New York is about to become the first city in the United States to mandate a minimum wage for food delivery workers. Starting next month, delivery apps, including Uber Eats and GrubHub, will be required to pay their workers $17.96 per hour, plus tips, by July 12th. Then, by 2025, the city will mandate Uber, GrubHub and other players in the space pay delivery workers $19.96 per hour, with adjustments for inflation to follow thereafter.

The minimum wage in New York City is $15 per hour. By setting the hourly pay for delivery workers above that, the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) agency notes it’s accounting for the fact Uber, GrubHub and DoorDash classify their delivery workers as contractors, who tend to pay higher taxes and often need to pay work-related expenses out of their own pocket. According to an estimate from the DCWP, there are more than 60,000 food delivery workers in New York, earning an average of $7.09 per hour.

The final hourly rate the city announced on Monday is less than the $23.82 figure the agency had called for in 2022 (PDF link). In March, the DCWP revised its estimate to account for “multi-apping,” a practice wherein some workers will deliver for more than one app at the same time. App companies, including Uber and GrubHub, pushed back against the regulation, and now that it’s set to finally go into effect, they’re still not happy about it. "The city is lying to delivery workers – they want apps to fund the $30 per hour wage by eliminating jobs and reducing tipping while forcing the remaining workers to deliver orders faster," Uber spokesperson Josh Gold told Engadget.

“While we believe New York City had good intentions, we are disappointed in the DCWP’s final rule, which will have serious adverse consequences for delivery workers in New York City,” a GrubHub spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, New York City chose not to partner with the industry on a solution that would have benefited all aspects of the gig economy.”

How delivery apps pay their workers is up to them, so long as they meet the minimum set by the city. Companies that pay only for trip time must pay approximately 50 cents per minute, while firms that compensate workers for the entire time they’re logged in, including any downtime waiting for an order, must pay approximately 30 minutes per minute, not including tips. The law comes after New York began enforcing a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers in 2022.

The technology industry has been hit hard by layoffs this year, and GrubHub is the latest to cut staff. The company’s CEO Howard Migdal announced today that the company will be letting go of roughly 400 employees, or 15 percent of its corporate workforce. The layoffs will supposedly help Grubhub stay "competitive" with the market.

He said, "Over the last few months, I met with Grubhub teams to learn about the business from the ground up; I spoke to restaurants and diners to understand their needs – and challenges – when using our service." Impacted employees will be "notified over the next several hours." Migdal goes on to say that he understands that this will be a difficult time for all employees. For those who are keeping their jobs, he claims that more details about “our future together” will surface in the coming days.

Back in March of this year, Grubhub’s then CEO Adam DeWitt announced that he would be stepping down at the start of May amid increasing economic pressure. With Migdal as the new CEO, it’s not terribly surprising that his first move would be to try and reduce operating costs due to the continued economic pressure.

Grubhub isn’t the first and likely isn’t the last delivery service to start to cut employees. Late last year, DoorDash announced that it would be laying off nearly 1,300 employees due to "operating expenses." The company’s CEO Tony Xu said that DoorDash increased hiring during the pandemic and that operating expenses would continue to outgrow sales.

The big difference between DoorDash and Grubhub is that the former offered those who were laid off 13 weeks of compensation along with four weeks of severance pay. Grubhub’s announcement today did not mention any sort of compensation or severance pay for those who are being laid off.

When Ubisoft shared the first look at Star Wars Outlaws on Sunday during Microsoft's Xbox and Starfield Showcase, the publisher promised it would have an extended gameplay trailer to share during its Ubisoft Forward event on Monday. And boy did it deliver. The company shared 10 minutes of footage that offers a comprehensive look at the upcoming game. 

The clip opens on the planet of Toshara with protagonist Key Vess and her trusty companion Nix sneaking through a criminal syndicate facility. Key can call on the adorable Nix to help her traverse the environment, while she takes care of knocking out enemies. If she's caught sneaking by a guard, Key has a moment where she, like Han Solo before 1997, can shoot first. Once things get messy, combat revolves around a blaster pistol that features a handful of different ammunition types. For instance, there are enemies with energy shields. In the heat of battle, Nix can retrieve blaster rifles dropped by enemies for Key to use, though it appears they come with limited ammunition. Star Wars Outlaws won't limit you to walking everywhere on foot. You can traverse the game's world on a speeder bike, and even take to the skies and space with a starship, with seemingly no loading between different elements of the game.  

