FlashFeed

Full text

Rockstar developers in the UK are seeking official union recognition from the GTA 6 studio's bosses, who were accused of union busting in 2025 after firing 31 workers involved in union activity. If Rockstar devs are successful in their bid, they'll join Zero Parades creator ZA/UM in history as one of the first formally acknowledged games industry unions in the UK.

Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB) Union president Alex Marshall is confident Rockstar can afford such a milestone. The organizer says in a June 30 press release, "GTA 6 has reportedly already generated more than $3 billion in preorder sales. Rockstar bosses can easily afford to sit around the table with the people whose hard work created these games, and give them a meaningful voice in their workplace."

Rockstar itself has not revealed GTA 6 pre-order revenue, and that $3 billion estimate seems to stem, at least in part, from University of Virginia assistant professor of business Anthony Palomba saying recently that Rockstar parent company "Take-Two shares rose almost 3% in early trading when preorders opened, and some analysts modeled as much as $1 billion in revenue in the first hour alone." Take-Two hasn't commented on this analysis, though the publisher is clearly expecting GTA 6 to be its golden calf – it predicts, in a recent financial report , that the game will contribute to "$8 to $8.2 billion" in sales for fiscal year 2027.

What Rockstar devs are asking for in return, says Rockstar North production co-ordinator Shanti Easton-Steel, is for executives to acknowledge "our key objectives of pay transparency, fairer crunch practices and better flexible working arrangements."

"This is a landmark moment for the Rockstar Game Workers Union, and hopefully for the industry as a whole," Easton-Steel says. "It's thanks to the hard work of so many of our members – both those currently with us and those who were fired last October – that we are now in a strong enough position to pursue formal recognition."

Rockstar and the IWGB's legal dispute over those 31 fired union members is ongoing, with the final trial set to run from September 10 to October 15, according to the workers' union.

Fired GTA 6 developer accusing Rockstar Games of union busting says playing the blockbuster will "probably just bring back too much."

Full text

Two lumps of potato discovered in a roughly 500-year-old Inca storage room in Peru are a rare find: freeze-dried potatoes predating the Spanish invasion, a new study finds.

These freeze-dried potatoes, known as chuño, were once a backbone of the Inca Empire 's food supply and a product so fragile that they almost never turn up at archaeological sites.

The new discovery, made along Peru's arid south coast, is only the second time chuño has been recovered from an Inca site, researchers reported in the new study. It is concrete evidence that the empire directed one of its most important food sources hundreds of miles from the Andes, down to the Pacific Ocean.

Chuño is made by repeatedly exposing potatoes to nighttime frost and daytime sun until nearly all their moisture has evaporated , leaving a lightweight, long-lasting vegetable that can be stored for decades. This technique works only at high elevations where hard frost occurs regularly, so chuño had to be produced in the mountains and then transported using llama caravans, often hundreds of kilometers, to feed people living elsewhere in the empire.

The Inca used the same drying method to preserve meat, he said, producing a product called "charki" — the source of the English word "jerky," study principal investigator Lidio Valdez , an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Calgary, told Live Science in an email.

In the new study, published May 1 in the Journal of Field Archaeology , Valdez and study co-author Katrina Bettcher , an independent archaeologist, reported that the chuño was found alongside an Inca pottery fragment and a broken spindle whorl , a tool used to spin fibers, such as raw wool, into yarn or thread.

The discovery happened during the 2024 field season at Tambo Viejo, an Inca provincial center in the Acarí Valley, where an archaeological team had worked for several years. Inside a small storage room, the team uncovered a clay pot sunk into the dirt floor, its top half long gone. As researchers scooped soil out of the broken pot, they reached its bottom.

"Almost at the base of the vessel, the two samples of freeze-dried potatoes were found," Valdez said. "They showed me without knowing what they were, and right away I said: chuño!"

Llamas were used across the Inca empire to transport food and other items. (Image credit: Photo by L.M. Valdez) Potatoes are roughly 80% water, and they typically rot within a week at lower, warmer elevations — making them a poor food choice for long-distance storage. Valdez said freeze-drying was likely discovered long before the Inca rose to power in the 15th century, perhaps when potatoes that were accidentally exposed to frost at a high elevation became dried out and people realized the result was still edible.

Because chuño can be made only above roughly 11,800 feet (3,600 meters), the samples at Tambo Viejo must have traveled down from the highlands, most likely via a llama caravan along the Inca road network, Valdez said.

"Chuño being a light product probably also made its transportation easier," he added.

The two freeze-dried potatoes survived thanks to the Acarí Valley's extremely dry conditions, which help preserve organic remains that would otherwise decay — the same conditions that have previously yielded naturally mummified guinea pigs ( Cavia porcellus ) in Valdez’s previous work at the site.

RELATED STORIES

Thanks to natural selection, Indigenous Andeans may digest potatoes better than anyone else in the world, study finds

Roman-era 'fast food' discovered in ancient trash heap on Mallorca

How popcorn was discovered nearly 7,000 years ago

Beyond its archaeological importance, the ancient preservation method has lessons for today. "We still have so much to learn from the people of the past," Valdez said. "Food security is a main concern, even in our times; yet we waste food, perhaps more than at any time in human history."

