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New York Attorney General Letitia James has sent a letter to MSG Entertainment, the owner and operator of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, asking for information about its use of facial recognition to deny entry to attorneys at firms representing its legal opponents. James’s letter warns that the Orwellian policy may violate local, state and federal human rights laws, including those prohibiting retaliation.

MSG Entertainment’s facial recognition has been identifying and denying entry to lawyers from firms representing clients suing the company — whether or not those attorneys are directly involved in the cases. The company, led by CEO James Dolan (who also owns the New York Knicks and Rangers), has defended the policy, framing it as an attempt to prevent evidence collection “outside proper litigation discovery channels.” However, lawyers have called that rationale “ludicrous,” criticizing the ban as a “transparent effort” to punish attorneys for suing them.

The company has removed at least four lawyers from events at its venues since October — including at Knicks and Rangers games, concerts and Christmas shows. When passing through a metal detector, the arena’s facial recognition matched the attorneys with photos from their firms’ websites. James’s office says the policy impacts all lawyers working at more than 90 firms.

In the letter, James warns MSG Entertainment that blocking people from venues may violate New York’s civil and human rights laws while causing other attorneys to think twice about taking on legitimate cases against the company. “MSG Entertainment cannot fight their legal battles in their own arenas,” said AG James. “Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall are world-renowned venues and should treat all patrons who purchased tickets with fairness and respect. Anyone with a ticket to an event should not be concerned that they may be wrongfully denied entry based on their appearance, and we’re urging MSG Entertainment to reverse this policy.”

MSG Entertainment CEO James Dolan

The Attorney General isn’t alone in taking on Dolan and MSG Entertainment. New York state lawmakers Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Liz Krueger and Tony Simone introduced a bill on Monday to outlaw the policy. It would amend a previous state civil rights law prohibiting venues from denying entry to anyone with a legitimate ticket, adding “sporting events” to the list of qualifying events.

Madison Square Garden has used facial recognition for security since at least 2018. James’s letter calls on MSG Entertainment to justify its use of the tech and report its steps to comply with New York civil and human rights laws to ensure the tech won’t lead to further discrimination. “Discrimination and retaliation against those who have petitioned the government for redress,” reads the letter, “have no place in New York.”

More than 280 workers at TCGplayer, a marketplace for trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon, are trying to unionize. A supermajority of the workers have filed for a union representation election with the National Labor Relations Board. If their efforts are successful, they’ll form the first union at eBay, which bought TCGplayer in 2022 in a deal worth up to $295 million.

Employees of several card and tabletop companies have unionized, including Card Kingdom, Bellevue Mox Boarding House, Noble Knight Games and Paizo. The TCGplayer workers are similarly trying to organize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which has also worked with severalvideo game studios in their unionization attempts.

“We are ready to unlock the full potential we know TCGplayer can have. By forming a union, we are able to support each other, customers, and sellers to create the best TCGplayer for all of us,” Jennifer Bonham, a shipping generalist at TCGplayer, said in a statement. “We are incredibly passionate about our work, but passion can only get us so far. We want to see our collective health and well-being thrive because for many of us, this is the best job we have ever had.”

The workers are organizing as TCG Union/CWA and are all employed at the company’s authentication center in Syracuse, New York. They each play a hand in ensuring card shipments meet quality standards and that they’re accurately completed.

The workers are seeking an end to pay caps; pay rises to account for inflation and cost of living increases; and “a fair and comprehensive sick leave and absence policy that does not punish people” for issues outside of their control. Moreover, they’re demanding inclusive career advancement opportunities; fair and transparent hiring practices; clearly defined job roles and expectations; and the resources and training needed to do their jobs. On top of that, they’re asking for a seat at the table, along with “just cause and clear grievance and discipline procedures, applied equally to management.”

This isn’t the first time that the workers have attempted to unionize, as Polygon notes. They tried to do so almost three years ago with the Service Employees International Union. However, just days before the scheduled vote, they withdrew the petition. The eBay acquisition is said to have reignited the unionization drive.

