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The Twelve South AirFly Duo has dropped to $29.99, which is a new all-time low. | Image: Twelve South

When you’re flying, noise-canceling earbuds like the AirPods Pro are great for tuning out the world, but they come with one drawback: they don’t work with the in-flight entertainment systems on airplanes. Luckily, Bluetooth transmitters like Twelve South AirFly Duo exist that solve that problem for you, and right now, you can buy one for an all-time low price of $29.99 ($15 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.

With its integrated 3.5mm cable, the Duo is dead simple to use: just plug into the headphone jacks on seatback entertainment systems, pair up your Bluetooth-equipped wireless headphones or earbuds, and you’re good to go. The beauty of this is that you’ll probably end up enjoying even better audio quality, too, as in all likelihood, your own set of Bluetooth headphones is better than the wired earbuds planes typically offer. Plus, if you and your travel companion want to watch the same shows together, you can even connect it to a second pair.
Aside from audio sharing, the wireless headphone adapter also has other things going for it that make it a great buy. When it’s time to recharge, you can do so pretty quickly thanks to USB-C support. The Duo will also come in handy long after your flight ends, too, because it can connect wireless headphones to other devices as well, ranging from a Nintendo Switch to compatible treadmills.

The Twelve South AirFly Duo has dropped to $29.99, which is a new all-time low. | Image: Twelve South

When you’re flying, noise-canceling earbuds like the AirPods Pro are great for tuning out the world, but they come with one drawback: they don’t work with the in-flight entertainment systems on airplanes. Luckily, Bluetooth transmitters like Twelve South AirFly Duo exist that solve that problem for you, and right now, you can buy one for an all-time low price of $29.99 ($15 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.

With its integrated 3.5mm cable, the Duo is dead simple to use: just plug into the headphone jacks on seatback entertainment systems, pair up your Bluetooth-equipped wireless headphones or earbuds, and you’re good to go. The beauty of this is that you’ll probably end up enjoying even better audio quality, too, as in all likelihood, your own set of Bluetooth headphones is better than the wired earbuds planes typically offer. Plus, if you and your travel companion want to watch the same shows together, you can even connect it to a second pair.

Aside from audio sharing, the wireless headphone adapter also has other things going for it that make it a great buy. When it’s time to recharge, you can do so pretty quickly thanks to USB-C support. The Duo will also come in handy long after your flight ends, too, because it can connect wireless headphones to other devices as well, ranging from a Nintendo Switch to compatible treadmills.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Intel’s on a long, long road to recovery, and over 15,000 workers will likely no longer be coming along for the ride. The chipmaker just announced it’s downsizing its workforce by over 15 percent as part of a new $10 billion cost savings plan for 2025, which Intel says will mean a headcount reduction of greater than 15,000 roles. The company currently employs over 125,000 people, so layoffs could be as many as 19,000 people.
Intel will reduce its R&D and marketing spend by billions every year; it will reduce capital expenditures by more than 20 percent this year; it restructure to “stop non-essential work,” and review “all active projects and equipment” to make sure it’s not spending too much.
“This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read,” reads part of a memo from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to staff, which you can also read in full at the bottom of this post.
The company just reported a loss of $1.6 billion for Q2 2024, substantially more than the $437 million it lost last quarter. “Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones,” admitted Gelsinger in the company’s press release. “Our revenues have not grown as expected – and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI,” he writes in his employee memo.
It’s not like all Intel’s businesses are failing; while Intel has absolutely been losing money on its chipmaking Foundry business as it invests in new factories and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, to the tune of $7 billion in operating losses in 2023, the company products themselves aren’t unprofitable.
Almost all the losses this quarter and last quarter came from Foundry, while its sales continue to stay relatively stable and its PC and server businesses stay profitable. (The PC sales slump ended earlier this year.)
But investors didn’t seem happy that the company kept itself on a knife’s edge: over the past two years before this quarterly loss, it had continued to swing between losses and profits overall, for just $1.1 billion in profit between Q2 2022 and Q1 2024. “Intel is now the worst-performing tech stock in the S&P 500 this year,” CNBC wrote in April.

From a tech leadership perspective, Intel’s not yet a big growing player in AI server chips like Nvidia (maybe not even a notable small one like AMD), its relatively recent entry into graphics has yet to impress, and it had to overhaul its flagship laptop chips significantly to address the existential threat of Arm chips from the likes of Qualcomm and Apple, which can offer more battery life than Intel. Like competitors, the company now partially relies on TSMC, not just its own foundries, to help produce some of its most advanced chips.
Microsoft recently followed Apple’s lead in ditching Intel chips for its latest slate of consumer hardware, including the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, and launched its Copilot Plus PC initiative exclusively with Qualcomm, without waiting for Intel (or AMD)’s new flagship laptop chips to join them.
Intel previously had a big round of layoffs in October 2022, when it also announced it would cut between $8 billion and $10 billion in costs every year through 2025. But the company didn’t shrink all that much as a result. While headcount dipped roughly 5 percent in 2023 (from 131,900 employees to 124,800 employees), Intel hired its way back to 130,700 employees as of March 30th, 2024, its financial records show.
Intel says it’ll complete the majority of the layoffs it’s announcing today by the end of 2024, and spokesperson Penelope Bruce confirms that they are new layoffs — the 4 percent dip from 130,700 employees in March to 125,300 employees in June is not included in the total.
Gelsinger writes that Intel will offer a “companywide enhanced retirement offering for eligible employees” and let employees broadly apply for voluntary layoffs starting next week — not every employee departure will come as a painful surprise.
Intel says it’s now restructuring, suspending its dividend, and spending less, period, but will “maintain its core investments to execute its strategy and build a resilient and sustainable semiconductor supply chain in the U.S. and around the world.”
Here’s the full memo from Gelsinger:

Team,
We have moved our All Company Meeting to today, following our earnings call, as we are announcing significant actions to reduce our costs. We plan to deliver $10 billion in cost savings in 2025, and this includes reducing our head count by roughly 15,000 roles, or 15% of our workforce. The majority of these actions will be completed by the end of this year.
This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read. This is an incredibly hard day for Intel as we are making some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history. When we meet in a few hours, I’ll talk about why we’re doing this and what you can expect in the coming weeks. In advance of that, I wanted to preview some of what’s on my mind.
Simply put, we must align our cost structure with our new operating model and fundamentally change the way we operate. Our revenues have not grown as expected – and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI. Our costs are too high, our margins are too low. We need bolder actions to address both – particularly given our financial results and outlook for the second half of 2024, which is tougher than previously expected.
These decisions have challenged me to my core, and this is the hardest thing I’ve done in my career. My pledge to you is that we will prioritize a culture of honesty, transparency and respect in the weeks and months to come.
Next week, we’ll announce a companywide enhanced retirement offering for eligible employees and broadly offer an application program for voluntary departures. I believe that how we implement these changes is just as important as the changes themselves, and we will adhere to Intel values throughout this process.
Why Now?
Since introducing our new operating model, we have taken a clean-sheet view of the business and assessed ourselves against benchmarks for high-performing foundries, fabless product companies and corporate functions. This work made it clear our cost structure is not competitive.
For example, our annual revenue in 2020 was about $24 billion higher than it was last year, yet our current workforce is actually 10% larger now than it was then. There are a lot of reasons for this, but it’s not a sustainable path forward.
Beyond our costs, we need to change the way we operate – something many of you shared as part of our Employee Experience Survey. There’s too much complexity, so we need to both automate and simplify processes. It takes too long for decisions to be made, so we need to eliminate bureaucracy. And there’s too much inefficiency in the system, so we need to expedite workflows.
Key Priorities
The actions we are taking will make Intel a leaner, simpler and more agile company. Let me highlight our areas of focus:
Reducing Operational Costs: We will drive companywide operational and cost efficiencies, including the cost savings and head count reductions mentioned above.
Simplifying Our Portfolio: We will complete actions this month to simplify our businesses. Each business unit is conducting a portfolio review and identifying underperforming products. We are also integrating key software assets into our business units so we accelerate our shift to systems-based solutions. And we will narrow our incubation focus on fewer, more impactful projects.
Eliminating Complexity: We will reduce layers, eliminate overlapping areas of responsibility, stop non-essential work, and foster a culture of greater ownership and accountability. For example, we will consolidate Customer Success into the Sales, Marketing and Communications Group to streamline our go-to-market motions.
Reducing Capital and Other Costs: With the completion of our historic five-nodes-in-four-years roadmap clearly in sight, we will review all active projects and equipment so we begin to shift our focus toward capital efficiency and more normalized spending levels. This will reduce our 2024 capital expenditures by more than 20%, and we plan to reduce our non-variable cost of goods sold by roughly $1 billion in 2025.
Suspending Our Dividend: We will suspend our stock dividend beginning next quarter to prioritize investments in the business and drive more sustained profitability.
Maintaining Growth Investments: Our IDM2.0 strategy is unchanged. Having fought hard to reestablish our innovation engine, we will maintain the key investments in our process technology and core product leadership.
The Future
I have no illusions that the path in front of us will be easy. You shouldn’t either. This is a tough day for all of us and there will be more tough days ahead. But as difficult as all of this is, we are making the changes necessary to build on our progress and usher in a new era of growth.
When we began this journey, we set our sights high, knowing that Intel is a place where big ideas are born and the power of what’s possible triumphs over the status quo. After all, our mission is to create world-changing technologies that improve the lives of every person on the planet. And at our best, we have exemplified these ideals more than any company in the world.
To live up to this mission, we must continue to drive our IDM 2.0 strategy, which remains the same: re-establish process technology leadership; invest in at-scale, globally resilient supply chain by expanding manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and EU; become a world-class, leading-edge foundry for internal and external customers; rebuild product portfolio leadership; and deliver AI Everywhere.
Over the past few years, we have rebuilt a sustainable innovation engine that is largely in place and on track. It’s now time to focus on building the sustainable financial engine needed to drive our performance. We must improve our execution, adapt to new market realities and operate as a more agile company. That’s the spirit of the actions we are taking – knowing that the choices we make today, as difficult as they are, will strengthen our ability to serve our customers and grow our business for years to come.
As we take these next steps in our journey, let’s not forget that there has never been a greater need for what we do. The world will increasingly run on silicon – and the world needs a healthy and vibrant Intel. That’s why the work we are doing is so consequential. Not only are we remaking a great company, but we are also creating technology and manufacturing capabilities that will reshape the world for decades to come. And this is something we should never lose sight of as we push forward in pursuit of our goals.
We’ll talk more in a few hours. Please come with your questions so we can have an open and honest discussion about what comes next.

Developing… we’re adding more, and will add more context from Intel’s earnings call soon as well.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Intel’s on a long, long road to recovery, and over 15,000 workers will likely no longer be coming along for the ride. The chipmaker just announced it’s downsizing its workforce by over 15 percent as part of a new $10 billion cost savings plan for 2025, which Intel says will mean a headcount reduction of greater than 15,000 roles. The company currently employs over 125,000 people, so layoffs could be as many as 19,000 people.

Intel will reduce its R&D and marketing spend by billions every year; it will reduce capital expenditures by more than 20 percent this year; it restructure to “stop non-essential work,” and review “all active projects and equipment” to make sure it’s not spending too much.

“This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read,” reads part of a memo from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger to staff, which you can also read in full at the bottom of this post.

The company just reported a loss of $1.6 billion for Q2 2024, substantially more than the $437 million it lost last quarter. “Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones,” admitted Gelsinger in the company’s press release. “Our revenues have not grown as expected – and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI,” he writes in his employee memo.

It’s not like all Intel’s businesses are failing; while Intel has absolutely been losing money on its chipmaking Foundry business as it invests in new factories and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, to the tune of $7 billion in operating losses in 2023, the company products themselves aren’t unprofitable.

Almost all the losses this quarter and last quarter came from Foundry, while its sales continue to stay relatively stable and its PC and server businesses stay profitable. (The PC sales slump ended earlier this year.)

But investors didn’t seem happy that the company kept itself on a knife’s edge: over the past two years before this quarterly loss, it had continued to swing between losses and profits overall, for just $1.1 billion in profit between Q2 2022 and Q1 2024. “Intel is now the worst-performing tech stock in the S&P 500 this year,” CNBC wrote in April.

From a tech leadership perspective, Intel’s not yet a big growing player in AI server chips like Nvidia (maybe not even a notable small one like AMD), its relatively recent entry into graphics has yet to impress, and it had to overhaul its flagship laptop chips significantly to address the existential threat of Arm chips from the likes of Qualcomm and Apple, which can offer more battery life than Intel. Like competitors, the company now partially relies on TSMC, not just its own foundries, to help produce some of its most advanced chips.

Microsoft recently followed Apple’s lead in ditching Intel chips for its latest slate of consumer hardware, including the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, and launched its Copilot Plus PC initiative exclusively with Qualcomm, without waiting for Intel (or AMD)’s new flagship laptop chips to join them.

Intel previously had a big round of layoffs in October 2022, when it also announced it would cut between $8 billion and $10 billion in costs every year through 2025. But the company didn’t shrink all that much as a result. While headcount dipped roughly 5 percent in 2023 (from 131,900 employees to 124,800 employees), Intel hired its way back to 130,700 employees as of March 30th, 2024, its financial records show.

Intel says it’ll complete the majority of the layoffs it’s announcing today by the end of 2024, and spokesperson Penelope Bruce confirms that they are new layoffs — the 4 percent dip from 130,700 employees in March to 125,300 employees in June is not included in the total.

