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In an essay published Friday on the whistleblower platform Lioness, former Microsoft manager Yasser Elabd alleged that Microsoft fired him after he alerted leadership to a workplace where employees, subcontractors and government operators regularly engaged in bribery. He further alleges that attempts to escalate his concerns resulted in retaliation within Microsoft by managers, and eventual termination from his role.

Elabd claims in his essay that he worked for Microsoft between 1998 and 2018, and had oversight into a "business investment fund " — essentially a slush fund to "cement longer-term deals" in the Mid-East and Africa. But he grew suspicious of unusual payments to seemingly unqualified partners. After examining several independent audits, he discovered what he believes is a common practice: After setting up a large sale to entities in the region, a "discount" would be baked in, only for the difference between the full-freight cost and discounted fee to be skimmed off and divided between the deal-makers.

“This decision maker on the customer side would send an email to Microsoft requesting a discount, which would be granted, but the end customer would pay the full fee anyway. The amount of the discount would then be distributed among the parties in cahoots: the Microsoft employee(s) involved in the scheme, the partner, and the decision maker at the purchasing entity—often a government official,” Elabd alleged.

The former Microsoft manager gave several examples of suspicious transactions and red flags he witnessed over his two decades working for the company abroad. In one audit, Microsoft gave the Saudi Ministry of the Interior a $13.6 million discount which never reached the agency’s doors. In 2015, a Nigerian official complained that the government paid $5.5 million for licenses "for hardware they did not possess."

In another example, Qatar’s Ministry of Education paid $9.5 million, over a period of seven years, for Microsoft Office and Windows licenses that went unused. Auditors later discovered that employees at that agency didn’t even have access to computers.

“We are committed to doing business in a responsible way and always encourage anyone to report anything they see that may violate the law, our policies, or our ethical standards,” Becky Lenaburg, a VP at Microsoft and deputy general counsel for compliance and ethics, wrote in a statement to The Verge. “We believe we’ve previously investigated these allegations, which are many years old, and addressed them. We cooperated with government agencies to resolve any concerns.”

Elabd claims his attempts to alert managers resulted in his being shouted at by one manager, iced out of certain deals and told by an executive that he had effectively set himself up to be let go after attempting to involve CEO Satya Nadella. After being terminated, Elabd wrote that he brought his documentation before the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice. He claims the DoJ refused to take up his case. According to Protocol, the SEC dropped the case earlier this month due to a lack of resources.

“As I alleged in my complaint to the SEC, Microsoft is violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and continues to do so brazenly. And why wouldn’t they?" wrote Elabd. "By declining to investigate these allegations and the evidence I’ve given them, the SEC and DOJ have given Microsoft the green light.”

Paramount+ is kicking off its Twitter watch parties with one of the service's more important shows. Twitter and Paramount+ are kicking off a series of watch parties for the Halo TV series that will give fans chances to discuss episodes in shared moments. The run begins today (March 25th) at 6PM Eastern with a 'pre-show' through the official account, with executive producer Kiki Wolfkill and stars Olive Gray and Kate Kennedy meeting online to discuss the series and offer a behind-the-scenes look.

From then on, you can expect nine regular "after-show" parties. The first takes place March 28th at 4PM Eastern, but you can expect a weekly cadence of parties starting April 1st at a similar time. The virtual festivities end on May 20th. The streams will include celebrity Halo enthusiasts, fan segments and other reasons to tune in.

Twitter and Paramount+ aren't shy about the rationale behind the get-togethers. They're hoping to recreate the "water cooler effect" of conventional TV, where you rush to share your opinions and speculation about an episode. This probably won't turn Halo into a Game of Thrones-style blockbuster that has everyone talking, but it might provide a sense of community that keeps you invested. If nothing else, it shows what you can expect from future parties.

Spotify is trying out a new “Car Mode” on a handful of users, the streaming service confirmed to TechCrunch. Last year the company retired its old Car View mode, explaining that it needed to pave the way for “new innovations”. The new in-car interface, called “Car Mode” appears to be more focused on voice controls than the older version. The jury is still out on whether hands-free voice recognition actually makes driving safer (some studies suggest drivers who use voice controls are more distracted). But the new revamp does offer less visual distractions and a cleaner interface.

According to screenshots of the Android version of Spotify Car Mode posted by 9to5Google, users can use voice controls to search for artists, browse albums, play or pause, fast forward and “like” a song. The new in-car mode appears to be far less busy than the older version, with simplified “Player View” and a “Library” tab that allows you to quickly access music or podcasts you’ve recently listened to.

