Technology

Monday’s congressional hearing with the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple will “likely” be postponed as the late Rep. John Lewis will lie in state at the US Capitol next week. The House Judiciary Committee had initially scheduled the blockbuster hearing for Monday at noon, setting the stage for a dramatic public airing of the various antitrust concerns facing the companies. But a source familiar told The Verge Thursday that “it is highly likely that the House Judiciary Committee will reschedule Monday’s hearing to allow Members of Congress to pay their respects.” “It is highly likely that the House Judiciary Committee will reschedule” It’s still unclear when the hearing will ultimately take place, although the CEOs are expected to attend remotely, due to coronavirus c...

A pair of swords crosses on a rainswept battlefield. The fighters move gracefully, as if dancing. In between flashes of bloodshed, the pair argues about honor. It takes less than a minute for the viewer to understand the fraught, difficult relationship between these two brothers. It sounds like a scene out of a samurai movie, but it’s from the latest animated short from League of Legends. Developer Riot has crafted a gorgeous anime clip to officially reveal the game’s latest champion: Yone, a sort of demonic samurai character. These kinds of splashy, animated reveals aren’t new territory for Riot. But Yone’s cinematic — dubbed “Kin of the Stained Blade” — is longer and more ambitious than what the studio has attempted in the past. It clocks in at 10 minutes long and jumps back and forth be...

Verizon added 173,000 postpaid phone customers and 287,000 postpaid smartphone customers in the second quarter, even as it lost 81,000 consumer Fios TV subscribers, the company reported Friday. But it saw a net gain of 10,000 consumer Fios broadband subscribers, even though it had to suspend many in-home installations because of pandemic restrictions. The Keep Americans Connected Pledge — waiving late fees and promising not to cut off service for customers who couldn’t pay during the pandemic — ended on June 30th, but Verizon CFO Matt Ellis said a third of customers were current on their bills at the end of June, and 80 percent of its wireless customers have been making at least some payments. “We’re encouraged by what we’ve seen, and we expect the vast majority to be Verizon customers a y...

Garmin fitness devices have been left disconnected for nearly a day after the company suffered a major outage, possibly caused by a ransomware attack. The outage first reported by Garmin over 20 hours ago, as of this writing, affects Garmin wearables and apps, as well as Garmin call centers. “We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect. This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats,” wrote the company on Twitter and its Garmin Connect website. The outage as seen from the Garmin Connect app. Garmin Connect is the service that allows owners of Garmin devices like Forerunner smartwatches to obsessively track their running performance, for example. ZDNET reports that flyGarmin, the navi...

This newsletter was sent out on Thursday afternoon before it was reported that the hearing would likely be delayed so lawmakers can attend Rep. John Lewis’s funeral. The hearing is now expected to take place the following week. On Monday at noon ET, one of the more notable Congressional hearings in Silicon Valley history is set to take place. The 15-member House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee will ask questions of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The event is what’s known as an evidentiary hearing: members of Congress are gathering evidence as part of a 13-month investigation into competition and digital marketplaces. The outcome could be legislation that seeks to rein in the market power of these giants, limiting thei...

Microsoft has spent the past few weeks teasing the Surface Duo on Twitter, and it now looks like the dual-screen device is ready to launch. Microsoft’s new Android-powered device first appeared at the FCC earlier this week, and today it has shown up on the Bluetooth SIG certification page. Devices typically appear in FCC and Bluetooth listings just a few weeks away from launch. Recent rumors had suggested the Surface Duo might appear in July, but it’s clear the device isn’t ready to launch this month. Instead, it looks increasingly likely that Microsoft will launch the Surface Duo in the coming weeks. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company had originally planned to focus on the Surface Duo and dual-screen devices at Build earlier this year. These plans chan...

LG Display has started mass-production at its second OLED panel production plant, the company announced Thursday. The new plant, located in Guangzhou, China, has the capacity to initially produce 60,000 OLED sheets a month, which combined with LG’s existing plant in Paju, South Korea means that LG Display’s total OLED production capacity has almost doubled to 130,000 sheets monthly. According to LG, the panels produced at its new plant will be used to create displays ranging in size from 48 to 77-inches. They’re for TVs, in other words. LG Display is a major supplier of OLED panels for TVs across the industry. 19 brands, including LG, Vizio, Sony, Panasonic, Hisense, Bang & Olufsen, and Toshiba, use LG Display OLED panels in their TVs according to FlatPanelsHD. LG Display’s OLED panels...

Google is adding a number of new features to its Messages app for Android, including the ability to reply to messages with emoji reactions, something that’s long been available in other messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and iOS’s built-in Messages app. The feature was first spotted in testing in May, but Google has now officially rolled it out as part of the latest version of its Messages app. To use an emoji reaction, just tap and hold the message you want to react to and a short list of cute animated emoji will pop up that you can pick from. You’ll only be able to use emoji reactions if you have RCS chat turned on, however. Here’s a GIF from Google showing how to use emoji reactions and what the emoji will look like: Google is also adding a new feature to Smart Reply, which already ...

One of the biggest complaints Quibi received upon its initial launch was subscribers being unable to screenshot what they were watching and share it with the world. For a mobile-first streaming service, it seemed like a bit of an oversight. Now, Quibi has introduced screenshot capabilities, but it’s not as easy as holding down the right buttons on your iPhone. Quibi built its own screenshot tool inside the app that subscribers must use to get the image they want instead of the blacked out photo that would appear in their photos folder otherwise. To use it, users have to touch and hold the screen until a pop-up menu appears. There’s an option to take a screenshot, and sliding your finger over to that option will produce the screenshot people want to take. Quibi’s chief product officer, Tom ...

In a widely anticipated move, Disney has once again delayed its live-action adaptation of Mulan, this time indefinitely. “Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world,” a Disney spokesperson told Variety. This marks the latest round of delays for Mulan; it was originally supposed to be released on March 27th, but was pushed to July 24th. Then, Disney delayed it again to August 21st — one week before Disney is still set to debut The New Mutants. Disney has also moved around a number of other titles, including the upcoming Avatar and Star Wars film...

Did Microsoft convince you that you wouldn’t need to next-gen hardware to play Xbox Series X games? Think again: fully half of the next-gen games that Microsoft showcased at its Xbox Series X showcase today, including Forza, probably aren’t coming to Xbox One. Which suggests either some of those games aren’t actually coming out for a long time — or Microsoft has already broken a big promise it made just last week. For years now, Microsoft has been working toward a future where you don’t need to buy the latest console to play the newest games — many now run on a spectrum of hardware including Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and Windows PCs — and the upcoming Xbox Series X was touted as the culmination of that vision. It will play almost every Xbox One game, as well as Xbox 360 and some or...

StarCraft II has been out for almost a decade now. To commemorate the game’s tenth anniversary, Blizzard is publicly testing an anniversary update, introducing new campaign achievements for every mission in StarCraft II’s base game and its three expansions, in addition to changes that empower players to create their own custom campaigns. One reason StarCraft II has stuck around so long is that fans have kept it alive by creating custom campaigns in the game. Blizzard has now absorbed several elements from Warcraft III’s game editor, making the interface in StarCraft II easier to use — there’s an entire gigantic blog post from the company detailing everything that’s new for the game’s map editor. The anniversary patch also introduced a new transitioning lobby, making it easier to move betwe...