app engineer told Forbes that he had gotten no communication from Twitter about his dismissal and that his laptop “just shut off.” He added that “[n]o one trusts anyone within the company anymore,” so it’s been hard to function. The former Twitter employee also said that before Musk took over, “people were more open and felt that they could criticize and now that’s clearly not the case.”

Another engineer named Ben Leib was also fired, Bloomberg has confirmed. Leib also responded to the same apology tweet by Musk, saying that as a former “tech lead for timelines infrastructure at Twitter,” their new owner had no idea what he was talking about. And then there’s Sasha Solomon, a tech lead for the company who chimed in with her own response to the same Musk tweet and who later announced that she, too, got fired.

There have been massive changes over at Twitter after Elon Musk officially purchased the company. He immediately dismissed its top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and ordered mass layoffs that saw around 50 percent of the social network’s employees lose their jobs. Twitter also launched the $8-a-month Blue subscription that provided everyone who can pay access to instant verification. Making the blue checkmark easy to obtain, however, led to the rise in impersonation and legitimate-looking fake accounts on the website. 

 

If you’ve had to deal with a rash of fake Xbox Live accounts in recent times, you’re far from alone. Microsoft has published its first-ever Xbox transparency report, and it’s now clear the company is banning or otherwise cracking down on bots. The company says it issued over 4.33 million “proactive enforcements” (that is, taking action without user reports) against fake and compromised accounts in the first half of 2022. That represented 57 percent of the enforcement actions over the six-month span, and a ninefold surge in the amount of proactive efforts versus the same period a year ago.

Microsoft was previously pouring most of its energy into “reactive” enforcement (responses to gamer reports), and taking fewer actions as a whole. The company issued 2.24 million reactive enforcements in the second half of 2021, and just 461,000 proactive measures. Other violations were relatively few and far between. “Adult” content led to just 199,000 proactive enforcements, while fraud, harassment and other abuses each had fewer than 100,000 actions.

It won’t surprise you to hear that most of Microsoft’s 33.08 million user-prompted crackdowns focused on toxic players. Enforcement was equally dominated by reports of cheating and other poor conduct (43 percent) and abusive communication (46 percent). Just 11 percent of enforcements were tied to user-made content like offensive nicknames and screenshots. Thankfully, there appear to be fewer overall incidents — Microsoft received 59.65 million reports in the last half of 2020.

Don’t count on winning an appeal if you think Microsoft made a mistake. Out of more than 151,000 case appeals during the period, just six percent (about 9,250) led to reinstatements.

You can expect a new Xbox transparency report every six months from now onward. There doesn’t appear to be equivalent reports for the equivalent Nintendo and Sony online services. Still, this may be good news if you’ve wondered about Xbox Live’s problem areas, and whether or not Microsoft is taking bots seriously.

 

Today, muscle atrophy is often unavoidable when you can’t move due to severe injury, old age or diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and multiple sclerosis (MS). However, Harvard researchers see hope in soft robotics that could someday stretch and contract the muscles of patients unable to do so themselves.

The Harvard engineers tested a new mechanostimulation system on mice, successfully preventing or assisting in their recovery from muscle atrophy. The team implanted the “soft robotic device” on a mouse’s hind limb, which they immobilized in a cast-like enclosure for around two weeks. While the control group’s untreated muscles wasted away as expected, the actively stimulated muscles showed reduced degradation. The researchers believe their system can eventually lead to implants helping humans with atrophy.

Its promise stems from its ability to induce a small mechanical muscle strain that mirrors natural stimulation during exercise. Moreover, while keeping atrophy at bay, the device didn’t lead to any severe tissue inflammation or damage.

“There is a good chance that distinct soft robotic approaches with their unique effects on muscle tissue could open up disease or injury-specific mechano-therapeutic avenues,” said David Mooney, Ph.D., the paper’s senior author and Harvard’s Wyss Institute engineering faculty member.

