Apple’s solution to Dutch App Store dispute just earned it another €5 million fine

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s new proposals for dating apps in the Netherlands haven’t gone far enough to appease the country’s competition regulator, which has just announced that it’s fining the company another €5 million (around $5.6 million). It’s the fourth weekly fine levied against the company, bringing the total to €20 million (around $22.6 million), and these fines are set to continue weekly while the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) thinks Apple is failing to comply with its order.

The ACM’s order, which was made public in late December, says that Apple should allow dating app developers — and only dating app developers — to use alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system in the country. Apple first announced its intention to comply with...

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EV ads dominated the Super Bowl, but don’t expect to buy one anytime soon

Kia advertised its upcoming EV6 with a sad robot dog during Super Bowl LVI, but the electric car won’t be available for months to come. | Kia

The Super Bowl was lousy with electric car ads this year, with major automakers from General Motors to Nissan to BMW showing off their new electron-powered offerings. But before you rush down to the local dealership to check out the new EV from your favorite ad, be forewarned: don’t believe everything you see on TV.

It’s a classic case of car companies putting the electric cart before the horse. Since most people are likely unaware that many of these companies actually sell EVs, the auto industry needs to build brand awareness, and that’s going to cost an insane amount of money — roughly $6.5 million for a 30-second ad, according to NBC.

But the EV hype cycle is all out of whack, leaving many automakers in the uncomfortable position...

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How to use Zoom on the Echo Show

Zoom meetings are a part of everyday life for many of us. Whether you’re a middle schooler learning remotely or an executive with back-to-back meetings, or if it’s just that your book club still meets virtually, most of us have to grapple with the video conference company at some point in our week. Having another option for joining meetings other than your computer or squinting at your smartphone is a nice bonus, and if you have an Echo Show at home, it can make a useful hands-free Zoom machine.

Video calling with Zoom is currently available on the Echo Show 8 (first- and second-gen) and the Echo Show 10 (the one that rotates). Amazon has said Zoom will be coming to the Echo Show 15 later this year.

The Show 10 and the second-gen 8...

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Peloton’s new CEO says a sale isn’t in the cards

Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy says he’s not interested in a sale right now. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Last week was an eventful week for Peloton: it got a new CEO, investors unleashed their fury at outgoing CEO John Foley, 2,800 employees were fired, and then some of those employees crashed an all-hands. At the heart of the drama, a big question was whether new CEO Barry McCarthy had been brought on to get Peloton in shape for a sale as the company’s value has plunged to $8 billion from a pandemic high of $50 billion. However, in a Financial Times interview, McCarthy has officially nixed the idea for the “foreseeable future.”

“If I thought it was likely that the business was going to be acquired in the foreseeable future, I can’t imagine it would be a rational act to move across the country. There are lots of other things I could be...

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No, The New York Times did not make Wordle harder

Wordle — the viral daily word guessing game that was recently bought by The New York Times — has been on a tear in the past few days. Brainteasers like “ULTRA,” “ULCER,” and “ALOFT” have appeared, frustrating players, many of whom have taken to Twitter to complain that the game’s new owners are intentionally amping up the difficulty.

But while conspiracy theories abound that the rash of difficult words is a result of the New York Times Games division sitting around with devilish grins, looking to find the most difficult five-letter words in the lexicon, the truth is that The New York Times is innocent of Wordle crimes here.

wordle started out like 'h-o-u-s-e' and now it's like 'e-r-g-o-t' bruh the point was that you could be stupid...

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Apparently, people do use Bing

If you listened in to The Vergecast a couple of weeks ago, you might remember a sidebar discussion on how Android and Windows users in the EU are prompted to choose a default search engine to comply with antitrust regulations. “Nothing in the world can make you pick Bing,” said _The Verge e_ditor-in-chief Nilay Patel with utter certainty. He then invited Vergecast listeners who actually choose Microsoft’s search engine over Google’s to write to him: “if you're a Bing-by-choice kind of person, let me know.”

If a company is going to data mine me, I might as well get something out of it

As it turns out, some of our listeners are straight-up enthusiastic Bing users. “I know you were joking but I wanted to reach out,” a listener named Jimmy...

