Eddy Cue reportedly has bigger plans for Apple’s billion-dollar streaming and ads business

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, is considering restructuring Apple’s services business to redirect more attention to streaming and advertising, according to a report from Insider. In its most recent earnings report, Apple said its services, which include the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple News, Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and iCloud, added 825 million subscribers and earned $19.8 billion in revenue.

As part of the shake-up, Cue has reportedly pulled Peter Stern, Apple’s current vice president of services, off of advertising to focus solely on its services division. Sources close to the situation told Insider that Todd Teresi, Apple’s vice president of advertising platforms, has absorbed Stern’s previous advertising...

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Elon Musk says he’s ‘very much on the same page’ as the EU on social media laws

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Tesla billionaire and future Twitter owner Elon Musk says he’s “very much on the same page” as the European Union about the Digital Services Act, a package of web platform regulations. Musk appeared in a short video alongside EU Commissioner Thierry Breton to confirm his support for the DSA, which — among other things — requires large platforms to police illegal content and assess the risk of harm their services pose, including from disinformation.

“I think it’s exactly aligned” with the future goals for the Twitter platform, Musk said in a short video posted by Breton. “It’s been a great discussion, and I really think I agree with everything you said, really. I think we’re very much of the same mind, and I think anything that my...

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Ploopy and the promise of an open-source trackball

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The worst thing about my beloved Logitech trackball is the software. Every time my computer restarts the annoying Logitech software pops up and asks me to fiddle with my system preferences. I never do. My trackball works exactly as I need it to, and the software seems to do nothing but vex me.

A small company called Ploopy, started by brothers Colin and Phil Lam, has created a trackball — also called Ploopy — that has no annoying software. Instead it relies on QMK, open-source firmware originally created for keyboards that stores all the crucial settings on the hardware instead of the computer.

That wasn’t the reason I purchased a Ploopy. It was all the other elements of the open-source trackball that appealed to me: Ploopy’s...

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EA is ditching the FIFA branding starting with next year’s soccer game

EA is moving on from one of the most recognizable brands in gaming. | Image: EA

EA is officially dropping the FIFA branding for its hit soccer video games starting with next year’s release, the company announced Tuesday. The new title for the games will be EA Sports FC.

Despite the name change, it sounds as if much of the DNA of the FIFA games will remain the same. “Everything you love about our games will be part of EA Sports FC — the same great experiences, modes, leagues, tournaments, clubs and athletes will be there,” EA’s Cam Weber said in a blog post. “Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Pro Clubs and Volta Football will all be there. Our unique licensing portfolio of more than 19,000+ players, 700+ teams, 100+ stadiums and 30 leagues that we’ve continued to invest in for decades will still be there, uniquely in EA...

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Peloton’s restructuring plan is off to a slow start

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When Barry McCarthy stepped up as Peloton’s new CEO last quarter amid news the company had laid off 2,800 employees, it was clear he had his work cut out for him. Since then, McCarthy has been vocal about shifting the company’s focus from hardware to software. That new direction can be explained by looking at today’s Q3 earnings release, which paints a tough financial picture for Peloton. The company continued to post larger than expected losses, and stock prices subsequently plunged more than 20 percent.

Peloton said today that its Q3 losses were $757.1 million, compared to an $8.6 million in losses at this time last year. Meanwhile, revenue slid to $964.3 million from $1.26 billion a year ago. As with last quarter, Peloton attributed...

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LG’s massive Gram 17 is on sale at Amazon for just shy of its best price ever

The LG Gram 17 is a lightweight powerhouse. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Our deals post today has a little something for everyone, from laptops and peripherals to a soundbar that doubles as a 4K streaming device. Kicking things off, we have the 2021 LG Gram 17, a lightweight laptop with heavyweight power. Normally this configuration of the 17-inch laptop runs $1,849.99, but it’s currently on sale for just $1,398.94 at Amazon, nearly matching its best price to date.

