Lyft has finally published its first safety report (PDF), which sheds light on the rate of sexual assault and abuse cases on the service in the US over the course of three years. From 2017 until 2019, Lyft received a total of 4,158 sexual assault reports. The company's safety team divided all sexual assault and misconduct incidents into 21 categories, but the cases included in this report only include five of the most serious categories of sexual assault.

Those categories are non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual/sexual body part, non-consensual touching of a sexual body part, attempted non-consensual sexual penetration and non-consensual sexual penetration. There are lesser categories of sexual assault that weren't included in the total number of cases.

Among the five, the most commonly reported incidents fall under the non-consensual touching of a sexual body part category. The team recorded 360 incidents of rape within that period. Lyft said that it included any incident reported over the three-year period regardless of when it actually happened, because sexual assault is chronically underreported. Further, it intentionally used broad definitions for the sub-categories.In addition to sexual assault cases, Lyft has also reported 105 motor vehicle fatalities and 10 fatal physical assaults. 

The company explained that it doesn't proactively report safety incidents to law enforcement, knowing that it's a deeply personal decision, especially for survivors of sexual assault. "This policy gives survivors as much agency as possible when deciding whether and how to report an incident," it wrote. 

Lyft has been promising to release a safety report since 2018, and when CNN asked about it earlier this year, the company cited an issue with the California Public Utilities Commission for the delay. According to the news organization, at least 72 individuals are suing the ride-hailing service over alleged sexual assault incidents. Some of those cases accuse Lyft of knowing that its drivers were raping passengers and failing to take steps to protect its customers.

Uber, on the other hand, published its first safety report in 2019. The company revealed nearly 6,000 reports of sexual abuse over 2017 and 2018, as well as 19 fatal physical assaults.

SpaceX has taken a major step towards sending the Starship to orbit. On Thursday night, the private space corporation has conducted the SN20 Starship prototype's first static fire test as part of its preparation for the spacecraft's launch. According to Space, the SN20 is currently outfitted with two Raptor engines: A standard "sea-level" Raptor and a vacuum version designed to operate in space. At 8:16PM Eastern time on Thursday, the company fired the latter. SpaceX then revealed on Twitter that it was the first ever firing of a Raptor vacuum engine integrated onto a Starship.

Around an hour after that, the SN20 lit up yet again in a second static fire test that may have involved both Raptor engines. The SN20 will eventually have six Raptors — three standard and three vacuum — and will be the first prototype to attempt an orbital launch. A Starship launch system is comprised of the Starship spacecraft itself and a massive first-stage booster called the Super Heavy. Both are designed to be reusable and to carry large payloads for trips to low and higher Earth orbits. It can also eventually be used for longer trips to the Moon and to Mars. 

SpaceX doesn't have a date for the SN20 test flight yet, but the plan is to launch the vehicle with the Super Heavy known as Booster 4 from the company's Boca Chica site. The booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, while the SN20 will continue its journey towards orbit. 

iFixit has taken apart the Apple Watch Series 7 and showed that despite having minimal changes on the outside, it does feature some big upgrades underneath. As we mentioned in our review, the main difference between this device and the Series 6 is its slightly bigger display, Now, iFixit's teardown shows that its display uses touch-integrated OLED panel or "on-cell touch," which debuted with the iPhone 13. 

The website says the move is unusual for Apple, since it typically introduces new display tech — such as OLED, always-on and variable refresh rate — on the lower-volume Apple Watch first instead of the other way around. According to the former Apple engineers iFixit worked with for this teardown, this new display may have caused production delays and made the company release the device later than it would've liked.

When the tech giant first announced the Series 7 in September, it didn't have a concrete release date. The former Apple engineers said that usually signals delays, and the most likely culprit was the manufacturing hiccups caused by the Watch's display. "[S]creens have some of the most complex supply chains and assembly processes in the industry," the website explained. In addition to using new technology, Apple also made the display bigger and gave it a refractive edge to make the sides look like they're slightly curved. 

iFixit also found that the model's battery is larger than its predecessors. That doesn't translate to longer battery life, though, since the device's larger screen likely uses more power. There are a few other more minor changes compared to previous versions of the Watch. You can see the whole teardown on iFixit's website, along with more photos of what's inside the Series 7.

Spotify might have a much wider video podcast selection in the near future. In July last year, it debuted the video podcast format for select originals, but now it's opening up access to the option to more people who want to launch their own. Creators can now apply to have their video podcasts published on the streaming platform via Anchor, which is Spotify's podcast creation tool. 

