Kalakshar US

Apple has agreed to review its labor practices in the US after regulators and employees accused the company of union busting. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its annual shareholders meeting, Apple said it would carry out an assessment of its “efforts to comply with its Human Rights Policy as it relates to workers’ freedom of association and collective bargaining rights in the United States by the end of calendar year 2023.”

The company will bring in a third-party firm to conduct the audit, according to The New York Times. A group of investors, including five New York City public worker pension funds, that controls around $7 billion worth of Apple stock called for the assessment in a September shareholder proposal. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who started talks with Apple on behalf of the city pension funds, told the Times that Apple agreed to the audit if the investors withdrew the proposal.

“Workers organizing at Apple for a collective voice in their workplace have reported strong pushback from the company — that flies in the face of Apple’s stated human rights commitment to workers’ freedom of association,” Lander said in a statement. “I’m grateful to Apple’s board of directors for listening to the concerns of shareholders regarding worker rights and hope the company will heed the findings of the third-party assessment and take concrete steps to adopt a genuine commitment to non-interference that respects the rights of its workers.”

In a letter to Apple chairman Arthur Levinson, the investor group urged Apple to hire a firm with expertise in labor (and that has not advised clients on how to prevent workforces from unionizing) to carry out the review. The investors also brought Microsoft’s neutral stance on labor organizing to Levinson’s attention and urged Apple to include its global supply chain and non-US operations as part of the audit.

“Apple has made commitments to worker rights globally as well as in its supply chain, and while much of the current organizing activity has occurred in the US, there are Apple worker organizing efforts occurring around the world, including in Australia and the UK,” they wrote. “Addressing these topics at a global level can add credibility to the assessment and address other potential areas of concern proactively and efficiently.”

News of the assessment comes amid talks between Apple and unionized workers at a store in Towson, Maryland over their first union contract. Workers in at least a half-dozen stores have accused Apple of violating labor laws, claiming that the company has clamped down on attempts to organize. The Communications Workers of America, which represents a collective of Apple Store workers in Oklahoma City, said in a National Labor Relations Board filing that the company set up an illegal union controlled by management at a store in Columbus, Ohio to thwart support for an independent employee union.

“While a credible, independent assessment by individuals or organizations with the appropriate expertise on workers’ freedom of association could uncover important information about Apple’s response to worker organizing, including its use of union busting consultants, workers need concrete solutions now. Apple must commit to a true policy of neutrality toward union organizing efforts,” the Communications Workers of America told Engadget in a statement. “Apple’s workers deserve respect and a voice on the job, not just another self-congratulatory exercise in corporate image management. We support investor advocates’ efforts to ensure this is a credible audit.”

 

Google has released the online tool it promised to enable Bluetooth support on the Stadia controller. This gives the cloud-streaming gamepad a second life, so owners can use it with PC, iOS or Android devices, preventing the platform’s central accessory from becoming a glorified paperweight. Stadia will shut its doors for good on Wednesday at 11:59 PM PT.

Owners of the Stadia controller can visit this web-based tool to unlock Bluetooth. The process is quick, simple and easy to follow. First, you’ll need to connect your controller to your computer using a USB-C cable and ensure it’s charged to at least 10 percent. Then, you can open the tool in Chrome and follow the website’s instructions.

Google announced in September that it would shut down its cloud gaming service. It refunded all game and hardware transactions starting in November, and several game studios stepped in to assist with porting progress. For example, IO interactive released a promised Progression Carryover tool for Hitman players, and Ubisoft is offering free PC copies of its games purchased through Stadia.

I dusted off my Stadia controller to test out the tool. After half an hour of charging (it had been in a box for two years), I connected it to my MacBook, fired up Chrome and had no problems completing the process. After finishing, you can hold down the Stadia button and the ‘Y’ button to pair it with compatible devices.

The Bluetooth tool disables the controller’s WiFi, required for Stadia gameplay, so you may want to wait until after the closure if there’s a chance you’ll want to play one last time. You could even seize the opportunity to try the Worm Game Google released last week as a “thanks” to its loyal users. Stadia had its share of enthusiastic and dedicated fans; they just fell short of the numbers needed to keep the service afloat.

