Much as Hyundai did yesterday, Kia has announced an electrification roadmap at its 2022 Investor Day, promising to have 14 fully electric models by 2027 and sales of 1.2 million EVs by 2030. It also revealed that its EV9 SUV, unveiled in concept form last November at the LA Auto Show, will be the first to use autonomous driving tech it calls "Automode." 

Kia's roadmap builds on its "Plan S" development strategy announced early in 2021 that included new branding and a plan to introduce of seven EVs by 2027. Now, the company plans to double that with 14 BEV (battery electric vehicle) models available by 2027 and total EV sales of 1.2 million by 2030. It also projects to sell 4 million vehicles annually by 2030, so EVs would make up just over a quarter of that — while automakers like Mercedes-Benz plan to only sell BEVs by 2030. 

The strategy is still ambitious, as it's starting with 160,000 BEV sales this year and plans to ramp that up by five times to 807,000 units in 2026 and 1.2 million by 2030. To hit those targets, Kia will introduce at least two new electric vehicles per year. A couple of those will be electric pickup trucks, including a "dedicated electric pickup truck and a strategic model for emerging markets," the company said. 

Kia

In the near term, Kia plans to launch its flagship electric vehicle, the EV9 SUV, by 2023. The concept version it teased last year had squared-off Range Rover-ish lines, a massive 27-inch display and a Tesla-like yoke instead of a steering wheel. Kia now says that it will be around 5 meters long, accelerate to 100 km/h (62 MPH) in five seconds, and travel 540 km (340 miles) on a charge — while giving you an extra 100 km of range with just six minutes of charging. 

The EV9 will also offer over the air (OTA) and FoD (feature on demand) services for the first time, allowing owners to easily update their vehicle's software. "In addition, it will be the first model to be equipped with Kia’s advanced AutoMode autonomous driving technology," it said. Automode will be "rapidly expanded" throughout its lineup after that.

What is Automode, you might ask? All we know so far is that it's "a range of autonomous driving technologies" that will include a "Highway Driving Pilot" feature that works by itself without driver intervention on highway sections. It will also be improved as the technology develops via wireless updates. It sounds like at least Level 3 self-driving, something still only available from a few automakers, so we'll have to see how that goes for Kia. 

In its press release, Kia offers more details about how and where it plans to sell EVs, PHEVs, and hybrid models around the world. However, it has already overhauled its plans substantially just over the past year, and is likely to do so again. Given the early success (2,126 units sold in February) and generally glowing reviews of the EV6, Kia has reason to be confident about future EV plans. 

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has reportedly approved a petition for another Amazon warehouse union election, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) has tweeted. If a vote goes ahead, the LDJ5 facility will be the second in Staten Island to hold a union election and the third in the US, according to The Verge. 

The ALU originally petitioned the NLRB to hold union elections for all facilities on Staten Island. However, it withdrew that and decided to focus on one warehouse at a time, subsequently receiving approval to hold an vote at the JFK8 facility starting on March 25th. It later petitioned for an election at LDJ5, which requires the NLRB to confirm that there's sufficient interest.

Amazon has acknowledged the NLRB decision, according to a screenshot of a note texted to employees by Amazon, tweeted by Vice's Lauren Kaori Gurley. "Today, March 2, the National Labor Relations Board notified us that it has found the ALU met the criteria to continue processing the ALU's petition to have an election at LDJ5," the message reads. Amazon and the NLRB have yet to officially respond, but if the report is accurate, the next step would be an NLRB hearing followed by a decision about a vote date.  

One Amazon union election has already been held at Amazon's Bessemer, Alabama facility, and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union union lost the vote by a count of 1,798 to 738. However, the NLRB determined that Amazon interfered with the election and ruled that a new vote could be held starting on February 4th. Counting is set to begin on March 28th.

Spotify has shut down its Moscow operations indefinitely in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reported Variety. The streaming platform had just opened a representative office in Moscow last month, after a new Russian law required foreign tech companies with an audience of over 500,000 users to establish an office in the nation by 2022. But the law is new enough that most of the companies impacted (a list that includes Meta, Twitter and Telegram) have yet to comply. So far, Spotify, TikTok and Apple have opened offices in Russia.

Users in Russia will still be able to access Spotify. “We think it’s critically important to try to keep our service operational in Russia to allow for the global flow of information,” according to the statement provided to Variety by a Spotify spokesperson.

Spotify will also yank RT and Sputnik News off its platform, both Kremlin-funded news outlets with a massive global audience. Critics say both outlets function as propaganda tools for the Russian government and their foreign policy interests. Canada and the EU have both banned Russian state programming from their airwaves in recent days, and both outlets are under investigation in the UK. 

