Facebook issues $397 checks to Illinois residents as part of class-action lawsuit

More than a million Illinois residents will receive a $397 settlement payment from Facebook this week, thanks to a legal battle over the platform’s since-retired photo-tagging system that used facial recognition. It’s been nearly seven years since the …

A pregnant worker and labor activist says Amazon made her pick up trash alone

Two Amazon employees have accused the company of retaliating against them for their efforts to organize workers at a warehouse in Liverpool, New York. Ashley Mercer and Jason Main filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on May 17th.

According to Vice News, Amazon tasked Mercer last week with picking up cigarette butts, broken glass and other discarded trash in the parking lot of its SYR1 warehouse in Liverpool. Mercer told the outlet her manager sent her out alone and without water or sunscreen on a day when the temperature went above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Making the optics of the situation worse, Mercer is about six months pregnant, putting her at the end of her second trimester. “Approved for 10 hours parking lot clean-up,” an accommodation report obtained by Vice states. 

On the same day, the company suspended Mercer’s partner, Jason Main, who is also named in the NLRB complaint. Amazon later fired him for reportedly not using a step stool for moving merchandise. Mercer and Main have both been involved in agitating on behalf of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at a variety of warehouses in New York. Additionally, the two have come to work at the Liverpool facility wearing ALU-branded shirts and masks, while Mercer has also done the same at two warehouses in nearby Syracuse, and passed out leaflets at JFK8, the Staten Island facility that became the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the US last month.

“It wasn’t until I started mentioning that I am part of Amazon Labor Union that they pulled me out of my position and put me outside the building,” Mercer told Vice. “I think it’s retaliation because I’m a big part of [the ALU] and it feels like as soon as you bring up the union, they treat you differently.”

We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment.

Amazon has yet to recognize the ALU. In April, the company challenged the result of the JFK8 vote, accusing the organization of threatening employees unless they voted to unionize. It also recently fired two employees who were involved in organizing that facility, and ALU itself was born out of the company’s termination of founder Christian Smalls, a former worker at the JFK8 facility.

Ubisoft’s free-to-play ‘Roller Champions’ heads to PC and consoles on May 25th

After it first unveiled the game at E3 2019, Ubisoft will finally release Roller Champions on May 25th, the publisher announced today. The free-to-play title will be available on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – as well as Xbox Series X/S and PS5 throu…

Google’s Russian division is filing for bankruptcy

Google’s Russian division submitted a notice of intention to declare bankruptcy after officials seized its bank account. That “has made it untenable for our Russia office to function, including employing and paying Russia-based employees, paying suppliers and vendors, and meeting other financial obligations,” a Google spokesperson told Reuters.

Like many other companies, Google suspended most of its commercial activities in Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February. Despite that and the bankruptcy filing, it will continue to provide Russians with access to free services such as Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Android for the time being.

In May last year, Russia fined Google around $82,000 for failing to delete thousands of pieces of content it deemed to be illegal. Authorities then fined the company approximately $98 million in December for similar reasons. That was estimated to be around 5.7 percent of Google’s 2021 turnover in Russia.

In recent months, telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor has been pressuring YouTube to lift restrictions on access to Russian media. A Russian TV channel reported last month that bailiffs seized around 1 billion rubles (approximately $15 million) from Google after it declined to restore the station’s access to its YouTube account.

While Russia has blocked many other platforms and services, including Google News, it doesn’t currently have plans to prevent users in the country from accessing YouTube. It said this week that residents would likely suffer as a result of such a move. Reutersreported that the streaming platform has around 90 million Russian users. 

Russia’s minister for digital development also said that, despite testing its own, closed-off version of the internet, the country plans to stay connected to the global network.

New York State AG investigates Discord, Twitch roles in Buffalo mass shooting

New York State wants to understand the part internet services may have played in the deadly Buffalo mass shooting. Attorney General Letitia James is launching investigations into Discord, Twitch, 4chan and 8chan over concerns they let the attacker “discuss and amplify” his plans. It was “chilling and unfathomable” that the shooter could post his intentions months in advance without facing consequences, James said.

