The Mac Studio’s storage isn’t quite as set in stone as you might think, although you’ll want to keep your expectations in check. iFixit has conducted a teardown of Apple’s pro desktop that suggests you can replace the SSD module in limited circumstances. The company managed to swap the drive with one of the same capacity (from another Mac Studio) by using Apple’s Configurator app to perform a DFU restore.

Activision has been served another lawsuit over harassment at the company. As Bloomberg Law and Game Developer report, an anonymous woman still working at Activision Blizzard has sued the game developer in a Los Angeles court for allegedly enabling sexual harassment and discrimination. The company also retaliated against her when she shared her experiences at a December 2021 press conference, according to the complaint.

As with past suits, the woman accused Activision Blizzard of routinely allowing misconduct. The senior administrative assistant in IT was reportedly pressured to join in “cube crawls” where women were harassed and groped, and was told to tolerate unwanted sexual advances and excessive drinking. She was also asked to keep her complaints private, according to the suit, and supposedly faced an increasingly hostile workplace the more she spoke out.

The plaintiff said she applied for positions elsewhere in the company to avoid sexism in IT, and wrote to president Allen Brack (who stepped down in August 2021 as the scandal grew) about the problems. She was offered and took a lower-paying role elsewhere in the company, but noted that her application for an executive assistant job was rejected in December that year, shortly after she’d applied in November.

In the lawsuit, the woman demands damages that include lost earnings and medical expenses. She also asks for functional reforms, including the ouster of CEO Bobby Kotick, a rotating human resources team (to prevent conflicts of interest) and the use of a neutral firm to investigate incidents.

We’ve asked Activision Blizzard for comment. The company has used some measures to address harassment and discrimination complaints, including removing employees, taking disciplinary actions and forming a committee to implement anti-harassment initiatives. It also settled an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit and has been more cooperative with investigations. However, it’s still facing a mounting number of legal challenges that include both more lawsuits and an SEC investigation — the debacle is far from over.

Source: Engadget – Activision Blizzard faces another lawsuit over sexual harassment

Apple likes to flaunt its ability to save metal, and now it’s reducing the environmental impact of the metal itself. The company says the latest iPhone SE is the first product made from “commercial-purity” low-carbon aluminum at industrial scale. Montreal, Canada-based Elysis has produced a batch for Apple using a carbon-free, hydropower-based smelting process that outputs oxygen rather than greenhouse gases.

The two companies didn’t say just how many iPhone SE units would use this aluminum. The design most conspicuously relies on aluminum for the frame, but the back is dominated by glass that helps with wireless charging and data reception.

The development is a long time in coming. Apple helped development through an investment team-up that included Alcoa, Rio Tinto, the Canadian government and the Quebec provincial government. The tech firm also bought the first batch of aluminum from that union to produce the 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2019. Aluminum-linked carbon emissions at Apple have dropped almost 70 percent since 2015, according to the company.

Apple boasted that it has routinely poured money into projects like this through three “Green Bonds” totalling $4.7 billion. The investments, which started in 2016, have focused on both reducing emissions and providing clean power. The money for Elysis’ low-carbon aluminum comes from a 2019 bond backing 50 projects, including ones that “mitigate or offset” 2.9 million metric tons of CO2 and establish close to 700MW of renewable energy.

The efforts help burnish Apple’s image as much as they might lessen the contribution to climate change — like Samsung and other rivals, the company wants to assuage buyers worried that their new phone might do unnecessary harm. Greater use of this eco-friendly aluminum will help Apple reach its goal of selling carbon-neutral products by 2030, though. And given Apple’s sheer market clout, carbon reductions like this could have a tangible effect.

Source: Engadget – Apple’s iPhone SE is made with new low-carbon aluminum