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Uber and Lyft don't have to worry about reclassifying its workers in California for now. An appeals court has just ruled that gig workers, such as rideshare drivers, can continue to be classified as independent contractors under Proposition 22. 

If you'll recall, California passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) in September 2019 that legally obligates companies to treat their gig workers as full-time employees. That means providing them with all the appropriate benefits and protections, such as paying for their unemployment and health insurance. As a response, Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash poured over $220 million into campaigning for the Prop 22 ballot measure, which would allow them to treat app-based workers as independent contractors. It ended up passing by a wide margin in the state.

In 2021, a group of critics that included the Service Employees International Union and the SEIU California State Council filed a lawsuit in 2021 to overturn the proposition. The judge in charge of the case sided with them and called Prop 22 unconstitutional. He said back then that the proposition illegally "limits the power of a future legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers' compensation law." 

The three appeals court judges have now overturned that ruling, though according to The New York Times, one of them wanted to throw out Prop 22 entirely for the same reason the lower court judge gave when he handed down his decision. While the appeals court upheld the policy in the end, it ordered that a clause that makes it hard for workers in the state to unionize be severed from the rest of the proposition. That particular clause required a seven-eighths majority vote from the California legislature to be able to amend workers' rights to collective bargaining. 

David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union in California, told The Times in a statement: "Every California voter should be concerned about corporations’ growing influence in our democracy and their ability to spend millions of dollars to deceive voters and buy themselves laws." The group is now expected to appeal this ruling and to take their fight to the Supreme Court, which could take months to decide whether to hear the case. 

Earlier this year, an amateur Go player decisively defeated one of the game’s top-ranked AI systems. They did so using a strategy developed with the help of a program researchers designed to probe systems like KataGo for weaknesses. It turns out that victory is just one part of a broader Go renaissance that is seeing human players become more creative since AlphaGO’s milestone victory in 2016

In a recent study published in the journal PNAS, researchers from the City University of Hong Kong and Yale found that human Go players have become less predictable in recent years. As the New Scientist explains, the researchers came to that conclusion by analyzing a dataset of more than 5.8 million Go moves made during professional play between 1950 and 2021. With the help of a “superhuman” Go AI, a program that can play the game and grade the quality of any single move, they created a statistic called a “decision quality index,” or DQI for short.

After assigning every move in their dataset a DQI score, the team found that before 2016, the quality of professional play improved relatively little from year to year. At most, the team saw a positive median annual DQI change of 0.2. In some years, the overall quality of play even dropped. However, since the rise of superhuman AIs in 2018, median DQI values have changed at a rate above 0.7. Over that same period, professional players have employed more novel strategies. In 2018, 88 percent of games, up from 63 percent in 2015, saw players set up a combination of plays that hadn't been observed before. 

"Our findings suggest that the development of superhuman AI programs may have prompted human players to break away from traditional strategies and induced them to explore novel moves, which in turn may have improved their decision-making," the team writes.

That’s an interesting change, but not exactly an unintuitive one if you think about it. As professor Stuart Russel at the University of California, Berkeley told the New Scientist, “it’s not surprising that players who train against machines will tend to make more moves that machines approve of.”

Meta is “winding down” its support for NFTs on Facebook and Instagram less than a year after its push to adopt “digital collectibles” across its platform. The update comes as the social network has laid off thousands of workers and shuttered numerous projects amid what Mark Zuckerberg has described as the company’s “year of efficiency.”

“We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses,” Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s Head of Commerce and Financial Technologies wrote in an update shared on Twitter. “We learned a ton that we’ll be able to apply to products we’re continuing to build to support creators, people, and businesses on our apps, both today and in the metaverse.” He added that the company would instead be focusing on “monetization opps for Reels” and “messaging payments across Meta.”

The update comes almost exactly a year after Zuckerberg took the SXSW stage to announce that Instagram was working on NFT support, which debuted last May. The company announced another significant expansion of the feature in November, when it revealed plans to allow creators to mint and sell the collectibles directly on Instagram.

Kasriel didn’t elaborate on why Meta was reversing course on NFTs, which Zuckerberg had suggested could play a role in the company’s metaverse plans. “I would hope that you know, the clothing that your avatar is wearing in the metaverse, you know, can be basically minted as an NFT and you can take it between your different places,” he said during his SXSW appearance last year.

But it’s not the only once-ambitious initiative that has fallen flat in the last year. Meta also shuttered its crypto wallet, Novi, which was once rumored to have NFT support on its roadmap, last year. The company has also cut projects with its metaverse division, Reality Labs, and its program that paid bonuses to Reels creators.

