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Google axes 12,000 jobs amid major tech layoffs
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Google axes 12,000 jobs amid major tech layoffs – CBS News
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Amazon axes charity program as it moves to slash costs
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Amazon is ending a charity donation program it ran for a decade in its latest cost-cutting move.
In a blog post on Wednesday, the company said the program, called AmazonSmile, will shut down by February 20 because it had “not grown to create the impact” the retailer had hoped.
The program allowed Amazon to donate a small percentage of eligible purchases to a charity selected by shoppers.
“With so many eligible organizations—more than 1 million globally—our ability to have an impact was often spread too thin,” the company said.
The decision also comes as the Seattle-based company is laying off workers and axing different areas of its business in an effort to trim costs. Other tech companies, such as Facebook parent Meta and Salesforce, are also letting workers go after ramping up hiring over the past couple of years, when the pandemic made consumers increasingly reliant on the tech sector.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this month the layoffs at his company will affect about 18,000 employees. Jassy said the job cuts will mostly affect the company’s retail division and its PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions. Other teams, including the company’s Alexa division, have also faced layoffs since November.
The company said charities that have been a part of the AmazonSmile program will be provided a “one-time donation equivalent” to three months of what they earned last year through the program. They’ll also able to accrue additional donations until the program officially closes, it said.
Amazon noted in the blog post it will also continue supporting other charitable programs, such as its housing equity fund that aims to build more affordable homes.
in total, the charity effort has generated and donated almost half a billion dollars to non-profit organizations worldwide, according to Amazon.
Some Amazon shoppers as well as charities said on Twitter that they relied heavily on the program and are disappointed by Amazon’s decision to discontinue it.
“Amazon claims the Amazon Smile program didn’t have an impact. I can tell you as an animal not for profit it made a huge difference to us. That $9400 meant the world. That isn’t nothing to us,” a user from Squirrelwood Equine Sanctuary tweeted.
“Very disappointed to hear that #amazonsmile is shutting down because apparently Amazon don’t think it’s had enough impact? Sounds like bs to me honestly,” a user named Lauren Satsuma wrote. Her Amazon purchases generated nearly £1,000 for an England-based hospice service.
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Microsoft joins list of tech companies to announce sweeping layoffs
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Microsoft joins wave of tech layoffs as slowdown spreads | Bank Automation News
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Layoffs that began in 2022 are accelerating across much of the technology world. The tech industry is slashing jobs at a pace nearing the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. In November, the most recent month for which data is available, the sector announced 52,771 cuts, for a total of 80,978 over the course of the year, according to […]
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Bloomberg News
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Amazon Bans Lost Ark Bots, Humans Caught In Crossfire
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Image: Amazon Amazon’s Diablo-like RPG, Lost Ark, had over 1.3 million people playing it at launch. It’s cooled off since then, but there are still tens of thousands of people who log on every week to enjoy it. Or they would, if they hadn’t been banned for no reason.
Last week Amazon decided to do some house-keeping and kick off a wave of bans, ostensibly targeting bot accounts. Loads of actual human beings were caught up in the bans too, though, and making things even worse was that for Steam players that counted as a ban on their Steam accounts as well, which is a serious blemish on their overall record.
Amazon were quickly notified of this, and over the weekend were “actively working on reversing them for all affected players regardless of whether a support ticket has been filed”. For Steam players in particular, sweating the consequences of having a ban recorded on their account, Amazon say the reversal will not just “remove your game ban” but also “any marks on your Steam account”.
The company issued this statement over the weekend:
Greetings Heroes of Arkesia,
Following a recent wave of bot bans, we’ve seen an increase in ban appeals from players who have been incorrectly impacted by these bans.
We have determined the error that triggered these false bans, and are actively working on reversing them for all affected players regardless of whether a support ticket has been filed. This will remove your game ban and any marks on your Steam account. We will let players know when this work has been completed. In the meantime, you are still welcome to submit a Ban Appeal ticket to Customer Support so that the team can more quickly assist with restoring your account and removing all penalties.
Thank you for your reports and patience as we work to make this right with affected players.
And followed it up yesterday with a notice saying all bans should now have been reversed. The bans come in the wake of efforts by developers to fix certain areas of the game that were being swamped by bots, particularly the market and auction house.
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Luke Plunkett
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The Best Workout Clothes Are at Amazon—33 Pieces Everyone’s Talking About
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Like many other things, Amazon is a trove of good workout clothes. While the thousands of glowing reviews that its best-selling leggings and sports bras have racked up are impressive enough, TikTok is also flooded with haul videos of fashion people showing off their coolest activewear from the retailer. After watching dozens of such videos, we beelined to the site to shop them all.