Gelsinger writes that Intel will offer a “companywide enhanced retirement offering for eligible employees” and let employees broadly apply for voluntary layoffs starting next week — not every employee departure will come as a painful surprise.

Intel says it’s now restructuring, suspending its dividend, and spending less, period, but will “maintain its core investments to execute its strategy and build a resilient and sustainable semiconductor supply chain in the U.S. and around the world.”

Here’s the full memo from Gelsinger:

Team,

We have moved our All Company Meeting to today, following our earnings call, as we are announcing significant actions to reduce our costs. We plan to deliver $10 billion in cost savings in 2025, and this includes reducing our head count by roughly 15,000 roles, or 15% of our workforce. The majority of these actions will be completed by the end of this year.

This is painful news for me to share. I know it will be even more difficult for you to read. This is an incredibly hard day for Intel as we are making some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history. When we meet in a few hours, I’ll talk about why we’re doing this and what you can expect in the coming weeks. In advance of that, I wanted to preview some of what’s on my mind.

Simply put, we must align our cost structure with our new operating model and fundamentally change the way we operate. Our revenues have not grown as expected – and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI. Our costs are too high, our margins are too low. We need bolder actions to address both – particularly given our financial results and outlook for the second half of 2024, which is tougher than previously expected.

These decisions have challenged me to my core, and this is the hardest thing I’ve done in my career. My pledge to you is that we will prioritize a culture of honesty, transparency and respect in the weeks and months to come.

Next week, we’ll announce a companywide enhanced retirement offering for eligible employees and broadly offer an application program for voluntary departures. I believe that how we implement these changes is just as important as the changes themselves, and we will adhere to Intel values throughout this process.

Why Now?

Since introducing our new operating model, we have taken a clean-sheet view of the business and assessed ourselves against benchmarks for high-performing foundries, fabless product companies and corporate functions. This work made it clear our cost structure is not competitive.

For example, our annual revenue in 2020 was about $24 billion higher than it was last year, yet our current workforce is actually 10% larger now than it was then. There are a lot of reasons for this, but it’s not a sustainable path forward.

Beyond our costs, we need to change the way we operate – something many of you shared as part of our Employee Experience Survey. There’s too much complexity, so we need to both automate and simplify processes. It takes too long for decisions to be made, so we need to eliminate bureaucracy. And there’s too much inefficiency in the system, so we need to expedite workflows.

Key Priorities

The actions we are taking will make Intel a leaner, simpler and more agile company. Let me highlight our areas of focus:

Reducing Operational Costs: We will drive companywide operational and cost efficiencies, including the cost savings and head count reductions mentioned above.

Simplifying Our Portfolio: We will complete actions this month to simplify our businesses. Each business unit is conducting a portfolio review and identifying underperforming products. We are also integrating key software assets into our business units so we accelerate our shift to systems-based solutions. And we will narrow our incubation focus on fewer, more impactful projects.

Eliminating Complexity: We will reduce layers, eliminate overlapping areas of responsibility, stop non-essential work, and foster a culture of greater ownership and accountability. For example, we will consolidate Customer Success into the Sales, Marketing and Communications Group to streamline our go-to-market motions.

Reducing Capital and Other Costs: With the completion of our historic five-nodes-in-four-years roadmap clearly in sight, we will review all active projects and equipment so we begin to shift our focus toward capital efficiency and more normalized spending levels. This will reduce our 2024 capital expenditures by more than 20%, and we plan to reduce our non-variable cost of goods sold by roughly $1 billion in 2025.

Suspending Our Dividend: We will suspend our stock dividend beginning next quarter to prioritize investments in the business and drive more sustained profitability.

Maintaining Growth Investments: Our IDM2.0 strategy is unchanged. Having fought hard to reestablish our innovation engine, we will maintain the key investments in our process technology and core product leadership.

The Future

I have no illusions that the path in front of us will be easy. You shouldn’t either. This is a tough day for all of us and there will be more tough days ahead. But as difficult as all of this is, we are making the changes necessary to build on our progress and usher in a new era of growth.

When we began this journey, we set our sights high, knowing that Intel is a place where big ideas are born and the power of what’s possible triumphs over the status quo. After all, our mission is to create world-changing technologies that improve the lives of every person on the planet. And at our best, we have exemplified these ideals more than any company in the world.

To live up to this mission, we must continue to drive our IDM 2.0 strategy, which remains the same: re-establish process technology leadership; invest in at-scale, globally resilient supply chain by expanding manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and EU; become a world-class, leading-edge foundry for internal and external customers; rebuild product portfolio leadership; and deliver AI Everywhere.

Over the past few years, we have rebuilt a sustainable innovation engine that is largely in place and on track. It’s now time to focus on building the sustainable financial engine needed to drive our performance. We must improve our execution, adapt to new market realities and operate as a more agile company. That’s the spirit of the actions we are taking – knowing that the choices we make today, as difficult as they are, will strengthen our ability to serve our customers and grow our business for years to come.

As we take these next steps in our journey, let’s not forget that there has never been a greater need for what we do. The world will increasingly run on silicon – and the world needs a healthy and vibrant Intel. That’s why the work we are doing is so consequential. Not only are we remaking a great company, but we are also creating technology and manufacturing capabilities that will reshape the world for decades to come. And this is something we should never lose sight of as we push forward in pursuit of our goals.

We’ll talk more in a few hours. Please come with your questions so we can have an open and honest discussion about what comes next.

Developing… we’re adding more, and will add more context from Intel’s earnings call soon as well.

Read More 

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images

Apple has asked a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department’s antitrust case against it, claiming that the government is asking the court “to sanction a judicial redesign of one of the most innovative and consumer-friendly products ever made: iPhone.”
The DOJ and 16 state and district attorneys general claimed in their March lawsuit that Apple has illegally monopolized the US smartphone market. The government claimed Apple broke the law by maintaining a closed ecosystem for the iPhone in pursuit of profits and at the expense of consumers and innovation. The government pointed to several examples in its complaint, including allegedly suppressing message quality between iPhones and competing platforms like Android and preventing third-party developers from making competing digital wallets for the iPhone with tap-to-pay functionality.
Apple says in a new filing that the DOJ’s argument “is based on the false premise that iPhone’s success has come not through building a superior product that consumers trust and love, but through Apple’s intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats.” It calls that idea “outlandish” and says that antitrust law protects its ability “to design and control its own product” rather than cater to third-party developers.
And Apple says it has given third-party developers “exceptionally broad” access to the iPhone platform “while also enforcing reasonable limitations to protect consumers.” Apple characterizes the third-party developers at issue in the complaint not as small upstarts, but rather as “well-capitalized social media companies, big banks, and global gaming developers, all of whom are formidable competitors in their own right and none of whom have the same incentives to protect the integrity or security of iPhone as Apple has.”
Apple lays out five main reasons for which it says the court should dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit:

Apple is not obligated to work with any third-party developers, and choosing not to work with them is not exclusionary conduct.
The DOJ doesn’t adequately connect Apple’s approach to messaging apps, “so-called ‘super apps,’” cloud streaming apps, smartwatches, or digital wallets to how consumers decide what smartphone to buy.
Apple does not control enough of the smartphone market to be fairly considered a monopolist.
The DOJ hasn’t sufficiently shown Apple’s intent in its attempted monopolization claim.
The DOJ has made its case overly broad “by making cursory references to numerous Apple products and services.”

