Google foreshadows its final arguments in search monopoly trial

Illustration: The Verge

Google has offered a glimpse into its final arguments to a DC federal judge as it seeks to convince the court it’s not operating an unlawful monopoly in search.

The company filed an unsealed version of its posttrial brief on Friday in its battle against the US Department of Justice over its search distribution agreements. The DOJ has argued that Google used exclusionary contracts with phone manufacturers and web browser operators to make it harder for other search engines to compete. It’s expected to file its own brief by the end of the day as well.

In the brief filed Friday, Google said that evidence from the trial shows “conclusively” that “Google is the highest quality, most popular search engine in the United States, with the highest...

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Spotify HiFi is still MIA after three years, and now so is my subscription

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do this again. Last year, it seemed like there was no reason to believe Spotify would ever roll out its long-delayed HiFi lossless streaming feature, which was announced in 2021 and then never mentioned again. But then, one of the company’s co-presidents kept hope alive, telling my colleague Alex Heath “we are going to do it.”

That was in March 2023. And now here we find ourselves, three years and one day after Spotify HiFi’s buzzy original announcement, and still nothing. Like always, there are signs that the company is continuing to work on HiFi — although it’s unlikely to be called that anymore. And unlike rival services, you’re likely going to have to pay a lot more for it, whenever it actually...

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Corsair’s Scimitar RGB Elite, one of our favorite gaming mice, is on sale for $60

Corsair’s Scimitar RGB Elite gaming mouse is our top pick for gamers who play a lot of MMOs or MOBAs. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s been a good week for gaming accessory deals. Not only is the official Xbox Wireless Controller on sale for just $44 ($16 off), but you can still replace your Nintendo Switch Joy-Con with the Hori Split Pad Compact for $32.49 ($18 off). And PC gamers can get in on the savings, too, now that Corsair’s Scimitar RGB Elite is down to $59.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen on the wired gaming mouse since Black Friday and only $10 shy of its lowest price to date.

Corsair’s gaming mouse is our top pick for playing MMOs, MOBAs, and action RPGs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. With an adjustable 12-button side panel, the USB-A mouse makes it easy to quickly swap weapons or abilities using...

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Nvidia’s role in the AI wave has made it a $2 trillion company

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nvidia has officially hit a $2 trillion market capitalization, making it the first chipmaker to cross the threshold. It’s also the third US company to reach over a $2 trillion valuation, right behind Apple ($2.83 trillion) and Microsoft ($3.06 trillion).

The California-based company has seen rapid growth over the past year due to its leadership in the AI chip market. Nvidia’s market cap reached $1 trillion only less than one year ago, and it left both Amazon and Alphabet in the rearview mirror as it became a $1.83 trillion company earlier this month.

As part of its earnings report last week, Nvidia revealed a record $60.9 billion in revenue in 2023, marking a 126 percent increase from 2022. Other companies, like OpenAI, Microsoft, and...

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Vision Pro owners are reporting a mysterious crack in the front glass

No one seems to know what causes it. | Photo by @inphenite / Reddit

Vision Pro owners are posting near-identical reports of a crack appearing on the front glass of their headsets. None of them seem to know how it happened, either.

The issue was first spotted by MacRumors, and so far, there have been five separate Redditors who have posted about it in the r/VisionPro subreddit. What makes it curious is that all of the uploaded pictures appear to show vertical hairline cracks in the same exact area above the nose bridge. All the affected Redditors say they didn’t do anything obvious to cause the cracks, like dropping the device or storing it improperly. Reddit user @dornbirn claims that they polished the front glass, placed the soft cover on, packed it away in the case, and woke up to see the crack the...

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For Netflix’s live-action Avatar to work, Zuko had to find his heart a little faster

Dallas Liu as Prince Zuko. | Image: Robert Falconer / Netflix

Avatar: The Last Airbender actor Dallas Liu opens up about turning to YouTube and co-star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee to figure out who the new Prince Zuko really is.

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Google realized Google Pay and Google Wallet are the same thing, so it’s getting rid of one of them

Illustration: The Verge

Google Wallet was the company’s first attempt at enabling money transfers on Android with the Nexus S 4G, and no matter how many apps Google launches, it will seemingly always be around. Google Pay tried to replace both Google Wallet and Android Pay a few years ago, but in a few months, Google Pay will be gone, with Google Wallet back on top.

