The Biden-Harris campaign has launched a ‘Build Back Better’ map in Fortnite

No Malarkey Station appears in the Biden-Harris campaign’s new Fortnite map | Biden campaign

With just a few days to go before the November 3rd presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign has launched a new custom map in Fortnite. First reported by Mashable, the “Build Back Better with Biden” map is located in “Reboot City,” and is aimed at promoting the campaign’s message that the environment and economy are connected. The solo-player, adventure-type map takes about 20 to 30 minutes to play, and made its debut Friday night.

“Our digital program is built around how people spend time, and the most effective ways reach them in those places,” Christian Tom, the Biden campaign’s director of digital partnerships said in a statement to The Verge. “We see interactive, digital-first experiences like gaming as an opportunity to bring our campaign to a new place and platform.”

The custom Fortnite map is a “substantive, approachable, and fun way to reach and mobilize voters,” Tom added. Signs around the map encourage players to visit makeaplan.com, and players can text “Fortnite” to 30330 to learn how to early-vote in person, drop off a ballot, or vote on Election Day.

Biden campaign

The Biden Fortnite map encourages you to vote

It’s not the Biden campaign’s first foray into the video game realm. Earlier this month, the campaign launched a virtual Biden field office for voters to visit in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, “an entire island on the platform where supporters can further connect with the campaign.” And in September, the campaign introduced Biden-Harris yard signs in ACNH.

In the Fortnite map, after players arrive via train at No Malarkey Station, there are six challenges related to the Biden-Harris agenda for players to complete, the campaign told The Verge:

• Help Build a New Research Facility at Champ’s Construction site: “Build a new research facility at the local historically Black college. Build to the top, and stay inside the blueprints.”
• Install 3 Scranton Towers: “Help install these new 5G Broadband towers to ensure every American has access to broadband,” with a shoutout to Biden’s birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
• Restore The Aviator River: “Race to collect industrial waste and restore the river. This challenge highlights Biden’s plan to mobilize the next generation of conservation and resilience workers through a Civilian Climate Corps.”
• Visit Joe’s Famous Ice Cream Shop: “slide down the colors (flavors) to get as much ice cream as you can.”
• Help make Major’s Auto Factory Run Clean: “They modified the line to produce electric cars and are now retrofitting the offices before reopening. Install new high efficiency AC units and unwrap the solar panels on the roof.”
• Complete Kamala’s Sneaker Run: “Find all 10 of Kamala’s sneakers around the city.” Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris is known for sporting Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers as part of her standard wardrobe.

Biden’s dogs Champ and Major both have homes in Reboot City, and there are also a number of Easter eggs in the map, including a boogie bomb, a flashlight, “chiller grenade,” and a boom box.

The code to access the Biden Build Back Better map is 0215-4511-1823.

Despite developer Epic Games’ ongoing legal battle with Apple, Fortnite has shown it can draw big numbers. As of May, Epic said the game had 350 million registered players. In April, a Travis Scott concert in Fortnite drew 12.3 million concurrent players, which Epic claimed was “an all-time record” for the battle royale game.

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Watch the AR concert that opened up the 2020 League of Legends World Championship

Once again Riot has turned the opening ceremonies of the League of Legends World Championship final into a technological showcase. This year at Pudong Football Stadium in Shanghai, the ceremony was split into a few different parts: it opened with virtual K-pop group K/DA performed via augmented reality, which was followed by a melody of anthems from past Worlds events. At the end, as the players were introduced, a virtual, towering version of League character Galio — known as the stone colossus — appeared on stage.

While the event wasn’t as visually impressive as last year’s holographic showcase, it was still an impressive feat considering the restraints created by the ongoing pandemic. The main cast of performers were virtual, but they were accompanied by a few dozen real-world dancers and musicians, including Chinese pop star Lexie Liu. (There was also a very cyberpunk-looking AR Ducati motorcycle that helped kick things off.)

Perhaps the most noticeable feature, especially in comparison to other esports events in 2020, was the presence of fans: around 6,000 people were in attendance to watch Korea’s Damwon Gaming defeat Suning Gaming of China in the championship match. Later on, after the games actually started, Riot also announced a release window for the first League spinoff, which launches next year.

