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It looks like Metas campaign to bury a dishy, tell-all memoir from a former employee isnt exactly working. In fact, it seems that the companys legal maneuvers to block the book have had the exact opposite intended effect. Careless People has debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Its also spent much of the week in the number three position on Amazons bestseller list. Thats despite the fact that Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former policy director at Facebook, has been barred from promoting or publicly discussing the book following legal action by Meta. The memoir details much of the inner workings of Facebook during the nearly seven years Wynn-Williams worked there. It reveals new details about the companys relentless ambition to bring the social network to China, as well as numerous shocking stories about how Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and other executives behaved behind closed doors. (In addition to her revelations in Careless People, Wynn-Williams has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Committee. That complaint has not been made public, but according to NBC News, she alleges that Facebook misled investors.) Meta has come out forcefully against Wynn-Williams and the book, describing it in a statement as a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives. The company says Wynn-Williams was fired in 2017 for poor performance and toxic behavior. Meta initiated arbitration proceedings against Wynn-Williams last week, resulting in a decision that for now prevents her from publicly discussing or promoting the work. But, as the bestseller lists show, the move has done little to kill interest in the work.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/careless-people-hits-the-top-of-the-new-york-times-bestseller-list-235008451.html?src=rss
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Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast has laid off 30 people who built Sigil, its recently released virtual tabletop experience, Polygon reports. The app allows Dungeons & Dragons players to build virtual, 3D game boards, complete with miniatures and dice, so they can play the classic tabletop roleplaying game remotely. News of the layoffs were first shared on March 18 in a LinkedIn post from Andy Collins, the design lead on Sigil. "Today, approximately 30 talented developers (90 percent of the team) were laid off from the Sigil (virtual tabletop) team at Wizards of the Coast, including yours truly," Collins wrote. "I wish my former colleagues success in their future endeavors. I'll also be pulling for the crew left behind who'll do their best to keep improving and iterating the experience we shipped last month." The layoffs leave Sigil with a skeleton crew of three people to support the app, Rascal reports. Sigil launched in early access on February 28, 2025 as a perk for subscribers to D&D Beyond, and early reviews found it to be both limited and a little broken. The problems may have started even earlier, though, according to at least one Wizards of the Coast employee Rascal spoke to. Management at Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, were reportedly uninterested and "constantly moving goalposts." There may have also been a fundamental misunderstanding over what Sigil was: Hasbro didn't know the difference between a video game and the VTT (virtual tabletop) app it ultimately got. Sigil remains live and will continue to be a perk of paying for a D&D Beyond subscription, Wizards of the Coast's tool for playing Dungeons & Dragons virtually.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hasbro-laid-off-the-team-behind-its-virtual-tabletop-app-only-weeks-after-it-was-released-214024876.html?src=rss
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Boston Dynamics has treated us to a lot of impressive videos over the years and the company is back today with the latest example of its robotics mastery. In the clip above, its Atlas robot demonstrates several types of full-body movement, starting with a walk and advancing to a cartwheel and even a spot of break dancing. The different actions were developed using reinforcement learning that used motion capture and animation as source materials. At this rate, our future robot overlords will be able to out-dance and out-tumble us humans as well as out-think us one day. The video is part of Boston Dynamics' research with the Robotics and AI Institute, but it has multiple partners aiding its work. For instance, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang touched on the company's GR00T model for robotics during the GTC 2025 keynote earlier this week. Yesterday, Boston Dynamics announced that it is deepening its collaboration with the company focused on AI in robotics. It is using NVIDIA's Jetson Thor computing platform to run "complex, multimodal AI models that work seamlessly with Boston Dynamics whole-body and manipulation controllers." This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/watch-the-atlas-robot-bust-a-move-in-boston-dynamics-latest-video-211329951.html?src=rss
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