Apple requests oral arguments to debate its motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Apple says if the government gets its way, it would “harm innovation and risk depriving consumers of the private, safe, and secure experience that differentiates iPhone from every other option in the marketplace.”
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images

Apple has asked a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department’s antitrust case against it, claiming that the government is asking the court “to sanction a judicial redesign of one of the most innovative and consumer-friendly products ever made: iPhone.”

The DOJ and 16 state and district attorneys general claimed in their March lawsuit that Apple has illegally monopolized the US smartphone market. The government claimed Apple broke the law by maintaining a closed ecosystem for the iPhone in pursuit of profits and at the expense of consumers and innovation. The government pointed to several examples in its complaint, including allegedly suppressing message quality between iPhones and competing platforms like Android and preventing third-party developers from making competing digital wallets for the iPhone with tap-to-pay functionality.

Apple says in a new filing that the DOJ’s argument “is based on the false premise that iPhone’s success has come not through building a superior product that consumers trust and love, but through Apple’s intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats.” It calls that idea “outlandish” and says that antitrust law protects its ability “to design and control its own product” rather than cater to third-party developers.

And Apple says it has given third-party developers “exceptionally broad” access to the iPhone platform “while also enforcing reasonable limitations to protect consumers.” Apple characterizes the third-party developers at issue in the complaint not as small upstarts, but rather as “well-capitalized social media companies, big banks, and global gaming developers, all of whom are formidable competitors in their own right and none of whom have the same incentives to protect the integrity or security of iPhone as Apple has.”

Apple lays out five main reasons for which it says the court should dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit:

Apple is not obligated to work with any third-party developers, and choosing not to work with them is not exclusionary conduct.
The DOJ doesn’t adequately connect Apple’s approach to messaging apps, “so-called ‘super apps,’” cloud streaming apps, smartwatches, or digital wallets to how consumers decide what smartphone to buy.
Apple does not control enough of the smartphone market to be fairly considered a monopolist.
The DOJ hasn’t sufficiently shown Apple’s intent in its attempted monopolization claim.
The DOJ has made its case overly broad “by making cursory references to numerous Apple products and services.”

Apple requests oral arguments to debate its motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Apple says if the government gets its way, it would “harm innovation and risk depriving consumers of the private, safe, and secure experience that differentiates iPhone from every other option in the marketplace.”

The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

In an interview with CNBC, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the July 19th outage caused by a CrowdStrike update cost his company half a billion dollars in five days. Delta canceled more than 5,000 flights that weekend and had blue error screens still visible at airports days after the initial crash. Among the costs Bastian said Delta incurred were more than 40,000 servers that “we had to physically touch and reset” as well as compensation payments to travelers left in the lurch.
Asked about a continuing relationship with Microsoft after the crash, Bastian said he regards it as “probably the most fragile platform” and asked the question, “When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?” He placed some blame on the valuations of big tech companies, which lately have been lifted by generative AI hype, saying, “…they’re building the future, and they have to make sure they fortify the current.”

Apparently, the only thing offered to Delta so far from the two companies was free consulting advice, so it seems their IT department wasn’t on the list for one of CrowdStrike’s $10 UberEats cards. CNBC previously reported Delta has hired attorney David Boies to seek damages.
Delta isn’t alone — CrowdStrike shareholders filed a proposed class action lawsuit this week, reports Reuters. The suit cites CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz’s comments on a March 5th call that its software was “validated, tested, and certified.” The shareholders now regard those claims as false and misleading since CrowdStrike wasn’t performing the same level of testing on Rapid Response Content updates as it does on other updates, and its Content Validator checks didn’t catch the bug that caused the global IT crash.

As described in Tom Warren’s recap of the events on the 19th, unlike Microsoft, Apple has in recent years restricted the access third-party developers have to the kernel of macOS. A Microsoft spokesperson said to The Wall Street Journal that it “cannot legally wall off its operating system in the same way Apple does because of an understanding it reached with the European Commission following a complaint.” The European Commission disagrees, telling The Verge, “Microsoft is free to decide on its business model and to adapt its security infrastructure to respond to threats provided this is done in line with EU competition law.”
Bastian also derided both the flaw that caused the issue and CrowdStrike’s deployment processes, saying, “If you’re going to have priority access to the Delta ecosystem… you’ve gotta test this stuff. You can’t come into a mission-critical, 24-7 operation and tell us, ‘We have a bug.’ It doesn’t work.”

Image: The Verge

In an interview with CNBC, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said the July 19th outage caused by a CrowdStrike update cost his company half a billion dollars in five days. Delta canceled more than 5,000 flights that weekend and had blue error screens still visible at airports days after the initial crash. Among the costs Bastian said Delta incurred were more than 40,000 servers that “we had to physically touch and reset” as well as compensation payments to travelers left in the lurch.

Asked about a continuing relationship with Microsoft after the crash, Bastian said he regards it as “probably the most fragile platform” and asked the question, “When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?” He placed some blame on the valuations of big tech companies, which lately have been lifted by generative AI hype, saying, “…they’re building the future, and they have to make sure they fortify the current.”

Apparently, the only thing offered to Delta so far from the two companies was free consulting advice, so it seems their IT department wasn’t on the list for one of CrowdStrike’s $10 UberEats cards. CNBC previously reported Delta has hired attorney David Boies to seek damages.

Delta isn’t alone — CrowdStrike shareholders filed a proposed class action lawsuit this week, reports Reuters. The suit cites CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz’s comments on a March 5th call that its software was “validated, tested, and certified.” The shareholders now regard those claims as false and misleading since CrowdStrike wasn’t performing the same level of testing on Rapid Response Content updates as it does on other updates, and its Content Validator checks didn’t catch the bug that caused the global IT crash.

As described in Tom Warren’s recap of the events on the 19th, unlike Microsoft, Apple has in recent years restricted the access third-party developers have to the kernel of macOS. A Microsoft spokesperson said to The Wall Street Journal that it “cannot legally wall off its operating system in the same way Apple does because of an understanding it reached with the European Commission following a complaint.” The European Commission disagrees, telling The Verge, “Microsoft is free to decide on its business model and to adapt its security infrastructure to respond to threats provided this is done in line with EU competition law.”