“We have received notice that a petition is being filed by the Communications Workers of America labor union asking the National Labor Relations Board to conduct a vote on union representation,” a TCGplayer spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. “We have not seen that petition by the National Labor Relations Board, nor have we had the chance to review it. We respect an employee’s right to choose or to decline union representation, and acknowledge this is a big decision. Our commitment to our employees during this time is to ensure they have the information needed to make an informed and confidential choice.”

Engadget has contacted eBay for comment.

Niantic has created some of the most popular augmented reality games like Ingress and Pokémon Go. But this week the company is launching a new title called NBA All-World that might be the best application of its location-based tech to date.

For people who have played one of Niantic’s previous titles, NBA All-World features a very familiar formula. After installing the free app (available on Android and iOS), you are given a starter player and from there you can use the in-game map to navigate to real-world locations in order to collect items, earn cash or battle other players. The big twist for NBA All-World is that, instead of visiting random points of interest to battle others, you’ll need to visit real-world basketball courts to earn your spot on local leaderboards. And, of course, there’s a roster of big-name ballers like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Paul George to collect.

That might not sound like a major change, but it results in some very notable differences in how you play the game. The first is that instead of hanging out on random street corners like you often do while raiding in Pokémon Go, the need to go to local courts makes NBA All-World feel more grounded in reality. That’s important because Niantic says there’s actually very little overlap between people who play its other titles and more traditional sports gamers (just 10 percent according to Niantic senior producer Marcus Matthews). And after years of people playing basketball game series like NBA2K (or my personal favorite NBA Street) at home, Niantic sees All-World as one of the first games that encourages players to get off the couch and go back outside.

Because you have to physically go to real courts to take part in battles, NBA All-World feels better connected to the basketball community at large. While I didn’t get to try this out myself prior to launch, it’s not a stretch to imagine people going to a park to play All-World only to hop into a real pickup game. Then, when you sub out, you can go back to challenging leaderboards or playing minigames in NBA All-World on your phone while you catch your breath.

As for the game itself, Niantic has also worked to integrate basketball culture into every aspect of the app. This includes partnering with companies like Adidas and Puma (but not Nike just yet) so you can buy virtual clothing or footwear that matches what star ballers wear IRL. Players in game are also modeled after their real-life counterparts, so centers like Domantas Sabonis are better at blocking while smaller guards are faster and better at stealing the ball. And while Niantic is keeping many elements of NBA All-World’s gameplay pretty simplistic (like defense, which is mostly automatic), the ability to move and juke in various directions, step back for a jumper or drive to the basket provides a surprising amount of depth.

I also really appreciate that because Niantic already has tons of info provided by users from its other AR games, NBA All-World is populated with tons of in-game locations and hot spots, from courts to places like banks and stores where you can grab items, energy and more. And when the game goes live this week on January 24th, gameplay won’t just be restricted to the US as NBA All-World is getting a full global launch, which really speaks to the international nature of the sport.

However, at this point it’s important to mention that while I think this might be the best use of Niantic’s location-based gaming tech so far, building a new community and playerbase of gamers is a challenge for any developer. This includes some of the company’s previous stumbles, like its ill-fated Harry Potter AR game which is slated to go dark later this month, or its Catan spinoff, which was discontinued in 2021 before ever seeing an official release. But for those looking to dive deeper into the basketball community, NBA All-World looks to offer the best blend of real life and AR integration yet.

Massachusetts politicians are still pushing for better working conditions for ridesharing drivers. New bills in the state House and Senate would not only pursue collective bargaining rights across companies, as with past measures, but would guarantee a minimum wage, paid sick leave and other benefits. Companies like Uber and Lyft would also have to cover some driver expenses and pour money into the government’s unemployment insurance system.