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Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is even more affordable for today only

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

At $59.99, Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is among the most affordable options out there that can intelligently tweak the temperature of your home and take voice commands via Alexa. But today’s deal at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy knocks $12 off of that price, and $47.99 matches the best deal we’ve seen on this smart home gadget yet. And just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s lacking in features or quality. My colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy called it “a $60 stunner” in her review, praising its clean design and smart features that live up to their promises.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you have one or more devices that recharge via USB-C, you owe it to yourself to snag a speedy charger. RavPower no...

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Opera browser now allows emoji-only web addresses

The Opera browser will allow emoji-only web addresses | Opera

Web browser company Opera said Monday it will enable emoji-only based web addresses “to bring a new level of creativity to the internet.” The integration is part of a partnership with Yat, a company that sells URLs with strings of emoji in them.

“It’s been almost 30 years since the world wide web launched to the public, and there hasn’t been much innovation in the weblink space: people still include .com in their URLs,” Jorgen Arnesen, executive vice president of mobile at Opera, said in a press release.

Yat pages are unique domains generated when someone purchases a string of emoji (which itself is called a Yat). The owner of a Yat can create an NFT of their emoji string, and the company plans to eventually let users connect their Yats...

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Samsung’s Galaxy S22 phones are the safe bet

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung’s new Galaxy S22 Ultra is getting a lot of buzz since it’s the reincarnation of the Note. By comparison, the regular S22 and S22 Plus are much more iterative with a design that’s similar to last year’s S21 lineup. It’s been reported that Samsung was disappointed with the sales performance of its flagship phones in 2021, and at first glance, there’s little about the S22 and S22 Plus that make them feel like must-have upgrades. They’ve got the standard mix of camera and performance enhancements, but no big wow factor.

But so what? There’s something to be said for Samsung’s hardware quality and consistency. The OLED screens in Galaxy phones are always that extra little bit nicer — in terms of uniformity, brightness, and so on — than...

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Snapchat will put ads within stories and share the money with creators

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snapchat is introducing a new way for creators on the app to earn money. The platform is testing mid-roll ads that appear in the Stories of a small group of US creators, with a wider rollout happening in the coming months.

When an ad is placed within a Snap Star’s Story, Snapchat will share the revenue with the creators. The company says the revenue share is based on a formula that takes into account metrics like posting frequency and engagement. The feature is only available to Snap Stars, who are creators or public figures with large followings that have been verified on Snapchat, indicated by a gold star.

In recent years, Snapchat has added various ways for creators to monetize their presence on the app. Snapchat users already see ads...

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Billionaire who flew to orbit with SpaceX buys three new missions to deep space

Jared Isaacman (left) and the rest of the Polaris Dawn crew | Image: Polaris

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who flew to Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule last year, plans to fly with SpaceX again. Today, Isaacman announced that he’s purchased three additional upcoming flights with SpaceX, a series of missions called “Polaris” that would take him deeper into space on the company’s spacecraft.

Isaacman, who made his fortune through his payment processing company Shift4 Payments, made headlines last year when he bankrolled an entire SpaceX Crew Dragon passenger mission in September, dubbed Inspiration4. He filled the three remaining seats on the vehicle with other civilian astronauts, including a childhood cancer survivor, an engineer, and a professor. The quartet all trained and eventually flew to orbit...

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Horizon Forbidden West plays just fine on a PS4

Horizon Forbidden West running on a PS4.

You don’t need a new console for Aloy’s latest adventure

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Nvidia’s RTX 3090 Ti is still missing, and the company refuses to say what’s going on

Nvidia announced its RTX 3090 Ti with faster memory and better performance at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in early January. After originally promising more information by the end of January, Nvidia has since remained silent about pricing or a release date for the RTX 3090 Ti. Now, the company is refusing to say what’s going on.

“We don’t currently have more info to share on the RTX 3090 Ti, but we’ll be in touch when we do,” Nvidia spokesperson Jen Andersson recently told The Verge.

