A Sharpie has caused highly confidential information about Sony’s PlayStation business to be revealed. In a hearing before the Federal Trade Commission in the FTC v. Microsoft case, Sony furnished a document from PlayStation head Jim Ryan that includes redacted details on the margins of Sony shares with publishers, its Call of Duty revenues, and even the cost of developing some games. According to theverge.com,  someone redacted the documents with a black Sharpie — but when you scan them in, it’s easy to see some of the redactions. While the court moved quickly to remove the document, reporters and Sony’s competitors have already downloaded them. Since they were in the public domain when admitted into evidence, there’s no way to get the horse back into the barn. One interesting reveal: according to Sony, some 1 million PlayStation players don’t play anything except Call of Duty. Sony also accidentally revealed how much money Call of Duty is worth to PlayStation. We already knew the figure was over a billion dollars, but the document suggests CoD was worth $800 million for PlayStation revenue in just the US during 2021…it appears the number is $1.5 billion globally. 

Amazon has allowed returns for some time at Amazon stores, Whole Foods markets, Kohl’s, and UPS Stores. Now, geekwire.com reports that they have announced almost 1,000 Staples locations where customers can drop off label-free, box-free returns. By adding this 1,000 Staples sites, Amazon will now offer some 8,000 drop off locations. According to Amazon, the majority of the e-commerce giant’s customers have at least one return drop-off point within a 5-mile radius of where they live. The collaboration is Amazon’s first major deal on returns since partnering with Kohl’s in 2019.

As I predicted yesterday in a story I did about Google not even following its own rules, and research by Adalytics indicating that some 80% of ads haven’t run as promised…now comes a story from Financial Times that ad business figures are demanding significant refunds from YouTube. Adalytics found “hundreds of thousands of websites and apps” in which these ads play imperceptibly in the background, without sound and on automatic loop. This appears to be a way to avoid viewers noticing the videos altogether so ads are not skipped, but the strategy violates Google’s terms. Google published a blog in response, defending the quality of its partner network and saying the report makes some “extremely inaccurate claims”. After reviewing several websites shared by the Financial Times, the company also said it would take appropriate action including possibly removing all ads on the sites. Note that advertisers have demanded refunds for decades from TV and radio when ads have run improperly or not at all…and have gotten prompt adjustments on their billing or make good ads run right away. Now, Google gets to join this not-so-fun party. 

After the misfire of Google Glass a few years ago, Google headed back to the drawing board and has been hard at work on augmented reality glasses. Now, arstechnica.com reports that Google has apparently halted plans to release AR Glasses they teased a year ago…ones that looked like regular glasses as opposed to the Google Glass design. “Insiders say Google leaders kept changing the strategy for Iris, which led to the team continually pivoting direction, frustrating many employees,” Business Insider reported Google is now going to focus on their AR software instead of trying to build the hardware. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.