Android Pay popped up in 2015 as a temporary tap-to-pay king, while Google Wallet was recast as a Cash App / Venmo rival, but even when Google changed its mind and combined them, it couldn’t keep itself from messing with the formula again and again.

Image: Google

Google Pay (2020).

Don’t even ask me about that 2020 revamp that pulled Google Pay Send’s peer-to-peer...

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The AIs are officially out of control

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

When you ask an AI bot for an image of the Founding Fathers or a group of German soldiers from 1943, you expect... something. You probably don’t expect what Google Gemini has been delivering, which is a set of images that goes heavy on diversity and light on historical accuracy. And when you ask ChatGPT a question, you probably don’t expect total gibberish in response. It’s been a very strange couple of days in AI land, but it makes us wonder: what do we actually want from AI?

On this episode of The Vergecast, that’s what we talk about. We also talk about Reddit’s big AI training data deal with Google in the run-up to the company’s initial public offering. (Full disclosure: Reddit actually filed its S-1 paperwork right as we finished...

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Instagram and Facebook knowingly platform parents who sexually exploit children for profit, say reports

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Investigations into “child influencer” accounts on Facebook and Instagram have found that Meta is knowingly allowing parents who sexually exploit their children for financial gain on the platform — and in some cases, using Meta’s paid subscription tools to do so.

According to separate reports published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Facebook and Instagram have become a potentially lucrative endeavor for parents who run social media accounts for children — mostly girls — who aren’t old enough to meet the platforms’ minimum 13-year-old age requirements. Several of the “parent-managed minor accounts” investigated sold materials to their large audiences of adult men, including photos of their children in...

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The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The ruling could impact other publishing industries and future social media regulation.

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What’s the point of Elon Musk’s AI company?

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin, Getty Images

Look, I’ve been following the adventures of xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, and I’ve come to a conclusion: its only real idea is “What if AI, but with Elon Musk this time?”

What’s publicly available about xAI makes it seem like Musk showed up to the generative AI party late, and without any beer. This is 2024. The party is crowded now. xAI doesn’t seem to have anything that would let it stand out beyond, well, Musk.

That hasn’t stopped Musk from shopping his idea to investors, though! Last December, xAI said it was trying to raise $1 billion in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (This is not the same company as the X that was formerly known as Twitter.) There is also reporting from the Financial Times saying Musk is...

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Humane’s AI Pin is slightly delayed, now comes with months of free service

Image: Humane

Humane announced that its AI Pin would start shipping in March, but there’s been a small delay. Early adopters are now being told orders will arrive in mid-April at the earliest, according to a video update from Humane staffer (and Verge alumnus) Sam Sheffer and emails we saw in Humane’s official Discord channel.

On the plus side, the company says it’ll now throw in three months of its pricy $24-a-month subscription for free with the $699 pin — and will do so for any other customers who buy one before March 31st, too.

a few @Humane updates: pic.twitter.com/olYQp8utdc

— Sam Sheffer (@samsheffer) February 23, 2024

(The $24 pays for the pin’s cellular data, among other things — it’s got its own phone number rather than piggybacking...

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Windows is getting its own Magic Eraser to AI-modify your photos

Google and Samsung aren’t the only ones baking magical AI selective photo erasers into their devices — they’re about to become table stakes for Windows PCs too. Microsoft has just announced Generative erase, a feature that lets you do similar things in the Photos app that comes bundled with Windows.

Above and below, you can see how Microsoft disappears a dog’s leash and some unintentional photobombers using the power of generative AI:

GIF: Microsoft

Selectively removing people from the background of a photo.

While that may not be quite as nifty a party trick as other AI fakery you’ve seen, you won’t need to buy a new Pixel or Galaxy to integrate this into your life, either. Microsoft says it’s not only...

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Vice is abandoning Vice.com and laying off hundreds

Image: Getty

After nearly three decades, Vice will stop publishing stories to its website. Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon said today that the company is going to lay off hundreds of employees as it plans a shift toward social platforms, according to a memo to employees obtained by Washington Post reporter Will Sommer.

“It is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously,” Dixon writes. “Moving forward we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model.”

Vice has been struggling with many of the same challenges affecting other companies across the media industry. Advertising has...

