Meta isn't stopping at moderation changes. According to both Axiosand The New York Times, the company is also pulling the plug on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. That includes removing diversity hiring goals, eliminating the chief diversity officer position and no longer prioritizing minority-owned businesses as vendors, per The Times' reporting.When asked to comment on ending DEI initiatives, Meta confirmed the reporting was accurate.Internally, the company is apparently pinning the decision on a shifting "legal and policy landscape," according to a memo to employees Axios acquired."The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI," Janelle Gale, Meta's VP of Human Resources says in the memo. "The term 'DEI' has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."The current Supreme Court is not exactly friendly towards systemic attempts to address issues of race, gender and sexuality, but in the context of Meta's other recent changes, it seems like there's more going on than the company being afraid of a possible lawsuit.At the same time that Mark Zuckerberg was announcing that Meta was abandoning third-party fact checking and changing what kind of speech it allows on its platform, 404 Media reports that the company removed the Trans and Non-binary themes from Messenger, and posts it made announcing them. The company also added Trump supporter and UFC CEO Dana White to its board this week, a confirmation of Zuckerberg's continuing UFC fandom but also a signal that it's eager to listen to conservative voices. It all seems to add up to less of a reaction to the current climate and more like the way people in charge want to be doing business going forward.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/metas-right-wing-reinvention-also-includes-an-end-to-dei-programs-and-trans-messenger-themes-204031848.html?src=rss

Skate City was an Apple Arcade launch title way back in 2019, developed by Agens and published by Snowman, a company well-known for its mobile-first games like Alto's Adventure, the "sequel" Alto's Odyssey, When Cards Fall and a handful of other intriguing titles. It's been over five years since Skate City first arrived, but the Snowman / Agens team is back with Skate City: New York, which is out on Apple Arcade today.There have been a number of content updates to the original game over the years, but this is a full-fledged new title that feels quite familiar but also has a number of improvements and updates. I had a chance to try Skate City: New York a few days before its launch, and I also spoke with Snowman's Ryan Cash and Andrew Schimmel about the new game, which they said has been in the works for a good three years now.As with the first Skate City, you're rolling left-to-right in classic side-scrolling format here. To make things accessible, you can pull off tricks by swiping in one of eight directions on the lower half of the screen; the left side is for ollie-based tricks while the right shifts you to nollie. You don't have to do anything precise to land, just launch the trick and the game will make sure you hit the ground rolling (unless you land on stairs or an obstacle, of course). That's the basic starting point, but you can also do spins, manuals, grinds and more. It's simpler than a game like the classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series or the recent OlliOlli World, but there's still a lot of timing and dexterity involved in really nailing your runs.As you'd expect, the visuals are more dynamic and the backgrounds are much-improved over the original (which was still a lovely game). But what sets this one apart the most, according to Schimmel, is the fact the "Pro Skate" mode, which is the most involved part of the game, uses procedurally-generated levels."We didn't want to limit ourselves to the original [game's] loops through the city, but instead make something that was more adaptive and dynamic," Schimmel said. "Procedural generation was the answer and the biggest technical challenge." It's not something that I was able to pick up on immediately, since I've only played the game for a couple hours, but Schimmel's confident it'll make Skate City: New York have even more replay-ability than the original.Snowman / AgensPro Skate reminds me a lot of Snowman's Alto's Adventure, but translated to skating the goal is to go as far as you can and rack up as many points as possible while completing three objectives to level your progress up. Objectives are things like "land three 180-degree spins" or "grind for 100 meters." But with levels more unpredictable than in the prior game, you'll need to be better at reacting on-the-fly to new obstacles, which can end your run but also give you an opportunity for a good grind or trick.As with all of Snowman's games, there are no in-app purchases here; instead, you'll get points for completing challenges and leveling up in Pro Skate. You can then use those to customize your character with the much more flexible and expanded Skate Shop. You can tweak your character's body, hair, facial characteristics, clothes, skateboard and so forth. I haven't played around with it a ton yet but it's obviously right off the bat that there's a lot more personalization here.As with Skate City, Snowman promises that there will be a steady stream of fresh challenges and more parts of the city to explore over the next year and beyond. Schimmel referred to it as a "live services" game even though there's no monetization aspect to it. I also asked how the team decided to release Skate City: New York through Apple Arcade versus having it be a one-time payment or even including paid updates in the game Cash called it an "easy choice.""We havent done a paid up-front game since Alto's Odyssey in 2018," Cash said. "Apple Arcade and Netflix Games are where we're at right now. And it was an easy choice when talking about Skate City: New York, because the first game was a launch title and found a lot of success there. It just made sense to bring it back to Apple Arcade." The first Skate City eventually came to consoles and PC, as well, and Cash said that was definitely under consideration for the future, but the goal is to make a mobile-first title as good as it can be.While the game doesn't feel wildly different than its predecessor, Skate City: New York still feels like a premium mobile game at a time when those can be hard to find. And Snowman and Agens have done a great job of balancing the pick-up-and-play aspects of a good mobile game with a deeper experience, at least from what I've seen so far. "We want a seven-year-old who's excited about skateboarding to have fun," Cash said, "as well as people like us who grew up loving skateboarding and really want a challenge."Skate City: New York is out today exclusively on Apple Arcade.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/skate-city-new-york-is-a-mobile-game-that-manuals-the-line-between-casual-and-deep-play-191526652.html?src=rss