Just days after Nvidia’s original announcement of the RTX 3090 Ti, TweakTown and VideoCardzreported that Nvidia had halted the production of the flagship GPU. The company had reportedly been planning to release the RTX 3090 Ti on January 27th, but...

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NFTs seized by UK tax authorities for the first time

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The UK’s tax department, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), says it’s the first authority in the country to seize an NFT, _BBC News_reports. The seizure was made as part of a £1.4 million (roughly $1.9 million) fraud case, in which three individuals have been arrested. The authority seized £5,000 worth of crypto assets (around $6,762) alongside three NFT artworks which have yet to be valued.

As cryptocurrencies have exploded in price, high profile seizures by authorities have become increasingly common. Just this month the USA’s Department of Justice seized $3.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency linked to the 2016 Bitfinex hack. But this is one of the first high profile seizures of NFTs, digital assets that attempt to serve as proof...

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Was that a tabletop bowling toy in Book of Boba Fett?

Mok Shaiz’s majordomo reads from an 80s tabletop bowling game. | Screenshot: The Book of Boba Fett

Keen-eyed observers might have spotted something a little off about the digital notepad used by Mok Shaiz’s majordomo in last week’s finale of The Book of Boba Fett. As pointed out by Mike Mika on Twitter, rather than the hi-tech instrument you might expect, the prop held by actor David Pasquesi appears to be a tabletop Coleco Bowlaltronic toy from the 1980s.

Boba Fett thus continues Star Wars’ proud tradition of repurposing ordinary household objects as sci-fi gadgets in its galaxy far, far away. Perhaps the most famous example crops up in Episode V, when an extra can be seen in the background of Cloud City carrying what appears to be a household ice cream maker. This being Star Wars, the background character eventually received an e...

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Horizon Forbidden West’s incredible world is easy to get lost in

Where most open world games can offer a paralyzing amount of choices, Horizon Forbidden West doesn’t feel too overwhelming

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The first trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuts at the Super Bowl

It’s time to return to Middle Earth: the first trailer for Amazon’s incredibly ambitious The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Powerhas finally arrived during the Super Bowl LVI, giving a first good look at the upcoming prequel series.

The trailer reveal comes after a steady stream of teasers for the upcoming series, which will be set hundreds of years before the events of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings in what Tolkien referred to as “The Second Age” of Middle Earth (as opposed to his more popular books and their film adaptations, which take place during the Third Age.)

Amazon’s series will be condensing some of Tolkien’s timeline from The Silmarilion, which spans thousands of years and documents key events in the history of Middle...

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Polestar fires shots at Tesla and Volkswagen, promises ‘no compromises’ in Super Bowl ad

Polestar made its Super Bowl debut with a Polestar 2 commercial that aimed to set the electric car newcomer apart from traditional car companies by taking a shot at the entire concept of flashy car commercials — and at Tesla and Volkswagen, specifically.

The 30-second ad, titled “No Compromises” makes a litany of claims for Polestar, promising “No epic voiceovers,” “No empty promises,” and “No hidden agendas.” More pointed claims saw Polestar take a jab at Tesla CEO Elon Musk (“No conquering Mars,”) and Volkswagen (“No dieselgate,”) over soaring shots of the company’s Polestar 2 electric sedan.

Polestar is a relatively new player in the electric car space, tied closely to Volvo and (notably) offering the first car that’s entirely...

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Coinbase’s bouncing QR code Super Bowl ad was so popular it crashed the app

Coinbase just made its Super Bowl debut with a remarkable clever QR code ad that might have been too popular: the company’s “Less talk, more Bitcoin,” campaign appears to have temporarily knocked out its app following the ad airing during the broadcast

ICYMI

Now that we have your attention we'd like to announce that we're giving away $15 in BTC to anyone who joins Coinbase by 2/15.

Click below for more info and RT to tell your friends!

Sign up and see terms here → https://t.co/fKHisXZJJcpic.twitter.com/SDWUup2Ql5

— Coinbase (@coinbase) February 14, 2022

The full 60-second ad almost entirely consisted of a colorful bouncing QR code, reminiscent of the iconic bouncing DVD logo meme. When scanned, the code brought viewers to...

