In the wake of reports that Google didn't follow normal procedure in the development of a censored search product for China— with execs said to have circumvented standard company procedures and shut out important legal and security staffers from deliberations — the search giant has announced a revamping of its internal review processes.

On Tuesday, Google announced that it has established a formal process to review new AI-based initiatives that involve sensitive policy questions. The review structure was announced as a part of the company's six-month update to its AI Principles that CEO Sundar Pichai released in June.

According to the report, one hundred reviews have been conducted so far, including a review of its facial recognition technologies for developers— which the company decided to sideline.

"In a small number of product use-cases—like a general-purpose facial recognition API — we've decided to hold off on offering functionality before working through important technology and policy questions," Google wrote.

Read more: Google's Dragonfly execs didn't take written notes and isolated internal teams to hide China search plans from other employees

A Google spokesperson confirmed with Business Insider that Project Dragonfly — its censored search engine project for China, which the company has not announced plans to formally release — was not one 100 projects referenced in the report and did not face the scrutiny of the newly announced review process. Google did not immediately respond to Business Insider's questions as to why that was the case.

As first reported by The Intercept on Monday, Google will likely halt the Dragonfly project over privacy concerns around the data sources it was using to build the product.

Google says that its new review process consists of three internal groups: an "innovations team" that oversees daily operations and initial assessments, "a group of senior experts" for technical guidance, and "council of senior executives" to make the most difficult decisions.

Google did not respond to Business Insider's request for names of executives that are apart of the review groups. Other tech giants, including Microsoft, have adopted similar council structures to oversee AI development.

FedEx told investors on Tuesday that it will offer a voluntary buyout program for US employees.

Those who participate will receive four weeks of pay and healthcare coverage for every year of employment for a maximum of two years.

The Memphis, Tenn.-based company will spend $450 million to $575 million on buyouts, depending on how many participate. That will save FedEx $225 million to $275 million in fiscal 2020, it estimates.

It's quite a different tune than what FedEx was whistling just a few months ago.

In April, FedEx bumped compensation by $200 million among its 425,000-plus employees. Two-thirds went to hourly employees and the rest to salaried workers. The delivery company announced those annual raises, which normally take place in October, in January.

FedEx also announced contributions of $1.5 billion to its pension plan and domestic investments of $1.5 billion in January.

The announcement of $3.2 billion of increased spending followed the US tax reform that cut corporate rates.

Read more: USPS is hemorrhaging billions of dollars a year and it might sell the rights to your mailbox to turn a profit

But unexpected economic downturns in Europe and looming troubles in China sank FedEx's profit outlook, even though its domestic business has been flourishing. On Tuesday, FedEx dropped its 2019 earnings guidance to $15.50 to $16.60 per share. Previously, the company forecasted $17.20 to $17.80 a share.

"Global trade has slowed in recent months and leading indicators point to ongoing deceleration in global trade near-term," said Alan Graf, FedEx executive vice president and chief financial officer, on Tuesday.

The buyout program is one of FedEx's planned measures to cost cuts. FedEx will also limit hiring, reduce discretionary spending, and reduce international network capacity.

Are you a FedEx employee with thoughts on the buyout program? Contact the reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Gameshow app HQ Trivia ditched its usual game on Sunday night and paid tribute to its cofounder Colin Kroll, who died at age 34 over the weekend.

The app did not air its regular show out of respect, and instead host Scott Rogowsky remembered Kroll with a small eulogy.

"Colin, or CK as we called him, was true visionary who changed the game twice. First with Vine, and then with this very app," Rogowsky said.

Rogowsky also announced that because Kroll was an animal lover — who would occasionally bring his dog Tater to the office — HQ donated what would have been Sunday night's $25,000 prize to The Humane Society in his memory.

Read more: Tech community reacts to death of HQ trivia and Vine founder Colin Kroll

Other HQ employees mourned his passing on social media, including hosts Sharon Carpenter and Lauren Gambino, as well as Kroll's HQ cofounder Rus Yusupov.

