ArduinoMania

Two Amazon employees have accused the company of retaliating against them for their efforts to organize workers at a warehouse in Liverpool, New York. Ashley Mercer and Jason Main filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on May 17th.

According to Vice News, Amazon tasked Mercer last week with picking up cigarette butts, broken glass and other discarded trash in the parking lot of its SYR1 warehouse in Liverpool. Mercer told the outlet her manager sent her out alone and without water or sunscreen on a day when the temperature went above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Making the optics of the situation worse, Mercer is about six months pregnant, putting her at the end of her second trimester. “Approved for 10 hours parking lot clean-up,” an accommodation report obtained by Vice states. 

On the same day, the company suspended Mercer's partner, Jason Main, who is also named in the NLRB complaint. Amazon later fired him for reportedly not using a step stool for moving merchandise. Mercer and Main have both been involved in agitating on behalf of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at a variety of warehouses in New York. Additionally, the two have come to work at the Liverpool facility wearing ALU-branded shirts and masks, while Mercer has also done the same at two warehouses in nearby Syracuse, and passed out leaflets at JFK8, the Staten Island facility that became the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the US last month.

“It wasn't until I started mentioning that I am part of Amazon Labor Union that they pulled me out of my position and put me outside the building,” Mercer told Vice. “I think it’s retaliation because I’m a big part of [the ALU] and it feels like as soon as you bring up the union, they treat you differently.”

We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment.

Amazon has yet to recognize the ALU. In April, the company challenged the result of the JFK8 vote, accusing the organization of threatening employees unless they voted to unionize. It also recently fired two employees who were involved in organizing that facility, and ALU itself was born out of the company’s termination of founder Christian Smalls, a former worker at the JFK8 facility.

After it first unveiled the game at E3 2019, Ubisoft will finally release Roller Champions on May 25th, the publisher announced today. The free-to-play title will be available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – as well as Xbox Series X/S and PS5 through backward compatibility – to start, with availability on Nintendo Switch, Stadia and Amazon Luna to follow later. Roller Champions supports both cross-platform play and progression, so you can not only group up with your friends no matter where they download the game, but your progress will also carry over between systems.

Roller Champions pits you and two other players against a competing team of three in a variation on classic roller derby. Going into each match, your goal is to be the first team to score five points. You earn a single point or more by skating around an oval track and maintaining control of a ball before taking a shot at the goal. Complicating things is the fact that the players on the opposing team can tackle you to take possession of the ball. Each match lasts about seven minutes, and there’s an external progression system where you can earn gear for your in-game avatar. Ubisoft will sell premium passes players can complete to earn cosmetics that aren’t available through the game’s item shop.

Google's Russian division submitted a notice of intention to declare bankruptcy after officials seized its bank account. That "has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations," a Google spokesperson told Reuters.

Like many other companies, Google suspended most of its commercial activities in Russia following the country's invasion of Ukraine in February. Despite that and the bankruptcy filing, it will continue to provide Russians with access to free services such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Android for the time being.

In May last year, Russia fined Google around $82,000 for failing to delete thousands of pieces of content it deemed to be illegal. Authorities then fined the company approximately $98 million in December for similar reasons. That was estimated to be around 5.7 percent of Google's 2021 turnover in Russia.

In recent months, telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor has been pressuring YouTube to lift restrictions on access to Russian media. A Russian TV channel reported last month that bailiffs seized around 1 billion rubles (approximately $15 million) from Google after it declined to restore the station's access to its YouTube account.

While Russia has blocked many other platforms and services, including Google News, it doesn't currently have plans to prevent users in the country from accessing YouTube. It said this week that residents would likely suffer as a result of such a move. Reutersreported that the streaming platform has around 90 million Russian users. 

Russia's minister for digital development also said that, despite testing its own, closed-off version of the internet, the country plans to stay connected to the global network.

New York State wants to understand the part internet services may have played in the deadly Buffalo mass shooting. Attorney General Letitia James is launching investigations into Discord, Twitch, 4chan and 8chan over concerns they let the attacker "discuss and amplify" his plans. It was "chilling and unfathomable" that the shooter could post his intentions months in advance without facing consequences, James said.