@DamwonGaming pic.twitter.com/fNfbNW7GbK

— LoL Esports (@lolesports) October 31, 2020

Ahead of the finals, the early stages of this year’s edition of Worlds looked a bit different due to the pandemic. Prior to the finals, the month-long tournament was played out of a high-tech studio in Shanghai, one that utilized an Unreal Engine-powered backdrop to create some astonishing mixed reality effects. The technology was similar to what Disney used to create The Mandalorian.

These kinds of spectacles are becoming the norm for Riot. At last year’s Worlds in Paris, a holographic hip-hop group performed (with an assist from Louis Vuitton), while the year before K/DA debuted via an augmented reality concert in Incheon. There’s also more to come from the virtual K-pop group. K/DA will be releasing its first EP on November 6th, and just this week Riot released an animated video for the single “More.”

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Walmart will drop the best AirPods deal tonight — but there's a catch

SAVE $91: Apple's second-gen AirPods (with a wireless charging case) will be on sale at Walmart for just $108 starting Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. ET, but only in select U.S. states.

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This is not a drill: Walmart's about to drop the hottest AirPods deal we've ever seen.

Starting Thursday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. ET, the Mashable's Choice Award-winning earbuds (the second-gen version with a wireless charging case) will go on sale for just $108 as part of a "Limited Time Event" the retailer is hosting ahead of Black Friday. (A 64% markdown on a 32-inch Philips TV will go live at the same time — don't miss out.) Read more...

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Even Peloton is cracking down on QAnon

It’s not just social networks and digital marketplaces cracking down on QAnon. Peloton has confirmed to Business Insider that it has pulled QAnon hashtags that supporters of the conspiracy theory were using to connect to each other on the fitness platform. A spokesperson said Peloton removed the content due to a “zero-tolerance” approach to “hateful content.”

Peloton removes anything that “does not reflect our company’s values of inclusiveness and unity or maintain a respectful environment,” the representative said.

QAnon has revolved around unsupported claims that parts of the US government are involved in human tracking and pedophilia, and that Donald Trump would ultimately take those offenders down. Some of the theory’s more extreme devotees have been involved in violence, hate and harassment, with the FBI going so far as to declare QAnon a domestic terrorist threat.

The tags didn’t appear to have large followings — a Q tag spotted by Washington Post opinions editor Drew Goins had 63 members shortly before it became unusable. Still, this shows just how difficult it can be to contain potentially harmful online movements, especially for Peloton and others that don’t normally have to aggressively moderate their services.

getting radicalized on Peloton pic.twitter.com/kh9UvfQKg7

— Drew Goins (@drewlgoins) October 6, 2020

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Researchers built a robot squid that propels itself with a water jet

To help explore underwater environments without damaging coral or sea life, engineers from UC San Diego created a robot squid (via Hackster.io). Soft robots are less likely to harm aquatic life than rigid ones. Researchers used mainly soft materials like acrylic polymer to build the device, along with a few 3D printed and laser-cut rigid parts.

The team drew inspiration from the jet propulsion mechanism of real squid to help the robot swim by itself. It takes some water into its flexible body, where it also stores elastic energy. The robot can compress its body to release that energy and use a water jet to propel itself. The device can adjust the nozzle’s position, so it can swim in any direction.

The engineers claim the robot can travel around half a mile per hour, which is faster than most soft robots. The robot also has a waterproof compartment that can house a camera or other sensor, which is vital for recording data.

“Essentially, we recreated all the key features that squids use for high-speed swimming,” said Michael T. Tolley, a professor at the university’s department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and a senior author on a paper about the robot. “This is the first untethered robot that can generate jet pulses for rapid locomotion like the squid and can achieve these jet pulses by changing its body shape, which improves swimming efficiency.”

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Waymo offers public rides in driverless cars in Phoenix

Three years after coming to Phoenix, Waymo plans to open its fully autonomous cars to the city’s wider population. Starting today, current Waymo One members can book a trip through the company’s app and invite their friends and family to join them for the ride. Over the next several weeks, the Alphabet-owned company will allow more people to sign up for Waymo One.

“In the near term, 100 percent of our rides will be fully driverless,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik said. Once the company adds barriers to its vehicles that separate the front row seats from the rear passenger cabin, Waymo will start offering rides with trained operators again. The move will allow the company to open up the service to more people and service a larger geographical area. Waymo currently operates in a 100-square-mile area that includes the Tempe and Mesa suburbs of Phoenix. However, it’s driverless cars are currently limited to a 50-square-mile operating area.