 

Microsoft could announce wide-sweeping layoffs within the next few days. The possibility of the tech giant laying off a significant part of its workforce was first reported by Sky News and later corroborated by Bloomberg. Sky put the number of the cuts at approximately five percent of the company’s 220,000-person workforce or about 11,000 employees total. Bloomberg said it couldn’t find out the scale of the layoffs but reported they would affect “a number of engineering divisions” and that they’re set to be “significantly larger” than other rounds of job cuts undertaken by Microsoft over the last year.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget the company does not comment on rumor and speculation. If the 11,000 figure is accurate, it would equal the 11,000 jobs Meta eliminated last year and fall short of the 18,000 positions Amazon expects to cut once the retailer is done with its far-reaching layoffs. In any case, Microsoft seemingly finds itself on a familiar trajectory. The company saw profits soar during the first two years of the pandemic, and it tried to capitalize on the moment by going on a hiring spree, adding 50,000 employees over that same time frame. But as recently as this past October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned of imminent belt-tightening due to worsening macroeconomic conditions. “We’re focused on helping our customers do more with less, while investing in secular growth areas and managing our cost structure in a disciplined way,” he told investors and analysts at the time. He’ll likely have more to say about Microsoft’s current position when the company announces its second-quarter earnings on January 24th.

 

Last September Getty Images banned the inclusion of AI-generated works in its commercial database over copyright concerns. On Tuesday, Getty Images announced that it is suing Stability AI, maker of the popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, in a London court over alleged copyright violations. 

“It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright and the associated metadata owned or represented by Getty Images absent a license to benefit Stability AI’s commercial interests and to the detriment of the content creators,” Getty Images wrote in a press statement released Tuesday. “Getty Images believes artificial intelligence has the potential to stimulate creative endeavors.”

“Getty Images provided licenses to leading technology innovators for purposes related to training artificial intelligence systems in a manner that respects personal and intellectual property rights,” the company continued. “Stability AI did not seek any such license from Getty Images and instead, we believe, chose to ignore viable licensing options and long‑standing legal protections in pursuit of their stand‑alone commercial interests.” 

The details of the lawsuit have not been made public, though Getty Images CEO Craig Peters told The Verge, that charges would include copyright and site TOS violations like web scraping. Furthermore, Peters explained that the company is not seeking monetary damages in this case so as much as it is hoping to establish a favorable precedent for future litigation.

Text-to-image generation tools like Stable Diffusion, Dall-E and Midjourney don’t create the artwork that they produce in the same way people do — there is no imagination from which these ideas can spring forth. Like other generative AI, these tools are trained to do what they do using massive databases of annotated images — think, hundreds of thousands of frog pictures labelled “frog” used to teach a computer algorithm what a frog looks like. 

And why go through the trouble of assembling and annotating a database of your own when there’s an entire internet’s worth of content there for the taking? AI firms like Clearview and Voyager Labs have already tried and been massively, repeatedly fined for scraping image data from the public web and social media sites. An independent study conducted last August concluded that a notable portion of Stable Diffusion’s data was likely pulled directly from the Getty Images site, in part as evidenced by the art tool’s habit of recreating the Getty watermark.  

 

Several days after Twitter abruptly cut a number of third-party apps off from its API, the company has quietly acknowledged the move. “Twitter is enforcing its long-standing API rules,” the company said in a tweet from its developer account. “That may result in some apps not working.”

However, the company offered no explanation which “long-standing API rules” developers of apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot were violating. It also doesn’t address why some smaller third-party Twitter apps are still up and running. Twitter no longer has a communications team.

The company’s two-sentence acknowledgement that it had cut off access to several longtime developers follows a report in The Information that the moves was an “intentional” one. Some have speculated that Twitter made the decision because third-party clients don’t show ads and may be perceived as siphoning off already declining ad revenue from the company. Twitter, under Elon Musk, likely has less enthusiasm for supporting its developers. As Twitterrific’s creator pointed out, many of the company’s employees overseeing the developer platform were cut in mass layoffs.

 

Our current favorite budget robot vacuum is $95 off its usual price at Amazon right now. iRobot’s Roomba 694 usually retails for $274 but is seeing a 35 percent discount, putting it just $4 above its all-time low of $174, which the vac dipped to in advance of Black Friday. If you’ve been curious about automated floor cleaning, but were waiting for a good deal, now might be a great time to see whether a robot vac is for you. We’ve tested a number of these machines over the years and this model is our current “best overall” pick in our budget robot vacuum guide. 

What really sets the Roomba 694 apart from other budget vacuums is the easy-to-use app. While the unit has three physical buttons that allow you to start, stop and dock the unit, you’ll mostly be controlling it through the app via a WiFi connection and your smartphone. After following the setup instructions, you can set schedules so the vac runs regularly and keeps your floors clean with minimal input on your part. 

