Activision Blizzard shareholders approve plan for public report on sexual harassment

Activision Blizzard shareholders on Tuesday approved a plan for the company to release an annual, public report detailing its handling of sexual harassment and gender discrimination disputes, and how it’s working to prevent these incidences. The proposal was initially made in February by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

Under the proposal, Activision Blizzard will have to publicly disclose the following information each year:

  • The number and total dollar amount of disputes settled by the studio relating to sexual harassment and abuse, and discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, service member status, gender identify, or sexual orientation — covering the last three years

  • What steps Activision Blizzard is taking to reduce the average length of time it takes to resolve these incidents internally and legally

  • The number of pending complaints facing the studio relating to sexual abuse, harassment and discrimination, internally and in litigation

  • Data on pay and hours worked, as required by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing

The DFEH sued Activision Blizzard in July 2020, alleging executives there fostered a culture of rampant sexual harassment and systemic gender discrimination. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also sued the studio over these allegations in 2020, and Activision Blizzard settled with the federal agency in March, agreeing to set up an $18 million fund for claimants. Activists, employees and the DFEH have argued that this settlement is too low, and former employee Jessica Gonzalez appealed the ruling in May. The DFEH estimates there are 2,500 injured employees deserving more than $930 million in compensation.

“For years, there have been alarming news reports that detail allegedly rampant sexual abuse, discrimination, harassment, and retaliation directed toward female employees,” a statement in support of the proposal to shareholders reads. As an investor-focused document, it outlines the ways in which systemic discrimination and sexual abuse can damage the studio’s revenue streams and its ability to retain employees, saying, “A report such as the one requested would assist shareholders in assessing whether the company is improving its workforce management, whether its actions align with the company’s public statements and whether it remains a sustainable investment.”

While Activision Blizzard is facing multiple lawsuits and investigations in regards to sexism, harassment and discrimination, some employees at the studio are attempting to unionize with the help of the Communications Workers of America. This would be the first union at a major video game studio and could signal a shift in the industry’s longstanding crunch-centric cycle. At Tuesday’s annual meeting, Activision Blizzard shareholders denied a proposal that would’ve added an employee representative to the board of directors, with just 5 percent voting in favor, according to The Washington Post.

At the same time, Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard in a deal worth nearly $69 billion. Microsoft has pledged to respect the rights of workers to unionize. And all the while, Activision Blizzard is still making games.

Meta settles US lawsuit over housing discrimination

Meta has agreed to settle 2019 charges that it enabled housing discrimination through ad targeting. The deal with the Justice Department will have the company end use of a “Special Ad Audiences” tool that allegedly used a discrimination-prone algorithm to widen the reach of housing ads on Facebook. Meta is instead developing a new method, the “variance reduction system,” to ensure home ads match their eligible targeted viewers.

The decision to retire Special Ad Audiences also applies to credit and employment ads, Meta added. The company said all three categories were part of a “deep-rooted problem” with discrimination in the US.

This is the first time the DOJ has used a case to tackle algorithmic biases under the Fair Housing Act, according to officials. Meta said it collaborated with the Department of Housing and Urban Development for over a year to more accurately target ads and avoid discrimination. The new system will also be subject to DOJ approval and monitoring.

The firm had already limited ad targeting in 2019 after settling another lawsuit accusing it of violating housing discrimination law. Advertisers haven’t been allowed to target campaigns based on age, gender or ZIP code. Special Ad Audiences was launched at the same time to help address issues with a previous system, but Meta said its algorithms needed to adapt to ensure fairness.

A settlement isn’t shocking. Meta has faced other accusations of allowing problematic ad targeting in fields like politics. Other tech heavyweights have also faced penalties. The Federal Trade Commission slapped Twitter with a $150 million fine for reportedly “deceptive” ad targeting that relied on sensitive contact information. The agreement could help Meta avoid similar punishments, and suggests it’s willing to cooperate when ad systems come under scrutiny.

NASA picks three companies to develop lunar nuclear power systems

NASA and the Department of Energy have awarded contracts to three companies that are designing concepts to bring nuclear power to the Moon. The agencies will award Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse and IX around $5 million each to fund the design of a fission surface power system, an idea that NASA has been working on for at least 14 years. 