The new legislation wouldn’t decide whether drivers are employees or independent contractors. However, Senate bill co-sponsor Jason Lewis told the State House News Service his bill would establish requirements that apply regardless of a driver’s status. Previous bills would have tasked workers with negotiating for benefits that are now included, Lewis says.

Massachusetts sued Uber and Lyft in 2020 for allegedly misclassifying drivers as contractors and denying protections granted under state labor law. The companies responded with a proposed ballot measure that would have offered benefits in return for requiring that drivers be treated as contractors. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court rejected that proposal last June.

We’ve asked Uber and Lyft for comment. In a statement, the Service Employees International Union (a bill proponent) says the bill “rewrites the rules” and gives condition drivers have sought for over a decade. The Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, an industry-run organization that opposes the legislation, previously claimed that measures granting employee status don’t reflect a “vast majority” of drivers that want to remain contractors. The coalition prefers bills that would bring the anti-employee ballot proposal to the legislature as well as create portable benefit accounts.

The state has been one of the major battlegrounds for ridesharing work conditions, but it’s only one part of a larger fight. Uber and New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission have fought over pay raises, while a California law meant to reclassify many gig economy workers as employees has faced unsuccessful attempts to carve out exemptions for companies like Uber and Lyft.

The first major gaming showcase of the year is about to take place as Xbox and Bethesda are set to host the premiere edition of their Developer Direct. The stream starts at 3PM ET on January 25th. It will be available on Xbox and Bethesda’s YouTube and Twitch channels. You can also watch it via the embedded video below.

The showcase will run for 43 minutes, according to Aaron Greenberg, vice-president of Xbox games marketing. It will focus on four games: The Elder Scrolls Online, Redfall, Forza Motorsport and Minecraft Dungeons. Right after the event ends, there’ll be a deeper dive into the next Elder Scrolls Online chapter update. The other three games are all slated to arrive sometime in the first half of 2023.

While it may be mentioned briefly, don’t pin your hopes on getting more info about Starfield. Xbox and Bethesda are saving that for a standalone show at a later date. However, perhaps there’ll be a surprise announcement or two during today’s stream.

The Developer Direct is debuting just at the right time for Microsoft. The company needs to give people more reasons to get excited about the Xbox ecosystem. It just announced that revenue from Xbox content and services fell by 12 percent last quarter, while Xbox hardware revenue fell by 13 percent — all during a holiday quarter. Redfall is one of the games I’m most looking forward to this year and there are a ton of Forza and Minecraft fans out there, so it’ll be worth paying attention to this stream.

These days it’s not necessary to go to a giant studio with overpriced, pro-grade gear to record a Grammy-winning record. You can do it right from the comfort of your own bedroom in fact, using tools priced for even the most casual of hobbyists. It’s not news that the tools of creation or the avenues for distributing art are accessible to more people than ever. But the cultural institutions that have dominated popular music for so long can no longer ignore the bedroom producer or budding Soundcloud star.

Maybe you’ve been inspired to build your own home recording studio. And maybe, you’re not quite sure where to start. Well, an audio interface, a good mic and a decent set of headphones will get you pretty far. But the first thing you’ll need is probably staring you right in the face: a computer.

Computer and a DAW

Justin DeLay, Director of Product and Category Marketing at Reverb, drives home just how important the computer is: “You can strip away everything else and as long as you have a computer you can still create music,” he told me. He suggests you “spend the money on a good computer and get other gear — such as audio interfaces, mics, headphones, etc. — used or at reasonable price points.”

But, truthfully, you can do quite a lot with whatever computer you have on hand. Joe Pecora, the engineer and producer at Red Room Studio, says your set up “could be as simple as an iPhone/iPad with Garage band.” (I know someone who recorded an entire album this way.) While he agrees that the most important part is your computer, he argues it doesn’t have to be super powerful. It doesn’t even have to be a desktop. JDilla famously created many of his beats on a Roland SP303, and you can basically recreate that experience with an iPad and the $4 Koala Sampler for iOS. And don’t forget that Gorillaz recorded an entire album on an iPad.