Barstool Sports is joining the stampede of publishers trying to drum up more revenue from readers.

The 15-year-old company known for its bawdy take on sports and culture is launching a new premium service in January called Barstool Gold. The existing content will stay free, but for $50, people will get exclusive material like new podcasts and documentaries.

The service will kick off with a documentary about Barstool founder Dave Portnoy himself and how he started the company as a print newspaper in Boston, supported by gambling ads, before expanding to the web.

Barstool already has a diversified revenue model that many digital publishers likely envy. Majority owned by The Chernin Group, it has branched out to podcasts like "Fore Play" and "Chicks in the Office," video series, TV and radio shows like "Barstool Sports Advisors," and events. The company makes its money by selling advertising and directly from its rabid fan base of mainly young guys, who buy its branded hoodies and other merchandise and tune into pay-per-view events.

Read more: Brands are sticking with Barstool after sexual harassment claims

But Barstool's foray into a premium service isn't just motivated by the need to diversify its revenue further in a tough climate for digital advertising. Its no-holds-barred tone also has lately gotten it negative press including a scathing report by the Daily Beast that detailed incidents of harassment and cyberbullying by the company and called Portnoy a "misogynistic troll king."

Portnoy said Barstool didn't lose any existing advertisers as a result of the Daily Beast article, but that the controversies may make it harder to win new advertisers. He said controversy had also hurt the brand's TV ambitions. In 2017, ESPN canceled a Barstool Sports TV show after one episode when it became known that Barstool had published derogatory and critical reports on ESPN journalists. Portnoy said Barstool had three other shows lined up that backed out.

"We have a long history of our reputation speaking for itself," said Portnoy, who goes by the moniker El Presidente. "It's affected us in, will we end up with a TV show on a third-party network. Those guys will end up with cold feet. ESPN canceled; we had three other shows lined up."

Right now, advertising makes up around one fourth of Barstool's revenue and growing, Portnoy said. But, he said, he doesn't want to be in a position where he has to tone down Barstool to placate advertisers.

"The motto is, control our destiny, do new things, where we talk directly with our consumers and aren't dependent on ad revenue," he said. "Ad revenue is important, but we want to be self-sustaining. We just don't ever want to be in a situation where the next Daily Beast article comes out and advertisers are like, 'We can't do this, and we better apologize and change what we've done for 15 years.'"

Barstool enters the paid-content fray at a time when the market is getting crowded with lots of publishers trying to get consumers to pay for their content. But Barstool arguably has a better shot than most because it's built up such a devoted following.

Case in point: Barstool has gotten more than 400,000 downloads of a pizza review app, One Bite, that grew out of a video series of Portnoy reviewing local pizza joints. It had a Black Friday sale on its merchandise in 2017 that led to 35,000 orders totaling single-digit millions of dollars.

Still, if the 244 comments that followed Portnoy's announcement of Barstool Gold are any indication, the program might not exactly be a slam-dunk. Portnoy for his part dismissed those comments, saying they're just from trolls who don't represent how the site's true fans really think.

Barstool Sports

Amazon wants customers to buy less "CRaP" online.

The e-commerce giant is rethinking its strategy around some items it sells which it calls internally "Can't realize a profit" — or "CRaP" for short, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Amazon reportedly does not like selling these items, which involve commonly purchased things like bottled water, soda, and snack foods, because they're usually sold for less than $15 and are expensive to ship due to being heavy or bulky. That means margins are much worse than other items the website sells.

Amazon is now eliminating some items and working with its manufacturers or vendors to repackage some items so they're more profitable to sell online, the Journal says. In some cases, like with Coca-Cola products, Amazon will work out a deal where it ships directly from Coke, instead of an Amazon fulfillment center.

Read more: Amazon is reportedly testing a new feature to convince shoppers to buy its own brands

Amazon is doing this now, according to the Journal, because it can rely on third-party merchants to pick up the slack for selection, which customers now expect from the "everything store." Sales from third parties have grown to account for more than half of all sales on Amazon.com.

