TikTok is cutting jobs around the world

Some TikTok employees have already lost their jobs, while others are told to prepare for a meeting with the HR department as part of the video platform’s global restructuring efforts, Wired reports. According to the publication, European employees were warned that their jobs were at risk and to expect an HR meeting in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, employees in the UK were told to expect colleagues across departments to lose their jobs. In the US, some personnel were told that they were being let go shortly after they came in for work on Monday morning. 

One of those US employees was David Ortiz, who was among the first executives TikTok parent company ByteDance hired outside of China. In a LinkedIn post, Ortiz said that his “role is being eliminated in a much larger re-organization effort.” A TikTok spokesperson did not deny that layoffs were taking place when Wired asked. However, they also didn’t confirm that the company is going through a global restructuring and didn’t provide the publication with a detailed statement on why TikTok is cutting jobs.

A staffer who talked to the publication said the company is only cutting employees and teams that managers believe haven’t been contributing enough. They claimed that only 100 employees are being laid off, which is but a small percentage of around 10,000 employees across the US and Europe. That said, TikTok is merely one of the companies in the big tech, gaming, AV/EV and social media sphere that’s downsizing its workforce.

Some of the companies in the industry that had to let people go due to the economic downturn include Netflix, Unity and Twitter. Tesla reportedly laid off 200 Autopilot employees and closed an office in California. Bloomberg said Rivian plans to lay off 5 percent of its workforce. Finally, Meta told employees to identify low performers, The Information said, and move them to exit the company if they’re unable to get back on track. 

US and Russia agree to swap seats on space station flights

The US may have imposed economic sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, but in space, the two countries are finding ways to continue working together. NASA and Roscosmos have signed a long-awaited agreement to swap seats on flights to the International Space Station. After the space shuttle program shut down, NASA relied on Russian Soyuz flights for years to ferry its astronauts to the orbiting lab. That is, until SpaceX succeeded in getting the Crew Dragon certified for human spaceflights. Now, the agency will again be securing seats on the Soyuz, while Russian cosmonauts will be flying aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon flights. 

NASA said in a statement provided to The New York Times:

“Flying integrated crews ensures there are appropriately trained crew members on board the station for essential maintenance and spacewalks. It also protects against contingencies such as a problem with any crew spacecraft, serious crew medical issues or an emergency aboard the station that requires a crew and the vehicle they are assigned to return to Earth sooner than planned.”

In other words, the agreement will ensure that both the US- and the Russian-operated segments of the station will never be unmanned in case of canceled flights or other emergencies. The agency also said that the first integrated flights will take place in September, with Anna Kikina being the first Russian cosmonaut to fly on a Crew Dragon. She will be joined by NASA’s Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, as well as Japan’s Koichi Wakata. Meanwhile, NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will be heading to the ISS aboard a Soyuz flight. In the spring of 2023, Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev and NASA’s Loral O’Hara will also be swapping seats. No money will change hands under the agreement, unlike in the past when NASA paid Roscosmos around $56 million a seat.

The announcement comes at the same time as Dmitry Rogozin’s dismissal as the head of Roscosmos. Rogozin had made controversial statements and decisions for years, but especially in recent months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After the European Space Agency formally backed out of the ExoMars joint mission with Russia, for instance, Rogozin said he ordered the Roscosmos crew to stop working with the European-made robotic arm on the ISS. Roscosmos, under his leadership, also distributed images of cosmonauts holding the flags of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. NASA issued a statement afterward, saying it “strongly rebukes using the International Space Station for political purposes to support [the] war against Ukraine.”

The Times said Kremlin’s spokesperson clarified that Rogozin’s dismissal has nothing to do with his performance. According to Space, Latvia-based news outlet Meduza reported that Rogozin would be assigned as Putin’s chief of staff or as an administrator overseeing the Ukraine territories Russia had occupied, but neither rumor has been confirmed just yet. 

Putin signs law prohibiting crypto payments in Russia

People in Russia will soon no longer be allowed to use digital assets as a form of payment. Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed a bill into law prohibiting the use of digital assets, such as cryptocurrency and NFTs, to pay for goods and services. In addition, as Protocol notes, the new law also requires crypto exchanges and providers to refuse transactions in which digital transfers can be interpreted as a form of payment. The new law states:

“It is prohibited to transfer or accept digital financial assets as a consideration for transferred goods, performed works, rendered services, as well as in any other way that allows one to assume payment for goods (works, services) by a digital financial asset, except as otherwise provided by federal laws.”