Moreover, Waymo won’t leave those cars to their own devices. As The Verge points out, the company has a team of remote employees that keep tabs on the vehicles. The company says those employees aren’t “joy-sticking” the cars, but they can step in if something goes awry. That should set some people at ease about getting into the vehicles, but it also adds a wrinkle to Waymo’s claim that the rides it’s about to offer in Phoenix are fully driverless.

Still, today’s announcement is a significant milestone for Waymo, particularly after some of the company’s coronavirus-related setbacks earlier in the year. Waymo says it expects its fully driverless service to be “very popular,” but that could take a while. A recent report found that 48 percent of Americans said they would never get into a self-driving taxi. Letting Waymo One members take their family and friends along for a ride and expanding the availability of the service is a good way to start shaving down that number.

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MrBeast ends Finger on the App competition by telling players to stop after 70 hours

After watching contestants keep their fingers attached to a phone screen for more than 70 hours, YouTube creator Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson called an early end to a massive competition originally designed with one winner and a $25,000 prize in mind. The result? Four winners, each walking away with $20,000 in hand.

Donaldson’s “Finger on the App” was a one-time game designed in partnership with internet collective MSCHF. The rules were simple: be the last person to take your finger off a phone screen, and win $25,000. The game kicked off at 3PM ET on June 30th, and ran until Donaldson called an end to the madness on Twitter at 1:15PM ET today.

“Dear the four remaining contestants with your finger still on the app, I’m ending it here,” Donaldson tweeted. “Three days is insane! You ALL win and will ALL receive $20,000. CONGRATULATIONS!”

Despite Donaldson’s calls for players to “go to sleep,” a couple contestants kept going. One player argued on a livestream that Donaldson’s tweet could be a trick; if three of the final four players removed their fingers, the last person standing could still stand to win $25,000. Another member of the final four had his game disconnected.

“Dear the four remaining contestants with your finger still on the app, I’m ending it here.”

A couple of the players said they tweeted at Donaldson asking about next steps because they were left confused. Donaldson then tweeted that he was able to get two “of the $20,000 winners in a phone call.” A follow up tweet from Donaldson confirmed “all four winners have been contacted and will get their money.”

“Glad a robot didn’t win,” Donaldson tweeted.

Donaldson also said that a lot of people were pretending to have won, but that his team “confirmed the actual winners thru the backend and they have all been contacted.” At least one person on a live stream who claimed to have been in the final group said they had not received a call from Donaldson. The Verge has reached out to MSCHF and Donaldson for more information.

Over the last day, Donaldson started offering some of the remaining players thousands of dollars to take their finger off the app. Two players took their fingers off the app on July 2nd for $5,000 each, according to Donaldson’s tweets, and another two players took their fingers off today for $10,000 each.

“I think the beauty of the game is that we don’t really have control”

Donaldson has made a name for himself on YouTube for similar type of videos. Over the last three years, Donaldson has filmed videos about making large donations or presenting challenges that land friends and strangers new houses and cars. His channel skyrocketed under the new format. Donaldson gave his mom $100,000, bought a house for his best friend, opened pop-up shops where visitors could buy expensive electronics for cheap, and bought car shoppers a vehicle of their choice after taking over a dealership, practically giving away every car.

Prior to the game’s launch, Donaldson spoke to The Verge about expectations both his team and MSCHF had for the game. The app was prepared to hold “millions of concurrent players,” with more than 1 million players within the first hour. Having those many players enter a game at once comes with some concerns.

Donaldson was especially interested in “making sure someone couldn’t just duct tape their hand to the phone,” he told The Verge at the time. This required players to occasionally move their fingers in specific ways, he said. Donaldson also acknowledged that much of it is out of his control, but it’s that chaotic element that he was most excited by.

“I think the beauty of the game is that we don’t really have control,” Donaldson said. “It’s really up to the people playing and seeing who lasts the longest, and I think our main thing was just keeping the game fair.”

By the end, it became clear that Donaldson wanted to control the game a little to make sure contestants finally got some sleep.

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22 tweets for people who are sick and tired of Zoom calls

We're only halfway through 2020, but the Zoom fatigue is real.

