Stadia users can now unlock their controller’s Bluetooth

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.

Apple will audit its labor practices in the US after union-busting accusations

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 ou…

Twitter admits it’s breaking third-party apps, cites ‘long-standing API rules’

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 team pointed out, many of the company’s employees overseeing the developer platform were cut in mass layoffs last year. 

For now, Twitter developers say they are in the dark about why Twitter has cut them off. “We haven’t heard anything from Twitter,” Twitterrific creator Craig Hockenberry told Engadget. “We have been respectful of their API rules, as published, for the past 16 years. We have no knowledge that these rules have changed recently or what those changes might be.”

Tweetbot maker Tapbots responded similarly. “Tweetbot has been around for over 10 years, we’ve always complied with the Twitter API rules,” the developer said. “If there’s some existing rule that we need to comply with, we’d be happy to do so, if possible. But we do need to know what it is…”

Update 1/17 4:24 PM ET: Added comments from Craig Hockenberry and Tapbots.

Getty Images sues the maker of AI art generator Stable Diffusion over data scraping allegations

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.  

Ubisoft staff in Paris will strike over working conditions

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.