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Blue Origin, the SpaceX competitor founded and funded by Jeff Bezos, is cutting 10 percent of its employees or about 1,400 people, according to The Seattle Times and CNN. Staff were informed of the news by Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, in an email reviewed by Engadget, who claims the layoffs are an attempt to address a lack of focus and an excessive amount of bureaucracy at the company. The areas of the business primarily impacted by the cuts are program and project management, research and development and engineering. Blue Origin is making these changes as it finalizes its annual operating plan, CNN notes, which is focused on increasing manufacturing and the pace at which the company launches rockets. For example, Blue Origin is one of several space companies with commercial moon missions planned for 2025. The company has been on a bit of a hot streak as of late. Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn orbital rocket in January, and retrieved the rocket's second stage when it landed back on the launch platform. That's a trick that took SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket a few years to master. In December 2024, Blue Origin also returned to space tourism, launching six paying customers into space. Despite the progress, the company is still seen as lagging behind SpaceX, at the very least because Elon Musk's space company has spent more time actually launching rockets into space. Reducing staff doesn't change that, but it may save Blue Origin money, something that's been a goal of Bezos' for a while now, according to Ars Technica. Dave Limp's full email is reproduced below: Subject: Difficult Org News Changes To Our Team Folks,We just finished this mornings meeting, during which I gave an update on our organization. As I mentioned, we have made the tough decision to reduce our workforce by about 10%. The impact this has is not lost on any of uswe are saying goodbye to our friends and colleagues who have helped us build Blue into what it is today.I know this is a lot to absorb, and I would like to explain how we got here. Over the last few months, as a leadership team, we have worked together to define our 2025 Annual Operating Plan and growth strategy. Our primary focus in 2025 and beyond is to scale our manufacturing output and launch cadence with speed, decisiveness, and efficiency for our customers. We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed. It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities. Sadly, this resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management.While I acknowledge that these messages are better delivered personally and individually, the reach of these changes across multiple locations and teams makes that difficult. We will notify impacted employees immediately via their work and personal email addresses of their status with Blue. We will also email employees who are not impacted to confirm their employment with Blue. Both emails will arrive by 7:30 AM PT/10:30 AM ET today. While our sites are open, I encourage you to work from home for the rest of the day if your role allows you to do so.We are doing what we can to support everyone impacted. The email notifications will provide support details, which include severance packages, COBRA coverage, career support services, and access to counseling through our Employee Assistance Program.Let me add that I am extremely confident in the enormous opportunities in front of us and have never been more optimistic about our mission. We will continue to invest, invent, and hire hundreds of positions in areas that will help us achieve our goals and best serve our customers. We will be a stronger, faster, and more customer-focused company that consistently meets and exceeds our commitments. This year alone, we will land on the Moon, deliver a record number of incredible engines, and fly New Glenn and New Shepard on a regular cadence.To our colleagues who are impacted today, thank you so much for your hard work and passion for our mission. I hope we all support one another with grace and empathy while upholding our leadership principles during this time.Dave-This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/blue-origin-is-cutting-10-percent-of-its-workforce-203642991.html?src=rss
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The next major expansion for Diablo IV wont come out until 2026, according to remarks made by franchise general manager Rod Fergusson at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday. This isnt too surprising, given that the first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, didnt release until the game had been out for 17 months. Fergusson announced that Blizzard will drop a 2025 roadmap just ahead of Season 8, but that it wont include any details on the next major expansion. Additionally, he didnt say when in 2026 it was likely to drop, nor did he provide any details. Blizzards original plan was to put out a new expansion every year, similar to how Destiny 2 handled things in its early run. That idea went out the window when Vessel of Hatred missed the release window by nearly six months. There were bugs that needed to be fixed and community feedback to incorporate. Its tough maintaining a live-service game. In any event, I would prefer a polished expansion with plenty of new gameplay mechanics instead of a rushed effort to meet a yearly release quota. The next season of Diablo IV is currently set to go live in April, so we can expect that 2025 roadmap sometime ahead of that. Its also highly likely well start to get teases for the next expansion later in the year. The hype machine surrounding Vessel of Hatred started up in 2023. We called Diablo IV one of the best games that Blizzard had released in a decade in our official review. The dungeon-crawling mechanics are just about perfect, though we thought the world-building felt a little flat. Vessel of Hatred added a new class and a new area to explore.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/diablo-iv-wont-get-another-expansion-until-2026-194245537.html?src=rss
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Those who are in the market for a new game controller that works with pretty much any device outside of a PlayStation or Xbox could do a lot worse than consider the options from 8BitDo. The brand's Pro 2 controller is certainly worth your attention, not least because it's on sale. The black version of the peripheral has dropped from $50 to $38.39. That's a record low price. The other two colorways G Classic and Gray have been discounted as well, but the deals aren't quite as generous there. Those versions have each dropped by $10 to $40, which is still a solid offer. These discounts are for variants of the Pro 2 with Hall Effect thumbsticks. These should prevent stick drift (an issue that had emerged with Nintendo's own Joy-Con controllers for the Switch) and help you to aim more precisely. In fact, the 8BitDo Pro 2 is among our picks for the best Switch controllers. Along with the Switch, the Pro 2 controller is compatible with Apple devices (i.e. those running iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and macOS), Android devices, Windows PC, Steam Deck and Raspberry Pi. The controller is deeply programmable, thanks to 8BitDo's Ultimate software, which you can even use to set up macros for the controller. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/8bitdos-pro-2-controller-with-hall-effect-thumbsticks-drops-to-38-193028015.html?src=rss
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