The perpetrator reportedly talked about his plans for racism-fuelled violence on Discord, 4chan and 8chan. He tried to livestream the entire attack on Twitch. The service took down the shooter’s channel within two minutes and has clamped down on attempts to reshare the video, but that didn’t stop others from trying to distribute the video on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. On Discord, meanwhile, the culprit invited others to review his plans half an hour in advance. Both 4chan and 8chan have long focused on an anything-goes approach to content and have been accused of harboring hate speech.

A Discord spokesperson told Engadget the company would cooperate with the investigation. We’ve also asked Twitch for comment. Discord has a long history of banning extremist chat servers. Likewise, Twitch has previously pulled violent streams and curbed efforts to share the associated clips.

The investigations won’t necessarily lead to action against the involved sites. Whether or not they do, the move underscores the pressure on internet services to proactively remove hate and threatening speech, rather than reacting to incidents.

Democratic lawmakers want FTC to investigate controversial identity firm ID.me

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon is calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate ID.me, the controversial identification company best known for its work with the Internal Revenue Service. In a letter addresse…

Honda shows off its first electric SUV, the Prologue

After announcing the very cute Honda E and a long-term collaboration with GM, Honda has made its EV ambitions clear. But it’s still lagging behind most other carmakers—especially its closest rival Toyota, which is rolling out its first mainstream electric car this year. To whet our appetites a bit, Honda has revealed a teaser image of the Prologue, its first electric SUV launching in 2024. And, well… it looks pretty much like what we’d expect from a Honda SUV.

The lone image, which is just a render and not a photo of the Prologue in action, shows off the SUV’s clean body lines and beefy tires. The Prologue is a design collaboration between its studios in Los Angeles and Japan, and it was also developed together with GM. There’s a bit of old and new here, for sure, but its relatively plain aesthetic makes Toyota’s BZ4X look practically radical in comparison.

Honda plans to unveil 30 new EVs by 2030, with expected sales of 2 million units. After kicking off sales of the Prologue in 2024, Honda plans to start producing and selling new EVs based on its e:Architecture in 2026, and it’ll have affordable EVs (also developed with GM) in 2027. You’ll find the Prologue first in Zero Emissions states, but it should start heading to more states in the US afterwards. 

Honda dealership with EV upgrades
Honda

There’s only so much we can learn from a single render, but it’s still helpful to see that Honda has its eye on the EV ball. The company also plans to bring Level 2 and fast-charging to dealerships around the US, as well as some slightly more modern building designs.

You can finally stream YouTube Music on your Wear OS watch

YouTube Music on Wear OS now works the way you’d expect. As The Vergenotes, Google’s music service now streams directly from its Wear OS app, whether you’re on LTE or WiFi. You’ll need to pair with an Android phone for full functionality (cellular streaming isn’t an option for iPhone users), and a Premium subscription is necessary regardless of platform. If you meet those criteria, though, you can leave your phone at home knowing you’ll still have access to all your tunes.

The upgrade also lets you add a YouTube Music tile for quick access to the browse section or your most recently played playlist. If you do need offline listening, Smart Downloads will automatically refresh your on-watch library whenever you’re connected to WiFi. The streaming upgrade should finish rolling out this week.

First-party music streaming on Wear OS has been problematic, to put it mildly. Google Play Music was available on the platform, but the app didn’t carry over when the company shut down the service in 2020 and transitioned to the YouTube offering. YouTube Music came to Wear OS (with offline-only playback) in summer 2021, but it was initially restricted to the Galaxy Watch 4 and didn’t come to Wear OS 2 devices until September that year. You’ve had to turn to Spotify and other third-party services for streaming, and in some cases it wasn’t an option at all.

There’s plenty of pressure to add streaming, though. Google is releasing the Pixel Watch this fall with optional LTE, and it wouldn’t look good if you couldn’t stream the company’s music service on its official smartwatch. The improved YouTube Music app should ensure a consistent experience when the Pixel wristwear arrives, at least if you’re determined to use an all-Google setup.