Tech News – by Arlin Schaffel

Union files labour board complaint over closure of Ubisoft’s Halifax video game studio | CBC News

The union representing employees at the Halifax office of international video game giant Ubisoft has filed a labour board complaint over the Nova Scotia studio’s closure.

The union, CWA Canada, was certified last month to represent 61 of the studio’s 71 workers. Three weeks after certification, the France-based company announced Jan. 7 the Halifax office would be shuttered, citing cost and efficiency concerns.

The union filed its labour board complaint on Tuesday, accusing the company of closing the studio in order to keep out the union, in violation of the Trade Union Act.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/union-files-labour-board-complaint-over-closure-of-ubisoft-s-halifax-studio-9.7044915?cmp=rss

Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error

A handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets and a large number of active police investigations around the country because they have failed to redact license plates information in public records releases. Completely unredacted Flock audit logs have been released to the public by numerous police departments and in some cases include details on millions Flock license plate searches made by thousands of police departments from around the country.
https://www.404media.co/police-unmask-millions-of-surveillance-targets-because-of-flock-redaction-error/

QWERTY Phones Are Really Trying to Make a Comeback This Year

After dying a painful death at the hand of the iPhone’s revolutionary capacitive touchscreen, the QWERTY smartphone is rising up from the graveyard this year. Either way, two QWERTY phone announcements in this still very new year suggest there may be some kind of trend. Maybe after 19 years of the iPhone and touchscreens defining the mobile experience, it’s time to go back to the physical keyboard and its more tactile typing.
https://gizmodo.com/qwerty-phones-are-really-trying-to-make-a-comeback-this-year-2000709717

Workers spend hours hours fixing AI mistakes, study says

Artificial intelligence is saving workers time, but a large share of those gains is being erased by the effort required to fix AI-generated mistakes, according to a new study. “For every 10 hours of efficiency gained through AI, nearly four hours are lost to fixing its output,” the report said. As a result, “productivity gains alone are not translating into better outcomes for most organizations,” it said.
https://qz.com/ai-mistakes-limit-time-savings-workday-finds

Bandcamp takes a stand against AI music, banning it from the platform

The music distribution platform Bandcamp announced in a Reddit post on Tuesday that it’s banning AI-generated music and audio. “We want musicians to keep making music, and for fans to have confidence that the music they find on Bandcamp was created by humans,” the company said. Bandcamp’s new guidelines state that music and audio generated “wholly or in substantial part by AI” is not permitted, and that it will not allow the use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/14/bandcamp-takes-a-stand-against-ai-music-banning-it-from-the-platform/

Apple Creator Studio suite is launching to take on Adobe

Apple has announced Apple Creator Studio, a new software suite for Apple products that bundles popular creative apps into an all-in-one subscription service. Apple Creator Studio will be available on the App Store on January 28th and includes access to Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage — providing a rival editing and design subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud platform.
https://www.theverge.com/news/861279/apple-creator-studio-apps-subscription-price-availability

Meta’s metaverse layoffs apparently include some of its VR studios

Meta is laying off about 10 percent of its Reality Labs metaverse division, and the cuts include closing down some of its VR gaming studios. In a statement about the broader Reality Labs layoffs, Clayton said that “We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward Wearables. This is part of that effort, and we plan to reinvest the savings to support the growth of wearables this year.”
https://www.theverge.com/news/861420/meta-reality-labs-layoffs-vr-studios-twisted-pixel-sanzaru-armature