YouTube accused of using return-to-office policies to thwart union organizers

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.

‘GoldenEye 007’ will hit Switch and Xbox on January 27th

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. If you have a digital copy of the Rare Replay collection, you can download GoldenEye 007 to your Xbox One or Xbox Series X/S at no extra cost.

Acura will sell its EVs exclusively online starting in 2024

Honda has big plans for the new year and electrification will play a huge part of that, the company’s recently-promoted SVP of Sales, Mamadou Diallo, told reporters on Tuesday. Expect to see a lot more Honda and Acura hybrids on the road this year, ahead of a major EV push come 2024.

Overall, Honda is officially aiming to move 1.2 million units in 2023, with Acura shooting for 160,000 units, a 20 – 25 percent increase over what they sold in 2022. And although the company managed to maintain a single-digit days’ supply of vehicles throughout last year, it enters 2023 with a glut of cars and trucks and a 17-day supply. As such, dealers are going to be looking to move a lot of that inventory before this year’s models start arriving so fingers crossed, we could potentially see some Tesla-level price cuts in the near future.

“In 2023, we will see the strategies we’ve been talking about, including growing sales of light truck models, increasing volume of hybrid-electric models and the start of digital sales at Acura,” Diallo said in a Wednesday press release. “All this leads toward our vision of 100-percent electrified sales by 2040 to fulfill our ultimately goal of zero emissions by 2050.” 

The ZDX and ZDX Type S will be Acura’s first full-EV offerings and serve as the harbingers of the company’s new, exclusively online EV sales strategy. Diallo didn’t have much additional information regarding how the system would work — such as whether haggling was allowed or how individual vehicle prices would be set — but assured the assembled journalists, “as we get closer to [the ZDX debut], we certainly will be discussing this a little bit more with our dealer body and the press in general. For right now we’re still finalizing all those details.” Acura joins Ford, Volvo, GM and VW in shifting its electrified vehicle sales to the digital marketplace. 

For its part, Honda is planning a significant increase in its hybrid vehicle production in 2023, starting with the newly-redesigned Accord and Accord Hybrid (they’ll also be Honda’s first with Google Built-In). The company “will continue to increase hybrid sales through core models as an important step in bridging customers to full electrified vehicles while reducing GHG emissions,” the Wednesday release reads. Honda anticipates a solid half of this year’s CR-V and Accord sales to be of the hybrid variety and its efforts bolstered in 2024 with the introduction of a new Civic hybrid. Sales for the all-electric Prologue begin this year with deliveries set for 2024.

Anker charging accessories are up to 49 percent off in Amazon sale

If you’re looking to buy some accessories for your phone, a bunch of Anker powerbanks, cables and chargers are on sale right now at Amazon. One of the best deals in the list is the Anker Magnetic (MagGo) Battery for the iPhone 12, 13 and 14, which is c…

The Morning After: Ticketmaster wants Congress to fix its bot problem

In November, millions of Taylor Swift fans logged on to Ticketmaster to grab tickets for her 2023 tour. However, the site crashed, rendering verified users unable to purchase. Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, explained that while 1.5 million people had signed up as legit customers, over 14 million hit the site when tickets went on sale – many of which were bots.

Live Nation president and CFO Joe Berchtold told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that the company “learned valuable lessons” from the Swift debacle. Three senators shoehorned in Taylor Swift quotes into their statements and questions – which I loved.

Berchtold called for Congress to expand the BOTS Act to “increase enforcement.” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal reminded Berchtold there are already legal options for going after scalpers using bots to procure tickets. “You have unlimited power to go to court,” Blumenthal said. “Your approach seems to be that everyone else is responsible here.”

– Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

NASA and DARPA will test nuclear engines for crewed missions to Mars

The agencies hope to demonstrate the tech as soon as 2027.

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NASA

NASA is teaming up with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space, to use the technology for crewed missions to the red planet. The agencies hope to “demonstrate advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said. “With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever – a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars.” There are, of course, risks involved with NTP engines, such as the possible dispersal of radioactive material in the environment should a failure occur in the atmosphere or orbit. Nevertheless, NASA says the faster transit times NTP engines can enable could lower the risk to astronauts – they could reduce travel times to Mars by up to a quarter. Nuclear thermal rockets could be at least three times more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion methods.

Continue reading.

Amazon’s RxPass offers Prime members generic medications for $5 a month

It has medications for 80 common health conditions.

Amazon has launched a new subscription service for customers in the US to get as many eligible medications as they need for $5 a month. The new service, called RxPass, is part of the e-commerce giant’s Pharmacy business, which launched in 2020 as a two-day prescription drug delivery for Prime users. That makes RxPass a $5 add-on for Prime, which sets users back $139 a year or $15 a month in the US. Customers will need to pay $5 out of pocket, since the service does not take insurance, like Amazon Pharmacy does, for purchases outside of the program. People enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and any other government healthcare program will not be able to sign up for RxPass, either.

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‘Forspoken’ review: A magical world with several cracks

Fluid battles, uneven plot.

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Square Enix

In Forspoken, you control the agile, angry Frey, slinging elemental attacks (and f-bombs) at multiple monsters before leaping off a cliff face and swinging from a molten outcrop. You keep moving, through the lands of Athia, through the adventure, because it’s enjoyable and satisfying, but also because when you slow down, you start to see the cracks. Delayed twice, while the fighting system is generally solid, Forspoken has a lot of sub-quest padding, and most of it’s pretty dull.

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WhatsApp’s native Mac app beta is now available to all

It’s optimized to run fast and efficiently on Mac hardware.

