Amazon mass layoffs will reportedly ax 10,000 people this week

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon could lay off as many as 10,000 employees this week, according to a new report from The New York Times. The move would follow wide-reaching firings at Twitter and Meta; last week, the latter announced it would lay off 11,000 employees.

Amazon’s cuts are likely to focus on the company’s devices business (which includes numerous Alexa-powered products), human resources, and its retail unit. In a reminder of just how massive Amazon has grown, the Times says 10,000 workers would represent 3 percent of the company’s corporate ranks and 1 percent of its overall workforce.

There have been recent indications that Amazon might be rethinking where Alexa and first-party devices fit into its priorities. At the very least, CEO Andy Jassy...

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Binance, Crypto.com execs tell investors to ‘ask me anything’ following the fall of FTX

Nick Barclay / The Verge

Both Binance and Crypto.com hosted live question-and-answer sessions on Monday morning in an attempt to reassure investors that the cryptocurrency exchanges won’t meet the same fate as FTX, which suffered a sudden and catastrophic collapse last week.

Thanks to the 40,000+ people for listening in. Will try to do this a bit more often given the demand. https://t.co/OkCFNhLv4Y

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 14, 2022

FTX, formerly the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, filed for bankruptcy after Binance walked back on its deal to purchase the beleaguered firm. Its crash raised concerns among investors over the safety of their funds, and crypto exchanges are responding by trying to be as transparent as possible,...

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Andor’s first two episodes will air on TV over Thanksgiving

If you haven’t watched Andor yet, you should. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney Plus

If you haven’t watched Andor, the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel series on Disney Plus — and you really should, it’s quite good — Disney will be airing the show’s first two episodes on a few of its other channels over the Thanksgiving holidays, including on linear TV.

The Andor episodes will air on ABC, FX, Freeform, and Hulu at varying times and days. For the TV airings, you’ll need to put aside an hour and a half to watch the episodes. On Hulu, the two episodes will be available over two weeks. Here’s the schedule, according to a press release:

• ABC: Wednesday, November 23rd, 9:00–10:30PM ET / PT
• FX: Thursday, November 24th, 9:00–10:30PM ET / PT
• Freeform: Friday, November 25th, 9:00–10:30PM ET / PT
• Hulu: Available from...

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Xbox transparency report reveals up to 4.78M accounts were proactively suspended in just six months

The Digital Transparency Report contains data captured by Microsoft between January 1st and June 30th this year and provides information regarding content moderation and player safety. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has released its first Digital Transparency Report for the Xbox gaming platform, revealing that the company took proactive action against throwaway accounts that violated its community guidelines 4.78 million times within a six-month period, usually in the form of temporary suspension.

The report, which provides information regarding content moderation and player safety, covers the period between January 1st and June 30th this year. It includes a range of information, including the number of reports submitted by players and breakdowns of various “proactive enforcements” (i.e., temporary account suspensions) taken by the Xbox team. Microsoft says the report forms part of its commitment to online safety.

Image:...

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How to share your Wi-Fi on Windows 11

Sharing is caring. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

A few months ago, one of my devices randomly decided it didn’t want to connect wirelessly to my internet anymore. This was annoying, but while I waited for it to be repaired, there was an easy fix. I could turn my Windows desktop into a mobile hotspot and use that to get the device online.

This trick can also be handy to have in your pocket if you’re having guests over and want to give them easy access to your internet without throwing your password around.

Here’s how to share your Wi-Fi from your Windows PC. (This was tested using a Windows 11 system.)

This menu has everything you need.

• Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Mobile Hotspot. Toggle Mobile Hotspot on.
• Select Share my Internet Connection from, and...

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The Witcher 3’s next-gen patch will arrive on December 14th

It’s free if you own the PC, PS4, or Xbox One version of the game. | Image: CD Projekt Red

The next-gen patch for The Witcher 3 will arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC on Wednesday, December 14th. If you already own the base game on PC, PlayStation 4, or Xbox One (any version will do, not just the Complete Edition), you’ll get the patch, which includes upgraded visuals, all of the DLC packs, and further content drops inspired by the Netflix series, for free.

