EU says Apple breached antitrust law in Spotify case, but final ruling yet to come

Illustration: The Verge

The EU has updated its antitrust case against Apple and the control it wields over music streaming services on iOS with potentially good news for complainant Spotify.

The European Commission, the EU body investigating the charges, says Apple breached antitrust laws by stopping rival music firms like Spotify from advertising where and how users could subscribe to their apps. This update to the case does not constitute a final ruling, and it’s now up to Apple to marshal a defense and prove the charges wrong.

Spotify first made a complaint against Apple in 2019, with the European Commission opening an investigation in 2020. The Commission issued an initial “statement of objections” against Apple in 2021, laying out the possible breaches of...

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Elden Ring expansion Shadow of the Erdtree is officially in development

The announcement image for Shadow of the Erdtree is enough to fuel weeks of speculation. | Image: FromSoftware

One of 2022’s biggest games, Elden Ring, is getting what looks to be its first major expansion: DLC content titled Shadow of the Erdtree.

Developer FromSoftware announced in a tweet this morning that the DLC was officially under development, though the company did not share when we might expect a release.

A short blog post confirmed the DLC will be coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam. It also said a “follow-up report is still a little ahead” (translation from Japanese via Google) so we can hopefully expect more details sooner rather than later.

Elden Ring DLC is hotly-anticipated content for a number of reasons. Elden Ring has been a massive success, selling more than 20 million units worldwide, and FromSoftware...

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Microsoft opens up PC Game Pass to 40 new countries in big subscription push

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is bringing a preview of its PC Game Pass service to 40 new countries today. The preview will include access to all the hundreds of games available on Microsoft’s PC Game Pass subscription for a special test price for the first month. The 40 new markets see the service expand to countries across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, including Croatia, Iceland, Libya, Qatar, and Ukraine.

The PC Game Pass subscription will be available in these 40 markets through the Xbox Insider Hub app, which will unlock a preview version of the service before it’s launched fully. “In the coming months, PC Game Pass will launch in these countries for all players to experience,” explains Jerret West, CVP of gaming marketing at Xbox.

This...

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Gmail’s client-side encryption is now available to more businesses

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has announced that Gmail’s client-side encryption mode is now generally available for businesses and educational organizations, after it launched in beta last year. The feature makes it so even Google itself can’t see the contents of the emails it’s hosting, with data being “encrypted before it reaches Google servers.” The company says this can be helpful for companies that have to meet strict compliance or privacy standards.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Google writes that client-side encryption for Gmail gives customers “sole control over their encryption keys — and thus complete control over all access to their data.” Users can encrypt emails they’re sending within their organization, as well as emails they’re sending to other...

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Aventon Abound is an electric cargo bike with a lot of flexibility — and a great price

Image: Aventon

Aventon announced a new electric cargo bike, the Abound, which the California-based company describes as “an efficient alternative to driving a car around town.” With a 750-watt motor, a variety of accessories, and a total weight rating of 440 lbs, the Abound is designed to be a versatile, safe, and affordable mobility option for anyone looking to do less driving in their life.

Aventon is mostly known for its fat-tired, adventure-themed road bikes, so a cargo bike was never a guaranteed addition to the company’s lineup. That said, Aventon brought a lot of the same attention to detail to the Abound as it did with previous models, which should help give the bike a bit of a leg-up compared to other low-cost models.

Aventon says the suggest...

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Meta backs new tool for removing sexual images of minors posted online

Image: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) has announced a new platform designed to help remove sexually explicit images of minors from the internet. Meta revealed in a blog post that it had provided initial funding to create the NCMEC’s free-to-use “Take It Down” tool, which allows users to anonymously report and remove “nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos” of underage individuals found on participating platforms and block the offending content from being shared again.

Facebook and Instagram have signed on to integrate the platform, as have OnlyFans, Pornhub, and Yubo. Take It Down is designed for minors to self-report images and videos of themselves; however, adults who appeared in such...

