Technology

Riot has come under fire after the League of Legends European Championship (LEC), one of the most popular esports leagues in the world, announced a sponsorship deal with the controversial Saudi Arabian megacity Neom. The developer announced today that the city would become one of the “main sponsors” for the league, joining the likes of Kit Kat and Kia. The announcement was met with instant criticism, given the Saudi government’s long history of human rights abuse, which extends to the creation of Neom, pitched as a futuristic playground. In its announcement, Riot explained that the city “will be championing the development of esports across the world.” Fans noted their displeasure with the deal on Twitter; the timing is especially egregious, given that the LEC’s Twitter avatar currently fe...

Amazon has long been accused of undercutting its rivals with its Echo smart speakers, allegedly keeping competitors like Sonos from getting a foothold in the market — but Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that at their full retail price, the company isn’t taking a loss on these products. During the big antitrust hearing today where Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are also facing down lawmaker questions, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) asked a pointed question about whether Amazon was pricing its Echo devices below cost. This is possibly referring to the theory of predatory pricing where a company tries to drive its rivals out of business by selling products at a loss, something Amazon specifically has been accused of, most notably with Diapers.com. Amazon’s...

Qualcomm’s Q3 earnings report might indicate a delay for Apple’s upcoming 5G iPhones, with the company highlighting a “partial impact from the delay of a global 5G flagship phone launch” for its fourth quarter projections (which covers July, August, and September earnings). Looking at the calendar of upcoming phone releases, it’s hard to imagine that Qualcomm is talking about any device other than the upcoming 5G iPhones, which are expected to arrive this fall. Typically, Apple releases its new iPhone in September, and it’s one of the few upcoming devices that would sell in large enough numbers that Qualcomm might need to disclose the material impact on an earnings call. There are already rumors circulating of delays for Apple’s 5G lineup due to production slowdowns caused by the COVID-19 ...

The CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are testifying in Congress today — trying to convince the House Judiciary Committee that their business practices don’t amount to anti-competitive monopolies. It’s one of the biggest tech oversight moments in recent years, part of a long-running antitrust investigation that has mustered hundreds of hours of interviews and over a million documents from the companies in question. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Google / Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai have all laid out their defense strategies in published testimony. They make the case that their companies are providing beneficial products in a landscape filled with competition and that their massive scale simply makes their services better. As the hearing progre...

The US has filed new and expanded charges against two former Twitter employees and a third individual for allegedly spying on behalf of the government of Saudi Arabia. The three men have now been charged with acting as agents of a foreign government, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and wire fraud. One individual, former Twitter employee Ahmad Abouammo, was also charged with three counts of money laundering and falsification of records to obstruct the investigation. These new charges are part of a superseding indictment, meaning they’ll replace the charges that were already in place. They come shortly after US prosecutors recommended to have earlier charges dropped. The Twitter employees allegedly accessed private information about Twitter accounts critical of the Saudi government The Twit...

General Motors is now set to unveil the all-electric Hummer truck sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, after scratching the original May 20th reveal due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the meantime, the company (and the GMC brand, under which the resurrected Hummer will be sold) is teasing a side profile of the truck — along with a more traditional SUV version without a pickup bed. The Hummer silhouettes appeared in a new ad that GMC released on Wednesday shortly after parent company GM announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2020. GM posted a nearly $800 million loss for the quarter, which was better than expected considering the company — like others — went through a weeks-long pandemic-related production shutdown. GM announced earlier this year that it was rev...

If you’ve recently spotted a little secondary box underneath a Google News story that gives you a big-picture understanding of the news, you’re not alone: Google confirms it’s launching a new “for context” feature in Google News, one which that links to a second, broader story on the same topic. Spotted earlier by Valentin Pletzer on Twitter, the feature appears to be live on mobile phones for some very specific search results: It’s a smaller box in Google’s news box It’s small enough that you might easily miss what’s changed, but it’s that “for context” box under the CNET story. Intriguingly, it links to another CNET story to provide the bigger picture; it’s possible that this feature isn’t designed to divert traffic from some publishers to others, but rather just to provide the bigger pi...

Slack developer Felix Rieseberg has transformed Mac OS 8 into an app you can install on your Mac or PC. After transforming Windows 95 into an app back in 2018, Rieseberg decided to turn an entire 1991 Macintosh Quadra with Mac OS 8.1 into a single Electron app. It even includes a number of apps and games, thanks to an old MacWorld demo CD from 1997. The app can be installed on macOS, Windows, and Linux. The macintosh.js app is written entirely in JavaScript, and it uses a virtual machine to emulate a Macintosh Quadra 900 with the Motorola CPU Apple used before its transition to IBM’s PowerPC chips. Rieseberg has managed to get classic games like Duke Nukem 3D, Civilization II, Dungeons & Dragons, Namely, Oregon Trail, Alley 19 Bowling, and Damage Incorporated running. There’s even a bu...

TikTok wants to be transparent. The company has announced that it’s taking new measures to give outsiders access to the algorithms it uses to sort and share users’ videos, and it will be letting experts “observe our moderation policies in real-time.” In a blog post published Wednesday, TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said the changes put it “a step ahead of the industry” and challenged rivals to follow suit. “[W]e believe our entire industry should be held to an exceptionally high standard,” writes Mayer. “That’s why we believe all companies should disclose their algorithms, moderation policies, and data flows to regulators. We will not wait for regulation to come, but instead TikTok has taken the first step by launching a Transparency and Accountability Center for moderation and data practices.” T...

Google’s Chromecast is the epitome of a software-first device. Nearly all of its capabilities are defined by software, and usually not even software that’s on the Chromecast itself. But the Chromecast, for all its hands-off simplicity, does have a single hardware button: an emergency reset button on the back. It’s a testament to the importance and reliability of physical inputs over software solutions. Odds are, most people will never use the Chromecast’s reset button. Whether you have the original Chromecast, a second-generation model, or a 4K Chromecast Ultra, this button only has a single function: if all else fails, you can hold it down to factory-reset the hardware back to “fresh-from-the-box” settings. (The process is actually an interesting one: pressing the button forces the Chrome...

We recently ranked Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Plus wireless earbuds as the best overall option, thanks to their 11-hour continuous battery life, wireless charging support, improved microphones, and excellent sound quality. They normally cost $150, but you can grab them for just shy of $100 from a reputable seller at eBay. If you’re okay with getting them in white, which has a pearlescent look, they cost $99, though the black or blue options are $110. The last time we covered a Galaxy Buds Plus deal in early July, $130 was the best price we’d seen yet. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you don’t want to spend that much, Best Buy is offering the original Galaxy Buds refurbished in black for just $60. They’re also available in white for $75. They have wireless charging and good sound ...

In 2014, Mellow, Inc. released the Mellow for $399, billing it as “the world’s first smart sous-vide machine” — one that promised to automatically weigh and then heat and cool your specified foods for a perfect slow-cooked result, even adjusting that timing mid-cook to match your changing schedule. But now, the company is taking away those smarts from existing owners unless they pay $6 a month, or $48 for an annual subscription. As SlashGear’s Chris Davies reports, Mellow owners were surprised to find they couldn’t cook a meal this week until they updated the app, only to discover that the app update barred them from using most of the cooker’s previously free “smart” features without paying for the new “Premium Subscription.” “Manual mode” is now the only way to use the Mellow without payi...