The LG Gram 17 uses a slim, elegant design but contains some serious power under the hood. The 17-inch display has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 and is powered by an Intel Core i7-1195G7 and 16GB of RAM. The included 1TB SSD offers plenty of space for all of your files and applications as well, but the Gram 17 also has a microSD card reader if you...

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Apple discontinues the iPod after 20 years

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Apple has announced that it’s discontinuing the iPod Touch, the last remaining model in its lineup of portable music players. In a news post on Tuesday, the company says that it will sell the current Touch “while supplies last.”

While Apple may be done with making dedicated music players, the company says that “the spirit of iPod lives on” in all of its devices that play music, such as the iPhone, iPad, and HomePod Mini.

The iPod Touch going away marks the end of an era. As Apple notes, it introduced the first iPod “over 20 years ago.” The original FireWire-equipped model acted as just a portable music player, and Apple made models that were pretty much exclusively for listening to audio up until 2017, when it discontinued the iPod Nano...

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Specialized launches new utility e-bike brand Globe to replace ‘joyless’ car trips

Specialized launched a new sub-brand called Globe dedicated to building high-quality electric utility bikes that are designed specifically to replace car trips. Globe will be “an extension of the Specialized brand that will focus on bringing more fun to local living while reducing the number of car, truck, and SUV trips needed for everyday transportation,” the company says.

E-bikes are unique among two-wheeled vehicles thanks to their very real ability to replace car trips for the vast majority of owners, especially those trips that are under five miles. Cargo and utility e-bikes in particular excel at reducing car usage thanks to their rugged design and payload capacity. Specialized, the third-largest bicycle manufacturer in the US...

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The Verge’s 2022 Graduation Gift Guide

Illustration by Carolina Moscoso / The Verge

Congratulate your graduate with one of these great gifts

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Podcasting will be a $4 billion industry by 2024

Remember when podcasting becoming a $1 billion industry was a big deal? So quaint. Let’s get into it.

Podcasting will be a $4 billion industry in two years

It’s the boom times for audio. Ahead of the Podcast Upfronts, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers released their annual joint report on the podcasting business, projecting that the industry will generate $2 billion in revenue this year and $4 billion by 2024.

That growth is not just because the number of podcasts and time people spend listening to podcasts are increasing (though that doesn’t hurt). A lot of it, according to executives at IAB, also comes from advances in ad tech that allow advertisers to better target audiences and encourage them to spend...

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NASA’s InSight lander detects largest ‘marsquake’ yet on Red Planet

NASA’s beleaguered InSight lander on Mars has detected a magnitude 5 “marsquake” — the largest one the spacecraft has felt yet since landing on the planet in November of 2018. It’s a major moment that comes during a fraught time for InSight, as the spacecraft’s solar panels continue to gather dust that will eventually bring an end to the vehicle’s life on Mars.

InSight’s mission on the Red Planet has been to probe the interior of Mars, primarily by sensing for tremors from the surface. Unlike quakes here on Earth, which are typically caused by shifting tectonic plates, “marsquakes” are thought to be caused by the cooling of Mars over time, which causes the planet’s crust to become more brittle and crack. Equipped with an extremely...

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Jackery’s solar generator can harness mountains of power

Are you ready to carry 150 pounds of solar-powered battery in your backpack? | Image: Jackery

Jackery’s Solar Generator 2000 Pro kit is here to bend nature’s will to your desire to take your modern tech lifestyle off the grid. Jackery provides the Explorer 2000 Pro Portable Power Station and six SolarSaga 200W solar panels — you provide the transportation and an employer that lets your work from anywhere.

The Explorer 2000 Pro Power Station features 2160 watt-hours of lithium-ion storage capacity and up to 2200W AC output (4400W peak surge) suitable for powering small household appliances. Fully charged, it has enough juice to charge a laptop about 16 times, run a projector for 24 hours, or power an electric BBQ for about 100 minutes. It has eight outlets: three AC, two 18W QuickCharge 3.0 USB-A, two 100W USB-C PD, and one 12V /...