Hours of scrolling later, our Amazon deep dive has certainly paid off since we have 33 epic finds to show for it. Whether it’s the tank top that our editors can’t get enough of or the cutest matching sets that could pass as luxury activewear, discover the best workout clothes on Amazon here. Ahead, we’re diving into the tanks, leggings, sets, and more that everyone’s talking about right now.
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Anna LaPlaca
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Amazon Removes Some Nazi-Linked Products After Complaints From Jewish Center
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Amazon has dropped some Nazi and neo-Nazi sales items after angry complaints from a prominent international Jewish organization.
The Los-Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center sharply criticized Amazon in a statement on its website Thursday for “monetizing Nazi and neo-Nazi paraphernalia” — and said it demanded in an email to the company that it “remove these items immediately.”
“In an era when 63% of all religious-based hate crimes in America target America’s Jews — 2.4% of the US population — at a time when Blacks are again the number one target of race-based hate crimes, Amazon should not be using its business model to market hateful symbols and neo-Nazi paraphernalia,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action at the center, said in a statement.
The center provided screenshots of some of the products for sale, including a swastika necklace and bracelets, other jewelry, badges and pins featuring Nazi symbols or evocative of them.
Amazon said in a statement to The New York Post that it utilizes “proactive mechanisms” to “catch offensive listings before a customer ever sees them. Our technology continuously scans all products listed for sale looking for text and images that we have determined violate our policies, and immediately removes them.”
Company officials also noted that the “realm of potentially offensive products is nuanced and diverse” and the number of products offered on the site massive.
Though Amazon has removed a number of the items, similar products were still being offered for sale, Gizmodo reported Friday. Cooper told Gizmodo then that Amazon had to respond to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He said he’s angry the company can’t be proactive in keeping hate off the site.
“It’s simply not acceptable for the biggest economic giant on the block to play games of Wack-a-mole rather than fix things,” Cooper told Gizmodo.
Amazon has a policy on offensive and controversial materials. It prohibits products that promote intolerance toward race, religion, or sexual orientation.
In a similar controversy, Walmart just last week stopped selling “KKK” marked boots online. Walmart deleted an online listing for hiking boots with a red “KKK” on the tongue, telling Business Insider it would review how the “inappropriate merchandise” got on its platform in the first place.
It’s not the first time Amazon has been in trouble for antisemitic products.
A year ago the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos demanding Amazon removed more than 20 Nazi propaganda films that were either on sale in Amazon’s online portal or available for streaming on its Amazon Prime video network.
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How Yami’s Founder Sustains Growth in the Ecommerce Space
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The transition to college can be tough for any young adult — especially if they attend one 7,000 miles away from home.
Courtesy of Yami
That was the case for Alex Zhou, founder and CEO of online Asian marketplace Yami, who came to the U.S. from China to attend Kansas State University in the college town of Manhattan, Kansas in 2007.
“For almost five years, I didn’t have access to Asian food, restaurants or grocery stores,” Zhou tells Entrepreneur. “It was really inconvenient, and I noticed a lot of my classmates who came from Asian countries experienced the same problem.”
Post-graduation, Zhou moved to LA, where there’s a large Asian population. Surrounded by a bounty of Asian restaurants and brick-and-mortar stores like H Mart, the lightbulb went off: Maybe I can start an ecommerce company to carry Asian products and brands, Zhou thought.
Ecommerce certainly wasn’t a new concept at the time. In China, there was Alibaba; in the U.S., eBay and Amazon were long-established players. And with more and more Asian students and immigrants coming to the U.S., Zhou realized there was a real market for his idea.
Zhou established Yami, formerly known as Yamibuy, in 2013. Today, the ecommerce retailer boasts two million customers (one in 10 Asian Americans use the platform, Yami found by examining customer and census data) and more than 300,000 SKUs of Asian snacks, food, beauty and health products, home appliances, books and more.
Additionally, even though the majority of U.S. Asians live in California, New York, Texas, New Jersey and Washington, Yami’s seeing its most rapid growth not in those states, but in college towns like Raleigh, North Carolina and Tempe, Arizona — a testament to Zhou’s original mission.
Related: 12 Awesome Tips From Ecommerce Experts
“In the beginning, I was just trying to serve all the Chinese students studying in the United States.”
Back in 2013, as a fresh college graduate, Zhou had no idea how to run a business. So he started from scratch: researching everything from products and costs to website development.
Part of the process? Taking a stroll through the very Asian markets he’d noticed on arrival to study their customers and jot down brand names, some of which would become eventually become Zhou’s own suppliers.