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Mark Zuckerberg says Meta now has a team building AI tools and ‘personas’

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Meta now has a team dedicated to building tools powered by artificial intelligence, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Monday. This could eventually include “AI personas” designed to help people in “various ways” in addition to new AI tools across its apps and services.

More specifically, Zuckerberg says the company is working on AI “experiences” with text, such as chat with Messenger and WhatsApp, experiences with images for things like “creative Instagram filters and ad formats” as well as “video and multi-modal experiences.” According to Axios, the new AI team will be led by Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta’s vice president of AI and machine learning, who previously worked on Apple’s special product group.

Screenshot by...

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Whoops! Crypto company Gemini is having some trouble with fraud

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge

We’ve talked before about the problems in the early days of PayPal, which was then called X. Elon Musk, in his infinite wisdom, decided customer acquisition was the most important thing, and as a result, PayPal had to deal with rampant fraud. Don’t just take my word for it — here’s Peter Thiel, describing those days:

We had decided to give credit cards to absolutely anybody who wanted them. You got a up to $10,000 credit limit. Elon had told the woman who was rolling the service out that he wanted a million people to be using the new credit card by the end of the year. Fortunately, it was about two levels down from the front page, and so not that many people were able to discover this. Some people did; they wrote us back and said, “This...

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Some Pixel phones are crashing after playing a certain YouTube video

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A specific YouTube video is causing some Pixel phones to crash, as reported by Android Authority. When those who are affected by the problem try to watch the video, their phone instantly reboots. Some, including Android Authority, have also said their phones present cellular network issues afterward. (Android Authority said those issues were fixed after another reboot.)

In a Reddit thread, some users report running into the issue with their Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and Pixel 6A phones, and one Verge staffer’s Pixel 6 crashed when they tried to watch the video. However, the issue doesn’t seem to be affecting everyone; Android expert Mishaal Rahman says it didn’t crash his Pixel 6 Pro, while others in the Reddit thread...

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Here’s where you can buy a PS5

The great PlayStation 5 shortage is over — well, at least according to Sony. Thanks to the increased availability of Sony’s next-gen console, there are now multiple options for bringing home a PS5, none of which are an uphill battle. While availability is occasionally limited to bundles that come packaged with a game, specifically God of War Ragnarök, it’s nowhere near as difficult to find a standalone console as it once was. We’re keeping an eye out for where you can buy either the PS5 (with a disc drive) or the PS5 Digital Edition as well as any bundles.

Obviously, there’s no guarantee that inventory will remain available for long, but we’ll do our best to keep this article updated with the latest in-stock alerts and tell you where to...

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Netflix’s live Chris Rock special will have celebrity-packed pre- and post-shows

Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review

Netflix is doling out some extra entertainment before and after Chris Rock’s live comedy special on Saturday, March 4th. The company announced star-studded pre- and post-shows featuring guests like Leslie Jones, Amy Schumer, Cedric the Entertainer, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Hart, Matthew McConaughey, Paul McCartney, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, Ice-T, and more.

The standup special, titled Selective Outrage, marks the first livestreamed event for the streamer. While Netflix previously hosted the live in-person comedy event Netflix is a Joke: The Festival in spring 2022, this will be the first it streams live to subscribers.

It's #ChrisRockLive week and we're pulling out all the stops!

Livestream from @TheComedyStore starts at 6:30pm with a...

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Reddit will let you search comments on a post right from the search bar

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit is adding the ability to search for comments within a specific post right from the search bar. The new feature seems pretty handy, as it should make it much easier to find certain comments on a post without having to scroll forever or use CTRL / CMD + F.

Here’s a GIF from Reddit showing how it works:

GIF: Reddit

Handy!

I can think of a lot of times this could be quite useful. It could be a great way to find a discussion of a specific character from a TV show or movie, for example, or perhaps to pull up a fitness routine buried in another post. And those are just ways I’d use it; I’m sure the vast number of Reddit users out there will be more creative.

Reddit says the feature is available now on desktop,...

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The original Pokémon TCG base set is coming back as a trio of premium decks

Charizard, one of the cards featured in Pokémon TCG Classic | The Pokémon Company

While the Pokémon Trading Card Game is getting something of a major overhaul with the upcoming Scarlet and Violet expansion, The Pokémon Company knows there are still hardcore fans out there obsessing over the original base set, and it’s cooking up something special for them.

