Technology

The EU has unveiled its biggest ever legislative effort to balance competition in the tech world. The new Digital Markets Act, or DMA, is intended to rein in the power of the largest tech corporations and allow smaller entities to compete with the mostly US-based firms. So far, the EU has tackled antitrust issues on a case-by-case basis, but the DMA is intended to introduce sweeping reforms that will address systemic issues in the whole market. Today’s announcement targets interoperability of messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and iMessage, with the EU saying that vendors will have to “open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request.” The EU says that this should give users more choice in how they send messages, without having to worry about wha...

Another sexual harassment lawsuit has been filed against Activision Blizzard. The law firm of entertainment lawyer Lisa Bloom filed the suit on behalf of a plaintiff identified as “Jane Doe” against Activision Blizzard. Jane Doe alleges she has been subject to sexual harassment and discrimination while working at the company. The suit names Activision Blizzard, Blizzard Entertainment, three former Blizzard employees, two current employees, and “Does 1 through 25” as defendants. Content warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual harassment. Many of the allegations in the lawsuit involve Mark Skorupa, a former Blizzard staffer who is one of the named defendants and a current Microsoft employee. Doe was hired as a senior administrative assistant to support Skorupa and another Blizzar...

After seeing the first episode of Halo, I’m totally on board. I’m a Halo lore hobbyist, meaning that while I’ve enthusiastically experienced the campaigns of Halo’s Combat Evolved through Guardians, go on regular Halopedia wiki dives, and own a well-loved copy of Eric Nylund’s The Fall Of Reach, I haven’t consumed everything the Halo universe has to offer. (Ghosts of Onyx, I swear I’ll get to you one day.) But based on the Halo stories I do know, I think Paramount Plus’ series offers a far more compelling look at the Master Chief than anything the games have done so far. Spoilers for the first episode of Halo below: It’s hard translating video games to film and TV. It’s only recently been done right with Arcane, Castlevania, and the Sonic movie. And the common thread for all these successf...

You shouldn’t be concerned about the delay of Matter, the new smart home interoperability standard, because we’re not. That’s the message from smart home device makers Eve Systems and Nanoleaf, who have been involved with developing the protocol that promises smart home nirvana since its earliest days. “I think the three-month delay might actually be a good thing,” says Gimmy Chu CEO of Nanoleaf. “I feel that now there’s more certainty across the industry that we’ll have unity at time of launch.” While there may be more certainty in the industry, current smart home owners are still in a quagmire of uncertainty around which products to buy and when. Especially now that Chu has confirmed to The Verge that Nanoleaf’s Thread-enabled A19 smart light bulb and light strip won’t work with the stan...

Spotify is reportedly letting some Android users test out a new, voice-focused car mode after it removed Car View last year without any obvious replacement. According to a report from 9to5Google, which includes screenshots of the test, Car Mode is less like the hyper-simplified Car View that came before it and more like a version of Spotify’s usual interface that’s tweaked to make quick actions easier. While the current version of Car Mode that Spotify’s testing does have a tab that lets you access your recently played music, the search screen has been replaced by a voice control feature. The interface for controlling what’s currently playing has a similar layout to Spotify’s regular mode, which should let you use muscle memory (without a lot of the visual distractions that are on the stan...

In the wake of the Overwatch 2 beta date announcement and an apologetic video from game director Aaron Keller promising the team would give more consistent updates on progress, the Overwatch 2 news floodgates have officially opened. In this latest update, we’re offered a glimpse of Overwatch 2’s overhauled ping system. “We wanted to create a system that would enhance voice communication as well as provide alternative ways to share information with your team,” systems designer Gavin Winter says in the blog post. New features include character-specific callouts in which, when a player makes a ping, their teammates hear that notification in that player’s hero’s voice. The blog gives an example: “if you’re playing Tracer and ping an enemy Reaper, your teammates will hear Tracer call out that R...

When Apple introduced the ability to unlock iPhones with an Apple Watch, it was a lifesaver for anyone wearing a mask during the pandemic. But the handy feature isn’t limited to your smartphone. You can also use your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac and to securely approve app requests. The feature is called Auto Unlock, and technically, it came to Macs long before Apple decided to apply it to iPhones. That said, you may not have heard of it if you’ve just bought a shiny new Apple Watch or are a recent convert to the Apple ecosystem. Prepare your Mac To get started, you’ll want to make sure all your devices are compatible. Your Mac should be a model from mid-2013 or later and running macOS Sierra at the very least. Here’s how you check to make sure: Click the Apple icon in the top-right corn...

Spotify is continuing its effort to offer some transparency to musicians who are unhappy with its streaming rates. The company updated its “Loud & Clear” website today, providing a breakdown of some 2021 metrics for how artists, publishers, and rights holders actually make money off Spotify streams. As one might expect, Spotify chooses to call out here are positive improvements over 2020. Spotify paid out over $7 billion to artists, labels, and the other moving pieces of the music industry last year, up from $5 billion last year. Over 16,500 artists’ catalogs earned at least $50,000 in royalties in 2021, compared to 13,400 in 2020, and over 1,000 artists cracked $1 million from Spotify streaming for the first time (versus 870 artists hitting that high watermark last year). Meanwhile, o...

The United States Postal Service announced its initial order of 50,000 next-generation delivery vehicles, 10,019 of which will be battery-electric vehicles. It’s a notable number considering the agency’s resistance to calls for increasing the number of EVs in its future delivery fleet. Originally, the postal service said it would purchase 165,000 next-generation mail trucks, only 10 percent of which will be battery-electric vehicles. President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats urged the agency to increase the number of EVs, but USPS determined there was no legal reason to change its plans. Now, the postal service says it will increase its initial order of EVs from 5,000 to 10,019, determining it “makes good sense from an operational and financial perspective.” increase its initial orde...

City of London Police have arrested seven teenagers due to their suspected connections with a hacking group that is believed to be the recently prolific Lapsus$ group, BBC News reports. “Seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 have been arrested in connection with an investigation into a hacking group,” City of London Police said, according to BBC News. “They have all been released under investigation. Our inquiries remain ongoing.” Lapsus$ has taken responsibility for some major security breaches at tech companies, including Nvidia, Samsung, Ubisoft, Okta, and Microsoft. On Wednesday, reports surfaced indicating an Oxford-based teenager is the mastermind of the group. City of London Police did not say if this teenager was among those arrested, according to BBC News. BBC News says it sp...