The Verge

As long as it keeps up moderation. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has allowed Parler back onto the Google Play Store, according to a tweet from the social media platform, after it removed the app in January 2021, citing the platform’s lack of moderation on posts inciting violence at the US Capitol. Apple re-instated Parler to its App Store in May 2021, after temporarily removing it around the same time Google did.Parler, which advertises itself as a platform for free speech, agreed to moderate posts that show up in the Play Store app, according to a Bloomberg report. The company previously told The Verge that it has a similar deal that allows it to remain on the App Store — “Anything allowed on the Parler network but not in the iOS app will remain accessible through our web-based and Android... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is committing to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation for “several more years” beyond the existing marketing deal Sony has with Activision. Microsoft Gaming CEO and Xbox chief Phil Spencer made the commitment in a written letter to PlayStation head Jim Ryan earlier this year, and it’s the clearest sign yet that Call of Duty won’t suddenly disappear from PlayStation platforms if Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal is approved by regulators.“In January, we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements,” says Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung is warning customers about a cybersecurity incident in July, where “an unauthorized third party acquired information from some of Samsung’s U.S. systems,” including things like names, birthdays, contact info, and product registration information. The company says it discovered the breach on August 4th, and is currently investigating it with “a leading outside cybersecurity firm.”According to the company’s FAQ about the incident, it’s sending emails to customers who were specifically affected, and it will continue doing so as its investigation progresses. Samsung says that not everybody will have had the same info leaked. The company didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment on which of its systems were... Continue reading…

Leaked Sonos Sub Mini image | Image: WinFuture.de Sonos customers have been waiting for a cheaper subwoofer since the first signs of one popped up late last year, and now WinFuture.de is giving us a few pics for a better look at the device.The Sub Mini’s design was first revealed by The Verge several months ago, and these marketing images closely resemble our original rendering. As seen in the pictures above has a large cutout that appears to more closely resemble the port in Sonos’ larger, $749 Sub, along with an overall height that’s closer to the Sonos One speakers. Product render by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge The pictures don’t come with much in the way of details, specifications, or release date; however, as WinFuture points out, these marketing pics... Continue reading…

Time to buy some jams. | Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images Bandcamp is bringing back its Bandcamp Fridays promotion where it waives its cut of any money you spend buying music from artists or their labels on its marketplace. Historically, the company ran the promotion on the first Friday of every month, and that appears to be the case this time around, too. According to its update page, it has Bandcamp Fridays scheduled for September 2nd, October 7th, November 4th, and December 2nd.Bandcamp says that when you buy music during a Bandcamp Friday, 93 percent of that money goes to the artist or label on average (with the rest going to payment processing fees). That’s compared to an average of 82 percent the rest of the time. It started the promotion in 2020 in response to the pandemic’s impact on... Continue reading…

All the best backpacks, laptops, tablets, and wearables for the new school year. | The Verge Our favorite laptops, bags, and gadgets for students Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images The company had an ambitious plan to fight extremism on the platform. So what happened to it? Continue reading…

George Zhao announcing Honor’s first foldable, the Magic V, in early 2021 | Image: Honor Honor is planning to release its second foldable next year, and unlike the Honor Magic V, the company hopes to actually release the device outside of China. Honor’s CEO, George Zhao, confirmed the plans in an interview with The Verge ahead of this year’s IFA trade show in Berlin and said the company expects to launch its next foldable device in the first quarter of next year.“We’ve made the decision that next year, in Q1, we’ll bring our latest foldable smartphone to international markets,” including Europe, Zhao said. The CEO didn’t confirm any specifics or details for the new device but indicated that Honor’s major areas of focus for its foldables are making them thinner, lighter, and more affordable.A release in the first quarter... Continue reading…

There’s nothing to hate but nothing to truly love about Honor’s latest midrange device Continue reading…

The Beats Fit Pro are one of the many excellent pairs of true wireless earbuds on sale this weekend. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Labor Day weekend marks the bittersweet end of summer, but in the midst of kids heading back to school and the world of tech about to pop off with new stuff, there are deals and sales to take advantage of. Yes, Labor Day is meant to honor the American worker — and of course, the only way we really know how to celebrate is by spending. But to help your dollars go further in our gadget-filled world, we’re compiling some of the best tech deals happening from the lead-up to Labor Day and through the holiday weekend.Many deals and discounts are already available, and some run through Monday, September 5th. While some may not be explicitly labeled as Labor Day promotions, they’re just good deals regardless and worthy of your attention —... Continue reading…

Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s lawyers argued David Sacks’ main reason for trying to fight a subpoena filed in their case against Elon Musk is because he said he would on a podcast, and in a ruling issued Friday, the judge agreed.Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick (pdf):

Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images Every fan of every band has, at some point, been there. You spotted them performing at the Grammys, working out with James Corden, taking over Grand Central, or hanging out with Joe Biden. You heard Butter on the radio, and you were like, “Hey, that’s catchy.” You’re intrigued — you like their music, and they seem like cool guys. You’re ready to be a fan. So what’s the next step? How do you get into the band?I have good news for you: Army (the name of BTS’s fans) is a welcoming group. The prospect of joining an established fandom can be intimidating at times — but in general, we here in Army-land are very, very accustomed to being inundated by new, curious fans after every big award show, hit single, or other event that puts BTS all... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s getting there, slowly but surely Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a move that feels a little late, coming years after Chromebooks got access to Android apps and games, Google says that ChromeOS users will get access to an “early Alpha” of game controls optimized for certain touchscreen-only games. Mobile games are obviously made for use on phones with touchscreens, which many computers don’t have. To bridge the gap, starting with ChromeOS 105, Google’s operating system can turn key presses into simulated touches.According to Google, “We see game controls as a way to overcome initial challenges with the ChromeOS gaming experience while users wait for developers to fully optimize their apps for ChromeOS,” even as it pushes for game developers to include input support that works across phones,... Continue reading…

The LG MoodUp can flash in time with music streamed to its built-in Bluetooth speaker. In case anyone is needing extra RGB lighting in their lives, LG’s new MoodUp fridge has you covered. The refrigerator, which the South Korean electronics giant announced this week at IFA in Berlin, has LED light panels on its front that can illuminate in over a dozen different colors (22 for the upper panel, 19 for the lower). There’s also a built-in Bluetooth speaker (I know).You control the light panels through LG’s app, where there are a series of preset color schemes to match different seasons and moods. But of course, you can also take full control to create a gloriously ugly kitchen color scheme of your own devising. I was helpfully shown such an abomination during an in-person demonstration on the show floor, and it was quite... Continue reading…

Third-party billing options to Google’s Play Store roll out globally. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has quietly expanded its “User Choice Billing” pilot to let more developers of non-gaming Android apps offer third-party payment options as alternatives to Google Play’s. Developers will see their service fees of 15 to 30 percent reduced by 4 percent when users select a new third-party billing option, which the developer — not Google — must support in case of customer issues. The news was first reported by 9to5Google.Now, as of September 1st, registered developers from the European Economic Area (EEA), India, Japan, Indonesia, and Australia can participate in User Choice Billing, according to this enrollment page. Google contends that 99 percent of developers using the company’s own Play Store billing qualify for the 15 percent... Continue reading…

Nick Barclay / The Verge Workers at the Penn Square Apple Store in Oklahoma City have filed with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election, becoming the third US location to have done so. According to a press release, over 70 percent of the store’s salespeople, genius admins, technicians, creatives, and operations specialists, have signed cards to say they’re interested in being represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA).The NLRB’s bar for a sufficient showing of interest for an election is 30 percent of workers signing union cards.The filing was reported previously by Bloomberg, and the outlet writes that Michael Forsythe, an employee and organizer at the Oklahoma City store, said workers are looking for “more transparency... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Developer and App Store critic Kosta Eleftheriou has settled his lawsuit with Apple, according to a report from TechCrunch. The suit, filed in March 2021, argued that Apple made it difficult for him to sell his app, Flicktype, on the App Store, after it seemingly lost interest in acquiring the tech.The lawsuit alleged that Apple used its monopoly power as maker of the iPhone and as the company in charge of the App Store to “crush” developers competing with it through “exploitive fees and selective application of opaque and unreasonable constraints.” Eleftheriou also accused Apple of doing little to stem the tide of copycat scam apps that tricked potential users of his app, a swipe-based keyboard for the Apple Watch. (This was, by the... Continue reading…