Zhou’s strategy was a success, but as Yami grew, so did some of the challenges along with it. In the early days, when Zhou couldn’t afford to hire employees, he would work from 6 a.m. to midnight, driving around to pick up the inventory nobody wanted to deliver to his still-young company.
Then, around 2015, when Yami was really gaining momentum and could afford to hire, Zhou had to figure out how to convince people working at Google and Amazon to join his startup.
Through it all, the founder had to consider how to sustain Yami’s growth. “In the beginning, I was just trying to serve all the Chinese students studying in the United States because I understood their pain point,” he says. “I knew what they wanted.”
Leveraging word of mouth was key from the start. The right product can generate a lot of organic takeoffs, Zhou says, using the example of social media.
“Let’s say somebody bought instant noodles from Japan,” Zhou explains. “Then he or she posts on social media: ‘Oh my God, look at what I bought.’ Then their friend is going to ask [where they bought it from]. This is our classic customer acquisition channel — to this day.”
Related: The Business of Harnessing the Power of Social Media
“The strategy changes a little bit [when] customers aren’t familiar with the product.”
In recent years, Yami has expanded beyond its Asian customer base, and doing so requires a shift in tactics, Zhou notes.
“When we step into this space, the strategy changes a little bit because these customers aren’t familiar with the product,” Zhou says, “but they’re influenced by the rising Asian pop and food culture.”
Especially in U.S. coastal cities, it’s not uncommon for people to incorporate Asian cuisines into their weekly meal rotations, Zhou explains, and part of Yami’s success with its non-Asian customer base relies on its ability to connect with those potential buyers.
To that end, Yami works with Asian chefs and restaurants to acquire Asian-food lovers. The company also partners with Asian content platforms to draw in people who are fans of Asian pop culture like K-pop, K-drama, anime and more.
Image credit: Courtesy of Yami
Related: These Co-Founders Are Using ‘Quiet Confidence’ to Flip the Script on Cutthroat Startup Culture
“Every single customer wants a world-class experience. Improving the customer shopping experience is on our mind every day.”
Another major growth milestone? Yami’s opening its East Coast warehouse, which will enable shipping times that rival Amazon Prime‘s across the U.S. — an average of just 2.6 days, Zhou says.
“Retail is retail,” Zhou explains. “Every single customer wants a world-class experience. Improving the customer shopping experience is on our minds every day. That’s why we [opened] our West Coast warehouse first, and now our East Coast warehouse — so we can ship the packages to our customers faster.”
Yami also has its own fleet of vehicles; in LA, orders placed in the morning can be delivered the same day, and those placed in the afternoon can be delivered the next day.
In dealing with so many cross-border products (95% are imported from Asia), Yami has to contend with a sometimes-complicated supply chain. That’s why it’s made data and AI a cornerstone of its strategy — using the technology to forecast demand and personalize marketing to customers.
Related: Are You Giving Your Customers Personalized Experiences?
“You never solve the problem if you just think about it.”
To other founders hoping to break into the ecommerce space as successfully as Yami has, Zhou suggests keeping two things in mind. First, you have to zero in on your niche.
“It’s too late [to start the next Amazon],” Zhou says. “Amazon already dominates the entire ecommerce space. But there are still new ecommerce companies coming up every day. If you look at all of these [new] companies, there’s always something distinct about them. For example, Yami — Amazon is big, but it’s not doing well with Asian supply chains. It’s not doing well with Asian products.”
But perhaps the most important piece of advice, according to Zhou? Just take that first step.
“Sometimes [potential founders] think too much — but they never put their thought into action,” Zhou explains. “You never solve the problem if you just think about it.”
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Amanda Breen
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Amazon Warehouse Employee Death in Colorado Stirs Outrage
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A worker at an Amazon warehouse died late last month — and some employees are taking the company to task for how it was handled.
Nathan Stirk / Contributor I Getty ImagesAmazon facility in the UK. A 61-year-old Amazon employee died just before a shift change at a Colorado Springs warehouse, and workers are taking issue with how the company handled the issue — from having workers continue business as normal to what they said was a lackluster meeting about the incident a week later.
Rick Jacobs died of a heart attack at the facility, per CBS affiliate KKTV. The death was apparently unrelated to the job, the Colorado Springs Police Department told the outlet. But some employees are claiming that the deceased was hidden by cardboard bins (which Amazon has denied) and that business at the warehouse continued as normal, according to The Guardian.
“No one should have been told to work alongside a dead body, particularly after witnessing it,” an unnamed day shift worker at the facility told the outlet.
