Senators push to break up Google, Facebook ads businesses in new bill

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Thursday, a group of Senate Republicans and Democrats introduced a new bill that could force Google and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to spin off their online ads businesses, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act — co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — would ban companies processing more than $20 billion a year in digital ad transactions from running more than one portion of the digital advertising ecosystem.

The restrictions would directly impact Google, which tech antitrust hawks have long seen as a vertical monopoly in display advertising. Omidyar Network advisor David Dinielli made the...

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Watch Boeing launch its Starliner space capsule in do-over flight

Boeing’s Starliner capsule on the launchpad | (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Thursday afternoon, Boeing is slated to launch its passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, to the International Space Station for the second time without people on board. The mission, called OFT-2, is part of an elaborate dress rehearsal that will help pave the way for people to ride on the vehicle in the future.

Today’s mission is a critical milestone as Boeing works to certify the vehicle for human spaceflight. Boeing developed Starliner as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an initiative that tasked private companies with developing spacecraft capable of carrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA’s other Commercial Crew provider, SpaceX, is already ferrying astronauts to the ISS on a regular...

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MultiVersus is a shameless mashup of Space Jam and Smash Bros. — and it works

Let’s just get this out of the way: there’s very little that’s original about MultiVersus, an upcoming free-to-play fighting game. It is, very clearly, designed to be like Super Smash. Bros., only with Warner Bros. characters in place of those from Nintendo and other classic video games. This means that instead of Super Mario getting beat up by Sephiroth, you have Shaggy and Wonder Woman teaming up to fight Arya Stark and Bugs Bunny in the Batcave. It’s strange and crass but also feels right at home in a world of Fortnite, Space Jam, Doctor Strange, and Rescue Rangers. As shameless as it may be, though, after spending some time with the MultiVersus, I’m starting to think that it could end up being a big hit.

Functionally, the core of M...

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The Witcher 3’s next-gen version now planned for Q4 2022

We now have a timetable for when to expect the update. | Image: CD Projekt Red

The next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is “planned” to release in Q4 2022, developer CD Projekt Red (CDPR) announced Thursday. Previously, CDPR was targeting a Q2 2022 launch for the free update, but it pushed the release in April without providing a new date. Alongside that April announcement, CDPR said it would be bringing development of the update in-house, meaning it would be taking the reins from Saber Interactive.

Let's make this 7th anniversary even better, shall we?

We're delighted to share that the Next Gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is planned to release in Q4 2022.

See you on the Path, witchers! pic.twitter.com/2wQbxMP4zh

— The Witcher (@witchergame) May 19, 2022

CDPR originally targeted a late 2021...

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Netflix is beefing up its audio description and subtitling accessibility features

Netflix

Netflix’s closed captioning, subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing (SDH), and audio descriptions (AD) are all powerful tools designed to help make films and television shows more accessible to people with disabilities. But those kinds of features have also become integral parts of how people from all walks of life consume the streaming platform’s content, and Netflix is planning to give its subscribers more of what they want.

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Netflix is gearing up to expand its accessibility features across the globe and launching a new collection highlighting stories focused on people living with disabilities. Celebrating Disability with Dimension will function much like the platform’s other special...

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OnePlus Nord 2T review: minor improvements to a masterful midranger

Another reliable entry in OnePlus’ Nord range

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OnePlus Nord 2T arrives with 80W fast charging and a midrange price

The OnePlus Nord 2T in green. | Image: OnePlus

OnePlus is officially announcing a trio of more affordable devices for Europe today: the OnePlus Nord 2T, the Nord CE 2 Lite, and the Nord Buds true wireless headphones. The Nord 2T starts at £369 (€399) and is best thought of as a souped-up version of last year’s Nord 2. Meanwhile, the Nord CE 2 Lite is a step-down model of the Nord CE 2 and starts at £279 (€299). Finally, there’s the Nord Buds, which will sell for £49 (€49). The latter two launched in India last month but will be on sale in the UK on May 24th.

You can check out my full review of the OnePlus Nord 2T right here, but its features won’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with its predecessor. It’s using an upgraded MediaTek chip and has speedier 80W fast charging, but...

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More PlayStation 5 consoles are coming to Walmart on June 2nd

Fingers crossed for a summer rich in PS5 console availability. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We’re still seeing short or no supply of PlayStation 5 consoles in some places and going weeks between new nationwide restocks. Hopefully, this upcoming summer will prove more fruitful, and a good (though small) sign is that Walmart has a PS5 event coming up.

