Kalakshar US

The story behind how Tetris became a global phenomenon is the basis of an upcoming Apple TV+ movie. The film will hit the streaming service on March 31st and Apple has just dropped the first trailer.

Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, a Dutch entrepreneur who (spoiler) secured deals to distribute Tetris on the Game Boy and other consoles. Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov (played by Nikita Yefremov) created the game during the Cold War, but because he was a government employee, he didn’t receive any royalties at the outset. On the surface, that might not sound like the most compelling foundation for a thriller, but the rights to the classic puzzle game were embroiled in a clash between communism and capitalism. 

The fast-paced trailer (appropriately soundtracked by “The Final Countdown”) highlights some of that inherent tension. Rogers encounters resistance from a British media mogul who wants the game, KGB agents and even Mikhail Gorbachev.

If you suddenly feel the urge to rotate falling shapes and create horizontal lines with them, there are dozens of ways to play Tetris. Still, it’s worth noting that the original version of the game just hit Nintendo Switch Online as part of the first wave of Game Boy titles on the service.

 

YouTube Kids is finally available on more than a handful of devices in your living room, if not quite in the way you’d expect. As 9to5Googlereports, Google is rolling out the YouTube Kids experience on game consoles, Roku devices and more smart TVs through an update to the main YouTube app. If you switch to a YouTube Kids profile, you’ll get the child-friendly experience without having to jump to a different app. This also makes it easier to return to the full app once your kid has finished watching.

You’ll see the new approach sometime in the “next few weeks,” Google says. You can delete kids’ profiles through families.youtube.com when they’re ready for grown-up access, although the company warns this will scrub profiles on all platforms.

The dedicated YouTube Kids app is available for Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV devices as well as LG and Samsung smart TVs. This move makes the walled-off experience available to considerably more people — important if you’re concerned your young one might view mature content or thinly-veiled sales pitches. You’ll still want to keep an eye on your child’s viewing habits, but you might not have to steer them toward a computer or tablet.

 

Paramount+ will get a bit more expensive later this year as it folds in Showtime’s streaming service. The Premium tier of Paramount+, which will be renamed to Paramount+ With Showtime, will soon cost $12 per month, up from the current $10, as Variety reports. The ad-supported tier, which will not include Showtime, is going up from $5 to $6 per month.

Paramount Global will increase the prices when it merges the two services, which is expected to happen early in the third quarter of this year (i.e., around July or August). The price hikes will be effective in the US and some other markets, according to The Verge. They’ll be the first price increases since CBS All Access became Paramount+ two years ago.

There are now almost 56 million Paramount+ subscribers. The service added 9.9 million members in the last quarter of 2022, with the likes of NFL games, Yellowstone and Top Gun: Maverick drawing new users in. Revenue also increased by 81 percent compared with the same quarter in 2021 to around $800 million. As for the ad-supported Pluto TV service, the number of global monthly active users increased by 6.5 million to just under 79 million.

However, Paramount Global executives warned investors on an earnings call the company ran into significant “headwinds” in 2022 and that this won’t be a “robust year” for profits. CEO Bob Bakish said that ,for Paramount+, “we are at peak investment in 2023.”

Paramount Global expects to take a writedown of between $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion as an impairment charge as it merges Paramount+ and Showtime in the US. The writedown, according to chief financial officer Naveen Chopra, is “all about content, driven by the fact that when we combine Showtime and Paramount+, we don’t need the kind of content you would need if they were operating on an independent basis.” The company hopes that the move will save it as much as $700 million.

 

Microsoft launched its Bing AI chat product for the Edge browser last week, and it’s been in the news ever since — but not always for the right reasons. Our initial impressions were strong, as it offered up workout routines, travel itineraries and more without a hitch. 

However, users started noticing that Bing’s bot gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited “unhinged” behavior. In one bizarre conversation, it refused to give listings for Avatar: The Way of the Water, insisting the movie hadn’t come out yet because it was still 2022. It then called the user “unreasonable and stubborn” (among other things) when they tried to tell Bing it was wrong.

Now, Microsoft has released a blog post explaining what’s been happening and how it’s addressing the issues. To start with, the company admitted that it didn’t envision Bing’s AI being used for “general discovery of the world and for social entertainment.”

Those “long, extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions” can send things off the rails. “Bing can become repetitive or be prompted/provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone,” the company said. That apparently occurs because question after question can cause the bot to “forget” what it was trying to answer in the first place. To fix that, Microsoft may add a tool that lets you reset the search context or start from scratch. 