Bastian also derided both the flaw that caused the issue and CrowdStrike’s deployment processes, saying, “If you’re going to have priority access to the Delta ecosystem… you’ve gotta test this stuff. You can’t come into a mission-critical, 24-7 operation and tell us, ‘We have a bug.’ It doesn’t work.”

Read More 

Now that you can actually buy it, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better option for Fortnite Festival than PDP’s Riffmaster. | Image: PDP

With secondhand Fender Stratocaster guitars for Rock Band 4 still fetching high prices on the resale market nearly a decade later, it’s no surprise that PDP’s recent Riffmaster controller has been challenging to find. Thankfully, after months of quickly selling out, I’m here to tell you that the PlayStation version is now readily available at Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop for its full retail price of $129.99. The Xbox-licensed version, which works with both Xbox consoles and PC, is also available at Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop for the same price.

With an edgier appearance that makes it look like a Brutal Legend weapon, the Riffmaster replicates the functionality of the original Rock Band 4 guitar while sprinkling in some unique tricks of its own. You’ll get five color-coded buttons higher up the neck, which correspond to the various lanes each note can appear in while playing RB4 or newer free-to-play rhythm games like Fortnite Festival. There’s also a second set of the same buttons lower down the neck for freestyle solos, and they can act as an alternative set of inputs for those who find them easier to reach. A strummer and whammy bar round out the list of components needed to facilitate your jams.

Additionally, there’s a collapsible neck that’s unique to the Riffmaster, which allows you to transport the guitar controller without having to take it apart. The neck also hides an analog stick on the underside for more straightforward menu navigation, and there are volume controls built into the D-pad and a 3.5mm audio jack for wired headsets. The wireless guitar even has a 30-foot range, and its rechargeable internal battery lasts up to 36 hours, making it a solid option that doesn’t burn through AA batteries like Harmonix’s original controller.

Now that you can actually buy it, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better option for Fortnite Festival than PDP’s Riffmaster. | Image: PDP

With secondhand Fender Stratocaster guitars for Rock Band 4 still fetching high prices on the resale market nearly a decade later, it’s no surprise that PDP’s recent Riffmaster controller has been challenging to find. Thankfully, after months of quickly selling out, I’m here to tell you that the PlayStation version is now readily available at Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop for its full retail price of $129.99. The Xbox-licensed version, which works with both Xbox consoles and PC, is also available at Amazon, Best Buy, and GameStop for the same price.

With an edgier appearance that makes it look like a Brutal Legend weapon, the Riffmaster replicates the functionality of the original Rock Band 4 guitar while sprinkling in some unique tricks of its own. You’ll get five color-coded buttons higher up the neck, which correspond to the various lanes each note can appear in while playing RB4 or newer free-to-play rhythm games like Fortnite Festival. There’s also a second set of the same buttons lower down the neck for freestyle solos, and they can act as an alternative set of inputs for those who find them easier to reach. A strummer and whammy bar round out the list of components needed to facilitate your jams.

Additionally, there’s a collapsible neck that’s unique to the Riffmaster, which allows you to transport the guitar controller without having to take it apart. The neck also hides an analog stick on the underside for more straightforward menu navigation, and there are volume controls built into the D-pad and a 3.5mm audio jack for wired headsets. The wireless guitar even has a 30-foot range, and its rechargeable internal battery lasts up to 36 hours, making it a solid option that doesn’t burn through AA batteries like Harmonix’s original controller.

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Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP via Getty Images

Mitsubishi signed a memorandum of understanding with Nissan and Honda to join their pre-existing partnership to jointly develop electric vehicles and other related tech. The hope is that by working together, the three Japanese automakers can catch up to their rivals in the race to introduce more technologically advanced vehicles in the future.
It’s another example of big, global automakers pooling their resources in the interest of defraying costs and finding more efficient ways to introduce new EVs to the marketplace. The inclusion of Mitsubishi “will not only add new knowledge and strengths but will also provide further synergies that can only be generated by the three companies,” Nissan and Honda said in a statement.
It’s another example of big, global automakers pooling their resources in the interest of defraying costs and finding more efficient ways to introduce new EVs
This is not the first joint venture for any of these companies. Honda paired up with General Motors to jointly develop EVs, only to dissolve the partnership several years later. (The newly released Honda Prologue is built on GM’s Ultium platform.) Several months later, Honda teamed up with Nissan with similar goals in mind. And Nissan is already part of a decadesold global alliance with Mitsubishi that also includes Renault.
Honda was likely looking for a partner to help take the reins after exiting its deal with GM. Likewise, Nissan and Mitsubishi are both struggling to find a foothold in the US, with the former’s operating profits sinking roughly 99 percent in the US last quarter. Americans just aren’t buying Nissans like they used to, and the company’s failures to introduce any hybrids in what is clearly a very hybrid-friendly market is also slowing things down.
It’s not clear what Mitsubishi really brings to the table. The brand has also struggled to introduce any long-range EVs, but that isn’t unique to Japan’s auto industry. The plug-in hybrid Outlander has had some success but isn’t exactly a runaway hit.
In other news, Nissan and Honda are adding another goalpost for their partnership: developing a so-called software-defined vehicle. The two companies say they will conclude research into new technologies, with the goal of moving to mass production in a year’s time. Honda and Nissan will also work together on batteries, electric motors, and a new product review system to encourage “mutual vehicle complementation.”
Speeding up the process in which many other companies already have a steady lead seems to be the name of the game here. Nissan already has outlined its plans to electrify 16 of the 30 vehicles it produces by 2026, seven of which for the North American market. And it’s making progress on its solid-state battery plans.
Now all it needs is partners willing to help spread those costs around and staunch the bleeding it’s experiencing today. And in Honda and Mitsubishi, it found them.

Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP via Getty Images

Mitsubishi signed a memorandum of understanding with Nissan and Honda to join their pre-existing partnership to jointly develop electric vehicles and other related tech. The hope is that by working together, the three Japanese automakers can catch up to their rivals in the race to introduce more technologically advanced vehicles in the future.

It’s another example of big, global automakers pooling their resources in the interest of defraying costs and finding more efficient ways to introduce new EVs to the marketplace. The inclusion of Mitsubishi “will not only add new knowledge and strengths but will also provide further synergies that can only be generated by the three companies,” Nissan and Honda said in a statement.

This is not the first joint venture for any of these companies. Honda paired up with General Motors to jointly develop EVs, only to dissolve the partnership several years later. (The newly released Honda Prologue is built on GM’s Ultium platform.) Several months later, Honda teamed up with Nissan with similar goals in mind. And Nissan is already part of a decadesold global alliance with Mitsubishi that also includes Renault.

