Thursday, May 26, 2022

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Sony vows to ramp up PS5 production to levels 'never achieved before'

Posted: 26 May 2022 04:35 AM PDT

One of Sony's top priorities going forward is to ramp up production for the PlayStation 5 to meet unprecedented demand for the console. In a briefing with investors (PDF), the company said that it expects to close the gap in PS4 and PS5 sales this year after the newer console lagged behind its older sibling in 2021. Sony blamed the lack of PS5 sales on its inability to build enough units due to ongoing supply chain shortages in its quarterly earnings report. There's no lack of demand: Based on the data Sony presented, it takes only 82 minutes to to sell 80,000 PS5 units, whereas it takes nine days to sell the same number of PS4s. 

The company now expects to be able to produce more units as supply chain shortages have eased up a bit, but the pandemic's impact on parts availability still remains a concern. In addition, Sony is worried that the Russian invasion of Ukraine might also affect its logistics and potential parts inventory. To mitigate the impact of those issues, Sony plans to source from multiple suppliers "for greater agility in unstable market conditions." It also has ongoing negotiations to maintain optimal delivery routes for the console. 

With those solutions in place, the company believes PS5 sales can overtake the PS4's again starting next year. Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said during the briefing that after the initial ramp up, the company is "planning for heavy further increases in console production, taking [it] to production levels that [it has] never achieved before."

Aside from discussing its PS5 production goals, Sony has also revealed that it's expanding PlayStation Studios by acquiring more game studios, as well as increasing its investments in live services, PC and mobile offerings. It's committing to launch 12 live services in the coming years that don't include Destiny, which will be the company's as part of its Bungie acquisition. And it intends to have half of its annual first party releases on PC and on mobile by 2025. "By expanding to PC and mobile, and it must be said… also to live services, we have the opportunity to move from a situation of being present in a very narrow segment of the overall gaming software market, to being present pretty much everywhere," Ryan explained.

The Morning After: Dyson’s secret robot projects

Posted: 26 May 2022 04:15 AM PDT

The NFL's rumored streaming service could debut in JulyDyson, the company that's recently branched out into hair curlers, air-purifying headphones and not cars, has revealed it has an entire division secretly developing robot prototypes for household chores.

The company didn't detail any of the models specifically, but many look like robot arms adapted to do specialized home chores, like cleaning and tidying. Dyson also showed off its Perception Lab dedicated to robotic vision systems, environment detection and even mapping humans with sensors, cameras and thermal imaging systems.

So why reveal its secret lab now? Well, Dyson's on a recruiting drive, looking for around 700 engineers to help finally make at least some of these ideas a reality in our homes.

— Mat Smith

 

The biggest stories you might have missed

ProtonMail is rebranding and adding more storage to all its plans

The company now goes by Proton and is unifying its products under some new plans.

ProtonMail has been one of the better options for secure email — you can get an (admittedly basic) account for free and enjoy end-to-end encryption for your communications when you're messaging other ProtonMail users. But the company's plans have gotten a little out of date.

Starting today, though, the company is making it easier to go all-in on ProtonMail and the other services it offers, including a VPN, encrypted calendar and cloud storage. It's also simplifying the company name: just Proton going forward.

Continue reading.

IKEA promises easier device connectivity with its new smart hub

A more user-friendly approach and a new app, too.

IKEA continues its adventures in the smart home with the launch of a Google Matter-ready hub called DIRIGERA. Not a typo. According to the company: "With the new DIRIGERA hub for smart products, users will be able to onboard all IKEA smart products to the system."

It's one of the most visible Matter devices revealed so far. Google still plans to launch its new smart home industry standard this fall. Devices will all connect quickly and easily using Fast Pair, and the platform will support a variety of voice assistants and networking protocols, including Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Thread and Bluetooth LE. IKEA's hub is set to launch in October 2022.

Continue reading.

Lucid recalls all its 2022 Air EVs due to wiring issues

In some vehicles, unsecured wires can cause the car's main display to turn off.

Despite already struggling to meet production targets, luxury EV maker Lucid has now issued a recall for the Air due to potential issues with the car's wiring harness. Unsecured wires on 2022 Air vehicles could cause the car's displays to turn off, and because the Air's displays contain critical information — speed, range and warning indicators — this would violate Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

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Testing Snap's Pixy drone

A flying robot photographer for Snapchat users.

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Engadget

Snap debuted the $230 Pixy drone for those of us not looking to retrain as drone pilots. It requires very little skill and acts like a personal robot photographer.