Quarantining, social distancing, and working from home if possible are crucial actions needed to help slow the spread of COVID-19. But physically isolating yourself from your co-workers, friends, and family members means a whole lot of video chatting.

Zoom meetings, parties, dates, and other virtual catch ups are really starting to take a toll on people. Aside from the sheer boredom that comes from sitting in front of a screen and listening to people talk for hours, video chats can also be awkward as hell.

It's nearly impossible to talk on Zoom without interrupting or speaking over someone, people are always forgetting to mute or unmute their mics, and hanging up calls is a whole production. The only real bright spot of video calls are the rare times when you're blessed enough to see a dog or a child. Read more...

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Olympus rolls out PC app that turns some of its cameras into webcams

Olympus may be selling its camera business — to the same company that bought Sony’s VAIO PC division — but it’s not abandoning its products just yet. It has just released a new beta application called OM-D Webcam, which gives Olympus cameras webcam capabilities for livestreaming or video chats when attached to a PC via their USB-C tether. While the application definitely sounds useful in an era of Zoom work conferences and online classes, not all Olympus users will be able to take advantage of it.

To start with, it only works with Windows PCs, and it’s unclear if a macOS version will be available. Also, it’s only compatible with a handful of cameras at the moment. The software’s current version supports OM-D E-M1X, OM-D E-M1, OM-D E-M1 Mark II, OM-D E-M1 Mark III and OM-D E-M5 Mark II. Further, it doesn’t allow sound to pass through from the camera to the computer, which means users need to use their PCs’ internal mic or a USB mic.

Olympus isn’t the only camera brand that has rolled out software to make its products more useful in the midst of a pandemic. Canon launched its own app that turns DSLRs, mirrorless cameras and point-and-shoots into USB webcams for Windows 10 users back in April. And in early June, Panasonic introduced the Lumix Tether for Streaming to turn the GH5 and GH5S, as well as the G9 and S1 series cameras into webcams.

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What to expect from the next version of 5G

5G coverage may still be sparse, and the world is still trying to understand how it works or affects us, but the people that define networking standards won’t stop working on it. The 3GPP, which is a group of organizations that develop protocols for mobile telecoms, just announced the official completion of Release 16 (Rel-16). They’re calling this Phase 2 for the 5G system, and it will expand the use of networks by vehicles and IoT devices, and tap into unlicensed spectrum as well.

One of the many companies that contributes ideas and technologies that eventually get adopted into 5G protocols is Qualcomm, and it also published blog posts today about Rel-16. Of course, Qualcomm wants you to know all about its inventions that have been adopted and will be used by the telecomms industry, but this information does help us to understand how the upcoming changes will work.

According to Qualcomm vice president of engineering John Smee, there are six key “invention areas... that are core to continued 5G evolution.” These are unlicensed spectrum, advanced power saving and mobility, high-precision positioning, sidelink, mission-critical design and new deployment models. There are also other areas of evolution coming in Release-16, but we’ll need to dig deeper into the 3GPP’s notes to analyze those. For now, here’s what we know to expect and what it means.

Unlicensed spectrum for greater access and bandwidth

First, Rel-16 will enable support for unlicensed spectrum use in two modes of operation — license assisted access (LAA) and standalone. When tapping into unlicensed spectrum, you may see a string of characters “5G NR-U,” with the U standing for unlicensed. 5G NR is what we know of as cellular 5G today, just as LTE was another moniker for 4G. LAA means that carriers can tap into unlicensed spectrum to boost 5G bandwidth, like they’re already doing with LTE LAA.

In the standalone mode, though, NR-U could allow a wider variety of operators to use 5G technology, like wireless internet service providers. Those wishing to run private networks, say for a campus or within a company’s headquarters, can also do so on NR-U. With NR-U, people can tap into the new 6GHz band, too. This is the first time the 3GPP has defined cellular technology for full unlicensed use, and Smee expects NR-U to be the basis for “future spectrum innovations such as supporting the unlicensed 60 GHz band that is targeting Release 17.”

Power savings and mobility

Most 5G devices today are chunkier than their LTE counterparts, largely due to the bigger batteries they have to house to support the power-sucking tech. Rel-16 features a bunch of energy-saving features, including Qualcomm’s wakeup signal (WUS). It will prevent receivers from continually checking for a signal and draining your battery, and instead using a lower-power process that only wakes up the device when a WUS is detected. There’s also improved carrier aggregation control to make that process less energy consuming by powering down secondary carriers when not in use.