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Razer’s Viper V2 Pro wireless gaming mouse is extremely lightweight

The Viper V2 Pro looks very similar to previous versions, but it’s made just for right-handed gamers. | Razer

Razer has delivered a follow-up to its original Viper gaming mouse from 2019. The new wireless Viper V2 Pro is all about shedding off what little excess weight it had before. Like almost every peripheral company, Razer is gunning for the top place with the lightest wireless mouse, and, currently, it holds the crown with its latest mouse. It weighs 58 grams, which is a few grams below the runner-up, Logitech’s G Pro X Superlight. Similarly, the Viper V2 Pro manages this feat without being drilled full of holes to lop off weight. The V2 Pro is launching today for $149.99.

Even with a weight reduction, the Viper V2 Pro doesn’t feel compromised in terms of hand feel, performance, or battery life — all of the things that matter most with a...

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Intel’s Core i9-12950HX has 16 cores and 55 watts of power

Intel is announcing seven new mobile processors. The group, known as the “HX” line, includes two Core i5, three Core i7, and two Core i9 options.

Intel’s 12th Gen mobile chips haven’t disappointed so far. We’ve seen significant performance gains over the previous generation, though battery life has continued to be an area where the company often lags behind Apple and AMD. We don’t necessarily expect the new HX CPUs to buck that trend — these are all about power.

Four of the seven chips here have 16 cores and 24 threads (with eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores). The flagship chip, the Core i9-12950HX, is the real beast. It runs at a base power of 55W, with a maximum turbo power of up to 157W. The...

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Microsoft’s Adaptive Accessories are designed to be customizable inputs

Microsoft will make an adaptive mouse and buttons. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft has announced a lineup of adaptive accessories which are meant to augment or replace the regular keyboards and mice that people with disabilities could struggle to use. The lineup consists of three different devices: the Adaptive Mouse, Adaptive Buttons, and the Adaptive Hub. The mouse and buttons are made to support 3D-printed accessories so you can customize them to work the way you want them to.

The mouse core that houses the buttons and sensor is a small, square-shaped puck that’s designed to clip into a palm rest. The “tail” Microsoft makes for the mouse can act as a palm rest. There’s also a thumb rest that you can flip around, letting you use the mouse with your right or left hand. You can also easily attach 3D-printed...

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Lenovo debuts both its most powerful and slimmest 16-inch Legion gaming laptops

The Slim 7 and 7i can impressively be configured with a 99.99Wh battery. | Image: Lenovo

Lenovo’s highest-end gaming laptops for 2022 have been unveiled. The 16-inch Legion 7 and 7i (the “i” denotes Intel CPUs) can be configured with the current best of the best in terms of processors and graphics. The Legion 7 is one of a few gaming laptops that can be configured with AMD’s Ryzen 9 6900HX processor along with Radeon RX6850M XT graphics. On the Intel side, it can be configured with up to Intel’s 12th Gen Core i9-12900HX and with Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Ti graphics card, which has an impressive 175W of total graphics power.

In addition to being more powerful, the Legion 7-series machines present a couple of additional upgrades over the 2022 Legion 5 Pro. It has a 1080p webcam instead of a 720p one, and it has a bigger 99.99Wh...

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Tesla reportedly stops production at its troubled Shanghai plant

Tesla produced just 10,757 vehicles at its Shanghai plant in April. | Xinhua/Ding Ting via Getty Images

Tesla has suspended most production at its Shanghai factory once again, this time due to issues preventing the company from getting the components it needs to build vehicles, according to a report from Reuters. Sources familiar with the situation told Reuters that the company halted work on Monday because of supply shortages as well.

Production at Tesla’s Shanghai plant faltered after city officials reintroduced strict COVID-19 lockdown measures in March, forcing Tesla to close its plant to comply with government orders. Tesla’s Shanghai factory reopened in April, with workers sleeping and eating inside the factory in a “closed-loop system” recommended by Shanghai authorities to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Tesla’s sales in China have...

