Emma Roth

News Writer

Emma RothOct 1, 2022

Activision Blizzard sheds another executive.

The game maker’s chief compliance officer, Frances Townsend, is stepping down a little over a year after rampant sexual assault allegations surfaced at the company. Townsend will instead serve as an advisor to the board and the embattled Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

Last year, Townsend stepped down from her role as the company’s women’s network sponsor after hundreds of employees criticized her response to workers’ harrowing reports, as she claimed it painted an “untrue picture.”

WSJ News Exclusive | Activision Blizzard Compliance Chief Frances Townsend Steps Down

[WSJ]

Dish and Sling TV lose Disney, ESPN, and others due to contract dispute

Emma RothOct 1, 2022

Avoiding accountability in AI.

Instead of scraping potentially copyrighted photos and videos from the web and using them to train an AI model themselves, Waxy’s Andy Baio says companies like Google and Meta often have non-commercial groups do it for them.

That’s because nonprofits and academic groups provide a “more favorable legal case for a ‘fair use’ exemption to copyright law,” Baio explains, “while still allowing corporations to commercialize that research for whatever they like.”

AI Data Laundering: How Academic and Nonprofit Researchers Shield Tech Companies from Accountability - Waxy.org

[Waxy.org]

The latest Pixel Watch leak shows band styles, watch faces, and more

Emma RothOct 1, 2022

TikTok’s reportedly still planning to launch live shopping in the US

Emma RothOct 1, 2022

Welcome to Saturday.

We closed off the work week with Elon Musk’s hours-long AI Day event last night, where he revealed a walking robot prototype — and not just a man in a suit.

But perhaps what was even more surprising (to gamers and developers alike) was Google’s announcement that it’s shutting Stadia down. While the platform had its problems, some of us here at The Verge will still miss it.