An Amazon representative told Entrepreneur via phone that workers were not in the same vicinity as the deceased.
Jacobs was the fifth Amazon worker to die while on the job in 2022, per Sourcing Journal.
Several Colorado Springs workers told The Guardian they were not happy with how Jacobs’s death was handled.
“Day shift comes in at 7 a.m. or 7:30 a.m., and we were never informed until we arrived to where it had occurred. No warnings before walking into the building. No on-site counselor. Simply a flyer put out days later informing us of how to receive mental health counseling,” they added.
Another person said that they didn’t find out about what happened until speaking with coworkers that morning after seeing emergency response vehicles outside the facility, per the outlet.
“Why is it that we are still working as usual when someone is dead downstairs? I was angry that they think that our lives don’t matter, that they’re going to sweep me out of the way to get a package out,” she told the outlet.
Sources told the outlet there was no discussion about what happened until a meeting on January 4, a week later. “It wasn’t handled fairly at all,” another worker at the facility told the outlet.
Amazon told Entrepreneur it gave workers information while trying to balance the need for Jacobs’s privacy — and again stated that cardboard bins were not used to hide Jacobs’s body from view. Amazon said last year it employs around 1 million people in the U.S.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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Amazon cutting total of 18,000 workers as tech layoffs mount
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Amazon said it is slashing a total of 18,000 jobs, a larger number of positions than it previously announced and the largest set of layoffs in the e-commerce giant’s history.
“We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a note to employees that the company made public on Wednesday. “However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me.”
Jassy said the layoffs will mostly impact the company’s brick-and-mortar stores, which include Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and its PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions.
In November, he told staff the layoffs were coming due to the economic landscape and the company’s rapid hiring in the last several years. Wednesday’s announcement included earlier job cuts that had not been numbered. The company had also offered voluntary buyouts and has been cutting costs in other areas of its sprawling business.
Amazon, which has a total global workforce of 1.5 million, is one of a number of major tech companies shedding workers after hiring aggressively in recent years.
Salesforce, a maker of customer management software, said Wednesday it is laying off more than 7,000 people, or roughly 10% of its workforce, as well as closing some offices. The cuts are by far the largest in the 23-year history of a San Francisco company founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, who pioneered the method of leasing software services to internet-connected devices — a concept now known as “cloud computing.”
“As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that,” Benioff wrote in a letter to employees.
Salesforce employed about 49,000 people in January 2020 just before the pandemic struck. Salesforce’s workforce today is still 50% larger than it was before the pandemic.
Apple, Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Netflix, Peloton, Twitter and other tech companies have announced sizable layoffs or scaled back hiring in recent months amid weakening economic growth.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also acknowledged he misread the revenue gains that the owner of Facebook and Instagram was reaping during the pandemic when he announced in November that his company would be laying off 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce.
Employers “are getting aggressive in slashing costs (which will help support earnings amid a tougher revenue environment),” Wall Street analyst Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge said in a report to investors.
Overall, tech industry companies cut more than 97,000 jobs in 2022, up 649% from the roughly 13,000 eliminated the previous year, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That far outpaced the automotive sector, which cut 31,000 workers last year, the second-most of any U.S. industry.
“The overall economy is still creating jobs, though employers appear to be actively planning for a downturn. Hiring has slowed as companies take a cautious approach entering 2023,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
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Amazon Layoffs Climb To 18,000 Employees As Tech Giant Moves To Cut Costs
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Amazon told employees Wednesday it would eliminate 18,000 jobs across the company, much more than previously reported as tech companies across the country cut costs and rein in hiring amid concerns about the economy.
CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon had hired rapidly over the last few years as consumers spent wildly online during the isolated years of the COVID-19 pandemic. But fears of a recession and a cutback in consumer spending has forced companies to scale back.
The layoffs will mainly be in the tech giant’s corporate ranks, The Wall Street Journal reported, and represent about 1.2% of the company’s 1.5 million employees.
“This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years,” Jassy wrote to employees. “Amazon has weathered uncertain and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so.”
Employees affected by the layoffs will be told beginning Jan. 18. Jassy said the news, which broke in The Wall Street Journal, was meant to be shared internally but had been leaked to the media before those decisions could be made.
The company had previously said it would lay off about 10,000 people, mainly in its device and book businesses, but it warned it could make deeper cuts in the future.
“To those impacted by these reductions, I want you to know how grateful I am for your contributions to Amazon, and the work you have done on behalf of customers,” Jassy wrote to employees. “You have made a meaningful difference in a lot of customers’ lives.”
Many tech companies have been hurt by the post-pandemic economy, and the likes of Meta, Twitter and Salesforce have all said they would conduct mass layoffs after a long period of hiring.