Tech companies like Google and Amazon have pushed automakers to build more voice recognition features in future models of cars. As TechCrunchnotes, voice controls will also be an essential feature in autonomous vehicles. Spotify is no doubt trying to stay ahead of this trend. Last month, Spotify officially launched Car Thing, an in-car player with voice controls, after an extended test period (we reviewed it here). But for those who don’t want to pay extra for a hands-free in-car listening experience, Spotify’s new mode will be a welcome option.

Ukraine's Ministry for Digital Transformation has launched an NFT collection to help fund its military. The project was first announced in early March, but the NFT collection, called “ Meta History Museum of War,” is now live. The collection is meant to be an “NFT museum” documenting the history of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The collection is currently comprised of 54 NFTs documenting the events of the first three days of the war. The illustrations were done by Ukrainian and international artists, and each one references a tweet documenting some aspect of the invasion and the world’s response to it.

“The formula of each NFT is clear and simple: each token is a real news piece from an official source and an illustration from artists, both Ukrainian and international,” Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation writes on its Meta History Museum of War website. “The NFT’s will be created in chronological order, according to the events so the true history will be saved and cherished.”

The NFT Project is the latest way Ukraine has turned to digital assets to fund its defense. The country has collected more than $100 million in cryptocurrency donations since the start of the war, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently signed a bill officially legalizing the crypto industry.

In a tally with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) this afternoon, Google Fiber customer service workers — jointly employed by Google parent Alphabet and staffing agency BDS Connected Solutions — voted 9 to 1 to form a union. They'll be represented by the Alphabet Workers Union, an arm of the Communications Workers of America.

Workers at the store, which operates out of Kansas City, Missouri, told Engadget back in January that they were feeling left out of important workplace conversations, especially around safety and staffing. 

This story is developing...

Now that GTA Online is available on the latest consoles, Rockstar wants to spice up the service for its most dedicated players. The developer is launching a $6 per month GTA+ subscription that provides regular perks for GTAO players on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. You'll get $500,000 in virtual cash each month, unlocks for past game updates, vehicle upgrades and other bonuses. You can also buy improved Shark Cards with real money to get more bonus in-game cash. 

In the first month, you'll receive a supercar with an early-access upgrade, three wardrobe items, waived LS Car Meet Membership fees and multiplied bonuses for two race series, among other extras. You'll need to claim benefits before they expire.

Rockstar said events will carry on "as normal" for all players, so you won't find yourself locked out of key content if you'd rather play for free. Whether or not GTA+ is a good thing isn't clear, though. While it may represent a better value than spending real money every time you want a boost for in-game currency, it might also leave you at a disadvantage if you can't justify the monthly fee or a hardware upgrade.

Spotify is shuttering more of its Russian operations in response to that country's invasion of Ukraine. In a statement to Variety, the company said it would "fully suspend" service in Russia for an indefinite period. While the music streamer initially believed it was important to keep some service running to provide "trusted, independent" information, it was concerned that recent laws restricting free speech and accurate news reporting would put the safety of staff and listeners "at risk."

The company already halted access to its paid Premium service earlier in March, and removed content from state-backed Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik. This latest move will cut off free service.

The further withdrawal likely won't hurt Spotify's finances to a significant degree, but it might limit the company's influence in Russia. While the country only represents 1 percent of Spotify's total revenue, Deloitte estimated the service was the second-largest streaming music service with 36 percent share in 2021. That's no small feat when Spotify only reached Russia in July 2020, and Sensor Tower noted that there had already been nearly 15 million installs across Apple's App Store and Google Play.

Rivals have already taken action to varying degrees. Apple halted all product sales in Russia in early March, while Deezer stopped service around the same time. Spotify was an outlier in that regard, and was facing mounting pressure to cut off all access and show its support for Ukraine.

You might not have to wait much longer to see Sony's response to Microsoft's Game Pass. Bloombergsources claim Sony is introducing its rumored "Spartacus" service, which combines PlayStation Now game access and PlayStation Plus online features, as soon as next week. The service will launch with a "splashy" collection of recent hit games, the tipsters said, but you might not see blockbuster games arrive on the service the same day as they're available for purchase. Don't expect to play the upcoming God of War Ragnarok right away.

There were no new leaks for pricing. Bloomberg previously mentioned three tiers that would include a $10 per month Essential offering identical to PlayStation Plus, a $13 Extra level with access to a Game Pass-style catalog of "hundreds" of downloadable games and a $16 Premium Tier that adds PlayStation Now's game streaming and pre-release game trials.

Spartacus might not be vital to Sony's bottom line. PlayStation console sales still comfortably outperform the Xbox, with Ampere Analysis estimating that PS5 numbers were 1.6 times higher than for the Xbox Series X/S in 2021. However, Game Pass has quickly become a major selling point for the Xbox — a monthly fee provides access to a growing selection of games, including blockbusters like Halo Infinite. The PlayStation equivalent could make Game Pass seem less appealing and keep some players from switching platforms.