During today’s Pokémon Presents stream, The Pokémon Company announced the impending arrival of Pokémon TCG Classic, a premium set of three decks built around classic cards like the base set’s Charizard, Venusaur, and Blastoise. In a press release about the decks, The Pokémon Company described them each as featuring a number of “iconic cards from the history of the Pokémon TCG” as well as newer cards like Ho-Oh-Ex, Lugia-Ex, and Suicune ex.

Currently, no hard date...

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Millions more homes will be exposed to hurricane winds because of climate change

Gusts from Hurricane Ian hit Punta Gorda, Florida, on September 28th, 2022. | Photo: RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP via Getty Images

In the next 30 years, 13.4 million more properties in the contiguous US will likely face destructive winds from tropical cyclones, according to a new report. It’s not a risk these properties typically faced in the past, but that’s changing as hurricanes get stronger and weirder with climate change.

The shift could cost property owners billions of dollars in damages. This year, the US could see $18.5 billion in losses from hurricane winds, the report finds. In 30 years, average annual losses rise to roughly $20 billion.

“This next generation of hurricane strength will bring unavoidable financial impacts and devastation that have not yet been priced into the market,” Matthew Eby, CEO of First Street Foundation, the nonprofit research...

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The iPhone SE 4 isn’t canceled, apparently

Image: The Verge

Apple is reportedly once again working on a next-generation iPhone SE, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, despite his previous reports that it had canceled work on the phone. In a Twitter thread, Kuo says the company has “restarted” the project and that the iPhone SE 4 will feature an OLED display — a first for the company’s budget line — as well as a 5G modem designed by Apple instead of longtime supplier Qualcomm.

He predicts that the phone will more or less be “a minor modification of the 6.1-inch iPhone 14” and that it’ll go into production at the beginning of 2024, presumably coinciding with a release later that year. It’s unclear if the phone will have some of the iPhone 14’s premium features like Emergency SOS via satellite, Face...

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MLS opening weekend on Apple TV points to an expensive future for sports streaming

Lorenzo Insigne during his brief appearance this weekend. | Photo: Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

On the field, things didn’t get off to the best start for the opening weekend of Major League Soccer, which kicked off a new 10-year-long streaming deal with Apple. The weekend’s marquee match between crosstown rivals Los Angeles FC and the Los Angeles Galaxy was postponed due to “inclement weather,” and later on, Italian superstar Lorenzo Insigne (the league’s most expensive player) was forced off early with an injury. The opening matches were thusly a little less star-studded — but the product off the field was surprisingly solid, even if it points to a very expensive future for sports fans.

This isn’t the first time someone has streamed professional sports, of course, but the MLS deal represents the biggest effort to date. While some...

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Tesla pauses new Full Self-Driving beta installations until recall is addressed

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla is putting a hold on new installations of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software in the US and Canada until a firmware update can be issued to address a safety recall, according to a new company support page. The automaker issued the recall this month at the request of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which determined that the advanced driver-assistance feature could pose a “crash risk.”

Tesla vehicle owners who may have just purchased the $15,000 FSD add-on — or previously bought it but have yet to opt in to it — won’t be able to get access to it until after the automaker issues an over-the-air (OTA) software update. Tesla has not provided a timeline for the rollout of the update but says no immediate...

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The M1-powered iPad Air gets its biggest discount of $100 off once again

The iPad Air has the most color variety among the current lineup. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple’s sweet spot of an iPad is back down to its lowest price. The 2022 iPad Air is on sale for $499.99 at Best Buy and Amazon in its base 64GB Wi-Fi configuration, about $100 off its regular $599 price. That same $100 discount can be had on the 256GB version, costing $649.99 at Amazon or Best Buy instead of its usual $749.

The excellent midrange Air comes in five different colors, each of which is on sale at this great price. In addition to being one of the most colorful iPads, the fifth-generation iPad Air offers great value for performance. It packs an M1 processor that’s more than capable for the most labor-intensive iPad uses, all-day battery life, and a handy USB-C port as well as second-gen Apple Pencil compatibility.

