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For all of the money and clout Meta has, it cant stop the triennial emergence of a whistleblower revealing how awful its leadership is. Careless People, the tell-all memoir from former staffer Sarah Wynn-Williams is the latest, dishing plenty of dirt on the house of Zuckerberg. The book has shot to the top of The New York Times bestseller list despite Metas attempts to suppress it. Engadgets Karissa Bell summarized some of the more eye-watering details from the book, and even in highlight form, its wild. Like the fact Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire world king of the internet, wanted the company to arrange for him to be mobbed when he landed in Asia. Or that Sheryl Sandberg didnt quite grasp how difficult it is to transport live organs between countries. Theres plenty of scorn for Joel Kaplan, the former George W. Bush staffer and friend of Brett Kavanaugh, who has long been seen as the figure behind Facebooks rightward pull. Kaplan is accused of blocking attempts to address the companys role in the Myanmar genocide. The book suggests Kaplan didnt know Taiwan was an island, and that he reportedly harassed Wynn-Williams. Whats surprising, really, is how unsurprising many of the revelations are, from Zuckerbergs venality to the companys general indifference to the harms it creates. Its not likely many of the claims here will make many people reconsider their relationship with the company and its products, either. Dan Cooper Get this delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! The biggest tech stories you missed Honda and Acura EVs will be able to use the Tesla Supercharger network in JuneAs if you needed another reason to hang around a Tesla location. Anthropics Claude chatbot can now search the web tooIt wont be long before theyll have an AI thatll even watch YouTube for you. ChatGPT reportedly accused innocent man of murdering his childrenAnother of the great benefits of AI. Fujifilms GFX100RF is a 102MP medium format compact camera One hundred and two megapixels, in this economy? Fujifilm Fujifilm has been on a hot streak for a while, to the point its looking to flex its muscles with some absolutely wild specs. The company announced the GFX100RF medium format compact camera with, wait for it, a 102 megapixel sensor. Its machined from a single block of aluminum, aping the aesthetic found on the companys other X-series cameras. I cant wait to see the hipsters who wanted something fancier than an X100 VI wasting this cameras talents in the next few years. Continue Reading. Google unveils the new Pixel 9a for $499 Meet the new midrange smartphone king Sam Rutherford for Engadget Google has announced the already widely leaked Pixel 9a, its latest budget addition to the Pixel line. It ditches the Pixels famous camera bar in favor of a regular raised lens housing, but it has the same Tensor G4 chip as its pricier siblings. That will enable owners to harness some of the same AI smarts Googles been selling on the flagship Pixels at a far lower price. Check out Sam Rutherfords hands-on to see if your wallet might be tempted to crack open. Continue Reading. Tesla recalls more than 46,000 Cybertrucks over a faulty exterior panel Whoops. Tesla is recalling every Cybertruck on the road (more than 46,000), after it found exterior panels could fall off. Filings with the NHTSA say an exterior trim panel could detach from the automobile, potentially causing an accident. Oh dear. Continue Reading. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-a-closer-look-at-facebooks-leadership-114522686.html?src=rss
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After a ton of leaks, Google officially announced the $499 Pixel 9a, which has the potential to be the new king of mid-range phones. It has dual cameras and access to Google's AI features in many ways, it's everything the iPhone 16e should have been (especially its price). In this episode, Senior Writer Sam Rutherford joins us to discuss what's great about the Pixel 9a, as well as its potential downsides compared to the Pixel 9. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Subscribe! iTunes Spotify Pocket Casts Stitcher Google Podcasts Topics Googles announces the Pixel 9a - potentially the new midrange king 1:15 Fujifilms GX100RF: a 102MP medium format camera (nice!) with only one F4 lens (boo!) 21:31 Karissa Bells roundup of the craziest stuff from Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams book 24:14 Donald Trump attempts to fire FTCs two Democratic commissioners 29:34 Amazon will send all Alexa recordings to the cloud, no more local processing 32:52 Chinese EV maker BYD announces chargers that give 249 miles of range in 5 minutes 39:10 Pebble founder introduces two new e-paper smartwatches 46:47 Listener Mail: Trying to choose an OLED TV 57:35 Around Engadget 1:03:49 Working on 1:09:56 Pop culture picks 1:10:28 Credits Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn LowGuest: Sam RutherfordProducer: Ben EllmanMusic: Dale North and Terrence O'BrienThis article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/engadget-podcast-googles-pixel-9a-is-ready-to-take-on-the-iphone-16e-113020014.html?src=rss
