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Workers at Double Fine Productions, the studio behind the beloved Psychonauts series, are organizing a union with the Communications Workers of America. It's the latest in a wave of labor organizing across the games industry, and a signal that even beloved creative studios aren't immune to the broader tensions between workers and corporate ownership under Microsoft's Xbox umbrella.
Turning to a story with real human stakes, reporting from Zambia shows HIV infection rates climbing again, one year after the United States cut funding to the PEPFAR program. What began as a budget decision in Washington is now translating into measurable health consequences on the ground, a reminder that foreign aid infrastructure, once dismantled, doesn't simply restart overnight.
And for something with a longer historical arc, Project Cybersyn is getting renewed attention. In the early nineteen seventies, Chile under Salvador Allende built a networked system to manage the national economy in near real time. It was visionary, deeply flawed, and ultimately destroyed in the coup of seventy three. In an era of AI-driven governance conversations, its lessons feel surprisingly current.
That's your briefing for today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