The move shows Amazon is not afraid to throw its weight around with vendors, like due to its dominant position online. Amazon has grown to account for almost half of online commerce, according to analysts, and many consumer packaged goods brands don't see it as a choice of whether or not to sell on the website anymore. In fact, nearly half of all online searches start on Amazon, according to Emarketer.

Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Colin Kroll was found dead this weekend.

He was known principally for cofounding both HQ Trivia and Vine. Kroll worked across the tech sector, including Twitter and Yahoo, and tech industry professionals he worked with and influenced remembered him on Sunday through tweets and statements.

First, there's the company he cofounded, which he just recently became CEO of in September. A statement on HQ's Twitter read:

"We learned today of the passing of our friend and founder, Colin Kroll, and it's with deep sadness that we say goodbye. Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time."

Read more: The cofounder of HQ Trivia and Vine has died at the age of 34

Rus Yusupov, who co-founded both HQ Trivia and Vine, also put out a statement on Twitter saying Kroll "made the world and internet a better place."

"So sad to hear about the passing of my friend and co-founder Colin Kroll," Yusupov said. "My thoughts & prayers go out to his loved ones. I will forever remember him for his kind soul and big heart."

Some who were attached to HQ Trivia also put their sorrow into words of condolence.

"Colin was extremely talented, a warm and caring person and I will miss him," Cyan Banister, who serves on the board of HQ Trivia and invested in it through the Founders Fund, told Recode. "It's too painful and too soon to discuss anything else, but my thoughts are with his family and the rest of the team."

Others in the tech community that weren't directly tied also lamented publicly.

"Drugs kill people. Everyday," angel investor and tech CEO Florian Seroussi said on Twitter. "I sound like an old fart but f***, another beautiful person died. RIP Colin Kroll."

Even entertainment professionals who got their start on Vinelike Nicholas Megalis tweeted how sorry they were to hear of the news of his death.

"Colin my heart hurts. I'm so sorry, man. God bless you," he said.

Your phone screen is important. It's the main window for all of your content: your files, documents, photos, videos, and more.

The iPhone XS features a "Super Retina" OLED display, while the iPhone XR features a "Liquid Crystal" LCD display.

OLED displays, in general, are brighter, show more accurate colors, and can achieve far better contrast than LCD displays. The iPhone XR has one of the best LCD displays in a smartphone, but it still doesn't come close to the iPhone XS display, which, thanks to HDR support, is the better way to view high-definition photos and videos. OLED displays can actually turn their pixels off, instead of just dim them like LCD displays, so black actually looks like black on the iPhone XS, and images look much more vivid.

The iPhone XR screen is also a little less great since the bezel, or border around the edge of the display, is thicker than it is on the iPhone XS.

HQ Trivia — a live, game show-style quiz app — launched in August 2017 with Kroll serving as chief technology officer.

The app was an instant viral hit, thanks in part to its silly, charismatic host and the ability to win real cash prizes. Earlier this year, the app was at the top of the App Store charts for weeks at a time.

But just as quickly as the app went viral, its popularity faded and it faced internal turmoil of its own. In September, the company reportedly forced out Yusupov as CEO and replaced him with Kroll. And shortly before Kroll was appointed CEO, an HQ Trivia employee reportedly filed a complaint over Kroll's "aggressive management style."

Despite HQ's issues, the company had announced plans for a second "Wheel of Fortune"-style game and has been earning money off sponsorship deals and in-app purchases.

HQ closed a $15 million funding round in March and is expected to do $10 million in revenue in 2018.

Source: Recode

In the midst of the ongoing controversies over how tech companies can use artificial intelligence for no good, Salesforce is about to hire its first Chief Ethical and Humane Use officer.

On Monday, Salesforce announced it would hire Paula Goldman to lead its new Office of Ethical and Humane Use, and she will officially start on Jan. 7. This office will focus on developing strategies to use technology in an ethical and humane way at Salesforce.

"For years, I've admired Salesforce as a leader in ethical business," Goldman said in a statement. "We're at an important inflection point as an industry, and I'm excited to work with this team to chart a path forward."

