When California’s fair employment agency sued Activision Blizzard, one of the largest video game studios in the world, on July 20th, it wasn't surprising to hear the allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the company. It wasn't a shock to read about male executives groping their female colleagues, or loudly joking about rape in the office, or completely ignoring women for promotions. What was surprising was that California wanted to investigate Activision Blizzard at all, considering these issues have seemingly been present since its founding in 1979.

Activision Blizzard is a multibillion-dollar publisher with 9,500 employees and a roster of legendary franchises, including Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft. On July 20th, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging executives had fostered an environment of misogyny and frat-boy rule for years, violating equal pay laws and labor codes along the way. This is about more than dirty jokes in the break room — the lawsuit highlights clear disparities in hiring, compensation and professional growth between men and women at Activision Blizzard, and it paints a picture of pervasive sexism and outright abuse in the workplace.

Here’s a rundown of some of the allegations:

• Just 20 percent of all Activision Blizzard employees are women.

• Top leadership roles are filled solely by white men.

• Across the company, women are paid less, promoted slower and fired faster than men.

• HR and executives fail to take complaints of harassment seriously.

• Women of color in particular are micromanaged and overlooked for promotions.

• A pervasive frat-boy culture encourages behavior like “cube crawls,” where male employees grope and sexually harass female co-workers at their desks.

It’s been a few weeks since the lawsuit was filed, and employees, executives and players have all had a chance to respond. Meanwhile, additional reports of longstanding harassment and sexism at Activision Blizzard have continued to roll out, including photos and stories of the “Cosby Suite,” which was specifically named in the filing. According to the lawsuit, this was a hotel room where male employees would gather to harass women at company events, named after the rapist Bill Cosby. 

Days after the filing, Kotaku published photos of the supposed Cosby Suite, showing male Activision Blizzard developers posing on a bed with a framed photo of Bill Cosby at BlizzCon 2013. Screenshots of conversations among the developers discussed gathering “hot chixx for the Coz” and other insulting, immature things (especially when you remember these are middle-aged men, not middle-schoolers).

One of the only executives actually named in the suit was Blizzard head J. Allen Brack, and it alleges he routinely ignored systemic harassment and failed to punish abusers. Brack called the allegations “extremely troubling,” but this line was thrown back in his face on Twitter when independent developer Nels Anderson compared it to a video out of BlizzCon 2010, featuring Brack on the far left. 

In the video, a young woman asks the panel of World of Warcraft developers, all six of whom are white men, whether they'll ever create a female character that doesn't look like she just stepped out of a Victoria's Secret catalog. The panelists laugh and one responds, "Which catalog would you like them to step out of?" They proceed to essentially dismiss her question. At the end of the exchange, Brack piles on and makes a joke about one of the new characters coming from a sexy cow catalog.

On August 3rd, just two weeks after California filed its lawsuit, Brack stepped down from his role as the president of Blizzard. In his place will be GM Mike Ybarra and executive development VP Jen Oneal. Oneal will be the first woman in a president role since Activision’s founding in 1979; the lawsuit notes that there has never been a non-white president or CEO of Activision Blizzard.

Activision Blizzard’s initial response to the lawsuit was tragic, with one leader calling the allegations meritless and distorted. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who regularly gets into fights with shareholders over the ridiculous fortune he’s amassed, published his own response to the lawsuit, where he essentially promised to listen better. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t alleviate many employees’ concerns. A petition in support of the lawsuit ended up gathering more than 2,000 employee signatures, and workers organized a walk-out just eight days after the filing, calling for systemic change at the studio.

Shareholders weren't bolstered by Kotick's response, either. Investors filed an additional class-action lawsuit against Activision Blizzard on August 3rd, alleging the company failed to raise potential regulatory issues stemming from its discriminatory culture. Blizzard's head of HR, Jesse Meschuk, also left the company in the weeks following the initial lawsuit.

Meanwhile, other major game developers have rallied behind the suit, and former Activision Blizzard leaders have shared their support for employees, apologizing for their parts in sustaining a toxic company culture.

None of this is new. As evidenced by the photos, videos, stats and personal stories flowing out of Activision Blizzard, the company has operated on a bro-first basis for decades, and honestly, it’s been sustained by an industry that largely functions the same way.

In 2019, a wave of accusations against prominent male developers crashed over the industry, and AAA studios like Ubisoft and Riot Games made headlines for fostering toxic workplace environments. California is currently suing Riot over allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in hiring and pay practices.