The service will cost around €21.99 a month. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After a leak revealed Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family branding over the weekend, Microsoft has gone official with its new plan and revealed its pricing in Ireland and Colombia. The new subscription will allow Xbox Game Pass members to share with up to four other friends or family members at €21.99 per month in Ireland, and 49,900 COP in Colombia.Microsoft isn’t restricting this new Game Pass plan to just family members, and the only restriction is that people who are added to the Friends & Family plan need to be in the same country. Microsoft is currently testing this new Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan in Ireland and Colombia, with pricing at €21.99 per month instead of the regular €12.99 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.... Continue reading…

Outside of 3D, curved TVs are probably one of the industry’s most ill-advised gimmicks. Unless you sat at a very specific point in front of them, they resulted in a warped image, harsh reflections, and a generally unpleasant viewing experience, for close to no benefit. Seriously, they were terrible. It felt like curved TVs happened because companies could make them, rather than because they should.It took me a little while to realize it, but LG’s new 42-inch OLED Flex, which it’s announced this week at IFA and hopes to bring to market this fall, effectively marks the return of curved TVs. It may have a monitor-style stand featuring some gamer-styled RGB lighting, and LG may have confused things slightly by placing the OLED Flex on top... Continue reading…

T-Mobile has promised that the merger would be “jobs-positive.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Wall Street Journal reports T-Mobile’s engineering and network operations teams are experiencing waves of layoffs, which have included managers and executives, on top of thousands of jobs eliminated by restructuring after the company merged with Sprint in 2020. T-Mobile execs promised then that the merger was “all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the new T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter.”In April 2020, the companies had about 80,000 workers combined; however, as the Journal points out, T-Mobile’s most recent annual report (pdf) said it ended 2021 with 75,000 full- and part-time employees.

It’s still a large soundbar, but it’s more compact that Sennheiser’s first. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge Sennheiser’s debut soundbar, released in 2019, was a niche product for a couple of reasons. The first was the price. At $2,499.95, it rivaled the cost of many traditional surround sound systems comprised of AV receivers and multiple speakers. But perhaps more important was its size. I say this with love, but the original Ambeo Soundbar (which has now been renamed the Ambeo Soundbar Max) was a chunky boy, which hardly made it an easy sell for anyone looking to tuck it discreetly in front of their TV.So although it’s $1,000 cheaper, I think price might only be the second most important change with Sennheiser’s second soundbar, the $1,499.95 Ambeo Soundbar Plus, which the company launched today at an event in Berlin. Instead, I think its... Continue reading…

Thanks for the review, I guess? Microsoft has added a new sidebar to its Edge browser with buttons that let you see information about a site, check your email, access Microsoft Office, and even strip the essential elements of a recipe out of an overly long post (via Windows Central). The new feature seems to build on the “Search in sidebar” function added to Edge in 2020, but it adds even more multitasking abilities.The sidebar includes some small but useful panes, like the one that lets you search the web and quickly read articles, or the one that includes a variety of widgets, such as a calculator, dictionary, internet speed test, and unit convertor. Some of the panes are more fully featured; the Outlook one, for example, lets you read and send emails, as well as... Continue reading…

Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP via Getty Images On Thursday, Micron announced that it would invest $15 billion to build a new semiconductor plant in Idaho — just weeks after Congress passed $52 billion in new money to boost domestic chip manufacturing.Micron’s announcement is just the latest in a series of multi-billion-dollar plans to jump on the Biden administration’s recently approved CHIPS and Science Act. Last month, Micron said it would use the act’s new subsidies to invest $40 billion into US-based memory fabs, or fabrication plants, by 2030, creating an estimated 40,000 new jobs. The new Boise plant is expected to create 17,000 new jobs, including 2,000 Micron jobs, over the next eight years.“In our future, we will make EVs, chips, fiber optics, and other critical... Continue reading…

Photo by CHRIS DELMAS / AFP via Getty Images Though House of the Dragon reportedly gave HBO its biggest premiere of all time and has already been renewed for a second season, co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik’s getting ready to exit the series for his next big thing.According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sapochnik is leaving House of the Dragon just as he’s signed a new first-look development deal with HBO that will give the network priority consideration for whatever projects he starts developing next. Sapochnik will remain attached to House of the Dragon as an executive producer alongside newcomer Alan Taylor, who will also serve as an executive producer and direct episodes in the series’ second season. In a statement about his exit, Sapochnik said that it’d been an “honor and a... Continue reading…

