Leaked Amazon memo says the company may run out of available labor by 2024

Amazon is likely to run out of prospective workers for its US warehouses by the year 2024, according to an internal memo that was leaked to Recode. The memo contained internal research from 2021 that predicted a looming labor crisis for the e-commerce giant that would hit some areas faster than others. For example, it estimated that Amazon would exhaust its labor supply in Phoenix, Arizona by the end of 2021 and in California’s Inland Empire by the end of 2022. It calculated the available pool of workers using factors like income levels and proximity to current or planned Amazon facilities.

The report urged the company to take steps to address the future labor gap, such as raising wages to retain its existing workforce and attract more new hires. It also suggested increasing automation in the warehouses. “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” wrote the authors of the report.

In a statement to Engadget, an Amazon spokesperson said that the leaked document isn’t an accurate assessment of its hiring situation. “There are many draft documents written on many subjects across the company that are used to test assumptions and look at different possible scenarios, but aren’t then escalated or used to make decisions. This was one of them. It doesn’t represent the actual situation, and we are continuing to hire well in Phoenix, the Inland Empire, and across the country,” wrote Rena Lunak, Amazon’s director of global operations and field communications.

Automation is something that Amazon has invested heavily in already by acquiring Kiva Systems in 2012. But according to a Wired investigation from last year, Amazon’s warehouse robots aren’t capable of handling advanced fulfillment tasks that can only be performed by a human worker.

Human workers were once an ample resource the company. The tech giant is the second-largest private employer in the US, and is the largest private employer in a number of US states and cities. The company announced plans to hire 125,000 workers last fall, which is roughly equivalent to the population of Savannah, Georgia. But the new hires largely appear to be replacing workers who have been terminated or resigned. Amazon’s turnover rate is roughly 150 percent a year, or twice the amount of the retail and logistics industries at large, a New York Timesinvestigation revealed last year.

As Recode notes, Amazon’s attrition rate is even worse in Phoenix and the Inland Empire. It also has to compete with big-box stores like Walmart and Target, which are now offering competitive wages to those with warehouse experience. “We are hearing a lot of [Amazon] workers say, ‘I can just go across the street to Target or Walmart,’” Sheheryar Kaoosji, co-executive director of Inland Empire’s Warehouse Worker Resource Center told Recode.

TikTok says it’s storing US data domestically amid renewed security concerns

TikTok says it’s achieved a “significant milestone” toward its promises to beef up the security of its US users’ data. In a new update, the company says it has “changed the default storage location of US user data.”

As the company notes, it had already stored much of its user data in the United States, at a Virginia-based data center. But under a new partnership with Oracle, the company has migrated US user traffic to a new Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“Today, 100% of US user traffic is being routed to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We still use our US and Singapore data centers for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete US users’ private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the US.” Additionally, TikTok says it has made “operational changes,” including a new department “with US-based leadership, to solely manage US user data for TikTok.”

The moves are part of a longstanding effort by TikTok to address US officials’ concerns over how user data is handled by TikTok and parent company ByteDance. The company has been working to separate US user data so that it’s not accessible to China-based ByteDance as US lawmakers eye legislation to curb the influence of Chinese tech companies.

Still, the new safeguards are unlikely to fully sway critics of TikTok, who say the company still hasn’t addressed all potential concerns about how US user data is handled. In fact, just after TikTok published its blog post, BuzzFeed Newspublished a report that raises new questions about how the company handles the data of its US users.

The report, which was based on hours of internal meetings leaked to BuzzFeed, says that “China-based employees of ByteDance have repeatedly accessed nonpublic data about US TikTok users.” The recordings, which cover a time period between last September and January 2022, offer new details about the complex effort to cut off Bytedance’s access to US user data.

The report quotes an outside consultant hired by TikTok to oversee some of the work saying that they believed there was “backdoor to access user data in almost all” of the company’s internal tools. It also quotes statements from several employees who say “that engineers in China had access to US data between September 2021 and January 2022, at the very least.”

It also notes that while data deemed “sensitive,” like users’ birth dates and phone numbers, will be stored in the Oracle servers, other information about US-based users could remain accessible to ByteDance. “ByteDance’s China-based employees could continue to have access to insights about what American TikTok users are interested in, from cat videos to political beliefs,” the report says.