With the development of the new Office of Ethical and Humane Use, Salesforce plans to merge law, policy and ethics to develop products in an ethical manner. That's especially notable, as Salesforce itself has come under fire from its own employees for a contract it holds with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"We understand that we have a broader responsibility to society, and aspire to create technology that not only drives the success of our customers, but also drives positive social change and benefits humanity," Salesforce's Office of Ethical and Humane Use says.

Read more:Military work is a lightning rod in Silicon Valley, but Microsoft will sell the Pentagon all the AI it needs

Goldman will report to chief equality officer Tony Prophet. Before Salesforce, Goldman served as Vice President, Global Lead, Tech and Society Solutions Lab at Omidyar Network, a social impact investment firm started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

She has also served on Salesforce's Advisory Council for the Office of Ethical and Humane Use, which includes industry experts and academics. This council focuses on how to build technology in an ethical fashion.

"Working with Paula as a member of the Advisory Council, I was immediately impressed by her exceptional leadership and thoughtful approach to truly complex issues," Tony Prophet, Salesforce Chief Equality Officer, sad in a statement. "I'm confident Paula is the right person to lead us into this next chapter at Salesforce."

Goldman is also the founder and director of Imagining Ourselves, a project of the International Museum of Women. She has received the Social Impact Award from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and a Muse Award from the American Association of Museums.

However, she'll have a tough challenge ahead, as she navigates the increasingly murky world of Silicon Valley ethics, as Salesforce itself gets drawn into the debate around right and wrong ways to use technology.

In Silicon Valley, employees and activists continue to protest tech giants' use of artificial intelligence and other technologies that could potentially be used for unethical ends.

For example, at Google, thousands of employees signed a petition — and some even resigned— over Project Maven, a contract with the Department of Defense that would see the company's AI used to analyze drone footage.

Following the internal backlash, Google CEO Sundar Pichai published a set of ethical principles on how it will use AI. Google also decided not to renew its contract with the Department of Defense, and later, decided to drop out of a bid for a $10 billion cloud contract with the Pentagon. Still, there is ongoing controversy internally and externally at Google over Project Dragonfly, a project to build a censored search engine for China.

This controversy has touched Salesforce, too. More than 650 Salesforce employees wrote a letter to CEO Marc Benioff to protest the company's work with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in light of President Donald Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policies.

Weeks later, tech workers and activists demonstrated in front of Salesforce Tower, the company's San Francisco headquarters. Also, a non-profit group that provides legal services to immigrants rejected a $250,000 donation from Salesforce, saying that it couldn't accept the money unless the company canceled the contract.

This week, Apple released its rankings of the best apps of the year, with indie hit "Donut County" taking the prize as the top iPhone game of 2018.

If you've never played "Donut County," which costs $5 on the App Store, I urge you to take a look: It's a stylish, funny game that casts you as the pilot of a remote-controlled hole in the ground that sucks in everything it touches, from snakes and lawn chairs all the way up to mountains and Ferris wheels.

The game isn't especially challenging — there are some light puzzle elements, sure, like sucking up live fireworks and using them to bust up obstacles into chunks that fit in your portable hole. But like previous award recipient "Monument Valley" before it, "Donut County" is more about the experience than it is about reflexes and skill.

And what an experience it is. The general idea is that BK, a raccoon, buys the town's beloved Donut County pastry shop and launches a donut-delivery app. When the unknowing townspeople order a donut, though, what they get delivered instead is your portable hole in the ground, which proceeds to swallow up the customer and everything they own. BK, oblivious to the damage he's caused, is just trying to do enough deliveries to earn a quadcopter drone.

It's a not-so-subtle commentary on what happens to a community when the tech industry moves in: The townspeople in the game thought they were just getting a donut, but accidentally invited disaster into their lives. It's a satire of companies like Uber of Airbnb, where a simple concept can lead to all kinds of headaches and ripple effects in other industries — just look at what happened to the New York City taxi business when Uber moved in, for an example.

