Technology

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal acknowledged the possibility that Elon Musk’s deal to purchase the company could fall through in a series of tweets this afternoon that sought to explain why he’s shaking up Twitter’s leadership. Agrawal said that he’s still “accountable for leading and operating” Twitter for the time being and that his recent changes are meant to “build a stronger Twitter” and help manage costs. “While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter,” Agrawal said. His remarks come after Musk tweeted this morning that his $44 billion purchase of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” over concerns about spam and fake accounts. While it is entirely unclear whether Musk can actually pause the deal — Matt Levine at Bloomberg says...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal acknowledged the possibility that Elon Musk’s deal to purchase the company could fall through in a series of tweets this afternoon that sought to explain why he’s shaking up Twitter’s leadership. Agrawal said that he’s still “accountable for leading and operating” Twitter for the time being and that his recent changes are meant to “build a stronger Twitter” and help manage costs. “While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter,” Agrawal said. His remarks come after Musk tweeted this morning that his $44 billion purchase of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” over concerns about spam and fake accounts. While it is entirely unclear whether Musk can… Continue...

As if this week weren’t bad enough for many cryptocurrency owners, with stablecoins crashing and Coinbase suffering an outage at a particularly bad time, now they’ve reportedly been targeted by a new phishing attack. As reported by CoinDesk and The Block Crypto, sites including Etherscan, CoinGecko, and DexTools all warned users that they were aware of suspicious popups appearing for visitors, and advised them not to confirm any transactions based on popups. Like many recent phishing attacks, this one appeared to promise a link to the Bored Ape Yacht Club project, with an ape skull logo and a (now-disabled) nftapes.win domain. It prompted users to connect their MetaMask wallets (a software cryptocurrency wallet that enables access on your phone or via a browser extension) to use on the sit...

The malicious pop-up ad that appeared on several crypto sites Friday | Image: CoinGecko As if this week weren’t bad enough for many cryptocurrency owners, with stablecoins crashing and Coinbase suffering an outage at a particularly bad time, now they’ve reportedly been targeted by a new phishing attack. As reported by CoinDesk and The Block Crypto, sites including Etherscan, CoinGecko, and DexTools all warned users that they were aware of suspicious popups appearing for visitors, and advised them not to confirm any transactions based on popups. Like many recent phishing attacks, this one appeared to promise a link to the Bored Ape Yacht Club project, with an ape skull logo and a (now-disabled) nftapes.win domain. It prompted users to connect their MetaMask wallets (a software cryptocurrenc...

As if this week weren’t bad enough for many cryptocurrency owners, with stablecoins crashing and Coinbase suffering an outage at a particularly bad time, now they’ve reportedly been targeted by a new phishing attack. As reported by CoinDesk and The Block Crypto, sites including Etherscan, CoinGecko, and DexTools all warned users that they were aware of suspicious popups appearing for visitors, and advised them not to confirm any transactions based on popups. Like many recent phishing attacks, this one appeared to promise a link to the Bored Ape Yacht Club project, with an ape skull logo and a (now-disabled) nftapes.win domain. It prompted users to connect their MetaMask wallets (a software cryptocurrency wallet that enables access on your phone or via a browser extension) to use on the sit...

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images Tech industry trade organizations NetChoice and the Computer Communications Industry Association have appealed directly to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the Texas social media law known as HB 20. The law, which creates liability for content moderation decisions that are based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person,” could make it impossible to enforce bans on hate speech — or to even moderate platforms at all. HB 20 was successfully blocked in court late last year, and then unblocked by an appeals court on Wednesday without explanation. “Texas HB 20 strips private online businesses of their speech rights, forbids them from making constitutionally protected editorial decisions, and forces them to publish and promote… Continue re...

Halo Infinite’s glitched and overpowered “tank gun” will be added back to the game’s campaign in a forthcoming update, developer 343 Industries announced Friday. The tank gun is an extremely powerful weapon — essentially a portable version of a Scorpion tank’s cannon that has unlimited ammo — and it’s been popular with speedrunners and as a way to make the game a lot easier. But even though you need to know exactly where to look to find the gun (which is invisible, by the way), Halo senior community manager John Junyszek said in April that 343 would be removing the “tank gun glitch” alongside the game’s second season, which launched May 3rd. That decision wasn’t a very popular one with the community, and it seems there’s been enough blowback that 343 has decided to bring the tank gun back....

Halo Infinite’s glitched and overpowered “tank gun” will be added back to the game’s campaign in a forthcoming update, developer 343 Industries announced Friday. The tank gun is an extremely powerful weapon — essentially a portable version of a Scorpion tank’s cannon that has unlimited ammo — and it’s been popular with speedrunners and as a way to make the game a lot easier. But even though you need to know exactly where to look to find the gun (which is invisible, by the way), Halo senior community manager John Junyszek said in April that 343 would be removing the “tank gun glitch” alongside the game’s second season, which launched May 3rd. That decision wasn’t a very popular one with the community, and it seems there’s been enough blowback that 343 has decided to bring the tank gun back....

Tech industry trade organizations NetChoice and the Computer Communications Industry Association have appealed directly to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the Texas social media law known as HB 20. The law, which creates liability for content moderation decisions that are based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person,” could make it impossible to enforce bans on hate speech — or to even moderate platforms at all. HB 20 was successfully blocked in court late last year, and then unblocked by an appeals court on Wednesday without explanation. “Texas HB 20 strips private online businesses of their speech rights, forbids them from making constitutionally protected editorial decisions, and forces them to publish and promote objectionable content,” said NetChoice counsel Chris ...

Tech industry trade organizations NetChoice and the Computer Communications Industry Association have appealed directly to the Supreme Court for an emergency stay of the Texas social media law known as HB 20. The law, which creates liability for content moderation decisions that are based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person,” could make it impossible to enforce bans on hate speech — or to even moderate platforms at all. HB 20 was successfully blocked in court late last year, and then unblocked by an appeals court on Wednesday without explanation. “Texas HB 20 strips private online businesses of their speech rights, forbids them from making constitutionally protected editorial decisions, and forces them to publish and promote objectionable content,” said NetChoice counsel Chris ...

If you consider yourself a Lego fan, you’re going to want to read this story and visit this website before Tuesday, May 17th, at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. That’s because Lego is about to put its third and possibly final batch of officially unofficial sets on sale, and that’s the time you can vote with your dollars for the five fan-made creations that will become a reality. These Lego sets were designed by fans, not the Danish brickmaker itself, and Lego originally rejected each and every one. But, now, Lego’s Bricklink Designer Program will give a gorgeous 1950s diner, a working waterfall, a huge train station, a steampunk science lab, and more a second chance at official Lego stardom. The sets are built and shipped by Lego itself, with 10 percent of the proceeds going back to the creators for the...

Two and a half months after our Steam Deck review, Valve has finally provided the drivers you’ll need for audio if you choose to install Windows on the gaming portable. Before today, you would have had to pair Bluetooth headphones or plug in USB-C earbuds or a dongle to get any kind of audio on Windows at all. Both the speakers and 3.5mm jack did nothing on Windows before today, and it blamed AMD for the delay. But now, this pair of new drivers should enable both of the missing audio features. It took a while for AMD and Valve to bring out the initial set of graphics, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and SD card drivers for Windows, too. Is it time to install Windows on your Deck? Nope, I definitely wouldn’t say that. While Valve keeps squashing bugs and adding neat features on the Linux side of things, ...