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The best iPad to buy

The Verge

There are more iPads than ever, and it can be tough to sort out which one is the best for you. Fortunately, we’re here to guide you through your next iPad purchase.

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Watch Odysseus attempt the first US Moon landing since 1972

Image: Intuitive Machines

NASA and Intuitive Machines’ lunar vehicle Odysseus is expected to touch down on the Moon today at 6:24PM ET and become the first successful US Moon landing since 1972’s Apollo 17 mission.

Odysseus began its journey to the Moon on February 15th after it hitched a ride on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It plans to land on the Moon’s south pole.

The mission, officially known as IM-1, carries scientific cargo to help NASA learn more about the Moon’s surface before NASA’s Artemis program brings people back to the Moon in 2025. It brings a laser retroreflector array to help other spacecraft make precision landings and a radio navigation beacon to provide geolocation data to landers, rovers, and eventually astronauts.

If Odysseus does land on...

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Avast fined $16.5 million for ‘privacy’ software that actually sold users’ browsing data

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Avast, the cybersecurity software company, is facing a $16.5 million fine after it was caught storing and selling customer information without their consent. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the fine on Thursday and said that it’s banning Avast from selling user data for advertising purposes.

From at least 2014 to 2020, Avast harvested user web browsing information through its antivirus software and browser extension, according to the FTC’s complaint. This allowed it to collect data on religious beliefs, health concerns, political views, locations, and financial status. The company then stored this information “indefinitely” and sold it to over 100 third parties without the knowledge of customers, the complaint says.

1....

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Bluesky starts letting users host their own servers

Image: Bluesky

Bluesky is taking a big leap toward federating. On Thursday, the social network announced that it is opening up early access for users and developers who want to self-host their data. While this isn’t true federation yet, the company plans to open up federation to larger servers with even more users in its next phase. When the dust settles, anyone can (in theory) create their own server with their own rules on Bluesky’s AT Protocol.

The draw of self-hosting is that it offers users more control over their social media. Rather than store your data on Bluesky’s servers, you can keep it on your own, or move your existing posts, likes, and followers to another company’s platform. If Bluesky were to go bankrupt or change hands, users who...

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AT&T apologizes for outage and says its network is fully operational again

Illustration: The Verge

This afternoon, AT&T confirmed that it has restored mobile service following a major outage that disrupted its network for customers across the US for much of Thursday. “We sincerely apologize to them,” the carrier said of subscribers in a statement on its website. “Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”

The company hasn’t yet offered any explanation as to what caused the outage. ABC News reported that the situation prompted the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to begin “urgently” investigating whether the carrier was the target of a cyberattack. Hopefully, AT&T will offer some clarification on the root cause soon, as...

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Reddit is going public and inviting power users to invest

Image: The Verge

On Thursday, Reddit filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC detailing its finances and business goals ahead of its imminent initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol RDDT.

In its S-1 document, Reddit said it made $804 million in revenue last year, the vast majority of which came from advertising. However, the company is unprofitable, with a net loss of $90.8 million in 2023.

In an unusual twist, Reddit is also giving an unspecified number of its top users, including moderators and those with high karma scores, the chance to buy shares in its IPO. That’s a privilege usually reserved for professional investors who want to buy stock at a theoretically lower price before everyone else gets to purchase...

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How the Supreme Court could gut environmental protections in 2024

Clean air advocates gather at the Supreme Court ahead of oral arguments in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency on February 21st, 2024, in Washington, DC. | Photo by Paul Morigi / Getty Images for SKDK

The Verge’s guide to key environmental cases before the Supreme Court this year.

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Yahoo lays off the leaders of Engadget

Image: Engadget

The nearly 20-year-old tech publication Engadget is laying off staff and restructuring editorial teams today with a new focus around traffic and revenue growth. The changes are designed to give the outlet a stronger emphasis on commerce revenue, while removing key editorial leaders from its newsroom, including its editor-in-chief.

Engadget, which is operated by Yahoo, will lay off 10 employees, according to people with knowledge of the situation who say staff were “blindsided” by the decision. In addition to cutting staff, the editorial team will split into two sections: “news and features” and “reviews and buying advice.” The news teams will focus on traffic growth, while the reviews teams will report to commerce leaders.

As part of the...

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Mercedes-Benz backs off plan to only sell EVs by 2030

Image: Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is backing off its plan to only sell electric vehicles after 2030, the company said Thursday. It was the latest evidence that the global auto industry is feeling more dour about the all-electric future after a slowdown in sales growth.