The long-awaited streaming service Venu Sports is no longer happening, according to The Hollywood Reporter and others. The sports-focused streaming service was to be a joint offering by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox. There was no concrete reason given, other than corporate-speak.In an ever-changing marketplace, we determined that it was best to meet the evolving demands of sports fans by focusing on existing products and distribution channels, the companies wrote in a statement.We assume this move will also involve some serious layoffs, as Venu has been percolating for a while. To that end, the companies said they are proud of the work that has been done on Venu to date and grateful to the Venu staff, whom we will support through this transition period. There are no details as to what this support will entail.Venu Sports, the proposed virtual MVPD service from ESPN, FOX & Warner Bros. Discovery, will be discontinuedThe collective decision by the three companies not to move forward with the contemplated joint venture is effective immediatelyMore: https://t.co/Cvwv2h601G pic.twitter.com/lylDeHDy9p ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) January 10, 2025 The real reason for the shutdown is likely due to ongoing legal woes. Just as one threat disappeared this week, with Fubo dropping an antitrust lawsuit and joining forces with Disney, another popped up in its place. Days after Disney announced a deal to merge Hulu + Live TV with Fubo, a pair of satellite TV companies argued against lifting a pre-existing injunction that delayed the launch of Venu.DirecTV and EchoStar suggested that Fubo and Disneys newfound friendship doesnt resolve alleged antitrust issues surrounding Venu Sports. DirecTV wrote to a judge, saying that the joint venture restores an anticompetitive runway for the companies to control the future of the live pay TV market. EchoStar wrote a similar letter.An unnamed source familiar with Venu Sports told The Hollywood Reporter that the move to cancel the streaming service was made in the past few days and that the aforementioned legal snafu played a role.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/rip-to-the-entirely-hypothetical-streaming-service-venu-sports-180532990.html?src=rss

TCL announces three very different smart specs at CES to suit every type of smart glasses wearer.

ORICO's docking stations boost Mac Mini's versatility, offering connectivity, storage upgrades, and sleek integration.

An interview with an AMD exec tells us that a full RX 9070 launch event is coming, and that pricing will be in line with the excellent RX 7900 GRE.

The company is in the process of "winding down outdated programs and materials" as part of a broader review of hundreds of initiatives.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan that the Biden White House sought to censor critical claims about Covid vaccines.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote in a post on Friday that Apple is losing market share in China due to declining iPhone shipments

Jeff Bezos Blue Origin is set for an inaugural launch of its giant New Glenn rocket on Sunday, a long-awaited first leap to Earth orbit that sets up one of the biggest challenges yet to industry dominance enjoyed by Elon Musks SpaceX.Standing 30 stories tall, New Glenn has been a core focus for Blue Origin since the beginning of its decade-long development, representing a multibillion-dollar effort to sate demand for satellite constellation launches and snatch market share from SpaceXs workhorse Falcon 9.If successful in its debut, New Glenn can later start launching Amazons broadband internet satellite constellation, Kuiper, that will rival SpaceXs Starlink network, accelerating competition on another front.Blue Origin for years has launched and landed its much smaller, reusable New Shepard rocket to and from the brim of Earths atmosphere. It has yet to send anything into orbit in the 25 years since Bezos founded the company to have millions of people working and living in space.That could change this week, but with new rockets, success is not guaranteed.New Glenn is scheduled to launch at 1 am ET (0600 GMT) on Sunday from the companys launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending to orbit its first Blue Ring satellite a maneuverable spacecraft designed for satellite servicing and national security missions in space.Compared with SpaceXs Falcon 9, the worlds most active rocket, New Glenn is roughly twice as powerful with a payload bay diameter two times larger to fit bigger batches of satellites. Blue Origin has not disclosed the rockets launch pricing. Falcon 9 starts at around $62 million.New Glenn, however, would not be as powerful as SpaceXs next-generation Starship, a fully reusable rocket system in development that Musk sees as crucial to expanding Starlinks footprint in orbit. Starship in its next test flight this month will attempt to deploy mock satellites.Found a sweet spotThere are dozens of launches and hundreds of millions of dollars sitting on New Glenns docket. Blue Origin has booked multi-launch deals with Eutelsats OneWeb, Canadas Telesat and satellite-to-cellular device company AST SpaceMobile.New Glenn has found a sweet spot that has enabled them to get more customers than anyone else right now, said Caleb Henry, a satellite and launch analyst at Quilty Analytics, of the space companys potential in satellite constellations.SpaceXs Falcon 9, which ignited the industrys reusability trend for its cost savings potential, made early landing attempts of the rockets core stage by returning it to the ocean during development a decade ago, before attempting touchdowns on drone ships.New Glenns reusable core stage will make its first landing attempt on a drone ship a few minutes after liftoff.New Glenns rocky development has spanned three CEOs and at times slowed as Blue Origin took on other ambitious projects, such as building a moon lander for NASA.As much of the Western world grew reliant on SpaceX for accessing space, Bezos in late 2023 sought to jolt New Glenn out of development paralysis by replacing Blue Origins CEO with Dave Limp, a deputy from Amazons devices unit, to speed things up.Blue Origin engineers have felt the urgency from the top, according to multiple employees.Weve never had the entire company fully focused on one thing so aggressively like this before, one Blue Origin employee said. For all of the last year its basically been everyones mission every day to get to this first launch.New Glenn also would compete with the less-powerful Vulcan rocket from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed that is planning a stronger Vulcan variant in the future.The Sunday launch is also a key certification flight required by the U.S. Space Force before New Glenn can launch national security payloads on missions it hopes to win in a multibillion-dollar procurement competition due for award later this year.Joey Roulette, Reuters