UK police blame Android SOS feature for influx of false emergency calls
Android’s Emergency SOS feature is so easy to activate that users in the UK are accidently calling emergency services. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
An Android feature designed to help users contact emergency services is making life difficult for first responders in the UK. The BBC reports that police forces across the nation have reported an influx of false emergencies to the 999 switchboard (The UK’s equivalent of 911) in recent weeks which have largely been attributed to the Emergency SOS feature for Android phones.
Law enforcement in Scotland, and the English counties of Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall, and Gloucestershire have reported receiving a higher number of silent or abandoned calls since an Android update released between October 2022 and February 2023 introduced an Emergency SOS calling feature to more Android phones. The BBC reports that each errant call can take around 20 minutes to deal with as operators ensure it wasn’t made by someone who is otherwise unable to verbally communicate an emergency situation.
The update added a new SOS emergency function for devices to call 999 through the power button being pressed 5 times or more.
These ‘silent calls’ as they are named, are directed to police control rooms and the result has been a significant increase in silent calls.
— National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) (@PoliceChiefs) June 17, 2023
The SOS feature allows Android users to quickly contact emergency services by pressing their device’s power button multiple times. The action is easy to perform accidentally, however, resulting in a deluge of “butt dialed” false emergencies.
Earlier this month, the National Police Chiefs Council highlighted the issue on Twitter, noting that users can disable the Android feature to lessen the burden on emergency responders. “Calls to 999 where the operator cannot hear anyone on the line (silent calls) are never just ignored. Call handlers will then need to spend valuable time trying to call you back to check whether you need help,” the account tweeted on June 17th. “If you do accidentally dial 999, please don’t hang up. If possible, please stay on the line and let the operator know it was an accident and that you don’t need any assistance.”
Introduced with the release of Android 12 on Google Pixel phones back in 2021, Emergency SOS is designed to make it easier to call for help in situations where users may otherwise be unable to physically dial. While the feature has technically been available for almost two years on Pixel phones — with similar issues reported by Pixel users shortly after its release — Emergency SOS has taken a while to arrive on other Android phone brands because device manufacturers are responsible for rolling out the feature (with customizations) to their own devices. Essentially, Emergency SOS has only recently rolled out to enough Android phones to draw significant attention to the issue.
Google has responded to the situation, informing the BBC that phone manufacturers are responsible for offering the Emergency SOS feature and managing how it will work on their respective devices.
“To help these manufacturers prevent unintentional emergency calls on their devices, Android is providing them with additional guidance and resources,” said a Google spokesperson to the BBC. “We anticipate device manufacturers will roll out updates to their users that address this issue shortly. Users that continue to experience this issue should switch Emergency SOS off for the next couple of days.”
To disable it head into the device settings and search for “Emergency SOS.” From there you switch the toggle to “off.”
The issue with accidental calls to emergency services isn’t unique to the UK or to Android. Law enforcement across Europe and Canada have similarly reported a significant increase in accidental emergency calls related to Android’s Emergency SOS feature. Apple has also experienced issues with its own emergency calling, such as the Crash Detection feature on the iPhone 14 being activated when users ride on rollercoasters.
Here come the electric buses
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Make way for the electric buses.
The US Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration is sending out $1.7 billion from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to 46 states and territories to fund the acquisition of 1,700 buses — over half of which will be zero-emission models.
The new awards will bring the total number of zero-emission buses funded by the infrastructure law up to 1,800, which is more than double the number of clean buses on the roads today. That still only represents a fraction of the roughly 60,000 buses that are currently in operation in the US, but officials hailed it as an important step toward updating the nation’s aging transit fleet with an eye toward fighting climate change.
“These are unprecedented levels of investment when it comes to putting modern cleaner buses on the road,” US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said in a briefing with reporters. “These projects will improve and increase bus service and bus reliability, so more people can get to where they need to affordably on time. And it’ll lower costs for local taxpayers. It’s simply a better commute when you’re on one of these cleaner buses.”
Each awardee is set to receive millions of dollars to fund the purchase of new buses, update garage facilities to install charging infrastructure, and retrain drivers and mechanics to support their maintenance and upkeep. The funds, which will go to urban and rural communities, as well as Indian reservations, are being distributed from the FTA’s Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities and Low- and No-Emission (Low-No) Vehicle programs.
Examples include $104 million to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to convert its Lorton, Virginia, bus garage into an EV-supporting facility; $33.5 million to King County Metro Transit in Seattle, Washington, to buy approximately 30 battery-electric buses; and $23.3 million to Iowa City to replace four diesel buses with electric models.