Dubbed MAGENTA (short for “mechanically active gel-elastomer-nitinol tissue adhesive”), the anti-atrophy system includes an engineered spring made from nitinol, a shape memory alloy (SMA) that can rapidly actuate when heated. Researchers control the spring with a wired microprocessor unit that determines the frequency and duration of muscle contractions and stretches.

The system also includes an elastomer matrix forming the device’s body and providing insulation for the heated SMA. In addition, a layer of “tough adhesive” keeps MAGENTA aligned with the muscles’ natural movement axis while transmitting stimulation deep into muscle tissue.

“While untreated muscles and muscles treated with the device but not stimulated significantly wasted away during this period, the actively stimulated muscles showed reduced muscle wasting,” said first-author and Wyss Technology Development Fellow Sungmin Nam, Ph.D. “Our approach could also promote the recovery of muscle mass that already had been lost over a three-week period of immobilization, and induce the activation of the major biochemical mechanotransduction pathways known to elicit protein synthesis and muscle growth.”

The team also experimented with a wireless version, using laser light rather than electrical wiring to actuate the SMA spring. Although this approach showed reduced effectiveness due to fat tissue absorbing some of the laser light, the researchers believe this approach still holds potential and warrants further research.

 

2022 is winding down, which means it’s almost time to reward the folks behind some of the year’s best games. While many folks tune into The Game Awards primarily for world premieres, trailers and an inevitable Hideo Kojima sighting, there are, in fact, some trophies to dole out as well. The show’s host and producer, Geoff Keighley, has revealed the nominees for the ninth edition of the ceremony.

God of War Ragarnok (which hit PS4 and PS5 just last week) leads the pack with 10 nominations, followed by Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West with seven each. The terrific Stray also fared well with six nods. All four of those are among the Game of the Year nominees. They’re joined by A Plague Tale: Requiem and Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

Unsurprisingly, given the strong showings by God of War Ragarnok and Horizon Forbidden West, Sony Interactive Entertainment had the most nominations of any publisher with 20, followed by Annapurna Interactive and Nintendo with 11 each, Bandai Namco with eight and Riot Games with six. A jury made up of representatives from more than 100 publications and influencer outlets determines the nominees (so don’t blame Keighley if your favorite didn’t make the cut). Voting is open now on The Game Awards’ website and Discord server. Fans in China can vote through Bilibili.

There’s a new category this year called Best Adaptation, which is for shows and movies based on games. The nominees are Arcane: League of Legends, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, The Cuphead Show!, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Uncharted. Sorry, Halo. It’s not hard to imagine HBO’s The Last of Us making the cut next year, though.

A ton of other games, big and small, earned nominations across 31 categories (which also include esports and creator awards). Marvel Snap, Immortality, Scorn, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Splatoon 3, Tunic, Cult of the Lamb, Sifu, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, MultiVersus, Vampire Survivor, Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2 were among the titles that received nods. Of note, there was no love for Apple Arcade or Netflix in the Best Mobile category.

The ceremony takes place on December 8th. If you’re not attending in person or watching at an IMAX theater, you’ll be able to catch The Game Awards on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Steam, Instagram Live and dozens of other platforms. 

 

At just $349, this is the lowest price we’ve seen on the Apple Watch Series 8. It’s gone this low before, but it never stays on sale for long. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading or getting your first Apple Watch, now might be a good time to move on it. 

Both the 45mm and 41mm sizes are $50 off, and the deal applies to the midnight, red and silver case colors. The starlight case is still regular price as of this writing. This is the GPS model, without cellular connectivity, so you’ll need your phone around to make calls and texts, but with its built-in capabilities, the watch can still track runs, play music and check your heart rate if you leave your phone behind. 

The Apple Watch is our current favorite smartwach overall, as it’s a robust wearable that balances activity and health tracking with plenty of lifestyle and connectivity features, such as keeping up with podcasts or staying on top of your calendar. And of course, if you’re an iPhone user, adding an Apple Watch to the mix is a no-brainer. 