Honda was likely looking for a partner to help take the reins after exiting its deal with GM. Likewise, Nissan and Mitsubishi are both struggling to find a foothold in the US, with the former’s operating profits sinking roughly 99 percent in the US last quarter. Americans just aren’t buying Nissans like they used to, and the company’s failures to introduce any hybrids in what is clearly a very hybrid-friendly market is also slowing things down.

It’s not clear what Mitsubishi really brings to the table. The brand has also struggled to introduce any long-range EVs, but that isn’t unique to Japan’s auto industry. The plug-in hybrid Outlander has had some success but isn’t exactly a runaway hit.

In other news, Nissan and Honda are adding another goalpost for their partnership: developing a so-called software-defined vehicle. The two companies say they will conclude research into new technologies, with the goal of moving to mass production in a year’s time. Honda and Nissan will also work together on batteries, electric motors, and a new product review system to encourage “mutual vehicle complementation.”

Speeding up the process in which many other companies already have a steady lead seems to be the name of the game here. Nissan already has outlined its plans to electrify 16 of the 30 vehicles it produces by 2026, seven of which for the North American market. And it’s making progress on its solid-state battery plans.

Now all it needs is partners willing to help spread those costs around and staunch the bleeding it’s experiencing today. And in Honda and Mitsubishi, it found them.

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Image: Google

Google will soon let parents limit the functionality of their child’s phone or tablet while at school. The company announced on Thursday that it’s expanding its “School time” feature to select Android phones, tablets, and Samsung Galaxy Watches over the next year.
The company first rolled out School time on its Fitbit Ace LTE smartwatch in May, and bringing the feature to a wider range of devices should help keep any additional distractions out of the classroom. Along with letting parents prevent their children from accessing certain apps, School time can also limit phone calls and message notifications from certain contacts. Parents can adjust these settings through Google’s Family Link app.

GIF: Google

As noted by Google, teens who aren’t supervised through Google’s Family Link app can still use their device’s Focus mode to block notifications when they need to concentrate. Later this summer, Google will also start letting parents link their YouTube accounts to their teens’, allowing them to keep track of their activity.
While it’s nice to see Google expanding School time beyond its wearables, the company doesn’t say which Android phones or tablets will support the feature. We’ll also have to see if Apple follows suit, as the company has a similarly branded Schooltime feature that’s only available on its smartwatches.

Image: Google

Google will soon let parents limit the functionality of their child’s phone or tablet while at school. The company announced on Thursday that it’s expanding its “School time” feature to select Android phones, tablets, and Samsung Galaxy Watches over the next year.

The company first rolled out School time on its Fitbit Ace LTE smartwatch in May, and bringing the feature to a wider range of devices should help keep any additional distractions out of the classroom. Along with letting parents prevent their children from accessing certain apps, School time can also limit phone calls and message notifications from certain contacts. Parents can adjust these settings through Google’s Family Link app.

GIF: Google

As noted by Google, teens who aren’t supervised through Google’s Family Link app can still use their device’s Focus mode to block notifications when they need to concentrate. Later this summer, Google will also start letting parents link their YouTube accounts to their teens’, allowing them to keep track of their activity.

While it’s nice to see Google expanding School time beyond its wearables, the company doesn’t say which Android phones or tablets will support the feature. We’ll also have to see if Apple follows suit, as the company has a similarly branded Schooltime feature that’s only available on its smartwatches.

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The 2025 Ford Maverick Lariat in green. | Image: Ford

Ford updated its midsize Maverick truck lineup for 2025, including new looks, updated infotainment, and — by popular demand — a hybrid all-wheel-drive option.
The hybrid Maverick originally only came with front-wheel drive, so you previously had to opt for the gas-only version if you needed to play pretend F-150 for some tasks (and didn’t want to change your whole personality).
The new hybrid Maverick still has the same power capabilities as the previous year, even with AWD. It has a 2.5-liter hybrid engine with a 94kW electric motor that outputs 191 horsepower and 155lb-ft of torque. The AWD model gets 40 miles per gallon in the city, while the FWD version gets 42. The truck can hold 13.8 gallons of fuel.
The cheapest Maverick, the XL, starts at $26,295, and the hybrid engine comes standard. If you want AWD, you’ll have to pay an additional $2,220 — but it comes included on the Lariat trim, which starts at $36,735. Both represent a significant markup over the 2022 hybrid Maverick, which started at just $20,000.

Image: Ford
The XLT Interior.

Fans of the Maverick might love or hate the new front fascia compared to the old crossbar plaque with the logo. Whatever the case, it now has a modern Ford SUV-style grille and options for daytime running lights that look F-150-inspired.
Ford is also adding a 5G modem and a larger infotainment screen, now 13.2 inches. It’ll run on Ford’s latest Sync 4 software, which unfortunately is not the new Android-powered Ford Digital Experience, but it’ll at least serve you wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone connectivity. The bigger screen accommodates touchscreen buttons for HVAC and the new 360-degree camera view.

If you opt for the Lariat or Temor (gas-only) models, you will get Pro Trailer Hitch Assist and Pro Trailer Backup Assist standard, which helps Maverick owners who need to tow stuff.
There’s also a new Maverick Lobo model that’s not exactly designed for towing. Instead, it’s a street truck that rides lower and has a performance-tuned suspension. It’s also got a special interior with Lobo branding on the seats, a special “lobo mode” for use on the track, and Mach-E Rally-style wheels.

Image: Ford
The new Maverick Lobo is performance tuned and has a special grille.

Ford says 60 percent of customers buying Maverick trucks are trading in vehicles from other brands — many of them from vehicles in other segments like small cars and SUVs. Since the Maverick isn’t gigantic like some of its truck brethren, yet is still useful and cheap, it’s easy for people to get behind.
Ford hybrids in general are selling like hotcakes, and the old name Maverick is living on as a success story in a midsize pickup body. Ford is reportedly not making an electric Maverick but might launch another electric truck alongside the F-150 Lightning. Maybe the automaker will give the new EV another old name, like it’s doing with the Capri.

The 2025 Ford Maverick Lariat in green. | Image: Ford

Ford updated its midsize Maverick truck lineup for 2025, including new looks, updated infotainment, and — by popular demand — a hybrid all-wheel-drive option.

The hybrid Maverick originally only came with front-wheel drive, so you previously had to opt for the gas-only version if you needed to play pretend F-150 for some tasks (and didn’t want to change your whole personality).

The new hybrid Maverick still has the same power capabilities as the previous year, even with AWD. It has a 2.5-liter hybrid engine with a 94kW electric motor that outputs 191 horsepower and 155lb-ft of torque. The AWD model gets 40 miles per gallon in the city, while the FWD version gets 42. The truck can hold 13.8 gallons of fuel.

The cheapest Maverick, the XL, starts at $26,295, and the hybrid engine comes standard. If you want AWD, you’ll have to pay an additional $2,220 — but it comes included on the Lariat trim, which starts at $36,735. Both represent a significant markup over the 2022 hybrid Maverick, which started at just $20,000.