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ new trailer is even more chaotic than the last

Marvel Studios

The _Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness_teaser that played at the very end of Spider-Man: No Way Home was an unexpected surprise that, for all its flashiness, didn’t say a thing about the movie’s plot or how Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) are meant to help Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) fix the existence of all things. The movie’s latest trailer does, though.

Somewhere out there in the multiverse, one of the countless variants of Stephen Strange has gone and put a dent in the multiverse that the original live-action variant now has to put right.

Strange’s recent magical meddling in _No Way Home_probably has something to do with how the multiverse is damaged and how a seemingly evil...

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Google made a smart lamp that you’ll probably never be able to buy

The dLight comes with built-in support for the Google Assistant. | Image by Google via Ben Gold

If you’re in the market for a Google Assistant-supported smart lamp, you’ll be sorely disappointed to know that Google created one, but it’s only for employees, as reported by 9to5Google. Google designer Ben Gold tweeted out an image of the lamp, cleverly called the dLight, noting it “will likely never be for sale outside of the company.”

The Google lamp is called the “dLight” and I confirmed that it’s not confidential. Again, this product will likely never be for sale outside of the company. pic.twitter.com/fMmDXdr6Yk

— Ben Gold (@bengold) February 11, 2022

The ultra-modern lamp features a circular base and thin post that houses a cylindrical light, and, admittedly, its bright white color almost makes it look like something you’d...

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Alienware’s upcoming QD-OLED monitor has a $1,299 price tag

Image by Dell

Alienware’s upcoming 34-inch gaming monitor is the first of its kind to come with Samsung’s new Quantum Dot OLED panel, and it will cost you a reasonable $1,299, according to a report from Ars Technica. The Dell-owned company debuted the monitor (AW3423DW) at CES this year and will start shipping it out this spring.

We're excited to announce that the Alienware 34 QD-OLED Gaming Display will arrive early this Spring for $1,299 USD.

In addition, the Alienware Tri-Mode Wireless Gaming Headset (AW920H) is also set to arrive early Spring for $199 USD. pic.twitter.com/C4QoIGfjea

— ALIENWARE (@Alienware) February 11, 2022

While the price isn’t exactly low, it’s still cheaper than some of the standard OLED monitors currently on the market....

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Intel says its new crypto chip is designed to be energy-efficient

Image by Intel

Intel is investing in blockchain technology with a new chip designed to mine cryptocurrency (via Reuters). The company is focusing on sustainability, and plans on “developing the most energy-efficient computing technologies at scale.”

Intel’s first crypto-focused chip, which it calls a “blockchain accelerator” is set to ship later this year. Two companies have already preordered the technology, including Bitcoin mining company GRIID Infrastructures and Block, the Jack Dorsey-owned fintech company formerly known as Square.

The environmental impact of cryptocurrency mining has become a huge concern

“We expect that our circuit innovations will deliver a blockchain accelerator that has over 1000x better performance per watt than mainstream...

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A rocket is still set to slam into the Moon next month — but it may not be from SpaceX after all

A mosaic image of the Moon’s north pole, taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft | Image: NASA/JPL/USGS

Last month, an astronomer and space tracking expert made a bit of a splash when he predicted that a piece of an old SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket left in space for the last seven years was going to collide with the Moon this March. But now he’s changing that prediction in a big way. While the rocket part he’s been tracking is still on a collision course with the Moon, he now believes that the vehicle is not an old Falcon 9 part, but an old Chinese rocket instead.

The update comes from Bill Gray, an astronomer and asteroid tracker running Project Pluto, who has been following this doomed object since March of 2015. He says the object was first picked up by the Catalina Sky Survey, a program that uses telescopes near Tucson, Arizona to scan the...

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Nope’s first trailer is a hard yes

Universal Pictures

Universal’s Nopefrom director Jordan Peele is one of the rare modern movies with this much hype around it to make it this close to its release date without the public knowing basically anything about it.