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ICE uses data brokers to bypass surveillance restrictions, report finds

Photo by RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images

For almost as long as it has existed, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has drawn criticism for the methods by which its agents pursue and remove undocumented migrants. But a new report published Tuesday sheds new light on the extent to which the agency has expanded its domestic surveillance apparatus over the course of its 19-year history.

The report, from a group of researchers from the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology, paints a picture of an agency that is able to access the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans and does so largely without accountability through extensive deals with private data brokers.

According to details in American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century, ICE...

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UiPath CEO Daniel Dines thinks automation can fight the great resignation

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Uber, Facebook, and Spotify already use UiPath software

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Netflix’s ad-supported tier and password sharing crackdown could launch by the end of 2022

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

It has been less than a month since Netflix announced slowing revenue growth and its first subscriber drop in over a decade, and now The New York Times reports that it’s accelerating the schedule on initiatives to turn those things around.

Netflix was already openly talking about pushing people who share their account logins to pay more, and once the report came out, co-CEO Reed Hastings changed his tune on ad-supported streaming, saying he would try to figure it out over the “next year or two.” According to the Times, a recent note to employees said executives are now aiming to introduce the ad tier at some point in the last three months of 2022, with a crackdown on password sharing starting in the same window.

Disney Plus announced...

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AirPods mod ditches Lightning port for USB-C

The AirPods’ charging case equipped with a USB-C port. | Image: Ken Pillonel

Robotics engineering student Ken Pillonel has followed up his USB-C iPhone mod with a modified pair of AirPods with a USB-C port for charging — replacing Apple’s proprietary Lightning port. Although the result is simple (USB-C cable goes in, power goes up), it was an engineering challenge that Pillonel says consumed “pretty much all my weekends for a few months.” It comes around a month after he completed a project that brought a Lightning port to an Android phone.

Pillonel plans to release a full-length video explaining the project in the coming weeks, but for now, he’s put out a short clip showing his modded AirPods being charged with the same USB-C cable as a MacBook and his previously modded iPhone. He plans to open source the...

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Fortnite’s short film festival is coming back this week

The fourth edition of Fornite’s “Short Nite” film festival is kicking off later this week. Epic Games announced that the event, which features a variety of short animated movies screened in-game, will take place on May 12th. A total of 10 movies are being featured, three of which are world premieres, and Epic will also be selling a popcorn-eating emote for an authentic virtual viewing experience.

The original incarnation of Short Nite took place on Fortnite’s party royale island, though it has steadily become more elaborate, particularly with last year’s Halloween-themed edition. This year, there will be nine different custom-built virtual theaters, created in the game’s Creative mode, which players can move between via the discover...

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Google’s job at this year’s I/O: finishing what it starts

One of Google’s biggest hurdles is providing meaningful, long-term support for its products

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Google relaxes ban on stem cell therapy ads

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google will allow ads for stem cell treatments that are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration — a change from its previous policy, which banned all ads for this experimental category of medical care. The policy update was first reported by Gizmodo and will go into effect in July.

The company said in the policy update that it will also allow cell or gene therapy ads that are “exclusively educational or informational in nature,” even if they reference products or applications that are not approved by the FDA. It’s not clear how Google would define “educational” or “informational” or what type of advertisements would be allowed under that umbrella.

Stem cell therapy is a broad term for medical treatments that use stemcells,...

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Watch 13 minutes of Gotham Knights gameplay in new trailer

It’s been a long wait, but Warner Bros. Games Montreal has just released the most in-depth look yet at its upcoming open-world game Gotham Knights. At the same time, the developer revealed some bad news for PS4 and Xbox One owners.

First, the new trailer. The clip, which is just a shade over 13 minutes long, is essentially a guided look at the gameplay, focusing on the characters Nightwing and Red Hood. There’s lots of beating up bad guys on rooftops and zipping between buildings as well as a look at how the investigative elements work. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the video is how distinct the two characters appear to be; having multiple playable heroes is a big hook for Gotham Knights, which also stars Robin and Batgirl.