When we tested out the Series 8 upon its debut, we liked the extended battery life, quick charging and a low power mode that squeezed out an extra two hours of use after the watch ran down to 20 percent. New for the Series 8 are temperature readings (which can help track ovulation) as well as crash detection. While the look is pretty unchanged from the Series 7, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if you want that iconic, square Apple Watch look. 

In the end, we named the Apple Watch Series 8 the “new best smartwatch,” with our reviewer deciding to use it as her primary smartwatch. But like we said, this $50-off deal doesn’t tend to stick around long, so you might want to grab it now.  

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.

 

Google has agreed to pay $391.5 million to settle charges brought forth by 40 attorneys general. They accused the company of misleading users into believing they had turned off location tracking in their settings, but Google continued to collect information about their movements. As part of the settlement, Google has agreed to “significantly improve” its location tracking disclosures and user controls starting next year.

“For years Google has prioritized profit over their users’ privacy,” Oregon attorney general Ellen Rosenblum, who led the case along with Nebraska AG Doug Peterson, said in a statement. “They have been crafty and deceptive. Consumers thought they had turned off their location tracking features on Google, but the company continued to secretly record their movements and use that information for advertisers.”

The AGs opened the investigation in 2018 following an Associated Press report suggesting that Google tracks location data even after users ask it not to. The report indicated that turning off the Location History setting didn’t stop Google from knowing where a user was. Some apps, such as Maps and Search, still created a snapshot of their location on their Google account. Although it was possible to remove this data from one’s Google account, doing so was “laborious,” the AP noted.

The AGs determined that Google violated state consumer protection laws since at least 2014 by misleading consumers about its location tracking practices. They claimed that the company “confused its users about the extent to which they could limit Google’s location tracking by adjusting their account and device settings.” They noted that this is the largest-ever consumer privacy settlement by US states (Meta, then known as Facebook, agreed to pay $5 billion to settle FTC charges over the Cambridge Analytica scandal). 

According to a press release from the Oregon AG’s office, Google has agreed to:

Show additional information to users whenever they turn a location-related account setting “on” or “off”;

Make key information about location tracking unavoidable for users (i.e., not hidden); and

Give users detailed information about the types of location data Google collects and how it’s used at an enhanced “Location Technologies” webpage.

Last month, Google agreed to pay Arizona $85 million to settle a 2020 lawsuit accusing it of tracking users for targeted ads even after they switched off location data settings. The company is facing other location tracking suits filed by AGs in Washington DC, Texas, Washington and Indiana.

 

Amazon could announce sweeping layoffs as early as this week, according to The New York Times. The company reportedly plans to cut approximately 10,000 corporate employees, with staff at its consumer-facing devices division among those who are likely to be affected by the move. Amazon employs approximately 1.5 million people globally. If the company moves forward with the cuts as reported, they would affect about three percent of its corporate workforce and would represent the largest reorganization in Amazon’s nearly 30-year history.

Amazon did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. Mass layoffs have been a frequent occurrence in the US tech sector in recent weeks. On November 9th, Facebook parent company Meta cut about 13 percent of its workforce, a move that saw more than 11,000 people lose their jobs at the social media giant. Before that, Twitter was decimated after Elon Musk ordered a 50 percent reducation of the company’s headcount. Over the weekend, the company also let go of most of its contract workers. Smaller firms like Lyft and Snap have laid off employees in recent months as well.

For Amazon, the planned layoffs are reflective of the company’s changing fortunes. Thanks to early pandemic lockdown measures, the retail giant experienced record growth and went on a hiring spree that saw its workforce double. In recent months, however, the company has seen growth slow due to a combination of mounting costs and the return of in-person shopping. The company recently posted a $2 billion loss and froze hiring at its corporate offices.

 

Disney is making one of its best shows of the year more accessible. On Monday, the company announced it would begin airing Andor on ABC, FX, Freeform and Hulu. Starting November 23rd, the expansion will allow those without access to Disney+ to watch the first two episodes of the Tony Gilroy project. That’s just enough to get a sense of Andor’s smart writing, immaculate production and obsession with institutions, but without seeing the conclusion of its initial arc.

