It’s been a rough few months for people who work in tech. After a massive hiring spree during the beginning of the pandemic, tech companies have needed to slow — or even reverse — hiring. PayPal, Snapchat, OnlyFans, Lyft, Microsoft, Twitter, Substack, Netflix and more tech companies began laying off workers in 2022. Now just a few weeks into 2023, those layoffs don’t seem to be slowing down.

“Unfortunately, I don’t see the layoffs going away anytime soon,” Roger Lee, the creator of Layoffs.fyi, a website that tracks job cuts at startups and tech companies, told USA Today.

Nearly 80 percent of laid-off tech workers land new jobs within three months of beginning their search, a study from Zip Recruiter published in The Wall Street Journal reports. But three months is a long time for many tech workers, particularly those who may rely on their job for a workers permit. A 2018 report found that more than 70 percent of tech workers in Silicon Valley were born in another country; immigrant workers on H-1B visas have just 60 days to find a new employer to sponsor their visa before they’re kicked out of the country.

Spotify, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are just among the many tech companies and startups that have cut jobs in 2023 already. Here’s a look at some of the largest-scale tech layoffs this year:

PayPal

The president and CEO of PayPal, Dan Schulman, is laying off approximately 2,000 full-time employees, which is about 7 percent of PayPal’s workforce, he said in a press release on Jan. 31.

“Change can be difficult – particularly when it includes valued colleagues and friends departing, Schulman said, blaming a potential recession, rising interest rates, and e-commerce stagnation for the layoffs. Schulman made $32.1 million in 2022, according to Payments Dive.

Spotify

Daniel Ek, Spotify’s co-founder and CEO, will lay off 6 percent of its workforce globally, he announced in a company-wide memo on Monday, Jan. 23.

“I hoped to sustain the strong tailwinds from the pandemic and believed that our broad global business and lower risk to the impact of a slowdown in ads would insulate us,” Ek said in the memo. “In hindsight, I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth. And for this reason, today, we are reducing our employee base by about 6% across the company. I take full accountability for the moves that got us here today.”

Ek has a net worth of around $2.4 billion, according to Forbes.

Google

Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, laid off approximately 12,000 employees on Jan. 20, CNBC reported. U.S. employees received a severance package starting at 16 weeks salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google. 

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“This will mean saying goodbye to some incredibly talented people we worked hard to hire and have loved working with,” Pichai said in an email to staff. “I’m deeply sorry for that. The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.” When Pichai took over Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2019 he received a $242 million pay package.

Microsoft

On Jan. 18, Microsoft announced that it would lay off 10,000 people by the end of the third quarter of the 2023 fiscal year, USA Today reported. That’s about five percent of its workforce.

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“It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we will continue to hire in key strategic areas. We know this is a challenging time for each person impacted,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement to employees. “The senior leadership team and I are committed that as we go through this process, we will do so in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible.” According to MarketWatch, Nadella’s salary in 2022 was $2.5 million. The day before layoffs, The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft executives enjoyed a private Sting concert.

Twitter

In early January, Twitter CEO and general terror Elon Musk laid off about 40 data scientists and engineers, according to the Information and, according to Reuters, the company has plans to lay off 50 more people in the coming weeks. It’s unclear how much Musk makes at Twitter, but his net worth is over $180 billion.

Amazon

More than 18,000 people were laid off from Amazon in January.

“While it will be painful to say goodbye to many of our talented colleagues, it is an important part of a wider effort to lower our cost to serve so we can continue investing in the wide selection, low prices, and fast shipping that our customers love,” Doug Herrington, the company’s worldwide retail chief, said in a memo. According to Business Insider, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy makes $214 million a year.

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Vimeo

In an email to staff on Jan. 4 CEO Anjali Sud said 11 percent of workers would be laid off due to “uncertain economic environment.”

“This was a very hard decision that impacts each of us deeply,” Sud wrote. “It is also the right thing to do to enable Vimeo to be a more focused and successful company, operating with the necessary discipline in an uncertain economic environment. It positions us to both invest in our growth priorities and be sustainably profitable while continuing to innovate to bring the power of video to every business in the world.” Sud made more than $18 million in 2022, according to salary.com. 

This is an ongoing story. More information will be shared as it becomes available.

My unofficial beat at Mashable is complaining about Apple’s phone colors. The “deep purple” iPhone wasn’t purple enough for me, and I am still waiting for the hot pink Barbie iPhone of my dreams.