Star Wars Outlaws will be available next year on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Massive Entertainment, best known for its work The Division franchise, is leading development on the project, with what seems like Ubisoft's entire stable of first-party studios on support duties. The game runs on Massive's in-house Snowdrop engine and looks stunning as a result. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Ubisoft's main answer to the Forza Horizon series is coming soon. The publisher has revealed that The Crew Motorfest will be available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It's a sequel to 2018's The Crew 2, but there are some clear changes to the gameplay in this third title.

Rather than spanning the entire US, The Crew Motorfest will center on a downscaled version of the Hawaiian island of O'ahu, where you'll compete in a Forza-style racing festival with a variety of on- and off-road events that include street races and beach adventures. The eclectic choice of cars is also a highlight — you can drive everything from the classic VW Microbus through to the Hummer EV and Lamborghini Revuelto.

Motorfest has some pedigree behind it. Some of the developers at Ubisoft Ivory Tower also have experience from the first two Test Drive Unlimited games. While a lot of time has elapsed since the 2011 release of Test Drive Unlimited 2, fans of that series might see this as an unofficial sequel.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Ubisoft has given us the first proper look at Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR for the Meta Quest platform and confirmed a holiday launch window. The news comes via the company’s Ubisoft Forward streaming event as part of the Summer Game Fest. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR releases for both the Meta Quest Pro, Meta Quest 2 and the recently-announced Meta Quest 3, though OG Quest owners are out of luck.

We knew this was coming, as Meta just held a games showcase event that featured Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR, but there’s now a dedicated trailer. This trailer is light on actual gameplay and heavy on CGI cutscenes, but it definitely confirms that you play in first person as an actual assassin through the magic of VR. Ubisoft says the title lets you experience parkour-style movement, stealth combat and good old-fashioned hand-to-hand fisticuffs in virtual reality.

The game brings back former series protagonists like Ezio, as you’ll be interacting with their memories to access levels. For those weary of the nausea associated with VR, particularly while performing elaborate parkour moves, Ubisoft says the title includes “best-in-class comfort features” to help with vertigo or fear of heights, though we aren’t exactly sure what that means. There’s no price yet, but top-tier Quest titles cap out at around $40. Also, the game looks to be a Quest platform exclusive at launch.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Ubisoft revealed a teaser trailer today for Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. The upcoming Netflix anime is based on the 2013 Blood Dragon expansion for Far Cry 3 — but it appears to be at least as much of a tongue-in-cheek remix of Ubisoft IP and early 90s nostalgia.

Series creator Adi Shankar (producer of Netflix’s Castlevania series) introduced the trailer in a campy cyborg getup befitting the source material. “Seven years ago, I got a call from Ubisoft, offering me the opportunity to adapt one of their very, very, very serious franchises into an anime,” Shankar deadpanned. “But instead, I came back to them with a crazy concept inspired by the mood of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. This concept used Ubisoft’s vast library of characters, and remixed them into one delirious anime series that would become this love letter to the 90s… or at least how I remembered the 90s.”

Shankar describes the series as a violent, dystopian fiction in the spirit of the works of Aldous Huxley, as well as a spoof, satire, dark comedy, love story and “the most philosophically conscious show you’ve watched in a long time.” Bobbypills Studio handles the animation.

Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix is scheduled to premiere worldwide on Netflix this fall. You can watch the “Easter-egg-filled” teaser trailer below.

Ubisoft pinky swears that Skull and Bones is still happening, and it'll have a closed beta to prove it. You'll have a chance to try the long-delayed action-adventure game between August 25th and 28th. You can sign up for the closed beta at the game's website. The beta, which Ubisoft announced with the help of a sea shanty performance, will be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

To give you an idea of how long this game has been in the works, we had our first hands-on with it at E3 2017. The Skull and Bones development process has reportedly been more turbulent than just about any stormy sea. Ubisoft has delayed the game multiple times and it's currently scheduled to arrive by the end of March 2024, approximately five years behind schedule.