BK, the game's protagonist, controls the portable hole via an app on his phone. Donut County

Tellingly, at one point, BK confesses that he doesn't even know what a donut is, other than that they have a hole, and thought he was just giving the people what they want. The story itself is about the townspeople convincing him that he was wrong, and that maybe the people didn't actually want to be at the bottom of a giant hole.

It's all complemented by creator Ben Esposito's striking art style, which is appropriately cartoon-y, keeping the mood light as you swallow everything and everyone into the gaping abyss.

So, yeah, it's silly, and it's short, and it's not especially challenging, but if you have a few hours to kill, "Donut County" is well worth your time. And if you don't have an iPhone, it's also available for PC, Mac, and PlayStation 4, too.

For most people, setting up your iPhone to erase itself after too many failed password attempts sounds like a frightening idea — but there's a very compelling reason you should enable the feature.

Hidden deep inside your phone's settings is the option to erase all the data on your phone after 10 failed passcode attempts. This option stays turned off for a lot of people, and for an obvious reason: If someone in your life tries to unlock your phone and fails too many times, there's the risk of losing everything.

But as Daring Fireball's John Gruber points out, it's not that simple. Here's how he explains the feature (emphasis ours):

"After the 5th failed attempt, iOS requires a 1-minute timeout before you can try again. During this timeout the only thing you can do is place an emergency call to 911. After the 6th attempt, you get a 5-minute timeout. After the 7th, 15 minutes. These timeouts escalate such that it would take over 3 hours to enter 10 incorrect passcodes."

So while it seems scary in theory, it's highly unlikely that a child, significant other, or friend could accidentally erase all your data. On the flip side, turning this feature on could protect your phone's sensitive data from falling into the hands of the bad guys if it's lost or stolen.

Here's how to turn it on: Open Settings, then scroll down to Touch ID & Passcode. You'll be prompted to enter your passcode. Then scroll down to the bottom until you see Erase Data, and toggle it on.

Facebook employees remain loyal to Sheryl Sandberg and overwhelmingly feel she should not be fired from the company over recent scandals.

The anonymous work chat app Blind surveyed thousands of tech workers, including a smaller pool of Facebook employees, and asked them: "Should Sheryl Sandberg remain COO of Facebook?"

More than 70% of the 595 Facebook employees who answered the question said "yes."

That sentiment runs against wider industry feeling. More than 6,300 employees in wider the tech sector answered the question, and 55% said Sandberg should lose her job.

Read more: Facebook staff have voiced a 'huge upswell' of support for Sheryl Sandberg after she reportedly feared for her job, says company exec

Blind also asked more than 8,000 of its users whether recent scandals involving Sandberg had "devalued" Facebook. More than 55% of wider tech employees said they had. But again, of the 802 Facebook employees who responded, 72% said "no."

Blind ran its survey between December 1 and December 6 2018.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg Facebook

Sandberg has been a darling of the tech industry not only as one of the few high-profile, successful women in Silicon Valley, but also for her philosophies towards work, outlined in her book "Lean In", and grief, after losing her husband David Goldberg.

But The New York Times outlined in November how Sandberg directly instructed Facebook's communications staff to investigate billionaire George Soros after he criticised the firm. Facebook also commissioned political-style "opposition research" on Soros through a Republican-linked company, Definers— although Sandberg denied knowing this.

The revelations cast both Facebook and Sandberg in a sinister light, not least because the liberal Soros is often the target of anti-Semitic, right-wing conspiracy theories.

Nonetheless, Blind's results tie in with what insiders say about continued internal loyalty to Sandberg at Facebook. Patrick Walker, one of the most senior Facebook executives outside the US, told reporters that staff had rallied around the beleaguered COO after the New York Times revelations broke.

" There's been a huge upswell of support internally for the work that Sheryl does," he told reporters. "It's a very difficult job that she's in."

Blind said it plans to run a similar survey asking its users whether Mark Zuckerberg should remain CEO of Facebook.

When my wife's 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro stopped working, I did what most Mac users might do: bring it to the Apple Store.