Which leads us to the next thing you’ll need: a DAW, or digital audio workstation. If you’re a Mac user, then you’re lucky enough to have access to Garage Band, a surprisingly capable free option. And upgrading to Logic Pro X is only a $200 investment. If you’re on Windows (or just don’t like Logic), I often recommend Ableton Live (starting at $99). But honestly there are plenty of great options out there, like FL Studio, BitWig and Cubase all of which start at $99. And often, stripped down versions come free as part of a software bundle when you buy music-making hardware like MIDI controllers and audio interfaces.

Assuming you already have a computer and you just need the accessories to get recording, you can pick up everything you need for under $500 new. But, if you’re patient, you could build a well equipped bedroom studio with used gear for as little as $250.

MIDI controller

Speaking of which, one of the first additions to your studio should be a MIDI controller. DeLay says this is a piece of gear often overlooked by beginners. “It’s not just for playing keyboard sounds,” he explained, “it can be used to write drums and percussion, to control mixes and more. It’s the creative interface of music production, and you don’t have to play the piano in order to harness its power.”

We’ve covered plenty of affordable and portable options before. But if you don’t plan to make music on the go, I can’t recommend the Arturia MiniLab 3 enough. It punches well above its weight, and even the pros love this thing. And if you have the space, it’s not much more to upgrade to something like the Keylab Essential 49 ($269) or Novation Launchkey 49 ($229), which will give you a lot more controls to play with.

Microphone

Unfortunately there’s no gear that will magically turn you into a breathy pop goddess, but a decent mic and audio interface can at least help you sound your best. Now, you could get a USB microphone, like Blue Microphones’ $130 Yeti, and it will certainly get the job done. Heck, that album I mentioned earlier was recorded using the wired headset that came with the iPhone.

But, honestly, your better bet is to get a regular XLR mic and an audio interface. Pecora specifically warns against splurging too much here. “People will look at their favorite artist and see that they use a certain mic or preamp or plugin and want to use the same thing thinking it will get them the same sound.” On early singles like “Ocean Eyes” Billie Eilish used an Audio-Technica AT2020 condenser mic, which costs just $100. And I’ve stuck almost exclusively with cheap Shure SM58s and 57s ($100 new, $50-$75 used) whether I was recording demos with my band in college or voice over for review videos at Engadget.

If you fancy yourself a future pop sensation and want to make sure your vocals are the star of the show, you could consider using a significant chunk of your budget on something like the Rode NT1-A ($229) or Shure SM7B ($390). You will get better results with more flexibility for post production, but you can clearly get excellent results with more affordable options.

Audio interface

As for the interface, there are tons of great options out there. Companies like Focusrite, Arturia and Tascam make excellent ones. But our new favorites in the budget interface space are Universal Audio’s Volt series. If your budget allows for it we strongly recommend the $299 Volt 276. Though, the $189 Volt 2 is also excellent, it just doesn’t standout from the crowd quite as much.

If you’re trying to save a few bucks, it’s hard to beat the Scarlett series from Focusrite (just make sure to get the second- or third-gen models). You can get the latest Scarlett 2i2 for around $130 used, but it’s just $180 new (and includes a huge bundle of very useful software).

The reason to opt for an audio interface instead of a simple USB mic is because it offers you a lot more flexibility and room to grow. For one, it offloads a lot of the audio processing from the CPU. Second, it will allow you to connect not just mics (and swap in different ones for different purposes), but also instruments, turntables or anything with an audio-out jack. An audio interface is also necessary if you plan to connect a pair of studio monitors.

Studio monitors and headphones

This is an area that DeLay advises caution. While a good set of studio monitors will obviously be better than the speakers on your laptop and will result in a better mix, it’s too easy to get caught up in what he calls monitor envy. “The reality is that monitors at a $300 price point are going to work just fine in most spaces,” he says. Plus, your bedroom probably doesn’t have the space to really make the most of large, powerful monitors. So, save your money.