It was only three years ago that Mercedes was feeling quite bullish about plug-in powertrains, saying that by 2030 it would only sell EVs. At the time, the company said it would completely phase out gas-powered vehicles, while including the caveat “where markets allowed.”

Now it seems that the market is not allowing Mercedes to follow through on its plans. Today, the company said in its fourth quarter earnings statement that it only expects 50 percent of its sales to be all-electric — a...

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The Justice Department gets a chief AI officer

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Justice Department appointed Princeton professor and technology law researcher Jonathan Mayer as its first chief AI officer as it figures out how AI impacts law enforcement.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that appointing an AI officer was important for the department to “keep pace with rapidly evolving scientific and technological developments.”

One of Mayer’s responsibilities will be to build a team of technical and policy experts around cybersecurity and AI. Mayer will also serve as the department’s chief science and technology advisor and help recruit tech talent.

Government agencies were tasked by the Biden administration’s executive order on AI to shore up AI talent and create guidelines on using the...

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Google cut a deal with Reddit for AI training data

Image: The Verge

Google is getting AI training data from Reddit as part of a new partnership between the two companies. In an update on Thursday, Reddit announced it will start providing Google “more efficient ways to train models.”

The collaboration will give Google access to Reddit’s data API, which delivers real-time content from Reddit’s platform. This will provide “Google with an efficient and structured way to access the vast corpus of existing content on Reddit,” while also allowing the company to display content from Reddit in new ways across its products.

When Reddit CEO Steve Huffman spoke to The Verge last year about Reddit’s API changes and the subsequent protests, he said, “The API usage is about covering costs and data licensing is a new...

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It’s just $32.49 to fix your Switch’s Joy-Con drift with Hori’s Split Pad Compact

Because who wants to pay $70 just to develop analog drift in another three months? | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

I love the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con, but they develop stick drift way too easily, and people with ham-sized hands like mine can’t play for long before cramps set in. They’re also pretty expensive to replace. I’ve personally settled on Hori’s Split Pad Pro Joy-Con replacements to remedy all of that, but it makes my Switch too bulky to fit comfortably in my smaller everyday carry. The Hori Split Pad Compact offer a nice balance between size, affordability, and added grip, and you can get a pair in white / yellow for only $32.49 (about $18 off) at Target.

The Split Pad Compact suffers from the same deficiencies as most third-party Joy-Con replacements: you’ll forsake rumble, NFC, and motion control, and you can’t use them individually as...

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Google Chrome’s ‘Help me write’ tool can now finish your sentences for you

Some added assistance for when you can’t be bothered to fill in web forms yourself. | Image: Google

Google has started rolling out “Help me write” — an experimental Gemini-powered generative AI feature for its Chrome browser that aims to help users write or refine text based on webpage content. Following the stable release of Chrome M122 on Tuesday, the new writing assistant is now available to try out on Mac and Windows PCs for English-speaking Chrome users in the US.

“Help me write” focuses on providing writing suggestions for shortform content, such as filling in digital surveys and reviews, enquiring about product information, or drafting descriptions for items being sold online. Google says the tool can “understand the context of the webpage you’re on” to pull relevant information into its suggestions — for example, highlighting...

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The birth of a salesman

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Flip shopping app is a TikTok knockoff, filled only with videos earning affiliate revenue. For a month, I tried my hand at influencing strangers.

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The Verge nominated for two 2024 National Magazine Awards

The Verge was recognized for work across feature writing, design, and more

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Riot’s League of Legends fighter is now called 2XKO

Image: Riot Games

Riot Games has given Project L, its in-development 2v2 fighting game, an official name: 2XKO.

2XKO — a name that is unlikely to spawn its own catchphrase ala “When’s Mahvel?” — was first announced in 2019 along with a battery of other League-themed projects including Arcaneand Legends of Runeterra. Last year, however, Riot underwent layoffs of around 500 people, scaling back projects including Runeterra and shuttering its publishing arm Riot Forge.

Since that first announcement, Riot has offered sporadic development updates culminating in the game’s first hands-on demo at EVO 2023.

2XKO is a 2v2 fighter, but unlike other tag-team fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom, 2XKO lets you play competitively or cooperatively. Players can team...

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