Fitbit Charge 6 unveiled, Epic Games cuts workforce
Fitbit Charge 6 is the latest addition in the Google wearables division bringing improved health tracking and even deeper integration with Google apps like YouTube Music, Google Pay and Google Maps. Charge 6 features a 1.04-inch color AMOLED display with Always-On Display (AOD) functionality. The tracker features an aluminum, glass and resin build with a haptic side button for controls. Heart rate tracking seems to be the Charge 6’s forte thanks to an updated optical sensor paired with new electrical sensors and machine learning algorithms developed by Google. GSM Arena
The UK government has finally published the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. This determines that by 2035 – the government’s recently revised date for the ban on petrol and diesel vehicle sales – all vehicles sold will be 100 per cent electric. From January 2024 electric cars will account for at least 22 per cent of car makers’ overall vehicle sales. Electric vans will have a mandated target of 10 per cent. Those percentages rise incrementally as we move towards 2035, getting to 80 per cent and 70 per cent for cars and vans, respectively, by 2030. Top Gear
Elon Musk has announced his social media company X, formally known as Twitter, has removed the team monitoring election misinformation. The tool to report misinformation has been taken away – except for in the European Union – prompting concern from thinktank Reset Australia ahead of the country’s aboriginal rights referendum next month. In a post on the platform Musk said the election integrity team was undermining election integrity. Sky News
Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, one of the world’s most successful video games, is cutting 870 jobs – around 16% of its workforce. It is also selling Bandcamp, the online music site it acquired just last year. In a memo to staff, Epic said it had tried to cut costs but was still “spending way more money than we earn”. “We concluded that layoffs are the only way, and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances,” CEO Tim Sweeney wrote. BBC
Apple’s iPhone 15 includes a feature that shows how many cycles the battery has been through, which appears to be a direct response to concerns about rapid battery degradation in the iPhone 14. But a repair specialist has found that the new feature is disabled when the battery is replaced. Ricky Panesar, founder of repair specialists iCorrect, discovered this when tearing down the recently released iPhone 15 Pro. When an iPhone 15 Pro battery is independently replaced with another genuine battery from the same iPhone model, the option to view the new battery health measurements disappears. Forbes
Amazon boss Andy Jassy has confessed that he did not say yes immediately when founder Jeff Bezos asked him to take over in 2021. Instead, Jassy went home and discussed the offer with his wife and together they agreed he should accept it. A little over two years after accepting the reins and how the 55-year-old must rue that day. The go-go days of the Bezos era keep coming back to haunt the tech giant, this time in the form of a US government lawsuit that could ultimately lead to a break-up of the sprawling Seattle-based corporation. Telegraph
Most of Netflix’s 238 million streaming customers around the world will be unaware that the company first launched 25 years ago as a DVD mailing service. Even fewer might realise that operation has continued, with under 1 million people still subscribing. But now the company is finally hitting the stop button, with its five remaining US distribution centres mailing out their final discs to American customers on Friday. Guardian