But even that’s not new. Women, non-binary people and marginalized folks in the video game industry have been speaking up about systemic harassment and discrimination for literal decades. Sexism is apparent in the hiring and pay habits of many major studios, and it’s also clear in the games themselves, which feature an overabundance of straight, white, male protagonists.

What is surprising, this time around, is that the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard kind of came out of nowhere. It took a blockbuster media report to make California sue Riot in 2020, but the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard appeared on its own, after years of quiet investigation by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. If sexism is systemic in the video game industry, it feels like the system is finally fighting back.

Paramount+ is finally expanding into Europe — with a little help. ViacomCBS has struck a deal with Sky to launch Paramount+ in the UK, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Switzerland sometime in 2022. The pact will make the streaming TV service available on Sky platforms in return for Sky extending carriage of ViacomCBS pay TV channels like Comedy Central.

You'll have the option of both a direct subscription to Paramount+ as well as bundles. Sky Cinema subscribers will get Paramount+ at no extra charge, while other Sky customers will have to add it to their accounts.

ViacomCBS didn't provide pricing or local content differences, although it's notable that the broadcaster already has deals with rivals to carry streaming shows in the area. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have rights to carry Star Trek: Discovery, Picard and Lower Decks in the UK, for instance.

Paramount+ is already available in the Americas, Australia, Hungary, Russia and the Middle East. This could be the most significant expansion to date, though. Europe is a major market for streaming, and Sky's influence in the region could put the service in front of people who wouldn't otherwise have considered it. This won't bring Paramount+ to the level of heavyweights like Netflix or Prime Video, but it could help competition against narrowly focused rivals like HBO Max.

Families who are still largely working and studying at home might find that their WiFi network is feeling the strain, especially if someone's setup is far away from the router. If you're on the lookout for an upgrade, it may be worth considering the Google WiFi mesh system. A three-pack of nodes currently costs $149 on Amazon. That's the lowest price we've seen to date on the most recent model, which debuted in October at a price of $199 for the three-pack.

Buy Google WiFi (three-pack) at Amazon - $149

The idea behind a mesh system is that, after you set up the nodes around your home, they can work together to provide a stronger WiFi network across a larger area than many single routers are capable of. Google WiFi supports speeds of up to 1.2 Gbps, the company says. It claims a single point can support multiple simultaneous 4K video streams, though the size of your home, building materials and layout can impact signal strength.

The system uses WPA3 encryption and dual-band connectivity, as well as security updates and parental controls. You can manage the network using the Google Home app.

It's worth noting Google WiFi isn't quite as fast as the Nest WiFi system. Each node can cover up to 1,500 square feet, compared with 2,200 square feet for the Nest WiFi router and 1,600 square feet for each additional point. The latter also has a built-in Google Assistant smart speaker. A Nest WiFi three-pack costs $350, though. If you're in the market for a solid mesh system that won't break the bank, Google WiFi might do the trick.

President Biden is throwing more of his weight behind electric cars. Biden is signing an Executive Order that sets a target for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to have some form of zero-emissions driving, whether it's a pure EV, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The move is meant to not only promote clean transportation and limit climate change, but help the US "outcompete" a Chinese car industry that's quickly shifting toward electrified vehicles.

In sync with the order, the EPA and NHTSA will outline how they plan to undo the Trump administration's rollbacks of emissions and fuel efficiency standards. The two agencies will collaborate using standards built on the "momentum" from an agreement between California and automakers BMW, Ford, Honda, Volvo and VW. The EPA's proposed rules would take effect in the 2023 model year, while the NHTSA's would arrive in the 2024 model year. The team-up would have the standards mesh until model year 2026.

The Biden administration has rallied support from domestic brands for the effort. Ford, GM and Stellantis have declared a "shared aspiration" to meet the 2030 target and otherwise support Biden's vehicle electrification policies.

It's a significant goal. EVs have represented about 2 percent of US car sales for the past three years, according to the International Energy Agency and Pew Research. While the pandemic might have played a role in limiting 2020 sales, meeting the 2030 target would fundamentally transform the US car market, not to mention the charging infrastructure needed to support it.

However, it might drag behind some states, not to mention car makers. California and Massachusetts will ban all sales of new gas-based cars by 2035. GM also plans to exclusively sell EVs by that year, while Ford will go completely electric in Europe by 2030. Brands like Volvo and Stellantis' Fiat badge have also committed to full electrification by 2030. However ambitious the Biden plan might be, it could seem relatively modest in some respects.