The next-gen update for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is coming on December 14th, free for everyone who already owns the game.

For more details and gameplay reveal, tune in to REDstreams next week on https://t.co/IpFERTohi9. pic.twitter.com/fg3yfGeNih

— The Witcher (@witchergame) November 14, 2022

CD Projekt Red shared that the update will bring ray-traced graphics...

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Now Android fitness apps like Peloton and MyFitnessPal can share data via Health Connect

The Health Connect platform can be used to sync data between fitness apps, simplifying app connectivity and centralizing privacy controls. | Image: Google

Android has released Health Connect into public beta, a new app that assimilates data from across eligible health and fitness apps through a single platform.

In an example provided by Google, Peloton members can use it to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps such as MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers, and Lifesum in addition to sharing workout data with other fitness apps. It also adds a central place to easily manage individual permissions and privacy settings.

There are 10 notable health, fitness, and wellness apps integrated with the services so far, including FitBit, Oura, and Flo alongside MyFitnessPal and Peloton. Health Connect was first announced in May, with access initially restricted to developers building the new...

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Waymo’s robotaxis are basically mobile weather stations now

Autonomous vehicles have difficulty navigating bad weather. Heavy rain, snow, and fog can do a lot to scramble an AV’s perception systems, which largely rely on cameras, radar, and lidar to “see” the world around it. Wet roads can create reflections that confuse cameras. Fog can screw up sensor data. And ice can form on the lidar, inhibiting the sensor’s ability to send out laser points to gauge distance from other objects on the road.

Waymo, the Alphabet company that aims to deploy fleets of robotaxis all over the country, has been quietly investing in weather research since its early days as a “moonshot” project out of Google’s X division. And while its autonomous vehicles still struggled to navigate certain inclement conditions, the...

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Splatoon 3’s chill December update adds more of everything

Image: Nintendo

Splatoon 3is getting a big update, splashing down on December 1st. Dubbed Chill Season 2022, the update’s adding new weapons, stages, game modes, and a lot more cool clothes and gear to zhuzh up your octolings.

The Salmon Run game mode is also getting a fish-lift with the new Big Run game mode. Details on what Big Run is are scarce at the moment, but — according to this hilarious, borderline incomprehensible sentence from the Chill Season 2022 press release — “the first Big Run will take place when the Salmonids invade the Wahoo World stage later this year.”

For the more competitive-minded octoling, X Battles are also arriving with the chill update. X Battles happen once players reach a certain eel-ite level in Anarchy Battles. Then,...

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Schlage’s current Apple Home Key smart lock will not support Matter

The Schlage Encode Plus is one of the few smart locks with support for both Apple Home Key and Thread. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

The Schlage Encode Plus, the popular Home Key-enabled smart lock, will not get upgraded to support Matter. Schlage told The Verge that this is due to several factors, including changes in the spec since the product was manufactured. It also confirmed that none of its current smart locks will support Matter. Instead, Schlage plans to introduce a new Matter-enabled smart lock in the future but did not provide a timeline for a release.

When the Encode Plus launched at CES 2022, Schlage said the $330 Thread-enabled smart lock should have the hardware on board to support Matter. “But we still don’t know where those tech specs will land,” Donald Beene, senior product manager for Allegion (parent company of Schlage), told The Verge in January....

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Here’s why Elizabeth Holmes thinks she shouldn’t go to prison

Laura Normand / The Verge

Elizabeth Holmes really doesn’t want to go to prison. In an 82-page sentencing memorandum filed last week (via Gizmodo), Holmes’ lawyers attempt to paint the former Theranos CEO in a more positive light in a bid to reduce her sentencing.

Holmes, who claimed her company had the technology to run hundreds of tests based on just a few drops of blood, was found guilty of misleading investors in January. She was convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and three counts of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentencing of 20 years. Although she wasn’t found guilty of defrauding patients, some allege her faulty tests yielded inaccurate results, including one patient who claimed the test falsely told her she was suffering...

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The Verge’s 2022 holiday gift guide for moms

Photography by Joel Goldberg for The Verge

Mom, mum, mammy, mother dearest. No mom is the same. Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of gift ideas so that you’ll be able to find something awesome to give to the mother figure in your life — no matter what name she goes by.

