Earlier this week, a handful of retailers discounted Seagate’s Xbox Series X/S Expansion Cards to new all-time low prices. Now, Microsoft is making those price cuts permanent (via Polygon). As of Friday, pricing for the Expansion Cards starts at $90 for the 512GB model, while the 1TB and 2TB variants will set you back $150 and $280, respectively. That’s 32 percent and 30 percent off the $220 and $280 the 1TB and 2TB models started at previously.

While you could (accurately) argue Microsoft’s proprietary storage solution for the Xbox Series X and Series S is still too expensive, a permanent price cut is a step in the right direction for the company’s ninth-generation consoles. It means those Expansion Cards will cost less with subsequent sales, making them more competitive with the regular NVMe drives you can buy for Sony’s PlayStation 5. Moreover, further price relief could be on the way. In April, Best Buy briefly listed a 1TB expansion card from Western Digital. At the time, the listing suggested the NVMe would cost $180 (now more expensive than Seagate’s 1TB model), but more competition could push prices lower.

If you’ve been following the Apple rumor mill since last year, you may recall the iPhone 15 Pro has been widely expected to feature a set of touch-sensitive solid-state buttons. It now looks like Apple won’t replace the iPhone’s physical buttons for at least another year. In a shareholder letter spotted by MacRumors, Apple supplier Cirrus Logic said “a new product that we mentioned in previous shareholder letters as being scheduled for introduction this fall is no longer expected to come to market as planned.”

Cirrus is best known for producing a handful of components that go into the iPhone’s Taptic Engine. Apple is the firm’s largest customer, accounting for 79 percent of its revenue in 2022. In November, Cirrus told investors and analysts it was working on a new high-performance mixed-signal (HPMS) component (that’s the same category of part as the Tapic Engine), and that it would arrive in smartphones sometime in 2023. This week, Cirrus said it had “limited visibility” into the product’s future.

Reports suggesting the iPhone 15 Pro would feature a set of solid-state buttons originated from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said last fall the company was planning to replace the physical volume and power buttons on its next flagship phone with touch-sensitive buttons. Last month, Kuo revised his forecast, noting Apple had decided to change plans due to “unresolved technical issues before mass production.” If nothing else, the development is a reminder to treat smartphone leaks with skepticism, particularly those that circulate months and sometimes years in advance of a product’s announcement.

If you’re in the market for a smart scale, one of the most feature-rich models you can buy is on sale. After a 38 percent discount, the Eufy Smart Scale P2 Pro is currently priced at $50 on Amazon, down from $80. The P2 Pro is on Engadget’s list of the best smart scales and for good reason. It’s affordable, well-made and can track 16 different measurements. You can use the P2 Pro to measure your body fat percentage, bone mass, water weight and more. In other words, it offers all the stat tracking a person could use to improve their lifestyle. The P2 Pro would be among the smart scales you could buy if not for the fact Anker, Eufy’s parent company, recently misled the public about the safety of its security cameras.

The P2 Pro is part of a broader sale that also sees Eufy’s robot vacuums discounted. For instance, the RoboVac G30, one of the best budget models you can buy, is 45 percent off, making it $175.98 at the moment. It features built-in WiFi, a feature you won’t find on some of Eufy’s more affordable robot vacuums; the company’s Smart Dynamic Navigation 2.0 software; and boundary strips you can use set up no-go zones.

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Nearly eight years after the start of Dieselgate, one of the highest-ranking executives implicated in the scandal is set to plead guilty. The New York Times reports former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has agreed to accept a plea deal that will see him confess that he allowed Audi to continue selling diesel cars even after Volkswagen, the automaker’s parent company, admitted its vehicles had illegal software designed to cheat government emissions tests. Per The Times, a Munich state court said on Wednesday that Stadler would also pay a €1.1 million fine and serve a sentence of up to two years. The former executive is expected to make his confession in about two weeks.

Since the start of his trial in 2020, Stadler had maintained he was innocent of any wrongdoing. In court, Volkswagen has insisted that Dieselgate was the work of employees who hid the software they created from the company’s leadership. While at Audi, Stadler also served as a member of Volkswagen’s management board. Alongside Stadler, German prosecutors are set to convict two other former executives: Wolfgang Hatz and Zaccheo Giovanni Pamio. The former previously led engine development at Audi and Porsche, while the latter was involved in designing the software that allowed Volkswagen vehicles to cheat emissions tests.

In 2017, Volkswagen agreed to pay $4.3 billion to settle fraud and other criminal and civil charges brought by the Department of Justice after the company admitted that nearly 600,000 diesel cars sold in the US were compromised by its “defeat device.” Those vehicles were programmed to detect when they were being tested on a set of rollers and would, as a result, produce fewer emissions than out on the road. According to court documents filed by German prosecutors, Audi engineers originally designed the software that Volkswagen would later deploy in its vehicles. Since Dieselgate came to light, the German automaker has agreed to pay more than $20 billion in fines and legal settlements.

Praise, Shaï-Hulud. Warner Bros. has shared the first trailer for Dune: Part Two, and if you were a fan of Denis Villeneuve's adaption of the first half of Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi novel, let's just say Part Two looks like it will be even better. The teaser opens with Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya) talking about the future of Arrakis. "Where you see sand here, imagine water. If you dive in, you can't reach the bottom," Paul tells an incredulous Chani. 

Following that exchange, the trailer offers us our first look at Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan. Her character didn't make an appearance in Dune: Part One, but judging from the clip, Irulan will at least narrate some of the story, a change that could bring the movie closer to Herbert's 1965 novel. Another critical character that wasn't in Part One but makes an appearance in the trailer is Feyd-Rautha, played here by Austin Butler. Dune: Part Two will arrive in theaters on November 3rd. Unlike the first film, Warner Bros does not plan to simultaneously release Part Two to the soon-to-be-renamed HBO Max.

