Published on: 2025-06-05 08:03:46
In Brief Unionized quality assurance testers at video game holding company ZeniMax announced Friday that they have reached a tentative contract agreement with Microsoft, which acquired ZeniMax in 2021. This represents Microsoft’s first union contract in the United States. It’s been a little over two years since approximately 300 QA testers announced that they were unionizing through the Communications Workers of America, and they said they’ve been negotiating with Microsoft ever since. Bloomb
Keywords: contract game microsoft qa workers
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-05 08:58:41
Unionized quality assurance workers on ZeniMax Media announced today that they had reached a tentative contract agreement with Microsoft, ZeniMax’s parent company. The workers, who are represented by the Communication Workers of America, have spent two years negotiating this contract, which they say “sets new standards for the industry” including new wage agreements and policies on AI tools. According to the union, the new agreement includes new minimum wages, wage increases across the board, a
Keywords: agreement contract new wage workers
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-06 01:42:04
After two years of negotiating, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA, the union representing quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Media, has reached a tentative union contract with Microsoft, according to the Communication Workers of America. The union originally formed in 2023 and was immediately recognized by Microsoft, which made its commitment to stay neutral towards union organizing at ZeniMax official in 2024. The new contract will cover over 300 ZeniMax employees and includes "substantial across-t
Keywords: contract cwa union workers zenimax
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-06 01:01:11
Elon Musk will not be fully exiting the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—and its activities are only intensifying. On Friday, President Donald Trump threw cold water on the idea that Musk would fully disappear from DOGE and the White House forever. "Elon's really not leaving,” Trump said in a joint press conference with Musk in the Oval Office. “He's gonna be back and forth. It's his baby, he's going to be doing a lot of things." “I expect to continue to provide advice," Mus
Keywords: agencies contracts doge musk wired
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-06 09:38:34
is a reporter who covers the business, culture, and communities of video games, with a focus on marginalized gamers and the quirky, horny culture of video game communities. The over 300 quality assurance workers of the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA union have reached a tentative contract agreement with Microsoft. It is the first contract agreement at Microsoft since the concerted effort to unionize the video game industry began roughly four years ago. “This is a monumental victory for all current
Keywords: agreement contract industry microsoft workers
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-20 13:00:00
Politico became one of the first newsrooms last year to win a union contract that included rules on how the media outlet can deploy artificial intelligence. The PEN Guild, which represents Politico and its sister publication, environment and energy site E&E News, is now gearing up for another first. The union’s members allege that the AI provisions in their contract have been violated, and they’re preparing for a groundbreaking legal dispute with management. The outcome could set a precedent for
Keywords: ai contract politico says union
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-21 01:14:01
is platforms and communities reporter with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools. Artist and musician Brian Eno — who also composed the iconic Windows 95 operating system startup chime — called on Microsoft today to “suspend all services that support any operations that contribute to violations of international law,” saying the company plays a role in “surveillance, violence, and destruction in Palestine.” It’s the latest high-p
Keywords: company contracts disrupted israeli microsoft
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-27 17:30:16
Silicon Valley’s wealthiest and most galaxy-brained executives and venture capitalists went all-in on Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential election, and their investment is starting to pay off. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than three dozen people who have either worked under or are associates of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Palmer Luckey have been placed in roles at federal agencies that oversee the businesses of their Silicon Valley bosses. Per WSJ, at least
Keywords: companies contracts department musk trump
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-27 22:25:53
Two years ago, VFX artists across Marvel, the Avatar franchise, and Disney all seperately voted to form their own unions. With the help of the IATSE, the three worker groups have now “overwhelmingly” voted to ratify contracts which ensure better conditions for staff working on these respective projects. Both contracts—Marvel and Disney fall under one agreement, and Avatar team Lightstorm has its own—offer minimum wage increases and access to IATSE’s pension plans and meal penalties. In terms of
Keywords: avatar contract disney marvel vfx
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-06-29 09:00:00
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. The US Army is done relying on contractors to repair its equipment. Earlier this month, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll committed to including right-to-repair provisions in all existing and future contracts with manufacturers, a change Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told The Verge will “put an end to our dependence on giant defense contractors who char
Keywords: contractors equipment military repair warren
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-05 06:00:18
Federal agencies scrambled to bring back over $220 million worth of contracts after Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency cancelled them, The New York Times reports. However, of those 44 contracts that were cancelled and eventually reinstated, DOGE is still citing all but one of them as examples of the government spending the group supposedly saved on its website's error-plagued "Wall of Receipts." The White House told the NYT that this is "paperwork lag" that will be fixed.