I was expecting the repairs to be costly. But when Apple quoted me $1,500 to repair the MacBook Pro, I was shocked.

To be specific, the repair would cost me $1,475, before tax. With taxes, the total cost would surely rise above the $1,500 mark.

Unfortunately, I didn't get AppleCare+ when I bought the laptop, which would have helped cover the cost of the repair. More on that later.

Indeed, it turned out that my wife had accidentally spilled water on her MacBook Pro, and to repair it, it would cost us almost the same price we paid for the laptop when we bought it refurbished.

The blue stuff is corrosion from water. Antonio Villas-Boas

Based on the quote, I suspect Apple's repair would involve replacing the "logic board," which includes the most expensive parts of a computer, like the processor, the RAM, the storage, and the graphics processor. Without a logic board, a laptop is essentially just an empty shell and a screen.

Before committing to Apple's repair or buying a whole new computer, I had one more option to check out: an "unauthorized" Apple repair shop in New York City that fixes Apple products, called Rossmann Repair Group, run by Louis Rossmann. ("Unauthorized," in this case, means Rossmann Repair Group doesn't follow Apple's protocols and procedures to repair a device.)

Rossmann's repair quote also shocked me, but in a good way: $425.

Compared to Apple's $1,475 quote, Rossmann's quote was significantly more tempting, so I went with the unauthorized option.

After tax, Rossmann's repair cost me around $465, and I saved myself about $1,000. Today, my wife's MacBook Pro is running just as well as it did before she accidentally gave it the water treatment. And she still has all her data, too.

Why the unauthorized repair cost so much less than Apple's quote

Rossmann's repair team replaced a single, small chip on the logic board, instead of replacing the entire logic board, which is what I suspect Apple would have done.

A Mac laptop logic board contains everything that makes the computer actually work. YouTube/Louis Rossmann

It's entirely possible that Apple's repair team could have also replaced the single chip for a dramatically lower repair cost, but Apple takes a no-risk-whatsoever approach when it comes to repairs, especially with liquid damage.

Even if a laptop appears to work properly after a simple minor chip replacement, it's possible that liquid damage could cause problems later down the line. With that risk in mind, Apple would rather totally replace the logic board, even if it's going to come with a huge price tag. That way, Apple and its customers have the guaranteed peace of mind that the laptop is fully functional, just as it was when you first unboxed it.

But, Apple's version of "peace of mind" can come with a huge cost, especially since we didn't have AppleCare+. With liquid damaged Mac laptops, you're essentially getting a new computer — albeit with the same specs as the original — if you go the Apple repair route. Only the shell and the display are original.

Should everyone take their broken Mac laptops to "unauthorized" repair shops?

It depends.

My experience was at a single unauthorized repair shop in New York City, and it doesn't necessarily represent the experience others might have at other unauthorized repair shops around the country, or world. I can only say that my experience at Rossmann Repair Group was excellent and significantly cheaper than Apple's option.

If you need to repair your Apple computer, the route you take will likely depend on the specific issue you're having with your device, your budget, and how much you value "peace of mind."

It also depends on the warranty status of your Mac, and whether or not you bought the AppleCare+ extended warranty. If it's still under warranty, you could get a repair done for free, depending on the issue. Rossman even suggests you take it to Apple if an issue can be fixed free of charge because the device is still under warranty.

Rossmann himself opened up the laptop to check it out. Antonio Villas-Boas/Business Insider

With AppleCare+, you're covered for two accidental damages, which includes liquid damage. A liquid damage repair with AppleCare+ would cost you $300 on top of the $380 price of AppleCare+ for a 15-inch MacBook Pro. So, had I bought AppleCare+, Apple's repair would have cost me $680, slightly over $200 more than Rossmann's repair.

Despite the great experience I had with Rossmann, I would have gone the Apple route had I bought AppleCare+ for my wife's MacBook Pro. For an extra $200, I'd get that peace of mind and zero risk of further issues related to the original liquid damage.