The Biden administration was quick to tout the economic development advantages of its clean bus investments. According to Buttigieg, all of the acquired buses will be manufactured in America, and the funds will also be put toward workforce development to ensure that transit employees have the skills to operate and maintain this new generation of vehicles.
But not all of the new models will be zero-emission. At least half of the buses will be powered by natural gas or “another fuel source that makes our air far less toxic,” Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA, said.
“We know for some agencies zero emission isn’t the answer yet,” Vanterpool added. “But they want to replace their older diesel or gasoline buses with something better for their community.”
Combined with last year’s announcement, there are now 3,300 new vehicles on the road that are either zero-emission or powered by less polluting forms of fuel. Today’s announcement accounts for an additional 700 zero-emission buses, including battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
Transit agencies continue to struggle to recover ridership in the years since the pandemic. Challenges like changing commuter habits, staffing shortages, and declining revenue continue to plague most transit systems in the US. Experts continue to worry about the possibility of a transit “death spiral” — a cycle of terrible service leading to even fewer riders, leading to even more terrible service, and so on.
It’s unclear whether cleaner buses will necessarily improve transit’s future, though few would dispute it’s better for the environment and for the health of people who live in the communities serviced by transit. Some critics have argued that the money would be better spent on improving service rather than on acquiring an expensive new fleet — especially when the production of these new buses remains very much a work in progress.
For example, Nova Bus, a Canadian manufacturer that makes zero-emission models, announced recently that it would be closing its facility in upstate New York to refocus on its locations in Quebec.
But Buttigieg said cleaner buses go hand in hand with improved service and reliability. “We’re putting historic funding into making public transit cleaner, safer, more reliable and more resilient,” he said, “because it is absolutely essential to our daily lives.”
An upcoming 5G deadline could cause airline delays starting July 1st
With the 5G C-band rollout complete, there may be some flight delays. | Image: The Verge
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday there may be some airline delays or cancellations starting July 1st if the last remaining passenger jets haven’t upgraded their altimeters to deal with 5G interference, per a report from The Wall Street Journal report. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains that 5G C-band signals could interfere with radio wave emitters passenger jets use to measure how far they are from the ground, which pilots rely on when landing with low visibility.
Though airlines aren’t actually required to get the new equipment in place until February 2024, those passenger jets that haven’t been certified for operation around C-band 5G signals by the first of July will not be allowed to land in certain low-visibility situations.
Most of the US domestic airline fleet is prepared, with over 80 percent of planes having been upgraded, but about 65 percent of international jets flying to the US still need fixing. The global airline group International Air Transport Association told WSJ that carriers would do their best to avoid disruptions, and that they were favoring aircraft with the required altimeters for flights to the US. Air India says all of its planes are so equipped.
Broadly, the article says airlines believe there will be little-to-no impact. In the US, most airlines say they expect to have their fleets fully upgraded by July 1st, though Delta Air Lines and JetBlue will both miss that date, with 190 planes and 17 planes outstanding respectively, says the WSJ report. The Airlines for America trade association blamed global supply chain issues for the difficulties hitting the deadline.
The full expansion of the crucial band, which strikes a balance between the slow-yet-ubiquitous low-band 5G and the ultrafast-but-easily-stifled millimeter wave 5G, was initially paused until January 2022, but it saw further delays — first to July 5th, 2022 and then to July 1st of this year.
At the moment, the only flights that could face setbacks are those aboard planes that haven’t had the 5G-interference-busting equipment installed and would be landing in low-visibility circumstances. For instance, a JetBlue spokesman told WSJ there could be “limited impact” in Boston on low-visibility days beginning on July 1st.
Reddit says accessibility upgrades for moderators are coming to its mobile apps soon
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Reddit will make “accessibility improvements” to many moderator tools in its official mobile apps by July 1st, the company announced on Friday.
Some moderators rely on third-party apps because Reddit’s apps have what they characterize as “significant accessibility challenges,” and the accessibility community has expressed concerns over how they will moderate on mobile after popular apps like Apollo shut down on June 30th due to potentially expensive API pricing changes. It seems this roadmap, which promises improvements to features like the moderation queue and the ModMail messaging system on Android and iOS, is intended to assuage those fears.
Based on the replies to the announcement post, however, many are still unhappy with the company’s plans. “A multibillion dollar corporation forcing disabled people (including the profoundly disabled) to simply ‘learn new tools,’ and to stop using the accessibility tools they’re used to — the tools they depend on — to access / moderate the communities they depend on — is cruel,” wrote PotRoastPotato, a moderator who has advocated for disabled communities as part of the recent protests across Reddit. “As long as there are disabled users who depend on and are accustomed to the accessibility features of third-party apps, these apps need to be preserved,” PotRoastPotato added in an email to The Verge.
