Bulletin, Meta's foray into the newsletter subscription space, is going away in early 2023, as The New York Times first reported. The company confirmed to Engadget that it will pay out all Bulletin writer contracts. Writers can keep earning subscription revenue until the service shutters, and take their email lists and content archives to other platforms if they wish.

“Bulletin has allowed us to learn about the relationship between Creators and their audiences and how to better support them in building their community on Facebook," a Meta spokesperson told Engadget. "While this off-platform product itself is ending, we remain committed to supporting these and other Creators’ success and growth on our platform.”

Meta launched the Bulletin platform in June 2021 amid a boom in newsletter subscription services driven by the likes of Substack. Closing down Bulletin in early 2023 means it will have lasted a little over 18 months.

The company brought in prominent figures including Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Malcolm Gladwell and Queer Eye's Tan France to use Bulletin, but it evidently wasn't as successful as Meta hoped. The Times notes that some of the writers have six-figure contracts.

Meta will shift resources from Bulletin into Facebook, with the aim of making the latter more of a place where people can discover engaging content. It plans to take what it learned from Bulletin and apply that to its other creator-focused products.

Recent reports have suggested that Meta is restructuring parts of the company as part of an effort to focus on core products and cut costs. The company has also reportedly warned staff about possible layoffs. Many other tech companies are feeling the sting of an economic slowdown. Substack, which just released an Android version of its app, laid off 14 percent of staff in June.

Motive and EA have finally shared a gameplay trailer for their long-expectedDead Space remake. To an extent, the clip shows what you'd expect. It's a familiar retelling of Isaac Clarke's horror-filled mission to the mining ship USG Ishimura, but with much-improved visuals and sounds that make better use of modern hardware. You're still severing the limbs of Necromorphs and floating through zero-gravity segments, just with eerie volumetric lighting and more realistic, context-sensitive sounds.

It's not quite a rehash, thankfully. Isaac is no longer silent like he was in the 2008 original, and there's a better feel for a story that involves the battle for sanity and discovering the fate of Isaac's girlfriend Nicole. To some extent, the remake is an opportunity to refine Dead Space rather than simply profiting from a well-known name.

The revived Dead Space will be released January 27th, 2023 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. While it isn't a brand new game like fans might want, this preview suggests Motive is at least delivering what you'd expect from a remake: a modernization of graphics and gameplay that's still true to the experience that drew people in the first time around.

Amazon exploiting tech to wring every last ounce of productivity from its workforce, Clearview AI harvesting our facial features from social media and public surveillance footage, school proctoring software invading our children's rooms, Facebook's whole "accused of contributing to genocide" thing — the same machine learning/AI and automation technologies that have brought us the wonders of the modern world have also wrought upon us the horrors of the modern world. And, by golly, the Biden Administration isn't going to stand for it. 

On Tuesday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released its long-awaited Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights (BoR). The document will, "help guide the design, development, and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated systems so that they protect the rights of the American public," per a White House press release.

As such, the BoR will advocate for five principles: Safe and Effective Systems, Algorithmic Discrimination Protections, Data Privacy, Notice and Explanation, and Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback. "Simply put, systems should work, they shouldn't discriminate, they shouldn't use data indiscriminately," BoR co-writer Suresh Venkatasubramanian, wrote in a tweet thread Tuesday. "They should be visible and easy to understand, and they shouldn't eliminate human interlocutors."

"There were thousands of edits and comments that made the document strong, rich, and detailed," Venkatasubramanian continued. "The AI Bill of Rights reflects, as befits the title, a consensus, broad, and deep American vision of how to govern the automated technologies that impact our lives." 

“Automated technologies are driving remarkable innovations and shaping important decisions that impact people’s rights, opportunities, and access. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights is for everyone who interacts daily with these powerful technologies — and every person whose life has been altered by unaccountable algorithms,” said Office of Science and Technology Policy Deputy Director for Science and Society Dr. Alondra Nelson. “The practices laid out in the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights aren’t just aspirational; they are achievable and urgently necessary to build technologies and a society that works for all of us.”