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Jeff Bezos says he’ll give away the majority of his wealth in his lifetime

Jeff Bezos at The Rings of Power premiere earlier this year. | Photo by Dave J Hogan/Dave J. Hogan/Getty Images

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said he plans to donate the majority of his net wealth to charity within his lifetime in a new interview with CNN. Bezos did not give any specifics about how he would distribute the money or exactly what percentage of his wealth he would give away but said he wanted to fight climate change and support people who can unify humanity, CNNreports. The Amazon founder is reportedly the fourth-richest person on Earth, with a net wealth of $124 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

CNN reports that this is the first time that Bezos has announced plans to give away the majority of his fortune. In a clip of the interview published by CNN, interviewer Chloe Melas asks if Bezos plans “to give away the...

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Bird overstated shared electric scooter revenue for two years

Photo by Ty O’Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Bird overstated the revenue it received from its shared electric scooters for at least two years, the company admitted in documents filed (PDF) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.

The phantom revenue was discovered after an audit of financial statements from 2020 and 2021 in which Bird found it was counting as revenue customers’ preloaded “wallet” balances following the completion of certain scooter trips. This revenue “should not have been recorded,” the company said.

As a result, Bird said that two years’ worth of financial statements “should no longer be relied upon” and that the company would be late in filing its third quarter earnings report, which was expected later today. A spokesperson for the company did...

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Google is bringing Material You-style color themes to desktop Chrome

Picking a yellow colored wallpaper adjusts Chrome’s interface to match. | Screenshot by Jon Porter / The Verge

The latest Canary build of Google Chrome includes a neat feature that automatically picks a color scheme for the browser based on the wallpaper shown when you open a new tab. The feature was first spotted by u/Leopeva64-2 over on Reddit, who shows how changing the new tab wallpaper automatically adjusts the color scheme of the browser’s address bar and interface. It’s previously been possible to manually change Chrome’s color scheme to one of your choosing, but this simplifies the process.

According to Google’s software, the feature “enables setting theme color based on background image color when background image is changed in New Tab Page,” and is available on Mac, Windows, and Linux, as well as Google’s own ChromeOS and Fuchsia...

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The Space Force’s X-37B spaceplane returns to Earth after over two years in space

The X-37B came back to Earth on November 12th at 5:22AM ET. | Image: Space Force

The Space Force’s mysterious X-37B spaceplane landed back on Earth after spending a record-breaking two and a half years (908 days) in orbit. It landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, November 12th at 5:22AM ET, marking its sixth successful mission so far.

While the agency is pretty tight-lipped as to what exactly the Boeing-built spaceplane does, it did reveal that it deployed the FalconSat-8 developed by the US Air Force Academy in October 2021. This small satellite carried five experimental payloads and is still in orbit now. It hosted the Naval Research Laboratory’s photovoltaic radiofrequency antenna module as well, which is designed to convert solar rays into microwave energy and “transmit power to the...

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Twitter reportedly cut thousands of contractors without warning

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter eliminated a large number of contract employees on Saturday, affecting anywhere from 4,400 to 5,500 workers, according to Platformer’s Casey Newton. As noted by Platformer and confirmed by other reports from Axios and CNBC, most contract employees didn’t receive any notice that they’ve been terminated and only found out after losing access to the company’s email and internal communications systems.

The job cuts follow layoffs that culled about half of Twitter’s workforce and slashed 15 percent of its trust and safety team. Platformer first reported about the mass firings on Saturday night, which span both US-based and global employees working in content moderation, real estate, marketing, engineering, and other departments.

T...

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‘Fix your companies. Or Congress will,’ Senator Ed Markey warns Elon Musk

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) told Elon Musk, “Fix your companies. Or Congress will,” after Musk snarkily replied to the senator’s concerns about fake verified accounts on Twitter, and suggested Markey’s real account “sounds like a parody.”

On Friday, Markey sent out a tweet containing a link to a letter he wrote to Musk, criticizing the new $7.99 per month Blue with verification subscription. The letter cites a report from the Washington Post that details how a reporter was able to easily create a fake verified account impersonating Markey and calls on Musk to address the issue. “Twitter must explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” Markey writes.