The company says it's rolling out video podcasts on a rolling basis with a number of key creators, including existing podcasters who are expanding into video and video creators who want to reach a new audience. It's putting approved applicants in a waitlist, however, and giving them the power to make their videos available on the platform at a later date. Those who do get approved can upload episodes through their Anchor account, which will automatically be published on Spotify.

Since not all video creators will be signing $100 million deals with the company like Joe Rogan did, Spotify is giving them a way to earn from their shows. Creators in select markets will be able to monetize their podcasts through subscriptions, allowing them to share exclusive content with subscribers or to only make their shows available to paying customers altogether. 

Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton has announced his company's first-ever price increase, and it's all because of the global component shortages brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic currently affecting the tech and auto industries. While Raspberry Pi can still produce as many as 7 million units this year, which is the same as last year's, companies are buying up more components than before to ensure that they can build their products. As a result, Raspberry Pi Zero and the 2GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 are in short supply. 

To address the issue, the manufacturer is moving back the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4's price to $45. The model debuted at that price, but Raspberry Pi lowered it to $35 in 2020 to replace its 1GB counterpart that was discontinued completely. Upton said the price increase in components needed for the boards means selling the 2GB Pi 4 for $35 is no longer economically viable, so the company is temporarily bringing back its old price. It's also reintroducing the 1GB variant for $35 to give customers another choice. 

Upton explained in the post that the issue will affect its products built on 40nm silicon the most. Since the company has to distribute components wisely, it has decided to prioritize Compute Module 3, Compute Module 3+ and Raspberry Pi 3B, and to deprioritize Raspberry Pi 3B+. It's now encouraging industrial users of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ to use the 1GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 instead.

The CEO said those changes are temporary and that the changes in pricing aren't here to stay. "As global supply chain issues moderate, we’ll keep revisiting this issue, and we want to get pricing back to where it was as fast as we can," he wrote. That said, the company is expecting its supply chain issues to persist all throughout 2022. 

Apple has yet to issue a mandate similar to Google's that would require all employees to be vaccinated, but it's tightening its COVID-19 protocols nonetheless. According to Bloomberg, the tech giant will start requiring all unvaccinated corporate employees to be tested for COVID-19 every time they have to work in the office instead of working from home. Back in September, Bloombergreported that Apple asked employees to share their vaccination status voluntarily. Those who refuse to share their vaccine status will also have to undergo daily testing, while vaccinated office workers will only have to do rapid testing once a week. 

The company's retail store employees, however, won't be subjected to daily tests despite having consumer-facing jobs. Unvaccinated staff members are required to be tested twice a week. Like Apple's office workers, vaccinated staff will only have to undergo weekly rapid testing. It's unclear if the tech giant will ever issue a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but the Biden administration previously gave all federal contractors a December 8th deadline to require all their employees to be inoculated against the virus. As Bloomberg notes, Apple sells products to the US government.

For now, Apple has reportedly given employees an October 24th deadline to report and show proof of their vaccination status, so it could implement the new rules starting on November 1st. Unvaccinated employees will have to pick-up at-home rapid tests from Apple offices and stores, do the test themselves and then report their results through an internal app.

Former President Donald Trump has officially revealed that he's launching his own social media in 2022, a few months after his aide toldFox News about his plans. He's calling it TRUTH Social, and the platform is apparently part of his camp's efforts to fight back against "the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America."

Some of Trump's supporters believe that social networks are biased against conservative voices — in 2018, a group even sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, accusing them of breaking antitrust laws and violating their First Amendment rights by conspiring to suppress conservative viewpoints. The case was tossed out of court a few times. According to a New York University research published earlier this year, there's no evidence of conservative bias on the world's most popular social networks. There was even an Instagram bug in the months leading to the US Presidential Elections that favored Trump content over Biden's.

It is true, however, that Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms following the January 6th US Capitol riots. Twitter determined that his tweets at that time violated its policies. According to the website, his tweets (which you can view in an archive) "must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence..."

Earlier this month, Trump sued to get his Twitter account back, arguing that the ban violates his First Amendment rights. Indeed, his ban on the website gets a special mention in TRUTH Social's announcement. He said in a statement: "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced."

TRUTH Social will have a beta launch in November for invited guests. Trump and his team are expecting to roll it out nationwide in the first quarter of 2022.