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Must Read: Billie Eilish Lands ‘Vogue’ Video Cover, Independent Designers Brace for Recession
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These are the stories making headlines in fashion on Wednesday.
Billie Eilish lands Vogue video cover, talks climate
Vogue’s first-ever video cover star Billie Eilish spoke with eight climate activists, including Quannah Chasinghorse and Wawa Gatheru, on the future of the planet. The innovative video cover is a carousel of conversation, children signing and other aesthetic shots. Directed by Mike Mills, Eilish and the activists spoke about topics like climate anxiety, navigating academia and politics, leading grassroots campaigns and environmental racism. In the cover story, Eilish also reflected on her personal journey with her body, romance and current boyfriend Jesse Rutherford. {Vogue}Independent designers brace for recession
As a recession looms ever nearer in 2023, independent designers are bracing for lean times and doubling down on what sells in order to keep their businesses going. But it’s already been a challenging past few years for independent designers who may have been affected by supply chain issues or loss of sales to an e-commerce boom. On top of everything, investors are turning away from what’s considered a risky fashion investment. “It’s almost like a rule. When recession hits, stop investing in fashion because it’s [seen as] too unpredictable,” Gary Wassner, chief executive of luxury and fashion advisory Hilldun Corporation, told the Business of Fashion. {Business of Fashion}Adidas and Thom Browne battle over stripes in court
Adidas and Thom Browne are in the midst of a legal battle over each company’s trademarked stripes. Adidas, which trademarked its trio of parallel stripes that have been a brand signature since the 1940’s, claims that Thom Browne’s use of four parallel stripes is too similar. The German sportswear company is seeking $867,225 in damages in addition to $7 million in profits that Adidas alleges Thom Browne made while selling its own striped apparel and footwear. Thom Browne argues the delay in this complaint is too long since Adidas did not object when Thom Browne debuted four stripes in its 2008 fashion show. Plus, Thom Browne says customers aren’t actually confused that the brands are the same. {WWD}Scroll to Continue
Christian Louboutin’s lawsuit against Amazon could hold the retailer accountable for counterfeits
French shoe and accessory designer Christian Louboutin (of the iconic red-soled shoes) is taking Amazon to court. The suit alleges that the shopping giant should be liable for the sponsored posts featuring counterfeit Louboutin shoes that include the brand’s trademarked red soles. Brought forth in 2019 in Belgium and Luxembourg, the case is still being decided by E.U. courts. However, judges appeared sympathetic to Louboutin in preliminary ruling. Amazon historically hasn’t done much to stop counterfeits from being sold on its platform, which is one reason why most luxury and high-end designers have avoided it. Glossy.co found that searching “Gucci,” for example, populates results replete with counterfeits. Louboutin isn’t seeking money, but rather a change in Amazon’s ad policies that currently allow for ad hijacking. {Glossy}Homepage Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
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Andrea Bossi
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Video Game Gear: 10 Things We Got In 2022 That We Now Can’t Live Without
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What do you mean you don’t know what this is? Isn’t it obvious? Image: Impact Acoustics / Kotaku / LUMIKK555 (Shutterstock) 2022 was the year I decided to get serious about my retrogaming setup. I was tired of having a 104lb CRT dominating half my computer desk and a PlayStation 2, MiSTer, and whatever other consoles I was currently interested in always in peripheral vision. After a bit of thought I concluded that the TV and all the consoles would be better off on a wheeled cart. A retro cart, if you would. It could live in my closet, or be wheeled out to wherever seemed fun. So I started speccing that out.
The best form factor ended up having two lower shelves—for the consoles, a smaller TATE-friendly/PAL-compatible PVM-1354Q CRT a friend had recently sold me, and bookshelf speakers—with the big-ass 29” TV up on the third, top tier. Both CRTs could accept RGB or YPbPr/component video…which to standardize on? Component seemed easier for a couple reasons, so I went with that. Then I just needed a switcher to not only flip between MiSTer, PS2, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, Wii, and Xbox, but to route any of those sources to either of the two screens.
That’s six in, two out. I wanted optical audio switching, too, for MiSTer, Xbox, and possibly PS2. Combined, those requirements take us far beyond the feature set of any basic switcher you’ll find on Amazon or Ali these days. Thus I turned to the bright, shining past of the mid-aughts, when component video adoption peaked and specialty A/V products catered to the more esoteric YPbPr-wrangling needs of the era’s home theater enthusiasts.
