Jul 28
Paris Hilton Shuts Down Pregnancy Rumors: I’m ‘Sick Of People Making Up Things’
Posted in: Today's Chili“I also woke up to about 3,000 texts,” the hotel heiress said of the pregnancy report.
Jul 28
Dua Lipa Condemns DaBaby’s Homophobic Remarks: ‘I’m Surprised And Horrified’
Posted in: Today's Chili“I really don’t recognize this as the person I worked with,” the pop star said of her “Levitating” collaborator.
Jul 28
It would appear that the data usage increase bug is back in Pokemon GO in the latest update to the app for BOTH iOS and Android. This wouldn’t be a good thing if it were just one of the two platforms. Both platforms at once means Niantic needs to act on a fix as soon as possible. Pokemon GO updated … Continue reading
Jul 28
Yet another iconic car is coming to Rocket League, and it’s one that’ll be nigh-on impossible to drive without humming a certain theme tune. James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 will arrive in the Item Shop on July 29th.
Until August 4th, you’ll be able to snag the 1963 model of the car, along with a DB5 paint finish (which is designed to look like Aston Martin’s signature Silver Birch color), engine audio, wheels and decal. Given the Bond movies’ focus on gadgetry, something about firing up the rocket boosters to score a goal with the DB5 seems just right.
This won’t be a one-and-done deal for James Bond in Rocket League, either. More content related to the legendary superspy is in the pipeline. Developer Psyonix struck a multi-year deal with MGM and Aston Martin.
Psyonix
This is the latest in a long line of crossovers between Rocket League and pop culture tentpoles. The DeLorean from Back to the Future and Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters have made their way to the arena. More recently, three vehicles from the Fast and Furious franchise rolled into the game.
Meanwhile, the latest Bond movie, No Time to Die, is scheduled to finally hit theaters on September 30th in the UK and October 8th in the US. The impact of COVID-19 forced distributors MGM and Universal to delay it several times.
Jul 28
Activision Blizzard CEO says response to harassment lawsuit was 'tone deaf'
Posted in: Today's ChiliFollowing nearly a week of internal unrest, Activision Blizzard has published a letter from CEO Bobby Kotick addressing the company’s original response to the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against it by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) on July 20th. “Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” Kotick says in the letter addressed to Activision Blizzard employees. “It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.”
Kotick claims Blizzard Activision is taking “swift action” to ensure a safe, respectful and inclusive working environment for women and other minority groups. The company has hired law firm WilmerHale to review its policies, and Kotick says Activision Blizzard will implement changes to its hiring practices. It also plans to make personnel tweaks and remove content from its games employees and players have said is “inappropriate” in light of the allegations against the company. On Tuesday, the World of Warcraft development team said it would remove specific references from the MMO. While the team didn’t elaborate, those references may involve items and non-playable characters named after Alex Afrasiabi, one of the former Blizzard employees singled out in the DFEH lawsuit for repeated inappropriate behavior.
Notably, the letter doesn’t make mention of forced arbitration, saying only the company “will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action,” nor does it promise greater transparency when it comes to employee compensation. Those are two issues Activision Blizzard employees who are staging a walkout to protest for better working conditions highlighted in a statement of intent they shared on Tuesday.
In its initial public response to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard said the allegations from DFEH included “distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.” In a separate email to employees, Frances Townsend, executive vice president of corporate affairs at the company, claimed the lawsuit presents “a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago.”
Jul 28
The antitrust lawsuit brought by 48 attorneys general against Facebook isn’t dead yet. A federal judge dismissed the suit last month, but the AGs have filed a notice of plan to appeal.
“We filed this notice of appeal because we disagree with the court’s decision and must hold Facebook accountable for stifling competition, reducing innovation, and cutting privacy protections,” New York’s attorney general Letitia James said, according to The New York Times. “We can no longer allow Facebook to profit off of exploiting consumer data.”
The suit, which was filed in December, alleged that Facebook created a monopoly and illegally stifled competition through its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Judge James E. Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that too much time had gone by since the mergers were approved for the case to proceed.
On the same day he dismissed the AGs’ suit, Boasberg tossed a similar case from the Federal Trade Commission. The agency is expected to file an amended suit next month.
The FTC lawsuit was initially filed in December while Trump administration appointee Joseph Simons led the agency. Big Tech critic Lina Khan was appointed FTC chair last month. Facebook has asked the agency to recuse her from antitrust decisions involving the company.
Facebook has argued against both suits, claiming much of the evidence in the cases was submitted to the FTC before the purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp were rubberstamped. It also claims it doesn’t have a monopoly, partly due to competition from the likes of Snap and Twitter, as well as messaging apps.
Jul 28
One of the web’s most controversial cybersecurity projects is being brought back to life next week. PunkSpider—essentially a tool that crawls the internet to create a searchable database of hackable sites across the web—is being resurfaced at next week’s Defcon cybersecurity conference, WIRED reports. This is the…
Jul 28
A Second Person in France May Have Caught Deadly Prion Disease From Lab Exposure
Posted in: Today's ChiliPublic research labs in France are temporarily halting their work into prions, after at least two employees are believed to have contracted a rare but universally fatal prion brain disease. One woman has since died, almost certainly after having been exposed during a lab accident in 2010, while the second is…
Jul 28
Facebook News Consumers Are More Anti-Vaccine Than Fox News Viewers, Study Finds
Posted in: Today's ChiliJoe Biden might want to consider re-backpedaling after backpedaling his accusation that social media companies [Facebook] are “killing people” by spreading vaccine conspiracies and bunk. A new study suggests that Facebook’s news consumers are inordinately unwilling to get the covid-19 vaccine.
Jul 28
GOP Lawmaker Stands By Comparison Of Capitol Riot To A ‘Normal Tourist Visit’
Posted in: Today's ChiliRep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) made his initial comments at a committee hearing in May.
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