The announcement comes after the show arguably had its best episode yet. Anchored by a stellar performance by Stellan Skarsgard, “One Way Out” featured a thrilling prison break and was a neat encapsulation of Andor’s many strengths. It also comes amid questions about just how many people are watching the show.

In October, Parrot Analytics data analyst Brandon Katz shared a graphic that suggested it was lagging behind other live-action Star Wars shows. Katz later retracted his findings, noting he had incorrectly inputted the relevant data. “It’s performing much better than the initial tweet showed,” he said. “It has hit exceptional demand in several instances.”

Even with the retraction, the discourse around Andor has centered around the show’s viewership numbers. Disney’s decision to air the show on more platforms would seem to lend weight to suggestions the show has been less popular than The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

 

Back at I/O in May, Google announced Health Connect, a platform it worked on with Samsung to enable health and fitness apps to share data more easily with each other while maintaining privacy measures. That initiative is taking another step forward today, as the Health Connect app has moved out of early access and into beta on the Play Store, while several health and fitness apps are rolling out integrations.

Peloton, Oura, WeightWatchers, MyFitnessPal, Flo, Lifesum, Tonal, Outdooractive and Proov Insight have joined Google and Samsung’s own services: Fitbit, Google Fit and Samsung Health. The integrations mean that when you take on a workout in one app, you can share your stats across the Health Connect ecosystem. The likes of Oura and WeightWatchers will be able to take into account your Peloton workouts, for instance.

Google and Samsung have made it easier for health and fitness app developers to tap into such information by creating a standardized data schema. This supports more than 40 data types across six categories: activity, body measurement, cycle tracking, nutrition, sleep and vitals. Google notes that it only takes a few lines of code for apps to read and write any of these data types through Health Connect.

One of the key benefits for users is that they’ll be able to manage permissions for all these integrations in one place. Health Connect includes granular controls over which types of data each third-party app can access. You can also block all apps from accessing Health Connect data with a couple of taps.

 

The Xbox Series S doesn’t see a lot of discounts, but right now Adorama has knocked $50 off the sticker price, which is the lowest we’re seeing anywhere. We originally saw this as Adorama’s deal of the day last Friday and added it to our weekly deals recap. For those of us who may have slept on it, they still have units left at the $250 price.  

We reviewed the Series S when it came out, calling it the next-gen starter pack. Even though it doesn’t support gameplay in 4K, it still plays incredibly smoothly. And the console itself is downright adorable. Thanks to the FPS boost technology added to the Series S and X, older games, including many made for Xbox One, will look and perform better with faster frame rates. 

Buy Xbox Series S at Adorama – $250

Unlike the Series X, which as far as we know hasn’t budged from its $500 list price, the Series S only plays digital titles, with no slot to insert physical game media. Microsoft is likely counting on most people going for an Xbox Game Pass membership, currently $10 per month for the Console tier, and $15 per month for the Ultimate tier. Either level unlocks a library with hundreds of game to download and play, sort of like Netflix for games. Memberships also grant discounts to many of the titles you might want to buy outright.  

Another caveat to note when comparing the Series X and S, is the Series S has less SSD storage, with 512GB on-board, compared to the 1TB of storage you get with the Series X. If you like to keep lots of titles on hand, without having to delete, you’ll have to weigh that preference against the price of the Series X. Seagate does make an expansion card built specifically for the Xbox Series X/S, but at $200, you end up losing most of the money you saved buying the cheaper console.  

Despite any caveats, we found the performance impressive and loved the look of the physical box. For casual console gamers, it’s a great option. Especially when you consider all you’ll get out of backward-compatible games from the Game Pass library. If you’ve been waiting for a discount before you dive in, this is the best deal we’ve found. 

Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribing to the Engadget Deals newsletter.