The Administration has spent more than a year developing the BoR to its current state, including extensive public outreach through panel discussions, public listening sessions, and meetings with everyone from workers and activists to CEOs and entrepreneurs. In addition to the bill itself, the OSTP has also released a companion work, From Principles to Practice, which details concrete steps for both government and NGO entities, public and private companies alike, take to ensure they are operating within the scope and spirit of the document. 

"Effectively implementing these processes require the cooperation of and collaboration among industry, civil society, researchers, policymakers, technologists, and the public," the BoR reads. Lol, no, of course there aren't any actual enforcement mechanisms.

More than 100 Amazon employees conducted a work stoppage for around three hours after a fire broke out at a fulfillment center on Staten Island, New York. Night shift workers were moved to a break room as firefighters tackled a dumpster fire on a shipping dock next to the JFK8 warehouse. No one was injured, according to the New York City Fire Department, which was called to the scene at around 4PM ET on Monday.

Amazon Labor Union (ALU) president Chris Smalls said around 500 employees declined to return to work. Amazon put the figure at 100 and said another 1,000 kept working. The workers who downed tools occupied the human resources office and demanded paid time off for the night, as Motherboard reports.

“All employees were safely evacuated, and day shift employees were sent home with pay,” Amazon spokesperson Paul Flaningan told Gothamist. “The FDNY certified the building is safe and at that point we asked all night shift employees to report to their regularly scheduled shift. While the vast majority of employees reported to their workstations, a small group refused to return to work and remained in the building without permission."

Workers at the warehouse voted to form a union earlier this year. Amazon has contested the results of the election. Last month, a hearing officer recommended that the National Labor Relations Board should reject Amazon's claims that the vote was invalid and authorize the union. Pending further appeals, Amazon has not started union contract negotiations.

Meanwhile, workers at another Amazon warehouse are seeking to unionize with the ALU. An election will be held at a fulfillment center outside of Albany later this month. Amid unionization efforts across the company, Amazon this week announced it will increase hourly workers' pay.

CD Projekt Red may be much busier than you expect. The developer has shared a long-term roadmap that elaborates and expands on its plans. To start, a project codenamed "Orion" is effectively a sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 that will "further develop the potential" of the sci-fi franchise. It's in development by CDPR's teams in Boston and Vancouver.

And while it's no secret that there's a new Unreal Engine 5-based The Witcher game in the works (it entered pre-production this spring), it's really just the start of a new trilogy. You might not have to wait long to see the story reach its conclusion, either. CDPR hopes to release all three games within a six-year span, with the first (codenamed "Polaris") serving as a technology foundation for the remaining two.

Other titles include "Sirius," a The Witcher spinoff with solo and multiplayer elements aimed at a "broader audience." It's developed by The Flame and the Flood studio The Molasses Flood. Another project, "Canis Majoris," is a "full-fledged" Witcher universe game built by an outside developer using UE5. And no, CDPR won't be stuck making Cyberpunk and Witcher games for all eternity. "Hadar" will be new, from-scratch universe. It's still in the extremely early stages of development (conceptual work only began in 2021), so it's likely years away.

Regardless of what you play, you should expect online gameplay to become a staple feature. In its roadmap presentation, CDPR said "most" of its new games will have a multiplayer component. The company was shy on what this will entail.

CDPR isn't shy about the reasons for the expansion. The wider catalog and cooperation with outside developers will help it "reach new consumers" while maintaining three lasting franchises. If all goes well, a producer best known for rare, single player-focused releases will offer a steady stream of games that help it become more of a household name akin to Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft — in size, if hopefully not in quality.

Elon Musk wants to own Twitter after all. The Tesla CEO has decided he wants to go ahead with the deal he originally struck to buy the social media company for $54.20 a share, Bloomberg reports.