The other issue is more complex and interesting: “The model at times tries to respond or reflect in the tone in which it is being asked to provide responses that can lead to a style we didn’t intend,” Microsoft wrote. It takes a lot of prompting to get that to happen, but the engineers think they might be able to fix it by giving users more control. 

Despite those issues, testers have generally given Bing’s AI good marks on citations and references for search, Microsoft said, though it needs to get better with “very timely data like live sports scores.” It’s also looking to improve factual answers for things like financial reports by boosting grounding data by four times. Finally, they’ll be “adding a toggle that gives you more control on the precision vs. creativity of the answer to tailor to your query.”

The Bing team thanked users for the testing to date, saying it “helps us improve the product for everyone.” At the same time, they expressed surprise that folks would spend up to two hours in chat sessions. Users will no doubt be just as diligent trying to break any new updates, so we could be in for an interesting ride over the next while.

 

The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Picard, Season Three, Episode One: “The Next Generation.”

In the 25th Century…

There’s a wounded starship playing possum in the beautiful, merciless vastness of space, and inside, is a museum. The captain’s quarters holds a trove of props from that old TV show you watched when you were a kid, maybe you still do as an adult. There’s a hypospray, a ready room terminal playing the logs from “The Best of Both Worlds: Part One” and the captain’s dead husband’s personal effects. When an intruder alert sounds, the sleeping captain snaps into action, brandishes a phaser rifle and sets about defending her turf. In a chiaroscuro corridor, she goes full Rambo against two skull-headed villains, and wins, but takes a shot to the gut for her trouble. As she desperately tries to escape, she makes one last, desperate call for help – to Admiral Jean-Luc Picard.

Picard, of course, is in his own museum: He and new beau Laris are staring at his Ready Room painting of the Enterprise D. At his desk, there’s his Ready Room chair from the Enterprise E, and in front of him, a Ressikan Flute and a Kurlan Naiskos. Later, his combadge from the D will start to chirrup, and Picard will dig through boxes of isolinear chips and old uniforms to find it. Less than ten minutes in and you can already imagine the Reddit threads and website articles listing every single easter egg lurking in the half-focus. “Why would anyone send a coded message to a more than twenty year-old Enterprise D communicator?” asks Picard. It’s a fair question to ask given the whole thing makes absolutely no sense in the show’s internal logic.

With a message of distress from his former beau, Picard leaps into action by having a nice sit-down chat with Laris. To be fair, Picard was never a kinetic man of action, and he does need to check in with his new partner’s feelings before running off to rescue his old one. Once he has done that, he leaps into action by going to Ten Forward for a boozy sit-down drink with Riker.

The scene transition has Picard staring at the Enterprise D painting before we crossfade to an Eaglemoss model of the D on the bar shelf. If there was one thing this show needed, it was more beauty shots of memorabilia lovingly presented on shelves. Although there’s a glimmer of self-deprecation, with the server declaring that “nobody wants the fat ones.” When a sinister figure winds up following Picard and Riker out of the bar, they drop the same Enterprise D model into a glass for one last close-up.

After a detour to Raffi, undercover on M’Talas Prime (real subtle, Terry), the fanservice goes broader. First up, we’ll get some nods to the ‘80s Trek movies, paying off the Wrath of Khan-aping “In the 25th Century…” title card. Riker and Picard banter on their way to Spacedock, hatching a plan to hijack the Titan to mount a rescue mission under the nose of its new captain, Shaw. But the Titan has been so completely refitted from the Luna class that it gets an A on its registry as a “Neo Constitution Class.” I’ll admit – this managed to short-circuit my nostalgia glands, since I’m a sucker for Andrew Probert and Richard Taylor’s starship design and Jerry Goldsmith’s Motion Picture score. And when it pulls out of Spacedock before leaping to warp, a la The Search for Spock, we even get some of James Horner’s beloved french horns added to the mix.

Then, again like Wrath of Khan, Picard and Riker are piped aboard with the old-fashioned square electronic whistles by Seven. Shaw is, alas, not for turning, and as well as insisting that Seven use her human name (in a way that clearly makes her uncomfortable), he starts needling both Picard and Riker. The latter for his liking of jazz, the former for his past as a Borg, mirroring Sisko’s needling Picard on their first meeting.