The 694 can run for 90 minutes on hard floors, but we got about half that using the vac on a mixed landscape of carpet and tile. It automatically returns to the dock when the battery runs low, so it can handle larger homes with a pit stop to recharge. We found the Roomba 694 did a good job picking up dirt and debris, but it did get tripped up if charging cables were left on the floor. Getting those out of the way and emptying the unit when it’s full are two of the times you’ll need to physically interact with the unit. Keep in mind that this one doesn’t come with extra brushes, you’ll need to order them when the time comes. 

If you want to interact with your robot vac even less frequently, you could opt for a self-emptying model, like the iRobot Roomba j7+. You also get better obstacle detection and customized room mapping options. Of course you’ll pay more for these upgrades, but right now the j7+ is 25 percent off, bringing the $800 unit down to $600. The Roomba s9+ is also on sale. It’s our current pick for a premium robot vacuum in our guide, and right now the $1,000 unit is down to $800, or 20 percent off. 

Buy iRobot Roomba j7+ at Amazon – $600Buy iRobot Roomba s9+ at Amazon – $800

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

 

It’s Ubisoft’s turn to face strikes from unhappy game developers. Solidaires Informatique Jeu Vidéo has called for Ubisoft Paris employees to strike on January 27th to demand better working conditions. The labor union wants an “immediate” 10 percent salary increase to account for inflation and improved hours that include a four-day work week. Solidaires Informatique also wants greater transparency on workforce changes, as well as pledges to avoid thinly-disguised firings and “abusive” management practices that push staff to quit.

The strike plan comes in response to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot’s internal email following news the company was cancelling three games and otherwise grappling with tough economic conditions. As PC Gamernotes, Guillemot called for workers to be “especially careful” with spending and warned of moves that included “targeted restructuring” and “natural attrition.” To Solidaires Informatique, the executive is attempting to “shift the blame” to staff while not-so-subtly hinting at layoffs, pay cuts and quiet studio closures.

Ubisoft Paris declined to comment to Engadget. This isn’t the first time Solidaires Informatique has taken Ubisoft to task over its behavior. The labor group sued Ubisoft in 2021 for allegedly fostering a culture of “institutional sexual harassment” where it was easier to tolerate horrible behavior than fix it. The company had already fired key managers accused of misconduct, but others remained in place.

The call to action joins a growing labor movement across the gaming world. Microsoft just recognized the game industry’s largest union, while more Activision Blizzard workers are winning union votes. That’s on top of a gradual turn away from the long hours of crunch time that have often defined game development. Eidos’ Quebec studios started four-day weeks in 2021, and talent has sometimes left to form independent studios where crunch is forbidden. Simply put, employees are no longer willing to accept the status quo.

 

The official Philips Hue app sucks.

You’d think that, being the oldest name in the smart lighting world, Philips would have the best app on the market. More than a decade of iterative improvements and a mature hardware world would see the app rise proudly above its competitors. Sadly for me, and every other Hue user, the company seems to have fallen asleep behind the wheel.

(Yes: I know that Philips Lighting rebranded itself as Signify, but let’s not confuse matters here.)

I picked up a Hue starter kit and some additional Lux bulbs back in 2013, and was very impressed with the setup for at least ten minutes. It very quickly became one of those gadgets that only really got used to show the power of your smart home to visitors. And they rather quickly tired of my ability to change my living room lights from white to purple, and back again. In fact, I mostly used the bulbs as glorified dimmer switches, which wasn’t enough to justify the high cost of the initial investment.

At some point, the app started insisting I replace the v1 (round) Bridge for the v2 (square) model. And I bristled, already feeling aggrieved that Hue was all mouth and no trousers, I resented having to pay when the existing system worked perfectly well. Especially since I could have used that money to buy more Hue bulbs and further lock myself into Philips’ ecosystem.

No tears were shed when the Bridge eventually got smashed by one (or both) of my kids when I was out of the room. I decided, in a tiny flurry of COVID-19 lockdown-induced Marie Kondo-ing, that I’d toss the box into the trash and be done with it. After all, it was broken, and changing the color of my bulbs did not spark the joy I was expecting, not to mention the fact that Philips loves to charge a lot of cash to sync your lighting to a movie playing on your TV.