Rel-16 also looks to improve mobility and handoff, meaning a more seamless transition between cell towers via processes like device-driven conditional handover, early measurement reporting and more. This is a lot of jargon that ultimately means you may eventually see fewer interruptions to your 5G connection and stay latched on for longer. Considering staying connected to a mmWave (sometimes known as ultra wideband) tower can be finicky, this would be a welcome improvement.

Other updates: Positioning, vehicles and new deployment models

There’s a lot more coming in the second phase of 5G, including better cellular positioning, improvements to vehicular communications and general infrastructure enhancements. These mostly build on technologies already existing in Release 15, like supporting coordinated driving and sensor sharing in smart cars and improving latency and synchronization in vehicles. With new deployment models, Rel-16 expands its support for non-public networks like industrial IoT and enterprise. These should make adopting 5G in all kinds of environments more popular.

Of course, these changes won’t be happening overnight or even within a year. It’s been almost three years since the first 5G spec was officially approved and though we’re starting to see networks and devices take hold, the protocol is far from widespread. It’s likely we’re years away from seeing the power-saving and bandwidth benefits in the real world, but this is an interesting glimpse at what’s to come.

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Watch Seth Rogen star opposite himself in 'An American Pickle' trailer

What's better than a movie that stars Seth Rogen? A movie that stars Seth Rogen... twice.

The trailer for the forthcoming HBO Max comedy film, An American Pickle, just dropped, and Rogen is seen masterfully playing opposite himself in the two main roles.

The movie is based on Simon Rich's short story, Sell Out — which was published in the New Yorker back in 2013 — and follows the bizarre story of Herschel Greenbaum (Rogen,) an immigrant who comes to America to pursue his dreams, falls into a giant vat of pickles, and is preserved by the brine for 100 years.

When Greenbaum comes to in present-day Brooklyn, he meets his great-grandson, Ben Greenbaum (also Rogen,) and the two attempt to bond. Read more...

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CommStar will launch a relay satellite to talk to astronauts on the Moon

NASA plans to return humans to the Moon by 2024, but there are still plenty of questions about how that will work. One challenge is that communicating between Earth and the Moon still requires bulky, expensive equipment. A new company, CommStar Space Communications, wants to take the burden of building and managing that equipment off of governments and private space ventures. Today, CommStar announced plans to launch a private data relay satellite (“CommStar-1”) that could serve as communications infrastructure for space missions.

The company hopes to launch CommStar-1 by 2023. The satellite will be capable of relaying optical and radio frequency communications between the Moon and Earth, and eventually it could facilitate communication beyond the Moon. 

In theory, by using CommStar-1, governments and other private space ventures will be able to focus more resources on other aspects of their missions. In this way, CommStar is following in the footsteps of SpaceX, which just ferried its first NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. 

“CommStar-1 is a major step by the private sector in accelerating the transition of the government out of building and operating taxpayer-funded communications infrastructure in favor of a new role as customer,” the company wrote in a press release.

CommStar is working with Thales Alenia Space to design the first satellite, with plans to eventually operate a network of communications satellites.

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Google Duo on the web now supports 32-person video chat

Google Duo has upped its game over the last two months. In May, the web-based chat app added a family mode with cutesy Snapchat-like AR effects and a doodle board to make video chatting more fun for kids (and bored adults.) Now, Google has updated Duo’s capacity: when using the web client, you can hold a group video chat with up to 32 people. The update to Duo is rolling out with the latest version of Chrome, says Google’s communication suite lead, Sanaz, Ahari Lemelson, via Twitter. 

This is the second time this year Duo has increased the maximum on video calls; in March, it expanded from eight to 12. The new upgrade gives Google’s video chat app the same capacity as FaceTime. It’s still more limited than Skype’s 50-person calls, but offers more than WhatsApp’s eight-person limit. 

Google joins every communication platform ever in a COVID-driven race to put their own improved spin on video calling. Although Zoom has been the breakout star of video calling throughout the pandemic, privacy concerns, interference by the Chinese government and “zoombombing” have tarnished its shine in recent weeks, leaving an opening for another must-have video conferencing option. Duo’s browser-based, device-agnostic chat app is in a good position to steal that spotlight. 

