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Social media companies, here are some free theme park ideas to comply with Florida’s deplatforming law

The Verge is deeply invested in doing service journalism; we report on companies’ misdeeds, we review expensive products to tell you whether they’re worth your hard-earned money, and speak to industry leaders to get their insights on the issues affecting their companies and their customers.

It is in that vein that we brainstormed some ideas for social media theme parks in Florida.

See, the Sunshine State passed a law this week that blocks social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter from “knowingly” deplatforming politicians and even algorithmically ranking content, with fine ranging from $25,000 to $250,000 per day (The law, which is a mish-mash of broad speech regulations, has already been challenged in court by the tech companies’ trade organizations, which called it “a frontal assault on the First Amendment.”)

But there’s an easier way. The law has a hilariously corrupt exemption for any company that owns or operates a theme park or large entertainment complex in the state of Florida. Republican state Rep. Blaise Ingoglia said that exemption was included so that the Disney Plus streaming service “isn’t caught up in this.” The Disney World park in Orlando brings in significant tax revenue for Florida, of course, a state which relies heavily on tourism dollars.

So all Twitter, Facebook, TikTok et al have to do to comply with the law and avoid the knotty First Amendment issue of government speech regulations is build their own Floridian theme parks.

Here are our suggestions for the parks including some ideas for appropriately themed rides that the venues might offer:

Twitterland

Has a secret nightclub called Slides
Sells drinks called Canoes
The Ratio is a dunk tank where you get dropped into water for your bad takes
Whac-A-Mole is instead Block-A-Troll
A water-themed ride where you’re sailing along and random guys try to pull you into the water: Reply Guys, the ride
Rollercoaster goes sideways

The only problem with Twitterland is that it keeps opening amazing rides and then letting them completely fall apart.

Facebook World

All the rides suddenly pivot to video without warning
A haunted house attraction called Facebook Moderation
Instagram and WhatsApp once had separate parks, but they have been annexed into the main Facebook park and turned into shopping malls
The water park has a slide into radicalism
If you get detained by security, they put you in the Racist Uncle Time Out Room
An Instagram hall of mirrors that features mirrors that give you an Insta-ready body with lighting made for photos and then leaves you feeling terrible when you come to the last mirror, which has heavy shadows for lighting and no body editing whatsoever

TikTokLand

A hall of mirrors that shunts you through random rides with absolutely no information or warning, gradually tuning your experience using the sophisticated biometric monitor in your admission wristband
Alternately, the whole park is just the set from the Weeknd’s Super Bowl halftime show where a Backyardigans song plays on a loop

Pinterest Park

It’s just a bunch of themed photo booths that produce those little photo strips, but you have to wait in line and read 200 words before you can ride the Recipe Rollercoaster.

The GooglePlusPlex

A giant haunted house which closed eight years ago but high school kids still break into at night
The entire park littered with discontinued Google products

Clubhouse Clubhouse

It’s just one big infinity room where you enter and hear men talking at you and over each other about Bitcoin.

Reddit Faire

A Renaissance fair that ended up sharing its property lease with a prison, thanks to an awkward misunderstanding in the C-suite. Many guests are incredibly devoted cosplayers in delightful historically accurate costumes. Many are petty criminals. A few are serial killers. Try to guess which ones!

YouTubeLand

Has a ride where you appear to climb higher and higher forever, but then perilously fall to Earth after a botched apology
To enter the park you have to smash the like button
The Thumbnail Ride promises nonstop conflict but is really just a pretty chill afternoon
Every ride is at least 10 minutes long so it can include a midroll break
If you make a wrong turn at the bathrooms, you’ll occasionally run into an off-brand superhero ride that ends in a spike pit. No one knows who paid for or designed these rides, but children find them inexplicably compelling
You can’t leave unless you ring a bell, and then you will be sent notifications reminding you to return to YouTubeLand for the rest of your life
Really big and expensive and in many ways the gold standard for all the other parks, but no one appears to be in charge at all?

Snapchat Studios

Rides disappear after you go on them once
All the vending machines sell Spectacles, but no one buys them
Unfortunately the park’s been kind of struggling because all its best rides get cloned by Facebook World within six months
Temporarily closed because it accidentally opened another racist ride

Marvell’s New PCIe 5.0 SSD Controllers Have 14 TB/s of Throughput

(Image credit: Marvell)

Marvell has introduced the industry’s first SSD controllers for NVMe 1.4b-compliant drives that will feature a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface. The Bravera SC5 controllers are designed primarily for bandwidth and performance-hungry servers used in cloud data centers. They will provide up to 14 TB/s throughput as well as up to 2 million random read IOPS, with the former being two times faster than today’s fastest PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Marvell’s new controllers have already gained support from various industrial partners, including AMD, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft, and Renesas.

Marvell’s Bravera SC5 family includes two controllers: the eight-channel MV-SS1331 and the 16-channel MV-SS1333. The controllers have absolutely the same functionality and performance specifications: up to 14 GB/s sequential write speed, up to 9 GB/s sequential write speed, up to 2M random read IOPS, and up to 1M write IOPS.