That may not seem as serious as more personal information like birthdays and phone numbers, but it’s exactly the kind of details that some lawmakers in the US have raised concerns about. US officials have questioned whether the app’s “For You” algorithm could be used as a means of foreign influence.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms from a security standpoint, and we aim to remove any doubt about the security of US user data,” TikTok said in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

FBI warns crypto fraud on LinkedIn is a ‘significant threat’

If you have a tendency to talk to people you don’t know on LinkedIn, you may want to take extra care. According to a CNBC report, the company has acknowledged a “recent uptick of fraud on its platform,” and this time the scams involve persuading users …

The original ‘Pokémon Snap’ comes to Switch Online on June 24th

Are you more interested in playing the original Pokémon Snap than the modern version? You won’t have to pull your Nintendo 64 out of the closet to do it. Nintendo is releasing the N64 game on June 24th for gamers subscribed to Switch Online with the Expansion Pack. It’s still the on-rails (sometimes literally) creature photo safari you remember, complete with tossing fruit to either attract or stun Pokémon in the name of a perfect snapshot.

There’s no mention of any Switch-specific enhancements. The Virtual Console version for the Wii let you post critter pictures on a message board, but that’s not strictly necessary when the Switch lets you capture screenshots to post on Facebook or Twitter.

Pokémon Snap probably won’t persuade you to get the Expansion Pack by itself. Along with classics like Paper Mario and Kirby 64, though, the pattern is clear. Nintendo is still busy fleshing out Switch Online’s extended library with some of the better-known games from the N64 era, and it doesn’t mind adding titles that have present-day counterparts.

AT&T and Verizon give FAA another year to remedy C-band 5G interference issues

AT&T and Verizon have given the Federal Aviation Administration another year to fix altimeter issues as they look to roll out C-band 5G services around airports. “We believe we have identified a path that will continue to enable aviation and 5G C-band wireless to safely co-exist,” acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen said in a statement.

Under a phased plan, operators of regional aircraft with radio altimeters that are most susceptible to interference are required to fit them with radio frequency filters by the end of this year. That work is underway and the FAA says it will continue on an expedited basis.

The agency also says it worked with AT&T and Verizon to identify airports where they can bolster service with minimal risk of upending flight schedules. The FAA plans to monitor the pace of RF filter retrofits on altimeters too.

Altimeters have been at the heart of the tussle over the rollout of C-band 5G around airports. Airlines have been worried that, because C-Band frequencies are close to ones used by some altimeters, they could create interference. That could cause a plane’s landing system to misinterpret the distance to the ground with potentially disastrous consequences.

In January, AT&T and Verizon agreed to delay activating C-band 5G towers around airports until July 5. They made the pledge just hours before switching on C-band 5G in other areas for the first time. The pair also agreed to create buffer zones around 50 airports.

Now, the carriers will continue with “some level of voluntary mitigations” for another year, until July 5th, 2023. “After that time, the wireless companies expect to operate their networks in urban areas with minimal restrictions,” the FAA said.

“Through close coordination with the FAA over the last several months, we have developed a more tailored approach to controlling signal strength around runways that allows us to activate more towers and increase signal strength,” an AT&T spokesperson said. “Though our FCC licenses allow us to fully deploy much-needed C-Band spectrum right now, we have chosen in good faith to implement these more tailored precautionary measures so that airlines have additional time to retrofit equipment. We appreciate the FAA’s support of this approach, and we will continue to work with the aviation community as we move toward the expiration of all such voluntary measures by next summer.”

“Today’s announcement identifies a path forward that will enable Verizon to make full use of our C-Band spectrum for 5G around airports on an accelerated and defined schedule,” Verizon executive vice-president and chief administrative officer Craig Silliman said. “Under this agreement reached with the FAA, we will lift the voluntary limitations on our 5G network deployment around airports in a staged approach over the coming months meaning even more consumers and businesses will benefit from the tremendous capabilities of 5G technology. This progress is the result of months of close collaboration with the FAA, FCC and aviation industry, and sets the stage for continued, robust 5G deployment.”

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Bill Nye’s return to TV debuts August 25th on Peacock

After more than a year, Peacock is finally close to bringing Bill Nye back to TV screens. The NBCUniversal service has revealed that The End is Nye will premiere on August 25th. The six-episode series will have Nye explore disasters (natural and otherwise) while showing how science can help prevent and survive these calamities.

Nye serves as an executive producer in addition to hosting. The production team will seem very familiar if you’re a fan of science documentaries or sci-fi. Brannon Braga (of Cosmos, The Orville and Star Trek fame) serves as director and showrunner, while Seth MacFarlane (also from Cosmos and The Orville) is both making cameo appearances and producing through his Fuzzy Door outfit.

The series comes roughly five years after Netflix’s Bill Nye Saves the World, and follows a similar template. It’s an effort to restore optimism about science, not to mention counter myths and otherwise push for a society where evidence and objectivity matter. This might not recapture the vibe of Bill’s Science Guy days, but it might not have to if it gets the message across.

Epic Games Store will randomly ask users to rate games to prevent review bombing

Epic Games has added a long-awaited feature to its store: user ratings. The company says that only those who have played a game for at least two hours will be able to rate it on a five-star scale. Not everyone will be able to rate a game either. Epic w…