Twitch signed up cyberbullying experts, web researchers and community members back in 2020 to form the Safety Advisory Council. The review board was formed to help it draft new policies, develop products that improve safety and protect the interests of marginalized groups. Now, CNBC reports that the streaming website has terminated all the members of the council. Twitch reportedly called the nine members into a meeting on May 6 to let them know that their existing contracts would end on May 31 and that they would not be getting paid for the second half of 2024. 

The Safety Advisory Council's members include Dr. Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyber Bullying Research Center, and Dr. T.L. Taylor, the co-founder and director of AnyKey, an organization that advocates for inclusion and diversity in video games and esports. There's also Emma Llansó, the director of the Free Expression Project for the Center for Democracy and Technology.  

In an email sent to the members, Twitch reportedly told them that going forward, "the Safety Advisory Council will primarily be made up of individuals who serve as Twitch Ambassadors." The Amazon subsidiary didn't mention any names, but it describes its Ambassadors as people who "positively contribute to the Twitch community — from being role models for their community, to establishing new content genres, to having inspirational stories that empower those around them."

In a statement sent to The Verge, Twitch trust and safety communications manager Elizabeth Busby said that the new council members will "offer [the website] fresh, diverse perspectives" after working with the same core members for years. "We’re excited to work with our global Twitch Ambassadors, all of whom are active on Twitch, know our safety work first hand, and have a range of experiences to pull from," Busby added.

It's unclear if the Ambassadors taking the current council members' place will get paid or if they're expected to lend their help to the company for free. If it's the latter, then this development could be a cost-cutting measure: The outgoing members were paid between $10,000 and $20,000 a year, CNBC says. Back in January, Twitch also laid off 35 percent of its workforce to "cut costs" and to "build a more sustainable business." In the same month, it reduced how much streamers make from every Twitch Prime subscription they generate, as well.

Acer has unveiled the new SpatialLabs Eyes Stereo Camera specifically for those who want to take 3D photos and videos. Users can not only use it to capture 3D content, but also to livestream in 3D on YouTube and other platforms, as well as to make 3D video calls on Teams, Zoom and Google Meet. The company describes the camera as "compact" and "pocket-sized," with dimensions measuring 4 x 2.6 x 0.9 inches.

It has a resolution of 8 megapixels per eye and a built-in selfie mirror encased in a weather-proof shell. The more casual users can take advantage of its Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) feature, along with its auto and touch focus capabilities. But experienced photographers can customize their output as much as they want to in manual mode, which will allow them to adjust the camera's ISO, white balance and shutter speed settings. 

The camera's 3D livestreaming feature will be enabled by version 3.0 of Acer's SpatialLabs Player, while high-resolution 3D video conferencing will be made possible through the company's SpatialLabs video call widget. It will, of course, be compatible with Acer's range of SpatialLabs devices, including laptops with glasses-free 3D screens. But you can view 3D content captured by the device even on other companies' AR or VR headsets and 3D projectors. 

The Acer SpatialLabs Eyes Stereo Camera will be available in the third quarter of the year with prices starting at $549 or €549 in the US and in Europe, respectively.

Acer

Acer has added three new gaming monitors to its Predator lineup, all of which have OLED displays and speedy refresh rates. The models — Predator X27U F3, Predator X34 X5 and Predator X32 X3 — work with NVIDIA's G-SYNC and AMD's FreeSync Premium Pro technologies to prevent tearing, stuttering, ghosting and input lags while you're gaming. They also feature true 10-bit color depth enhanced by a 99 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which means more color depths, higher contrasts and deeper blacks. The models come with stands with adjustable height that can tilt and swivel, and they're all equipped with two 5-watt speakers.

The Predator X27U F3 is a 27-inch monitor with a 2,560 x 1,440 pixel resolution and a 480 Hz refresh rate. It's outfitted with a USB-C and two HDMI 2.1 ports, and its stand has a tripod mount socket that can support streaming accessories like lights and cameras. The model will be available in the third quarter with prices starting at $1,200. 

Meanwhile, the Predator X32 X3 monitor is a 4K UHD OLED display with a refresh rate of 240 Hz, though you can get that up to 480 Hz if you don't mind gaming in Full HD resolution only. The 31.5-inch monitor also comes with one Type-C and two HDMI 2.1 ports, and it will be available in the fourth quarter of the year for $1,200 and above. 

Finally, the Predator X34 X5 has a 34-inch curved OLED screen with a 1800R curvature and a resolution of 3,440 x 1,440 pixels. It also has a 240 Hz refresh and a 0.03 ms response rate like the Predator X32 X3 model, though it doesn't seem like you can get a speedier refresh rate in exchange for lower resolution. The monitor has two HDMI 2.1 ports, a DisplayPort and USB Type-C port, and it will be available in the fourth quarter for at least $1,100. 