A few promising candidates surfaced. One high-end mid-2000s switcher was very fancy indeed and could actually transcode between analog and optical audio (wow!). But ultimately I was won over by the still-fancy but slightly more modest Impact Acoustics Deluxe Component Video / Digital Audio 6 In / 2 Out Matrix Switch, aka the “40697″. You can see it above. Not only can it route those six inputs to either screen, it can output to both screens simultaneously…the same source, or two different sources. Oh dear, am I blushing?
After a week or two I managed to snag a NOS (new old stock) one on eBay, and it proved just as performant as hoped: Any console on any display is now just a button-push away. The cart project is still in progress as I seek a working Xbox, look into appropriate Wii hax, and transition to a new display up top (kinda wishing I had gone with RGB now, actually!) but I’ve already been enjoying having all my beloved old games in a single, self-contained, no-compromises tower of power. Even got a beanbag! Hell yeah.
Alexandra Hall, Senior Editor
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Claire Jackson
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The State Of PlayStation In 2022
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PlayStation expanded beyond the console in 2022. Illustration: Angelica Alzona The decision-makers behind Sony’s console juggernaut spent a lot of 2022 putting down railway for 2023 and beyond, dumping money and time into growing the PlayStation brand beyond the funky-looking device in your entertainment center. The company wants the PlayStation name to be ubiquitous, and that has meant expanding not just in the form of video game acquisitions and new services, but bringing the PlayStation line into new mediums and markets. So, while Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarök bookended the PlayStation 5’s 2022 on the video game side, the brand was busy throughout the year.
Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg brought Nathan Drake and Sully (or people going by those names) to the big screen in 2022. Photo: Sony Pictures PlayStation becomes a movie and TV brand
PlayStation Productions, Sony’s film and television subsidiary dedicated to putting out adaptations based on the company’s video games, released its first project this year in the form of the Uncharted movie. Featuring Spider-Man star Tom Holland as a vague amalgamation of Nolan North’s original interpretation of Nathan Drake and his own version of Peter Parker if he was slightly more stoic, the film also has Mark Wahlberg as a character who shares his name (and little else) with Nate’s father figure, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. The movie is, at best, aggressively fine. It took a critical beating, but did rake in over $401 million globally at the box office. Sony has plans to make Naughty Dog’s cinematic action game series into a full-blown movie franchise.
While Nathan Drake put the PlayStation Productions logo in theaters, the company is spreading its brands out to several channels. Amazon is making a God of War TV show, Netflix is signed on for a Horizon series, and Peacock will stream a Twisted Metal show. (Yes, Anthony Mackie is set to star in a series inspired by a vehicular combat franchise that had its heyday on the PS1 and hasn’t seen a proper entry in over a decade.) The next project from PlayStation Productions is the upcoming Last of Us HBO show, which those involved with are promoting in very normal and sensible ways.
Whether any of the above will be any good remains to be seen, but Sony is making deals to put PlayStation characters on more screens and subscription services. The company has clearly decided that PlayStation games aren’t enough, and that they can instead be the origin point for an expanded universe that ties into the games its first-party studios are putting out. Speaking of…
Sony and Naughty Dog released The Last of Us a third time with its PS5 remake. Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku PlayStation movies and TV get re-released tie-ins
Putting an Uncharted movie in theaters and a Last of Us show on TVs is one piece of Sony’s new business model, but the company is also pairing these live-action adaptations with re-releases of the source material. Just a week before the Uncharted film launched, Sony released the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which brought both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy to PlayStation 5, a console they were readily playable on through backward compatibility. Oddly enough, this only included the last two games in the series, rather than the three games that preceded them. But it was an Uncharted product that people could buy after seeing the movie, or even before, as it included a free ticket to the film.
The Last of Us Part I, a remake of the 2013 original, launched in September to both praise for the source material and the technical upgrade the release brought to it, as well as a slew of criticism surrounding its $70 price point. The remake carried a cloud over it after a Bloomberg report exposed internal politics at Sony surrounding the project, which began under a PlayStation support studio before gradually becoming a Naughty Dog product. The whole situation stinks to high heaven, but it did conveniently fit into Sony’s business model of making its games into an extended universe. Now, there will be a (near) full-price Last of Us game on store shelves when the HBO show premieres on January 15.
God of War came to PC this year, but its sequel only came to consoles. Screenshot: Sony Santa Monica / Kotaku PlayStation continues to expand beyond consoles and to PC
Both of these re-releases were part of a PlayStation initiative to get more of its games on PC. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves brought the series (again, just the last two games, rather than any of the foundational ones that came before) to PC for the first time in October, and The Last of Us Part I will bring Joel and Ellie’s story to a computer near you in March. But it wasn’t just Naughty Dog’s games that got PC love, as God of War, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Marvel’s Spider-Man and its Miles Morales spin-off also launched on PC in 2022.