And if you’re just starting out, you’re probably better off getting a decent set of headphones. There’re tons of amazing and affordable studio quality headphones out there for under $200, like the $179 Beyerdynamic DT990PRO (currently down to just $179 on Amazon). But one of our favorites is an old workhorse from Sony, the MDR-7506. They’re well under $100 and actual pros have used them for decades to mix music.

One tip DeLay offers for novices: Double check your mixes in the real world. Headphones can over emphasize bass, while smaller studio monitors can have trouble delivering accurate bass response. So make sure to listen to your track on laptop speakers or in a car to get a sense of how it will sound in the wild.

And that’s really the key — have the patience to develop your skills and make the most of the gear you have. It’s really easy to catch a bad case of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) when you’re first starting out — trust me, I know. But there’s no need to shell out thousands of dollars for high-end gear to start making music. You don’t even need to buy new gear. Pecora suggests the only thing you absolutely should buy new are headphones. And, presumably, that’s just because you don’t want to be wearing years worth of someone else’s sweat on your ears.

Poker Face isn’t the sort of show that can be spoiled, but have a warning anyway.

I always think there’s been a gulf between production-line TV and its prestige brethren, but that the internet helped demarcate its edges. NCIS was the most-watched drama series in the US from 2009 onwards, but you don’t see The Ringer giving an essay-length breakdown to every episode. These days, prestige drama in the peak-TV mold is pored over and chewed around by the internet sausage machine. Everything else is deemed disposable, despite the obvious and sustained success of the stuff most people are actually watching on broadcast networks. There’s a lot of snobbery there, but also I suspect the The Rookie audience isn’t too fussed about reading a 2,000-word breakdown by an underemployed Yale grad about last night’s Nathan Fillion fights crime action.

Poker Face, then, is an attempt by what I’ll only-slightly-sarcastically call “prestige TV people” into making production-line TV. Like when a stuffy gourmet chef wants to burnish their “down with the kids” credentials by making the sort of dirty burger you can only appreciate at 3am. Interesting then that, despite the fact its co-creator and star are both poster children for Netflix’s revolution, that the show was set up at Peacock. Created by Rian Johnson, fresh from the success of Glass Onion: A Benoit Blanc Mystery, and Russian Doll’s Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face is an unashamed homage to a lost age of TV. Or, you know, lost if you’re not paying attention to whatever CBS is showing on Thursday and Sunday nights.

Lyonne stars as Charlie Cale, a woman with a troubled past who has developed the miraculous ability to tell when someone is lying. After attempting to use her talent to get rich quickly on a lazy poker tour across the US, she’s caught by a Reno casino magnate. He offers her a hostess job, in exchange for not murdering her to death, making her promise not to use her talent again. When he retires, and his grabby son takes over, he opts to use her talent rather than keep it hidden, embroiling both of them in a murder mystery. Which eventually leads her taking a road trip in her Plymouth Barracuda, solving murders wherever she goes.

And, certainly, the show has leant into the idea that Poker Face is probably the closest thing we’re going to get to a millennial Columbo remake. Certainly, the creative team haven’t been shy about drawing the parallels between the ‘70s classic (and, uh 80/90s less classic) and this. It uses the same Inverted Detective Story structure, with the lead character absent in the first act while we see how the murder was committed and the attempts to build a watertight alibi. Not to mention the choice to title the show with boldface yellow text, complete with copyright date under the title card, and its overall ethos. You’ve got a streetwise, rough-around-the-edges New Yorker with a knack for solving crimes and a classic car. And, much like in its inspiration, Lyonne is going up against a series of A- and B-list guest stars, since the most famous guest star (or stars) is the one that did the murder.