The MV-SS1333 with its eight 1600 MT/s NAND channels will power SSDs with higher capacity. It is noteworthy that the MV-SS1333 is the industry’s first 16-channel controller that comes in a 20x20mm form factor and can be used for EDSFF E1.S (“Ruler”) SSDs.

(Image credit: Marvell)

Like other modern high-end SSD controllers, Marvell’s Bravera SC5 are fully-fledged system-on-chips (SoCs) packing serious compute performance and special-purpose accelerators. The Bravera SC5 family uses Arm’s Cortex-R8, Cortex-M7, and Cortex-M7 cores, yet Marvell hasn’t disclosed the exact core count. A hardware-based SLA enforcer accompanies the CPU cores to minimize server CPU utilization. The silicon also has DMA controllers, firmware accelerators, a dedicated security engine (FIPS root-of-trust with AES-256 and TCG Opal compliant), and a NAND flash controller featuring the company’s 5th Generation NANDEdge LDPC engine.

(Image credit: Marvell)

Marvell’s new controllers featuring the NANDEdge v5 LDPC engine can work with any type of 3D NAND, including SLC, MLC, TLC, and QLC from any vendor, including Kioxia, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, Western Digital, and YMTC.

(Image credit: Marvell)

The main selling points of Marvell’s Braver SC5 controllers are dual-port PCIe 5.0 x4, NVMe 1.4b, and extreme performance. Meanwhile, the SoCs allow manufacturers to build one SSD model for different usage models, including NVMe, SEF, ZNS, and Open Channel. Customers can also use the controller to build drives in various form factors, including E1.S, E1.L, E3, and U.2. Marvell is also especially proud of its new controllers’ relatively moderate power consumption: the MV-SS1331 consumes up to 8.7W, whereas the MV-SS1331 consumes up to 9.8W.

“There are many data center technology challenges. These include the need for PCIe 5.0 for performance scaling, E1.S for density and serviceability, and OCP data center NVMe SSD support for product features. Marvell’s Bravera SC5 SSD controller family supports technology that enables next-generation hyperscale SSD use cases,” said Ross Stenfort, Hardware System Engineer, Storage, Facebook.

Marvell is currently sampling the new controller with select customers. It is noteworthy that Marvell has already gained support from leading server platform developers and cloud datacenter operators, so it is logical to expect the adoption of PCIe 5.0 SSDS powered by Marvell’s Bravera SC5 controllers sooner rather than later.

Keeping in mind that Intel plans to release its PCIe 5.0-supporting Xeon Scalable ‘Sapphire Rapids’ in late 2021 or early 2022, we can expect the first PCIe 5.0 SSDs to be available around the same time.

Industry groups sue to stop Florida’s new social media law

Two tech industry organizations have sued Florida over its newly passed rules for social networks. NetChoice and the CCIA — which represent Amazon, Google, Intel, Samsung, Facebook, and other tech giants — say SB 7072 violates private companies’ constitutional rights. They’re asking a court to prevent the law from taking effect, calling it a “frontal assault on the First Amendment.”

SB 7072, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed earlier this week, restricts how large social apps and websites can moderate user-generated content. It makes banning any Florida political candidate or “journalistic enterprise” unlawful, lets users sue if they believe they were banned without sufficient reason, requires an option to “opt out” of sorting algorithms, and places companies that break the law on an “antitrust violator blacklist” that bars them from doing business with public entities in Florida. Notably, it includes an exception for companies that operate a theme park.

NetChoice and the CCIA say SB 7072 conflicts with both constitutional protections and federal Section 230 rules. “As private businesses, Plaintiffs’ members have the right to decide what content is appropriate for their sites and platforms,” their complaint says. “The Act requires members to display and prioritize user-generated content that runs counter to their terms, policies, and business practices; content that will likely offend and repel their users and advertisers; and even content that is unlawful, dangerous to public health and national security, and grossly inappropriate for younger audiences.”

The lawsuit claims Florida lawmakers and DeSantis specifically tailored the law to punish services whose moderation policies they disagreed with, while adding the arbitrary theme park exception to pacify Disney, Comcast NBCUniversal, and a handful of other big companies. “The law is crony capitalism masquerading as consumer protection,” said NetChoice vice president and general counsel Carl Szabo in a statement.

The law’s supporters argue it fights “deplatforming” of users based on political speech, saying social networks have “morphed into the town square” and become public spaces. Courts have contradicted the latter claim outside extremely specific exceptions, determining that Section 230 mostly lets social networks make their own moderation decisions — and states can’t simply supersede that federal rule. However, the Florida bill let lawmakers and DeSantis signal support for a Republican backlash against Silicon Valley, whether or not it actually takes effect.