News of the proposal comes less than weeks before the two sides were set to go to trial in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over Musk’s attempt to get out of that deal. He has cited concerns about the number of spam and bot accounts on Twitter, and later added allegations from the company’s former head of security turned whistleblower to his suit.

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But CNBC reported that trading of Twitter's shares was halted following the report. 

Developing…

After investigating an unfair labor practice charge against Activision Blizzard, the National Labor Relations Board found that the company withheld raises from quality assurance workers at Call of Duty support studio Raven Software. The agency attributed this withholding to the workers' union activity.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) filed a complaint on behalf of the workers in June. It accused Activision Blizzard of retaliating against those who were attempting to unionize in a number of ways, including by laying some off and dismantling the studio's QA department by moving workers to separate teams. The CWA also said that Activision Blizzard leadership solicited grievances, which the NLRB concurred with. The agency is still looking into some aspects of the original complaint, as The Washington Post notes.

The CWA filed an amended version of the complaint on Monday. It claimed that Activision Blizzard is continuing to violate labor laws by keeping QA workers at the studio separated without their own department.

In April, Activision Blizzard gave 1,100 QA testers full-time jobs and higher base pay. However, it said QA workers at Raven were not eligible for pay bumps “due to legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act.” At the time, Raven QA workers were working toward a union election. They voted to unionize in May. Contract negotiations between Activision Blizzard and the Game Workers Alliance (the Raven QA workers' union) are ongoing.

“Despite their best efforts, Activision’s constant attempts to undermine its workers’ and impede our union election have failed," CWA and the Game Workers Alliance told Engadget in a statement. "We’re glad the NLRB recognized that Activision acted illegally when they unequally enforced policies by withholding company-wide benefits and wage increase from Raven workers for organizing. We want the company to bargain a fair contract in good faith and to move past all of the cheap — and illegal — tricks they tried to pull to prevent us from forming our union."

"Due to legal obligations under the [National Labor Relations Act] requiring employers not to grant wage increases while an election was pending, we could not institute new pay initiatives at Raven because they would be brand new kinds of compensation changes, which had not been planned beforehand," Activision Blizzard spokesperson Rich George told The Washington Post. "This rule that employers should not grant these kinds of wage increases has been the law for many years.”

After multiple delays, the Matter smart home standard has become a reality. The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) has released the Matter 1.0 specification and launched a product certification program. Device makers are now clear to adopt the technology, which aims to eliminate the compatibility and connection headaches that sometimes plague existing hardware. You can hopefully focus more on using your connected home than setting it up, to put it another way.

The tech relies on a combination of WiFi, Bluetooth LE and Thread's smart home-oriented mesh networking. Ideally, it offers a combination of fast, ubiquitous connections with a low-power, "self-healing" grid that becomes more reliable as it expands. Matter also promises tighter security, and will work with voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri.

It may take a while for Matter devices to reach stores in earnest. However, many major tech companies are already backing the standard, including Amazon, Apple, Google, LG, Samsung (via SmartThings) and Signify (Philips Hue). Some will be quicker than others. Google has already announced a new Nest WiFi Pro router and revamped Home app that will support the technology from the outset.

The 1.0 spec isn't guaranteed to solve all problems, even after several years of development. The CSA made clear this is an "initial release." Nonetheless, it may take some of the pain out of shopping for smart home products like light bulbs and doorbells. Instead of buying into a specific ecosystem, you can make a reasonable assumption that any Matter-capable device will work — you can concentrate on buying what's best for your needs.

In addition to launching the 12T smartphone series today, Xiaomi also announced that its Robot Vacuum X10+ — which debuted in China back in April — is now headed to Europe. This is the company's most versatile robot vacuum to date: Not only can it vacuum with 4,000Pa suction and mop with pressurized dual rotating pads, but with its base station, it can automatically empty its trash, refill its water tank, wash its mops and dry them with heat as well. All told, the robot vacuum itself should require little maintenance; you'll just need to refill the base station's water reservoir and empty its waste water tank and dust bin from time to time.