The differences are mostly down to packaging, since Columbo was conceived as a series of movies-of-the-month. (Columbo was originally 90 minutes, but many episodes were “supersized” to two full hours, very commonly to their detriment.) Poker Face is set up as an “episodic” case-of-the-week show, with streaming’s runtime freedom meaning that some episodes run between 80 minutes and just 50 minutes, when the plot is slender enough to justify the trim. That’s good, because it rarely feels like any episode overstays its welcome, and they often skip along at a breezy old clip.

But this efficiency also robs us of one of the highlights that made classic Columbo as it could often be. Watching a short, scrappy, working-class cop square off against higher status opposition was always a delight. And the show would build up to these confrontations, parceling them out along the way toward the eventual denouement. Star Peter Falk was a great, if difficult, actor, and he would often be squaring off against one of his real-life friends, each one a superstar. And they would load each confrontation with depth, nuance and tension as Lt. Columbo sliced apart their “watertight” alibi with a razor blade. Watching Falk against John Cassavetes, Patrick McGoohan, Robert Culp or the amazing Jack Cassidy was electrifying television. And all of this is cast aside, because Charlie is apparently a human lie detector that knows whenever the guest star lies in her presence. (This is rather unsubtly demonstrated most of the time by Charlie reflexively coughing a naughty word describing male cow poops that we’re no longer allowed to write here.)

In its place, is the recurring twist (if it can be called that) that Charlie was actually present or somehow involved with the situation leading up to the murder. So while Lyonne is absent for the first act of the show, you then see an abbreviated version of those same events showing how Charlie came to be inveigled with the events (and has an emotional stake in solving the crime). In a way, you’ll start wondering how exactly we’ll see Charlie pop up and which scenes that we just saw was she lurking in the periphery of. It’s an elegant way of tying the character and the murder together without making her a shabby police officer in a beige raincoat.

But you don’t need to be a Columbo fan to enjoy Poker Face, and the ultimate litmus test was making my aggressively-Columbo-indifferent wife watch the screeners with me. She said that the show was fun, and it gives you the “joy of seeing how Charlie was there all along.” And that, much like another of her favorite detective shows, Jonathan Creek, you can play along at home, looking for the clues that will eventually point Charlie to solving the case. (The show does play fair, too, and gives you the chance to spot a clue that our hero won’t clock for another few minutes.)

The benefit of the episodic nature of the series is that you can dip in and out of it as you feel like it. I watched the six (of ten) episodes Peacock made available for review in dribs and drabs, watching one, then taking a day off, then the next, in a way that felt similar to how it’s intended to be seen. The only issue for would-be dippers is that you may not quite understand why, at the end of half the episodes, a character I won’t name pops up to glower at Lyonne. This is something the show has borrowed from older shows, where our hero was always on the move in order to stay out of the clutches of the overarching villain and keep the story going. But you’d be a fool not to at least watch the pilot episode, which was written and directed by Johnson. (The second episode, where he just directs, sags a little as it opts to restate its premise for anyone who decided to watch TV like a psychopath and not just start at the beginning.)

Tonally, Poker Face is breezy, despite its rough-around-the-edges world, and there’s often one killer joke in every episode. As much as some episodes might draw from a darker palette, none are even close to being described as “heavy.” It’s not afraid to be a little silly, either, but I’d spoil the fun in explaining how or why it is, so you’ll have to discover that bit for yourself. In fact, most of the fun of the show is just in the watching, so I can’t imagine anyone will be racing to write 2,000-word essay-length breakdowns about how each episode unfolded. Just repeat to yourself: It’s just a show, I should really just relax.

Poker Face debuts on Peacock on January 26th, 2023, with the first four episodes streaming at launch. A new episode will debut every following Thursday for the next six weeks.

There’s no such thing as having too much storage on hand. You’ll never quite know when you could use a microSD card or SSD, and better safe than sorry. Stocking up when they’re on sale is never a bad idea, so it’s worth checking out the latest discounts on some SanDisk models at Amazon. For instance, a Nintendo Switch-licensed 512GB microSD card (with cute Animal Crossing branding) has dropped 58 percent from $130 to $58.11. A yellow 256GB card with a Super Mario Super Star logo is 40 percent off at $31.90.