If you’re a Walmart Plus subscriber, you will have the chance to queue up for a standard $499 disc drive-equipped PlayStation 5 on June 2nd at 3PM ET. This is yet another restock that’s exclusive to paying Walmart Plus members, though, since we have plenty of advance notice, you have plenty of time to pay the minimum $12.95 for one month of membership ahead of the drop. Yes, you get other perks from Walmart, like free deliveries, but we’re ultimately just paying to play the restock...

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Samsung will charge $500 to put your face on its fridge

Who needs a family photo album when you have a fridge? | Image: Samsung

Samsung is adding a new and extremely exploitable customization option to its line of Bespoke refrigerators. Sling the company $500 and you can have any photo or image you like printed on the unit’s double doors. You could choose a favorite piece of artwork, a child’s doodles, or just put your own face on your own fridge for no good reason at all.

The option is launching for buyers sometime later this year (if you need to know the exact minute it goes live you can sign up here for alerts), and if you already own a Bespoke fridge, you can order the door panels separately and swap them in. The cost is $250 a panel, and Samsung says they’ll take about 8 weeks to print and ship.

Image: Samsung

New from Samsung:...

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Boeing’s third launch attempt nears for embattled Starliner spacecraft

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as it is wheeled out to its launchpad on an Atlas V rocket. | Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Perhaps this time will be the one

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Glitch acquired by cloud service provider Fastly

Image: Glitch

Fastly, a major provider of cloud services, announced today that it’s acquiring Glitch, the quirky and capable web coding platform. Glitch will continue to operate within Fastly, with Fastly planning to grow the team and enable Glitch apps to tap into its edge computing services.

Glitch CEO Anil Dash will join Fastly as its VP of developer experience, overseeing Glitch and a new team focused on creating a “repository of tools and resources” to help people start using Fastly’s products.

“The web is back as a place that people want to create, and you have to have this bigger platform to do it,” Dash tells The Verge.

“This edge platform that they’ve built is cool as shit.”

Dash says Glitch could have raised more money to continue on its...

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Motorola Moto G 5G review: a tough sell

Good performance and great battery stamina don’t compensate for its shortcomings

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Fortnite now available to everyone on iOS via GeForce Now cloud streaming

Fortnite is leaving beta on GeForce Now. | Image: Nvidia

After four months in closed beta, Fortnite is now available to stream via Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service. It means iOS users have another workaround to play one of the most popular games in the world after it was unceremoniously booted from the App Store in August 2020 for bypassing Apple’s in-app payment system.

The official launch follows a months-long beta period during which Nvidia says 500,000 people streamed over 4 million sessions of Fortnite via the service. As a result of the testing, Nvidia claims it’s been able to optimize its “on-screen touch controls and game menus.” Hopefully the changes address a control scheme that my colleague Jay Peters called “finicky” back in January.

Image: Fortnite ...

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Anker says its new USB-C hub lets M1 MacBooks output to three external monitors

Three monitors, one MacBook. | Image: Anker

Anker has announced a new $249.99 10-in-1 USB-C hub that, among other things, allows an M1-equipped MacBook to output to three external displays,MacRumors reports. It’s designed to overcome a key limitation of Apple’s M1-powered MacBooks which, by default, can only output to a single external monitor.

The Anker 563 dock has a total of 10 ports, including USB-C, USB-A, 3.5mm audio, and Ethernet. But we’re most interested in the display connectors, which consist of an HDMI port that can go up to 4K at 30Hz (it’s unclear what the maximum refresh rate is at lower resolutions), a second HDMI port that can do 2K (aka 1440p) at up to 60Hz, and a DisplayPort that’s also capable of 2K at 60Hz.

Image: Anker

The specs of...

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HP’s new Spectre x360 16 laptop is all in on Intel

Here it is, the 16-inch Intel machine.

HP has made a number of minor refreshes across its Spectre and Envy lines. Several of these consumer devices, at a variety of price points, have been updated with new processors — 12th Gen Core chips on the Intel side and Ryzen 5000 chips on the AMD side.

A few devices also have new GPUs, including the Spectre x360 16. This device, the flagship of HP’s gorgeous, pricey, premium Spectre line, was previously powered by Intel’s 11th-Gen processors and either Iris Xe integrated graphics or Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050. This year, the processors are from Intel’s new 12th Gen line, and the discrete GPU option is Intel’s brand-new Arc A370M. It’s Intel all the way down.

This is not necessarily the most exciting announcement in the world as far...