But it's still pretty easy to view such Kremlin-backed outlets in the US. The National Association of Broadcasters has called for US broadcasters to stop airing RT, RT America and Sputnik News; so far only DirectTV and Roku has complied. Both Apple and Google have also removed apps from these outlets from their app stores. 

But most other platforms, including Meta, TikTok and YouTube, are merely demoting or downranking Russian state-backed channels in the United States, though they are banning them outright in the European Union. Meta has stopped recommending RT and Sputnik News channels in the feeds of Facebook Main and Instagram, but users can directly go to the pages themselves.

Did Facebook's college-focused Campus social network leave you feeling cold? You're not the only one. Consultant Matt Navarra and TechCrunch report parent company Meta is shutting down Facebook's Campus pilot project on March 10th. In a message to users, Facebook said it had learned the "best way" to help students was through college groups.

Facebook will delete Campus profiles, posts and other data after the cutoff date. You can download any data before then, however, and Facebook is suggesting related school groups to help ease the transition.

The Campus pilot launched in September 2020 as a partial throwback to the original student-focused Facebook. You needed a .edu address to sign up — in theory, this let the college crowd mingle without relatives and other outsiders poking in. It was only available from the "More" section of Facebook, though, and didn't get its own app. You might not have known Campus existed, in other words, and it wasn't clear this was a truly separate space.

The closure comes just days after Instagram said it would shut down its standalone IGTV app in mid-March, and reflects a long history of Meta brands pulling apps and services that don't pan out. Meta still appears content to take risks on products, and it won't hesitate to drop those products if they fail.

A group of state attorneys general is investigating TikTok. They're seeking information to determine if and how the service increases the risks of online harm to children. It's an expansion of a probe the AGs opened into Instagram in November concerning the effect of that app's on teens. Specifically, the prosecutors are looking into whether TikTok and Instagram put the public at risk and if they broke state consumer protection laws.

A bipartisan group of eight AGs from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont is leading the probe, as The Wall Street Journal reports. AGs from several other states have joined them.

“Today, attorneys general across the nation joined an investigation into TikTok for providing and promoting its social media platform to children and young adults while use is associated with physical and mental health harms,” the AGs said in a statement. "The investigation will look into the harms such usage causes to young users and what TikTok knew about those harms."

Among other things, the coalition will look into the ways TikTok tries to boost engagement among young users, including the "frequency of engagement" with the platform and how long kids spend using it. 

"We care deeply about building an experience that helps to protect and support the well-being of our community, and appreciate that the state attorneys general are focusing on the safety of younger users," a TikTok spokesperson told Engadget. "We look forward to providing information on the many safety and privacy protections we have for teens." 

The spokesperson noted that TikTok limits some features by age, offers parents tools and resources and builds the wellbeing of younger users into its policies. The Federal Trade Commission fined TikTok $5.7 million in 2019 over reported violations of child privacy rules.

The Instagram probe followed the publication of an investigation by The Journal based on leaked internal research from Instagram parent Meta. According to the report, the data suggested using Instagram was linked to an increased risk of mental and physical health harms to teens.

The prosecutors are investigating Meta "for providing and promoting the social media platform Instagram to children and young adults despite knowing that such use is associated with physical and mental health harms." Meta said at the time that the accusations were "false" and that AGs showed "a deep misunderstanding of the facts." Around that time, the company halted work on a version of Instagram for kids.

At the State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden urged Congress to "ban targeted advertising to children" and called on tech companies to "stop collecting personal data on our children." Last month, two bipartisan Senators introduced a bill that seeks to instruct the Federal Trade Commission to look into ways of reducing "the harm of algorithmic amplification and social media addiction."

Amazon is rethinking its retail ambitions after years of expansion. The company informedReuters it was closing all 68 of its physical bookstores, pop-up locations and 4-star shops in the US and UK. The company maintained in a statement to the New York Times that in-person retail was still important and that it would focus on its cashierless Just Walk Out tech, its grocery stores and its recently announced Los Angeles clothing store.

Closure dates will vary depending on the store. Workers at affected locations may receive jobs at nearby Amazon shops, the company said.

The company opened its first physical bookstore in November 2015, and its first 4-star outlet in September 2018. Both represented experiments in combining Amazon's online shopping data with the retail world — the in-store selection reflected what was popular or likely to sell. It's not certain how well they fared in practice, but it's safe to say they weren't as disruptive as Amazon's internet-based book sales.

Not that Amazon is worried. The company is still opening more cashier-free Go stores, and third parties like Starbucks and Sainsbury's are testing Just Walk Out. It also has plenty of Whole Foods locations, and in 2020 opened its first Amazon Fresh grocery store. This is more of a shift in strategy than a retreat, even if it suggests some of Amazon's initiatives are more successful than others.

