Month: July 2024
Achieve Instant Ambiance With a Tabletop Fire Pit Marked Down to $53
East Oak’s Brasa smokeless tabletop fire pit is on sale for $23 off the regular price.
East Oak’s Brasa smokeless tabletop fire pit is on sale for $23 off the regular price.
How The Times’s Apple Reporter Covers the Company
Since 2022, Tripp Mickle has covered news surrounding one of the biggest technology companies in Silicon Valley.
Since 2022, Tripp Mickle has covered news surrounding one of the biggest technology companies in Silicon Valley.
Apple Arcade Developers Say Working With Apple Is Like Being In an ‘Abusive Relationship’
Mobile game developers have voiced increasing frustration with Apple, citing reduced payments, delayed compensation, poor communication, and inadequate support, particularly with the Apple Vision Pro. Apple Insider reports: In February, game developers began expressing frustration over Apple Arcade. They pointed out that while the service was initially profitable, Apple had begun decreasing upfront payments and the per-play “bonus pool.” Additionally, the tech giant began to axe projects with little to no warning. According to Mobilegamer.biz, developers continue to be unhappy with how Apple’s running its “pay once, play all you want” game subscription service. Developers point out how Apple has delayed payments — sometimes up to six months — which has put smaller studios in precarious situations.
Devs are also unhappy with Apple’s communication — or lack thereof. “We can go weeks without hearing from Apple at all and their general response time to emails is three weeks, if they reply at all,” one developer told Mobilegamer.biz. Some have even called Apple’s tech support “miserable” and the worst they’d seen anywhere. Even the QA and update process is frustrating, prompting some developers to avoid updating their games altogether. […] One particularly frustrated developer spoke out against Apple Arcade, saying, “It’s like an abusive relationship where the abused stays in the relationship hoping the other partner will change and become the person you know they could be.” When it comes to the Apple Vision Pro, many game developers are increasingly frustrated with the headset’s struggles to run demanding games. And, while Apple wants indie developers to create new games for their new headset, the company “does not provide compensation or make any promises to promote or market the game once it is finished,” says Apple Insider.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Mobile game developers have voiced increasing frustration with Apple, citing reduced payments, delayed compensation, poor communication, and inadequate support, particularly with the Apple Vision Pro. Apple Insider reports: In February, game developers began expressing frustration over Apple Arcade. They pointed out that while the service was initially profitable, Apple had begun decreasing upfront payments and the per-play “bonus pool.” Additionally, the tech giant began to axe projects with little to no warning. According to Mobilegamer.biz, developers continue to be unhappy with how Apple’s running its “pay once, play all you want” game subscription service. Developers point out how Apple has delayed payments — sometimes up to six months — which has put smaller studios in precarious situations.
Devs are also unhappy with Apple’s communication — or lack thereof. “We can go weeks without hearing from Apple at all and their general response time to emails is three weeks, if they reply at all,” one developer told Mobilegamer.biz. Some have even called Apple’s tech support “miserable” and the worst they’d seen anywhere. Even the QA and update process is frustrating, prompting some developers to avoid updating their games altogether. […] One particularly frustrated developer spoke out against Apple Arcade, saying, “It’s like an abusive relationship where the abused stays in the relationship hoping the other partner will change and become the person you know they could be.” When it comes to the Apple Vision Pro, many game developers are increasingly frustrated with the headset’s struggles to run demanding games. And, while Apple wants indie developers to create new games for their new headset, the company “does not provide compensation or make any promises to promote or market the game once it is finished,” says Apple Insider.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google starts broadly removing explicit deepfakes from search results
Google starts downranking more non-consensual intimate imagery in searches.
Enlarge (credit: Paper Boat Creative | Stone)
Today, Google announced new measures to combat the rapidly increasing spread of AI-generated non-consensual explicit deepfakes in its search results.
Because of “a concerning increase in generated images and videos that portray people in sexually explicit contexts, distributed on the web without their consent,” Google said that it consulted with “experts and victim-survivors” to make some “significant updates” to its widely used search engine to “further protect people.”
Specifically, Google made it easier for targets of fake explicit images—which experts have said are overwhelmingly women—to report and remove deepfakes that surface in search results. Additionally, Google took steps to downrank explicit deepfakes “to keep this type of content from appearing high up in Search results,” the world’s leading search engine said.
Microsoft employees are set for a tasty bonus following record profits
Token gesture following an excellent performing quarter shows a company on the back foot following its latest round of layoffs in June.
Non-executive ‘rank and file’ employees at Microsoft are set to receive one-off payments based on their roles, up to 25% of their annual bonus, after the company announced record profits this Q4.
The payments (via CNBC), though welcome for workers, may be one of the ways that Microsoft is trying to boost employee morale following its role in sustained layoffs in the tech industry.
Per CNBC, the tech giant is reportedly in panic mode as it attempts to retain its remaining US based talent, and recruit yet more people, following the strain placed on the labor market after the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of hiking interest rates.
Treating symptoms of low morale, not the cause
While it may look good that Microsoft’s employees are getting their due, we’re also concerned that one-off payments will only delay any kind of revolt. Prior to the layoffs of 10,000 employees in June 2024 alone, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had been clear in 2022 that even something as straightforward as raising salaries for employees is out of the question.
Reporting revenue this quarter of $64.73 billion this quarter, with $22 billion of that being net profit, it seems odd Microsoft seems to be eager to cut back on personnel spending, but at the same time feels compelled to give tokens of appreciation to those that remain. It almost certainly can afford to give more than, at maximum – a quarter of an employee’s annual bonus, which is helpfully left unquantified.
Microsoft’s annual revenue is up 16% year-on-year, and its cloud computing division alone now accounts for 44% of the entire company’s revenue, marking a 19% increase year-on-year – in no part due to the rise in popularity of its Copilot AI tool. The tone of our coverage of Microsoft’s Q4 report suggests that the company isn’t shrinking, just growing less quickly than company executives will like.
It’s unlikely that one-off bonuses will keep employees that are perhaps disgruntled about their perceived lack of job security on-side for too long. It’s a difficult time to be a Big Tech employee, and Microsoft may have to do more or risk its workers leaving of their own accord.
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Fed Meeting Today: Rate Cut Is ‘On the Table’ for September
No relief for borrowers this month, but Powell’s remarks raise hopes for at least one cut this year.
No relief for borrowers this month, but Powell’s remarks raise hopes for at least one cut this year.