The three companies are being tasked with developing a 40-kilowatt class fission power system that can run for at least 10 years on the lunar surface. NASA hopes to test the system on the Moon as soon as the end of this decade. If the demonstration proves successful, it could lead to nuclear energy powering long-term missions on the Moon and Mars as part of the Artemis program. “Developing these early designs will help us lay the groundwork for powering our long-term human presence on other worlds,” Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a statement.

Under the 12-month contracts, Lockheed Martin will partner with BWXT and Creare. Westinghouse will team up with Aerojet Rocketdyne, while IX (a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-Energy) will work with Maxar and Boeing on a proposal.

Lockheed Martin was one of three companies chosen by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency last year to develop nuclear-powered spacecraft. The Defense Department has also sought nuclear propulsion systems for spacecraft.

Microsoft will phase out facial recognition AI that could detect emotions

Microsoft is keenly aware of the mounting backlash toward facial recognition, and it’s shuttering a significant project in response. The company has revealed it will “retire” facial recognition technology that it said could infer emotions as well as characteristics like age, gender and hair. The AI raised privacy questions, Microsoft said, and offering a framework created the potential for discrimination and other abuses. There was also no clear consensus on the definition of emotions, and no way to create a generalized link between expressions and emotions.

New users of Microsoft’s Face programming framework no longer have access to these attribute detection features. Current customers can use them until June 30th, 2023. Microsoft will still fold the tech into “controlled” accessibility tools, such as its Seeing AI for people with vision issues.

The exit comes as Microsoft has shared its Responsible AI Standard framework with the public for the first time. The guidelines illustrate the tech firm’s decision-making process, including a focus on principles like inclusion, privacy and transparency. This also represents the first big update to the standard since it was introduced in late 2019, and promises more fairness in speech-to-text tech, stricter controls for neural voice and “fit for purpose” requirements that rule out the emotion-detecting system.

Microsoft isn’t the first company to have second thoughts about facial recognition. IBM stopped work in that field over worries its projects could be used for human rights abuses. With that said, this is still a major change of heart. One of the world’s largest cloud and computing companies is backing away from AI that could have a substantial impact.

Cryptocurrency is more centralized than many advocates claim, according to report

One of the big advantages of cryptocurrency over other financial systems, according to many of its proponents, is that no particular company, central bank or government has control. That’s not necessarily the case, though. Researchers who worked on a report commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) found that there can be “unintended centralities” in these supposed decentralized systems.

“It’s been taken for granted that the blockchain is immutable and decentralized, because the community says so,” said Dan Guido, CEO of Trail of Bits, the software security research company that worked on the report. He told NPR that cryptocurrency power is concentrated among people or organizations that have a large chunk of the pie. Almost like any other capitalist system, some might argue.

Trail of Bits defined “unintended centralities” as circumstances under which an entity has sway over a so-called decentralized system, which could afford them the opportunity to tamper with records of ownership. The report also notes that three ISPs handle 60 percent of all bitcoin traffic. A blockchain network could be disrupted if a communications regulator, a hacker or someone else with oversight of one of those ISPs slowed down or halted bitcoin traffic.

There are also weaknesses in the bitcoin network itself. The report found that 21 percent of nodes are running an old, vulnerable version of the core bitcoin client. Those systems could be targeted in an attempt by an attacker who’s looking to take over the majority of a blockchain network, though that seems relatively unlikely given the size of the bitcoin network.

Some of these situations are theoretical, but the report highlights some of the deficiencies of blockchain tech. There have been some clear instances of centralization impacting parts of the ecosystem, however.

It was reported this week that lending platform Solend (which is based on the Solana blockchain) tried to take control of its single largest account, because it said the operator could have significant sway over market movements. Solend planned to temporarily take over the “whale” investor’s account in order to liquidate their position “gracefully” and avoid possible disruption.

A proposal allowing the platform to carry out the controversial move (Solend calls itself a “decentralized protocol,” after all) passed on Sunday. However, Solend’s users voted on another proposal to overturn the first one, with 99.8 percent of votes in favor. As it turns out, the holder of the account in question had more than 1 million of the 1.48 million total votes. Solend is trying another method of liquidating the whale’s position, but for now, the platform’s power seems to be centralized in that account holder’s favor.