Today, Samsung entered the ring. Leaks of its new Samsung Galaxy S23 line speculated about four new colors: Phantom Black, Botanic Green, Cotton Flower, and Misty Lilac. And those the are the kind of names that come to play. Just by reading them, I have a pretty good idea of what they look like. Plus, they make me feel valued as a consumer because I know someone took at least one minute to think about what to call them.

The Galaxy S23 lineup: Green, Lavender, Phantom Black, and Cream
Credit: Samsung

It turns out I trust too easily because today Samsung released the official color names and they are Phantom Black, Cream, Green, and Lavender. I may not be a color expert, but I am a color enthusiast, and I have feedback.

The Phantom Black and Cream are accurate enough, but Lavender and Green have it coming.

Let’s look at the “lavender” first, which more of a pink than a purple and more of a lilac than a lavender (lilac flowers are softer and more pink than lavender flowers which are more of a true purple). I tried to match Pantone colors to the official photo of the S23 and found that, at its lightest, Samsung’s idea of “Lavender” a bit grey. At its darkest, it’s what Pantone calls “Orchid Ice.” Samsung, I cannot accept this.

Lavender has basically been iced out of this shade.
Credit: Mashable composite: Samsung

“Green” is way, way too broad a color category. And remarkably, even though the color green applies to a least a hundred shades, it barely applies to this one. Grey? Charcoal? Maybe. The Pantone color I found to match the top is called “Sedona Sage,” which I think is a stretch but would be a major upgrade from “green.” Someone at Samsung was dead asleep at the wheel during this conference call. Another L for Samsung.

Sage schmage. That’s grey.
Credit: Mashable composite: Samsung

I’m picky about color but I have numbers on my side. A Forbes headline read “The Samsung Galaxy S23 Series is gorgeous, despite its muted colors” and a Twitter user racked up more than 3,500 likes bemoaning Samsung’s perception of color and lame names. Well, there’s always next year.

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UPDATE: Feb. 1, 2023, 2:16 p.m. EST This story has been updated with the latest availability.

TL;DR: The all-new Samsung Galaxy S23 series smartphones are now available for preorder ahead of their release on Feb. 17.

• SAMSUNG GALAXY S23: Pre-order from Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy, Samsung, T-Mobile, or Verizon starting at $799.99.

• SAMSUNG GALAXY S23 PLUS: Pre-order from Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy, Samsung, T-Mobile, or Verizon starting at $999.99.

• SAMSUNG GALAXY S23 ULTRA: Pre-order from Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy, Samsung, T-Mobile, or Verizon starting at $1,199.99.

True to form, Samsung announced a trio of new flagship smartphones at its Galaxy Unpacked event on Wednesday, Feb. 1 — and you won’t have to wait long to get your hands on them.

Set for release on Friday, Feb. 17, the lineup includes the Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. (Score one for the rumor mill.) All three feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, durable Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and flatter, sleeker designs sans camera bumps.

If you’re due for a phone upgrade and want to lock in a preorder ahead of time, here’s a breakdown of their pricing and availability at major retailers and carriers.

Samsung Galaxy S23: Price and preorder details

Samsung’s latest entry-level smartphone starts out at $799.99 for 128GB of storage, and you can bump that up to 256GB for $859.99. (Both configurations come with 8GB of RAM.) Preorders are available through Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy Samsung, T-Mobile, and Verizon in your choice of four colors: Phantom Black, Cream, Green, and a pinky Lavender.

The Galaxy S23 has a 6.1-inch AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 3,900mAh battery, and a trio of rear cameras (including a 50MP main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide lens, and a 10MP telephoto lens with 30x zoom). There’s also a 12MP front camera for next-level selfies.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus: Price and preorder details

Also available in Phantom Black, Cream, Green, and Lavender, the upgraded Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus comes with 256GB of storage for $999.99 or 512GB of storage for $1,119.99; you’ll get 8GB of RAM either way. Interested parties can preorder one ahead of launch at Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy, Samsung, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

This model’s a slightly bigger, slightly longer-lasting version of the standard S23 with a 6.6-inch screen and a 4,700mAh battery.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: Price and preorder details

The most advanced Samsung smartphone to date comes in three different configurations: There’s a 256GB model with 8GB of RAM ($1,199.99), a 512GB model with 12GB of RAM ($1,379.99), and a 1TB version with 12GB of RAM ($1,619.99). All of them are up for preorder at Amazon, AT&T, Best Buy, Samsung, T-Mobile, and Verizon in the standard Phantom Black, Cream, Green, and Lavender finishes. You can also get it in limited-edition Graphite, Sky Blue, Lime, and Red by ordering directly through the manufacturer.

Splurging on the 6.8-inch S23 Ultra gets you a built-in S-Pen and a premium rear camera array with an impressive 200MP main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide lens, and a 10MP telephoto lens with a whopping 100x zoom. Its beefy battery clocks in at 5,000mAh.

