Microsoft has laid off off employees across multiple divisions, according to Axios, making it the latest big player in the tech space to cut jobs in the face of an economic downturn. A spokesperson told the publication: "Like all companies, we evaluate our business priorities on a regular basis, and make structural adjustments accordingly. We will continue to invest in our business and hire in key growth areas in the year ahead." While the tech giant didn't say which divisions were affected and how many people had been let go, Axios said there were under 1,000 layoffs.

The Verge Senior Editor Tom Warren added that the job cuts included people in the Experiences and Devices, Xbox and legal groups. Some of them were apparently veteran workers in the company. As Axios notes, the job cuts occurred across levels and regions, which means workers outside the US had also ben been laid off.

Microsoft showed signs that it was looking to operate with a leaner workforce this year when it slowed down hiring for its Windows, Office and Teams groups, citing the need to realign staffing priorities. In July, it laid off less than one percent (around 1,800) of its 180,000 workforce and then removed open job listings for its Azure cloud and security groups. Other tech companies have made similar moves over the past few months. Google also slowed its hiring due to what CEO Sundar Pichai called an "uncertain global economic outlook." Meanwhile, Meta reportedly started cutting staff and reorganizing teams to cut costs after Mark Zuckerberg warned employees that the company was facing "serious times."

Those who were worried that YouTube would completely limit access to 4K content to Premium subscribers can breath easily. For now. YouTube has revealed on Twitter that it has "fully turned off" the experiment that requires Premium subscription to be able to play videos in 4K resolution. Earlier this month, users started reporting on social networks like Reddit and Twitter that when they accessed the drop-down menu for resolution options, the word "Premium" was right next to 4K/2160p. Not everyone was required to have a Premium subscription to play 4K videos, though, indicating that it was an experimental feature rolled out to a limited number of users.

It's unclear why YouTube has decided to cancel the experiment, but as 9to5Google notes, it was met with a significant amount of negative feedback. Users were understandably far from happy being asked to pay $12 a month or $120 a year to be able to play videos in the highest resolution available on the website. And those who weren't part of the experiment were concerned that it would make its way to wide release and be a permanent "perk" for Premium subscribers.

YouTube didn't say whether it's permanently shelving the idea of locking 4K videos behind a Premium subscription. In a tweet written in Japanese, YouTube invited users to leave a feedback about the experiment, which could help it ultimately decide how to move forward.

In September, SpaceX sent a letter to the Department of Defense, asking the Pentagon to take over paying for the expenses related to Ukraine's use of its Starlink satellite internet. According to CNN, SpaceX told the department that continuing to provide the Ukranian government with access to Starlink would cost the company over $120 million for the rest of 2022 and almost $400 million over the next 12 months. "We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time," the company wrote. Now, company chief Elon Musk seems to have backtracked on the decision to ask the Pentagon for assistance and wrote on Twitter that SpaceX will "keep funding [the] Ukraine [government] for free" even though Starlink is still losing money.

Musk confirmed what he said in his tweet to The Financial Times and added that SpaceX will continue funding Ukraine's access to Starlink's satellite internet "indefinitely."

When news about the letter came out, Musk defended his company's position and clarified that SpaceX is not asking the Pentagon to pay for previous expenses. He explained that SpaceX simply can't fund the existing system in Ukraine and regularly send thousands of new terminals to replace the ones routinely destroyed by the Russian forces at the same time. Musk added that the "burn" for keeping the Starlink system running in the country is $20 million a month, since it's had to "defend against cyberattacks and jamming," as well.

Earlier this month, The Times reported that Ukrainian troops grappled with Starlink outages that led to "catastrophic" loss of communication on the frontline. Musk responded that the piece "falsely claims that Starlink terminals [and] service were paid for, when only a small percentage have been." Based on SpaceX's letter that CNN had obtained, though, around 85 percent of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine at the time were fully or partially funded by the US, the UK, Poland and other outside sources.