At the start of the year, someone on the Marvel Studios Spoilers subreddit, a community dedicated to upcoming Marvel productions, posted the mother of all MCU leaks. A month before the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a user named MSSmods shared a 63-page Google Doc transcript of the film’s dialogue. Now, Disney wants to know who was behind the leak and is trying to force Reddit and Google to identify the person or group of people responsible.

As first reported by TorrentFreak, Disney’s MVL Film Finance unit, a subsidiary the company established to support Marvel Studios productions, has filed two Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena applications designed to compel Reddit and Google to identify who was behind the leak. As MSSmods is an account shared among the moderators of r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers, Reddit complying with the application would entail the company identifying more than one person. What’s more, Disney has requested that Google and Reddit share any “identifying information” they have on MSSmods — including names, telephone numbers and IP addresses — along with details on any user who may have been involved in posting, editing or uploading the leak.

Reddit did not say if it intends to comply with the application. “Reddit is committed to protecting our users’ privacy. We have rigorous processes in place to assess legal requests and object when appropriate,” a Reddit spokesperson told Engadget and pointed to the company’s legal request guidelines. Google did not immediately respond to a comment request.

It’s not clear what, if anything, Disney plans to do about the source of the leak, possibly a subtitle vendor or freelance translator. The document MSSmods shared was a translation of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s Portuguese subtitles, with some of the dialogue not presented in chronological order.

Activision is attempting to quell anxious Call of Duty: Mobile fans after a legal filing last week suggested the studio is already planning the game's demise. In a tweet today, the Call of Duty: Mobile team said it planned to continue supporting game "for the long haul," calling it an important part of the franchise. 

The long-term future of Call of Duty: Mobile came into question on March 8th, as part of ongoing legal negotiations in the UK over Microsoft's proposal to purchase Activision-Blizzard for just under $69 billion. Microsoft has been repeatedly downplaying Activision's power in the video game industry in an attempt to thwart anti-trust concerns from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, and the studio applied the same treatment to Activision-Blizzard mobile games in a legal filing last week. 

Specifically, Microsoft's response said, "CoD: Mobile is expected to be phased out over time (outside of China) with the launch of Warzone Mobile."

Warzone Mobile is scheduled to come out this year, bringing the Call of Duty battle royale experience to Android and iOS devices. Warzone Mobile represents Activision's attempt to unify the Call of Duty franchise, sharing technology, progression, socialization and payments among the annual mainline games, Warzone and Warzone Mobile. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Mobile has its own battle pass and seasons.

The tweet from the Mobile team is intended to keep existing players invested. It doesn't delve into specifics about how long the game's lifespan will be, and it doesn't directly address Microsoft's suggestion that the game will eventually be shut down everywhere except China. But, it promises Call of Duty: Mobile will be sticking around for a while longer.

"We ... intend to continue supporting the game with a robust roadmap of fresh new CODM content, activities and updates for the long haul," the statement said.

Last summer, Elon Musk and T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert announced "Coverage Above and Beyond," a joint initiative that aimed to bring Starlink satellite coverage compatible T-Mobile devices. Now, SpaceX is getting ready to begin testing its satellite-to-cellular service.

During a panel at the Satellite Conference and Exhibition 2023, SpaceX VP of Starlink enterprise sales Jonathan Hofeller said the company had plans to "start getting into testing" its satellite-to-cell service this year. "We're going to learn a lot by doing — not necessarily by overanalyzing — and getting out there, working with the telcos."

Hofeller didn't specifically say which Telco SpaceX was working with, but the timeline certainly lines up with Musk's original vision for the T-Mobile partnership. In August, he promised that Starlink V2 would launch in 2023 and would "transmit direct to mobile phones, eliminating dead zones worldwide." At the time T-Mobile said the service would give the carrier "near complete coverage" of most of the United States, specifically highlighting areas that are notoriously difficult to find a signal: National Parks, mountain ranges, deserts and other remote locations.

Either way, the panel seemed optimistic about the future of sat-to-cell technology. Lynk Global CEO Charles Miller said that satellite cellular service has the potential to be the "biggest category in satellite," and Iridium CEO Matt Desch sees cellular satellite service as just the beginning. "Satellite should connect everything everywhere," he said at the event, imagining the technology connecting to computers, vehicles and more.

With models like the A7R V and A7S III, Sony is known for pushing camera technology to the bleeding edge. With its newest release, however, the company isn’t touting the capabilities of its latest sensor or autofocus system. Instead, it’s a device that’s about making photography accessible to those who couldn’t enjoy the hobby before.