Halo’s TV adaptation doesn't waste any time differentiating itself from the popular game franchise. We open in a rebel village bar, where patrons are discussing the evil UNSC (United Nations Space Command) and boogey-man like Spartans. It could easily be a scene from Firefly, the short-lived series about plucky folks fighting for freedom against an authoritarian central government. In short order, a group of Covenant aliens attack, leading to a bloody massacre where limbs are blown off, skulls take serious damage and an entire room of children is murdered. It's not too long before Master Chief (Pablo Schreiber), our hero clad in glorious green armor, appears and wipes out the alien threat with a unit of super-human Spartan soldiers with brutal yet elegant efficiency.

Spoilers ahead for Halo on Paramount+.

The core Halo games were always rated M for Mature by the ESRB, but they never felt as gory as the Paramount+ show's opening. When you're playing as Master Chief, you feel like a one-man army going on a fun intergalactic adventure. The TV series instead begins by focusing on people usually ignored by the games. Only one survivor is left from that rebel village, a teenaged girl named Kwan Ah. But instead of being cared for by the Spartans and their UNSC and United Earth Government overseers, she's treated as a prisoner. While the Halo games have typically treated the UEG as a sort of benevolent authoritarian regime, the show frames the military government as controlling and villainous.

That may end up turning off the franchise's most diehard fans, but it's a more honest representation of what the UNSC represents. Master Chief quickly learns that he can't trust his leaders either. After touching an alien artifact, he begins to have flashbacks to a former, pre-soldier life. While the show isn't quick to jump into his origins, Halo fans know the history of the Spartan soldiers is rife with controversy. Master Chief, and other members of his cohort, were actually kidnapped as children, genetically modified and trained to be battle-hardened super soldiers. While the games rarely wrestled with the horrors and complexity of that program, the lore-heavy Halo novels filled in the gaps.

Paramount+

What's most interesting about the Halo series is that it's confronting that backstory head-on. When we first meet Master Chief, he's the ultimate soldier we're familiar with. But when the UNSC orders him to kill Kwan Ah, he hesitates and does something we've never seen in the games: He takes off his helmet. Instead of killing the defenseless teen, Master Chief goes rogue. The super soldier starts to think for himself.

Unfortunately, the interesting elements of Halo are somewhat outweighed by the show's simplistic writing, stiff acting and sometimes dodgy special effects. If it came out in 2015, when wefirst expected it to arrive on Showtime, it would be more impressive. But now we're practically living through a golden age of sci-fi TV.The Mandalorian (and to a lesser extent, The Book of Boba Fett), is giving us several episodes of big-budget Star Wars action annually!Foundation on Apple TV+ isn't the Asimov story as we know it, but it looks incredible. The Expanse skillfully brought an epic book series to life. And even Ridley Scott is dabbling in science fiction again withRaised by Wolves.

It also doesn't help that, at its core, Halo feels like a retread of The Mandalorian's riff on Lone Wolf and the Cub in space. Kwan Ah isn't a child, but she's a defenseless innocent who's being protected by a tough-guy space loner who's forced to go against his superiors. Whatever made Halo seem unique several years ago just doesn't exist anymore.

Still, it's astounding that the show exists at all. The live-action adaptation wasfirst announced in 2013 as a collaboration between 343 Industries and Amblin Entertainment, with Steven Spielberg himself joining as a producer. Kiki Wolfkill, 343's head of Halo transmedia, tells Engadget that the key element to getting the series off the ground was "patience." The studio wasn't rushing to get the series on TV, instead 343 wanted to take its time to get the adaptation right.

Halo finally started to rev up in 2018 with Kyle Killen joining as a writer/showrunner, who was later joined by Steven Kane in 2019. The original director, Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), was eventually replaced by Otto Bathurst (Black Mirror, Peaky Blinders), which pushed production even further. And once they finally started shooting in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced another delay. Instead of being a premium cable highlight, it became a flagship series for Paramount+ last year.

Despite the fits and starts, Wolfkill says the pandemic delay ultimately helped the creative team regroup and discover some unsustainable aspects of production. At one point, she said, there were five directors shooting episodes at the same time. Taking a break also allowed the VFX teams to catch up on a backload of work. Now that Paramount+ has already ordered a second season, Wolfkill says the team is also better prepared to deal with bringing the world of Halo to life. For example, they know that the live-action Master Chief can't unholster his gun from his back like he does in the game – that has to be VFX work instead.