Reddit’s roadmap notes that some features won’t be available until late July or sometime in August, and some are critiquing the company for that choice. “Why are these not blockers that you are forcing Reddit to delay API changes for?” one user wrote. “Do you find it acceptable to have an inherently worse moderator accessibility experience while pulling the rug out from underneath the community?”
“We applaud Reddit for prioritizing these features, but would prefer a top-down corporate response that gives the product team enough time and addresses the broader community’s concerns,” the moderators of r/Blind said in a statement to The Verge. They added that Reddit has invited the mods to help test the features, but the team has asked Reddit if this will be contract work and hasn’t yet heard back.
Accessibility advocates have been among the most vocal protestors of Reddit since it became clear that the future of third-party Reddit apps was in jeopardy. In response to their outcry, Reddit said earlier this month that it will exempt accessibility-focused apps from its API changes, and at least three have received that exemption: RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna. But the API changes are also partially responsible for the planned June 30th shutdown of r/TranscribersOfReddit, a community that transcribes images, audio, and video for about 100 others.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman does seem committed to making accessibility changes; in response to a comment in his AMA that criticized Reddit’s approach to accessibility, Huffman said that “for our own apps, there is no excuse” and promised that “we will do better.” But the company didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment about if it would make changes to its plans in response to concerns from the community in Friday’s post. According to Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt, “We’ll no longer comment on hearsay, unsubstantiated claims, or baseless accusations from The Verge. We’ll be in touch as corrections are needed.”
Here’s Reddit’s full roadmap the company’s post, which is titled “Accessibility Updates to Mod Tools: Part 1.” In the post, Reddit promised to share another update on Friday.
How mods access Moderation tools (by July 1)
ModQueue (view, action posts and comments, filter and sort content, add removal reasons, and bulk action items) (by July 1)
ModMail (inbox, read, reply to messages, create new mail, private mod note) (by July 1)
User Settings (manage mods, approved users, muted users, banned user) (by July 1)
Formula E team caught using RFID scanner that could grab live tire data from other cars
Stoffel Vandoorne drives in the Portland ePrix today. | Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images
During the Formula E qualifying round in Portland, Oregon, today, the DS Penske team was fined €25,000 after it surreptitiously installed an RFID scanner at the entrance to the pit, which the FIA stewards said could collect data from other race cars and give them an advantage. The team’s racers, Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Éric Vergne, were also hit with a pit lane start penalty for today’s race — meaning they will have to wait at the end of the pit lane until all of the other cars have driven past before entering the race.
The FIA Stewards explanation for the penalty was provided to The Verge via email:
The Stewards were advised by the Technical Delegate that the competitor had installed RFID scanning equipment in the pit lane entry this morning that was able to collect live data from all cars. Firstly, it is forbidden in general for competitors to install or place any equipment in the pit lane. Secondly, the collection of data by this method gives the competitor a lot of information, which is a huge and unfair advantage. Taking all the circumstances together, the Stewards feel that the given penalty is appropriate.
RFID chips have been used in Formula E tires for the entirety of the still-young motorsport, primarily to track the condition of tires, including temperature and tire pressure, and encourage their efficient use, according to a 2014 article in Tyrepress.
For the 2023 season, Formula E has switched to a new “Gen 3” car design and a new tire manufacturer, going from Michelins to the Hankook iON. A Motorsport.com report from off-season testing discussed how much of a challenge that presented for the teams and a possible reason why attempting to glean data from the entire field was something Penske would even try.
For the 2022-2023 season, the series picked up a sponsorship from Hankook tires, which a report in Motorsport indicated presented challenges for the drivers, who had been used to the same Michelin tires for the previous 8 seasons.
Tesla’s NACS plug will be required at EV charging stations in Washington and Texas
Tesla’s North American Charging Standard is gaining steam. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla has had a very good month, at least when it comes to its EV charging standard. Washington state wants to require electric car charging companies to use Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) in order to be part of the state’s program to support electric vehicles, according to Reuters. The state’s proposed mandate would put Tesla’s technology in state- and- federally-funded charging sites in the future, though Washington hasn’t decided quite how that will look.
At the moment, the federal government requires at least four Combined Charging System (CCS) chargers at taxpayer-funded charging sites, and Tonia Buell, the alternative fuels program manager at Washington state’s Department of Transportation (DOT), told Reuters the state may require that at least two, or maybe all four, of the chargers also support NACS. CCS is the standard currently preferred by the federal government for cross-platform use.