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Framework’s new laptop means the promise of modular gadgets might be coming true

A little more than a year after announcing the first version of its ultra-repairable, upgradeable notebook, Framework is launching the second-generation Framework Laptop. It’s meant to be substantially faster and a little more sturdy but mostly it’s a signal that Framework is serious about building truly long-lasting devices and might actually be fulfilling the often promised and rarely delivered dream of upgradeable, modular gadgets.

The new laptop’s headline spec is the processor: it comes with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5 or i7 chip with the top-of-the-line, $2,049 model running the Core i7-1280P. (That’s a full generation jump from the current model, and these new Alder Lake chips promise big performance improvements and a boost in...

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BMW iX XDrive50 review: a high-tech beast with bling

The 2022 BMW iX is the German automaker’s flagship EV in the US. | Photo by Abigail Bassett for The Verge

BMW’s all-electric crossover is packed to the gills with technology, power, and range

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YouTube’s new tool for brands means you don’t have to see the same ads nauseam

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sometimes it’s a little too obvious when a company is launching a big advertising campaign on YouTube. If you’re a regular viewer, you may end up seeing the same ads over and over again. This week, though, YouTube announced that it’s expanding the power of tools that let brands control how often their ads are shown to specific users.

This ad frequency tool (named Display & Video 360 in marketing jargon) was actually launched in February to cover ad campaigns running across different smart TV apps, including YouTube’s app and apps from rivals like Hulu. But YouTube has confirmed to The Verge that the program also counts ads shown not only on smart TV apps, but across its mobile and desktop platforms. That should mean less ad spam for...

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TikTok users can now credit specific videos to make sure viral creators get their due

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok is offering users a new way to credit videos that kick off viral trends.

When uploading content, users will be able to tag not only individual creators in video descriptions, but also specific videos — an addition the platform claims will “better enable creator credit and equitable attribution for our creator community and content originators.”

The change is, in part, a response to complaints by users that the platform thrives off a parasitic approach to viral content. Last summer, for example, a number of Black dance creators went on strike from the app, noting how many viral dances (like the Renegade and the Savage, etc) were created by Black users before spreading to the rest of the community without due credit or attribution....

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Garmin finally adds a camera to its Varia bike radar

Image: Garmin

For the first time since Varia devices launched seven years ago, Garmin has added a built-in camera to its much-loved rearview radar lineup. The Varia RCT715 not only makes road cyclists more visible and warns them of approaching vehicles, it automatically records any incidents that might occur. That means safety-minded bicyclists now only have to worry about mounting and charging a single device instead of two.

The Varia RCT715 (the RCT stands for Radar, Camera, Taillight) features a 1080p/30fps camera with a 140-degree field of view. A built-in accelerometer triggers automatic incident detection to capture video footage from before, during, and after an incident. Video can also be set to record continuously, giving you about four hours...

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Microsoft tests Windows 11 desktop widgets with web search bar

A screenshot of the web search box in the latest Windows 11 Preview Build. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is adding an optional web search to the Windows 11 desktop in the operating system’s latest Insider Preview Build. The company describes the feature as “lightweight interactive content” — the first, it says, of many such tools it’s considering adding to Windows 11 — but let’s call the thing what it really is: a widget.

Not everyone signed up to the latest Windows 11 preview build will see the new search box, but anyone who does and doesn’t like it can disable the feature by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting “Show more options,” and then toggling “Show search.”

If you are running the latest preview build, you’ll also have to restart your computer to give the search box a chance to show up.

Is web search on your desktop...

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Apple accused of union busting in its stores for the second time this week

The complaint centers on alleged anti-union activity in Apple’s World Trade Center store. | Image: Apple

Apple has been accused of union-busting at its flagship World Trade Center store in New York City. According to a complaint filed by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the iPhone-maker violated federal labor laws by interrogating workers about union activity, prohibiting employees from posting union flyers in shared spaces, and forcing workers to attend anti-union presentations.

It’s the second time the CWA has accused Apple of union-busting activity this week, with similar complaints filed in Atlanta on Tuesday. These complaints form part of a wave of union organization in retail and tech sectors, including the successful unionization of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island. Three Apple stores have officially launched union...

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The best gaming headset deals you can get right now

Logitech’s budget-friendly G435 boasts color and comfort, as well as a host of solid features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A good gaming headset is practically a necessity these days. Clean and precise audio is essential for competitive gaming, allowing you not just to pinpoint your enemies but to communicate effectively with your teammates. Moreover, recent developments in spatial audio and virtual surround sound have allowed headsets to meet — and occasionally surpass — more expensive audio setups, allowing even the most budget-conscious gamer to obtain a competitive edge at a fraction of the price.