The Pentagon confirmed after knowledge of the letter became public that it's been discussing payments with SpaceX but that it's also been looking at potential alternatives. Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon's deputy press secretary, said in a statement: "There's not just SpaceX, there are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine with what they need on the battlefield."

The Apple Store workers who'd been planning to unionize since at least early this year have come long way from using encrypted chats to organize in secret. In June, an Apple Store in Maryland became the first location to unionize in the US. Now, another retail location in Oklahoma City has voted in favor of unionization, becoming the second Apple Store in the US to organize officially. According to The Wall Street Journal, the group is calling itself the Penn Square Labor Alliance, because the store is located at Oklahoma City's Penn Square Mall.

Around 100 employees are eligible for union membership in the store. Based on the information released by the National Labor Relations Board, 56 of those workers voted in favor of forming a union, while 32 voted against. The group is now planning to join the Communications Workers of America, which also represents workers from companies like AT&T and Verizon. Charity Lassiter, an employee at the Oklahoma City store and a member of the organizing committee, told The Journal: "Now that we've won the election, it is our hope that management will come to the table so that we may collectively work towards building a company that prioritizes workers over profit and encourages employees to thrive."

Meanwhile, an Apple spokesperson told the publication in a statement: "We believe the open, direct and collaborative relationship we have with our valued team members is the best way to provide an excellent experience for our customers, and for our teams. We're proud to provide our team members with strong compensation and exceptional benefits."

Previous reports indicate that Apple has been finding ways to dissuade workers to unionize. Just a few days ago, Bloomberg reported that the tech giant is offering its employees new perks, such as additional health benefits and funding for educational opportunities. However, the tech giant will reportedly withhold those benefits from unionized members who'll now have to negotiate for them. Back when talks about worker's organizing efforts started heating up, the company reportedly armed its managers with anti-union talking points. Employees formally accused the tech giant of union busting, and the NLRB found merit in the claims that Apple surveilled staff, limited access to pro-union fliers and help captive audience meetings to deliver its anti-union messaging. A hearing is scheduled to take place in December before an NLRB judge unless all parties involved agree on a settlement. 

When Meta announced that its Horizon Worlds avatars were getting legs in the near future, we got to see VR Mark Zuckerberg lift his legs one after the after and then jump as if to demonstrate what the company has achieved. Apparently, though, what we saw wasn't a real demonstration of how Meta was able to conquer the difficulties of creating full-body virtual reality avatars. According to UploadVR editor, Ian Hamilton, the event used animations that were created using motion capture:

The process, which is called mocap for short, is widely used in cinema and games and entails recording the movements of a real person or object so they can be turned into computer animated graphics. 

During the event, Meta said that "legs have been one of the most requested features on [its] roadmap, and it’s been a significant area of [the company's] focus." Indeed, the addition of legs to Horizon's legless avatar would be a noteworthy achievement due to the technological constraints of the VR devices we have access to today. VR headsets as we know the weren't made to track legs. As Meta CTO and Reality Labs team leader Andrew Bosworth had explained to CNN Business earlier this year: "Tracking your own legs accurately is super hard and basically not workable just from a physics standpoint with existing headsets." Meta's solution to that problem involves the use of an artificial intelligence model to predict where the user's legs are supposed to be. 

We'll have to wait a bit more to see these AI-powered VR legs in action, though, because Meta's full-body avatars that don't rely on mocaps won't be coming out until 2023.

Apple keeps on losing court battles in Brazil over its decision to stop shipping iPhones with a charger. The São Paulo state court has ruled against the tech giant and slapped it with a 100 million real ($19 million) fine in a lawsuit filed by the Brazilian Consumers' Association, a group of borrowers, consumers and taxpayers. In addition, the court has ordered Apple to supply all customers in Brazil who purchased the iPhone 12 or 13 over the past couple of years with a charger, as well as to start including them with all new purchases. Apple, as you'd expect, told the news organization that it will appeal the decision. 