It’s been a good week for Tesla’s NACS standard — Texas made a similar announcement on Tuesday, saying it would also start requiring electric vehicle charging companies to use the standard in order to receive federal dollars. The state’s DOT told Reuters via email that “the decision by Ford, GM, and now Rivian to adopt NACS changed requirements for Phase 1” of Texas’ rollout of a federally-funded electrification program.
Also on Tuesday, electric automaker and Tesla competitor Rivian announced its intention to adopt NACS for its future vehicles, which would give those cars access to the already-robust network of Tesla Supercharger stations throughout the country. Hyundai is also considering the standard, though it said it depends on customer interest, as Tesla’s chargers don’t charge at the higher rate supported by its own EV platform. Electric charging company BTC Power, which supplies DC and AC vehicle chargers to convenience stores and fleet operations, also announced its intention to support NACS.
With Ford and General Motors also announcing support for Tesla’s standard, NACS now has huge advantages over CCS in the fight to become the de facto standard for EV charging in the US.
Has Xbox really lost the console wars?
Xbox chief Phil Spencer. | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge
FTC v. Microsoft day two was all about console wars and whether Xbox is really in a distant third place.
The second day of the FTC v. Microsoft hearing was really all about one man: Phil Spencer. The Xbox chief took the stand to discuss Microsoft losing the console wars, Sony’s aggressive and hostile competition, and to paint Xbox in a distant third place where it’s struggling to compete.
Spencer also revealed Microsoft looked at buying Zynga to improve its mobile gaming prospects and acquired Bethesda after learning that Starfield might become a PlayStation exclusive. He also, importantly, swore under oath that Microsoft won’t pull Call of Duty from PlayStation. That promise turned into some frustrations with the FTC’s line of questioning from Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley and some testy exchanges between the FTC’s lawyer, James Weingarten, and Spencer.
Oh, and Google turned up at the end to talk about Stadia in a rushed last-minute testimony.
Yeah, it was a lot. Let’s dig in to day two.
Can we please stop talking about the Nintendo Switch?
We kicked off the day with a sealed courtroom so that Jamie Lawver, senior finance director at Xbox, could deliver witness testimony about highly confidential Xbox financials. We don’t know what Lawver revealed to Judge Corley, but it set the stage for Spencer to appear and talk about the Xbox platform and the Nintendo Switch.
The FTC and Microsoft have been arguing about whether the Switch should be included in its definition of the console market for two days now and in multiple filings with the court. Microsoft wants the Switch included because then Xbox is in third place. The FTC argues that inside Microsoft it’s always competing and comparing Xbox to PlayStation, not Switch. It provided market analysis and metrics that Microsoft uses internally to back up its “high performance” console market of just the PS5 and Xbox Series S / X consoles. The reality is, as always, somewhere in the middle.
The FTC had consoles inside the courtroom on day two to show how visually different the Switch is from the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. “The PS5 and Xbox Series X shipped at the same time... from a form factor these two functionally look more equivalent,” said Spencer, commenting on the visual appearance of the consoles the FTC had hauled into the courtroom.
Photo by Philip Pacheco/Getty Images
FTC attorneys bringing a PS5 to court.
“It’s incorrect to say Nintendo isn’t a competitor,” argued Spencer, but earlier on, he admitted there were some clear hardware differences. “The Switch was designed for people to take on the go,” said Spencer. “Whereas the gen 8 [Xbox One] consoles require that they’re plugged into the wall and don’t have a screen. Nintendo built a different platform.”
To further drive home the FTC’s point, Spencer was questioned about how many frames per second (fps) the Xbox Series S / X consoles can support, how many fps the Switch supports, and even the differences in GPU teraflops. At times it felt like the FTC was minutes away from calling a PC gamer to the stand to testify about memory speeds, CPU cores, and thermal paste.
The reality is that the Nintendo Switch is still a game console. It can play some of the games that the Xbox Series S / X and PS5 also play, albeit rarely as well or at the same visual fidelity. Its catalog includes extraordinarily popular games like Fortnite that don’t fit the conventional triple-A model. And it’s already successful without Call of Duty and the types of triple-A games that people typically buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X for, thanks to Nintendo’s decades of investment in its strong lineup of exclusive titles.
If you’re a gamer that Microsoft and Sony both care about, you’re probably also a potential Switch customer. At the end of the day Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are all competing for your gaming time and attention.