The Pixy flies by itself, performing programmed patterns that put the focus on the user. There's a lot of potential here for parties and tourist activities, grabbing awesome aerial shots with almost no user intervention. According to Engadget's Steve Dent — our main camera and drone reviewer — Snap may be on to something with the Pixy. It's not nearly as capable as pricier drones from DJI and others, but that's not really the point.

Continue reading.

Margaret Atwood protests book bans with 'unburnable' copy of 'The Handmaid's Tale'

Watch the author take a flamethrower to a fireproof edition.

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Penguin

To raise awareness of increasing book bans across US libraries — and perhaps protest the threat of literal book burning — Margaret Atwood and Penguin Random House are auctioning a one-off "unburnable" edition of her classic dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale.

I also just really wanted to include this image in today's newsletter.

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The NFL's rumored streaming service could debut in July

Reports suggest NFL+ will include some live games, but pricing hasn't been locked down.

The NFL may launch its own streaming service as soon as July. With the long-rumored NFL+, fans could stream some live games on phones and tablets. It may feature other content, such as podcasts, radio and team-created material. According to Sports Business Journal, NFL+ may cost $5 per month, but pricing isn't set in stone. Several major sports properties are dipping their toes into streaming: Last month, FIFA launched the free, ad-supported FIFA+.

Continue reading.

Twitter is working toward 'closing the transaction process' with Elon Musk

But Twitter executives had little to say about it at the company's shareholder meeting.

Despite numerous questions about the future of Twitter, the company's executives had little to say about Elon Musk, who didn't attend the meeting. "We're working through the transaction process," CEO Parag Agrawal said during the meeting. The status of the deal has been somewhat unclear since Musk announced it was "on hold," due to his concerns about bots on the platform.

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Apple is raising the pay of its corporate and retail staff

Posted: 26 May 2022 01:29 AM PDT

Apple will start paying its corporate and retail employees more likely in hopes that they won't leave the company to find better prospects. According to CNBC and The Financial Times, the company will also raise its starting wage for new employees to $22 an hour, up from $20. Further, it will start giving some annual increases in salary starting in July instead of in the autumn. The tech giant didn't discuss specific details on how it will change its compensation structure, but it told the publications:

"Supporting and retaining the best team members in the world enables us to deliver the best, most innovative, products and services for our customers. This year as part of our annual performance review process, we're increasing our overall compensation budget."

A previous Bloomberg report said Apple is paying its sales staff, Genius Bar support personnel and senior hourly workers by as much as 10 percent more, though it's unclear if this is the same pay hike. Retail employees in various Apple Store locations started planning to form unions earlier this year in their quest for better pay and benefits. Inflation in the US has reached 8.5% in March, forcing people to look for better compensation as the cost of goods in the country reach new heights. 

At the same time, labor shortages caused by the pandemic have bolstered workers' confidence in challenging their employers and solidified plans to unionize across industries. While the company is raising employee compensation, it has also been accused of union busting by retail workers. A leaked video even showed Deirdre O'Brien, its VP of people and retail, trying to dissuade the company's employees from joining a union. 

Apple isn't the only tech giant trying to hold on to its workforce and to prevent them from unionizing by increasing their salaries. Amazon more than doubled its base pay cap for corporate and tech employees, Google revamped its annual review process so that it results in increased salaries and Microsoft promised its people that pay increases are on the way.

NVIDIA reportedly slows down hiring as it braces for a drop in gaming sales

Posted: 26 May 2022 12:22 AM PDT

A slowing economy continues to affect the tech industry, as NVIDIA has become one of the first chipmakers to announce a pullback on new hiring, according to memos seen by The New Indian Express and confirmed by Protocol. That lines up its comments during its latest earnings release, when it said that it expects sales of GPUs for gaming consoles and PCs to decline in the current quarter. "Overall the gaming market is slowing," CEO Jensen Huang told Reuters. 

NVIDIA actually had a solid previous quarter, with revenue up 46 percent over last year to $8.29 billion. It also noted that its "gearing up for the largest wave of new products in our history" with new GPU, CPU, DPU and robotics processors coming online in the second half of the year. 

However, it forecast lower revenue than the market expected for next quarter. And internally, the company appears to be bracing for a slowdown. "Onsite interviews... continue, but we will raise our standard to the highest levels," it reportedly said in a Slack message. "We were told that leadership wants to take a pause to onboard the thousands of new hires we've recently made." The company also told Protocol that it's slowing hiring "to focus our budget on taking care of existing employees as inflation persists.

NVIDIA will be joining a number of tech companies, including Lyft, Uber and Snap, in announcing hiring slowdowns. Tech companies have been hit particularly hard by economic headwinds cause by COVID lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine. NVIDIA, however, was expected to weather events due to continued strong demand in the GPU market that has kept prices high and supply short. 
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