One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto...

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Crypto.com sent $400 million to the wrong recipient, but got it back this time

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Crypto.com just admitted to making another very large and concerning clerical error: it mistakenly sent 320,000 in Ethereum (~$416 million USD) to another cryptocurrency exchange, called Gate.io, about three weeks ago (via Web3 Is Going Just Great). In a post on Twitter, Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek says the company was supposed to send the crypto to one of its cold, or offline, wallets, but accidentally sent it to a “whitelisted” address belonging to its corporate account at Gate.io.

This all unfolded after Marszalek publicly posted the company’s cold wallet addresses to provide transparency about what the exchange does with its funds. After digging into Crypto.com’s transactions, one user, Conor Grogan, points out that the exchange...

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LG C2 OLED TV review: you can’t go wrong

It’s far from the brightest TV out there, but as the sweet spot in LG’s lineup, the C2 combines stunning picture quality with an exhaustive list of features and terrific gaming prowess.

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Google’s rolling out a Nest Wifi Pro update to fix slow internet speeds

Image: Google

Google says it’s rolling out a software update for the new Nest Wifi Pro early next week to address the slow internet speeds experienced by some users. In a statement to The Verge, Sanjay Noronha, Google Nest Wifi’s product lead, says the company’s “currently investigating reports of a small number of users experiencing reduced internet speeds on Nest Wifi Pro routers,” and that its “teams are working to roll out a fix.”

Google launched the $199 Nest Wifi Pro mesh router last month while touting support for the faster Wi-Fi 6E that’s supposed to enable speeds of up to 5.4Gbps (given your internet plan supports that). It also opens up a 6GHz band that helps mitigate network congestion, and automatically adjusts “network performance to...

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Apple’s new entry-level iPad is on sale for the first time for $50 off

Yep, the latest iPad certainly looks like an iPad. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

The new iPad is just over two weeks old, but it’s already getting a nice little discount that makes it feel much more price-appropriate. Apple’s 10th-gen iPad is on sale for $399 at B&H Photo in its base 64GB configuration with Wi-Fi. While this new model comes in four different colors, B&H’s $50 discount is only on the blue one — at least, until November 13th at 11:59PM ET when this deal is set to expire (if it doesn’t sell out first).

This new iPad model may not be the no-brainer purchase its base-model forebears have been — since it starts at a much higher price than the ninth-gen version, which is still available for $299 — but it’s got some nice improvements. In addition to some fun colors, the 10th-gen iPad has great battery life...

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FTX says ‘unauthorized transactions’ drained millions from the exchange

Illustration: The Verge

FTX moved users’ funds to offline wallets early Saturday morning after a wave of “unauthorized transactions” drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange. Ryne Miller, the general counsel at FTX US, didn’t confirm a hack, but said on Twitter that the company made the move to “mitigate damage” caused by the potential theft, as transferring funds offline, or to “cold storage,” helps prevents outsiders from gaining access to them.

The millions in funds evaporated from the platform shortly after FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, affecting the domestic FTX US trading platform, the global version of FTX, and Alameda Research. It’s still unclear how much is missing from the exchange, but a...

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Why can’t pollsters reach Gen Z?

Image: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Republicans predicted a “red wave” that would crush any hopes of a Democratic majority this election cycle. But as the dust settles and vote counts wrap up, that prediction has shattered.

While Republicans saw success in states like Florida and New York, Democrats fared better in battleground states, where polls often significantly underestimated their support. On the eve of the election, FiveThirtyEight’s poll average had Dr. Mehmet Oz ahead by just half a point, only to see him lose by 4 percent in the final tally. In Michigan, the same average put incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer only five points ahead of her Republican challenger; but on election day, she won by more than 10 points.

Many Democratic strategists and White House...

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Wakanda Forever’s mid-credits scene is exactly the right kind of surprising

Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever_._ | Image: Marvel Studios

Black Panther: Wakanda Foreverdraws to a close with most everyone thinking that they have a solid understanding of the world’s balance of power following the passing of one Black Panther and the rise of a new one. But the movie’s solitary mid-credits sequence introduces a surprising new twist that could upend all that and set the stage for a very different kind of Black Panther story going forward.