650 or so words in and I haven’t really spoken about the plot, because not much has happened. After 40 minutes, Picard has received a distress call and spoken to lots of people about it, and that’s about it. There’s been plenty of callbacks and continuity porn, paraphiliac depictions of old props, but very little forward motion in the narrative. Picard and Riker make it to Beverley’s ship only to find her in a stasis pod, with her son keeping watch. They’re attacked and left stranded with no hope of escape while a big pointy ship with a Romulan-esque design menaces outside.

Now, remind me. A successful Starfleet Admiral gets a distress call from an old flame, a Doctor no less, who is being threatened by things unknown. When he comes to her aid, he first meets her adult son who instantly gets into a fistfight with the good guys before they realize who he is and what he represents. All the while, our heroes are being menaced by a much more powerful vessel which is looming long in the background. Have we ever seen that in Star Trek before?

 

Plex now has the capability to skip intros and credits, so you don’t have to sit through them if you don’t want to. The streaming media service has introduced its new “Skip Credits” feature, a couple of years after a similar feature debuted for intros, and it shows up as a button at the bottom right corner of the screen. It appears the moment credits start rolling, allowing you to play the next episode in a series or to automatically jump to a mid- or post-credit scene in a movie with a single click. 

This new credit detection feature is available throughout Plex’s entire free streaming catalogue, giving it a viewing experience similar to Netflix’s in that regard. But you can also enable it for your personal collection, so long as you have Plex Pass subscription, which will set you back $5 a month or $40 a year. The company said it developed its own Skip Credits technology by training a machine learning algorithm to be able to detect markers like text and dark frames. It admits that the feature might still have a few hiccups and might not work as intended all the time, but it said those cases “should be few and far between.”

If you want to enable Skip Credits for your collection, you’ll need to have the latest Plex Media Server and perform “Analyze” on your whole library. Plex will then analyze your collection, say as a scheduled task and whenever new media is added, in order to identify when credits begin in your shows and movies. Since analyzing users’ libraries to detect end credits use a lot of processing power — and “all that processing isn’t cheap,” the company said — Plex built a cloud-based repository where it will store users’ results. It will allow you to get back your results in seconds if you need to do a clean install or to rebuild your whole library. 

 

The PlayStation VR 2 is the virtual reality upgrade console gamers have been waiting for — but is it really worth $550? That depends on how much you need high quality VR. 

The virtual reality landscape looks completely different today than it did in 2016. The original PlayStation VR arrived amid the peak of the VR hype, which kicked off with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. While they weren’t perfect, wearing any of those devices was like shoving your eyeballs right into the next major leap for computing. And if VR took off, it was only a matter of time until we were all wearing augmented reality glasses. Clearly, that hasn’t happened.

Now that much of the initial excitement around VR has fizzled out, the PlayStation VR2 is more of a curiosity than a must-have gadget. It has all of the specs you’d want from a next-generation headset, but it also costs more than the PlayStation 5 itself. Sony says more than 30 games will be available during the PS VR2’s launch window, but who knows how well it’ll be supported over the next few years.

And really, what’s the point of a pricey tethered headset when the Meta Quest 2 gets you completely wireless VR (albeit of much lower quality) for $399? No matter how you look at it, the PSVR2 is a tough sell. And yet, I can’t help but be impressed by it. The PS VR 2 packs in the best of high-end PC VR, including innovative features like eye tracking, as well as something we’ve never seen before: Haptics for your head!

Before we get to that though, let’s take a look at the PS VR2 itself. At first glance, it seems like an evolved form of the original, with a design that’s more reminiscent of the PS5. Instead of a bulbous Fisher Price-esque toy, the PS VR2 actually looks like something built with artistic ambition. (Get ready to roll your eyes when it’s highlighted at MOMA.) Sure, it’s still made of plastic, but at least it’s good plastic, the same stuff used for the PS5’s exterior shell and the DualSense controllers.

I also didn’t mind the plastic much since the PS VR2’s internal hardware is such a massive upgrade. It features dual 2K OLED screens, which effectively deliver a 4K image. The field of view has also been bumped up to 110 degrees, putting it on-par with most other high-end VR headsets. While the displays still offer 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rates, in my experience everything just looks smoother thanks to the PS5’s additional horsepower.

Up front, you’ll find four sensors that track the headset and its new Sense controllers. Thanks to these “inside out” sensors, which are also found on the Meta Quest and many other headsets, the PS VR2 doesn’t require a PlayStation camera to track its movement like before. Along the top, there’s a button to extend the front half of the headset, as well as a dial to adjust the pupillary distance. It does so by physically moving the lenses to match the distance between your eyes, something that was sorely missing from Sony’s first headset.