While the Halo series exists on a separate “Silver” timeline from the games, Wolfkill says we may see some crossover between the mediums eventually. But when I asked if we’ll ever see an unmasked Master Chief in the games, Wolfkill was quick to say “pretty categorically no.” As she says, “that’s a different experience and that Chief is owned by all of us, so we’d never want to impede on that.”

Roberta and Ken Williams are back. After 25 years out of the video game industry, the legendary founders of Sierra On-Line are working on a new project with an old twist – they’re rebuilding the classic text-based game Colossal Cave Adventure as a 3D experience with a VR component.

Maybe that’s an old project with a new twist, but regardless, Colossal Cave 3D Adventure is a complete reimagining of the original title and it’s due to come out this fall for PC and Quest 2 VR headsets. Not only will this new interpretation add graphics to the text adventure, but it’ll be in first-person 3D, with details filled in by the minds that brought us King’s Quest and Phantasmagoria.

In traditional Williams fashion, Ken is in charge of the code as chief engineer, while Roberta is creative director, building the narrative and working across all aspects of the project. There are 16 people on their team at Cygnus Entertainment and they’ve all worked together remotely through the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We've had our stressful moments,” Roberta said. “There have been moments that Ken and I have said, what are we doing? Why did we do this? And other moments are just really exhilarating and exciting. I've learned a lot, Ken has learned a lot. We have a really good team and I'm just so excited to have met them – not in person – but they're very experienced in 3D graphics and programming.”

Cygnus Entertainment

That last bit is especially important, considering 3D development is a new arena for Roberta and Ken, who are best known for ’80s and ’90s narrative adventures and full-motion video titles. It’s been a quarter of a century since they last stepped into the world of game development, and they’re jumping straight into VR and Unity, a 3D development platform.

By her own admission, Roberta hasn’t even played games for the past 25 years. She and Ken have kept tabs on the industry, but mostly, they’ve been checked out.

“It was like, if we thought about it too much, we could be drawn back in,” Roberta said.

Instead of staring at computer screens and dreaming of digital worlds, Roberta and Ken spent 15 years traveling the planet on a 60-foot boat. They would land wherever they wanted and spend a few months, half a year, in one spot before hopping back on the trawler and sailing to a new location. Ken wrote four books about their travels during this time, plus another one about Sierra On-Line; Roberta wrote a historical novel about the Great Famine in Ireland.

“Which didn't sell as well as his book,” Roberta said, laughing. “But anyway, after that we were looking for something to do and I noticed that Ken was doing a lot of YouTube tutorials on some sort of 3D engine, some sort of 3D programming language.”

She didn’t think much of it at first. Ken outlined a game idea he was toying with, where players would learn programming as they went, building simple experiences within his digital ecosystem. Kind of like Roblox, but with more emphasis on learning real-world programming skills.

“He was telling me this and he had some ideas on how to do it and make it fun,” Roberta said. “And I said, well, will it be fun?”

Ken assured her it would be, but she wasn’t convinced. That night when she was in bed, mulling over her husband’s dull-sounding idea, Colossal Cave Adventure popped into her head.

“I remember laying there and thinking, why did it do that?” she said. “You know, it's like, is this a sign?” In the morning, Roberta brought her late-night revelation to Ken.

“I hadn't really wanted to get back in the industry, but I just suddenly felt this urge, almost kind of like when I sat down and did Mystery House,” Roberta said. “And I don't know why, and I mentioned it to him and I saw his eyes kind of light up.”

Cygnus Entertainment

Mystery House was Sierra On-Line’s debut game and when it landed in 1980, it was the first-ever graphic adventure. Roberta mapped out Mystery House in a quiet frenzy after playing the original Colossal Cave Adventure, a text-only game, in the late 1970s – as an avid reader, she was inspired by its interactivity and narrative heft, and her imagination got to work. She acquired a giant piece of paper from a local stationery store and started drawing rooms, connecting them and finding creative ways to get from one area to another. This ended up being the flowchart for Mystery House, and Ken, an avid programmer, brought it to digital life.

“Colossal Cave is the game that started Sierra On-Line,” Roberta said. “It started my career.”

Colossal Cave Adventure creators Don Woods and Will Crowther never copyrighted their work, which means anyone can do what they want with the IP, including the Williamses. Still, they got on the phone with Woods himself to ask permission, and the original developer had one request: Never try to copyright it. Keep the Colossal Cave franchise open, unowned and free for anyone to play with.

Roberta and Ken agreed, and they got to work. In June 2021, they revealed there was a new, secret game in development at their studio, Cygnus Entertainment. Colossal Cave 3D Adventure is due to come out this fall, primed to capture the imaginations of a new generation of players.