Building up that sort of suspense is a huge gamble on the studio’s part that could go either way, but Nope’s first trailer certainly creates the impression that Peele’s gone and done it again — “it” here meaning “dreamed up something terrible and turned it into a work of art we’re all going to become obsessed with.”

Nope’s first trailer introduces Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer’s two cattle ranching characters who spend their days working with horses on farms while dreaming of making it big as professional horse handlers for film...

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Meta’s Quest 2 Super Bowl ad takes a retired animatronic dog into the metaverse

Image: Facebook

Meta has debuted its Quest 2 Super Bowl ad ahead of the big game, and it’s hard to get a grasp on how exactly it’s supposed to promote the metaverse (via Wall Street Journal). It evokes a strange mix of nostalgia — and the slight fear — associated with a childhood spent around unsettling animatronics, all while simultaneously giving off Five Nights at Freddy’s and Black Mirror vibes.

The commercial opens in a Chuck E. Cheese-esque environment — so cleverly called Questy’s — with a fuzzy animatronic dog, a pink six-armed creature, and two penguins performing Simple Mind’s “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” on stage at the arcade. Soon after, a moving crew drags the lifeless bodies of the animatronic band out of the building as the location...

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Lost Ark becomes the second most played game in Steam history after just 24 hours

Lost Ark has comfortably passed 1 million concurrent players after just 24 hours, becoming the second most played game in Steam history by concurrent counts. The Diablo-like MMO launched yesterday in the West, after Amazon Games collaborated with Smilegate RPG to localize and translate Lost Ark and make it available in English. It has now passed concurrent records for both Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and _Dota 2,_which regularly dominate the top of Steam’s most-played games.

Lost Ark is so popular right now that it has experienced server issues and there’s a queue just to start playing. SteamDB lists concurrent players of Lost Ark at 1,311,842, passing CS:GO’s record of 1,308,963 players and Dota 2’s of 1,295,114. It’s not clear...

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PSA: Update Zoom on Mac to fix a bug that keeps your mic on after meetings

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’re using Zoom on a Mac, now’s the time to make sure it’s updated to version 5.9.3. Zoom has acknowledged a bug that appears to cause the microphone on Macs running macOS Monterey to stay on even after leaving a meeting, first reported by The Register (via 9to5Mac).

Screenshot: Dan Seifert

The bug causes the mic indicator light on macOS Monterey to appear when Zoom isn’t in use.

Users have been complaining about the issue since December, as documented in a post on Zoom’s community forum. Several users noticed that the orange recording indicator light in the Control Center appears when Zoom isn’t being used — the indicator light is a privacy feature introduced in Monterey that warns you when an application...

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Netflix orders docuseries on crypto laundering couple

Heather Morgan, aka Razzlekhan, was arrested with her husband for allegedly laundering $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. | Image: Razzlekhan

Netflix is gearing up to create a documentary series about the couple who allegedly laundered $4.5 billion worth of stolen Bitcoin (via Variety). This comes just days after Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were arrested in connection with the crimes — and not long after many of us (regrettably) became aware of Morgan’s rapping alter-ego, Razzlekhan, aka the “Crocodile of Wall Street.”

The couple allegedly attempted to launder the stolen funds by buying gold and NFTs

The docuseries will be directed by Chris Smith, the executive producer behind the bizarre hit Tiger Kingand director of FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened. Nick Bilton, whose portfolio includes a documentary about the Theranos scandal, The Inventor: Out for...

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MoviePass’ CEO wants in on the metaverse

MoviePass is set to return this summer after being swooped up and resuscitated by its original co-founder Stacy Spikes. During a launch presentation on Thursday, Spikes took the stage in New York to hype the relaunch of his embattled movie ticket subscription service. There was plenty of fanfare and, somewhat bizarrely, references to Web3 technology. But one thing that Stacy didn’t mention on stage was MoviePass’ metaverse aims.

“Some of the players in the metaverse right now are a little game-y, when I feel like you want to just watch the movie,” Spikes tells The Verge. “You don’t need fake popcorn; you don’t need tomatoes; you don’t need other things that are in there. And that’s where we’re looking at it, and it’s something we’re...

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