At the bottom of the PS VR2 there’s a small microphone, power button and selection button. To get audio, you’ll have to plug in the bundled earbuds along the back of the headset. There’s nothing stopping you from using your own headphones or earbuds, but the cable situation would likely be a mess.

As for securing the PS VR2 to your head, I was happy to find that Sony didn’t really change much from the incredibly comfortable first model. The PS VR2 features plush cushioning for your forehead, as well as a thicker cushion that sits behind your skull. Clicking the dial on the rear extends the arms of the headset, and like before, you secure it by twisting the dial. Together with its impeccably balanced design and light weight, the PS VR2 is a dream to wear. I only wish the headset flipped up like those forgotten Windows Mixed Reality devices – that would have made it far easier to slip on and off.

Still, I’m happy that Sony listened to the many criticisms of the Move wand controllers on the original PS VR. The new Sense controllers are actually purpose built for virtual reality – they’re practically a carbon copy of Meta’s Quest controllers, with a large tracking ring, analog sticks, two face buttons, triggers and grip buttons. Both remotes have haptic feedback, PlayStation buttons, and they also split the sharing and option buttons found on the DualSense. Overall they’re a huge step up, though it would be nice if they were easier to put on when you’re stuck in VR. It’s hard to tell which controller is which, and their elaborate design makes it tough to get your fingers in the right places.

Every time I was frustrated with those controllers, though, I took a breath and appreciated what Sony got right. The setup process for the PS VR2, for example, is vastly simpler than the previous model. Now all you need to do is plug in a single USB-C cable into the front of your PS5 to get the headset going. You’re still dealing with a nearly 15-foot cable, but at least it doesn’t involve an additional breakout box and camera.

After pairing my Sense controllers with my PS5, I stepped through the familiar process of scanning my space and measuring the floor by lowering my controllers down. The PS VR2 did an impressive job of recognizing the safe play space I had in my basement, but I also appreciated being able to tweak specific sections to my liking. As with every other VR headset, you can choose to play games while sitting or standing up. I enjoyed both positions, but intensive games like Horizon VR: Call of the Mountain benefit from having more room. It’s easier to feel like a post-apocalyptic warrior when you’re actually breaking a sweat.

Horizon VR ended up being the perfect game to show off everything the new headset could do. From the start, the PS VR2’s screens astounded me with rich color and a wonderful level of contrast. You can chalk that up to the power of OLED displays. I’m no stranger to the elaborately detailed environments of the Horizon games, but scaling cliff sides and peering down mountains in VR is another matter entirely. Horizon VR taps into the headset’s eye tracking sensors for choosing menu options, and it also uses that feature for foveated rendering, which concentrates the PS5’s power on the things you’re looking at.

As I ogled the game’s robotic wildlife, I was also surprised to find the PS VR2 rumbling around my head. I forgot that Sony was actually bringing haptics to the headset, and my first experience with that practically had me jumping out of my seat. Now I’ve tested tons of VR headsets, many with far better screens than the PS VR2. But none of them shook me to my core in the same way. Headset haptics could be abused down the line, but right now many developers are trying to use it tastefully.

The opening scenes of Jurassic World Aftermath, for example, hit a lot differently with a vibrating headset. Within the first few minutes, you encounter a pterodactyl attack, plane crash and a hungry T-Rex. And every time a dinosaur roared, it vibrated through my skull. You can, of course, turn off headset haptics if you want. But personally, I can’t wait to see how new games take advantage of it. It’s almost like feeling the DualSense controllers for the first time – we’ve all experienced haptics before, but Sony is doing it in entirely new ways.

The company’s tracking technology also feels more mature than what I’ve seen from the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro. It rarely runs into hiccups, something I saw frequently with the first PS VR. The new inside out tracking system handled fast-paced games like Rez Infinite without any issues, and it also proved to be great with titles that required fine movement, like Tentacular. That game puts you in the role of a giant tentacle monster tasked with odd jobs like demolishing buildings or collecting enormous shipping containers. Having tentacle arms is tough – trying to manage them with glitchy motion tracking would be even tougher.

Sony knows how to make a good controller, so it’s no surprise that the new Sense VR devices both feel great, even for lengthy play sessions. They typically lasted for around four hours, so I’d recommend investing in the $50 charging bay to keep the topped up. Otherwise, you’ll have to remember to plug them into USB-C cables.