As a New York Times report said earlier this year, US authorities believe that some Russian companies affected by sanctions imposed against their country after its invasion of Ukraine could be using cryptocurrency to circumvent those limitations. The value of Bitcoin even surged for a few days after the invasion started in February.

That said, Russian authorities aren’t quite keen on digital assets: The Central Bank of Russia called for an outright ban on cryptocurrency. That most likely didn’t happen, because Russia’s Finance Ministry was opposed to the idea and believed it was necessary to allow crypto technology to develop. In 10 days’ time, the law will take effect and will make paying with crypto illegal in the country. According to Decrypt, though, Russians can still invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and presumably continue mining them as well. 

Casio’s new G-Shock watch is inspired by NASA’s eye-catching orange spacesuits

Casio has launched a new G-Shock model with a bold color that would look instantly familiar to space fans. It takes its eye-catching hue from the iconic orange suits astronauts wear for the ascent and entry portions of their flight so that they could be easily spotted by rescue teams in case their spacecraft has to bail out into the ocean. On the watch’s official product page, G-Shock wrote that the black dial of the watch represents the black visor on the helmets astronauts wear with the suit, while the thin blue line on the dial mimics the suits’ blue accents. 

In addition, the watch’s band loop is adorned by an American flag and the back of its casing features the engraving of an astronaut. Even its packaging is on-theme: The watch comes in a tin can and a box that also feature elements of NASA’s “pumpkin suits.”

As collectSPACE notes, NASA introduced the vivid spacesuits following the Challenger tragedy in the 80’s, and they had gone through several iterations since then. The latest version is the Orion Crew Survival System, which had been optimized for comfort, comes in more than one size and was designed to be easier to connect to the communications system. 

That Casio would release a new G-Shock watch based on a NASA spacesuit doesn’t come as a surprise. It has a long history with the agency, with G-Shock being one of the few timepieces NASA has approved for use on the space shuttle and aboard the ISS. In fact, this is the third NASA-branded G-Shock model it has released, following an all-white and a black-and-white watch adorned with the red NASA logo known as “the worm.”

This orange watch, however, is more expensive than its predecessors and will set buyers back $170. It’s only available for a limited time and can be purchased from Casio’s website.

James Webb telescope can take detailed photos of our own solar system’s planets and moons

Over the past few days, NASA has released stunning photos of nebulae, groups of galaxies and even the “deepest” view of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Now, the agency has released images of something much closer to home that ever…

A Chinese Wikipedia editor spent years writing fake Russian medieval history

Chinese Wikipedia had a robust collection of detailed and authoritative articles on medieval Russia, thanks to a user called Zhemao who claimed to be the daughter of a diplomat assigned in the country. Zhemao wrote 206 articles for the website since 2019, the longest of which, according to Vice World News, is almost as long as The Great Gatsby. It detailed Tartar uprisings in 17th century Russia and was supported by a map of the country during that era. In another article, the user shared rare images of ancient Russian coins that were purportedly obtained from archeologists. The articles she contributed were so well-written and well-regarded, until it was revealed that she’d pulled off one of the largest hoaxes ever seen on the platform.

Chinese novelist Yifan was the one who brought the hoax to light in a post on a website similar to Quora. Yifan stumbled upon one of her articles describing a silver mine that provided a source of wealth for Russia in the 14th and 15th centuries while researching for a new book. The article was reportedly so detailed, it included information on the composition of the soil, the structure of the mine and the refining processes used on the silver. But when Yifan tried to fact check Zhemao’s references with Russian speakers, it was revealed that the pages or the versions of the books she cited didn’t even exist. 

A group of volunteer editors combed through her work as a response and found that her citations didn’t add up or that she fabricated information from legitimate sources that were too obscure to be fact-checked by casual users. As a crowd—sourced online encyclopedia, Wikipedia trusts its contributors to self-regulate. In an article about its reliability, Wikipedia said it maintains an inclusion threshold of “verifiability, not truth.” 