Announced today, the DSC-HX99 RNV is a camera kit designed for those with visual impairments. The system consists of two parts: a Sony point and shoot and a viewfinder with a retinal laser projection system. The camera is a Cybershot DSC-HX99. First released in 2018, the HX99 features an 18-megapixel backside illuminated sensor with built-in image stabilization and a 24mm to 720mm zoom lens.

Sony

As for the viewfinder, it’s a Retissa Neoviewer from Japan’s QD Laser. It projects a digital image from the camera directly to the retina of a user. Sony notes the technology won’t work for everyone, but for those who it does, the viewfinder will allow them to use the HX99 to see faces, read signs and capture photos and videos. “The laser retinal projection of Retissa Neoviewer is a completely new technology that has been put to practical use for the first time in the world,” according to Dr. Mitsuru Sugawara, the president and CEO of QD Laser.

The HX99RNV kit will cost $600 when it arrives this summer. That means it won’t cost more than a DSC-HX99 on its own. In a show of support for the low-vision community, Sony says it will bear “the majority” of the cost to produce the device. That said, the kit will only be available directly through Sony, and the company will limit purchases to one per person. Sony also plans to work with American and Japanese schools to provide the device to low-vision individuals.

Volkswagen is looking to beef up its battery business and localize cell production for its electric vehicles. It has taken another step toward that goal by announcing subsidiary PowerCo's first North American battery cell factory, which it will build in Canada.

The automaker's first cell manufacturing gigafactory outside of Europe will build sustainable unified cells and it will be located in St. Thomas, Ontario. VW said in a statement that Canada was an ideal location due to the supply of raw materials from local sources and "wide access to clean electricity." More details about the gigafactory will be revealed later, but VW plans for production to start in 2027. Last year, VW said it planned to build six PowerCo factories in Europe, starting in Salzgitter, Germany and Valencia, Spain.

The news comes just a week after VW confirmed plans for a factory in South Carolina, where it will build electric pickups and SUVs under its new Scout brand. VW expects to manufacture more than 200,000 EVs at the plant every year as part of its strategy to have a stronger foothold in North America. Production is slated to start by the end of 2026.

Google is launching another feature drop for Pixel phones and the Pixel Watch. The updates include faster nighttime photography and the broader availability of Magic Eraser, Health Connect and Direct My Call+.

Night Sight, Google’s low-lit photography feature, is now faster for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro users. The company chalks up the speed boost to “new and improved algorithms” for the Tensor chip inside the phones. Additionally, the company says Magic Eraser is now available on all Pixel handsets. The highly marketed feature scrubs unwanted people or objects from photos, filling in the backgrounds behind them (usually) seamlessly. Magic Eraser launched as an exclusive feature to the Pixel 6, but the company recently expanded it to older Pixels and Google One.

In addition, Google’s Health Connect app, a hub for storing health and fitness data from various apps, will now come pre-installed on Pixels. Finally, Direct My Call+ arrives on the Pixel 4a and older models. This feature lets you see businesses’ call menu trees before they’re spoken, allowing you to skip the most tedious part of dialing customer service.

Additionally, Google reiterated its addition of Fall Detection on the Pixel Watch (it began rolling out last month). Similar to the Apple Watch feature of the same name, it can detect a hard fall and call emergency services if you’re unresponsive. At that point, it will play an automated message to the dispatcher or let you speak to them live.

Rivian's electric delivery van might not be Amazon-exclusive for much longer. The Wall Street Journalsources claim Rivian is in talks with Amazon to end the exclusivity portion of their 2019 purchase agreement. The EV maker is reportedly unhappy that Amazon ordered 10,000 vans this year, at the low end of a previously mentioned range. The termination would let Rivian boost its sales by courting other customers.

The exact terms of the proposed changes aren't available. The talks are continuing, the sources say.

We've asked Rivian for comment. An Amazon spokesperson tells Engadget Rivian is still an "important partner" and that it still expects to buy 100,000 vans by 2030. The deal hasn't changed, the company adds. At the same time, the representative says Amazon wants "others to benefit" from Rivian technology, as having more electric delivery vehicles in service ultimately helps everyone.

The Amazon pact remains important for Rivian's finances. The vans currently represent one third of Rivian's production volume, and are helping to bolster manufacturing numbers that are still tiny compared to rivals like Tesla. Rivian only made 24,337 vehicles in 2022. Larger van orders would significantly expand the company's output and provide greater financial stability while the firm ramps up sales of its R1S SUV and R1T pickup, and works on its more affordable R2 line.

Rivian still has a large cash reserve thanks in part to Amazon's large investment in the EV startup. However, it's still struggling to reach profitability and has engaged in two rounds of layoffs over the past year to address a tough economy, rising costs and shrinking access to funds. There's pressure on the company to avoid future cutbacks, and improved sales will help on that front.