Technology

A group of major record labels has filed a new lawsuit against Charter Communications alleging that the company has failed to address its subscribers’ copyright infringement of musical works. And it’s not the first time the labels have sued Charter for its subscribers’ alleged behavior. In a complaint filed in US District Court in Colorado July 26th, Universal Music, EMI, Sony Music, and Warner Music, along with several subsidiaries, claim that Charter, which provides internet services as Spectrum, “has insisted on doing nothing despite receiving thousands of notices that detailed the illegal activity of its subscribers, despite its clear legal obligation to address the widespread, illegal downloading of copyrighted works on its Internet services, and despite being sued previously by Plain...

An anonymous buyer paid $2 million for a never-opened copy of Super Mario Bros., according to collectibles site Rally. First reported by the New York Times, the sale price of the 1985 game broke a record that was set less than a month ago, when a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 went for $1.56 million at auction. Over the past year, the record for most expensive video game has been broken numerous times, as the demand for childhood collectibles remains hot. Last July, a copy of Super Mario Bros. went for $114,000 at auction. In November, a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 broke that record, selling for $156.000 at auction. Then, that record was smashed in April when a copy of Super Mario Bros. went for $660,000 at auction, followed in July by a copy of The Legend of Zelda that went for $870,000. W...

Riot Games announced Saturday that the final two matches of the League of Legends US Championship Series (LCS), which are slated for later this month, will no longer be held with fans at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, “due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in the United States.” The matches will instead be held at the LCS Arena in Los Angeles. Current ticket holders will be issued full refunds. “We scheduled the LCS Championship as a road show with fans and made the decision to move forward based on the very promising roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Spring,” Riot Games said in its announcement, adding that it had been monitoring the recent uptick in cases. “Given the current state of affairs, we cannot in good conscience conduct a massive fan event at this time. After muc...

It’s time for another roundup of this week’s best deals. You may have already seen some of these if you’ve been keeping up with our deals coverage every day, but I’m sure there are some surprises in here. Before that, though, check out our newly-published Back to School gift guide. The beginning of August marks when many people who attend school realize how little time they actually have to prepare for the school year ahead. If that describes you or someone you know, I hope that our guide helps you. Otherwise, carry on to see what we’ve brought you this weekend. Get a Nomad case for your MacBook or iPad for half off Nomad is offering Verge readers an exclusive discount on some of its polyurethane (PU) leather cases and sleeves for the latest MacBook models (both 13- and 16-inch), as well a...

Twitter has appointed two new executives in India in an attempt to comply with the country’s new information technology laws, a company lawyer told the Delhi High court at a Friday hearing. First reported by Bloomberg, one of the new executives is a chief compliance officer who will also serve as grievance officer, and the other is a nodal officer, both required by the country’s Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code which took effect in May. Twitter made the appointments a week after the Indian government found the social media platform’s efforts to comply with the new rules were insufficient. Under the rules, social media companies are required to remove content within 36 hours of receiving a legal order. The country also requires such companies to have a grievance officer...

A social media site for doctors is seeing “hundreds of comments”— many with false claims and conspiracy theories— on posts about the COVID-19 vaccine and the pandemic, according to a new report from CNBC. Doximity is limited to healthcare professionals in the US— it verifies members before they can join— and no one who posts to the site is anonymous. Doximity also doesn’t allow users to post articles or stories; instead it posts items from medical and science publications and mainstream news articles. Each user has a feed of aggregated content that is customized for them, based on the user’s preferences including area of medical practice. But Doximity members can comment on articles, which is where the misinformation and conspiracy theories seem to proliferate, CNBC reported. For instance,...

Turtle Beach is known primarily for making gaming headsets, but it recently launched its first controller called the Recon for the Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, and PC. It’s a $59.99 wired model available in black or white that doesn’t feel all that different from Microsoft’s wireless controller. What little it does change design-wise is ultimately successful, and I’ll get into all of that shortly. But I want to focus first on the Recon’s killer feature: customization. When you plug headphones into its 3.5mm headphone jack, the panel of buttons at the top of the Recon can be used to make a host of changes to your game and chat audio as well as your microphone. You can choose between four equalizer presets that range from focusing more on bass to a treble-dominated sound. Mic monitoring can ...

More and more, I find myself wondering why we built a world in which so much civic discourse takes place inside a handful of giant digital shopping malls. So let’s talk about Facebook’s decision to disable the pages and personal accounts associated with the Ad Observatory project at New York University, which took data that had been volunteered by willing Facebook users and analyzed it in an effort to better understand the 2020 election and other subjects in the public interest. In one corner, you have academic researchers working to understand the platform’s effects on our democracy. In the other, you have a company battered by nearly two decades of privacy scandals and regulatory fines, forever terrified that a Cambridge Analytica sequel is lurking somewhere on the platform. I first wrot...

Singaporean-American gaming software company Razer unveiled new images of its intelligent N95 mask — dubbed Razer Zephyr — and has opened up public registration for its community beta testing phase. The high-tech prototype mask was previously named Project Hazel and has been dubbed “the latest evolution of our wearable air purifier.” The mask comes with a 99 percent bacterial filtration efficiency, silicon face seal and anti-fog coating. Project Hazel is now officially Razer Zephyr – the latest evolution of our wearable air purifier. Designed to be safe, social and sustainable, Razer Zephyr sports 99% BFE, a secure silicon face seal and anti-fog coating. Join our community beta test: https://t.co/mlex2YSMpi pic.twitter.com/yLUj0lO2oJ — R Λ Z Ξ R (@Razer) August 6, 2021 In addition, the mas...

Elon Musk on Friday released photos of his Starship rocket fully-loaded up atop the Super Heavy Booster 4, standing at an impressive combined height of nearly 400 feet tall. The stacked construction of the two segments at the Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, easily makes it the biggest rocket ever constructed, according to the BBC.  Photos tweeted out by Musk show the colossal pieces coming together for the first time. Starship Fully Stacked pic.twitter.com/Fs88RNsmfH — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2021 More pictures tweeted out by SpaceX also provided another vantage point. Starship on the orbital launch pad pic.twitter.com/7p02cgNnUA — SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 6, 2021 CNBC‘s Michael Sheetz asked Musk on Twitter what it felt like seeing the pieces finally coming together. “D...

Amazon informed US warehouse employees on Friday that it is once again requiring them to wear masks to work in response to the spread of the more contagious COVID-19 delta variant (via CNBC and Bloomberg). The company says it offers access to vaccines to over half a million of its employees, but it will require employees to mask up, regardless of their vaccination status. Amazon confirmed the mask mandate in an email statement to The Verge: In response to the concerning spread of new COVID-19 variants in the U.S. and guidance from public health authorities and our own medical experts, we are requiring face coverings indoors regardless of vaccination status. We are monitoring the situation closely and will continue to follow local government guidance and work closely with leading medical he...