The perpetrator reportedly talked about his plans for racism-fuelled violence on Discord, 4chan and 8chan. He tried to livestream the entire attack on Twitch. The service took down the shooter's channel within two minutes and has clamped down on attempts to reshare the video, but that didn't stop others from trying to distribute the video on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. On Discord, meanwhile, the culprit invited others to review his plans half an hour in advance. Both 4chan and 8chan have long focused on an anything-goes approach to content and have been accused of harboring hate speech.

A Discord spokesperson told Engadget the company would cooperate with the investigation. We've also asked Twitch for comment. Discord has a long history of banning extremist chat servers. Likewise, Twitch has previously pulled violent streams and curbed efforts to share the associated clips.

The investigations won't necessarily lead to action against the involved sites. Whether or not they do, the move underscores the pressure on internet services to proactively remove hate and threatening speech, rather than reacting to incidents.

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon is calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate ID.me, the controversial identification company best known for its work with the Internal Revenue Service. In a letter addressed to FTC Chair Lina Khan, the group suggests the firm misled the American public about the capabilities of its facial recognition technology.

Specifically, lawmakers point to a statement ID.me made at the start of the year. After CEO Blake Hall said the company did not use one-to-many facial recognition, an approach that involves matching images against those in a database, ID.me backtracked on those claims. It clarified it uses a “specific” one-to-many check during user enrollment to prevent identity theft.

Following that statement, the IRS began to distance itself from ID.me, announcing it would reconsider its use of the platform in late January. It subsequently began allowing taxpayers to authenticate their identity without the use of facial recognition. But as the letter points out, many state and federal agencies continue to require Americans to submit photos and documents to ID.me before they can access vital services, including unemployment insurance.

“Americans have particular reason to be concerned about the difference between these two types of facial recognition,” the senators write of ID.me’s turnaround, noting a one-to-many approach inevitably means millions of people will have their photographs “endlessly” accessed. “Not only does this violate individuals’ privacy, but the inevitable false matches associated with one-to-many recognition can result in applicants being wrongly denied desperately-needed services for weeks or even months as they try to get their case reviewed.”

In making the statements it did, the group is asking the FTC to determine whether ID.me committed “deceptive and unfair business practices.” The company already faces an investigation from the House Oversight and Reform Committee. In a statement it shared with Bloomberg, ID.me declined to comment on the specific concerns mentioned in the letter from Senator Wyden. Instead, the company pointed to its track record of preventing unemployment fraud.

“ID.me played a critical role in stopping that attack in more than 20 states where the service was rapidly adopted for its equally important ability to increase equity and verify individuals left behind by traditional options,” the company said. “We look forward to cooperating with all relevant government bodies to clear up any misunderstandings.”

After announcing the very cute Honda E and a long-term collaboration with GM, Honda has made its EV ambitions clear. But it's still lagging behind most other carmakers—especially its closest rival Toyota, which is rolling out its first mainstream electric car this year. To whet our appetites a bit, Honda has revealed a teaser image of the Prologue, its first electric SUV launching in 2024. And, well... it looks pretty much like what we'd expect from a Honda SUV.

The lone image, which is just a render and not a photo of the Prologue in action, shows off the SUV's clean body lines and beefy tires. The Prologue is a design collaboration between its studios in Los Angeles and Japan, and it was also developed together with GM. There's a bit of old and new here, for sure, but its relatively plain aesthetic makes Toyota's BZ4X look practically radical in comparison.

Honda plans to unveil 30 new EVs by 2030, with expected sales of 2 million units. After kicking off sales of the Prologue in 2024, Honda plans to start producing and selling new EVs based on its e:Architecture in 2026, and it'll have affordable EVs (also developed with GM) in 2027. You'll find the Prologue first in Zero Emissions states, but it should start heading to more states in the US afterwards. 

Honda

There's only so much we can learn from a single render, but it's still helpful to see that Honda has its eye on the EV ball. The company also plans to bring Level 2 and fast-charging to dealerships around the US, as well as some slightly more modern building designs.

YouTube Music on Wear OS now works the way you'd expect. As The Vergenotes, Google's music service now streams directly from its Wear OS app, whether you're on LTE or WiFi. You'll need to pair with an Android phone for full functionality (cellular streaming isn't an option for iPhone users), and a Premium subscription is necessary regardless of platform. If you meet those criteria, though, you can leave your phone at home knowing you'll still have access to all your tunes.