Google is refreshing its Nest lineup with three new products and a refresh for the wired indoor Nest Cam. Among the newcomers are Google’s first battery-powered Nest Cam and Doorbell, as a recent leak indicated. You’ll be able to install them just about anywhere around your home, and connect them to a wired power source, if you prefer.

The battery life depends on how many recorded events the devices detect and factors like the temperature and settings. Google says the Doorbell’s battery will run for up to six months on a single charge, while the Nest Cam can run for up to seven months before you need to juice it up. You can recharge the Doorbell over USB-C, and the camera using an included USB-A adaptor.

Google

The Doorbell captures video at a resolution of 989 x 1280 pixels at up to 30 frames per second. It has a 6x digital zoom, 145-degree diagonal field of view and can see up to 10 feet away in the dark thanks to its night vision capabilities. It also has a 3:4 field of view so you can get a full head-to-toe look at whoever shows up at your door.

As for the Nest Cam, it can capture video in 1080p at up to 30 fps. The device has a 130-degree diagonal field of view, 6x digital zoom and night vision that can see objects up to 20 feet away. It has an IP54 rating for weather resistance too. As well as mounting it outside, you can set up the camera indoors.

Google

Both products, which are designed with recycled materials, offer up to three hours of event video history. You can increase that with a Nest Aware subscription. Like some other Nest cameras, the battery-powered Nest Cam offers around-the-clock video recording with a Nest Aware Plus subscription, though you'll need to hook it up to a continuous power source.

In addition, the company is offering a Nest Cam with an integrated floodlight for the first time. One thing that all four devices have in common is that they're designed to only alert you to important events. They all have on-device machine learning capabilities to recognize and alert you to people, animals and vehicles. The Doorbell can detect and recognize packages placed as close as eight inches to your door. Google says don't need a subscription to use these features and that it trained the machine learning model on 40 million images to account for a variety of environments and lighting conditions.

Google

The devices also offer a familiar-face detection feature for Nest Aware subscribers. You can decide who they're able to recognize. 

Meanwhile, the on-device processing capabilities allow the Doorbell and cameras to store up to an hour of video events locally if the power or Wi-Fi go out. That's approximately a week's worth of events depending on activity levels around your home. When everything's up and running again, they'll upload those events to the cloud. 

As you’d expect, the cameras and Doorbell are work with the Google Home app and other Google products, such as Nest displays. Google also says Nest camera data is encrypted.

The battery-powered Nest Cam and Doorbell (which each cost $180) are available to pre-order today in 18 countries, including the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. They'll be available in those countries on August 24th, in Japan two days later and in Mexico later this year. The Nest Cam with floodlight ($280) and second-gen wired Nest Cam ($100) are coming soon.

Walter Isaacson, the author behind the 2011 Steve Jobs biography published shortly after his death, is currently writing Elon Musk's life story. Fox Business reported back in June that the famous writer was in talks with Musk about the possibility of writing a book on him. The author was reportedly yet to make a decision back then, but now Musk has confirmed on Twitter than Isaacson is writing his biography covering his work on Tesla, SpaceX and his "general goings on."

As CNET notes, there's already an official published biography on the entrepreneur entitled Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future. It was written by Ashlee Vance and was published in 2015. Since then, though, Tesla has launched the Model 3, which became the world's best-selling electric car. It was also only later in 2015 that SpaceX first achieved the successful landing and recovery of a rocket's first stage. In 2017, the private space company made history when it successfully relaunched its reusable Falcon 9 rocket for the first time. Four years later, SpaceX launched four astronauts to the ISS on a Dragon capsule used in a previous mission on top of a reused Falcon 9 booster.

Isaacson's Jobs biography was adapted by Aaron Sorkin into a film starring Michael Fassbender and directed by Danny Boyle. He also wrote biographies on Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and American biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who's known for her work in CRISPR gene editing. While he didn't respond to Musk's announcement, he has been retweeting SpaceX-related content since June.

After ITV News found that Amazon in the UK was destroying brand new returned stock rather than re-selling it, the company has announced changes in how it deals with returned and unsold products. In a statement, the Amazon says that it is launching two programs for businesses that use the retail giant’s infrastructure. These programs: FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) Grade and Resell, as well as FBA Liquidations, will enable third party sellers to list returned stock on their product pages.

With the former, when a product is returned to Amazon, the company will evaluate its condition and then re-list it as as used product. Amazon added that sellers can set the price based on the grades Amazon hands out, and can control much of the process themselves. FBA Liquidations, meanwhile, lets sellers ship returned or overstocked product to wholesalers straight from Amazon’s logistics depots. They can connect with Amazon’s bulk resale partners and try to, in the words of the company's corporate parlance, “recover a portion of their inventory cost.”

