The so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” has passed with plenty of nasty treats for the US technology and manufacturing industries. As well as swinging the sword at basic environmental protection measures, the bill sticks its thumb in the eye of the EV industry. Tim Stevens takes you on a tour of the most salient changes, like the imminent end of the EV tax credit. Joining that on the bonfire is the used EV incentive, as well as the rebates for the purchase of commercial EVs.
Similarly, for all of this administration’s talk of bringing manufacturing back to the US, the bill is a middle finger for domestic solar companies. The US is the only credible manufacturing rival to China in solar panels, but the bill cuts these businesses off at the knees. I spoke to people inside the US solar industry who know that, despite whatever tariffs are implemented, this bill opens the door to a flood of cheap, Chinese-made solar panels to usurp their US rivals.
An earlier version of the bill also contained moves that could only be described as weirdly vindictive. It previously proposed an annual EV tax of $250 (and $100 for hybrid owners) as well as a general levy on all wind and solar projects. Why? A cynic might suggest it was due to the bill being drafted to benefit fossil fuel companies at the expense of literally everyone else.
Anyway, hopefully you can enjoy the holiday and won’t need to spend it panic-buying an EV and US-made solar panels. Although that’s not actually a bad way to spend a long weekend.
— Dan Cooper
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The news you might have missed
Catch up on all that new Star Trek.
Paramount+
You can snag two months of Paramount+ for just $2, allowing you to take advantage of the new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. The deal applies to both the Essential and Premium plan, so you can easily have a little run of ad-free Star Trek as a treat. And, if you don’t like the idea of binging Strange New Worlds, you can always watch Star Trek: Lower Decks instead.
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Even before the Xbox layoffs, there was ‘tension’ at Halo Studios
Halo Studios
Microsoft has announced it will cut 9,000 jobs from its global workforce, with much of that focus on its gaming division. Engadget’s Jessica Conditt got the inside scoop from employees at Halo Studios, who reveal all is not well at what should be one of Microsoft’s crown jewels. Sadly, the company was already gutted back in 2023, and the lukewarm reception of its work since then is a sign of how badly things are going.
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Friends don’t let friends subtitle shows with ChatGPT.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
Translating a work of art is a delicate task requiring nuanced knowledge of both the culture and the languages you’re translating from and to. Unless you’re Anime-favoring streaming service Crunchyroll, which just dumped subtitle files into ChatGPT and hoped for the best. As well as a general sloppiness, Engadget’s Igor Bonifacic found instances of lines beginning with “ChatGPT said:” at the start of a line. Crunchyroll said the subtitles were the result of the unauthorized action of a “third-party vendor,” and it is working to rectify the error right now.
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Our take on the ‘Last of Us’ changes
Neil Druckmann, head of Naughty Dog and co-creator of The Last of US and its TV adaptation, is stepping down from the HBO series. He said he’s shifting his focus back to video games full time to work on the studio’s next big title, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. The Last of Us Part II co-writer Halley Gross is also stepping down at the same time, and that got our staff TLoU superfan Nathan Ingraham’s antennae twitching. He feels the video game industry, currently suffering body blow after body blow, needs Druckmann (and Gross) far more than the TV world does.
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It’s another quirky gimmick on the back cover.
Mat Smith for Engadget
Nothing has launched its third-generation flagship, the $799 Nothing Phone 3, complete with a new eye-catching gimmick. Whereas previous models had the Glyph Interface, a series of flashing lights on the rear cover, the 3 gets a tiny dot-matrix display called the Glyph Matrix. Wanna find out if it’s going to be worth your cash? Check out Mat Smith’s detailed hands-on.
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