All that being said, we still have yet to see PlayStation release its first-party games on both its consoles and PC simultaneously. God of War launched four years late on PC this year, but its sequel, Ragnarök, only came to PS4 and PS5 in 2022. It’s been heartening to see Sony make more strides in the space, but hopefully in 2023 we see a more immediate commitment to bringing its games to those who play on PC.
Sony paid a lot of money for Bungie, but Destiny 2 will remain multiplatform. Image: Bungie Sony acquires Bungie, Haven, and Savage
All of these adaptations and ports were doubling down on PlayStation’s established brands, but the company also made its fair share of acquisitions and investments in the company’s future, as well. The most notable of these acquisitions was Destiny 2 developer Bungie, which PlayStation bought for a whopping $3.6 billion in January. However, it has no intention of making the shooter exclusive to its platform. The company also acquired the Jade Raymond-led Haven Studios, which hasn’t even released a video game yet.
Outside of the AAA space, Sony also acquired Savage Game Studios, whose founders previously worked on mobile hits like Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, in an attempt to kickstart a new mobile gaming division. The studio is apparently at work on a new project for phones and tablets based on an established PlayStation IP.
The PlayStation VR2 will launch next year, but won’t be usable with old PSVR games. Image: Sony PlayStation VR2 seems like an upgrade, but with caveats
Sony kicked off 2022 by announcing its second virtual reality headset, aptly named the PlayStation VR2. It sounds like a meaningful upgrade from the original PlayStation VR headset Sony released in 2016, with an impressive-sounding OLED, 4K resolution display, dedicated controllers so you won’t have to use your old PlayStation Move wands anymore, and a single-cord setup that will make using the whole thing more manageable. However, as news has come out about the device, things have gotten a bit more troubling.
The most egregious drawback Sony has confirmed is that original PlayStation VR games won’t be compatible with the PSVR2 headset. Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino said on the PlayStation Podcast that this is because “PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truly next generation VR experience,” citing much of the new headset’s tech as being incompatible with old PSVR games. Regardless of whatever explanation Sony has to offer, it’s a bummer that the PlayStation 5 seemed to be developed with more future-proofing in mind and now we’re dealing with backward compatibility issues again. So if you want to keep playing your old PSVR games, don’t throw your old headset out.
Oh, and the device will cost $550 when it launches on February 22 of next year, making it more expensive than the console it’s played on.
PlayStation Plus now has tiers, and whether you’ll get much value on them depends on where you live. Image: Sony PlayStation Plus launches new tiers with new problems
PlayStation Plus, Sony’s long-running subscription service for playing games online and collecting a vast array of “free” games, saw a revamp this year that put it more in-line with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass. It doesn’t seem like it’s gotten the same resounding love as its direct competitor, though. PlayStation Plus now has multiple tiers, which each have different included features and perks.
The cheapest is Essential, which is basically just what PlayStation Plus has been for years: online play, sales, cloud storage, and a few free games each month. The second tier is called PlayStation Plus Extra, which includes all of the above, as well as an on-demand library of PlayStation 4 and 5 games. The most expensive tier is PlayStation Plus Premium, which adds a streaming library of classic games from across all the PlayStation consoles, and even the PlayStation Portable.
Compared to Xbox’s native backward compatibility, streaming old games isn’t exactly an ideal alternative, especially for those who live in rural areas where internet download speeds can’t keep up.There’s a lot of potential in what PlayStation Plus offers right now, but it sounds like it’s having a retention problem following the big relaunch, with millions of subscribers canceling their membership in the months since.
The PlayStation 5 is (somewhat) easier to find
The PlayStation 5 is two years old now, but the console is still relatively difficult to find due to supply chain issues that are expected to last well into 2023, if not longer. But as we get further away from the original launch and demand starts to calm down, it’s become marginally easier to track down and buy a PS5 of your own. Brick-and-mortar stores are still hit or miss, but Kotaku had a bit more luck finding the box on digital storefronts. So hopefully by the time Spider-Man 2 launches next year, those still looking for a PlayStation 5 won’t face a massive ordeal.
The PlayStation 4 is nine years old and still got most of Sony’s big games in 2022. Image: Sony The PlayStation 4 hangs on a little bit longer
That being said, Sony still wasn’t quite ready to let go of the PlayStation 4 in 2023. The company’s biggest games this year, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War Ragnarök, all launched simultaneously on the PS4 and PS5 and were pretty alright experiences on the last-gen console. You know, if you’re cool with your PS4 sounding like it’s ready to take off on a flight across the Atlantic.