You can join Twitter’s Clubhouse-like Spaces rooms from a browser starting Wednesday

You’ll be able to join Twitter’s Clubhouse-like Spaces from desktop and mobile web browsers starting Wednesday, the company announced, making the company’s social audio rooms much more widely accessible. Previously, you could only join Spaces from Twitter’s iOS and Android apps.

You can get a look at what a Spaces look like on the web in screenshots below, from Twitter. The image on the left shows what you’ll see before joining a Space. The one on the right shows a Space off to the side so you can continue scrolling through Twitter while you listen.

Spaces are making their way to Twitter for web!

Now you can join a Space to listen in, test out the new transcription design, and set reminders to join a scheduled Space. https://t.co/xFTEeAgM4x

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 26, 2021

Spaces on the web have a big caveat, though: you can join Spaces, but you can’t host them yourself just yet, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Verge.

Twitter has been quickly opening up Spaces and adding features over the past several months to compete with the dedicated social audio app Clubhouse and similar features from companies like Discord and Facebook. Early in May, Twitter began rolling out the ability to host spaces on mobile to anyone with 600 or more followers.

Stadia’s loss is Clubhouse’s gain: the social audio company has poached a longtime Google engineer

Clubhouse has hired Justin Uberti, creator of the WebRTC standard and the Google Duo video chat app. He leaves Google after nearly 15 years at the company, where he was most recently the engineering lead for Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service and led the team that made the Stadia iOS web app.

“Justin is a phenomenal engineering leader and one of the original inventors of WebRTC, on top of which Clubhouse is built,” Clubhouse co-founder and CTO Rohan Seth said in a statement. “There’s so much that goes into crafting a fantastic audio experience — the quality, the latency, the ability to use spatial distance when multiple speakers are talking. This will be a critical area of investment for us as we open Clubhouse to the whole world, and among other things, Justin will be helping lead that effort.”

Uberti’s title will be head of streaming technology, a Clubhouse spokesperson told The Verge.

“I’m really optimistic about the potential [of Clubhouse]: everyone in the world knows how to use voice, it’s such an expressive medium (compared to text), and advancements like AirPods are making it easier to consume audio,” Uberti said at the end of a Twitter thread discussing the move.

WebRTC is an open-source project that lets developers add real-time communication (RTC) features to applications, and it works on modern browsers and is supported within many native apps. The fact that Discord can instantly drop you into a voice chat in a browser? WebRTC helps power that. And if you’ve used Clubhouse, you’ve probably experienced how easy it is to jump in and out of audio rooms on the fly — that’s also powered by WebRTC. (Uberti commended Clubhouse as a “great example” of a novel RTC use-case.)

As Clubhouse looks to compete with social audio products from bigger companies like Facebook, Twitter, Discord, and even Microsoft’s LinkedIn, hiring the creator of a key technology backing its app could give Clubhouse an advantage in an increasingly crowded field.

In addition to Stadia and Duo, Uberti also had a key role in the development of Google Hangouts Video and was the chief architect for AOL Instant Messenger, according to his LinkedIn.

Facebook plans to bury users who regularly share misinformation

In Facebook’s protracted efforts to be remembered as something other than the largest misinformation megaphone in history, it’s employed a number of strategies, from spinning its own misleading PR narratives to actual UI changes. Today, it announced a new tactic: not only will posts with misinformation in them be made less visible, but so will the individual users who share them.

For several years, the social giant has plugged away at fact-checking partnerships meant to disincentivize the spread of viral misinformation, using the results of those checks to label offending posts rather than removing them. In some cases, it’s taken small steps toward hiding things that are found to be false or polarizing — ending recommendations for political groups, for instance, during the 2020 election. Users, however, were free to post whatever they wanted with no consequences to speak of. No longer!

Image: Facebook

“Starting today, we will reduce the distribution of all posts in News Feed from an individual’s Facebook account if they repeatedly share content that has been rated by one of our fact-checking partners,” the company wrote in a press release. While demonstrably false posts are already demoted in the News Feed rankings, users who share misinformation regularly will now see all of their content pushed down the dashboard’s endless scroll.

It remains to be seen exactly what the tangible impact of this expanded enforcement will be. While individual Facebook users were previously immune to this sort of scrutiny, Instagram users were not. Nevertheless, vaccine misinformation has proliferated on the photo-sharing app. No matter how sophisticated its systems, as I’ve argued before, Facebook is simply too large to monitor.

You can now hide like counts on Instagram and Facebook

You can now hide like counts on Instagram and Facebook. After years of testing on both platforms, Facebook and Instagram have settled on an opt-in experience for hiding like counts to allow people to disable seeing them across all posts and an option to hide their own public like counts from others.

Instagram is enabling this feature after years of tests and pressure from experts to make changes to its platform. The service was ranked as “the most detrimental to young people’s mental health and wellbeing” in a 2017 study by the Royal Society for Public Health UK. Experts have argued that removing a like button or like counts could help reduce anxiety and social pressures for some Facebook and Instagram users.

