Hasta La Gadget!

The Disney+ Obi-Wan series finally has a release date. Disney has revealed that the limited-run Obi-Wan Kenobi series premieres May 25th (no, sadly not May 4th) on its namesake streaming service. The company didn’t share much more than new poster art, but some of the key details are already well-known.

Kenobi has Ewan McGregor reprising his role as Obi-Wan, with Hayden Christensen portraying Darth Vader. The show will begin with protecting Luke Skywalker following the rise of the Empire, but it’s reasonable to presume there will be much more to the story. The Mandalorian veteran Deborah Chow is directing the production.

The series could be crucial for Disney+ as it matures. As part of its latest earnings, Disney revealed that subscribers worldwide climbed 37 percent in 2021 versus 2020, but that the media group running the service saw profits plunge 44 percent. Most of the growth came from India’s Hotstar and international expansions. Obi-Wan Kenobi could help Disney+ keep the subscriber count growing in many countries, especially with the help of sibling Star Wars shows like Ahsoka, Andor, Lando, The Acolyte and the recently released The Book of Boba Fett.

Peloton laid off around 2,800 corporate employees as part of its attempt to get past its growth struggles following a meteoric rise to fame in the early days of the pandemic. Some of them are understandably upset and angry, and according to CNBC, some of them have crashed the company’s first all-hands meeting meant to introduce the new CEO. 

In addition to letting 20 percent of its workforce go — no instructors were affected by the layoffs — Peloton also replaced its top executive. John Foley, who’s also a company co-founder, stepped down and was replaced with former Spotify COO Barry McCarthy. CNBC says both former and current employees fired off angry comments in the meeting’s chat section, with one calling the all-hands “awfully tone deaf.” 

Another person proclaimed that they’re selling all their Peloton apparel to be able to pay their bills. “The company messed up by allowing people who were fired into this chat,” said yet another person. The meeting, attended by both Foley and McCarthy, was reportedly cut short.

Peloton was massively popular just over a year ago and even reached a market value of $50 billion in January 2021. Now, it’s worth around $8 billion dollars, and bigger companies like Amazon and Nike are reportedly showing interest in acquiring the fitness equipment maker. While Peloton didn’t say outright that it was planning to let people go, Foley previously said that the company “need[s] to evaluate [its] organization structure and size of [its] team” to make the business more flexible. That was part of his response to an older CNBC report claiming that the company was halting Bike and Tread production. Foley denied the rumor. 

The former CEO also didn’t say whether the calls for him to be ousted were part of the reason he’s stepping down. Activist investor Blackwells Capital previously accused him of misleading investors about certain information, among other things that cost the company $40 billion. “I have always thought there has to be a better CEO for Peloton than me,” Foley said when McCarthy was formally named as the company’s new CEO. McCarthy is expected to use his knowledge of content-driven subscription models to keep Peloton running, but he clearly has to win over his own employees first. 

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” data-medium-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Apple-logo-shutterstock-1280×720.jpg” data-large-file=”https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Apple-logo-shutterstock-1280×720.jpg” />Apple’s planned AR/VR devices have been the subject of rumors for years at this point, but now we’re seeing some indications that we could finally be nearing release. References to a so-called realityOS, rumored to be the operating system at the core of the AR and VR devices, have been found in App Store upload logs and Apple’s open source … Continue reading

Chen’s near-perfect free skate earned him a standing ovation from supporters inside historic Capital Indoor Stadium.

Nintendo had an early surprise during its first Direct of the year: No Man’s Sky is coming to Switch this summer, six years after it debuted on other platforms. For the first time (unless they’ve been playing it elsewhere), Switch owners will be able to explore procedurally generated worlds across a vast galaxy. 

No Man’s Skyhad a rocky debut — key aspects like multiplayer weren’t available at the outset. Hello Games has corrected course after several major updates. It added many quality of life updates and a ton of extra features. Switch players will get access to all of that content from the jump.