At this...

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Elon Musk says remaining Twitter employees will receive ‘very significant’ stock awards on March 24th

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Elon Musk emailed his remaining employees at Twitter on Monday morning to tell them that, after another round of sudden layoffs over the weekend, those who are left will receive “very significant” performance-based stock awards on March 24th, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge.

“This past week, we completed a difficult organizational overhaul focused on improving future execution, using as much feedback as we could gather from the entire company,” Musk wrote, confirming that he has kept laying employees off after telling them he would stop on November 21st. “Those who remain are highly regarded by those around them.”

The short memo, titled “Performance Awards,” is Musk’s first communication to Twitter employees since he...

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Ted Lasso is extra feel-good in its official season 3 trailer

Image: Apple

Apple released the first official trailer for Ted Lasso’s nearly here third season, and while it reveals very little about the season’s story, the trailer goes all in on the good vibes (even if AFC Richmond, the main team in the show, appears to be struggling).

Set to The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” the trailer largely jumps between shots of recognizable characters and places that presumably all appear during season 3. One of the two moments of actual dialogue in the trailer features the gruff Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) saying “great job” — Apple is clearly trying to keep some mystery around what’s to come in the third season. However, the preview certainly sets up the now-gray-haired Nate (Nick Mohammed) as a...

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Spotify’s replacing its heart icon with a new and improved ‘plus’ button

Image: Spotify

Spotify’s heart icon is changing to a “plus” button that lets you save music and add songs to specific playlists. The music streaming app announced the change in a post on its blog, noting that you’ll now have to tap the new “plus” icon once to save a song or podcast to your library and then tap it again to add it to a playlist of your choosing.

Some users already have the combined “plus” button on their app, as it seems Spotify has been testing the change since late last year. Previously, the Spotify app had a “heart” icon available up front that meant liking a song and saving it to your library as well as a separate “add to playlist” button that it hid within the app’s three-dot menu.

Image: Spotify

Tap once to...

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Resident Evil Village is a great PSVR 2 shooter, if you can stomach it

Yes, Lady Dimitrescu looks even taller in VR.

Sony’s new PlayStation VR2 is a solid headset with a relatively small launch catalog, and one of its most exciting titles is a VR mode for Resident Evil Village, Capcom’s first-person 2021 survival horror shooter. Village draws inspiration from Resident Evil 4, which got a stellar Meta Quest 2 port back in 2021, so I had high hopes. And they weren’t unfounded. The free PSVR 2 update to Village offers great shooting with the device’s Sense controllers and makes a solid case for the headset’s quirky “face rumble” feature. If only other parts didn’t torture me as badly as Ethan Winters’ hands.

I’m not making any claims to fully reviewing Village in VR here. In my free time since the mode’s launch on February 22nd, I’ve been spending halting...

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Win a mystery bag from The Verge brimming with free tech

Peak Design’s ultra-sleek Everyday Backpack is just one of the freebies you could win.

Want a new backpack and a smattering of tech accessories without sacrificing your hard-earned spending cash — or worse — your rent money? As it turns out, we just so happen to be giving away a bag chock-full of freebies to one lucky Verge reader.

Why? Well, besides the fact that we love you all, we have a bunch of older gadgets just lying around the office that we no longer need. So we figured: why not do a little preemptive spring cleaning and give them away to our loyal readers? It’s a win-win, really.

All you need to do is take a few seconds to submit an entry, and if selected, you’ll win a bag and some free gear worth about $500 in total. And this isn’t just any run-of-the-mill bag, either; it’s the Peak Design Everyday Backpack,...

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Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to his action movie roots in Netflix’s FUBAR

Image: CHRISTOS KALOHORIDIS/NETFLIX

The trailer for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first action comedy TV series is here. The Netflix original, titled FUBAR — an acronym for “fucked up beyond all repair” — follows Schwarzenegger as a ready-to-retire CIA agent who gets wrapped up in one last mission.