You don’t necessarily have to use these cards in a Switch, of course, but depending on what you might use them for, it’s worth keeping in mind the read and write speeds. These versions have read speeds of up to 100MB/s and write speeds up to 90MB/s. That might not be fast enough for a camera that shoots 8K footage with high frame rates (you might want a card with a higher capacity for that purpose, anyway), but these cards should be absolutely fine for a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck, which have maximum read speeds of 104MB/s.

Elsewhere, SanDisk’s 2TB Extreme Portable SSD is currently 65 percent off at $160. That’s a hefty discount from the regular price of $460. This SSD supports read speeds up to 1,050MB/s and write speeds up to 1,000MB/s. It has USB 3.2 Gen 2 support for data transfers via USB-C.

SanDisk says the SSD has up to two-meter drop protection and IP55 water and dust resistance. There’s built-in password protection with 256‐bit AES hardware encryption to protect your data and a carabiner loop to help you physically secure the device.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

One of the best-loved Nintendo 64 games is coming to Switch Online’s Expansion Pack this week. Back in September, Nintendo revealed that GoldenEye 007 was coming to the service and now that day is almost upon us. You’ll be able to start playing the game on your Nintendo Switch starting on January 27th. The game will be available on Xbox on the same date.

It’s unusual to see a licensed game arrive on Nintendo’s subscription service, but GoldenEye 007 is one that many fans have been looking forward to replaying (or even playing for the first time). It remains to be seen how well Rare’s classic first-person shooter will hold up almost 26 years after it debuted on the N64. Hopefully, Rare has improved the janky controls and awful framerate from the original game.

There are some new additions to the Switch Online version, though, including a widescreen mode and online multiplayer. So, you won’t necessarily need to cram around the same TV to take on your friends in a “slappers only” deathmatch.

Rare is also bringing a “recreated” version of GoldenEye 007 to Xbox consoles this Friday with dual analogue stick support, 4K resolution and “a consistent refresh rate.” Oddly, there’s no online multiplayer on the Xbox version, though there’s still four-player splitscreen support. You’ll be able to access it through Xbox Game Pass. Owners of the Rare Replay collection can download GoldenEye 007 to their Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S at no extra cost.

YouTube Music contractors in the Austin area who voted to unionize are accusing their employers of abusing return-to-office policies to stifle labor organizers. The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that YouTube parent Alphabet and staffing firm Cognizant are using an abrupt return-to-office move, due in February, to punish remote workers, many of whom are reportedly pro-union. Some also live outside Austin. Managers have also been sending work to other offices to “chill” union organization efforts in Austin, according to the complaint, while a supervisor purportedly made implicit anti-union threats.

While the workers are contracted, they claim Alphabet and Cognizant represent a “joint employer.” If so, Alphabet would be responsible for working conditions and have to negotiate if the Austin-area team votes in favor of a union.

We’ve asked Alphabet and Cognizant for comment. In a statement to Bloomberg, a Cognizant spokesperson claims staff were “fully aware” of an eventual return to the office before the petition to unionize, and that it has “repeatedly and consistently” told employees about its return-to-office policy since December 2021. Those contractors who willingly left the Austin area and can’t come back to in-person work can also be “considered” for other work at Cognizant, the spokeperson says.

This isn’t the first increase in tension between Alphabet and pro-union contractors. In spring 2022, Washington state Cognizant employees working on Google Maps warned they would go on strike over an allegedly unreasonable return-to-office schedule. Cognizant pushed back the return by 90 days. At Google, meanwhile, many cafeteria workers quietly unionized during the pandemic as they sought better conditions.

The row comes as Alphabet is cutting 12,000 jobs worldwide in the wake of rough economic conditions and dropping profits. While that figure only covers direct employees, it reflects pressure to slash employment costs. That, in turn, may set up conflicts with pro-union workers seeking better pay and benefits.