Amazon is opening a center for quantum networking research

Several major companies are working on quantum computing projects, including IBM and Google. Amazon is also in the mix. The company opened the AWS Center for Quantum Computing last year and has offered quantum computing via Amazon Web Services since 2019. It’s expanding that work to what it says is an essential aspect of helping quantum tech reach its full potential: quantum networking. As such, the company has announced the AWS Center for Quantum Networking (CQN).

As with quantum computing, it’s early days for quantum networking. It will likely take several more years before researchers start getting the most out of quantum tech. However, Amazon has more resources than most to invest in the field.

Amazon notes that quantum networks will be able to connect quantum devices using single photons rather than laser beams (which are utilized in modern optical communications). However, along with enabling certain capabilities of quantum networks, there are some hurdles to overcome when it comes to using a single photon. Quantum mechanics limits the amplification of a single photon, which restricts the range of a network. “Also, the weakness of single photons complicates interfacing them with today’s quantum computing devices,” CQN research scientists Denis Sukachev and Mihir Bhaskar wrote in a blog post.

Researchers at the center will work on new technologies, such as quantum repeaters and transducers, to allow for the creation of global quantum networks. They’ll develop hardware, software and apps for quantum networks.

Among the potential applications of quantum networking is “enabling global communications protected by quantum key distribution with privacy and security levels not achievable using conventional encryption techniques,” Sukachev and Bhaskar wrote. “Quantum networks will also provide powerful and secure cloud quantum servers by connecting together and amplifying the capabilities of individual quantum processors.”

South Korea launches a satellite with its first domestically-made rocket

South Korea just took an important step toward becoming a spacefaring nation. The New York Timesreports the country successfully launched a satellite payload into orbit using a domestically-made rocket for the first time. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s 200-ton Nuri vehicle (aka Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II) ferried both a working satellite (for performance verification) and a dummy into orbit at an altitude of 435 miles.

The accomplishment was a long time in coming. South Korea first launched a satellite into orbit in 2013, but it co-developed the mission’s Naro rocket with Russia. Nuri also didn’t have the smoothest path. An initial test launch in October 2021 lifted a dummy satellite into space, but an oxidizer tank failure led to a premature burnout that prevented the satellite from staying in orbit.

The successful flight is just the first step in a major expansion of South Korea’s spaceflight efforts. Officials plan four more Nuri test launches between 2023 and 2027, and the verification payload will help test components for more satellite missions, including surveillance satellites to monitor North Korea. Long-term plans include a more powerful rocket as well as an uncrewed Moon lander that would arrive by the early 2030s.

The flight helps South Korea join just a handful of countries with similar spaceflight capabilities, including the US, Russia, China, France, India and Japan. There’s also large degree of national pride involved. This helps South Korea reduce its dependence on American satellites and rockets, including SpaceX’s Falcon 9 — it won’t have to worry as much about differing priorities and launch schedules.

Facebook clamps down on fake and paid reviews

Facebook has long taken action against fake reviews, but now it’s formalizing that stance. As The Verge notes, Facebook parent company Meta has updated its Community Feedback Policy in the US to explicitly ban fake and paid reviews on its platforms. Users can’t post a bogus review for a restaurant in hopes of getting a free meal, or take kickbacks to leave glowing opinions about a product.

The revised policy also forbids “irrelevant” and spam reviews, not to mention those that include graphic or otherwise offensive content. Meta will pull reviews that violate policies, and reserves the right to suspend access to some or all of its products. Habitual violators could face suspensions or permanent bans for their Facebook accounts, and businesses could lose access to product listings and tags.

You might not see a dramatic increase in crackdowns when the new policy mainly continues an existing strategy. It’s also uncertain how well this commitment will hold. Facebook removed 16,000 fake review groups last year in response to a UK watchdog’s concerns, but there’s no guarantee it will catch every offender. An official policy indicates commitment to tackling the problem, though, and could help Meta justify bans when perpetrators complain.