Twitter is reportedly working on a podcasts tab. The feature was unearthed by developer Jane Manchun Wong who shared a screenshot of the new UI element on Wednesday. Based on the image, you’ll access the tab from the bottom of Twitter’s mobile interface. What’s interesting about the screenshot is that there’s no dedicated tab for Spaces, which is something that exists in the current iteration of the app.

It’s hard to imagine Twitter pivoting away from live audio in such a way, particularly after investing so much into the format. As such, we wouldn’t read too much into the screenshot just yet. That said, we’ve reached out to Twitter to see if the company has anything to say about the matter. If the company is about to add a podcasts tab, it wouldn’t be surprising. Podcasts have become big business in recent years, particularly for companies like Spotify that have invested heavily in original content. 

After nearly two years working from home, Google employees in the Bay Area and several other cities will be back at the office on April 4th. The announcement came in an email from John Casey, Google’s vice president of global benefits, reported CNBC. Casey cited the steady drop in COVID-19 cases in the Bay Area, advances in treatment and improved safety measures as reasons behind the return’s timing. Google, along with much of Silicon Valley, initially planned a January return-to-work date, but was forced to delay it due to the Omicron surge. Since then, the company has allowed workers to voluntarily return to its Mountain View and San Francisco offices if they agree to wear a mask and are fully vaccinated.

Google is taking a slow approach to transitioning its entire workforce back to the office. Last year CEO Sundar Pichai laid out a "hybrid work" plan, with most employees having the option to work remotely for at least part of the week. We'll see this plan in action in April, with most Google employees still working from home two days a week. Employees can work at the office more often if they choose, or file for an extension of their work-from-home arrangement if they’re not ready to return. 

Springtime seems to be when much of Big Tech is eyeing a return to campus. Microsoft employees returned to work at the Redmond, Washington headquarters this week, but with the expectation that most employees will spend about 50 percent of their time working remotely. Most Meta employees will be returning to the office on March 28th. Twitter employees can opt to work remotely forever, but has allowed employees access to their San Francisco and New York City offices if they show proof of vaccination.

President Joe Biden called for the “vast majority” of federal employees to return to the office in his State of the Union Speech on Tuesday. So it’s likely we’ll see even more companies announce their re-opening dates soon, especially if cases continue to decline and cities drop mask mandates.

Apple's Beats brand is borrowing a page from the apparel industry: it's resurrecting a product to appeal to gotta-have-it collectors. Beats has partnered with the street fashion label Stüssy on a limited edition revival of the recently discontinued Pill+ speaker known simply as Stüssy and Beats By Dr.Dre. The Bluetooth device is exactly the same as the one your friend had circa 2015, just with bone artwork on the grille and Stüssy's signature logo on the back — though that may be enough if you're looking for a technological conversation starter.

The Pill+ was Beats' first speaker under Apple, and it clearly predated the conveniences you'd come to expect from AirPods or later Beats products. Its most cutting edge features were a DJ mode for parties and a stereo pairing with another Pill+ unit. The speaker was discontinued in January this year. You're buying this for the exclusivity and Beats' signature boomy sound, not for clever tricks or raw fidelity.

The Stüssy and Beats By Dr.Dre speaker will be available to order through Stüssy's website for $185 starting March 4th at 1PM Eastern, and should arrive in April. That's less than the original $230. You'll want to act quickly, though. The companies haven't said how many special-run speakers will be available, and this is the last time you'll get to buy any Pill+ brand new (outside of the occasional stray in a store, at least). Think of this as a last gasp rather than a change of heart.

After a week of negotiations in Nairobi, the United Nations has agreed to start working on a first-ever global plastic pollution treaty, Reuters reports. It's not projected to be completed until 2024, but according to the UN it could end up being as important as the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the most significant global effort to curb climate change yet. In 2019, the organization found that humanity is damaging nature at an "unprecedented" rate, with plastic pollution growing by more than ten times since 1980. Heck, we've even found microplastics in the Arctic, one of the most remote areas on Earth.

The real question, of course, is how UN members plan to address the scourge of plastics. As the New York Times reports, the agreement would involve coming up with legally binding measures to clean up plastic waste. But crucially, it would also involve limiting plastic production, a move that's certain to face industry pushback.  

As you'd expect, different countries also have different priorities. While major plastic producers like the US and Japan objected to language in the agreement, developing nations stressed the need for more involvement. In particular, the agreement highlighted the importance of waste pickers, who work long hours sorting trash, all the while breathing in toxic fumes.