Keywords: contracts doge government musk nyt
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-06 12:00:17
Imagine a world where AI-powered bots can buy or sell cryptocurrency, make investments, and execute software-defined contracts at the blink of an eye, depending on minute-to-minute currency prices, breaking news, or other market-moving events. Then imagine an adversary causing the bot to redirect payments to an account they control by doing nothing more than entering a few sentences into the bot’s prompt. That’s the scenario depicted in recently released research that developed a working exploi
Keywords: agents based contracts elizaos framework
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-06 22:00:17
Imagine a world where AI-powered bots can buy or sell cryptocurrency, make investments, and execute software-defined contracts at the blink of an eye, depending on minute-to-minute currency prices, breaking news, or other market-moving events. Then imagine an adversary causing the bot to redirect payments to an account they control by doing nothing more than entering a few sentences into the bot’s prompt. That’s the scenario depicted in recently released research that developed a working exploi
Keywords: agents based contracts elizaos framework
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-08 09:58:07
Rep. Gerald Connolly, ranking member of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, has initiated an investigation into whether expense management startup Ramp is receiving preferential treatment in its bid for a $25 million government contract. Connolly sent a letter to the General Services Administration (GSA) Acting Administrator, Stephen Ehikian, demanding information and documents related to the GSA’s reported plans to award a contract for a pilot program to Ramp. News of the probe was first repor
Keywords: connolly contract government gsa ramp
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-20 17:48:09
In Brief Duolingo announced plans this week to replace contractors with AI and become an “AI-first” company — a move that journalist Brian Merchant pointed to as a sign that the AI jobs crisis “is here, now.” In fact, Merchant spoke to a former Duolingo contractor who said this isn’t even a new policy. The company cut around 10% of its contractor workforce at the end of 2023, and Merchant said there was another round of cuts in October 2024. In both cases, contractors (first translators, then
Keywords: ai contractor crisis jobs merchant
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-07-28 17:30:24
Duolingo Announces Plans to Replace as Many Human Workers as Possible With AI Don't do it, Duolingo. Pivot Power The gamified, owl-mascoted language learning app Duolingo is completing its "AI-first" pivot — and replacing all its human contractors along the way. In an all-hands email that was later posted on LinkedIn, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn announced that the company would "gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle." Part of that shift, von Ahn wrote, will involve de
Keywords: ai contractors duolingo folks human
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-03 06:00:02
Welcome to Edition 7.41 of the Rocket Report! NASA and its contractors at Kennedy Space Center in Florida continue building a new mobile launch tower for the Space Launch System Block 1B rocket, a taller, upgraded version of the SLS rocket being used for the agency's initial Artemis lunar missions. Workers stacked another segment of the tower a couple of weeks ago, and the structure is inching closer to its full height of 355 feet (108 meters). But this is just the start. Once the tower is fully
Keywords: astra contract launch rocket tower
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-05 21:30:49
Tech and consulting giant IBM was not immune to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts. IBM had 15 of its federal contracts cancelled due to DOGE-related cuts during the first quarter of 2025, according to reporting from Reuters and Bloomberg. These cuts amount to $100 million in future payments, per Bloomberg. Federal contracts represent between 5% and just under 10% of IBM’s consulting practice. After being peppered with questions during IBM’s earnings call Wednesday, Arvind K
Keywords: company consulting contracts ibm krishna
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-17 13:10:04
In an eleventh-hour scramble before a key contract was set to expire on Tuesday night, the United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency renewed its funding for the longtime software-vulnerability-tracking project known as the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Program. Managed by the nonprofit research-and-development group MITRE, the CVE Program is a linchpin of global cybersecurity—providing critical data and services for digital defense and research. The CVE Program is go
Keywords: cisa contract cve funding program
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-18 09:12:40
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. The government will continue funding the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program. In a statement to The Verge, US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) spokesperson Jared Auchey said it “executed the option period on the contract to ensure there will be no lapse in critical CVE services” last night. On Tuesday, MITRE, the govern
Keywords: continue contract cve government program
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-23 09:31:05
Federal scientists responsible for monitoring the health of West Coast fisheries are cleaning office bathrooms and reconsidering critical experiments after the Department of Commerce failed to renew their lab’s contracts for hazardous waste disposal, janitorial services, IT, and building maintenance. Trash is piling up at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, staffers told ProPublica. Ecologists, chemists, and biologists at Montlake