In the Epic v. Apple verdict it was decided that the Switch was potentially a future competitor to Apple and Google phones but not one yet. Nearly two years later, we’re in another antitrust case where the definition of the Switch is being debated. It’s a game console, folks. Move on.
The console wars and Xbox struggles
Ahead of the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, we saw Microsoft argue that “Xbox has lost the console wars, and its rivals are positioned to continue to dominate, including by leveraging exclusive content.” In a court filing, Microsoft said it had a 16 percent share of console sales in 2021 (when you count the Switch) and 21 percent of the console install base.
So, “has Microsoft lost the console wars?” asked the FTC’s lawyer in court on Friday. Spencer paused for 10 seconds here to gather his thoughts, as he clearly knows this is a hot topic among Xbox and PlayStation fans.
“As the console wars is a social construct with the community, I would never want to count our community out, they’re big fans,” Spencer answered carefully. “If you look at our market share in the console space over the last 20 plus years, we’re in third place. We are behind Sony and Nintendo in console share globally.”
Spencer was then questioned about an email exchange with Xbox CFO Tim Stuart where the Xbox chief described Sony’s PlayStation platform as “hostile to Xbox’s survival.” Spencer then admitted Xbox hasn’t “effectively” competed with PlayStation:
Every time we ship a game on PlayStation... Sony captures 30 percent of the revenue that we do on their platform and then they use that money among other revenue that they have to do things to try to reduce Xbox’s survival on the market. We try to compete, but as I said, over the last 20 years we’ve failed to do that effectively.
Later in the day Spencer was then asked about Xbox targets. “So your business is not necessarily meeting its internal targets today, right?” asked the FTC’s lawyer. “It is not right now, no,” admitted Spencer. “Today, with the majority of our business residing as the third-place console business, we are not a robust business.”
But just two weeks ago, Spencer revealed gaming revenue at Microsoft is double what it was in the Xbox 360 era in a behind-closed-doors presentation after its Xbox Games Showcase. Spencer also said at that presentation that Xbox has more players than ever, and Microsoft is expecting $1 billion in PC gaming revenue this year. So the Xbox business is in pretty good shape, but Microsoft clearly has some even bigger targets.
If the Xbox business isn’t meeting targets and struggles to compete, why is Microsoft spending nearly $70 billion on Activision? Spencer explained it’s apparently all about the mobile opportunity:
The deal, as we’ve talked about, expands our business to the mobile platform... the existing business that we run today as the third-place console business is a very difficult business to drive profit and margin. So the opportunity for us to expand in a meaningful way onto mobile, the world’s largest gaming platform, was really both a strategic and business opportunity behind this deal.
And to back that up, Spencer was asked about how the Activision deal could help Xbox consoles:
FTC: If Microsoft is going to grow, particularly in a business like console, it can grow by taking share from its competitors
Spencer: There’s no console growth in our [Activision] deal model.
FTC: Do you have any intention of this deal helping you climb out of the number three spot?
Spencer: In console, we do not.
FTC: So that’s just a write off?
Spencer: I don’t understand how that’s a write off?
The FTC then immediately moved on to a new question.
It sure sounds like Microsoft has realized console gaming is stagnant and there’s a mobile opportunity ahead, but we’ve heard some of this before. Spencer said in October that Xbox Game Pass subscriber growth had slowed down and we’ve seen Microsoft focus on PC Game Pass growth in recent months instead. Microsoft recently increased Game Pass for console prices, but not PC Game Pass ones. Spencer also said in 2019 that Microsoft’s gaming business isn’t about how many consoles it sells and, more recently, that losing the Xbox One generation was “the worst generation to lose” as gamers built their digital library.
But surely the Activision deal isn’t all about mobile, so what’s stopping Microsoft from using this giant acquisition to keep content from competitors and create Xbox exclusives? “If you could make a decision that would benefit Microsoft and harm Microsoft’s competitors in any of the markets we’ve been discussing, that would be good for Microsoft Gaming’s numbers, right?” asked the FTC’s lawyer, trying to show that Microsoft could harm the competition and boost its gaming revenues.
“We are trying to compete in the market by growing our business,” said Spencer. “Some of our business growth is obviously growth that our competitors would like to have, so in the end our growth is probably... from some of our competitors not realizing that growth themselves.”
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Xbox exclusives, Zynga, and Bethesda
The FTC argues that a big part of the Activision deal, much like Bethesda, will be Xbox exclusives. We heard on day one of this hearing that Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game is now Xbox and PC exclusive after Microsoft acquired Bethesda. What about other Bethesda games?