This piece contains spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever .

Rather than picking up in a completely new location some time later, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s mid-credits sequence opens right back up on Shuri (Letitia Wright) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) on a Haitian beach. Though Wakanda Forever details how Nakia chose to become a...

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How are these fake Roblox and Ohio governor Twitter accounts still up?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Over the past few days, Twitter has seemingly been doing everything in its power to stop a wave of verified accounts impersonating brands and public figures — including pausing the Twitter Blue signups that allow them to pop up in the first place, and bringing the “Official” grey check marks that were previously announced and then canned by Elon Musk.

And yet some high-profile impersonators have stuck around on the platform for hours or even days, flouting Musk’s rules by not having “parody” in their username. The tweets are getting more and more popular, increasing the danger for Twitter’s brand in the eyes of advertisers.

Let’s look at some of the accounts that are still up, at time of writing:

A tweet from @Roblox_US announces the...

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Studio Ghibli’s hand-drawn Star Wars animation hits Disney Plus tomorrow

Image: Disney

Grogu, meet Totoro. This evening famed animation house Studio Ghibli — best-known for films like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro — confirmed its new Star Wars project, which is called Discover Zen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies and is described as a “a hand-drawn animation.” There aren’t many other details on it, but that’s not such a big deal because you’ll be able to see it for yourself very soon: it starts streaming on Disney Plus on November 12th.

Studio Ghibli has been teasing the collaboration for a few days. First with a short video featuring the studio’s logo alongside Lucasfilm’s, and later with a photo depicting both The Mandalorian star Grogu and legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki.

Discover Zen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies, a...

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Disney is preparing to cut jobs, according to leaked memo from CEO

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Disney CEO Bob Chapek is predicting “some staff reductions” once the company reviews its spending, according to a leaked memo published by CNBC. The company will also reportedly freeze most hiring, only bringing on new employees for “the most critical, business-driving positions.”

If Disney does end up carrying out a round of layoffs, it’ll be far from the only one among the companies pushing streaming services. Dozens of workers have lost their jobs at Warner Bros. Television and HBO Max this year. Netflix has also laid off hundreds of employees this year while reporting slower subscriber growth but noted during the last earnings call that its business remains profitable, unlike its premium streaming competitors, which include Disney.

...

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Meta is killing Portal and both its unreleased smartwatches

Photo by Jennifer Pattisson Tuohy The Verge

Meta is pulling the plug on its Portal video calling smart displays and its two remaining unreleased smartwatch projects, my colleague Alex Heath can confirm, as the company cuts 11,000 jobs including many in tech divisions. Reuters reported earlier today that the company planned to kill off both Portal and smartwatches, citing Meta execs who spoke at a town hall meeting; we heard the same thing from other sources, so we can independently corroborate the news.

Meta had already quietly decided to stop producing Portal devices for consumers in June, and had shelved the smartwatch that was furthest in development — codename “Milan,” which was reportedly set to arrive in spring 2023 for around $349 and feature two built-in cameras for video...

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You, too, can have a rad name like ‘Rainnfall Heat Wave Extreme Winter Wilson’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 15: Rainn Wilson attends “Jerry & Marge Go Large” premiere during the 2022 Tribeca Festival. | Photo by Dominik Bindl/WireImage

Actor Rainn Wilson (you might know him as Dwight from The Office) had a grand scheme to bring his hilarious brand of climate advocacy to Twitter this week. That plan, however, was quickly thwarted — another victim of the name-changing drama that has flourished on the platform recently.

Wilson took to Twitter on Wednesday to announce he was changing his name on social media to “Rainnfall Heat Wave Extreme Winter Wilson.” “As a cheap little stunt to help save planet Earth I’ve changed my name on Twitter, Instagram, and even on my fancy writing paper,” Wilson said in a video. He points to a memo pad with scrawled changes to his printed name, so that it reads “Acid Rainn Kills Trees Wilson.”

Some 35 minutes later, Wilson tweeted, “P.S....

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