“We tested hiding like counts to see if it might depressurize people’s experience on Instagram,” says an Instagram spokesperson. “What we heard from people and experts was that not seeing like counts was beneficial for some, and annoying to others, particularly because people use like counts to get a sense for what’s trending or popular, so we’re giving you the choice.”

How to hide Facebook like counts.

Image: Facebook

You’ll now be able to toggle an option to hide all like counts on all posts in your feed on both Instagram and Facebook today. A separate option will let you hide your own like counts to others. You can also hide like counts on a per-post basis on Instagram, so there’s a little more flexibility to allow people to focus on the content of posts rather than the like counts. Facebook will get these same per-post controls in the next few weeks.

Facebook first started testing hidden like counts in September 2019 as an experiment to see if the change would improve the experience of using the platform. Instagram has also been testing a variety of ways to hide like counts in recent years, with a test for this same optional feature just last month.

WhatsApp sues Indian government over new rules it says break encryption

Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp is suing India’s government over new internet rules it claims are unconstitutional and will “severely undermine the privacy” of its users, The New York Times reports. The Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, which was introduced in February and comes into effect today, contains a requirement that messaging apps identify the “first originator of information” when asked. But WhatsApp, which boasts nearly 400 million users in its largest market of India, argues that doing so would require it to trace every message sent on its service, violating users’ right to privacy.

“Civil society and technical experts around the world have consistently argued that a requirement to “trace” private messages would break end-to-end encryption and lead to real abuse,” a spokesperson for the service said in a statement. “WhatsApp is committed to protecting the privacy of people’s personal messages and we will continue to do all we can within the laws of India to do so.”

WhatsApp’s warnings about “traceability” are backed of many of the world’s biggest technology firms and digital rights groups including Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Center for Democracy and Technology. In a statement about a similar plan to mandate traceability in Brazil, the EFF said that implementing traceability “will break users’ expectations of privacy and security, and would be hard to implement to match current security and privacy standards.”

Responding to efforts by India and other countries to force it to trace messages, WhatsApp has published an FAQ on its website. It argues that this traceability requirement would force it to break the end-to-end encryption for everyone on its service, because there’s no way for it to proactively know what message a government might want to investigate ahead of time. “A government that chooses to mandate traceability is effectively mandating a new form of mass surveillance,” WhatsApp’s FAQ says.

However the Indian government argues the rules are required to track the origins of misinformation. In comments reported by Reuters, a government official argued that WhatsApp isn’t being asked to break its encryption, just to track where messages originate from.

But WhatsApp says tracing messages like this “would be ineffective and highly susceptible to abuse,” and risks punishing people for being the “originator” of content just for re-sharing information they found elsewhere. According to Reuters, WhatsApp argues that the new rules fail the tests established by a 2017 Supreme Court ruling. Namely, that privacy must be preserved except when legality, necessity, and proportionality require its infringement. WhatsApp argues that the new law lacks explicit parliamentary backing.

The lawsuit is the latest heightening of tensions between the Indian government and big tech companies. In recent months officials have ordered social media networks including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to remove posts critical of their handling of the pandemic. The NYT notes that social media companies have complied with many of these requests by blocking posts within the country, but keeping them visible elsewhere. While the government argues these posts could incite panic, critics say it’s using the new rules to silence detractors.

In another incident, police in India raided Twitter’s offices over a “manipulated media” label applied to a tweet from a government official.

While WhatsApp has been accused of facilitating the spread of misinformation around the world, the problem has been particularly acute in India. Since 2017, the service has been linked to a series of lynchings in the country after users on the service spread misinformation about child abductions. WhatsApp responded by placing new limits on message forwarding in an attempt to stop such accusations from going viral.

Panasonic launches the LUMIX GH5 II, teases the upcoming GH6

Panasonic today announced an updated version of its venerable LUMIX GH5 camera. The new GH5 Mark II is a relatively modest upgrade over its predecessor but if you look at the other thing Panasonic announced today, you’d realize it’s just a stop-gap.

The GH5M2 features a revised set of specifications, largely due to the upgrade to the newer and latest generation Venus Engine processor. The camera is now capable of internally recording 4K 60p in 10-bit at 4:2:0, which is an improvement over the GH5 that could only do 8-bit internally. The GH5M2 will also be able to simultaneously record in 4K 60p in 10-bit 4:2:2 to an external recorder.

The GH5M2 comes with the Panasonic V-Log L log profile pre-installed, which was an optional paid extra on the GH5. This allows you to color match the camera to other Panasonic cameras using V-Log (S1/S1H) or V-Log L (GH5/GH5S). The GH5M2 also adds two Cinelike presets (D2 and V2) along with MonochromeS and L.ClassicNeo.

The 20.3-megapixel Micro Four Thirds sensor is nearly identical to the one on the GH5. The GH5M2 sensor features anti-reflective coating, which should reduce the amount of flare around bright objects.