A volunteer editor who’s been helping clean up articles Zhemao contributed to told Vice News that they only typically check articles for blatant plagiarism and to ensure that they’re properly cited. That is why vandalism is a common occurrence on the website and why its reputation as a legitimate source of knowledge is frequently challenged. Chinese Wikipedian John Yip told Vice that “Zhemao single-handedly invented a new way to undermine Wikipedia.” It’s worth noting, however, that she’s far from the first person to pretend to be an expert on the website. Back in 2007, an editor who claimed to be a university professor was revealed to be a 24-year-old from Kentucky who had no higher-education credentials.

Zhemao, in a post on her profile, has admitted to making up her whole identity and to fabricating information. She came clean that she’s not based in Russia and that her husband is not Russian but Chinese. She also doesn’t have a doctoral degree in world history from the Moscow State University like she claimed, but is instead a housewife with a high school diploma. Vice said, based on her post, that she got frustrated about not being able to understand articles in Russian and in English. She apparently used online translators to understand articles available online and then used her imagination to fill in the gaps.

Why she didn’t just write a novel set in medieval Russia — and it could’ve been a hit, based on how Yifan and her fellow editors praised her contributions for being thorough and well-written — is not quite clear. Zhemao and her sock puppets had been banned permanently from the website, though, so she might end up looking for a new outlet for her writing.

Jury convicts ex-CIA engineer for leaking the agency’s hacking toolset

Joshua Schulte, the former CIA engineer arrested for what’s being called the biggest theft of classified information in the agency’s history, has been convicted by a federal jury. Schulte was arrested in relation to the large cache of documents that Wikileaks had published throughout 2017. That string of CIA leaks known as “Vault 7” contained information on the tools and techniques the agency used to hack into iPhones and Android phones for overseas spying. It also had details on how the CIA broke into computers and how it turned smart TVs into listening devices. A federal jury has found Schulte guilty on nine counts, including illegally gathering national defense information and then transmitting it.

According to The New York Times, Schulte was arrested after investigators traced the leaks to him. The former CIA engineer worked with a team in a secret building protected by armed guards to create tools, like malware, that were used to target the devices of suspected terrorists. In 2018, he was formally charged with 13 counts that included theft of classified information, obstruction of justice, as well as possessing and sending images and videos with child pornography. He’s still awaiting trial on charges of possessing child pornography, which he allegedly downloaded from 2009 until March 2017. 

Schulte’s original trial back in 2020 was declared a mistrial after jurors couldn’t come to an agreement regarding some of hist most serious charges, illegally gathering and transmitting national defense information included. After that event, the former CIA engineer had decided to represent himself. As part of his closing arguments, he told the jurors that the CIA and the FBI made him a scapegoat for their embarrassing failure, repeating what his side had been saying from the time he was arrested.

While the judge, AP said, was impressed with his closing arguments, they weren’t enough to get the jury on his side. In court, he argued that the government’s case is full of holes and that he didn’t even have motive to leak the CIA’s hacking tools. Prosecutors, however, accused him of being a disgruntled employee who felt that he was disrespected when the agency ignored his complaints about his work environment. As retaliation, he allegedly tried “to burn [the CIA] to the ground.” US Attorney Damian Williams said his actions rendered the “most valuable intelligence-gathering cyber tools used to battle terrorist organizations and other malign influences around the globe” essentially useless. Williams also accused Schulte of trying to leak more classified materials against the government while he was behind bars. 

Schulte will have to face the court again to face charges related to possession of child pornography before a sentencing date can be set. The nine counts he was convicted of, however, are enough to keep him in prison for up to 80 years.

Crypto lending giant Celsius files for bankruptcy

Celsius has filed for bankruptcy protection a month after it paused all customer withdrawals and transfers, according to The Wall Street Journal. The crypto lending giant left almost two million users unable to access their funds back in June due to what it described as “extreme market conditions.” Back then, the company said that freezing withdrawals would help stabilize the liquidity of its assets to, in turn, help it meet withdrawal obligations. 

Celsius was one of the companies caught in the crypto crash, and it saw its token’s value fall from $7 a year ago to $3 by early April this year. Based on the most current information from Coinbase, its token is now worth around 56 cents. As The Journal notes, Celsius offered much better yields than traditional banks to its customers — over 18.6 percent for deposits — and granted large loans backed by little collateral. That left the company with very little wiggle room to move when it felt the effects of the crypto downturn.

