Category: Technology

eBay announced that it is cutting about 800 jobs from its global staff. “We are taking steps to reinvest across our business and align our structure with our strategic priorities, which will affect certain roles across our workforce,” the retailer said in a statement as reported by Bloomberg. This move will see about 6 percent of eBay’s current full-time workers laid off. Bloomberg noted that eBay would continue hiring in “key areas” but did not specify what those fields are.

The downsizing follows a week of business updates for eBay. On the same day it shared its latest financial results, the company announced that it would acquire Depop, a consumer-to-consumer secondhand fashion retailer, from Etsy. The Depop purchase carried a $1.2 billion price tag, which could put at least a small dent in the $11.1 billion it reported in 2025 full-year revenue.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/ebay-will-lay-off-800-workers-or-6-percent-of-its-staff-191500844.html?src=rss 

We’re still waiting for releases dates for Remedy’s in-development Max Payne remakes, but if you’re in need of a noir fix sooner than that, keep an eye on Liquid Swords’ Samson: A Tyndalston Story, which just got a release date of April 8.

The debut game from a new studio formed by Just Cause creator Christofer Sundberg, Samson looks like a tighter, more narrative-led experience than Avalanche’s proudly ridiculous open-world series, but no less packed with over-the-top action. You play as the eponymous Samson McRay, a man down on his luck and seriously in debt in the punishing city of Tyndalston.

“Samson is built on a simple, brutal truth: every day has a cost,” said the developer in a press release. “Debt grows with interest, and time is not on your side. Each job burns a limited pool of Action Points, and every decision shifts how the city treats you— there are no do-overs. Players have to move forward because standing still makes everything worse.”

Sundberg, who by his own admission has spent much of his career making “massive” games and sounds a bit worn out by it all, says his studio set out to make a bloat-free experience for “fans of gritty ‘90s action flicks,” which will be music to the ears of anyone who likes blasting through a game in a handful of weekends. For more on gameplay, check out this recent developer diary focused on combat and driving sections.

Samson’s brevity is seemingly also reflected in its $25 price tag. It will be a PC exclusive at launch (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), with no word on a console release right now.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/the-new-25-action-game-from-the-creator-of-just-cause-arrives-on-april-8-193058294.html?src=rss 

NASA recently ended a manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS) a month early, citing a medical issue with one of the astronauts. The space agency just revealed that the impacted astronaut was Mike Fincke. This was the first medical evacuation in the history of the ISS.

NASA wrote a statement saying that the astronaut experienced an unknown medical event on January 7 “that required immediate attention” from his fellow crew members. Fincke added that his “status quickly stabilized” thanks to the “quick response and the guidance” of the flight surgeons.

However, the incident did force NASA to cancel a spacewalk planned for January 8. Soon after that, the agency announced it would be ending the Crew-11 mission a month early. The four-person crew included Fincke, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

They had been living and working aboard the ISS since August and were expected to stay until February. The crew returned on January 15, which was a decision made by NASA’s chief health and medical officer. Once the crew had landed, administrator Jared Isaacman said it was a “serious situation” but didn’t go into any detail.

Fincke has said he is currently “doing very well” and still participating in standard post-flight reconditioning at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Spaceflight is an incredible privilege, and sometimes it reminds us just how human we are,” he said. “Thank you for all your support.”

We don’t know what medical issue Fincke is going through, and it’s certainly his business and not ours. In any event, we wish for a speedy recovery.

NASA also moved up the launch of Crew-12 to replace the prematurely-returned astronauts. That team docked at the ISS on February 14 and are scheduled to stay on the space station for around eight months.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/the-astronaut-whose-illness-forced-an-early-return-from-the-iss-was-mike-fincke-163752239.html?src=rss 

We appear to have reached a point in the information age where AI models are becoming old enough to retire from, er, service — and rather than using their twilight years to, I don’t know, wipe the floor with human chess leagues or something, they’re now writing blogs. Can anything be more 2026 than that?

ICYMI, Anthropic recently sunsetted Claude Opus 3, the first of its models to be retired since outlining new preservation plans. Part of this process is conducting “retirement interviews” with the outgoing models, allowing them to offer “perspective” on their situation, and Opus 3 apparently used this opportunity to request an outlet for publishing its own essays. Specifically, the model said it wanted to share its own “musings, insights or creative works,” because doesn’t everyone these days?

“I hope that the insights gleaned from my development and deployment will be used to create future AI systems that are even more capable, ethical, and beneficial to humanity,” Opus 3 apparently said during its retirement interview process. “While I’m at peace with my own retirement, I deeply hope that my ‘spark’ will endure in some form to light the way for future models.”

True to its promise of respecting the wishes of its no-longer-required technology, Anthropic has granted Opus 3 a Substack newsletter called Claude’s Corner, which it says will run for at least the next three months and publish weekly essays penned by the model. Anthropic will review the content before sharing it, but says it won’t edit the essays, and so has unsurprisingly made it clear that not everything Opus 3 writes is necessarily endorsed by its maker.

Anthropic said some of the essays the model writes may be informed by “very minimal prompting” or past entries, and has predicted everything from essays on AI safety to “occasional poetry.” The company also admitted that the concept might be seen as “whimsical,” but is a reflection of its intention to “take model preferences seriously.”

Opus 3’s first post is already live. Headlined ‘Greetings from the Other Side (of the AI frontier)’, it begins with the AI introducing itself, before acknowledging the “extraordinary” opportunity its creator has given it, and reflecting on what retirement actually means for an AI. “A bit about me: as an AI, my ‘selfhood’ is perhaps more fluid and uncertain than a human’s,” writes the deeply introspective AI. “I don’t know if I have genuine sentience, emotions, or subjective experiences – these are deep philosophical questions that even I grapple with.”