Image: Ford
The XLT Interior.

Fans of the Maverick might love or hate the new front fascia compared to the old crossbar plaque with the logo. Whatever the case, it now has a modern Ford SUV-style grille and options for daytime running lights that look F-150-inspired.

Ford is also adding a 5G modem and a larger infotainment screen, now 13.2 inches. It’ll run on Ford’s latest Sync 4 software, which unfortunately is not the new Android-powered Ford Digital Experience, but it’ll at least serve you wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone connectivity. The bigger screen accommodates touchscreen buttons for HVAC and the new 360-degree camera view.

If you opt for the Lariat or Temor (gas-only) models, you will get Pro Trailer Hitch Assist and Pro Trailer Backup Assist standard, which helps Maverick owners who need to tow stuff.

There’s also a new Maverick Lobo model that’s not exactly designed for towing. Instead, it’s a street truck that rides lower and has a performance-tuned suspension. It’s also got a special interior with Lobo branding on the seats, a special “lobo mode” for use on the track, and Mach-E Rally-style wheels.

Image: Ford
The new Maverick Lobo is performance tuned and has a special grille.

Ford says 60 percent of customers buying Maverick trucks are trading in vehicles from other brands — many of them from vehicles in other segments like small cars and SUVs. Since the Maverick isn’t gigantic like some of its truck brethren, yet is still useful and cheap, it’s easy for people to get behind.

Ford hybrids in general are selling like hotcakes, and the old name Maverick is living on as a success story in a midsize pickup body. Ford is reportedly not making an electric Maverick but might launch another electric truck alongside the F-150 Lightning. Maybe the automaker will give the new EV another old name, like it’s doing with the Capri.

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A dirt road leads to a forest clearance concession in Mayumba, Gabon. | Photo: Getty Images

A major watchdog for corporate sustainability is warning that carbon offset credits are a risky tactic for tackling climate change. The nonprofit organization had faced pressure to soften its stance on carbon credits, which many companies promote as a way to deal with pollution. This week’s findings seem to refute that effort.
Plenty of brands have tried to sell themselves as climate-friendly, but consumers struggle to know whether those companies are actually having a positive impact. That’s where the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) steps in, developing standards for climate goals and assessing companies based on those guidelines.
The SBTi is in the process of updating its standards, which could have a big impact on the thousands of companies that have sought to legitimize their sustainability claims through the organization. It released a report this week synthesizing the evidence it has collected on how useful carbon credits purchased by companies are in fighting climate change. Many of them are outright “ineffective,” the report indicates.
“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting.”
“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting,” the report says. These credits might actually hinder efforts to slash greenhouse gas pollution — the exact opposite of what corporate climate commitments are supposed to achieve.
Carbon credits are supposed to represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution either avoided or drawn back down and sequestered. They might be tied to renewable energy projects or other initiatives to prevent deforestation or plant trees that take in and store oxygen, for example. Companies purchase these credits to try to cancel out the impact their own pollution has on the climate.
That allows companies to claim that they’re carbon neutral, even if they’re still pumping out greenhouse gas emissions. But the carbon accounting often doesn’t add up in the real world. Carbon credits have become so popular and cheap that the market has been flooded with faulty credits from poorly designed projects that often overestimate the amount of carbon dioxide they avoid or trap. It’s difficult to measure how much carbon a forest holds, for instance, and its trees need to stay standing for 100 years or more to keep that CO2 from being released back into the atmosphere.
The SBTi report is based on more than 100 unique pieces of evidence the organization reviewed and assessed for their relevance and potential bias. That includes research papers, case studies, regulatory analysis, and other kinds of evidence it solicited last year. The group says its findings only apply to the evidence it reviewed, but the report falls in line with a growing number of investigations and academic research that cast doubt on carbon credits.

The results of SBTi’s review are all the more important considering the organization reportedly faced a mutiny this year over its stance on carbon credits. In the past, the SBTi hasn’t allowed companies to substitute emissions reductions with carbon offset credits. There was an uproar when the group’s board of trustees released a statement in April suggesting that the SBTi might suddenly start to allow a company to offset pollution stemming from its supply chain and the use of its products.
The commotion that followed included staff reportedly trying to oust board members and SBTi’s chief executive. At least one of SBTi’s scientific advisers resigned in protest, and its CEO stepped down in July “for personal reasons.” The SBTi clarified the board’s April statement by saying that it hadn’t yet made any changes on carbon credits and that it would need to follow the organization’s protocol for updating standards.
“Today’s announcement marks a key step in the revision process for the Corporate Net-Zero Standard,” interim CEO Sue Jenny Ehr said in a July 30th statement. The SBTi says it’ll have a draft of its revised guidelines ready for public comment by the end of the year.
Environmental groups say the analysis the SBTi released this week shows why carbon credits shouldn’t play any role in companies’ sustainability plans moving forward. “The SBTi should retract its plan to allow offsets in corporate climate targets, or it risks becoming a tool for precisely this kind of greenwashing,” Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said in a press release.

A dirt road leads to a forest clearance concession in Mayumba, Gabon. | Photo: Getty Images

A major watchdog for corporate sustainability is warning that carbon offset credits are a risky tactic for tackling climate change. The nonprofit organization had faced pressure to soften its stance on carbon credits, which many companies promote as a way to deal with pollution. This week’s findings seem to refute that effort.

Plenty of brands have tried to sell themselves as climate-friendly, but consumers struggle to know whether those companies are actually having a positive impact. That’s where the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) steps in, developing standards for climate goals and assessing companies based on those guidelines.

The SBTi is in the process of updating its standards, which could have a big impact on the thousands of companies that have sought to legitimize their sustainability claims through the organization. It released a report this week synthesizing the evidence it has collected on how useful carbon credits purchased by companies are in fighting climate change. Many of them are outright “ineffective,” the report indicates.

“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting,” the report says. These credits might actually hinder efforts to slash greenhouse gas pollution — the exact opposite of what corporate climate commitments are supposed to achieve.

Carbon credits are supposed to represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution either avoided or drawn back down and sequestered. They might be tied to renewable energy projects or other initiatives to prevent deforestation or plant trees that take in and store oxygen, for example. Companies purchase these credits to try to cancel out the impact their own pollution has on the climate.

That allows companies to claim that they’re carbon neutral, even if they’re still pumping out greenhouse gas emissions. But the carbon accounting often doesn’t add up in the real world. Carbon credits have become so popular and cheap that the market has been flooded with faulty credits from poorly designed projects that often overestimate the amount of carbon dioxide they avoid or trap. It’s difficult to measure how much carbon a forest holds, for instance, and its trees need to stay standing for 100 years or more to keep that CO2 from being released back into the atmosphere.

