NewsBytes Briefing: Google pays for systemic racism, misogyny, and more
What's the story
It looks like we've figured out why Google removed the "don't be evil" clause from its motto in 2018.
The 'woke' company has been told to pay $3.8 million in damages after a routine government audit revealed that it had been passing over Asians and women, while also underpaying its female workforce.
Let's take a look at what else transpired in the technology space.
Fourth estate
Redditors accuse media of spreading misinformation to bail-out hedge funds
If you think the oppression of the working class ends with Google's settlement, think again because Redditors believe that the Fourth Estate has been spreading misinformation in an attempt to bail out their Wall Street benefactors.
Wildly upvoted PSAs on the WallStreetBets subreddit are warning people to ignore the mainstream media's fabricated stories allegedly meant to trick them into selling GameStop's stocks.
Space charity
SpaceX announces all-civilian mission as fundraiser for St. Jude Hospital
Meanwhile, in stark contrast to Google's shady practices, Elon Musk's SpaceX turned its all-civilian, all-commercial space mission into one cosmic fundraiser for a children's hospital.
The event is poised to raise more than $200 million for St. Jude Hospital toward medical aid for underprivileged children.
Speaking of balancing Sundar Pichai's evils with Musk's philanthropy, here's something else that's relevant.
Perfectly balanced
Google loses Australia to Microsoft, Microsoft loses Ford to Google
Yesterday, Australia worked out a deal with Microsoft to replace Google search with everyone's favorite Bing after the latter threatened to pull out of Australia.
Now, Ford decided to maintain the balance by dialing down its heavy reliance on Microsoft's Sync to favor Google's Android Automotive OS system for its vehicles.
Just the sort of thing that would even make Thanos proud.
Another victim
Google kills off Stadia's in-house game development studios
Even as Google continues to pile on the body count of failed projects, it seems like its Stadia cloud gaming venture is poised to meet an all-too-familiar fate.
The company shut down all of its North American game studios tasked with creating first-party exclusive titles for Stadia.
Anyone familiar with video games will tell you that gamers have little incentive to choose Stadia now.
Clarification needed
Samsung boasts of poorly implementing a decade old display technology
Improving sunlight legibility for smartphone displays is a black art that requires the display, SoC, and sensor arrays to work in unison while adapting to changing light conditions and the way humans perceive colors.
Samsung seems to have approached the problem by creating a brighter display and calling it a day. For their sake, we hope it was merely a poorly written press release.