The announcement comes shortly after the controversial report from ITV News, which claimed that truckloads of brand new products were marked for destruction. One anonymous tipster told reporters at the time that the process did not spare even premium products like MacBook units and, despite what’s going on right now, sealed COVID face masks. As The Hill explained, the consequences of that report have raised hackles in the UK, with Labour MPs demanding an explanation for the evidence presented. At the time, Amazon said that “no items are sent to landfill,” but as a last resort, some are sent to “energy recovery.”

Libby Johnson McKee, director of Amazon Returns, ReCommerce and Sustainability, said that the new initiatives are one example of how Amazon is trying to "ensure that products sold on Amazon […] go to good use and don't become waste.” McKee added that the policies will help reduce costs and help companies who use Amazon's fulfillment platform will be able to grow their businesses. FBA Grade and Resell is available in the UK now, with other European nations coming online across next year. FBA Liquidations, meanwhile, is available in the US and other European nations, but is coming to the UK in August. 

For years, Samsung’s Galaxy Note was the centerpiece of the company’s summer phone launches, but times have changed. There’s no new Note this year, and Samsung will instead focus on the new Galaxy Z Flip and Fold, as well as a stylus to work with these devices. We’ll also see a new flagship wearable (and a new OS to go with it) and a new pair of true wireless stereo earbuds. At least, that’s what the rumor mill says, so peer through our latest guide on what’s going to make its debut next week.

— Dan Cooper

Sony might have shown off its next-gen VR headset already

Optional VR support for all major PS5 games?

On Tuesday, Sony reportedly revealed more specifics about the headset at a developer's summit, teasing details beyond performance, resolution and streamlined cabling.

Apparently codenamed next-gen VR (NGVR), it may feature controllers with capacitive touch sensors that sense the distance to your fingers — like the sensor on Nintendo’s JoyCon — but far more sophisticated. The headset will apparently offer a bigger 110-degree view, with flexible scaling resolution and tapping eye-tracking to improve resolution where you're looking.

Sony told developers it's planning optional VR support for all AAA releases, so you could play them either in VR or on your TV, although it’s not clear whether this would mean a first-person perspective, like Resident Evil 7 or Hitman, or simply a headset-based view of what you’d see on your TV. Continue Reading.

Heatworks opens pre-orders for its plumbing-free countertop dishwasher

The company is offering a $100 discount for early birds.

Heatworks

Heatworks’ Tetra tabletop dishwasher was initially unveiled in the before times, back at CES 2018, and it’s taken until now for the machine to arrive on the market. Its (not-so) novel concept is to do your dishes from your kitchen counter, no need for plumbing. Just fill its onboard water tank, add a custom detergent cartridge and set it going, with the company saying it uses a lot less water and energy than washing dishes.

Unfortunately, its small size means you’ll only be able to clean three place settings’ worth of crockery per cycle, but if your home can’t accommodate a full-size unit, this one may be worth a look. Continue Reading.

Facebook disables accounts of NYU team looking into political ad targeting

Researchers say they examined ‘systemic flaws’ in how Facebook’s ad library worked.

Sundry Photography via Getty Images

Facebook, once again, finds itself in deep waters after shutting down accounts used by a team of NYU researchers looking into political advertising. The project was designed to examine, by trawling through the company’s extensive ad libraries, how political advertisers target individual users. The social network said it had no choice but to lock the team out after it had violated the site’s rules on data-scraping. NYU, meanwhile, said Facebook was prompted to act because it didn’t want third parties finding problems in its systems. Continue Reading.

Nissan's Leaf S is now the cheapest EV in the US

It's cheaper with more range.

Nissan has unveiled its 2022 Leaf with more standard features and a lower base price that makes it the cheapest EV in the US. The new basic model, the Leaf S with a 40-kWh battery, costs $27,400 or $28,375 including the destination charge — that’s $20,875 if you qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit.

Compared to its closest competition, that’s cheaper than the $29,900 Mini SE and can go farther, too, with 149 miles of range versus 114. Continue Reading.

Amazon delays 'New World' MMO again, this time to September 28th

‘New World,’ old news.

Amazon has delayed New World mere weeks before its previously announced August 31st release date. It will now arrive about a month later, on September 28th, so Amazon Game Studios can spend an extra few weeks polishing, fixing bugs and improving stability. For those keeping count, this is New World's fourth delay.