The SBTi report is based on more than 100 unique pieces of evidence the organization reviewed and assessed for their relevance and potential bias. That includes research papers, case studies, regulatory analysis, and other kinds of evidence it solicited last year. The group says its findings only apply to the evidence it reviewed, but the report falls in line with a growing number of investigations and academic research that cast doubt on carbon credits.

The results of SBTi’s review are all the more important considering the organization reportedly faced a mutiny this year over its stance on carbon credits. In the past, the SBTi hasn’t allowed companies to substitute emissions reductions with carbon offset credits. There was an uproar when the group’s board of trustees released a statement in April suggesting that the SBTi might suddenly start to allow a company to offset pollution stemming from its supply chain and the use of its products.

The commotion that followed included staff reportedly trying to oust board members and SBTi’s chief executive. At least one of SBTi’s scientific advisers resigned in protest, and its CEO stepped down in July “for personal reasons.” The SBTi clarified the board’s April statement by saying that it hadn’t yet made any changes on carbon credits and that it would need to follow the organization’s protocol for updating standards.

“Today’s announcement marks a key step in the revision process for the Corporate Net-Zero Standard,” interim CEO Sue Jenny Ehr said in a July 30th statement. The SBTi says it’ll have a draft of its revised guidelines ready for public comment by the end of the year.

Environmental groups say the analysis the SBTi released this week shows why carbon credits shouldn’t play any role in companies’ sustainability plans moving forward. “The SBTi should retract its plan to allow offsets in corporate climate targets, or it risks becoming a tool for precisely this kind of greenwashing,” Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said in a press release.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images

Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk and X over the abrupt cancellation of his deal with the social media platform, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of his name and likeness, and breach of express contract. Lemon’s show was canned in March of this year after a contentious interview with Musk — who, according to the complaint, had promised Lemon he’d have free rein over the content on the show.
The complaint — filed on August 1st in the Superior Court of California for San Francisco County — claims that after advertisers fled Twitter in the wake of Musk’s takeover, Musk and other X executives began courting Lemon with the goal of publicizing “a partnership between X and Lemon” that would associate “the X brand with Lemon’s good name, likeness, identity, and reputation” in order to “rehabilitate” the social platform in the eyes of advertisers.
Lemon entered an exclusive partnership deal with X in January 2024, after months of negotiations, according to the complaint, which claims Musk initially contacted Lemon in June 2023 asking him to join the platform. The complaint claims Lemon “expressed his reservations … due to the ongoing controversies surrounding the X platform.” In response, Musk allegedly told Lemon that he would have full control over the work he produced — even if Musk or others at X didn’t like it — and that there was “no need for a formal written agreement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’”
That December, Lemon met with X executives — CEO Linda Yaccarino and Brett Weitz, at the time X’s head of content, talent, and brand sales — for dinner. According to the complaint, Lemon once again expressed his hesitancy to enter into a partnership with the platform. Weeks after the meeting, Weitz texted Lemon, “You’re set up for a lot of $$ this year,” the complaint claims.
As part of the deal, Lemon agreed to produce 10 shortform videos per month and one longform video per week and to exclusively publish that content on X for a 24-hour period before it could be posted on other platforms. The deal guaranteed Lemon $1.5 million, the first $200,000 of which was paid upfront, the complaint alleges. The remaining funds were to be paid out in quarterly installments, and Lemon would also receive additional funds depending on how many followers he got and the amount of programmatic advertising revenue generated from his content. As a result of these financial promises, the complaint alleges, Lemon “incurred hundreds of thousands in expenses” by forming his own media company, collaborating with his agents, entering a production deal with a content studio and production company, and buying equipment.
The X deal fell apart after Lemon interviewed Musk in March. During the “tense” interview, Lemon probed Musk on his politics, drug use, and the increase in hate speech on X since he took over the platform. Lemon asked Musk to comment on his opinions about illegal immigration, the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
“I don’t have to answer questions from reporters,” Musk told Lemon during the interview. “Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform, and you asked for it. Otherwise, we’re not going to be doing this interview.”
Afterward, Lemon learned the deal was off via a text Musk sent to Lemon’s agent that read, “Contract is canceled.”
Lemon is seeking economic, noneconomic, and punitive damages.
X did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images

Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk and X over the abrupt cancellation of his deal with the social media platform, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of his name and likeness, and breach of express contract. Lemon’s show was canned in March of this year after a contentious interview with Musk — who, according to the complaint, had promised Lemon he’d have free rein over the content on the show.

The complaint — filed on August 1st in the Superior Court of California for San Francisco County — claims that after advertisers fled Twitter in the wake of Musk’s takeover, Musk and other X executives began courting Lemon with the goal of publicizing “a partnership between X and Lemon” that would associate “the X brand with Lemon’s good name, likeness, identity, and reputation” in order to “rehabilitate” the social platform in the eyes of advertisers.

Lemon entered an exclusive partnership deal with X in January 2024, after months of negotiations, according to the complaint, which claims Musk initially contacted Lemon in June 2023 asking him to join the platform. The complaint claims Lemon “expressed his reservations … due to the ongoing controversies surrounding the X platform.” In response, Musk allegedly told Lemon that he would have full control over the work he produced — even if Musk or others at X didn’t like it — and that there was “no need for a formal written agreement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’”

That December, Lemon met with X executives — CEO Linda Yaccarino and Brett Weitz, at the time X’s head of content, talent, and brand sales — for dinner. According to the complaint, Lemon once again expressed his hesitancy to enter into a partnership with the platform. Weeks after the meeting, Weitz texted Lemon, “You’re set up for a lot of $$ this year,” the complaint claims.

As part of the deal, Lemon agreed to produce 10 shortform videos per month and one longform video per week and to exclusively publish that content on X for a 24-hour period before it could be posted on other platforms. The deal guaranteed Lemon $1.5 million, the first $200,000 of which was paid upfront, the complaint alleges. The remaining funds were to be paid out in quarterly installments, and Lemon would also receive additional funds depending on how many followers he got and the amount of programmatic advertising revenue generated from his content. As a result of these financial promises, the complaint alleges, Lemon “incurred hundreds of thousands in expenses” by forming his own media company, collaborating with his agents, entering a production deal with a content studio and production company, and buying equipment.

The X deal fell apart after Lemon interviewed Musk in March. During the “tense” interview, Lemon probed Musk on his politics, drug use, and the increase in hate speech on X since he took over the platform. Lemon asked Musk to comment on his opinions about illegal immigration, the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

“I don’t have to answer questions from reporters,” Musk told Lemon during the interview. “Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform, and you asked for it. Otherwise, we’re not going to be doing this interview.”

Afterward, Lemon learned the deal was off via a text Musk sent to Lemon’s agent that read, “Contract is canceled.”

Lemon is seeking economic, noneconomic, and punitive damages.

X did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

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