Technology

Apple vice president of people and retail Deirdre O’Brien is explicitly dissuading employees from joining a union in an internal video leaked to The Verge. “I worry about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship,” she says. “An organization that does not have a deep understanding of Apple or our business. And most importantly one that I do not believe shares our commitment to you.” This message comes amid union drives at three of Apple’s retail stores — one in New York, one in Maryland, and one in Georgia. The latter two have set dates to hold elections, which they agreed to with Apple. Workers at the Cumberland Mall Apple store will vote on whether to unionize starting June 2nd, and employees at Apple’s Towson Town Center store in Maryland do the sa...

Apple vice president of people and retail Deirdre O’Brien is explicitly dissuading employees from joining a union in an internal video leaked to The Verge. “I worry about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship,” she says. “An organization that does not have a deep understanding of Apple or our business. And most importantly one that I do not believe shares our commitment to you.” This message comes amid union drives at three of Apple’s retail stores — one in New York, one in Maryland, and one in Georgia. The latter two have set dates to hold elections, which they agreed to with Apple. Workers at the Cumberland Mall Apple store will vote on whether to unionize starting June 2nd, and employees at Apple’s Towson Town Center store in Maryland do the sa...

Christopher “CJ” Moore, the former Tesla Autopilot software engineer who left to join Apple’s secretive car project last year, has left Apple to join Luminar, an Orlando, Florida-based lidar company, as its new head of software, the company announced. Moore only lasted seven months at Apple. Moore is among a group of top executives from other leading companies to join Luminar, which makes the laser sensors that help autonomous vehicles “see” their surrounding environment. But his departure from Apple is yet another indication of the tech giant’s struggles to retain talent for its befuddled efforts to make an autonomous electric car — known as Project Titan. “We’re attracting the best leaders in the world in their fields to execute our vision and deliver on the future of transportation,” Lu...

Ikea has a new hub and app that could bring an end to its smart home usability issues. Ikea’s new Matter-ready Dirigera hub is now official after a month of leaks and is set to arrive alongside an entirely new Ikea Home Smart app. Unfortunately, both the hub and the new app aren’t scheduled to arrive until October. That’s around the same time that Matter is supposed to launch, the new smart home standard that promises to make connected devices more interoperable, flexible, and private, no matter if you purchased them from the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, or any of the long list of companies already signed up. Ahead of today’s announcement, Ikea’s Björn Block, business area manager, and Rebecca Töreman, business leader, showed me the new hub and app working together in a real-ti...

The state of New York will distribute robot companions to the homes of more than 800 older adults. The robots are not able to help with physical tasks, but function as more proactive versions of digital assistants like Siri or Alexa — engaging users in small talk, helping contact love ones, and keeping track of health goals like exercise and medication. The scheme is being organized by the New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA), and is intended to help address the growing problem of social isolation among the elderly. An estimated 14 million Americans over the age of 65 currently live alone, and this figure is projected to increase over the next decade as the boomer generation ages. Studies have suggested that long-term loneliness is as damaging to an individual’s health as smoking. ...

More than a year on, it’s still hard to buy a new PlayStation or Xbox without some help. Flippers have become notorious for snatching up the fresh restocks offered online with the help of ultra-fast buying bots, forcing everyone else to buy units off the secondary market for egregious, 100-dollar markups. But after delving into the console reselling underworld, I was shocked to learn that resellers aren’t the primary problem. Instead, they’re merely the pawns of the true powerbrokers of the industry: the enterprising developers selling these bots to aspiring flippers in the first place. Dozens of what are known as “AIO resale bots” have popped up in recent years, offering prospective flippers an “all-in-one” service that can snatch up tons of sneakers, graphic cards, and consoles in order ...

Today, No Man’s Sky launches Leviathan, the game’s newest expedition that offers perhaps the most interesting gameplay experience yet. In the Leviathan launch trailer, a mysterious message splashes across the screen telling the player that “death is not the end” and that they must “re-enter the loop.” If you think that language sounds a little roguelike (heh), you’re right. In Leviathan, Hello Games is putting a little bit of Returnal chocolate in No Man’s Sky’s peanut butter. In Leviathan, death resets a Traveller’s individual progress, forcing them to start over with a newly generated loadout. However, as the community lives, dies, and repeats, they feed into a global progress goal that awards players higher quality items with each new life. Only through that shared progress can the comm...