Amazon announced the game's first major delay after taking the unusual step of rolling back the availability of Crucible, its first AAA title. It later ended the development of that game. Before taking over as CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy told employees he was committed to the studio. Continue Reading.

Intel has a plan to go beyond 3nm chips

It’s aiming to recover its ‘unquestioned leadership’

Intel

Intel has not had a great five or six years, with its own processes failing just as competitors leap ahead with new manufacturing processes. The company’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has a plan to get Intel back to where it was, with some ambitious new chip plans. In the latest episode of Upscaled, our silicon expert Chris Schodt delves into what’s going on, and explains why, if Gelsinger succeeds, we’ll all be talking about 20-Angstrom chips in the near future. Continue Reading.

But wait, there’s more...

T-Mobile to shut Sprint's LTE network by June 30, 2022

A star fragment is flying out of our galaxy at nearly two million miles per hour

Samsung's 12.4-inch Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G will cost $669

Vudu and FandangoNow merge into a single streaming service

Tencent limits how long kids can play its flagship game, 'Honor of Kings'

The 2021 New York International Auto Show is canceled

Ghost of Tsushima's co-op multiplayer mode is getting a standalone release

Last year, Yelp added a COVID-19 section to its app to help businesses communicate to customers how they were operating through the early stages of the pandemic. With the delta variant complicating things, the company is introducing two new labels shops and restaurants can add to their listings.

Now, they can say if customers need proof of vaccination to enter their establishment and whether their staff is fully vaccinated. As a Yelp user, you’ll have the option to filter for shops and restaurants that include those labels. That said, they’re optional, and only the owner of the business can decide to add them.

Yelp

As it has done in the past when introducing other labels, Yelp says it will “proactively” monitor the pages of businesses that add those attributes to their listing. The company’s content guidelines require that someone write a review of a business based on their first-hand experience of it. But that hasn’t stopped some people from using the platform to express how they feel about things like vaccines. 

In response, the company has placed alerts on pages from businesses that have attracted attention for their stance on how to best protect the health and safety of their employees and customers from the coronavirus. Since the start of 2021, Yelp has issued about 100 of those alerts, leading to the removal of approximately 4,500 reviews.

If there’s one downside to an unexpected and massive spike in success, it’s that when things go back to normal, it can look worse by comparison. This is the “problem” that Nintendo is currently dealing with as it publishes its most recent quarterly report, reflecting the fact that the world has changed once again. In the three months to June 30th, the company posted an operating profit of 119 billion yen, which works out to roughly $1.1 billion. That is, however, a 17.3 percent drop compared to the 144 billion yen ($1.3 billion) posted this time last year, when people were mandated to spend much more time indoors.

The other difference compared to last year is a lack of a brand-name Nintendo title to draw in users like it had in 2020. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was (according to some analysts) the third-biggest selling game of the year, which also drove sales of new Switch consoles to buyers looking to get in on the action. In fact, New Horizons is still a big selling title, with 1.26 million units sold in this quarter, a year after it was originally launched. And Nintendo’s software sales in total were only 10.2 percent smaller than the trade it did across the same period last year.

Rather amusingly, Nintendo broke out a graph in its financial report showing that, if you remove the Animal Crossing spike, its software sales have constantly increased since at least 2018. The fact that investors are still apparently nervous about Nintendo’s future — to the point where Bloomberg is reporting that the company will issue stock buybacks to cover the gap in fallen sales — shows the disconnect between Wall Street and the world the rest of us are living in. But the company hasn’t altered its sales forecast or plans for the rest of the year, such is its confidence about its business.

Nintendo’s financial health is going to look a lot rosier in the back half of 2021 anyway, with a number of big titles out, and soon to be released. The HD remake of Zelda: Skyward Sword isn’t covered in this report, and WarioWare: Get It Together drops in September. October sees the launch of Metroid Dread and Mario Party Superstars, while November sees the launch of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. Plus, you know, there’s the OLED Switch and Zelda Game and Watch coming to boost hardware sales.

Not to mention that next year is likely to feature a third Splatoon game, a sequel to Zelda: Breath of the Wild and a new entry in the Mario+Rabbids series. And what investors are forgetting, it seems, is that if we’re all asked to start traveling to work again, it’s more likely that we’ll be tempted to bring along those Switch consoles some folks panic-bought at the start of last year. Which will require a steady stream of new games to keep their fingers entertained while sat on the bus or subway.