G...

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DJI officially announces Mini 3 Pro

DJI’s smallest and lightest drone is getting a significant upgrade — both in features and price. The newly announced Mini 3 Pro comes with a new design, 4K60 video, a larger image sensor, a larger aperture, obstacle avoidance sensors, and even an option for a bigger battery. But don’t expect it to be as affordable as its predecessor. The Mini 3 Pro costs $669 to start, and that’s the price without a controller. With a controller, you’ll be paying $759 or more, a $300 premium over last year’s Mini 2.

What hasn’t changed is that the Mini 3 Pro still weighs less than 250 grams, which means you won’t need to register it with the FAA (with one important exception depending on what battery you choose). There’s also a welcome throwback from the...

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AMD’s Radeon RX 6950 XT, 6750 XT, 6650 XT are official — an end to fake MSRP?

It seemed like AMD and Nvidia were living in a fantasy world. They’d throw out prices like $329 or $479 for a midrange graphics card, knowing you’d actually pay hundreds more by the time pandemic middlemen had their cut. But today, AMD seems to be waking up.

With the recently announced $1,099 AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, $549 Radeon 6750 XT, and $399 Radeon 6650 XT, the company is finally pricing its graphics cards based on the market instead of creating a fake MSRP. When you combine that with the fact AMD graphics cards have nearly come back down to sane prices in general, it means there’s a chance in hell you might actually be able to buy these new ones for the price that AMD is quoting.

Image: AMD

That’s good —...

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The Rig 800 is still the most comfortable wireless gaming headset I’ve tried

The Nacon Rig 800 wireless gaming headset.

In 2018, in a bout of curiosity, I decided to review every single wireless gaming headset on the market: 32 pairs to be exact. None of them were anywhere near as comfortable as the Plantronics Rig 800. “The only one so lightweight, so comfortable, I sometimes forgot I was wearing it,” I wrote for CNET.

Four years later, I’m happy to say that feeling hasn’t changed.

Plantronics no longer exists, after merging with Polycom to become “Poly” and then selling itself to HP. But the Rig 800 is alive and well at French gaming company Nacon. I’ve been trying the 2022 “Pro” model for the past couple of weeks, and it’s hard for me to imagine a more comfortable headset.

It still uses the same exact design with a spring-loaded inner headstrap that...

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Intel details staggered release schedule for long-anticipated Arc GPUs

An Arc graphics card. | Image: Intel

Intel has provided more details on the release roadmap for its long-awaited discrete Arc GPUs in a new blog post. The company plans to use a staggered approach, which will prioritize system builders and OEMs in China when it comes to its desktop graphics cards. Meanwhile its laptop chips are currently exclusive to Samsung laptops in South Korea, but the hope is to expand to other manufacturers and markets soon.

Intel says it’s working with other laptop manufacturers like Lenovo, Acer, HP, and Asus to get their laptops released with its entry-level Arc 3 GPUs “ASAP.” Laptops with the more powerful Arc 5 and Arc 7 GPUs are planned for “early summer.” The company says it had hoped availability would be “broader” at this point, but blamed...

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Nintendo squeaks past Switch sales target but forecasts further slide

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nintendo shipped 4.11 million Switch consoles in its January-March quarter, bringing its total to 23.06 million for the financial year, just enough to meet its revised forecast of 23 million. The company had originally predicted 25.5 million units for the year, then 24 million, before reaching its final forecast three months ago. The figure represents a 20 percent decline on the previous year’s figure of 28.83 million consoles shipped, with Nintendo citing shortages of semiconductors and other components.

Nintendo has now shipped 107.65 million Switch consoles in total since its launch in March 2017. It’s the company’s most successful home console, having recently overtaken the Wii, though if you consider it a handheld system it still...

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