Tech

/ The jury decided Google’s sweetheart deals were too much. By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget. Share this story If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Three years after Fortnite-maker Epic Games sued Apple and Google for allegedly running illegal app store monopolies, Epic has a win. The jury in Epic v. Google has just delivered its verdict — and it found that Google turned its Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly. After just a few hours of deliberation, the jury unanimously answered yes to every question put bef...

/ Netflix customers around the world were seeing error messages about network connection problems between 5PM and 8PM ET on Monday. By Richard Lawler, a senior editor following news across tech, culture, policy, and entertainment. He joined The Verge in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget. Share this story Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge People worldwide have reported trouble connecting to Netflix and a strange “tvq-pb-101” error message starting at around 5PM ET until the issue was resolved at around 8PM ET. Given the service’s global availability and massive subscriber base, small outages are common, but what we saw on Monday evening is different. Here at The Verge, among writers and editors scattered across the country, some of us could stream just fine, while ot...

/ Netflix customers around the world were seeing error messages about network connection problems between 5PM and 8PM ET on Monday. By Richard Lawler, a senior editor following news across tech, culture, policy, and entertainment. He joined The Verge in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget. Share this story Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge People worldwide have reported trouble connecting to Netflix and a strange “tvq-pb-101” error message starting at around 5PM ET until the issue was resolved at around 8PM ET. Given the service’s global availability and massive subscriber base, small outages are common, but what we saw on Monday evening is different. Here at The Verge, among writers and editors scattered across the country, some of us could stream just fine, while ot...

The future of Google’s app store is at stake in a lawsuit by Fortnite publisher Epic Games. Epic sued Google in 2020 after a fight over in-app purchase fees, claiming the Android operating system’s Google Play store constituted an unlawful monopoly. It wanted Google to make using third-party app stores, sideloaded apps, and non-Google payment processors easier — while Google said its demands would damage Android’s ability to offer a secure user experience and compete with Apple’s iOS. On December 11th, the jury ruled in Epic’s favor, finding that Google has turned its Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly, answering yes to every question in front of them about Google’s monopoly power, anticompetitive behavior, and the illegal ties between the differ...

A collection of cool, calming, and creative gifts to show your appreciation for that special maternal figure in your life. By Sheena Vasani, a writer covering commerce, e-readers, and tech news. She previously wrote about everything from web development to AI at Inside. Moms are the hardest people to shop for. After all, what can you gift the person who gave you life or raised you? The best you can hope to do is gift her something thoughtful to demonstrate your gratitude for all she’s done, though that often requires the kind of time and careful consideration we don’t always have. That’s why we’ve put together this gift guide. With the help of the rest of the Verge staff, we came up with a list of presents that’ll make your mom’s life a little easier, from a robot vacuum that makes cleanin...

Reddit/ Tech / During the outage, the company said that an issue had ‘left many of our web and mobile platforms unavailable.’ At the time, posts and comments sometimes wouldn’t load. By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium. Share this story Image: The Verge Reddit says it has “restored services” after a major outage that, depending on the situation, stopped posts and comments from loading. I had observed a few different issues. When logged out, I couldn’t see any posts or comments at all; I would just get an error message or a blank page under the Reddit search bar. When logged in on an account that’s not on the old Reddit layout, posts loaded on the homepage, but wh...

/ Flags spotted in code from a recent beta version of the app refer to an “edit_ui” and “edit_history.” iMessage and WhatsApp recently got message editing features of their own. By Jon Porter, a reporter with five years of experience covering consumer tech releases, EU tech policy, online platforms, and mechanical keyboards. Share this story Screenshot: Google Google could be developing a new feature for its Messages app that would let you edit a message after having sent it, according to code spotted by TheSpAndroid. References to the feature first appeared in a beta version of the app on November 19th, and there are four flags that appear to reference it, though attempting to enable them reportedly doesn’t do anything. The evidence of the in-development feature has cropped up as support ...

/ In a blog post, the FTC cautioned that cleverly placed QR codes can set people up for a scam. By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020. Share this story Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned the public against scanning any old QR code in a consumer alerts blog last week. Naturally, the warning comes down to security and privacy — bad actors can put QR codes in inconspicuous places or send them via text or email, then just sit back and wait for a payday in the form of money, logins, or other sensitive information. The New York Times reported that John Fokker, who heads threat intelligence at cybersecurity company Trellix, says...