Technology

Facebook is cutting off ads in Russia. It’s pausing ads that target people in the country and is no longer letting advertisers in Russia “create or run ads anywhere in the world, including within Russia,” the company announced on Friday. The moves mark a big escalation of its actions against the country and could help prevent Russian misinformation tied to its invasion of Ukraine from appearing in Facebook ads. Russia earlier on Friday began blocking Meta-owned Facebook entirely in the country, preventing many Russians from posting to social media amid the crisis. “As a result of the Russian government’s decision to block access to Facebook in the Russian Federation, soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways o...

Snap has announced that it’s temporarily turning off Snapchat’s “heatmap” feature for Ukraine, making it so the app no longer shows how many snaps are being taken in particular locations. The company says that the move is “a safety precaution” and that there will still be a curated public feed of snaps submitted by Ukrainians. Normally, the Snap Map displays a color code to show how many people are posting public images in an area. In practice, that means you can get a good idea of where Snapchat users are concentrated. While this publicly available data isn’t usually meaningful (it’s not a surprise that more people are posting from downtown Seattle than the nearby national forest), in a wartime scenario where Russia may want to track evacuations or citizen movements, it’s probably for the...

Nvidia never denied that it got hacked. The GPU giant just didn’t say all that much about what happened, either. But now — as we wait to see whether the hackers make good on their threat to dump hundreds of gigabytes of proprietary Nvidia data on the web, including details about future graphics chips, by an unspecified Friday deadline — the compromised email alert website Have I Been Pwned suggests that the scope of the hack includes a staggering 71,000 employee emails and hashes that may have allowed the hackers to crack their passwords (via TechCrunch). It’s not clear how Have I Been Pwned obtained this info, and Nvidia won’t say. Nvidia would not confirm or deny to The Verge whether 71,000 employee credentials have been compromised, and it would not say whether it plans to comply with a...

At Apple’s annual shareholder meeting, investors in the company had more to consider than just how much money CEO Tim Cook and other executives stand to make — last year, the compensation for running a $2 trillion company added up to nearly $99 million for Cook. Instead, certain shareholder proposals brought up issues with social and cultural impact, like addressing forced labor, pay equity, and employee NDAs. On Friday, for the first time in years, two proposals actually passed (via CNET). Bloomberg reports shareholders (unsurprisingly) opted to re-elect the same board of directors and approved the executive pay package outlined in the 2022 proxy statement. They also followed Apple’s recommendation in voting on eight of the ten shareholder proposals presented, as noted in an SEC 8-K filin...

Samsung is suspending shipments of all of its products to Russia, the company announced Friday. “Due to the current geopolitical developments, shipments to Russia have been suspended,” reads a statement from an unnamed Samsung representative, via Samsung’s generic PR email address. “We continue to actively monitor this complex situation to determine our next steps.” It’s not just smartphones — Samsung’s suspension includes products ranging from “chips to smartphones and consumer electronics,” a source informed Bloomberg — meaning the move cuts off Russia from a huge range of products from one of the largest electronics vendors in the world. Samsung is also making donations to humanitarian efforts Samsung is also making donations to humanitarian efforts. “Our thoughts are with everyone who ...

TikTok has announced that it’ll start putting labels on videos from “some” state-controlled media outlets as it starts rolling out its new state media policy. According to a news post from the company, it is “expediting” its plans for piloting the policy due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company says it started working on the policy last year. Users can expect the labels to start appearing within the next few days, according to the post. A TikTok spokesperson told The Verge via email that the labels would be applied to at least some Russian state media accounts but didn’t specify which ones or how many. The Verge confirmed that at least one Russian state-controlled outlet, RT, has a verified account on TikTok. The spokesperson also said that the labels would be visible “globally”...

If you own any wireless Xbox controller from the current or previous generation, you already have a great option for playing controller-based games on a PC or smartphone. The key to the adaptability of these controllers is their support for both the Xbox Wireless protocol and Bluetooth. After Apple rolled out iOS 14.5 with support for wireless Xbox controllers and Microsoft tested and rolled out firmware updates for the older Bluetooth-equipped Xbox One controllers and the Elite 2 (matching the functionality of newer Series X models), these controllers went from being the only de facto option for Xbox or PC gamers to one of the most versatile options for use across consoles, phones, tablets, and Windows PCs. Connecting to all these devices is simple, and even swapping back and forth betwee...

If you’ve finished your Wordle, Worldle, and Octordle and have more room in your heart for more Wordle-alikes, may I suggest trying out Heardle.app? It’s a guessing game where you’re given progressively longer snippets of a pop song and get six tries to figure out what it is. It’s a fun twist on the Wordle format, especially for those of us who are significantly more interested in music than words like “knoll” or “vivid.” An interesting twist with Heardle is that it gives you a skip button. Mechanically, it makes sense — with Wordle, you’re only going to get closer to the answer by guessing a word and seeing what letters are or aren’t in the correct answer. But when you’re guessing a song, hearing a new snippet will give you more information regardless of whether you’ve made a guess. Heard...

Nintendo has temporarily put its Russian eShop into maintenance mode, the company said in a notice on its Russian website, which appears to mean that players in the country can’t buy digital games from the store. “Due to the fact that the payment service used in Nintendo eShop has suspended the processing of payments in rubles, Nintendo eShop in Russia is temporarily placed into maintenance mode,” according to a Google-translated version of the message. “We apologize for any inconvenience caused.” It’s unclear what payment service Nintendo uses. The Verge has reached out for more information. Many gaming companies have taken action in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. EA and CD Projekt Red have halted sales of their games in Russia and Belarus. Microsoft has suspended all new sales ...

Some of the most popular programming on Hulu will now head to Peacock. A contract between the streaming services’ parent companies Disney and Comcast to stream NBCUniversal shows to Hulu has been terminated. “The Hulu agreement was terminated,” NBCUniversal spokesperson Lisa Scalzo confirmed to The Verge. The partnership will see episodes of NBCUniversal-owned shows like Saturday Night Live and The Voice debut on Peacock, rather than Hulu, after airing on pay-TV. Because Hulu will no longer be paying for some of NBC’s biggest titles, the deal could give Hulu the financial freedom to pursue more originals. The change will likely go into effect next broadcast season, possibly around September and October. The termination will not wipe all NBCUniversal programming from Hulu, as the companies ...

Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a law punishing “fake news” with up to 15 years in prison, according to Reuters. The rule would impose fines or jail terms for spreading false information about the military, as well as fines for people who publicly call for sanctions against Russia. Courts would mete out the harshest sentences for fake news that leads to “serious consequences.” According to earlier coverage from The Moscow Times, the bill is meant to penalize people who knowingly “distort the purpose, role and tasks of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as other units during special military and other operations,” including people who spread information about Russian war losses. “Literally by tomorrow, this law will force punishment — and very tough punishment — on those who li...