Liz Reid, the Head of Google Search, has admitted that the company's search engine has returned some "odd, inaccurate or unhelpful AI Overviews" after they rolled out to everyone in the US. The executive published an explanation for Google's more peculiar AI-generated responses in a blog post, where it also announced that the company has implemented safeguards that will help the new feature return more accurate and less meme-worthy results. 

Reid defended Google and pointed out that some of the more egregious AI Overview responses going around, such as claims that it's safe to leave dogs in cars, are fake. The viral screenshot showing the answer to "How many rocks should I eat?" is real, but she said that Google came up with an answer because a website published a satirical content tackling the topic. "Prior to these screenshots going viral, practically no one asked Google that question," she explained, so the company's AI linked to that website.

The Google VP also confirmed that AI Overview told people to use glue to get cheese to stick to pizza based on content taken from a forum. She said forums typically provide "authentic, first-hand information," but they could also lead to "less-than-helpful advice." The executive didn't mention the other viral AI Overview answers going around, but as The Washington Post reports, the technology also told users that Barack Obama was Muslim and that people should drink plenty of urine to help them pass a kidney stone. 

Reid said the company tested the feature extensively before launch, but "there’s nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches." Google was apparently able to determine patterns wherein its AI technology didn't get things right by looking at examples of its responses over the past couple of weeks. It has then put protections in place based on its observations, starting by tweaking its AI to be able to better detect humor and satire content. It has also updated its systems to limit the addition of user-generated replies in Overviews, such as social media and forum posts, which could give people misleading or even harmful advice. In addition, it has also "added triggering restrictions for queries where AI Overviews were not proving to be as helpful" and has stopped showing AI-generated replies for certain health topics. 

GeForce Now subscribers will be able to stream and play World of Warcraft (WoW) through the service if they want to. NVIDIA's cloud gaming service is adding World of Warcraft Classic, Dragonflight and even Cataclysm Classic, which launched just a few days ago, to its library of games. WoW and its extensions will be available starting this week, along with a bunch of other titles such as the newly released Rogue Prince of Persia. In June, NVIDIA is also adding Resident Evil Village and Street Fighter 6, among other games, to the service. 

The service gives members a way to access games across platforms, including Android and iOS devices, PCs and Macs. It's worth noting that WoW does not support controllers for consoles, and players typically need a keyboard and a mouse to be as accurate and as fast as possible, so it may not be easy to play on certain devices. The game's addition to GeForce Now means subscribers can play it on Chromebooks, though, eliminating the need for players to jump through hoops just to be able to install the game on their computers. 

In addition to announcing new titles for GeForce Now, NVIDIA also revealed that the service will release a new members reward for Elder Scrolls Online as part of the game's 10th year anniversary celebrations. Subscribers have to opt into the service's rewards program in order to claim the new in-game mount for free.

While Minecraft was officially released in 2011, it was first introduced to the public back in 2009. This year, Minecraft is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and as part of the festivities surrounding that milestone, Netflix and Mojang Studios have announced that they're making an animated series based on the iconic sandbox game. It's a computer graphic-animated show that's being developed by Canadian studio WildBrain, which was also behind the animated Netflix shows Carmen Sandiego and Sonic Prime.

The companies said the series will feature an original story based on new characters that show "the world of Minecraft in a new light." We'll most likely find out what that means exactly before the series launches when they start releasing previews and trailers. The video Netflix and Mojang have published only announces their collaboration — we'll just have to wait for more information on whether the show will still include characters we all know from the game, like Steve, creepers and zombies, or if it will truly only feature characters we've never seen before. If the long-delayed Minecraft movie ever gets made, we'll still see Steve in an adaptation anyway. Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Jack Black is set to star as the game's blocky protagonist alongside Jason Momoa. 

Over the past couple of weeks, Minecraft has also released special items to celebrate its 15th anniversary, including free party add-ons, a free map, a cape and wallpapers. You can see all of Mojang's anniversary items and announcements on the Minecraft website.

Sometimes, having to open a link from within another app on mobile could be disruptive and take you away from the task you were trying to accomplish. Now an update for Chrome could help keep you focused with the task at hand. When you click on a link within Gmail, for instance, and open a Chrome tab within the app, you can tap on the chevron icon in the toolbar right next to the "x" or the close button to minimize the browser. That turns the open tab into a compact, floating picture-in-picture window that you can drag anywhere on the screen. 