The use of a faster processor has enabled some improvements to autofocusing. While the GH5M2 still uses the same contrast-based DFD system, it is not faster to lock focus and 2x faster at detecting eyes and faces than the GH5.

The GH5M2 also features improved in-body image stabilizer and is capable of 6.5-stop slower shutter speed.

The GH5M2 features a smaller 3.0-inch display compared to the 3.5-inch display on the GH5. However, this new display has higher 1840k dot resolution and is also brighter outdoors.

The connectivity hasn’t changed much but the microUSB port has been ditched in favor of USB-C with USB-PD charging.

Finally, the GH5M2 is capable of live streaming to YouTube or Facebook directly through the camera. All you need is the camera and an internet connection, either through home Wi-Fi or through your phone’s data connection and the Panasonic app and you’re good to go. Aside from the two services mentioned above, you can also stream to any other RTMP/RTMPS protocol compatible streaming service and stream at 1080p 60fps at 16Mbps. A future update will also add wired IP streaming (RTP/RTSP).

Aside from that, this is basically the same camera as the GH5. All you get to differentiate externally are some red accents and a reassigned F1 button. However, this isn’t a bad thing, as the GH5M2 is being launched at $400 lower than the launch price of the GH5 and starts at $1699.

However, the thing to look out for is Panasonic’s upcoming GH6, which the company also teased today. The camera is said to be in development and will be launched by the end of 2021. The GH6 will be able to do 4:2:2 10-bit DCI 4K 60p internal recording without any time limits and also 10-bit 4K 120p HFR recording. The Gh6 will also be able to do 10-bit 5.7k 60p video with the new Micro Four Thirds sensor.

The Panasonic LUMIX GH6 will be priced around $2500.

Source 1 • Source 2

Tonor TC30 USB Microphone Review

If you’re struggling with your audio quality, you may be tempted to buy a dedicated microphone to improve your work calls, live streaming, content creation. Some of you may not want to splash too much cash however, so today we’re taking a look at a very affordable microphone by Tonor, the TC30 USB microphone, which comes in at just £37.99. With over 8500 4.5-star ratings on Amazon, it comes with absolutely everything you need to get started, including a pop-shield, shock mount and desk stand. Is it actually any good – or should you pass on this one?

Watch via our Vimeo channel (below) or over on YouTube at 2160p HERE

Specifications:

Microphone type: Condenser
Cardioid Polar Pickup Pattern
Frequency Response 50Hz – 20kHz
Input Sample Rate 48kHz
Bit Rate 16Bit
Output Impedance 2.2kΩ
S/N Ratio >68dB
Sensitivity: -32dB±3dB
Cable Length 2m
Detachable cable
Cable Type: USB-C to USB-A 2.0
Included desk stand, shock mount and pop filter
Plug and play, no software needed

You can purchase the Tonor TC30 on a limited-time offer from Amazon for £26.99 HERE! The usual price is £37.99.

Tonor have also let us know that KitGuru readers can get 15% off on the Amazon US store with code USBMIC15.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

Pros:

Plug and play, you get everything you need including a shock mount.
Detachable USB-C to USB-A 2.0 cable.
Excellent price point.
Brilliant audio quality when used correctly.

Cons:

No gain control knob or mute button on the mic itself.
Plastic threading on the shock mount.
Fully plastic design.

KitGuru says: If you’re on a restricted budget this is the microphone for anyone looking to improve the quality of their business meeting calls, gaming with friends online, content creators doing voice overs and more. With the very affordable nature of the Tonor TC30 at just £38, we definitely recommend it as the audio quality really is very good considering its price point.

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Amazon workers demand company quit polluting near communities of color

Hundreds of Amazon tech workers are pressuring Amazon to quit polluting — especially in communities near its warehouses. More than 600 workers signed a petition asking Amazon to bring its pollution down to zero by 2030. They also called on the company to prioritize deploying zero-emissions technologies near the communities hit hardest by Amazon’s pollution.

The petition was started after Amazon rejected a shareholder resolution asking the company to report how much pollution it emits in communities of color. Amazon says the proposal was similar to a resolution that was voted down by shareholders last year. Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for May 26th.

Amazon’s warehouses have mushroomed around working-class communities predominately made up of households of color, activists say. Those warehouses are magnets for pollution from diesel trucks, trains, and planes that are constantly moving goods to and from the warehouses for the e-commerce giant.

“Amazon shows up without informing the community about their encroachment. They show up with warehouses and delivery trucks that worsen our roads, our air.” Paola Dela Cruz-Perez, a youth organizer for the nonprofit East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice said during a shareholder briefing held today. “Amazon has been expanding their operations in Southeast L.A. neighborhoods like my own by exactly understanding how environmental racism works, and choosing to profit from this oppression.”

The workers organizing the petition are part of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. “As employees, we are alarmed that Amazon’s pollution is disproportionately concentrated in communities of color,” they said in a statement. “We want to be proud of where we work. A company that lives up to its statements about racial equity and closes the racial equity gaps in its operations is a critical part of that.”