Image: Sennheiser When it comes to getting the most immersive audio presentation from a standalone soundbar, no one has managed to outclass Sennheiser’s Ambeo. And considering that device’s sky-high $2,500 price, you’d expect it to deliver a sublime home theater experience. At IFA 2022, Sennheiser is adding to the Ambeo lineup by introducing the new Ambeo Soundbar Plus. The price is slightly lower but will likely still leave this one out of reach for many consumers. It costs $1,499.95, and preorders begin today.The Plus model is advertised as “the world’s first 7.1.4 standalone soundbar.” Sennheiser’s original Ambeo will remain for sale and is now being rebranded as the Ambeo Soundbar Max. It’s still larger than the new Plus, so the name makes sense in... Continue reading…

The Ski Inn bar and restaurant amid a heatwave on the shore of the Salton Sea on August 31st, 2022, in Bombay Beach, California. | Photo by Ariana Drehsler / Getty Images A long, brutal heatwave is expected to grip California at least through the holiday weekend, stressing the power grid. Officials are begging residents to conserve electricity in an effort to prevent outages.The state is now in its second day of a “Flex Alert” issued by the state’s power grid operator, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). Under the Flex Alert, Californians are urged to voluntarily curb their electricity use between 4PM and 9PM. That’s the time of day when the grid is under the most pressure because it’s when power demand typically rises as people come home from work, and there’s less solar energy available as the sun sets.Officials are begging residents to conserve electricityCutting down on energy use... Continue reading…

The Cine 1 looks best when projected onto an ALR screen, which Leica will also sell. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge Today, Leica — yes, the camera company — announced its first ultra-short throw (UST) laser projector at the big IFA show in Germany, capable of producing a 4K image of up to 100 inches with Dolby Atmos sound.This isn’t Leica’s first foray into digital projectors, which it once sold under the Pradovit brand. It’s also collaborated with other projector makers, including this obscure UST model from last year.The announcement was light on details, so my colleague Jon Porter chased down a demonstration of an early Cine 1 prototype at the Leica booth. Here’s what we learned from Ross Slavov, head of product management in Leica’s newly formed smart projection business unit, about the company’s current thinking about specs, pricing, and... Continue reading…

The AI-generated artwork entered by Jason Allen into the Colorado State Fair | Image: Jason Allen via Discord A game designer has sparked controversy after submitting an image created by an AI text-to-image generator to a state art competition and taking home first prize.Jason Allen entered the artwork titled “Theatre d’Opera Spatial” in the “Digital Arts / Digitally-Manipulated Photography” category of the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition but created the piece using a popular text-to-image AI generator named Midjourney.A Twitter post describing Allen’s win went viral earlier this week (and was first covered by Vice). The post elicited a strong response, with many users claiming that Allen had been deceptive in submitting the piece, particularly as most of the public is unaware of how text-to-image AI generators work. Allen, though,... Continue reading…

Image: Jabra At IFA 2022, Jabra is announcing the new $149 Elite 5 earbuds. Serving as the company’s midrange pair of buds — akin to something like the older Elite 75t — these will offer up to seven hours of continuous playback with active noise cancellation turned on. They also feature multipoint Bluetooth for two simultaneous connections, IP55 dust and water resistance, and codec support that includes aptX, AAC, and SBC.The Elite 5s contain 6mm drivers and customizable EQ. As for the design, Jabra says they’ll provide “a discreet, comfortable, and compact fit.” The earbuds share a teardrop shape that’s similar to the rest of the current Elite series and have six mics onboard for enhanced voice call performance with wind suppression. You also get... Continue reading…

Withings first teased measuring nerve health back at CES. | Image: Withings Withings has a few nifty ideas when it comes to smart scales, and for IFA 2022, it’s announced the Body Comp. What makes the Body Comp stand out is it can assess the health of your arteries and nerves in addition to “normal” body composition. Withings is also introducing a new Health Plus coaching service alongside the scale to help users meet their goals.Smart scales like the Body Comp all use BIA to send a weak current through your body to determine how much muscle, water, bone, and fat you have. (Though, you should always take these scales’ accuracy and health claims with a grain of salt.) What’s novel here is users can assess their vascular age, visceral fat, and nerve health from a single device. Visceral fat refers to the fat... Continue reading…