Spencer refused to confirm whether Elder Scrolls VI is an Xbox exclusive or not. “I think we’ve been a little unclear on what platforms it’s launching on, given how far out the game is,” said Spencer. “It’s difficult for us right now to nail down.” Spencer did previously hint that Elder Scrolls VI would be an Xbox exclusive, but the game is still years away.
“Have you had conversations at Microsoft about skipping PlayStation with Activision titles?” Spencer was asked by the FTC. “I don’t remember a specific conversation, but it would seem like a normal conversation for us to have,” admits Spencer.
It was also revealed that Microsoft had explored the idea of making Minecraft Dungeons exclusive, in a chat between Phil Spencer and former Xbox CMO Mike Nichols, where both agreed it should be exclusive to Xbox. Minecraft Dungeons eventually shipped on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
One of the biggest surprise revelations around exclusives was the reasoning behind Microsoft’s Bethesda acquisition. Spencer revealed that Sony regularly pays competitors to “skip our platform,” and Microsoft felt it needed to own Bethesda to compete:
When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire... to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox. So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can’t be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content ownership so we’ve had to secure content to remain viable in the business.”
So while Microsoft argues the Activision acquisition is about mobile, it’s also very clearly about Xbox consoles and having exclusive content so that Microsoft doesn’t slip even further behind the competition. Spencer argues that exclusives are “an established part of the console business, and Sony and Nintendo are very strong with their exclusive games.”
Microsoft also explored the idea of acquiring Zynga to boost its mobile efforts. “We entered into some discussions with a company called Zynga, it ended up getting acquired by Take-Two,” said Spencer, before admitting Microsoft spent a lot of time talking to Zynga. “In the end for our opportunity, we thought we needed to have something that was even bigger than Zynga was given our very small starting space in the mobile business.”
Image: Activision
A Call of Duty oath and FTC frustrations
Call of Duty has been the centerpiece of a lot of regulators’ concerns, particularly with Sony’s arguments against Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal and its filings with regulators. Sony has maintained that it fears Microsoft could make Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox or even sabotage the PlayStation versions of the game.
We heard a bombshell email from PlayStation chief Jim Ryan read out in court earlier this week, revealing that he wasn’t actually worried about Call of Duty exclusivity and was “pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for many years to come.”
Spencer has committed to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation multiple times, with Microsoft arguing it doesn’t make financial sense to pull the game from Sony’s platform and it would harm the Xbox brand if it did so.
“I would raise my hand, I would do whatever it takes,” he told Judge Corley in court. “My commitment is, and my testimony is, that we will continue to ship future versions of Call of Duty on Sony’s PlayStation 5.”
The “5” in that oath became a contentious part of the FTC’s questioning later on, though:
FTC: Can you swear under oath that without looking at any future terms that need to be hashed out, you’ll ship all the versions of Call of Duty that may exist on all the versions of PlayStation that make exist in the next 10 years?
Spencer: That’s my goal, yes.
After some intense back and forth over deal terms and agreements, Spencer elaborated:
That’s my goal, yes. If what you’re trying to propose is that Sony might change the terms of how we ship games on our platform then that would prohibit us from shipping on their platforms.
The FTC then wanted to see whether Microsoft would make the same Call of Duty promises about other Activision games. It was a particularly fraught exchange:
FTC: Would you make the same promise with respect to all of Activision’s content?
Spencer: I was asked specifically about Call of Duty. No, Activision ships games on mobile and many different platforms. They have some PC-only games like World of Warcraft. I don’t think there’s a blanket statement you can make for Activision Blizzard game content on PlayStation
FTC: What about Diablo? Can you promise it will ship on all future versions of PlayStation?
Spencer: Can I promise? I am able to promise, yes.
FTC: you’re able to bind Microsoft today? Are you able to bind the corporation here today?
Spencer: [silence]
FTC: I think the point has been made, I’m happy to move along.
Judge Corley: Why don’t we move along.
The exchanges between the FTC and Spencer didn’t get much better, and it was clear there was frustration at the line of questioning from Spencer and even Judge Corley.
At one point, Spencer hit back to correct the FTC lawyer on how acquisitions work:
FTC: Now you have a $70 billion upfront payment that you’re making for Activision, right?
Spencer: No, when you acquire something it’s not a payment. It’s like when you buy a house. You’re buying an asset that has value so it’s really a transfer of cash into an asset called Activision, that you believe retains the value that you acquired. So to try and characterize the $70 billion as somehow spent is incorrect. Financially, it’s really moving $70 billion in cash into an asset, which is a game publisher, that to us is actually worth more than $70 billion, so it is not spent.”