According to Barron's, the judge in charge of the case called the non-inclusion of chargers in phone purchases an "abusive practice" that "requires consumers to purchase a second product in order for the first to work." Apple has been at odds with Brazilian authorities over the issue for a while now. In 2021, São Paulo consumer protection agency Procon-SP fined Apple around $2 million for removing the power adapter from the iPhone 12, telling the company that it was in violation of Brazil's Consumer Defense Code.

This September, the country's Ministry of Justice issued an order that bans Apple from selling iPhones that don't come with a charger. It also fined the company another $2.38 million and ordered the cancelation of iPhone 12's registration with Brazil's national telecoms agency. The tech giant is also appealing that decision. 

Apple stopped bundling its iPhones with power adapters back in 2020 with the release of iPhone 12. The company cited environmental concerns for removing chargers with every purchase of the device and claimed that the decision will save 861,000 tons of copper, zinc and tin. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice remained unmoved by that reasoning, telling Apple that it could help the environment in other ways, such as giving its devices USB-C support. In Europe, Apple has a couple of years to do just that after the European Parliament voted to make USB-C the common charging standard in the EU. Mobile devices like the iPhone sold in the region will have to come with USB-C charging posts by the end of 2024.

The first two Project Kuiper satellites, prototypes for Amazon's satellite broadband program, will head to Low Earth Orbit in the first quarter of 2023. Amazon previously announced that the prototypes will launch on top of an ABL Space Systems rocket by the end of this year. While the tech giant will retain its launches with ABL, Project Kuiper will debut with another provider entirely: Its first two satellites will fly on the maiden flight of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. 

Project Kuiper VP Rajeev Badyal, told The Washington Post that delays coupled with the opportunity to launch with ULA had compelled Amazon to change its plans. The Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle has been in development since 2014, but its first launch has been pushed back repeatedly due to reasons that include delays with the development of its BE-4 engine. BE-4 is a product of Blue Origin, another Jeff Bezos company. 

ULA plans to make the Vulcan Centaur its main vehicle after its retires the Atlas V rocket, which relies on Russian-made engine, once it's through with its 20 remaining launches. The rocket was supposed to have its maiden flight this year, but Astrobotic (its main payload customer for the mission) asked ULA to move the schedule to give it more time to finish its NASA-funded lunar lander. 

Amazon says deploying the prototype satellites will help it gather real-world data to be able to finalize its design, deployment and operation plans for its commercial satellite system. Project Kuiper has the authority to launch 3,236 satellites to form a constellation meant to provide internet access even in far-flung locations, similar to SpaceX's Starlink network. As The Post notes, Amazon will have to deploy half of that number by 2026 to meet its obligations with the FCC. Badyal said the company is on track to meet that even though it has yet to launch its first satellites. 

In additional to ferrying Amazon's Project Kuiper prototypes and the Peregrine lunar lander to outer space, the maiden Vulcan Centaur flight will also serve as the first of the two launches the vehicle must go through to prove that it's ready for Space Force missions. The US Space Force plans to use the Vulcan Centaur to launch national security satellites, with the first one scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of 2023. 

Sony and Honda have announced (PDF) that they're planning to start accepting pre-orders for their first electric vehicle model in the first half of 2025. Their joint venture, which they've simply named Sony Honda Mobility Inc. (SHM), is hoping to start deliveries in the United States by spring of 2026. In Japan, deliveries are expected to begin in the second half of 2026. According to Reuters, the companies are considering a European launch, as well, but they have no solid plans for the region at the moment. 

The companies didn't give us a glimpse of the vehicle they're working on during the event, and they didn't mention anything about its pricing or its battery technology and range. They did say, however, that they're planning to focus on online sales like Tesla does and that the first model will have a "somewhat high price range." Honda will manufacture their first model at its facility in North America, while Sony will be in charge of developing the vehicle's software system and sensors. SHM is aiming to develop a Level 3 autonomous driving system, which means its cars will eventually have the capability to drive itself in certain conditions.