Skull and Bones sees you take control of a pirate ship. You'll be able to team up with friends to sail the high seas in an open world and take on other players as you try to become a legendary pirate. You'll need to keep your crew happy as you get your hands on increasingly larger ships. Here's hoping it's all worth the wait.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Ubisoft’s open-world Avatar game is almost here. At the company’s Summer Game Fest preview event, we got a substantial look at the story and gameplay of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. James Cameron introduced the game in a prerecorded segment, teasing “new environments new flora and fauna and characters”.

A cinematic trailer lays out how this tale will fit in with the Avatar movies. In short, it’ll cover the events of both games, with the protagonist being kidnapped during the events of the first film and schooled by the human invaders. After the events at the end of Avatar, you are cryogenically frozen… then unfrozen 15 years later in time to fight the RDA’s continued invasion.

The game itself is an open-world first-person action-adventure game, where you'll be able to combine Na'vi skills and weapons with human assault weapons and a casual rocket launcher or two. It wouldn't be an Avatar thing without the ability to bond with sentient animals you can ride. The trailer teases the ability to ride direhorses as well as your very own ikran. You'll be able to feed and customize your partner when not flying down waterfalls. Frontiers of Pandora will include a new western expanse not seen in the movies, where you'll meet as-yet unseen Na'vi clans, including a secretive healer clan. 

You'll be able to equip and grow your character to fit your own playstyle, crafting weaponry and items from resources and upgrading your own skills as you see fit. 

Frontiers of Pandora launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, PC and, oddly, Luna. (Yes, Luna!) on December 7th 2023.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest right here!

Last year's Mac Studio was the super-powered Mac mini many Apple fans were begging for. But, for the most demanding users, it was unclear if it was worth shelling out $3,999 for the high-end Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra chip, or if they should just wait for the inevitable Mac Pro refresh. Now that Apple has revamped the Mac Pro with an M2 Ultra chip, the company's desktop lineup finally has something for everyone.

At the most basic level, there's the $599 Mac Mini. If you need a bit more power, you can get that same slim machine with an M2 Pro chip for $1,299. Meanwhile, all-in-one fans have several iMacs to choose from, starting at $1,299 (though it's probably worth waiting for an M2 spec bump).

That leaves the $1,999 Mac Studio as the ideal machine for Apple power users. It'll be enough for video editing work, and it also comes standard with 32GB of RAM (it could use more than 512GB of storage, though). Step up to the $3,999 model with an M2 Ultra chip, and you've got a system that can destroy just about any task you put in front of it. The few professional users who need PCIe expansion can now opt for the M2 Ultra-equipped Mac Pro, which starts at an eye-watering $6,999.

All of sudden, the higher-end Mac Studio makes so much more sense. It has the same raw power as the Mac Pro, a ton of ports, and it won't take up much room on your desk. What seemed like a curiosity last year, now feels like a tremendous value for power users. Funny how that works, isn't it? (Apple reportedly shelved plans for an even more powerful M2 chip, which could have offered double the power of the M2 Ultra, according to Bloomberg.)

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

The base Mac Studio is now equipped with an M2 Max chip, featuring a 12-core CPU (with eight performance and four efficiency cores) and a 30-core GPU, as well as 32GB of RAM. Compared to last year's M1 Max, the new chip has two more efficiency cores and six additional GPU cores. What's most notable is the additional upgrade options: You can configure the M2 Max chip with a 38-core GPU and 96GB of RAM (previously you were capped at 32GB of memory).

Step up to the M2 Ultra and you effectively get two M2 Max chips: It starts with a 24-core CPU, 60-core GPU and 64GB of memory. If you want to truly push your system (and wallet) to the limit, the M2 Ultra can also be configured with a 76-core GPU and 192GB of RAM. With all that power, who needs a full-sized PC tower?

And really, that's what I kept asking myself as I tested our review unit, which was equipped with an M2 Ultra and 192GB of RAM. The Mac Studio is so ridiculously overpowered, only the most demanding users would need the Mac Pro's PCIe expansion. Since the M2 chips feature unified memory integrated alongside the CPU and GPU, there's no way to add additional RAM down the line, which used to be another reason to get the Mac Pro. At least you can stuff the Mac Studio to the gills with RAM, if you need it.

Much like the M2 Max-powered 14-inch MacBook Pro, Apple's latest chips deliver noticeable performance increases over the M1 generation in just about every benchmark. But it's also not significant enough to run out and replace an M1 system. Instead, the new Mac Studio is an even more tempting machine for Mac users still trucking along with Intel processors, even for some Mac Pro owners.

