Stadia Leadership Praised Development Studios For ‘Great Progress’ Just One Week Before Laying Them All Off

Developers at Google’s recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down, Kotaku reported Tuesday, citing four sources with knowledge of what transpired. From the report: Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the “great progress” its studios had…

SpaceX Announces First-Ever All-Civilian Space Flight Crew

Jared Isaacman, an entrepreneur behind a payment processing startup, is funding a multimillion trip to space aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which could be the first-ever orbital flight crewed entirely by non-astronauts. CNN reports: Isaacman, 37, said he will command the mission, which is slated for late-2021 and will see the spacecraft make a “multi-day” trip into Earth’s orbit, according…

Occidental Is First US Oil Major To Target Net Zero Emissions

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BNN Bloomberg: Occidental Petroleum Corp. became the first major U.S. oil producer to aim for net zero emissions from everything it extracts and sells, accelerating an industry trend that’s become commonplace in Europe. The Houston-based company announced a target to reach net zero emissions from its own operations by 2040 and an ambition to…

Intel Contemplates Outsourcing Advanced Production, Upending Oregon’s Central Role

According to The Oregonian, Intel is “openly flirting with the notion of moving leading-edge production from Oregon to Asia and hiring one of its top rivals to make Intel’s most advanced chips.” The decision is likely in January. From the report: It’s a momentous choice that follows a string of manufacturing setbacks at the Ronler Acres campus near Hillsboro Stadium, failures…

Zuckerberg Acknowledges ‘Risk of Civil Unrest’ After US Elections, Promises Newsfeed Updates

ZDNet reports:
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on a conference call Thursday evening that the company plans to post notices at the top of users’ news feeds on November 3rd discrediting any claims by either candidate in the U.S. presidential election that they have won the election if the site deems the claim premature… The move, said Zuckerberg, is…

Amazon Now Has More Than 1 Million Employees

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Amazon.com said it now has about 1 million employees after hiring 250,000 workers in the third quarter, part of a growth spurt driven by booming ecommerce sales during the coronavirus pandemic and a milestone for a company founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookseller. Despite its rapid ascent, Amazon…

US Company Faces Backlash After Belarus Uses Its Tech To Block Internet

Senators Dick Durbin and Marco Rubio are criticizing Sandvine Inc., the U.S. company whose technology helped Belarus block much of the internet during a disputed presidental election last month. Bloomberg reports: The private-equity-backed technology firm demonstrated its equipment to a government security team in Belarus in May, two people with knowledge of the matter said, and its marketing materials boast of…

England’s ‘World Beating’ System To Track the Virus Is Anything But

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain unveiled last month a “world beating” operation to track down people who had been exposed to the coronavirus, giving the country a chance to climb out of lockdown without losing sight of where infections were spreading. From a report: As with much of the government’s response to the pandemic, however, the results have fallen short…

After Merger, T-Mobile Lays Off Hundreds of Sprint Employees

In a conference call on Monday lasting under six minutes, T-Mobile vice president James Kirby told hundreds of Sprint employees that their services were no longer needed. He declined to answer his employees’ questions, citing the “personal” nature of employee feedback, and ended the call. From a report: TechCrunch obtained leaked audio of that call, which was said to be one…

T-Mobile Will Retire Sprint Brand, Unify Retail Stores In Mid-Summer

In an investor conference call this week, new T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said that he’s targeting mid-summer as the time when the T-Mobile and Sprint brand will be unified. “This was originally planned for early summer but was pushed to mid-summer due to the coronavirus pandemic,” notes PhoneDog. From the report: T-Mobile actually began combining the networks for T-Mo and Sprint…