The FTC then returned to questioning focused on Spencer’s Call of Duty commitments. Judge Corley directly cut off the FTC’s questioning of Spencer after the regulator’s lawyer asked if Spencer could make a Call of Duty commitment to bringing the game to a Sony PlayStation cloud service. “I don’t think that’s it, I’m going to cut off the questioning there,” said Judge Corley.
The question was a strange one, because the FTC has been arguing that Microsoft’s cloud gaming agreements with Nvidia, Boosteroid, and others are “facially ambiguous and present significant questions,” despite Microsoft arguing they’re relevant. So if the FTC doesn’t think Microsoft’s cloud gaming deals with competitors other than Sony are relevant, why does it want to know about Call on Duty on Sony’s cloud service in particular? Since Judge Corley stopped the line of questioning, we might never know. The deals were enough to convince EU regulators to approve the acquisition, though.
The FTC also had some other bizarre lines of questioning on day two. Early on, Spencer revealed some inside information about why Minecraft still doesn’t have an optimized version on PlayStation 5. “Sony was reluctant to ship us PlayStation dev kits... it put us behind on our development for Minecraft on PS5,” said Spencer. The FTC characterized this as Microsoft then retaliating by still not providing an optimized version of Minecraft on PS5 nearly three years later.
“There is a version of Minecraft that runs on PS5,” says Spencer, but this isn’t an optimized version — it’s simply the PS4 version of the game. Then again, there still isn’t an Xbox Series S / X optimized version of Minecraft, so is Microsoft fighting back against its own platform too?
Image: Google
The Google Stadia controller.
Why did Google show up?
After Judge Corley abruptly ended Spencer’s time on the stand, Dov Zimring, Google’s former Stadia product lead, appeared. The FTC has been focusing on Microsoft’s cloud competition in this case, trying to show that the company sees cloud as a dedicated market and not just a feature.
The FTC spent a lot of time asking Zimring to discuss the technical aspects of Stadia, and he claimed it had “the best technology in the market,” at the time. “We had performance capabilities that didn’t exist in the [cloud] market like 4K,” said Zimring.
But Google Stadia failed because it didn’t have enough games and consumers weren’t interested in cloud gaming. “Our ability to have sufficient content... the number of games on the platforms as well as the blockbusters at a certain time,” were a big part of that failure, admitted Zimring.
Zimring also revealed that Google had experimented with running Stadia on Windows servers, but it was costly. “We had prototyped on Windows early on... the mission we had established at the very beginning was to enable revolutionary experiences... we saw Windows as limiting to innovate in that regard because we didn’t have control over the operating system,” said Zimring. “[Windows] would have doubled our total cost of operating on hardware that was equivalent to the 8th generation consoles, like the PlayStation 4.”
Zimring was called as a witness by the FTC, but Microsoft’s lawyer took time in questioning to establish that Stadia was trying to compete with consoles like Xbox and PC. “So Stadia competed with consoles, including Xbox?” asked Microsoft’s lawyer. “Yes,” confirmed Zimring. The FTC sees cloud gaming as a separate market to consoles, so Google’s confirmation it was competing directly with consoles could undermine that argument.
Microsoft also took the time to spell out in a back and forth exchange with Zimring that Activision content isn’t available on any cloud gaming services right now, but it would be if the deal closed thanks to Microsoft’s cloud gaming agreements with Nvidia, Boosteroid, and others.
Next week on FTC v. Microsoft
We’re only two days into this five-day hearing and we were supposed to hear PlayStation chief Jim Ryan’s pre-recorded video deposition today. Some filings with the court suggest parts of Ryan’s deposition could be sealed, so it’s still not clear how much we’ll get to hear next week.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will also appear next week, likely on Wednesday, and we’ve still got to hear from two Nvidia executives about cloud gaming and Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. The hearing will resume again on Tuesday morning at 8:30AM PT / 11:30AM ET, providing everyone a working day of rest on Monday.
How to tell everyone on Gmail if you’re in — or not
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Recently, a friend who has been on Gmail for a long time suddenly noticed the chat availability settings in the upper right of the web app. This notice was actually added to the Gmail page about two years ago when Google Chat was integrated into Gmail. It notifies anyone whom you’ve ever used Chat with that you’re at your computer (or phone) and available — or not.
Even though most people may not receive notification of your availability (especially if you don’t tend to use Google Chat), you may find the idea that somebody may know when you’re using your account... irritating. (At least, my friend did, and I can sympathize.) However, you can turn the notification off — or, at least, mark yourself “away” so that your presence will not be obvious to anyone who has access.