It’s not the first time Amazon employees have pushed the company to create better environmental policies. In 2019, more than 7,500 workers backed a shareholder proposal asking Jeff Bezos to create a comprehensive climate change plan for the organization. While the proposal was ultimately shot down, it marked the first time tech workers had used their stock to push for real change.

Amazon workers have led a wave of employee activism in the tech industry, specifically related to Big Tech’s impact on the environment. In 2019, thousands of workers at Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook walked out of work to protest a lack of action on climate change.

Shortly before the walkout was scheduled to take place, Jeff Bezos announced he would be rolling out a fleet of electric delivery vans by 2024. The news did not change employees’ plans to protest, as they wanted to see stronger action.

In 2020, Amazon fired Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, two key organizers with the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. The company said the employees had violated a company policy which banned workers from speaking out about the business. The National Labor Relations Board has determined the firings were retaliatory and illegal.

Jeff Bezos has faced a lot of heat for flaunting Amazon’s environmental credentials and promoting his own climate action fund while his business continues to pollute neighborhoods. “He has an opportunity to do so much with the funds that he has provided out there, although I would still consider it chump change compared to the wealth that he has accumulated off the backs of our people,” Gabriela Mendez, a community organizer with the nonprofit Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ), told The Verge last year.

Amazon has pledged to reach net-zero CO2 emissions by 2040, meaning that it won’t release more planet-heating carbon dioxide than it can capture or offset. But that commitment still leaves room for Amazon to keep producing some pollution, as long as it invests in carbon removal technologies, forest restoration, or other measures to cancel out its effects on the climate. The pledge also doesn’t address other harmful pollutants from tailpipes. Amazon workers are asking the company to completely eliminate emissions instead.

Amazon does have other initiatives that could cut down CO2 and other pollution. By 2030, the company wants to roll out 100,000 electric delivery vehicles. Amazon also plans to run its operations on 100 percent renewable energy by 2025.

“We’re committed to building a sustainable business for our customers and the planet, and using our size and scale for good. This includes investing heavily to build an environmentally-sustainable business and support the communities where we operate,” a spokesperson for Amazon said in an email to The Verge.

Amazon shareholders will vote on a resolution on May 26th aimed at tackling the company’s plastic pollution. The proposal asks the company to report how much of its plastic packaging ends up in the environment, and comes after Amazon disputed estimates from the nonprofit group Oceana that 22 million pounds of its plastic waste polluted freshwater and marine ecosystems.

Pansonic teases a GH6 and focuses on streaming with the GH5 Mark II

Panasonic has announced not one but two follow-up cameras to the Lumix GH5, a camera that’s been popular with videographers since it launched in 2017. There’s the GH6, which Panasonic says features a brand-new sensor and will launch by the end of the year for $2,500, and the GH5 Mark II, which is going up for preorder today, with a body-only package coming in at $1,700.

The GH6 will feature a new image engine along with the sensor and will have the capability to record 10-bit 4K at 120fps and 10-bit 5.7K at 60fps. The camera also promises DCI 4K60 at 4:2:2 without a recording time limit. The GH6 is currently in development, so Panasonic didn’t provide many more details, but it did say that the camera would feature a Micro Four Thirds sensor. The impressive video capabilities might sound familiar, as they’re very similar to the full-frame Sony A7S III (which also has a much heftier price tag).

While the details on the GH6 were light, we got a very good look at the GH5 Mark II. It’s, as the name implies, an improved version of the GH5, and Panasonic’s idea for it seems to be that it’s built to serve people who aren’t looking to spend $2,500 on a GH6 but want something more capable than a G7 or older GH4. When the GH5 originally launched it was $2,000, so it seems like Panasonic is trying to split the difference with the Mark II and GH6, offering cameras on both sides.

There’s also a kit that comes with a 12-60mm f/2.8-4 image-stabilized lens for $2,300.

Image: Panasonic

The GH5 Mark II has the same body as the GH5 (making it compatible with any previous accessories or cages), but it packs internals that make it an even more powerful video camera. While the original did support 4K recording at 60 frames a second, it was only 8-bit — the Mark II supports it at 10-bit 4:2:0, which can simultaneously be recorded internally and externally (with some HDMI recorders supporting 4:2:2). The cinema 4K mode, which provides a wider-than-16:9 aspect ratio, also now supports 30p and 25p, where the GH5 only supported 24p.

The color profiles have also gotten a revamp in the Mark II, with the camera including Cinelike D2 and V2 profiles. It also now includes the V-Log L profile for free, which was previously a $100 upgrade to the GH5. In addition to the improved color, the sensor (which is the same as the one found in the GH5) has also gotten an anti-reflective coating to avoid unwanted lens flares, and Panasonic claims it has 25 percent wider dynamic range.

The GH5 Mark II’s in-body stabilization is getting a bump in performance, too: the original could provide five stops of compensation, according to Panasonic, while the Mark II will be able to compensate up to 6.5 stops (though for longer lenses, achieving this number will require the lens to also have optical stabilization).