Another LEGO Star Wars game is heading to Apple Arcade, and it's the first social, action-adventure title in the franchise. The upcoming game, entitled LEGO Star Wars: Castaways, will have you building and customizing your own in-game LEGO minifigure character. Once you're done designing your own blocky hero, you'll head to a new planet where you can team up with friends to battle enemies and solve puzzles. Along the way, you can unlock collectibles to solve a mystery and save your merry band of LEGO minifigures.

When you're not out on adventures — of if you really just want to hang out in a virtual world with friends — you can stay in the game's Social Hub or race Microfighters. LEGO Star Wars: Castaways is an Apple Arcade exclusive, just like LEGO Star Wars Battles. The latter is a real-time strategy game that will let you collect upgradable characters, troops and vehicles and then pit you against other players in one-on-one showdowns. In Star Wars Battles, you'll also have to build and defend your own LEGO towers, as well as attack your opponent's.

LEGO Star Wars: Castaways will be playable across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV, so long as you have an Arcade subscription. You can now sign up to be notified when the game becomes available for download from the Mac Store and the iOS App Store, but the game won't be available to play until November 19th. 

Activision Blizzard has confirmed that more than 20 employees have "exited" the company as part of its efforts to change its internal culture following allegations of fostering a "frat boy" workplace. The video game company has published the letter Executive VP for Corporate Affairs Fran Townsend sent to employees revealing the move, in which she also said that more than 20 other individuals faced different types of disciplinary action. Back in July, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against the developer for allowing a work environment wherein female employees were allegedly subjected to constant sexual harassment.

The agency, which sued the company after a two-year investigation, detailed several of its findings in the lawsuit. It said female employees constantly have to fend off unwanted sexual comments, and that they have to endure being groped by male colleagues. They're also not paid as much as their male counterparts, are typically promoted more slowly and fired more quickly. At the time, Townsend told employees that the lawsuit "presented a distorted" picture of the company and that it included "factually incorrect, old and out of context stories." Hundreds of employees walked out in protest over the company's response. 

Now, in her letter, Townsend said that there's a team dedicated to investigating harassment claims, "working tirelessly to ensure that, moving forward, [the company] is a place where people are not only heard, but empowered." The team received an increasing number of reports in recent months, including concerns from years ago, and it was the members' investigation that led to the exit of more than 20 employees. Townsend declined to name those individuals, but she told Financial Times that they include several game developers and a few supervisors. None of them came from senior management or from the board. 

A Kotaku report from August named three senior designers who abruptly exited the company. Two of them — Diablo 4 lead designer Jesse McCree and World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft — were previously pictured inside the Cosby Suite. In its lawsuit, DEFH said the Cosby Suite is a room with a photo of Bill Cosby where male employees allegedly harassed women during company events.

To be able to handle more complaints, Activision Blizzard hired three full-time employees to join the investigation team. It's also adding 19 more full-time roles to its overall Ethics & Compliance Team, two of which will be dedicated to overseeing investigations for the EMEA and APAC regions. Townsend admitted that the team can't always share the details of an investigation, but she also promised more transparency "We know there’s a desire to know about the outcome when misconduct is reported. Sometimes, there are privacy reasons we can’t share. But where we can, we will be sharing more information with you. We will also be providing you regular aggregate data about investigative outcomes," she wrote in her letter.

According to Bloomberg, Netflix's pre-recorded call to shareholders announcing its third-quarter results gives us another glimpse at how successful Squid Game was. Around 142 million households worldwide watched the Korean-language show about debt—ridden individuals playing a deadly game for a cash prize worth tens of millions of dollars. That makes it the most-viewed new show in Netflix history, the publication said. 

Squid Game captured the "cultural zeitgeist" and claimed the number 1 spot in the streaming giant's rankings in 94 countries, including the US, Netflix has revealed. Since there's a huge demand for all things Squid Game, Netflix has also announced that consumer products based on the show are now on their way to retail. 

A few days ago, Bloombergobtained documents detailing the company's scores for "impact value" and "efficiency." Netflix has been pretty secretive on the metrics that make a title successful or not, and the documents showed how it measures series' and movies' success. Squid Game was a standout, generating $891.1 million in impact value, which is around 41.7 times — that's its efficiency score — its budget of $21.4 million.

Thanks in part to Squid Game's massive viewership, Netflix said it posted its best subscriber growth of the year. "As the quarter continued, we saw an acceleration in our growth," Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann said on the call. It welcomed 4.38 million subscribers in the third quarter, mostly from Asia and Europe, and it expects to get 8.5 million more customers in the final quarter of 2021.