In the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark, the Mac Studio scored higher than any system we've tested this year. But really, that's not a surprise – even last year's M1 Ultra Mac Studio scored higher than the Razer Blade 16, which features Intel's fastest mobile 13th-gen chip. Apple doesn’t always come out ahead: that Blade 16 beat the Mac Studio in the Geekbench 5 Compute benchmark, which you can chalk up to the NVIDIA RTX 4090 under the hood. Still, the Mac Studio's multithreaded Cinebench R23 score (a test that mostly measures CPU performance) was more than double the Blade 16's.

The new Mac Studio transcoded a 4K video file to 1080p using Handbrake in 21 seconds, three seconds faster than last year's M1 Ultra model. That same job took the Razer Blade 16, the fastest PC we've seen this year, 26 seconds to complete. Scale that saved time up to a feature length project, or encoding jobs you'll need to run several times a day, and the Mac Studio seems like a no-brainer upgrade for some creatives.

Years ago, some professionals would buy the Mac Pro for its sheer performance, while the internal expansion possibilities were more of an afterthought. The Mac Studio is a system made for them. And now, thanks to Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, external storage options are fast enough to deal with the demands of a video production shop.

The Mac Studio certainly won't leave you wanting when it comes to ports: On the rear, it features four USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB 3.2 Type A connections, 10Gbps Ethernet, full-sized HDMI and a headphone jack. There are also two USB-C ports on the front (USB 3 by default, Thunderbolt 4 on the M2 Ultra), alongside a full-sized SD card slot. Just like last year, video editors I've spoken with said they'd prefer a headphone jack on the front, but at least it's easy to get behind the Studio to plug things in. Given the user this machine is aimed at, it also would have been nice to get Thunderbolt 4 ports on the front for every configuration.

Physically, the Studio is no different than what we saw last year. It's a beautifully polished box that looks like two Mac minis stacked together. It’s far more prominent than that slim desktop, but for Apple devotees, that may be more of a feature than a bug. Now that it no longer seems like a stopgap solution for people eagerly waiting for an upgraded Mac Pro, the Mac Studio looks like the purest expression of what Apple wants a desktop to be in 2023. Why fiddle around with internal hardware when the package Apple delivers is so fully featured?

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

As I said in my review last year, the Mac Studio isn't meant for everyone: It's a system targeted at people who know their demands are lightyears beyond mainstream users. They won't balk at a $1,999 starting price, or even the $3,999 for the M2 Ultra model, if it means they'll be able to deliver projects faster. On the PC side, you've got alternatives like Intel's NUC Extreme small-form factor desktop, but that system has ballooned in size so much that you can't really compare it to the Mac Studio.

I've gone from being intrigued by the Mac Studio to truly impressed. It continues to blow PCs away when it comes to heavy-duty work, and it has so much connectivity I don't miss the lack of internal expansion. It's more than just the big Mac mini – it's a compact Mac Pro that many creatives can actually afford.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is already suing to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activsion Blizzard, but now it's reportedly taking steps to halt the deal before the July 18th deadline for the merger. A CNBCsource claims the FTC is poised to file for an injunction that would prevent the merger from closing as scheduled.

We've asked the FTC and Microsoft for comment. Microsoft tells CNBC the injunction will put the case in front of a federal judge sooner. In previous statements, Microsoft has downplayed the deal and claims that Activision Blizzard doesn't have "must have" games. It even suggests Sony has higher-quality exclusives. The FTC, however, notes that Activision is one of just a few giant game publishers that publish major titles across platforms.

The lawsuit is going before the FTC's own administrative law judge in August. That official will make a decision that can appeal to the Commission for a vote. If the agency votes against the merger, Microsoft can appeal to a federal court to challenge the outcome.

The reported injunction comes weeks after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority said it would block the $68.7 billion purchase. The regulator is concerned Microsoft may buy its way into a monopoly of the young cloud gaming space, giving it up to 70 percent market share. Microsoft has tried to assuage those fears by striking deals with game streaming providers to put titles on their services. The tech giant has also tried to address fears of a Call of Duty Xbox exclusive by promising multi-platform releases for a decade.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.