Panasonic is also saying that the autofocus system will be improved — a good sign, given the GH5’s lackluster performance in the area. The GH5 Mark II will feature head and body detection, as well as support for tracking animals, in addition to the eye and face detection found on the previous camera. The tracking will also be twice as fast, with the system looking for objects 60 times a second, while the GH5 tracks at 30 times a second. Panasonic also says that the system should lock on to subjects better and will have better support for tracking people who are farther in the distance.

Panasonic says the screen is 1.5 times brighter.

Image: Panasonic

The Mark II also has some creature comfort improvements and really nerdy additions. The rear LCD is both higher-resolution and brighter, and the USB-C port is now compatible with the Power Delivery standard so it can run the camera and trickle-charge the batteries at the same time. It also takes higher-capacity batteries, though the older batteries the GH5 used will still work in the camera, and vice versa. There’s also now the option to add a red border around the screen when recording, and the ability to have two levels of zebra patterns to help determine exposure.

When shooting with supported lenses, creators will now be able to change the focus ring mode, setting it to be linear if that’s what they prefer, and even setting a specific focus throw if their use case calls for it. Panasonic has also updated its in-camera anamorphic de-squeezing feature (which allows people shooting with the special lenses to get a non-distorted preview of their picture) to include more lenses: the GH5 supported lenses with 1.33x and 2x aspect ratios, while the Mark II also supports lenses at 1.3x, 1.5x, and 1.8x. There’s also now support for image stabilization with anamorphic lenses.

The GH5 Mark II can, of course, also shoot pictures, but it seems like Panasonic knows its audience is mostly made up of video people: new photo features were largely absent, apart from a brief mention of improved color science and some new profiles. But while Panasonic doesn’t seem to be putting in a lot of work to entice photo shooters to its platform, it does seem to be trying to make the GH5 Mark II appealing to a different breed of video creators: the livestreamers.

The GH5 Mark II’s presentation for journalists focused heavily on its livestreaming capabilities: it can stream to platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch directly over Wi-Fi, with compression being done on-camera. The streaming compression can be done at various levels and resolutions, depending on the requirements of the platform. Streamers can either input their streaming URLs and keys manually, for platforms like Twitch that support RTMP (or RTMPS), or they can directly sign on to Facebook or YouTube if they’re using the Lumix Sync smartphone app to set up the stream. Panasonic says that the ability to hardwire to a phone or even directly to a LAN via USB will be coming in a future firmware update.

I was shown a live demo of the streaming, which was conducted over YouTube, and to my eye it looked about as good as a stream can be expected to. Panasonic also said that the XLR microphone adapter built for the camera would work while streaming, and that an HDMI recorder could be used to capture a full-quality recording of any stream (though internally recording stream footage isn’t possible).

It’s hard to find a direct competitor to the GH5 Mark II, especially in its price range: Fujifilm’s X-T4 is no slouch when it comes to video, but it doesn’t have the heaps of options the Panasonic does (for example, you probably won’t get a custom menu for your most-used frame rates and resolutions, or filters to help pare down that information in the main menu like the GH5 Mark II has). The story is similar with Sony’s A7C, and the A7S III has similar specs but costs almost twice the price. And while BlackMagic’s Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has comparable video power as well as RAW video support, there are some places it falls way short when compared to the GH5 Mark II: the lack of a flip-out screen and autofocus spring to mind.

Panasonic has also announced that its G9 and GH5S cameras would also be getting firmware updates, bringing some of the new features from the GH5 Mark II. Both cameras will be getting the autofocus performance improvements, along with the frame indicators and markers, as well as support for vertical video detection. The GH5S will additionally be getting 12-bit raw over HDMI support when outputting to an Atomos Ninja V.

Panasonic also announced that it was working on a new lens, the Leica DG 25-50mm f/1.7. The aperture is constant throughout the 50-100mm full-frame equivalent focal range, and while there weren’t any additional details announced, Panasonic has emphasized it as a companion to the existing 10-25mm f/1.7. That lens features dust and moisture resistance and produces some lovely images, so it’s exciting to hear that the more tele-oriented version in the works will likely be similar in terms of build.

Panasonic is still, for better and worse, dedicated to Micro Four Thirds. In its presentation to journalists, it said that the format was necessary to get all the features and readout speeds it wanted at the price point it was looking to hit. It’s obviously invested a lot into these cameras, with the addition of livestreaming and the upcoming GH6’s monster specs, but the limitations of the format are something aspiring cinematographers will have to keep in mind when choosing their next video camera.

Robinhood competitor Public is launching in-app live audio programming

Public, the trading and social networking app, is the next app to get into live audio. Like many apps before it, the company says it’s planning to roll out live audio features starting this week under the name Public Live. Unlike its competitors, like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, however, Public will initially program these chats with moderators it pays, meaning not just anyone can start a conversation. It’ll host about three events a week, and users will receive a push notification to join, along with a badge inside the app allowing them to hop into it. Topics might include coverage of an upcoming IPO, the day’s news, or analysis.