But looking forward, it seems 2023 will be the year Sony really starts to leave the old system behind. That’s a respectable ten years of service since its original 2013 launch, and PlayStation Studios now seem squarely focused on the PS5. Spider-Man 2, the VR spinoff Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Insomniac’s take on Wolverine were all announced as PS5 exclusive, so hopefully as this transition takes root, the PS5 becomes more readily available next year.
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Kenneth Shepard
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Experts warn smart toys for children could be collecting user data that might be sold
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The cool, connected toy you may have gotten your child for Christmas could be collecting their data. Experts warn that makers of smart toys could be selling that data to advertisers without you even knowing upfront.
Katie Terramiggi, from New York, said she bought her daughter Audrey a Fuzzible Friend several years ago for Christmas. Audrey, now 6 years old, loved how the toy would connect with Amazon’s Alexa to communicate with her. Terramiggi explained the toy speaks in a unique language at the push of a button — and then Audrey could ask Alexa to translate what it said.
But buried in the terms and conditions was a disclosure that the company, Creativity Inc., which creates Fuzzible Friends, collects anonymized information about their users and can generate transcripts of what children said.
It’s just one example of a growing trend, according to nonprofit researchers at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The organization’s recent report said smart toys bring new risks, including microphones and cameras, paired with significant data collection.
“Having any data collected on a child that isn’t strictly necessary is really reckless and unsafe,” said RJ Cross, of U.S. PIRG.
Cross said that data, although anonymized, is sold to advertisers to create profiles of children, just like companies can for adults.
Even educational tech products can have privacy risks. The group Human Rights Watch analyzed 163 educational computer learning products “endorsed by 49 countries during the pandemic” and found that 146 of them “put at risk or directly violated children’s privacy and other… rights, for purposes unrelated to their education.”
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, is calling on the Federal Trade Commission to strictly limit data collection on children.
“I mean it’s just a staggering amount of information that’s collected online,” said EPIC’s executive director Alan Butler.
He said that information is used to track children’s behavior.
“It’s just not really realistic, for a parent, as you say, to be able to parse these legal documents, understand what’s happening technologically and what’s happening with their kids’ data,” Butler said.
The FTC declined to comment.
Amazon told CBS News in a statement, “The third-party Fuzzible kids’ skill is not currently available for Alexa customers, so Alexa cannot interact with the Fuzzible Friends toy. The device is not built by Amazon and does not have Alexa built-in.”
Terramiggi says she’ll be paying more attention to the fine print from now on, but doesn’t think she should have to.
“I should be able to trust the toymakers that are putting the toys on the market,” Terramiggi said. “You assume they’re looking out for your child’s best needs.”
The manufacturer of the Fuzzible Friends and the company that once provided the connection to Alexa, Creativity Inc., did not respond to requests for comment.
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What Is Temu, And Is It Legit?
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The Chinese bargain shopping app has been downloaded more than 10 million times in the U.S. in less than four months.
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Madeline Garfinkle
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I Tried On the 4 Coolest Winter Coats on Amazon (and They’re All Under $130)
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Coat season is upon us, and if you haven’t already nabbed yourself a cozy winter topper, then you’ve come to the right place! Not to sound like a broken record, but a coat is one of the most important items you can buy in winter—protecting you from the elements and serving as your most stylish layer.
Amazon has been a surprising winner in the coat department. As I went down a rabbit hole on their site while shopping for new kitchen appliances and other knick knacks last week I couldn’t help but add a handful of comfy and cool coats to my shopping cart. From a cozy sherpa jacket to a practical puffer, below I wanted to share the four styles that made the cut—along with some other of my absolute favorites. The best part is that they all clock in at under $130. Take a peek below and stay warm in style this winter.
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Judith Jones
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According to Amazon Reviews, These Are the 20 Beauty Products You Won’t Regret
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Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars
Review Highlight: “I don’t write reviews often. I’m 60 years old, have decent skin, no surgical procedures (yet). But for me to see the results the next day, after using and applying my usual moisturizer and serum. I will try the other products with no hesitation! Ladies after putting on my light foundation, I thought my face looks brighter! Not being arrogant, I now keep the Vital C cleanser on hand at all times!!” — Amazon reviewer
What We Say: Formulated with hyaluronic acid and a vitamin C complex, this serum minimizes the appearance of lines, wrinkles, dark spots, and discoloration. Plus, it even soothes dry skin and leaves it feeling soft and supple.
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Casey Clark
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American hold $21 billion in unused gift cards
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American hold $21 billion in unused gift cards – CBS News
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