Reuters also said that Sony's software system will offer a monthly subscription for entertainment and other services, providing SMH with recurring revenue. The company is even looking into providing new types of in-vehicle entertainment, including those based in the metaverse. SMH Chairman and CEO Yasuhide Mizuno said during the event that the joint company is "speedily" developing its first vehicle. He said that SMH can't miss taking pre-orders in 2025, as the firm believes that year will be a turning point for vehicle electrification. 

Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard will have to gain approval from various regulators around the world before the deal can go through, including the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA, which first announced its investigation in July, published a summary of its initial probe in September and recommended a more in-depth inquiry. As Ars Technica notes, a Phase 2 investigation could end up prohibiting a merger or requiring the entities involved to sell parts of a company. Now, shortly after the CMA published the full text (PDF) of its decision, Microsoft released a scathing response (PDF), accusing the regulator of relying "on self-serving statements by Sony."

In its response that it has shared to Ars, the tech giant said the CMA's decision was rooted in the concern that Activision's catalogue of games, specifically the Call of Duty franchise, will allow Xbox to "foreclose its competitors." Microsoft called that concern "misplaced," arguing that the CMA is overstating the importance of Activision Blizzard's games when it comes to competition in the space. It also said that it plans to make Call of Duty more accessible by adding Activision's titles to its Game Pass subscription service. 

Sony did not welcome the idea of this "increased competition," the company said, stressing that its rival "protect[s] its revenues" by not making newly released games available through PlayStation Plus. Microsoft also said that there's no basis for the idea that making Call of Duty available on Game Pass would make people more likely to buy an Xbox console. The company said CoD games would also be available for purchase on PlayStation and buying them would be cheaper than buying an Xbox for Game Pass access.

The CMA has adopted Sony's complaints "without the appropriate level of critical review," Microsoft continued. It added: "The suggestion that the incumbent market leader, with clear and enduring market power, could be foreclosed by the third largest provider as a result of losing access to one title is not credible." Microsoft wrote in its response that it's looking forward to working with the CMA through Phase 2, and it sounds like it's determined to make the regulator understand the benefits of the deal. 

As for Sony, a spokesperson repeated its stance in a statement sent to Reuters, calling the deal "bad for competition, bad for the gaming industry and bad for gamers themselves." Microsoft's acquisition would give the Xbox ecosystem "a unique combination of tech and content," they said, which in turn would give the tech giant a dominant position in gaming that would have "devastating consequences for consumers, independent developers, and Sony itself."

You can finally say goodbye to your dated and clunky Steam mobile app. Valve has rolled out the redesigned version of its Steam mobile app for Android and iOS, which it's been testing since at least August this year. When it was looking for beta testers for the application, the game developer said it rebuilt the app "on a new framework and modernized the design." It has also bundled the app with new features, including the ability to log in using QR codes. 

The new sign-in method gives you a way to access your Steam account without having to type in your username and password. It uses the two-factor authentication credentials stored in your phone to verify your identity. If you do use Steam's QR sign-in method, the app will show you a confirmation page with details, such as a map with the approximate location of the device you're signing into, after you scan the code with your phone. That way, you can be sure that you're approving your own login attempt

If you'd rather use your username and password to log in, the app will still ask if you'd like to accept or deny the sign-in attempt. And if you want to make sure there's no device linked to your account that shouldn't be, you can now review and revoke access if needed in the Authorized Devices page.

The new Steam mobile app now also displays all your games in the Library. When you click on a game's cover image in the list, you'll find an option that lets you download the game remotely to your PC, and another that gives you the power to uninstall it. Other new features include an improved store browsing experience for mobile displays and customizable Steam notifications for sales, trades, friend requests and other categories. Based on its announcement post, Valve is also working on bringing QR sign-in to the Steam Deck and on adding the Authorized Devices page to the Steam Client and browser.