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As COVID-19 cases increase, Pence blames prevalence of testing

Enlarge / US Vice President Mike Pence having a facial expression during a roundtable meeting on seniors with US President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, DC, June 15, 2020. (credit: Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images)

States and cities all but completely shut down earlier this year in an attempt to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19. Many of those state and local authorities have now eased up on restrictions, allowing people to return to their pre-pandemic habits and behaviors. In many of those regions, COVID-19 cases are now on the rise, but the White House is pushing the message that COVID-19 spikes are due to an increase in testing and nothing more.

President Donald Trump said during a meeting on Monday, "If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any." Vice President Mike Pence doubled down on that messaging in a call with several states governors later in the day, trying to downplay any new outbreaks in their states.

"I would just encourage you all, as we talk about these things, to make sure and continue to explain to your citizens the magnitude of increase in testing," Pence told the governors, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

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Etsy app adds AR to help you with art placement

Etsy is helping customers preview wall art in their own spaces with a new augmented reality feature on its iOS app. So, you no longer have to rely on imagination alone when wondering if a certain art print would look good above your couch.

Etsy, an online marketplace notable for giving creators a platform to sell their art, has more than five million items for sale in its Art and Collectibles category. With so many options it can be difficult to choose a print or painting, let alone visualize how it will look in your space. The new AR feature is another tool meant to help in your decision process, the blog said.

To see how a certain piece of art would look in your space, simply select the item in the Etsy app and then tap the AR icon in the upper righthand corner of the item image. Move your iPhone or iPad camera around your room and tap the space where you want to preview the art. You can make adjustments like moving the art around and, if multiple sizes are available, adjusting its size.

The app only works with 2D art, so you’ll still have to visualize in your head how a statuette may look on your coffee table. As of now, AR is only available for iOS users, but Etsy says it’s coming to Android users soon.

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Mutation may be helping the coronavirus spread more readily

Enlarge (credit: State of Delaware)

About a month ago, news reports painted a potentially grim picture: a single mutation in SARS-CoV-2 was taking over the world, rapidly displacing earlier forms of the virus in most locations. The researchers behind the finding suggested we were watching in real time as SARS-CoV-2 was evolving into a form that spreads more readily within human populations.

While the evidence was suggestive, it wasn't decisive, and there were a number of alternative explanations for the pattern of viral spread. As is so often the case in science, we needed more data. Now, some additional data has arrived in the form of a draft paper that suggests that there's a biochemical reason for why the mutated form of the virus might be more potent.

Scientific back and forth

The idea behind the original results was fairly simple. If we assume that mutations show up at random in the coronavirus genome, then the chance of two identical mutations appearing independently in the virus's genome is pretty low, given that the genome is over 30,000 bases long. Thus, if we see the same mutation in two different locations, the chances are very good that they got there through common descent from an ancestor that had the mutation.

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The T-Mobile and Sprint merger is already resulting in hundreds of layoffs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Only a couple months after the merger between T-Mobile and Sprint was completed, the enormous combined telecom company has now announced layoffs affecting hundreds of Sprint employees. TechCrunch obtained audio of a conference call that took place yesterday between T-Mobile VP James Kirby and the people who are losing their jobs. It was just one of “several calls held by T-Mobile leadership throughout the day to lay off staff across the organization.” The layoffs are said to have largely impacted Sprint workers rather than those on the T-Mobile side.

Kirby relayed the news that T-Mobile is “eliminating Sprint’s inside sales unit (BISO), a sales division that focuses on small businesses across the United States,” according to TechCrunch. Laid-off employees will keep working until August 13th, after which they’ll receive severance. On the call, Kirby claimed that 200 new positions will be created after these layoffs and encouraged the laid-off workers to apply for those open spots.

Back when both companies were fighting to get their colossal merger approved, they insisted that the $26 billion deal would ultimately create more new jobs than those it would eliminate, which rarely proves to be the case. The job cuts announced Monday come as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on and continues to batter the US economy.

Monday wasn’t a good day at T-Mobile. In addition to the layoffs, T-Mobile suffered the worst carrier outage in recent memory, with voice, text, and data services all rendered unavailable nationwide over a period of several hours. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called the downtime “unacceptable,” and while T-Mobile has since restored service, the company has yet to offer a detailed explanation as to what went so wrong. CEO Mike Sievert and network boss Neville Ray were both relatively quiet Tuesday on Twitter after the network was back up and running.