Image: 343 Industries 343 Industries is delaying its next season of Halo Infinite to March 2023, extending its current season that started in May to 10 months long instead of the original promised three months. While Halo Infinite players are desperate for fresh content, the long-awaited Forge beta has also now been delayed and will launch on November 8th alongside the co-op mode.Forge was originally planned for September, and it will allow Halo Infinite players to edit multiplayer levels and build new maps to share with fellow players. It was hugely popular in previous Halo games, and leaks have shown that Forge in Halo Infinite looks like it will be a lot of fun for players. 343 Industries is launching two new multiplayer maps alongside Forge on November... Continue reading…

Legal filings about clout chasing are forum drama for sophists. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge So the thing about Elon Musk is that he’s cliqued up — specifically with the so-called PayPal Mafia. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a group of influential men in Silicon Valley who all used to work at PayPal.Today, I’d like to focus our attention on a member of the PayPal Mafia: David O. Sacks, the former COO of PayPal and current venture capitalist. Sacks’ battle with Twitter over a subpoena the company issued in its lawsuit against Musk is a direct demonstration of the downside of being a made man.A Freudian would have a field day!If you’re in a group with Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Max Levchin, and the literal co-founders of YouTube and Yelp, you know, you’re in pretty rarified air. In fact, for a long time, it... Continue reading…

Lean, mean gaming machine | Image: Lenovo Lenovo has launched the IdeaPad 5i Chromebook — a device that looks fairly unremarkable but has a potentially standout screen. The device will be available in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in September 2022 with a starting price of €549 — US pricing and availability are still to be announced.The IdeaPad 5i is Lenovo’s first 16-inch Chromebook, and it’s a substantial one at 4.10 pounds and 0.8 inches thick. The display has a 2.5K resolution, a 16:10 aspect ratio, and a maximum brightness of 350 nits — but what really has the Chromebook community buzzing is that it also has a 120Hz refresh rate. That means you can see up to 120 frames per second when you’re gaming (on GeForce Now or Stadia, for example). It should also make for a... Continue reading…

A video of Trump at the hearings investigating the January 6th attack on the US Capitol | Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool / Getty Images YouTube’s recommendation algorithm pushed more videos about election fraud to people who were already skeptical about the 2020 election’s legitimacy, according to a new study. There were a relatively low number of videos about election fraud, but the most skeptical YouTube users saw three times as many of them as the least skeptical users.“The more susceptible you are to these types of narratives about the election…the more you would be recommended content about that narrative,” says study author James Bisbee, who’s now a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.In the wake of his 2020 election loss, former President Donald Trump has promoted the false claim that the election was stolen, calling for a repeat election as recently... Continue reading…

A new Pokémon means, well, lots of new pokémon. And the lead-up to Pokémon Violet and Scarlet has been full of monster reveals, the most recent of which is an artist who stays up all night and is a bit of a loner.Grafaiai, as it’s called, was revealed today in a clever documentary-style video clip that really makes me want a David Attenborough narrated series all about pocket monsters. The toxic monkey pokémon is cute, of course, but as with many of its adorable contemporaries, things get pretty dark when you look at the details. Here’s the official description:

The AirPods Max are the most premium listening device offered by Apple, but don’t pay full price. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Holy hell, it’s September. A major Apple event is next week, and summer is pretty much over (except for the crippling heat, that is). Before you know it, we’ll be talking about “Techtober” and holiday shopping. Wait, before you throw your keyboard or phone at me, I’ll get to the deals.First up, you can pick up the AirPods Max in select colors (silver, pink, blue, and green) for $429, which is a cool $120 off their full price. This is the best possible price for a new pair of AirPods Max so far. They are regularly discounted to $479, so you should never pay full price, but this deal doesn’t come around all the time.While $429 is still a sizable amount for headphones, the noise-canceling AirPods Max are some of the best options around... Continue reading…

Nintendo’s Dragalia Lost is shutting down at the end of 2022. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge When games like Dragalia Lost shut down for good, what happens next? Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge Even iOS apps occasionally misbehave — they can crash, or freeze, or otherwise stop working. If you’re new to iOS or just haven’t had this happen before, you may not know how to actually quit an app (as opposed to just swiping it off your screen). Here’s how to quit an app and, if you need to, shut down your phone. (We used a phone loaded with a beta of iOS 16, but this will work with earlier versions of the OS just as well.)Quit an app