But saving $1,000? I think I'll take and accept the risk.

For those who are out of warranty or didn't buy AppleCare+ and are facing massive repair quotes from Apple, taking your device to Rossman Repair Group or another trusted unauthorized repair store is realistically good option. If you're outside of New York City, Rossmann accepts mail-ins for repairs, too. Otherwise, you could always research an unauthorized repair shop near you — be sure to read online reviews, and get a feel for the place before committing your computer and your money. Again, if you don't go with Apple for first-party repairs, there's no guarantee their repair will completely fix the problem, especially in the long-term.

You could also take a broken Apple laptop to an authorized repair shop, where you might get a cheaper quote than Apple's own. But that's not a guarantee. Either way, your best bet it to check out all your options and their prices.

The biggest Nintendo game of 2018 is, unsurprisingly, an overwhelmingly good game.

"Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" is available for the Nintendo Switch as of December 7 — a massive, sprawling encyclopedia of gaming history. At its heart, the "Smash Bros." series is about Nintendo characters fighting to the death.

"Ultimate" is essentially a fighting game, but it contains so, so much more than that: A 700-plus list of songs spanning three decades of games; a surprisingly deep and expansive single-player campaign; a traditional fighting game "story" mode for each of its 70-plus characters; and, notably in this case, an expanded online multiplayer section.

Nintendo launched a paid online service in September, dubbed Nintendo Switch Online, which is required for online play. "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" is the first major Nintendo release since that service launched, and it has a major online component.

Though "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" is excellent in nearly every way, its online component is a mess: Persistent lag and bizarre design decisions hamper what would otherwise be a strong argument for Nintendo's new, paid online service.

As a longtime "Smash" fan who's been waiting — hoping! — for a great online experience from the franchise, it's been a tremendous let down thus far.

Here's why:

Last month, General Motors announced that it intended to idle five US and Canadian factories amid a shift in the auto industry away from passenger cars toward SUVs.

The carmaker has begun to notify the federal government of its layoff plans for the plants that won't have "allocated" production — in other words, no new vehicles or parts to build once current production at the facilities in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, and Canada winds down.

According to GM, a total of 2,800 hourly employees are affected. Of these, the automaker said in a statement, 1,100 have expressed interest in relocating to plants where GM needs more labor.

Read more:GM will stop building cars at 3 North American factories and cut its salaried workforce by 15% in 2019 as it shifts to electric and self-driving cars

"Strong US and Canadian economies enable us to provide these opportunities now as we position General Motors for long-term success," GM CEO Mary Barra said in a statement.

"Our focus remains on providing interested employees options to transition including job opportunities at other GM plants," Barra continued. "We remain committed to working with local government officials, our unions and each individual to find appropriate opportunities for them."

GM has 2,700 positions available at factories in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

The company also wants to shed thousands of salaried and contract staff — 15% altogether. Similar opportunities to relocate are being offered to them, as well as severance allocations and job-training services, GM said.

Business has been good in the auto industry for the past three years, as the US market has posted record sales. But GM has been weighed down by factories that have been running well below capacity as consumer preferences have realigned to favor crossovers, SUVs, and pickup trucks.

In late November, Amazon Web Services announced it would sell a new service on its market-leading cloud called Amazon Managed Streaming for Kafka — a service that provides software that Amazon didn't create itself.

This new service is based on Apache Kafka, an open source software project for handling large amounts of streaming data. AWS took Kafka and repackaged it as a paid cloud service — something completely legal, as open source software is free for anyone to use as they wish.

Originally created at LinkedIn, the engineers who started Kafka made their own company around the software, called Confluent. At the time the service was revealed, Confluent CEO Jay Kreps told Business Insider that it wasn't worried about Amazon's move, saying "I don't think this announcement will impact our business."

Just over two weeks after the announcement, Confluent announced Friday it would take what it called the "necessary step" of creating a new license, called the Confluent Community License, which would limit the ability of vendors to take its open source software and sell it, in the same way that Amazon did with the core Kafka.

