Meta has announced an end to Donald Trump’s ban from using Facebook and Instagram. The ban was put in place two years ago, after the deadly January 6th attacks on the Capitol.
Nintendo and Microsoft made for odd partners this morning, announcing that a long-anticipated remastered edition of the classic Nintendo 64 first-person shooter, GoldenEye 007, will launch Friday for players on Nintendo Switch and Xbox platforms.
Later in the afternoon, Microsoft hosted an Xbox Developer Direct showcase to preview games like Redfall, Forza Motorsport, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Minecraft Legends.
In other news, Adult Swim has officially cut ties with Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland in the wake of the voice actor’s two felony charges for domestic battery and false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, or deceit. The channel says the show is still in production, but its reputation will have taken a severe hit as a result of the allegations.
A big part of Microsoft’s strategy has always been how it bundles the services it offers to businesses. That’s great when everything’s working, less so when there’s an outage like we saw today with Outlook and Teams. If you can’t email your colleagues, and you can’t instant message them, then what in the world is left? WhatsApp? The outage brings to a close a tough week for Microsoft that included layoffs and declining sales.
And finally, Tesla says it’s investing billions in its Nevada operations which it says will help expand its battery cell and Semi truck production. The new $3.6 billion round of investment comes in addition to the $6.2 billion Tesla has already invested in the Nevada Gigafactory. The electric automaker reported its quarterly earnings results this afternoon, saying it earned $3.7 billion in net income on $24.3 billion in revenue.
Now, here’s a silly tweet to start your day:
Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Wednesday, January 25th, 2023.
Valve is notorious for its purported flat structure, where people are encouraged to work on whatever they want. But how does that work in practice?
People Make Games — previously seen investigating just how screwed up Roblox is and unregulated Counter-Strike gambling — anonymously interviewed 16 current and former Valve employees to find out.
Some of the employees interviewed thrived, others called out the company for having a massive diversity problem, and others still pointed to systemic flaws with the Stack ranking system.
Today on the Vergecast: Zombies, noncompetes, and the mystery of the missing USB-C hub.
I sat down with Charles Pulliam-Moore to talk the first two episodes of The Last of Us, but if you want to skip possible spoilers jump straight to 22:05 where I’m joined by Margaret O’Mara, author of The Code, to talk about the unique relationship between noncompetes and Silicon Valley. Finally we wrap the episode up answering your questions—including where all the USB-C only hubs are.
Microsoft is going to expand access its AI coding tool.
But, as this report from The Information notes, can AI “pair programmer” GitHub CoPilot be a money spinner? The publication points out:
Even 10 million developers paying $100 a year would generate just $1 billion in annual revenue, a sliver of the $198 billion Microsoft reported in the fiscal year ended June 2022.
Plus, there’s also that pending class action copyright lawsuit…
Green light.
The N64 GoldenEye remaster is almost here, and this afternoon we’ll get a new Tesla quarterly earnings report, in case you’ve missed hearing from Elon Musk.
But first up is the Xbox stream at noon PT / 3PM ET, where we expect to hear about games like Redfall and Forza Motorsport — but not Starfield.
The M2 Pro Mac Mini fills out its case.
Apple’s new M2 Pro Mac Mini comes with more power than any Mini before it. And unlike the M1 or M2 versions, the M2 Pro model actually fills out the spacious Mini case with a larger logic board and more powerful power supply. Unsurprisingly, the M2 Pro model also borrows some internal design ideas from the Mac Studio.
YouTuber Luke Miani has taken it down to the metal to see exactly what’s different with the M2 Pro Mini and the models before it. And when you’re done watching that, check out Chris Welch’s review.
