Ryan Payton confirmed to The Verge that he was impacted by this week’s job cuts affecting Meta’s Reality Labs division.
Aftermath previously reported that Camouflaj studio heads had been let go and that the developer is now just “a handful of employees” working on “the new user experience for upcoming hardware.”
”In the United States, the new moto watch in PANTONE Volcanic Ash will be available for pre-order at motorola.com on January 22 (MSRP: $149.99),” Motorola spokesperson Brendan Hall tells The Verge. “The device will officially go on-sale on January 28.”
The watch was announced during CES. At the time, Motorola didn’t share the price.
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“The avalanche of reports detailing this material — at times depicting women and children engaged in sexual activity — is shocking and, as my office has determined, potentially illegal,” Attorney General Rob Bonta says. The state has also opened an investigation into xAI.
[State of California - Department of Justice - Office of the Attorney General]
Emojipedia has a fascinating article about the convergence of emoji designs across platforms (generally toward Apple’s designs) from 2018-2026. “Across most major platforms, the risk of sending one emoji and unintentionally conveying another meaning has been dramatically reduced, thanks to years of incremental, often quiet, design alignment,” Emojipedia’s Keith Broni says.
[Emojipedia - The Latest Emoji News]
“Google traffic from organic search to over 2,500 sites was down by a third (33%) globally between Nov 2024 and Nov 2025 and by 38% in the United States,” according to Chartbeat data included in a report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
[Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism]
Friend of The Verge Nicole Carpenter published a fascinating piece for Aftermath about trying to track down another reporter named Nicole Carpenter who may or may not exist.
Michael O’Leary, on the radio show Newstalk, was asked about Elon Musk calling his reasoning for not installing Starlink on Ryanair airplanes “misinformed.“