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Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-08-28 06:07:40
The National Weather Service is no longer providing language translations of its products, a change that experts say could put non-English speakers at risk of missing potentially life-saving warnings about extreme weather. The weather service has “paused” the translations because its contract with the provider has lapsed, NWS spokesperson Michael Musher said. He declined further comment. Lilt, an artificial intelligence company, began providing translations in late 2023, replacing manual trans
Keywords: contract life said translations weather
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-08 12:00:00
A host of companies have readied rockets that are comparable to SpaceX’s main launch vehicles. The list includes Rocket Lab, which aims to take on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 with its Neutron rocket and could have its first launch in late 2025, and Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, which recently completed the first mission of a rocket it hopes will compete against SpaceX’s Starship. Some of these competitors are just starting to get rockets off the ground. And the companies could also face unu
Keywords: contracts industry rocket space spacex
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-10 13:05:21
Two men from Illinois have filed a class-action lawsuit against global smut peddler OnlyFans, after having come to the ego-rupturing realization that the messages they were receiving as a result of their subscriptions may have not actually come from their favorite sex workers. 404 Media originally reported on the litigation, which was filed on behalf of its two plaintiffs, M. Brunner and J. Fry. The lawsuit takes aim at Fenix Internet, LLC and Fenix International Limited, the platform’s parent
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Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-15 04:15:00
Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More As businesses rush to adopt AI, they’re discovering an unexpected truth: Even the most rational enterprise buyers aren’t making purely rational decisions — their subconscious requirements go far beyond the conventional software evaluation standards. Let me share an anecdote: It’s November 2024; I’m sitting in a New York City skyscraper, working with a fashion brand on
Keywords: ai business client contract human
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-22 16:50:23
NASA terminated $420 million in “unneeded contracts,” according to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an entity established by executive order to slash costs across the federal government. The hundreds of millions in contracts are just the latest in a slew of cuts put into effect since the second Trump administration began in January. Many of the cuts have come in the form of layoffs, canceled grants, and terminated programs in the federal government’s science-focused agencies—from
Keywords: contracts doge million nasa reported
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-22 20:36:00
Forward-looking: The now-deprecated Do Not Track browser non-standard was designed to provide a quick and easy way for netizens to opt out of ad tracking on the web. However, the feature had no chance of succeeding because compliance was entirely voluntary. Today, privacy advocates are proposing a new alternative based on a two-party, machine-readable "contract." The IEEE P7012 draft introduces a new standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms, offering a novel way for users to express
Keywords: contract myterms privacy standard users
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-24 09:32:15
Comment It might take a particularly shameless company to grasp the opportunity presented by the UK's coronavirus pandemic and step in with a sales pitch. US spy-tech biz Palantir is willing to give it a go. In a witness statement to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry [PDF], an ongoing independent public inquiry into the nation's response to the pandemic (in which around 208,000 people died), Louis Mosley, executive veep of Palantir Technologies UK, said the government should invest in a "common operating
Keywords: contract covid data million palantir
Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-25 12:06:40
Author, journalist, and long-time Internet freedom advocate Doc Searls wants us to stop asking for privacy from websites, services, and AI and start telling these things what we will and will not accept. Draft standard IEEE P7012, which Searls has nicknamed "MyTerms" (akin to "Wi-Fi"), is a Draft Standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms. Searls writes on his blog that MyTerms has been in the works since 2017, and a fully readable version should be ready later this year, following co
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Find related items on AmazonPublished on: 2025-09-25 20:31:14
The Department of Energy has told employees that documents used by DOGE to assess the agency’s grants and contracts should be marked with “legal privilege” to prevent them from being disclosed under Freedom of Information Act requests. DOGE has supplied the agency with spreadsheets, which are to be completed by agency officials, to identify grants and contracts that could be flagged for termination or renegotiation. The department’s acting general counsel, David R. Taggart, outlined the DOE’s D
Keywords: agency contracts department doe doge
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