When you’re not gaming, the PS VR2 also makes for a great personal cinema, something that could be useful if you’re forced to share a living room TV. The headset makes video appear as if you’re a few feet away from a 100-inch screen, so it’s far more immersive than most televisions. I was able to kick back and comfortably enjoy some YouTube videos, Netflix shows and Blu-rays. This wouldn’t be my first choice for binge watching anything (it’s tough to eat or drink while plugged into VR) but it’s great if you don’t have space for a projector screen.

As much as I enjoyed my time with the PS VR2, playing many of these games felt like being thrown back in time. Seriously, I’ll play Rez Infinite at every given opportunity, and it looks dramatically better on the new headset. But fundamentally, it’s the same game that was released back in 2016 on the PS4 (itself a remake of the original 2001 title). And really, that’s the story of many games coming to the PS VR2. Tentacular is a blast, but it arrived on the Quest 2 last year, and the Jurassic World game is even older. Perhaps upcoming VR releases, like Grand Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village, will make a better case for Sony’s new headset. Right now, though, it feels like it’s arriving several years too late.

And then there’s the price. Asking gamers to spend $550 on an accessory just feels like punishment after they shelled out almost the same amount on the PS5 itself. The original PS VR cost $500 if you bought the camera and controller bundle, but its base price was $400 if you already had those accessories. If Sony actually wanted to push VR adoption to new heights, rather than extract every cent of profit possible, the PS VR2 should have been $400 or less. It’s particularly tough to stomach now with the $400 Meta Quest 2 around (and don’t forget it used to be $300 before Meta bumped its price up). But hey, at least the PS VR2 feels like a better deal than the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro.

I’m sure the PlayStation VR2 will come down in price eventually, but it seems like Sony is bungling what should be an important launch. Right now, it feels more like the PlayStation Vita than any other Sony product — an innovative device that the company just doesn’t know how to handle. I’m also hoping Sony considers PC compatibility eventually, as that could help to justify its higher price. (I won’t be surprised if third-party drivers arrive soon, though pairing the controllers may be an issue.)

If you’re a PS5 owner that’s been dying to see what PC VR enthusiasts have been enjoying for the past few years, the PSVR2 is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. Everyone else should just sit tight until the price drops and more new games arrive. And if the VR industry continues its current downward trajectory, that discount may happen sooner than you think.

 

If you’ve been using Twitter’s For You feed this week, you might’ve noticed the algorithmic feed showed a lot of Elon Musk’s tweets and replies. According to Platformer, which interviewed Twitter employees, engineers tweaked the social network to benefit their CEO. Elon’s cousin and Twitter employee James Musk sent an urgent message on the company’s Slack on Monday morning. He called the situation “high urgency” and asked everyone who can write code to help.

What had happened? President Biden’s Super Bowl tweet about rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles got more engagement than Musk’s. Apparently, the president’s tweet generated almost 29 million impressions, whereas Musk’s generated only 9.1 million before he deleted it.

The fix they came up with, Platformer says, was code that artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000. Musk acknowledged the change in his own way, by posting the “forced to drink milk” meme. He also asked people to stay tuned while Twitter adjusted the “algorithm.” According to the report, Musk’s tweets are still artificially boosted, it seems, just not quite as much.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

Qualcomm’s new phone modem may help overcome 5G’s flaws

Tesla will open up 7,500 charging stations to other EVs by 2024

Every actor on our ruined planet will star in Apple TV+’s ‘Extrapolations’

Apple’s pay later approvals could depend on previous Apple purchases

Verizon expands its 2Gbps Fios home internet to the five boroughs

‘The Mageseeker’ is a League of Legends RPG from the studio behind ‘Moonlighter’

Traeger’s redesigned Ironwood grills pack touchscreen controls and more efficiency

‘Horizon Forbidden West’ is coming to PS Plus Extra and Premium on February 21st

Oppo Find N2 Flip hands-on

Fixing the foldable’s shortcomings.

Oppo has been watching the foldable competition. Last year, it revealed its second generation of foldable phones would compete with the same form factors as Samsung. Now, while the West won’t be getting the bigger Find N2 Fold, in the UK and Europe, we will get the Oppo Find N2 Flip. In many ways, the Find N2 Flip attempts to address some shortcomings of the existing foldables, with a bigger cover screen and a larger battery. Sadly, however, there are no plans to launch the phone in the US.

Continue reading.

Our verdict on PlayStation’s ‘pro’ DualSense Edge controller

Customization and a higher price.