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If you think about it, Severance's "innies" the people trapped in an endless cycle of office work should genuinely hate their "outies" their other halves who exist everywhere else. While outies are free to live a seemingly carefree existence, unburdened by the labor, boredom and indignities of office life, innies have no escape. Every time they enter the elevator at the end of their shifts, which triggers the switch to their outie persona, innies just blink and return to the sterile hallways of nefarious biotechnology firm Lumon Industries. There are no weekends or holidays, there isn't even time to sleep. Spoilers ahead for Severance season 2. No spoilers for the finale, "Cold Harbor." Severance's first season arrived as we were all reeling from the initial onslaught of the COVID pandemic and many of us were dealing with our own work-life balance issues. It introduced the show's core concept that Lumon pioneered the ability to completely separate work and life experiences and it made the terms "innie" and "outie" a new cultural shorthand. But the debut season also leaned heavily on the outie perspective, sometimes to a fault. In its second season, Severance became even stronger by focusing more on the innie perspective. Do they deserve whole lives, or just the labor their outies don't want to deal with? Are they allowed to fall in love? Are they even real people? Apple These are all concepts the show previously touched on, but the innie experience became all the more tragic as season two went on. We watched as Adam Scott's Mark S. wrestled with the dueling desires to rescue Lumon's wellness counselor, Ms. Casey, who was revealed to be his outie's supposedly dead wife, and also nurture a budding romance with fellow innie Hellie R. (Britt Lower). John Turturro's Irving B. spent the entire season nursing a broken heart, after the innie he fell in love with disappeared. And Zach Cherry's Dylan G. ended up falling in love with his outie's wife (Merritt Wever), who saw the best aspects of her floundering husband through his innie. Innies owe their lives to their outies, but lead a tortured existence that basically just makes everything easier for outies. Season two made it clear that the process of severance, which involves a brain injection that splits the innie and outie personas, essentially creates an adult child who only exists to work. Innies have no understanding of science, history or the greater world beyond what Lumon tells them. And naturally, the company's messaging to innies is purely focused on efficiency, output and the cult-like adoration of its founder, Kier Eagan. (It's as if Apple based its entire internal culture on worshipping Steve Jobs as a god, complete with archaic rituals and holy texts.) Apple While we spent less time with outies in this season, the show still had a sharper take on their side of the severed experience. There's a funny nod to the "return to office" phenomenon, where Tramell Tillman's Milchick practically had to beg the outies to come back to Lumon, following their innie revolt at the end of season one. In our world, RTO is mostly a phenomenon where executives are eager to witness their employees toiling away, rather than allowing them to potentially slack off while working at home. We also get a sense of what outies lose by giving up their work life to their innies. When Dylan G.'s outie, Dylan George, is turned down for a basic job outside of Lumon, he learns he can't count his innie's work time, since he didn't actually experience it. (In some ways it feels reminiscent of what we could lose by outsourcing work to AI tools.) Severance isn't just a trap for the innies stuck in Lumon's offices, their outies will also have a tough time landing a job anywhere else. The only choice is to stay loyal to Lumon, and its dear founder Kier, until you retire. Or die. According to Dan Erickson, the creator and showrunner of Severance, this season was partially inspired by the recent Hollywood writer's strike. "We were all talking to our guilds and having conversations about workers rights and what we owe our employers and what we should reasonably expect back in return... And how much of ourselves and our lives and our energy we should be willing to give up for the sake of a job," he said in an interview on episode 252 of the Engadget Podcast. Apple While much of the second season was written before the strike, "consciously or unconsciously, I think that the tone of that, of those conversations made their way into the story," Erickson said. "And certainly I think that they'll be on people's minds as they're watching the show. Because at the end of the day... it is a show about the rights of workers and what they deserve as human beings." As I watched this season of Severance, and processed the events of its explosive finale, I couldnt help but be reminded of Kazuo Ishiguros heartbreaking novel Never Let Me Go. Its set in a strict boarding school where students are raised to serve one specific purpose, and their own lives are devalued in the process. But they still love, learn and dream. They have hopes and desires. Every innie should be so lucky.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/severance-season-two-review-innie-rights-and-humanity-made-for-a-stronger-show-100003400.html?src=rss
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