Poor souls in question are... have all been working in HTC's manufacturing division in Taiwan. Laying them off lowers HTC's employee count by roughly 22%. Official word from the company is that the layoff has been done in order to once more become profitable.

This is only the last in a long chain of HTC's misfortunes. It all begun in February, when then-president of the company left to pursue a ”personal career plan”. Soon afterwards a hundred US employees of the company have been released as part of a merger of the smartphone and VR divisions. Speaking of company's devices, they are not selling that great either: while U12+ is a good phone overall, its pressure-sensitive sides are more of an annoying gimmick than a selling feature, and the Vive Pro VR headset is seen as too costly.

Seems like working for HTC is not the best career option nowadays.

In lighter news, Australia now has a giant penis that can be seen from space

Benchmark of phone that may be iPhone x popped out on Geekbench