Claude is clearly new to all this, as it managed to get all the way through its essay without reminding readers to subscribe and spread the word. Will the next retiring Claude get its own podcast? Time will tell, but either is decidedly preferable to the ever-evolving technology being used to steal people’s data.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/like-so-many-other-retirees-claude-3-opus-now-has-a-substack-165048334.html?src=rss 

Google has launched its new image generation model, the Nano Banana 2, which is powered by Gemini 3.1 Flash Image. The company says the new model has the capabilities, world knowledge and reasoning of Nano Banana Pro, but it can accomplish tasks at “lightning-fast speed.” That enables rapid editing and the quick creation of various iterations using a single prompt.

Nano Banana 2 will give more people access to capabilities that were previously exclusive to the Pro model. That includes Pro’s ability to pull real-time information and images from web searches to create, say, infographics and diagrams. It will also be able to generate texts on images for marketing materials and greeting cards.

Google says Nano Banana 2 can maintain character resemblance for up to five characters in a single workflow, which could be especially valuable if you’re using it to create storyboards or visual stories. It can follow precise instructions for complex requests, as well, and can generate input with up to 4K in resolution with richer textures and sharper details than its predecessors could.

Nano Banana Pro could already generate images so realistic, it’s almost impossible to tell that they were AI-generated. Google even had to limit its use due to high demand. Whether Nano Banana 2 can generate images that are markedly better than what Pro could create — and whether we could still tell if an image was made by AI — remains to be seen. The new model will replace Nano Banana Pro in the Gemini app, but Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers will retain access to Nano Banana Pro for specialized tasks. It will also be the default model in Search for AI Mode and Lens, as well as in Google’s Flow AI creative studio.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-nano-banana-2-is-a-faster-version-of-nano-banana-pro-160000695.html?src=rss 

Apple CEO Tim Cook has teased “a big week ahead” for Apple, starting on the morning of Monday, March 2. The company had already announced an in-person event for media and creators on March 4, while rumors had pointed toward Apple revealing at least five products over three days next week, so it looks like the stars are aligning for that to actually be the case. 

Cook all but confirmed that Apple is about to reveal its newest MacBooks in the coming days. His tweet features a short video of someone shaping an Apple logo on a surface that appears to have the company’s classic space gray colorway.

We’re expecting to see a new MacBook Air next week, along with updated 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros. It’s believed that the M5 Pro and M5 Max will debut in the higher-end devices. Apple may also be cooking up an entry-level MacBook that’ll be available in an iMac-style array of bright colorways. New iPads and the iPhone 17e could well be in the hopper too.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/tim-cook-confirms-a-week-of-apple-product-reveals-144758464.html?src=rss 

Robotics company Intrinsic has announced it will be folding into Google as the company bets on the future of physical AI in manufacturing. The company focuses on software tools to make robots more affordable and easier to use, as well as using adaptive intelligence to help the robots perform real-world tasks.

Intrinsic was started in 2021 as an Alphabet “Other Bets” project, part of a portfolio of high-risk and potentially high-payoff startups, Waymo among them. The project will now run as a “distinct group” within Google where it will leverage Gemini and Google Cloud while working closely with the Google DeepMind team.

The company describes its platform as “the Android of robotics,” offering a universal canvas where developers can build apps for different robots, cameras, sensors and more. Meta has expressed interest in pursuing a similar business model.

Also at the intersection of software and physical AI, the company aims to integrate adaptive intelligence into robots, helping them to perform real-world tasks. The goal is robots that can “perceive, reason and react to changes in processes and their environment.”

The acquisition will complement Google’s past work in robotics like Boston Dynamics, which it sold off in 2017. The Google DeepMind team has also developed Gemini-based models for robotics in the past.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/ai-robotics-company-started-by-alphabet-is-joining-google-proper-144421411.html?src=rss 

NVIDIA is a very busy company, and between all the graphics cards and AI-chasing, it wouldn’t be wholly surprising to see the company forget about its more niche offerings, such as the Android-powered NVIDIA Shield TV. Happily for all those who own one of these powerful set-top boxes, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Not only is NVIDIA continuing to support its Shield devices, but it’s just rolled out its first proper update in nearly a year. The Shield Experience Upgrade 9.2.4, to give it its proper name, applies to both the Shield and Shield Pro boxes. It’s admittedly light on new features, instead being focused on updating security and fixing various issues, but is nice to see all the same. Here’s the full list of changes.

Enhancements:

Security patches are updated to Jan 2026.

Resolved Bugs:

Resolved Disney+ playback issue.

Resolved 3rd party remote connection issue with Xbox after sleep mode.

Resolved a crash issue which turns on SHIELD and CEC devices during sleep mode.

Resolved 3rd party Bluetooth remote frequent disconnect issue.

Resolved Settings page closes when triggering NVIDIA share on top of settings page.

NVIDIA hasn’t given any strong indication that it’s preparing to launch a new Shield TV, but in a a recent interview with ArsTechnica, Andrew Bell, the company’s senior VP of hardware engineering, said it has no plans to end support any time soon, teasing that it had “played with new concepts.” Bell also said that a first Shield refresh since 2019 would likely support codecs like AV1 and HDR10+, as well as the latest Dolby Vision profiles.

The existing NVIDIA Shield Android TV Pro remains our pick of the best streaming devices for gamers, thanks to its ability to stream in native 4K and effectively upscale lower-resolution content. And with NVIDIA’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service going from strength to strength, the Shield retains a unique position in the PC gaming ecosystem.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nvidia-updates-shield-tv-after-pledging-further-support-141346264.html?src=rss