The crypto lender’s board of directors explained that pausing withdrawals was difficult but necessary. They said when they filed for bankruptcy:

“Without a pause, the acceleration of withdrawals would have allowed certain customers — those who were first to act — to be paid in full while leaving others behind to wait for Celsius to harvest value from illiquid or longer-term assets before they receive a recovery.”

Since Celsius isn’t seeking court approval for withdrawals, they will likely remain inaccessible as the company restructures under the chapter 11 process. While filing for bankruptcy protects Celsius from some enforcement actions by regulators, though, it will not prevent authorities from investigating the company. Texas State Securities Board’s director of enforcement, Joseph Rotunda, said the agency will continue its probe into the crypto lender. The states of Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey and Washington are also looking into Celsius after it cut off people’s access to their money. 

The Meta Quest 2 VR headset comes with a $25 gift card for Prime Day

The Meta Quest 2 is already pretty affordable at $299, but now Amazon is sweetening the deal by bundling it with a free $25 gift card. While you still have to pay its full price upon checkout — that’s $299 for the headset with 128GB of storage — the deal still translates to seven percent in savings when you factor in the gift card you’re getting from the purchase. You can also get the 256GB version of the headset formerly known as the Oculus Quest 2 with a free $25 gift card, though that option will set you back $399.

Buy Meta Quest 2 128 GB with $25 Gift Card at Amazon – $299

We found the Meta Quest 2 to be an excellent standalone VR headset when we reviewed the device back in 2020. It’s smaller than its predecessor and around 10 percent lighter, making it more comfortable to use. It has fast-switching LCDs with a resolution of 1,832 x 1,920 per eye and have 50 percent more pixels than the previous model. Shortly after the device’s release, Meta rolled out an update that enabled 90Hz refresh rate for games, as well. 

We also praised Meta for addressing people’s concerns with the first Quest’s hardware. That said, you need a Facebook account to be able to use the headset, at least for now. The company is changing that requirement soon and will instead require users to have a Meta account, which doesn’t have to be linked to Facebook. 

Amazon’s free $25 gift card offer will only be available until the end of the day. Take note that the gift card might ship separately from the headset itself and might arrive at a different date.

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Owlet’s Cam 2 baby monitor uses AI to predict if a child is truly crying

Owlet is giving tired parents new tools they can use to (hopefully) get little bit more sleep than what they’re getting with a baby in the house. The company has launched the Owlet Cam 2, which uses AI and machine learning to decipher sounds from the nursery and determine whether the baby is truly crying. It sends parents notification through the Owlet Dream App when it detects sounds, motion or crying from the baby’s room. The camera can also send parents video clips of sound and movement that they can watch on their phone anytime. 

The 1080p HD camera comes with the features its predecessor has, including 4x zoom, night vision, two-way talk and room temp reading. However, unlike the previous version that only comes in white, it’s also available in Sleepy Sage, Dusty Rose and Bedtime Blue.

Owlet has also rolled out a new predictive sleep technology feature for its system that automatically tracks the baby’s sleep and wake windows when used with the company’s Dream Sock. As its name implies, it can predict when the baby might be ready for sleep and can let parents know through the Owlet app — it can even adjust the child’s anticipated sleep window as they age. That way, parents can plan their own rest periods and other activities around the baby’s sleep schedule.

Predictive sleep will be available to both new and existing Dream Sock users through a firmware update slated for release today. Those who don’t have a Dream Sock can still take advantage of the feature, though, by manually adding sleep sessions through Owlet’s app. 

The company originally sold its monitoring device as the Smart Sock, but it had to pull it from US shelves after getting a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While the FDA did not identify any safety concerns, the agency argued that it should be classified as a medical device due to its heart rate and oxygen level monitoring features. Owlet stopped selling the sock in the US last year to pursue the authority to market those features as part of the device’s offerings. But company made it available for purchase in the US again earlier this year under a new name: the Dream Sock.

The Owlet Dream Duo that bundles a set of socks with a second-gen cam is now available for $439, but those who already have socks can get the the second-gen cam alone for $159. In the US, buyers can purchase the devices from Owlet’s website, as well as from retailers like Amazon, Target, Walmart and Best Buy.