Relatively few Inca sites along Peru's coast have been systematically excavated, and Valdez expects more evidence of chuño — and the long supply lines that carried it — to surface as archaeologists keep digging.

Do you know where pumpkins and blueberries come from? Find out with our fruits and vegetables quiz!

Full text

Bitcoin Magazine

Crypto Firms Lead $517 Million Corporate Surge Into 2026 Midterms

Cryptocurrency companies have become the single largest corporate political spenders in the United States, pouring $189 million into the 2026 midterm elections — more than they spent during the entire 2024 election cycle — according to a new report from the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

The crypto sector accounts for 37% of the $517 million that corporations have reported spending on the 2026 midterms so far, a figure that already surpasses the previous record of $461 million set during the full 2024 cycle.

Months remain before Election Day.

The report, authored by Public Citizen researcher Rick Claypool and published June 30, draws on Federal Election Commission data and finds that corporations have now spent nearly one third of the $1.58 billion in total corporate election spending since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision — all in a single election cycle.

Corporate super PACs pioneered by crypto

At the center of the spending surge is a category the report calls “corporate supremacist super PACs” — political committees structured not around party affiliation, but around advancing the interests of specific industries. The strategy, pioneered by the crypto sector in 2024, is now being replicated across multiple industries.

The primary crypto-aligned vehicle, Fairshake, has received $82.6 million in corporate contributions this cycle — 60% of its $135 million total. Coinbase contributed $33 million to Fairshake, and Ripple Labs added $48.5 million. Josh Vlasto, a co-leader of the super PAC and a former chief of staff for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, said the group is building “an aggressive, targeted strategy” to support pro-crypto candidates across the country.

Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm that ranked among Fairshake’s top backers in 2024, has shifted focus for the 2026 cycle.

The firm contributed $50 million to Leading the Future, a super PAC oriented around AI policy. Leading the Future has raised $75.1 million in total, with corporate contributions making up 67% of that figure. Combined with direct donations from co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the firm’s political footprint reaches $115.5 million.

A third sector-specific super PAC, Win for America, has received $43 million from online betting companies FanDuel and DraftKings, which contributed $19.5 million each. Win for America’s corporate contributions represent 100% of its reported funding.

MAGA Inc. also a major beneficiary

Beyond sector-specific super PACs, corporations have directed significant sums to MAGA Inc., the super PAC originally created to support Trump-endorsed candidates. MAGA Inc. has received $120.6 million in corporate contributions this cycle — 35% of its $342 million total raised.

Crypto.com parent Foris Dax contributed $35 million to MAGA Inc., making it the top corporate donor to the committee. Other crypto contributors include Gemini Trust Company ($4.4 million), Blockchain.com ($5 million), and Ondo Finance ($2.1 million).

Tools for Humanity Corporation — which runs OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s biometric identity startup — contributed $5 million to MAGA Inc. days before Trump’s inauguration. Altman has since stated publicly that he “would love to see money out of politics.”

OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife Anna gave $25 million to MAGA Inc. and $25 million to Leading the Future, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that Brockman and OpenAI’s global affairs chief Chris Lehane were involved in initiating the latter super PAC.

Undisclosed spending is likely higher

The $517 million figure does not capture all corporate political activity. Meta Platforms is spending an additional $65 million through non-federal super PACs to counter state-level AI regulation, and Anthropic has pledged $20 million to a group backing AI safety-oriented candidates — funds not yet reflected in FEC disclosures.

Dark money organizations, which are not required to disclose their donors, add further uncertainty to the total.

This post Crypto Firms Lead $517 Million Corporate Surge Into 2026 Midterms first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman .

Full text

Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently a top seller on the PlayStation Store

Physical copies are also the best seller of multiple retailers

That's despite the controversy surrounding the game's physical edition, which includes a download code instead of a disc

The physical edition of Grand Theft Auto 6 is currently a top seller at multiple retailers, despite the game's download code controversy.

As spotted in a ResetEra post, multiple regional versions of the PlayStation Store, including the UK, USA, Japan, and more, have the digital version of GTA 6 listed as the number one best seller right now.

Between the Standard and Ultimate Editions, it appears that the more expensive $99.99 / AU$159.95 / £89.99 Ultimate Edition is the top choice as well.

That's just the digital version of the game for PS5 consoles, and it's harder to tell how well Xbox editions are performing.

That said, it looks like physical editions are flying off shelves at multiple retailers, too, with GTA 6 currently holding the number one best-selling spot in the PC & Video Games category at Amazon US and UK, as well as at GameStop.

@techradar

♬ original sound - TechRadar

That's despite the fact that physical copies don't come with a disc but rather a digital download code in the box , something that has caused a bit of a stir among the fanbase since it was revealed last week.

However, it appears that even amid controversy , players are willing to spend their money on the most anticipated game of all time.

Rockstar hasn't revealed why physical copies won't include a disc, but one reason could be that the studio is trying to minimize the potential for leaks as much as possible ahead of launch.

GTA 6 officially launches on November 19 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, but pre-loading begin on November 12 if you choose to pre-order.

A recent report suggested that retailers could run out of console stock during the holiday season due to high demand and ongoing issues surrounding hardware component availability.