For the third time in less than a year, Unity is laying off a part of its workforce. On Tuesday, the company shared it would let go of approximately 600 employees or about eight percent of its global workforce. The company previously laid off about 225 staffers last June, and another 284 employees at the start of the year. Prior to the first round of workforce reductions, the company employed more than 8,000 staff. It now has around 7,000 employees. Unity also plans to reduce the number of offices it operates globally.

Unity declined to comment. A spokesperson instead pointed Engadget to a filing the company made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as a recent interview CEO John Riccitiello did with The Wall Street Journal. “It’s all about setting ourselves up for higher growth,” he told the outlet, adding the layoffs would affect some in middle management. “It was clear we had too many layers.” Riccitiello also said Unity would move to a hybrid work model starting in June, with employees expected to work from the office at least three days a week.

The layoffs come despite Unity recently posting its best fiscal quarter and year in company history. In February, the engine maker reported a Q4 revenue of $451 million, representing a 43 percent increase from the same period in 2021. It was also Unity’s first profitable quarter as a publicly traded company. Despite that performance, investors don’t appear to be impressed with the company. Per CNBC, Unity’s stock is down 11 percent since the start of the year. The company is expected to release its Q1 earnings next week. Unity’s latest layoffs come amid broader workforce reductions across much of the tech industry. Like Unity, a handful of companies, including Meta and Amazon, have announced multiple rounds of cuts.

If you and your friends are morbidly curious to experience Redfall for yourselves, it just so happens Microsoft has your back. Starting today, current Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers can gift up to five friends a free 14-day PC Game Pass trial. Provided your friend hasn’t tried the service before, you can send them a referral invite by clicking the new “Give PC Game Pass” button found on the Game Pass Home screen.

If you’re curious why the offer only involves PC Game Pass, a statement Microsoft Gaming chief Phil Spencer made last fall provides the likely answer. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said Game Pass was, at the time, experiencing “incredible” growth on PC, with uptake on Xbox consoles slowing primarily due to saturation. “... at some point, you’ve reached everybody on console that wants to subscribe,” Spencer told the outlet. It would appear then Microsoft hopes to capitalize on that trend.

The launch of the referral program comes after Microsoft last month stopped offering its Game Pass introductory offer, which allowed new users to pay $1 to try the service for a month. At the time, the company said it was “evaluating different marketing promotions” for attracting new customers to Game Pass.

The Biden administration is preparing to examine how companies use artificial intelligence to monitor and manage workers. According to Bloomberg, the White House will publish a blog post later today that invites American workers to share how automated tools are being used in their workplaces.

“While these technologies can benefit both workers and employers in some cases, they can also create serious risks to workers,” the post states, per Bloomberg. “The constant tracking of performance can push workers to move too fast on the job, posing risks to their safety and mental health.” Citing media reports, the White House adds the technology has also been used to deter workers from organizing their workplaces and to perpetuate pay and discipline discrimination.

The blog post calls for input from a variety of stakeholders, including researchers, advocacy groups and even employers. Notably, the Biden administration says it wants to know what regulations and enforcement action the federal government should implement to address the “economic, safety, physical, mental and emotional impacts” of workplace surveillance tech.

The call for information comes after a handful of states passed laws against unreasonable productivity quotas. Specifically, New York’s Warehouse Worker Protection Act grants workers the right to request information on their quota at any time. It also prohibits companies from imposing productivity demands that interfere with an employee’s state-mandated meal and restroom breaks.

ARM has registered for a US stock market listing. In a press release published Saturday, the mobile chip company said it recently confidentially submitted a draft F-1 form to the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Reuters, ARM hopes to raise between $8 billion and $10 billion dollars when it holds the initial public offering later this year, though over the weekend the company said it had yet to determine the size and price range of the proposed IPO.

ARM parent company SoftBank has been eyeing a public listing ever since NVIDIA’s $40 billion bid to buy the chip maker fell through at the start of last year due to regulatory resistance from the US Federal Trade Commission and other antitrust watchdogs. In March, SoftBank said it would list ARM on the US stock market after rebuffing a push for a London listing from the United Kingdom government. ARM designs the processor components used in almost every mobile device, including models from Apple and Samsung. Its licensing model means nearly every tech company depends on ARM designs. According to a recent Financial Times report, the company recently began work on a prototype chip that is “more advanced” than any semiconductor produced in the past.

A federal appeals court in Brazil on Saturday lifted the country-wide ban that had been put in place against Telegram earlier this week. Per Reuters, judge Flávio Lucas ruled a complete suspension of the messaging app was “not reasonable” given that thousands of people in Brazil who rely on the platform for their communication needs. At the same time, he upheld the daily $200,000 fine on Telegram for failing to provide local authorities with the data they requested.

The original ban came on Wednesday after a federal court instructed Apple and Google to temporarily remove the service from their domestic app stores. Brazilian authorities sought the suspension after Telegram failed to hand over a full set of data on a pair of neo-Nazi groups on the app accused of inciting violence against schools.

According to The New York Times, a teenager accused of committing two school shootings in November, which left three dead and 13 people injured, was involved with the two groups. Authorities say they saw Nazi content, violent videos and bomb-making instructions shared in those group chats. When it didn’t comply with the initial court order, Telegram reportedly said the two groups had been deleted and that it couldn’t recover the requested information. Telegram did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

This isn’t the first time Telegram has been briefly banned in Brazil. In 2022, the country’s highest court suspended the app for failing to freeze accounts accused of spreading disinformation ahead of the country’s recent presidential election. Similarly, that ban was lifted just days later.