Last month, my wife asked me why we weren’t able to use Hue any more, and I explained the situation. She asked how much it would cost to fix it, and found a sealed, unused, second generation Bridge available on Facebook Marketplace for half the price at retail. So we snapped it up, obviously making the usual security checks about buying second hand IoT gear before plugging it into our network.

That was, however, when the troubles began, since you can’t just sign in to your existing Hue account, hook it up to the new Bridge, and be done. Nobody at Philips seems to have imagined that it might be worthwhile building out the ability to revive an account tied to a dead bridge. In fact, there’s no way to connect anything without a fresh login, and the bulbs themselves are tied to the old one. The app also doesn’t provide any way to hard reset a bulb, or in fact do anything beyond leave you staring at a splash screen.

For about half an hour, I did wonder if I’d just wasted some cash on a new Bridge but never to get things working again. I felt a frustration, a powerlessness, the sort that comes when you’re locked and bolted out of a building at 2am in an unfamiliar city and your phone’s out of charge. My login wouldn’t work, because my bridge wasn’t connected to the internet. A new login won’t even acknowledge the presence of the expensive hardware all over my house. My hands got very itchy.

This is the kicker: I’m not the first person to learn how bad Philips’ software development is, because there’s a whole army of third-party Hue apps out there. Much in the same way that charity is an indictment on behalf of the state, the depth and breadth of Hue apps available is a massive critique on Philips’ lackluster app development. You’re paid to do this, and there’s no available function in the app to be able to fix what could be a fairly common problem.

I opted to use Hue Lights, one of many independent apps that offered the ability to hard reset a bulb. All I had to do was bring each bulb close to the bridge (you’ll need a lamp handy), turn it on, and hard reset each unit individually. Then I could reconnect them to the new bridge and, as if by magic, could then start using them with the official Hue app. Not that, I’ll be honest, I really want to. Because this third-party, very simple app has more power than the official Philips app and it’s easier to use. If you haven’t tried it, I heartily recommend that you do. At least until Philips gets its act together.

 

DoorDash and Starbucks plan to expand their delivery partnership to all 50 US states by March this year, the companies announced Tuesday. Following a pilot that began last year in Atlanta, Houston and Sacramento (and later expanded to Seattle, Portland and New York City), people in North California, Texas, Georgia and Florida can now turn to DoorDash when they want a Starbucks coffee delivered to them.

According to Starbucks, it will offer 95 percent of the items found on in-store menus through DoorDash. You can also customize your order just like when you order in person. The app allows you to specify whether you want syrup in your drink, your milk preference and your choice of expresso roast. DoorDash also promises prompt delivery of coffee orders but stops short of a specific guarantee. DashPass customers won’t need to pay additional delivery fees to get their pumpkin spice latte orders to their door. For everyone else, DoorDash’s standard delivery and service fees apply.

Uber Eats has offered nationwide delivery of Starbucks orders since 2019, making the timing of the DoorDash expansion somewhat puzzling. By all accounts, the era of massive growth delivery firms saw during the first two years of the pandemic has come to an end. Between the easing of lockdown restrictions in many jurisdictions and cost of living increases, fewer people are using delivery apps.

 

PC makers weren’t the only ones who dealt with a grim 2022. Canalys estimates that smartphone shipments tanked 11 percent year-over-year, making it worst annual performance in a decade. The fourth quarter was worse — shipments fell 17 percent compared to the end of 2021. That was also the worst fourth quarter of the past 10 years, according to analysts.

Most industry heavyweights had a tough time, too. Apple and Samsung were the only two major brands to gain market share in 2022, growing to 19 and 22 percent respectively. Chinese rivals Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo all shrank. It won’t surprise you to hear that Apple overtook Samsung in the last quarter (the iPhone 14 family was brand new, while the Galaxy S22 was relatively old). However, it was still a record high — Apple claimed 25 percent of the market in the fall where Samsung had ‘just’ 20 percent. Higher-end brands held steady, in other words.

You might already know why the market went south. The combination of a tough economy and supply problems hurt demand and created shortages. Even if you could afford your dream smartphone, you might have had a difficult time finding it. That led companies to run sales and otherwise go to great lengths to entice customers and clear out unsold stock.

Don’t expect 2023 to be much better. Canalys predicts that the smartphone space might only grow slightly at best. China’s re-opening is poised to help, but researchers only believe the effect will be noticeable toward the second half of the year. If that proves true, phone makers may still end up fighting for your attention with aggressive promos.