The upgrade also lets you add a YouTube Music tile for quick access to the browse section or your most recently played playlist. If you do need offline listening, Smart Downloads will automatically refresh your on-watch library whenever you're connected to WiFi. The streaming upgrade should finish rolling out this week.

First-party music streaming on Wear OS has been problematic, to put it mildly. Google Play Music was available on the platform, but the app didn't carry over when the company shut down the service in 2020 and transitioned to the YouTube offering. YouTube Music came to Wear OS (with offline-only playback) in summer 2021, but it was initially restricted to the Galaxy Watch 4 and didn't come to Wear OS 2 devices until September that year. You've had to turn to Spotify and other third-party services for streaming, and in some cases it wasn't an option at all.

There's plenty of pressure to add streaming, though. Google is releasing the Pixel Watch this fall with optional LTE, and it wouldn't look good if you couldn't stream the company's music service on its official smartwatch. The improved YouTube Music app should ensure a consistent experience when the Pixel wristwear arrives, at least if you're determined to use an all-Google setup.

A lawsuit has been filed against Apple alleging that a boy suffered hearing damage when using his AirPods Pro. A couple from Texas filed the suit, NBC News reports. According to the suit, their then 12-year-old son (referred to as "B.G.") was using AirPods to watch something on his iPhone at a low volume when he received an Amber Alert.

The alert "went off suddenly, and without warning, at a volume that tore apart B.G.’s ear drum, damaged his cochlea and caused significant injuries," the suit said. The boy's parents say he suffered from dizziness, vertigo, nausea and tinnitus following the incident in 2020 and that he'll need to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life.

They claim AirPods don't "automatically reduce, control, limit or increment notification or alert volumes to a safe level that causes them to emit" and that Apple doesn't provide instructions to limit the volume of alerts to prevent hearing damage. The couple argues that Apple hasn't fixed the problem and if it wasn't aware of the issue, it should have known.

Other Apple users have complained about AirPod volume spikes on the company's support website. Engadget has contacted Apple for comment.

Last fall, Twitter began testing a dedicated Spaces tab within the iOS version of its mobile app. The tab, as you can probably guess even if you don’t have access to an iPhone, allows users to see a curated list of active live audio rooms, with the option to filter them based on your interests.

On Wednesday, Twitter announced it was expanding the test to include Android users. If you have access to the trial, you can open the Spaces tab by tapping the newly added microphone icon at the bottom of the interface. As before, the tab is only available in English for the time being.

Since Twitter began testing live audio in late 2020, the company has gone on to iterate on the format at a fast clip. What started as a relatively sparse offering has in recent months gained features like audio recording. This past, Twitter also added the option for users to share co-hosting duties. Those all came as the company worked to give all users the option to host a Space.

The invasion of Ukraine has seen hacktivists from around the world come to the aid of the country in its war against Russia, with groups like Anonymous carrying out DDoS attacks against Kremlin-affiliated websites. But as far as we know, Russian government officials haven’t had to contend with a flood of spam calls. That changed on Wednesday with the launch of a website called WasteRussianTime.today.

Created by a hacktivist collective known as Obfuscated Dreams of Scheherazade (a reference to Arabic folklore), the website connects two random Russian officials in a three-way call so you can listen to the confusion (and annoyance) that ensues. The group claims its database contains more than 5,000 Russian government phone numbers, including ones linked to the country’s FSB intelligence agency. The group describes its actions as a “civil intervention,” noting “if you are hanging on the phone, you canʼt drop bombs, you canʼt coordinate soldiers, you canʼt make invasion plans.”

Outside of listening, you can’t participate in the call. That’s a deliberate decision the group told Wired it made to protect the identity of anyone who ends up using the website. If you can’t speak to the people on the other end, you won’t have the opportunity to give up identifying information.

How Russia might respond to the robocalls is unclear. When Engadget tried to place a call, an error message came up. “Sorry, we’re currently experiencing some issues with our phones,” it said. “Give us a few moments.” Gizmodo had better luck than us. For them, the system successfully connected a dozen Russian officials with one another, though those calls ended in static.

At the onset of the war, it was expected the Kremlin would go on a digital offensive, using its hacking expertise to weaken western infrastructure. But outside of a few incidents, it’s mostly been Russia on the defensive. In recent weeks, hackers have targeted everything from smart TVs to the country’s largest video platform in protest of the war in Ukraine.