During Meta’s annual Connect conference later today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg will reveal “Project Cambria,” the high-end VR headset he has been teasing in interviews and social media posts all year. The device is expected to focus on more than just VR by adding mixed reality, technology that blends the virtual and physical. Face and eye tracking will also enable more realistic avatars and higher-fidelity graphics. Expect a price point that is significantly higher than the Quest 2’s $399 price tag.

Zuckerberg has been hyping the promise of virtual reality for a long time. But this year, he arguably has more to prove than ever. Investors are doubting his expensive pivot to the metaverse. His main business of social media is under pressure like never before, and he recently put in place a hiring freeze for the rest of the year. Quest sales are growing quickly, with estimates saying they have surpassed 15 million. But VR remains a nascent, money-losing business for Meta for the foreseeable future.

During Connect today, all eyes will be on whether Cambria — or the Quest Pro as it has been rumored to be officially named — will be enough of an advancement to expand the market for VR. Meta knows its flagship metaverse app, Horizon Worlds, is riddled with software bugs and underused by even its own employees, so any updates to that platform will also be notable.

T-Mobile announced back in August that it’ll be teaming up with SpaceX to use its Starlink microsatellite network for emergency mobile network coverage. But AT&T is cooking up its own partnership, to use AST SpaceMobile’s satellite network to provide coverage in hard-to-reach areas of the US.

AT&T will use AST SpaceMobile’s network to supplement its mobile network, but only for emergencies at first, including for its FirstNet network for emergency responders. But later, the carrier will use the satellite network to help connect consumer communications, as Bloomberg reported earlier.

AT&T will start testing satellite integrations with its mobile network later this year in Hawaii and Texas, the carrier confirmed to CNET. It isn’t yet a done deal yet, though: Should the testing be successful and the integration be commercially viable, and if AT&T and AST SpaceMobile can hammer out an agreeable arrangement, then the plan will go forward using satellite coverage to fill in the gaps for the carrier’s mobile network.

But at least the satellite connectivity will work with AT&T’s current LTE and 5G spectrum, so customers may not need new phones to benefit from the expanded coverage, according to a statement the carrier provided to CNET.

“The direct-to-mobile approach that we are helping AST SpaceMobile test is intended to complement and integrate with our existing mobile network,” the statement read.

AT&T is also continuing to work with other providers on enabling specific use cases for its satellite-and-mobile network, such as maritime communications for oil and gas rigs.

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Elon Musk gave Twitter employees an ultimatum in a midnight email: commit to a “hardcore” culture on Twitter or leave with severance. The Washington Post reports that Musk has asked Twitter employees to sign an online form by 5PM ET today committing to “long hours at high intensity.” If Twitter employees refuse to sign the form then they will reportedly receive three months of severance pay.

The email arrived barely a week after Musk’s first meeting with Twitter employees, and two weeks after he ordered mass layoffs — cutting roughly half of Twitter’s global workforce. “What works at SpaceX and Tesla is people being in the office and being hardcore,” Musk said during his first meeting with Twitter employees following the cuts.

That language was mirrored in the email to Twitter employees today, with Musk demanding that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore.” Musk has previously asked Tesla workers to “go super-hardcore” to meet targets.

Musk previously pushed Twitter employees to launch a new version of Twitter Blue with paid blue check verification with a deadline that would result in firing if it wasn’t met. The new Twitter Blue, which now costs $7.99 per month and gets you a blue verified check mark, eventually launched and quickly led to impersonation and chaos on the social network.

Meta’s planning major job cuts that could affect “thousands” of workers, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Sources familiar with the situation told the WSJ that the layoffs could begin as soon as Wednesday.

The Facebook and Instagram parent company reported over 87,000 employees at the end of September, but these “large-scale” layoffs are expected to slash a significant portion of staff members. According to the WSJthe layoffs could hit Meta even harder than the mass job cuts at Twitter, which affected about half of the company’s 7,500-employee workforce.

Meta declined to comment on the situation but pointed The Verge to Zuckerberg’s statement during the company’s earnings call last month. “In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas,” Zuckerberg said. “So that means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”

Although Zuckerberg says Facebook has more active users than ever before, investors are still concerned about the company’s pricey bet on the metaverse. Meta’s virtual reality arm lost $3.7 billion this past quarter and a total of $9.4 billion this year, while the company’s stock is trading at its lowest price since 2016.

The versatility of a great tablet is difficult to match. Having a portable gadget you can use to stream, video chat, surf the web and a whole lot more just makes sense. Samsung recently released the Galaxy Tab S8 lineup, and today only, you can snag one at Best Buy for up to $300 less. Be aware that these low-price offers expire tonight, Oct. 14.

While often people go for the modest and lower-cost models in a lineup or splurge on the highest-end models available, the midrange Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Plus was our favorite of these devices, and it even made our list of best android tablets of the year. This premium tablet features a 12.4-inch AMOLED display and is the perfect size for work and play, with a screen big enough and bright enough to work or stream on for a long time, while also being more portable than the Ultra.

As for video calls for work conferencing or with friends and family, the Plus has a 12-megapixel front-facing camera with intelligent autoframing. And the tablet also comes with DeX software, which lets you connect to both a mouse and external display, if you want to, making it versatile. Your purchase also includes an S Pen so you can take notes, draw and much more. Do you need to turn your tablet into a full workstation? You can get a keyboard cover to use it like a laptop — though that is sold separately. In fact, you