The first chat will be between Scott Galloway, who co-hosts the Pivot podcast and is an investor in the app, and Stephanie Ruhle, an NBC News senior business correspondent and MSNBC anchor. It’ll be live in the app this upcoming Wednesday and won’t be recorded for publish anywhere else. Other future hosts include Nora Ali, a former Cheddar News anchor, and Kinsey Grant, co-founder of Thinking is Cool and the former host of the Morning Brew Business Casual podcast.

An example of what a Public Live event badge will look like in the app.

Image: Public

In a chat with The Verge, Public co-founder Leif Abraham says the team plans to eventually allow more people to host live audio rooms, but it’s taking its time with the feature and wants to see how things go before opening it up. Crucially, the first iteration also won’t allow people to get onstage live and ask questions. They’ll instead be limited to emoji reactions.

Abraham says the core reasoning behind limiting the release at first is to keep the quality of the content “high” and also to effectively moderate by actually employing the moderators and programming the chats, as opposed to leaving it to app users who haven’t been vetted. (Although the chats won’t be recorded for distribution, he says they will be recorded on the backend for moderation and regulation purposes.)

Interestingly, Public’s moderators come from media backgrounds; two out of three have hosted business TV programs. He says audio made more sense for the app than live video because it doesn’t require as much setup or production costs. Also, listeners can tune in while doing other things on their phones.

The decision to build live audio into another app speaks to the broader push to integrate live audio into existing platforms rather than building it as a separate product. Companies like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter see the feature as a way to augment their platforms, and Clubhouse, famously, is the main app that’s completely dedicated itself to live audio. For Public, Abraham says people are already using the app to chat about trading and stocks, so having conversations about finance just makes sense — despite other apps also often hosting similar chats.

“We are the place where they get their financial news,” he says. “We are the place where they learn about investing strategies, and therefore, we are the button that they think of when they want to dive into the stock market, or business strategy, or investing strategy, and so on.”

Clubhouse and other apps might host chats with randos who claim to understand the stock market and Bitcoin, but Abraham and his team are betting people are more interested in formal live programming that Public can guarantee will be well-moderated and from “trusted” sources.

Netflix is holding a week-long ‘geek’ event in June about The Witcher, The Sandman, and more

Netflix is announcing a new week-long virtual event, “Geeked Week,” where it will share information about upcoming titles like The Witcher, The Sandman, and The Cuphead Show. During Geeked Week, you can expect to see “a wide array of exclusive news, new trailers, live art, drop-ins from your favorite stars and much more.” And fortunately, you won’t have long to wait: Geeked Week is taking place in just a couple weeks, from June 7th through the 11th.

If you want a preview of what’s to come, check out Netflix’s poster below, which also mentions The Umbrella Academy, Resident Evil (unclear if this is referring to the upcoming anime or the live-action series), Sweet Tooth, and Cowboy Bebop.

Netflix’s poster for Geeked Week

Image: Netflix

During the event, can keep track of what’s announced on GeekedWeek.com and by following the @NetflixGeeked social channels on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch and Facebook.

The week of June 7th is shaping up to be a huge one for news, with Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference also staring on June 7th, the Geoff Keighley-hosted Summer Game Fest kickoff event debuting on June 10th, and the all-virtual E3 beginning on June 12th. Keep it locked to The Verge for all of our coverage of the big events.

Facebook reportedly hit with campaign by pro-Palestinian activists leaving 1-star app store ratings

A social media campaign by pro-Palestine activists has pushed down the ranking for Facebook’s app in Apple and Google’s app stores, NBC News reported. The activists are seeking to protest Facebook’s alleged censorship of Palestinian accounts on its platform, and are instructing people to leave Facebook’s app a one-star review.

According to NBC News, Facebook is treating the situation as a high-priority issue internally; one software engineer wrote in a post on an internal Facebook message board that “users are upset with our handling of the situation,” adding that the users “have started protesting by leaving 1-star reviews.” Facebook has reached out to have the reviews removed, but so far, Apple has declined the request to remove the reviews. It’s not clear how or if Google responded to the request.

The rating for Facebook’s iOS app on the App Store as of Sunday afternoon was 2.3 stars out of 5, with 1-star ratings far outpacing others. In the Google Play store the situation was similar; the Android Facebook app had a slightly higher 2.4 rating, with the majority of the reviews 1-star.

Apple and Google did not immediately reply to requests for comment Sunday.

Facebook did not reply to a request for comment from The Verge, but a spokesperson said in a statement to NBC that the company does not censor it users, but applies its policies equally “regardless of who is posting or their personal beliefs.” The spokesperson added that the company has a dedicated team that includes Arabic and Hebrew speakers who are “closely monitoring the situation on the ground, who are focused on making sure we’re removing harmful content, while addressing any enforcement errors as quickly as possible.”