Who can zoom harder, Samsung or Google?

That question will certainly be answered in the coming weeks after the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, the latest premium flagship smartphone from the Korean tech giant. Revealed at the Galaxy Unpacked livestream on Wednesday, the S23 Ultra’s big claim to fame is its powerful new camera system. 

But is it better than the best-in-class Google Pixel 7 Pro? Let’s look at the numbers. 

Samsung’s major selling point this year is a brand new 200MP main sensor. Yes, two hundred megapixels. It’s a very big, impressive-looking number, and it’s joined by a 12MP ultrawide lens and a pair of 10MP zoom lenses. Samsung is promising that this new camera array can produce unparalleled zoomed-in photography, with its “Space Zoom” feature enabling up to 100x zoom.

This is the Pixel 7 Pro with no zoom.
Credit: Alex Perry/Mashable

And this is the Pixel 7 Pro with full zoom.
Credit: Alex Perry/Mashable

However, it’s going to be hard to dethrone the Pixel 7 Pro. Its 50MP main sensor isn’t as big as Samsung’s, but it has a 48MP telephoto lens that can zoom up to 30x. Again, the numbers aren’t as big, but the results speak for themselves. Pixel 7 Pro takes some of the most impressive zoom photographs on any smartphone, so Samsung has a lot to live up to there.

Oh, and both phones have 12MP ultrawide lenses, in case you were wondering.

People around the tech world will need to do a lot of photo testing to find out which phone camera is truly better in practice, not just on the spec sheet. Samsung and Google both employ a ton of software processing to make photos look better, and there isn’t feature parity between the two. Google has the Magic Eraser tool and Samsung has 100x Space Zoom, for example.

But, at the very least, Samsung can say it has the most megapixels. Maybe that will count for something.

If you’ve been waiting for a social media platform that merges articles, facts, and artificial intelligence all into one app, boy do I have good news for you.

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the Instagram co-founders who left the company in 2018, are launching a new social media platform: Artifact. In an Instagram post, Krieger called it “a personalized news feed driven by the latest in artificial intelligence.” The waitlist for the Android and iOS app opened up on Tuesday, and folks should be let in soon, according to Plaformer, which first reported the news. The publication described Artifact as “TikTok for text.”

“@mikeyk and I made something new: Artifact — a personalized news feed driven by AI that works on your own terms,” Systrom said in an Instagram post. “Machine learning has done so many amazing things lately – we’re excited to bring it to you in this new form.”

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When you open Artifact, according to Platformer, you’ll see a list of popular articles, and when you click on one that’s interesting to you, you’ll be served more similar posts in the future, kind of like TikTok’s For You page but for news. Beta users are also testing out features that show articles posted by users you follow along with their commentary on the posts and direct messaging inboxes. It seems like it could kind of work as a Twitter replacement, which users have been on the lookout for since Elon Musk took over.

Artifact did not immediately respond to Mashable’s request for comment on more details.

This comes at a time in which everyone has their eyes on AI: how we’re using it now and how it might be used in the future. ChatGPT, an online AI chatbot created by OpenAI in December 2022, is threatening to take over Google, revolutionize the way we date, change the ways we learn, and, eventually, maybe even elevate our social media networks.

First, there was the word-of-mouth campaign promoting Andrea Riseborough’s performance in the indie film To Leslie. Then, came Riseborough’s surprising Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Then, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced a review of the nomination process, which could have resulted in a revoked nomination for Riseborough. Well, after all that hullabaloo, the results are in: Riseborough remains an Oscar nominee.

An underdog in award season, To Leslie is a lesser-known drama that made $27,000 in theaters and did not have a competitive budget for a For Your Consideration campaign. Riseborough’s nomination came after a week-long social media blitz, in which her performance was lauded by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, and many more.

To Leslie’s approach to securing an Oscar nomination ruffled feathers, but there’s more to the controversy than annoyance at a grassroots campaign. Riseborough, who is white, received a nomination over Black actors like The Woman King‘s Viola Davis and Till‘s Danielle Deadwyler, both of whom were considered contenders in the Oscars conversation. While some have viewed To Leslie’s nomination as a victory for small-budget films, others have pointed that even high-profile films with more resources for an awards campaign might be snubbed because of how the awards ecosystem fails Black women time and time again.

On Jan. 27, in the wake of the nominations backlash, the Academy announced it would be reviewing the nomination process. Their statement mentioned neither Riseborough nor To Leslie. However, given the controversial nature of Riseborough’s campaign, it seemed clear the review concerned her nomination.

