Judge approves Activision Blizzard settlement / Apple won't fix lost or stolen iPhones / Dyson headphones have air purification

Plus: VinFast plans to invest $4B to build its first U.S. factory.

Inside.com Part of   Network March 30, 2022

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A federal judge approved Activision Blizzard's $18M settlement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination. The video game company will now create a fund to compensate employees who faced sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, or retaliation. More: The company first agreed to set up the fund shortly after the EEOC filed its lawsuit in September. Tuesday's ruling approves that plan, which allows employees who faced harassment to submit claims for compensation from the $18M fund. Any leftover funds will be donated to charities chosen by the EEOC Activision also agreed to expand its mental health resources and require supervisory employees to undergo training against harassment. The approval comes after California state regulators tried to intervene in the case but were unsuccessful. The state's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) had argued that the settlement would interfere with its own gender discrimination suit against Activision Blizzard. The company behind "Call of Duty" and "World of Warcraft" has ~10,000 employees and reported $9B in revenue in 2021. It currently faces at least three more public lawsuits, including the DFEH suit with a trial date of Feb. 2023. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Vietnamese automaker VinFast said it will invest up to $4B to build its first U.S. factory in North Carolina. The company intends to produce all-electric SUVs, electric buses, and EV batteries in Chatham County's Triangle Innovation Point in a bid to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. More: VinFast said it will invest $2B in the first construction phase, which is expected to be completed by July 2024. The plant will have an initial production capacity of 150,000 EVs per year, starting with the company's VinFast VF 9 seven-passenger SUV and the VinFast VF 8 midsize SUV. The facility could be expanded to increase output to more than 250,000 vehicles a year. By 2027, the plant could employ 7,500+ workers at an average salary of ~$51,000, VinFast said. Zoom-out: Los Angeles-headquartered VinFast is part of Vingroup, Vietnam's largest privately-held company. The enterprise started selling EVs in Vietnam late last year and is targeting worldwide sales of 42,000 in 2022.  THE DRIVE

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Apple has told its repair technicians that they can no longer fix iPhones that have been reported lost or stolen. The new policy could potentially deter people from buying second-hand iPhones. More: The company recently sent a memo to its Apple Stores and authorized providers telling them to deny repairs if the phone is marked as missing in the GSMA Device Registry. The database allows owners to register their phone's International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) and designate a status for the phone, like lost or stolen. Apple said its new policy builds on its existing rule, which asks that providers decline repairs to owners who fail to disable the "Find My iPhone" feature. It will now prevent repairs for iPhones that never had "Find My iPhone" turned on. MACRUMORS

Dyson has revealed its first wearable product, a pair of noise-canceling headphones with built-in air purification technology. The household appliance maker said it created the "Zone" headphones to address air and noise pollution in urban spaces. More: The wearable combines over-ear headphones with Dyson's air filtration technology: Compressors draw in air through each earpiece. The air is then filtered and pushed through to the wearer's nose and mouth through a "visor" at the front of the face. The visor can be removed or flipped down to allow for conversation. The device has sensors that track breathing and exertion to toggle between different purification levels. Dyson claims the device can filter out up to 99% of particle pollution as small as 0.1 microns. It took 500+ prototypes and six years to develop the final product, which the company intends to release in fall 2022.  TECHCRUNCH

The U.S. Defense Department has delayed awarding up to $9B in cloud infrastructure contracts until December, about eight months later than planned. The contracts could go out to multiple cloud providers for the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, the successor to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract that the Biden administration canceled last year. More: The Pentagon said it continues to evaluate proposals from Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services for cloud infrastructure services. It originally planned the awards for April but has postponed them to December at the earliest. Up to four winners could be selected for the cloud contracts, which would have a combined value of $9B over five years, with a three-year base period and two-year option periods. The original $10B JEDI contract went solely to Microsoft. It was canceled after Amazon claimed it lost due to former President Donald Trump's dislike of then-CEO Jeff Bezos. FEDSCOOP

FedEx Express plans to transport packages using vertical take-off and landing drones made by Elroy Air. The autonomous flights will shuttle packages between FedEx sorting centers in Texas starting in 2023. More: FedEx will use Elroy Air's large cargo drone, Chaparral, which was unveiled in January and is now in a pre-production phase. The hybrid-powered electric aircraft has no pilot on board. It can carry up to 500 pounds in a detachable pod. It has 12 propellers and 12 electric motors, for a max range of 300 miles. Since the plane is a hybrid, it eliminates the need to build charging stations. FedEx said it aims to achieve carbon-neutral operations by 2040. The company is also trialing battery-electric self-driving robots made by Nuro in the Houston area. AXIOS

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Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com.   Editor Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade.

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