"We think this is a positive change and one that can help ensure small open source communities aren't acting as free and unsustainable R&D for tech giants that put sustaining resources only into their own differentiated proprietary offerings," Kreps writes in a blog post.

The post does not say that Amazon's announcement sparked this change, and the new license doesn't appear to directly impact AWS: Confluent's new license only applies to the specialized additions to Kafka that it developed in-house, while Amazon is using the original Kafka software.

However, it highlights a growing point of friction in the open source world, as Amazon Web Services comes under fire from startups for what they see as poor open source citizenship — Amazon has been roundly criticized for using open source software to make money, but contributing little back to the open source community in return.

When asked whether this new license was in response to Amazon's entry into Kafka, Confluent referred back to the blog post, which says: "We think the Confluent Community License is a necessary step. This lets us continue to invest heavily in code that we distribute for free, while sustaining a healthy business that funds this investment."

What did Amazon announce?

When Amazon announced its Kafka service, it pitched it as the easiest way to get started with the software.

"There's a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to Kafka. It's difficult to set up, difficult to scale, handling failures is a nightmare," Amazon CTO Werner Vogels said on stage when he announced Amazon Managed Streaming for Kafka. "We really hope that you start migrating the Kafka clusters you have to [AWS's] managed Kafka service and let us do the heavy lifting for you."

After Amazon's announcement, Business Insider spoke with several startup executives who said this move could be bad news for Confluent, which makes a version of Kafka for businesses. After all, AWS has a much larger footprint than any startup, and if customers are already on Amazon's cloud, they can just use Amazon's Kafka service, too.

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels Reuters/Richard Brian

At the time, Kreps downplayed these concerns, highlighting how Confluent has invested more time and focus in making Kafka palatable for enterprises than Amazon. However, he was concerned about Amazon's reputation for not contributing code back to open source projects, even the ones it uses to build paid services.

"Amazon itself doesn't typically contribute to the open source projects that they host," Kreps said at the time. "They just take them and put it on servers...We think [our product] is really strongly differentiated from Amazon taking the open source and putting it onto their servers."

More open source startups are taking action

With its new license, Confluent becomes part of a trend of open source startups making changes to their licensing to push back on cloud providers selling the software that they contributed their money and time to build.

Earlier this year, MongoDB introduced the Server Side Public License, which says that if users want to publicly offer MongoDB as a service, they either make the code available to everyone for free or obtain a commercial license. This move was explicitly designed to discourage large public clouds from making money from its open source database. Similarly, Redis Labs added the Commons Clause, which forbids users from selling the software, as a new license.

Read more:Two software companies, fed up with Amazon, Alibaba and other big cloud players, have a controversial new plan to fight back

Dev Ittycheria MongoDB

This kind of licensing change has resulted in some pushback from the open source community. Bradley M. Kuhn, President of the Software Freedom Conservancy, has concerns that these types of license changes are unnecessarily restrictive.

"I think it's going to be a classic situation where the implications immediately are primarily going to be on Confluent users and contributors," Kuhn told Business Insider on Friday. "If you (contributors) want your changes and improvements in their software, you must give [the company] the right to unilaterally change the license in the future. This is in direct contrast to how open source software projects operate."

Notably, Confluent is now describing its contributions to Kafka as "source-available," rather than "open source," it writes in its blog post, because under its new license, it believes it won't meet the requirements set by the Open Source Initiative.

Startups are still figuring it out

Ultimately, many open source startups are in the midst of examining how they can balance giving away software for free while still retaining enough control to make a profit.

Amazon doesn't exactly have a strong reputation when it comes to giving back code to open source projects, although it signaled a change may be in order after AWS made a major open source contribution with a new project called Firecracker.

That being said, Manish Gupta, CMO of Redis Labs, calls Confluent's move an "exciting announcement," and believes there are more changes like Confluent's new license to come, keeping corporations from profiting off the work of smaller startups.

"This is another example of companies behind major open source projects having to take steps to protect themselves from poaching by cloud providers," Gupta told Business Insider. "The list will continue to grow."