Image: TCL TCL finally made a Roku TV with excellent gaming specs. The company is in a tick-tock release pattern of sorts with its popular 6-Series TV. One year, there’s a Roku version; the next year, we get a Google TV edition, and now, the company is upgrading the Roku model again. Like previous 6-Series TVs, the latest one features Mini LED backlighting, which utilizes thousands of tiny LEDs spread across hundreds of local dimming zones to create top-notch brightness, impressive contrast, and deep black levels. This panel has up to 360 dimming zones. And it uses quantum dot color, with “a measured 100 percent color volume in the DCI-P3 Hollywood reference color space,” according to TCL.For the 2022 6-Series Roku TV, TCL is putting a big... Continue reading…

The Samsung Galaxy A23 5G in black, featuring a 120Hz adaptive display. | Image: Samsung Samsung is bringing the Galaxy A23 5G to the US today, providing fast 5G connectivity and a 120Hz full HD display for just under $300.The US release only includes a single color (black), with prices starting from $299.99 at AT&T, T-Mobile, and elsewhere. It was previously announced that this handset would also hit the Taiwanese market in blue and peach versions in addition to black.The Galaxy A23 5G comes with a 6.6-inch 1080 x 2408 LCD display with adaptive 120Hz refresh to allow for smoother scrolling and gameplay. It features a Snapdragon 695 processor and will ship with Android 12 running Samsung’s One UI 4.1. Memory is available in 4GB, 6GB or 8GB and you get a choice of either 64GB or 128GB for storage. If that isn’t sufficient,... Continue reading…

A step forward for Motorola, but not a category leader Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is now testing its highly requested Edit Tweet feature. After years of memes and jokes, editable tweets will be available to some Twitter Blue subscribers later this month. The feature is currently undergoing “internal testing” and appears to mimic Facebook in its edit style, with a linked edit history for tweets that we saw in leaks earlier this year.“Tweets will be able to be edited a few times in the 30 minutes following their publication,” according to a Twitter blog post. “Edited Tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so it’s clear to readers that the original Tweet has been modified.” Image: Twitter An edited tweet The edit label will include a complete edit history with past... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is publicly pleading for its Activision Blizzard deal to go ahead, just as the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has expressed concerns. Microsoft surprised the gaming world earlier this year with its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion deal, by far the biggest ever in gaming. Now regulators are starting to take notice.The UK’s CMA says it’s “concerned that Microsoft’s anticipated purchase of Activision Blizzard could substantially lessen competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services.” After an initial research phase, the CMA is signaling it will move to what it calls a Phase 2 investigation if Microsoft isn’t able to answer its concerns within five... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In September 2012, Apple introduced the iPhone 5 — it was bigger, faster, and more powerful than its predecessor, but perhaps the most revolutionary change was how you charged it. Onstage to introduce the new phone, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller announced that the company was switching from the 30-pin connector that had been on every iPhone to date over to a small new port called Lightning. Lightning seemed to be everything its predecessor and competitors were not: reversible, compact, and robust. Schiller called it “a modern connector for the next decade.”Fast forward to 2022, and the connector has lasted the decade Schiller promised. Every iPhone still comes with a Lightning cable, and the cable remains a reliable method for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The European Commission is seeking to improve phone and tablet battery life and spare parts availability. In draft proposals published this week, European regulators are planning to force phone manufacturers to supply at least 15 different parts to professional repairers for five years after a device first goes on sale. Consumers will also get guaranteed access to replacement batteries, displays, chargers, back covers, and even SIM / memory card trays for five years.The draft proposals are designed to improve repairability of smartphones and tablets and reduce their carbon footprint across Europe. The Financial Times reports that extending smartphone lifecycles by five years would be roughly the equivalent of removing 5 million cars... Continue reading…

Nvidia’s DGX A100 workstation is affected by the new restrictions. | Image: Nvidia The US government has imposed new export restrictions on high-end computers chips used to conduct AI research, citing possible military applications for the technology. Two leading manufacturers, Nvidia and AMD, have been blocked from selling certain chips to China and Russia, with the restrictions forming part of the United States’ ongoing strategy of limiting tech exports to curb the rise of rival powers.Nvidia and AMD disclosed the new restrictions on Wednesday, with Nvidia noting in a regulatory filing that the ban affects its A100 and H100 GPUs. The US government told Nvidia it wishes to “address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China and Russia.” AMD c... Continue reading…