While you could always invest in a massive pair of speakers, they’re likely to earn you the dubious distinction of the worst roommate of the decade. Thankfully, the right headset will allow you to keep the running and gunning to yourself, which is why we’ve...

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Meta freezes hiring for shopping team, Messenger Kids, and other products

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Meta is pulling back its investments in a number of products, including the teams it spun up early in the pandemic to compete with Zoom and build shopping features, The Verge has learned. In addition to a hiring freeze for certain engineering roles, the company also recently paused the hiring of recruiters and low-level data scientists.

While the hiring freezes have caused employees to fear that layoffs are around the corner, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an internal all-hands meeting last Thursday that job cuts are not being planned. “I can’t sit here and make a permanent ongoing promise that as things shift that we won’t have to reconsider that,” Zuckerberg said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “But what I...

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Survey shows Netflix is losing more long-term subscribers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

More long-term Netflix subscribers are canceling their subscriptions, according to a report from The Information. Survey data viewed by the outlet revealed that subscribers who have been with the service for more than three years accounted for 13 percent of cancellations in the first quarter of 2022.

The Information says it got its data from Antenna, an analytics firm that gathers data from 5 million Americans who share their streaming subscriptions anonymously. The data showed that overall cancellations hit 3.6 million people last quarter, an increase from the 2.5 million cancellations in the past five quarters.

As the number of cancellations overall has grown, The Information reports that new users are accounting for a smaller share...

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Now non-Tesla EVs can use its Superchargers in the UK, Spain, Sweden, and Austria

Photo by John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images

Tesla is expanding its open Supercharger pilot program in Europe that lets owners of non-Tesla EVs take advantage of the company’s extensive charging network. Previously, the pilot consisted of select stations in The Netherlands, Norway, and France, but now it’s also available in the UK, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, and Austria.

Non-Tesla owners in both Belgium and Germany originally could only take advantage of Tesla’s network if traveling to a country that has the open Superchargers. With Belgium now added to the program, German residents remain the only oddity that can use them outside of its borders, but not domestically.

Non-Tesla vehicles can now charge at select Superchargers in Austria, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and the UK via the...

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The best smartphone you can buy for under $500

You can get a great smartphone at this price, whether you want an iPhone, a 90Hz screen, or 5G support

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Costa Rican president says country is ‘at war’ with Conti ransomware group

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Ransomware — and particularly the Conti ransomware gang — has become a geopolitical force in Costa Rica. On Monday, the new Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves – who began his four-year term only ten days ago – declared that the country was ”at war” with the Conti cybercriminal gang, whose ransomware attack has disabled agencies across the government since April.

In a forceful statement made to press on May 16th, President Chaves also said that Conti was receiving help from collaborators within the country, and called on international allies to help.

“We’re at war and this is not an exaggeration,” Chaves told local media. “The war is against an international terrorist group, which apparently has operatives in Costa Rica. There are very...

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NY attorney general is investigating Twitch, Discord, and 4chan over Buffalo shooting

New York Attorney General Letitia James. | Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that her office has launched an investigation into Twitch, Discord, 4chan, 8kun (previously 8chan), and other web and social media platforms in response to the racist attack in Buffalo, New York. The investigation will focus on “platforms that may have been used to stream, promote, or plan the event.”

James is focusing her attention on the platforms the shooter used to “discuss and amplify” the attack. The gunman reportedly planned his attack in a private server on Discord before the shooting. In a document written by the shooter, he mentions using and getting influenced by both 4chan and 8chan, two sites known for a lack of moderation.

“As we continue to mourn and honor the...

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Here’s how Microsoft’s new One Outlook email app will work

The new Outlook will feature support for Loop components. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft has announced the beta for the new Outlook for Windows, which will make the desktop email client a lot more like the web version. While screenshots and an entire build of the app were recently leaked, Microsoft’s announcement gives us a good look at what kind of features we can expect to see coming to our inboxes.

According to Microsoft’s Tuesday post, Outlook will be getting quite a few new features in addition to an updated design. For starters, it’ll integrate with Loop, Microsoft’s system for collaborating on things like polls, task lists, and more throughout Office. There’s also a new system for attaching files. If you’ve got something stored in the cloud, you can type the “@” symbol and then the filename, and you’ll get a...

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