FUBAR’s first trailer has Schwarzenegger returning to his action movie roots, flashing between scenes of the star hopping on a motorcycle, zipping around in a sports car, and firing off a pistol. Here’s Netflix’s synopsis of the show:

A CIA Operative on the verge of retirement discovers a family secret. Forced to go back into the field for one last job, the series tackles universal family dynamics set against a global backdrop of spies, action and humor.

Aside from Schwarzenegger, the...

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Pokémon Violet and Scarlet’s first expansion is coming later this year

Image: The Pokémon Company

Pokémon Violet and Scarlet are about to get a lot bigger. Today, The Pokémon Company announced the first major downloadable add-ons for the games, which will explore the mysterious Area X location. The DLC will be split into two parts: the first, “The Teal Mask,” is due out this fall and will be followed by “The Indigo Disk” in the winter. The new storyline has been dubbed “The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero.”

The big change for the expansion is that both parts move out of the Paldea region. Here’s the official description:

In Part 1: The Teal Mask, a school trip will take players to the land of Kitakami, where they will be joining an outdoors study program held jointly between their academy and another school. In Part 2: The Indigo Disk,...

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Netflix is making a stop-motion Pokémon series

A Psyduck on a beach. | Image: Netflix / The Pokémon Company

Though Netflix has become one of the only reliable places to stream the Pokémon anime, the streamer’s gearing up to launch an intriguing series of its own.

During this week’s Pokémon Presents stream, The Pokémon Company announced Pokémon Concierge, a new stop-motion animated series produced by Dwarf Studio that will chronicle the goings-on at a resort for pokémon. During a brief presentation about the series, Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s vice president of content for the Asia-Pacific region, described the show as featuring a wholly new story meant to “expand the Pokémon universe.”

“The series, which will be set at the Pokémon Resort, follows the story of concierge Haru and the many Pokémon who visit as guests,” Kim said.

Though Netflix...

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Pokémon Sleep, which you play by sleeping, is out this year

The Pokémon Company has finally revealed some details on its most anticipated product: Pokémon Sleep. The mobile app was first announced in 2019, and today, during a livestream, the company revealed a pair of trailers that show off the actual experience.

Essentially, the game is a sleep tracker, where you interact with the pokémon in the app by, well, sleeping. Depending how you snooze — sleep is divided into three types: dozing, snoozing, and slumbering — you’ll attract different kinds of creatures.

Here’s a better look at how it works:

Alongside the game, a new device was also revealed: Pokémon Go Plus Plus. It’s a new version of the Pokémon Go companion device that works both as a sleep tracker for Pokémon Sleep and as a tool for P...

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Nokia reveals new logo to remind you it doesn’t make phones anymore

The new Nokia logo. | Image: Nokia

Finnish telecoms firm Nokia has redesigned its logo to remind the world that it doesn’t make mobile phones anymore.

“In most people’s minds, we are still a successful mobile phone brand, but this is not what Nokia is about,” Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark told Bloomberg. “We want to launch a new brand that is focusing very much on the networks and industrial digitalization, which is a completely different thing from the legacy mobile phones.”

Nokia revealed its new brand identity on Sunday — the first major redesign of the firm’s logo in nearly 60 years. The company has come a long way since its founding as a single paper mill operation in 1865. Its original logo featured a salmon head; a reference to the Nokianvirta river by which the mill...

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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D review: closing the Intel gap for gaming

AMD lost out to Intel’s Core i9-13900K recently, but it’s back with its 3D V-Cache technology to challenge Intel again.

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Snapchat is releasing its own AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snapchat is introducing a chatbot powered by the latest version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, it’s a bet that AI chatbots will increasingly become a part of everyday life for more people.

Named “My AI,” Snapchat’s bot will be pinned to the app’s chat tab above conversations with friends. While initially only available for $3.99 a month Snapchat Plus subscribers, the goal is to eventually make the bot available to all of Snapchat’s 750 million monthly users, Spiegel tells The Verge.

“The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day,” he says. “And this is something we’re well positioned to do as a messaging service.”

At launch,...

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