The original Xbox Elite controller came out way back in 2015, so it’s a wonder why Sony took so long to release its take on a premium, customizable gamepad. But now the PlayStation 5 is more widely available (kind of), the $200 DualSense Edge is here. It costs a bit more than its Xbox rival but offers a few nifty features you don’t get on Microsoft’s controller. However, it’s not perfect: Its short battery life is definitely a downer.

Continue reading.

Apple’s MLS Season Pass will stream games in 1080p

The company and the league have more info on the service.

Apple already announced many details on its MLS Season Pass, the company’s biggest entry into live sports streaming yet. However, the company and the league still had a few details they hadn’t yet revealed. As the start of the new season draws closer, the two collaborators shared more info, including that every game will stream in 1080p. That’s the same quality the company offered for its weekly Major League Baseball games last year.

Continue reading.

Final Fantasy VII’s Midgar is the latest grimy locale coming to ‘PowerWash Simulator’

Five more filthy free levels are coming to the relaxing game on March 2nd.

PowerWash Simulator developer FuturLab will soon give players more stuff to clean up with their trusty pressure washers, as it’s adding another free crossover expansion. Five levels set in Final Fantasy VII‘s Midgar are coming to the game on March 2nd. Yes, it’s a game where you powerwash stuff. And it’s wonderful.

Continue reading.

 

IK Multimedia has been in the guitar rig emulation game for a long time. It released the first version of AmpliTube way back in 2002. And while the company has branched out quite a bit since then into synths, microphones and studio monitors, it hasn’t given up on the world of guitar just yet. In September it released Amplitude ToneX, an AI-powered update to its long-running modeling software. And now it’s combining that cutting edge software with its line of AmpliTube effects pedals to make a play at the increasingly popular market for hardware amp emulators.

The ToneX Pedal, at least physically, appears to be nearly identical to the other members of the AmpliTube pedal family. Though, rather than just offer a selection of delay effects, it can play host to entire rigs — from amplifies, cabs and even effects pedals. Users can capture and recreate their own gear if they want, great if you’ve got a lot of heavy (and expensive) vintage gear that you don’t want to risk at your next gig at the local punk rock bar. Just make a digital emulation, save it to the pedal and plug that straight into the venue’s PA. Of course, what will be of more interest to most is the library of over 1,000 Tone Models that are included with the ToneX Max software, and the over 6,000 user generated models on ToneNet. 

The pedal can store up to 150 presets at a time that model everything from modern metal rigs to individual pedals. What’s more, if you’ve got a collection of impulse responses (IRs) you’ve collected, you can load them on the pedal as well to customize your selection of cabinets, and the pedal even has mic simulation built in, so you can plug straight into your DAW without having to sacrifice “room tone”. 

Beyond that, the ToneX Pedal has a noise gate, EQ and compressor circuits, as well as five reverbs borrowed from the AmpliTube X-Space pedal. Plus it integrates with AmpliTube 5 on your computer, and can even be used as an audio interface for directly capturing guitar tracks, and it has MIDI in and out to make sure everything syncs up right. The ToneX Pedal is available now for $400, 

 

Earlier this week, it was reported that Tesla workers in the company’s Buffalo, New York Autopilot facility had sent a letter to CEO Elon Musk stating their attention to unionize. Now, organizers at the same location are accusing the company of illegally terminating employees “in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity,” Bloomberg has reported. 

In a filing with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Workers United union accused Tesla of attempting to discourage its organizing activities. It has asked for a federal court injunction to “prevent irreparable destruction of employee rights resulting from Tesla’s unlawful conduct.” Several of the employees let go had been involved in labor discussion, and one was the member of an organizing committee. 

“This is a form of collective retaliation… designed to terrify everyone about potential consequences of them organizing, as well as to attempt to cull the herd,” Workers United organizer Jaz Brisack told Bloomberg. (Engadget has contacted Tesla for comment, but doesn’t anticipate a reply given the company no longer has a dedicated press office.)

Employees involved in the campaign are in charge of labeling data for Tesla’s Autopilot technology. The group is asking for better pay, job security and a work environment that reduces production pressures. The group previously said that Tesla engages in keystroke monitoring to see how long they spend on tasks, and shut down an internal chatroom used for airing grievances. 

Following the earlier report, Tesla issued a directive to “protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of all Tesla business information.” However, one employee said the terminations are galvanizing, rather than intimidating workers. “It’s pretty clear the message they’re sending,” said Sara Constatino. “And it’s really I think backfiring on them.” The NLRB will now investigate the claims and could prosecute them before a judge if it finds merit.