The review garnered even more backlash, with actors like Christina Ricci sharing on social media that it felt “elitist and exclusive and frankly very backward.” Comedian (and Riseborough’s To Leslie co-star) Marc Maron also criticized the Academy’s decision on his WTF podcast.

The Academy’s decision came down in a Jan. 31 statement sent to media from AMPAS CEO Bill Kramer, who said: “The Academy has determined the activity in question does not rise to the level that the film’s nomination should be rescinded.” The statement does continue to say that To Leslie‘s social media tactics were cause for concern and are being brought up with the responsible parties.

Kramer’s full statement on the matter is as follows:

Based on concerns that surfaced last week around the To Leslie awards campaign, the Academy began a review into the film’s campaigning tactics. The Academy has determined the activity in question does not rise to the level that the film’s nomination should be rescinded. However, we did discover social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern. These tactics are being addressed with the responsible parties directly.

The purpose of the Academy’s campaign regulations is to ensure a fair and ethical awards process—these are core values of the Academy. Given this review, it is apparent that components of the regulations must be clarified to help create a better framework for respectful, inclusive, and unbiased campaigning. These changes will be made after this awards cycle and will be shared with our membership. The Academy strives to create an environment where votes are based solely on the artistic and technical merits of the eligible films and achievements.

Thus ends the contentious To Leslie saga — at least until the Oscars air on March 12. If Riseborough pulls off an underdog victory, it will no doubt be one of the most surprising (and yes, discourse-inducing) Oscar wins of all time.

OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, have clearly heard the critiques about its AI chatbot. Namely, those from educators who have voiced concern regarding students using ChatGPT to do their homework or write their papers for them.

On Tuesday, OpenAI released a new AI classifier tool aimed at directly addressing those concerns. The free web tool was created by OpenAI in order to help users determine whether a block of text was written by a human or a computer.

The tool is simple to use. Simply visit the AI classifier, log in, and copy and paste the block of text you want to check. The classifier will then rank the text on a scale as either likely to be AI-generated, possibly, unclear, unlikely, or very unlikely.

Copy-paste some text, and find out if a human wrote it.
Credit: OpenAI / Screengrab

While this sounds incredibly helpful in tackling some concerns about AI written text, OpenAI does make it very clear that there are caveats. For example, according to OpenAI, “the classifier is not fully reliable.”

“In our evaluations on a ‘challenge set’ of English texts, our classifier correctly identifies 26% of AI-written text (true positives) as ‘likely AI-written,’ while incorrectly labeling human-written text as AI-written 9% of the time (false positives),” said the company in a blog post.

There are other limitations with the classifier addressed by OpenAI in its announcement. For example, the classifier works considerably worse with text that is less than 1,000 words. Sometimes it can falsely identify human-written content as text created by a computer. And it only really works well with English-language text.

OpenAI isn’t the first to release a tool to help detect when text is computer-generated. In fact, its not the first classifier tool the company itself has released. However, it’s “significantly more reliable” than its previous tool, according to OpenAI. And its very notable that such a tool is continuously being worked on by one of the leaders in the AI space as well.

Still, there’s quite a way to go before teachers and educators can confidently rely on any AI-detection tool to suss out cheating in the classroom.

Scientists at Chinese, Hong Kong, and American universities have created a metal microbot that can melt, slide through bars, and then turn back into a solid state and resume tasks.

It’s almost Samsung Galaxy Unpacked season. Get ready.

Next week, Samsung will take to the stage in an event to (presumably) show off its latest and greatest premium smartphones. While Samsung is holding the event in-person for the first time in a few years, that’s not helpful to any of us. However, it is being live-streamed, which is very helpful.

You can watch the early 2023 edition of Samsung Galaxy Unpacked on Samsung’s website or YouTube channel. It starts at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Feb. 1. 

As for what we’ll most likely see at the event, go in expecting to hear a lot about the Samsung Galaxy S23 line of smartphones. Recent leaks suggest that, like last year, we’ll get three phones: Samsung Galaxy S23, S23 Plus, and S23 Ultra. 

The leaked specs for these phones didn’t give us a great deal to chew on, but the S23 Ultra’s camera situation is something to watch. The leaks reveal it has a 200MP main sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and two optical zoom lenses. In other words, this phone should be really good at zooming in on faraway objects. We’ll see if it can compete with the excellence of the Pixel 7 Pro.

Either way, we don’t have to wait a long time to find out.

From therapy to working out, Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, Bill Lawrence, Christa Miller and Lukita Maxwell let us in on their tips to a happier existence. Shrinking premiere 1/27 on Apple TV+.