You can keep it minimized while you use the original app, and the moment you're ready to look at its contents, you only have to tap the floating window to restore the tab to its original size. We were already able to use the new feature on Android within Gmail. You'll also be able to take advantage of it soon if you don't have it yet, as long as your default browser is Chrome and you keep it updated. The feature is even enabled by default, so you don't have to do anything to switch it on. Of course, you can always send an in-app tab to the Chrome browser if keeping different tasks open in separate windows makes you more productive.

Samsung's largest workers' organization, the National Samsung Electronics Union, has announced that it's planning to stage a walkout next week as part of its fight for fair compensation. Members are threatening to skip work for a day, on June 7, in hopes that the company would listen to their demands after their wage negotiations over the past months had come to a standstill. If it pushes through, BNN Bloomberg says it'll be the first strike ever by the company's employees since Samsung was founded. As Reuters reports, Samsung agreed to a 5.1 percent increase in wages this year, but the union is also negotiating to add one more day to workers' annual leaves and for more transparency when it comes to performance bonuses.

"What we want is not a 1-2 percent wage increase. What we want is to be paid fairly for the amount of work done," union leaders said in front of Samsung's offices in Seoul. "We want to be compensated for our labor fairly and transparently."

The National Samsung Electronics Union has 28,000 members, which represent over a fifth of the company's workforce. Union leaders aren't expecting the strike to have a significant impact on Samsung's production since most of its manufacturing processes are automated anyway, but they're still hoping that their walkout could compel the company to take them seriously. The union certainly has more power to negotiate now — apparently, its membership grew four-fold over the past couple of years after the company pledged to stop its union-busting schemes. 

Samsung used to be notorious for suppressing organized labor activities. In 2018, board chairman Lee Sang-hoon was indicted for sabotaging legitimate labor activities by threatening to lower wages of employees who join them, deliberately stalling negotiations between management and laborers and digging up dirt on key union personnel to persuade them to cease their activities. Lee stepped down as chairman of the board in 2020, the same year Samsung's Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee promised to end the company's union-busting practices. 

The union said, however, that there's "no change in the management’s attitude" despite Lee's promise to eliminate non-union management. "We can no longer stand by the company's lack of will to negotiate," it added. If the company refuses to engage in meaningful talks, the union is planning to stage more walkouts in the future. A Samsung spokesperson told BNN Bloomberg, however, that "the company remains committed to engaging in good faith negotiations with the unions, and is making every sincere effort to an agreement."

If you couldn't access the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine over the past few days, that's because the website has been under attack. In fact, the nonprofit organization has announced that it's currently in its "third day of warding off an intermittent DDoS cyber-attack" in a blog post. Over the Memorial Day weekend, the organization posted on Twitter/X that most of its services aren't available due to bad actors pummeling its website with "tens of thousands of fake information requests per second." On Tuesday morning, it warned that it's "continuing to experience service disruptions" because the attackers haven't stopped targeting it. 

The website's data doesn't seem to be affected, though, and you could still look up previous pages' content whenever you could access it. "Thankfully the collections are safe, but we are sorry that the denial-of-service attack has knocked us offline intermittently during these last three days," Brewster Kahle, the founder of the the Internet Archive, said in a statement. "With the support from others and the hard work of staff we are hardening our defenses to provide more reliable access to our library. What is new is this attack has been sustained, impactful, targeted, adaptive, and importantly, mean."

The Internet Archive has yet to identify the source of the attacks, but it did talk about how libraries and similar institutions are being targeted more frequently these days. One of the institutions it mentioned was the British Library whose online information system was held hostage for ransom by a hacker group last year. It also talked about how it's being sued by the US book publishing and US recording industries, which accuse it of copyright infringement. 

Opera users can already rely on the capabilities of OpenAI's large language models (LLMs) whenever they use the browser's Aria built-in AI assistant. But now, the company has also teamed up with Google to integrate its Gemini AI models into Aria. According to Opera, its Composer AI engine can process the user's intent based on their inquiry and then decide which model to use for each particular task.

Google called Gemini the "the most capable model [it has] ever built" when it officially announced the LLM last year. Since then, the company has announced Gemini-powered features across its products and has built the Gemini AI chatbot right into Android. Opera said that thanks to Gemini's integration, its browser "will now be able to provide its users with the most current information, at high performance."

The company's partnership with Google also enables Aria to offer new experimental features as part of its AI Feature Drop program. Users who have the Opera One Developer version of the browser can try a new image generation feature powered by Google's Imagen 2 model for free — in the image above, for instance, the user asked Aria to "make an image of a dog on vacation at a beach having a drink." In addition, users can listen to Aria read out responses in a conversational tone using Google's text-to-audio model. If everything goes well during testing, Opera could roll out the features to everyone, though they can still go through some changes, depending on early adopters' feedback.