

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Despite the ongoing popularity of the Back to the Future trilogy that inspired the self-lacing tech found in the HyperAdapt 1.0 and Air Mags, Nike has announced that it’s “no longer creating new versions of Adapt shoes.” Now, the Adapt BB mobile app used to control the $350 third iteration of Nike’s self-lacing sneakers will disappear from Google Play and the iPhone App Store next month.
Without the app, owners can use the physical buttons on the sneakers to power them on and off, check battery status, tighten or loosen the laces, and save a single preset, but there will be no way to adjust the shoe’s lighting.
The power laces on the Nike Adapt BB basketball shoes, which were worn by athletes like Jayson Tatum and Luka Doncic, were adjustable using buttons on the sneakers themselves or over Bluetooth.
Nike’s decision to retire the app is another reminder of the challenges of designing smart apparel.
Most consumers might be used to the idea of upgrading a smartphone every few years, but an electronic pair of shoes or a smart denim jacket can remain in someone’s wardrobe for decades, long after a company stops selling the product.
It’s not entirely surprising when a company chooses to stop paying for the upkeep and continued development of an app for a product it’s no longer making money on, but that doesn’t take the sting out of losing functionality on your five-year-old kicks.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
As spotted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, some data in the document was viewable despite the black redaction boxes, including Valve’s headcount and gross pay across various parts of the company over 18 years, and even some data about its gross margins that we weren’t able to uncover fully.
The data breaks Valve employees into four different groups: “Admin,” “Games,” “Steam,” and, starting in 2011, “Hardware.”
If you want to sift through the numbers yourself, I’ve included a full table of the data, sorted by year and category, at the end of this story.
In November 2023, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge that he thinks “we’re firmly in the camp of being a full fledged hardware company by now.”
The small number of staff across the board seemingly explains why Valve’s product list is so limited despite its immense business as basically the de facto PC gaming platform.
While we haven’t seen any leaked profit numbers from this new headcount and payroll data, the figures give a more detailed picture of how much Valve is spending on its staff — which, given the massive popularity of Steam, is probably still just a fraction of the money the company is pulling in.
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