Mac users now have a native version of WhatsApp. The new app is optimized for Mac hardware and built with Mac Catalyst, so it should be faster and more efficient than the current web-wrapped Electron version. You also get a new interface with three panels to easily flip between chats, calls, archived and starred messages, while seeing contacts and interactions at a glance.

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Microsoft services including Teams, Outlook and Xbox Live go down across the world

Multiple Microsoft 365 services went down for thousands of users around the world, prompting the tech giant to investigate the incident affecting several of its products. In an announcement about the outage posted in the early morning (ET time) of January 25th, the company said users were unable to access its services, including Microsoft Teams, Exchange Online, Outlook, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Graph, PowerBi and Microsoft 365 Admin Center. The tech giant admitted that the outage might not be limited to those products, however, and true enough, over a thousand users also reported having problems with accessing Xbox Live on Down Detector.

In an update to its announcement, Microsoft said it “isolated the problem to a networking configuration issue.” The company added that it had to plan its next troubleshooting steps carefully and analyze “the best mitigation strategy” in order to come up with a solution that wouldn’t cause any additional impact. By 4:26AM ET, Microsoft tweeted that it “rolled back a network change” that it believed was causing the outage and that it was monitoring its services as they start coming back online. 

Bowers & Wilkins updated its Pi7 and Pi5 earbuds with better battery life

Bowers & Wilkins debuted its first true wireless earbuds in the spring of 2021. In fact, it announced two models at that time: the Pi7 and Pi5. Today, the company revealed updated versions for both which will carry the S2 label Bowers & Wilkins typically uses for retooled but not entirely brand new products. While the Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 aren’t rebuilt from the ground up, there are still some notable upgrades to both.

The Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 now both offer five hours of battery life on a charge. That’s up from four hours on the Pi7 and Pi5. A 15-minute quick-charge feature still gives you two hours of use and the included cases carry an additional 16 hours for the Pi7 S2 and 19 hours for the Pi5 S2. Both still have wireless charging capabilities, though the case for the Pi7 S2 is equipped with Wireless Audio Retransmission. Like it did for the Pi7, the case can connect to can external audio source — like in-flight entertainment — and wirelessly send sound to the earbuds. This isn’t novel to Bowers & Wilkins earbuds, but it is a handy feature nonetheless. Bowers & Wilkins says it also updated the antenna design on the Pi7 and Pi5 to increase Bluetooth range up to 25 meters. 

The key difference between the two models is audio quality. The Pi7 S2 supports aptX Adaptive with 24-bit/48kHz streaming from compatible devices and services. 9.2mm balanced armature dynamic drivers are paired with Bowers & Wilkins’ digital signal processing tech for higher quality audio that what the Pi5 offers with CD-quality sound and regular aptX. The Pi7 S2 also packs one additional microphone per earbud which should make it the preferred option for calls. And while both feature active noise cancellation (ANC), the Pi7 S2 has an adaptive setup that automatically monitors your surroundings to adjust the audio as needed for “the best possible, uninterrupted listening experience.” 

Both the Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2 are available starting today, replacing the Pi7 and Pi5. The $399 Pi7 S2 comes in black, white and dark blue color options while the $299 Pi5 S2 offers light grey, dark grey and purple. A green version of the Pi5 S2 is slated to arrive later this spring.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi5 S2
Pi5 S2
Bowers & Wilkins

Tesla will spend $3.6 billion to build a Semi and a battery factory in its Nevada complex

Tesla has big expansion plans for its first Gigafactory near Reno, Nevada. The automaker has announced that it’s investing $3.6 billion to build two new factories in the complex and hire 3,000 additional workers. That’s bigger than the company’s initia…

Twitter engineers can still use ‘GodMode’ to tweet as any account, claims whistleblower

Twitter has a new whistleblower, as another former employee has sounded the alarm about security issues, according toThe Washington Post. The new complainant, who has spoken with Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), says any Twitter engineer still has access to an internal program — formerly called “GodMode” — that lets them tweet from any account.

The whistleblower’s complaint alleges GodMode (now renamed to “privileged mode”) remains on the laptop of any engineer who wants it, requiring only a production computer and a simple code change from “FALSE” to “TRUE.” Screenshots of the code, included in an October complaint filed with the FTC, show a warning to anyone attempting to use it: “THINK BEFORE YOU DO THIS.”

This isn’t the first time Twitter security has drawn scrutiny. In 2020, teenage crypto scammers hacked the company’s internal systems, sending fake tweets from the accounts of President Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Musk and others. Twitter’s at-the-time executives said they had fixed the issue and launched a “comprehensive information security program that is reasonably designed to protect the security, privacy, confidentiality, and integrity of nonpublic consumer information.”

However, Twitter’s first whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, disputed that. Another engineer claimed at the time that GodMode was still widely available.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 24: Tesla CEO Elon Musk leaves the Phillip Burton Federal Building on January 24, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Musk testified at a trial regarding a lawsuit that has investors suing Tesla and Musk over his August 2018 tweets saying he was taking Tesla private with funding that he had secured. The tweet was found to be false and cost shareholders billions of dollars when Tesla's stock price began to fluctuate wildly allegedly based on the tweet. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

The new complainant’s filing says the incident led to Twitter reopening the case, which sparked the discovery that engineers could also delete or restore anyone’s tweets. (Regular Twitter users can’t do either.) He also claims Twitter can’t log who, if anyone, uses or abuses any of the special privileges.

The new whistleblower’s complaint was filed by Whistleblower Aid, the same nonprofit firm representing Zatko. The FTC is reportedly interviewing former Twitter employees about the allegations.