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Google is bringing Microsoft Office and other Windows apps to Chromebooks

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Google is partnering with Parallels to bring native Microsoft Office applications and other legacy enterprise Windows applications to Chromebooks. Google revealed the new partnership in a blog post looking at the future of Chrome OS for enterprises.

While Chrome OS has long supported Windows desktop apps that are streamed via the cloud through a Parallels Remote Application Server, this new partnership means the apps will run virtualized on Chromebooks instead. The new feature is set to be available this fall for Chrome Enterprise customers.

Parallels Desktop will be integrated natively into Chrome OS, improving performance and enabling offline access for these applications on Chromebooks. It’s a surprising, but welcome move that will mean Chrome OS will be able to support both Android apps and Windows apps in the future.

It will also likely entice businesses to seriously consider Chromebooks as Windows laptop alternatives for certain employees, without having to invest in solutions to stream business apps to a Chromebook.

Google isn’t providing many details about the Parallels partnership just yet, but the company promises “more to come on this over the coming months.”

Update June 16th, 4:00pm: Added additional details, including the planned fall release window.

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Neopets animated series will launch in fall 2021

Neopets

The first Neopets animated series will launch in fall 2021, according to JumpStart CEO Jim Czulewicz.

JumpStart acquired the Neopets franchise from Viacom in 2014, and the new TV series is part of the company’s plans to refresh the beloved web game, which has a history that spans over 20 years. In February, Neopets announced that a television series in collaboration with Beach House Pictures and Blue Ant Studios was in production, but little is still known about the upcoming plot and characters.

“It’s been a long time coming for Neopets to move this way.”

In remarks given Tuesday as part of the Licensing Week Virtual event hosted by the Global Licensing Group, Czulewicz said that the company is currently working with three different storylines, but it has yet to make an official decision on what the final script will look like. JumpStart is also considering developing animated shorts “that drive into the bigger story arcs” longtime fans are familiar with, while targeting the main show to both younger audiences and legacy players.

Outside of the new TV series, Czulewicz said to expect plenty of new products as part of “the next major phase for the Neopets universe” this year. In 2017, Adobe announced that it would be retiring Flash in December 2020. Once the company stops updating Flash, many web games and sites that are built on it, like Neopets, will break. That’s why Neopets has been working to retranslate all of the old Flash code to HTML5 so the web game can continue to live on well into the future and operate in a mobile-friendly way. JumpStart also plans to launch new merchandise, like toys, trading cards, and plushes by the end of the year.

“It’s been a long time coming for Neopets to move this way,” Czulewicz said. “We’re going to see a lot coming out this year.”

Neopets is also continuing to develop mobile games after its poorly received Legends & Letters Scrabble-like game that launched on iOS and Android last year. In 2020, Czulewicz said to expect a new title called Island Builders, but not much is known about what the end product will look like.

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Amazon hopes AI will help enforce social distancing at its warehouses

Amazon has created a new AI called the Distance Assistant to help its fulfillment facility employees keep a safe distance from one another during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Using a time-of-flight sensor similar to the depth-sensing cameras you'll find on modern smartphones like the Galaxy S20, the assistant measures the distance between employees. The AI component is there to help it differentiate people from the background. What the AI sees is then displayed on a 50-inch screen for workers to glance at as they pass high-traffic areas.

The final piece the puzzle is an augmented reality overlay. In a kind of magic-mirror like way, employees will see a green or red circle around them on the display. As you might have guessed, green means they're at least six feet apart from one of their co-workers, while red means they're too close. The entire system runs on a local computer and doesn't need assistance from the cloud.  

The company says it has deployed the technology in a handful of its facilities, with plans to roll out "hundreds" of more units "over the next few weeks." It says employees like “getting immediate visual feedback,” but didn’t provide data that shows how effective the measure is at preventing the spread of the coronavirus. Amazon also plans to open-source the software so that other companies can use it as well. 

While Amazon's use of AI and AR is interesting here, it may be the latest example of a company attempting to apply a technological solution to what is ultimately a policy issue. A recent lawsuit filed by workers at the company's Staten Island warehouse accused Amazon of failing to follow CDC and New York state public health coronavirus guidelines. The lawsuit also said the company discourages employees from practicing "basic hygiene" if it means those workers need to spend a moment away from their stations.

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