This isn't the first time Xiaomi released a robot vacuum with both mop-cleaning and mop-drying features; it did so for the Chinese market almost a year ago. With other models, you'd have to detach and wash the mop yourself which, let's be honest, isn't the most pleasant job in the world. Even if you think the mop looks fine after each run, chances are it would eventually become smelly due to the moisture encouraging fungal growth. That's obviously not good.

Xiaomi

The X10+ solves this problem with its multi-functional base station. When docked, the two mops will be cleaned by rotating wet brushes underneath, followed by a two-hour, low-heat drying session. Basically, you'll likely never have to touch the mops until you need to replace them due to wear and tear. Additionally, the X10+ can detect carpets using its ultrasonic sensors, at which point it'll automatically lift its mops.

Like its predecessors, the X10+ uses LDS (laser distance sensor) for indoor mapping and navigation. It's also equipped with Xiaomi's very own "S-Cross AI" system — some software trick combined with the machine's dual-line laser and RGB camera — to recognize the types of objects ahead, in order to estimate the suitable clearance distance for each of them. Say you have a weighing scale in your living room — the X10+ will keep a distance of 2cm to 4cm from it just in case. As for general furniture pieces like coffee table or couch, the robot can go right up to them to perform its usual tasks. For those who are concerned about adding yet another camera to their private space, Xiaomi applied for a TÜV Rheinland Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection Standard Certificate for its X10+.

The Xiaomi Robot Vacuum X10+ will be available across Europe starting at 899 euros (about $900). Compared to the $1,099 Roomba Combo j7+ which is also shipping today, Xiaomi certainly has a price advantage, especially considering that barely of the competition is offering both self-cleaning and self-drying features on their mopping robots, let alone combining these with automatic dust bin emptying.

Gatorade has designed a smart water bottle to help you determine and maintain your baseline hydration level and monitor your post-workout recovery. A ring of LEDs that runs around the Smart Gx Bottle's cap should allow you to monitor you daily hydration, and gently nudge you to drink more when necessary. You can recharge the bottle using a USB cable. A Gatorade spokesperson told Engadget the bottle is dishwasher safe, but the cap is not. 

Naturally, your hydration levels can be tracked through Gatorade's iOS-only Gx App, which features nutrition and training programs as well as recovery recommendations. As for what happens when you drink water from another source and how the app will track that, Gatorade says that's "on the roadmap for launch."

Gatorade

Meanwhile, Gatorade's Sweat Patch, which the company debuted last year, is a single-use wearable that can help you create a "sweat profile" in the app and help track your perspiration. You'll need to use the Sweat Patch to get a hydration report for the Smart Gx Bottle. Alternatively, you can weigh yourself before and after your workout.

To that end, Gatorade sells pods that can be mixed with water to help replenish electrolytes and carbohydrates. They're compatible with the Smart Gx Bottle and regular Gx Bottle, each of which has a piercing mechanism for the pods. In addition, the company offering gummies that it claims can help with recovery and boosting your immune system.

Smart water bottles that can track hydration levels have been aroundfor years, but Gatorade is stepping into the space as a well-known brand. Folks might be more inclined to try one out from a company whose products they've used for years than one that started life as a crowdfunding project.

Engadget Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low has been checking out the Smart Gx Bottle using pre-release software. We'll need to test it out a bit longer to determine how effective it is in tracking hydration levels. It's similar to Gatorade's other bottles in terms of squeezability. However, Cherlynn found that the cap leaks, which isn't a great look. Also, in case you're wondering, Cherlynn says the recovery gummies taste better than expected.

The Smart Gx Bottle is available from Gatorade's website starting today. It costs $70. Gatorade will toss in a Sweat Patch and a pack of four pods of your choice at no extra cost. In case you're interested in the gummies, those will run you $26 for one batch or $46.80 for a bundle.