To switch your chat availability on the web version of Gmail:
To adjust your chat availability, first look for the button to the right of your search box. If you haven’t accessed it yet, it will probably show a green dot and read Active. Click on the box to see all your options for chat availability. These include:
Automatic: this will show a green dot and the word “Active” whenever your activity indicates that you’re available.
Do not disturb: this will mute your chat notifications, but only for a specific amount of time. You can specify a number of hours or create a schedule — weekdays between 5PM and 8AM, for example. However, you can’t create a permanent “Do not disturb” notice; I created one to go daily from 6PM to 6PM (so it would last 24 hours), and it automatically defaulted to expire in one week.
Set as away: this will set your status as away and will not change until you switch it.
Google gives you several options for setting your chat availability.
Create a personal status
There are other status options available, which you can access by clicking on Add a status in the drop-down menu. There are several presets that you can add, including Be right back, Commuting, Out sick, or Vacationing. You can also create your own; however, as with Do not disturb, you have to set a time limit — although you get a later time range:
Click on the button to the right of your search box.
Select Add a status.
Write your status message at the top of the pop-up box. A Clear status after drop-down menu will appear, using Today as the time limit. Click on that.
Select Custom and choose a date, which can be up to a year from today’s date.
You can set your own custom status.
To set your chat availability on the Gmail mobile app:
You can also set your availability and create your own custom notice on your phone using the Gmail app for iOS or Android. Note that wherever you set your status, it will be reflected in all the devices that are using that same Google account.
In the app, tap on the three parallel lines in the upper left corner.
A menu will appear from the left; your current status will be on top. Tap on the status to change it or on Add a status to create your own option.
Open the side menu in Gmail to change your activity status.
As with Gmail’s web version, you can add your own status message.
Google Pixel devices finally have a real default weather app
Finally, a real Pixel Weather app. This particular forecast is for the birds, though.
Google finally has a default weather app to compete with Apple and Samsung. Though Pixel phones have long been able to display the current weather in widgets, tapping on those widgets just launched a basic screen with a cute weather frog and a handful of stats. It felt like a web page because that’s basically what it was.
With the launch of the Pixel Tablet earlier this week, Google has rectified that situation. Its new weather app — which is accessed via the same widgets as before, as there’s no icon to launch it — has a much nicer design without losing the playfulness of the older experience. It has 10-day and 24-hour forecasts; wind, humidity, barometric pressure, and UV index reports, plus current sun position and sunrise / sunset times. It also shows details for precipitation, wind, and humidity broken down by the hour. All of this is available in an easy to parse single screen with some fun animations for the current conditions.
The new app also has the ability to provide immediately upcoming precipitation information, including how intense it will be and long it will last before it stops. It can even provide this data up to 12 hours in advance thanks to its use of data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other sources. This information will only be displayed in the app when it’s relevant — if there isn’t any upcoming precipitation near you, it won’t show this data.
The new weather experience shows quite a lot of detail in an easy-to-parse way. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any radar maps.
Perhaps the only thing missing from this new weather experience is a radar view — if there is one, I’ve been unable to find it in the app. It’d also be nice to have an app icon to launch the weather app instead of having to rely on a widget. Like the barebones previous version, this new one is powered by the Google app, but it feels much more native and less like a dinky little website.
For now, the new weather app is limited to tablets, including the Pixel Tablet and the soon-to-launch Pixel Fold. 9to5Google reports that Google plans to bring it to other devices in the future, but there’s no timing for when that might happen. Android Police has some images of what it looks like running on a phone-sized screen, thanks to developers that were able to activate it on their devices.
Samsung devices already have a rather complete weather app preinstalled, but I’m hopeful that Google doesn’t keep this exclusive to the Pixel line and makes it more widely available. It wouldn’t be the first time Google extended Pixel-specific software outside of its own devices.
Russia invades Ukraine: the latest news on connectivity, cryptocurrency, and more
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge
This even has implications for the ISS
On February 24th, Russia invaded areas of Ukraine near its northern, eastern, and southern borders. It’s a significant military action that could have alarming consequences, and more than 500,000 people had reportedly fled from Ukraine to neighboring countries as of February 28th.
Making sense of the EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries
Image: Apple
The European Parliament recently voted on regulation that would, among other things, require smartphone manufacturers to make their device’s batteries more easily user-replaceable. Here’s the fine print.
If you’ve been online in the past week, you’ve probably seen one or two headlines about the European Union voting in favor of easy-to-replace batteries in smartphones by around 2027. That’s based on a June 14th vote in which the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of an agreement that would overhaul the rules around batteries in the bloc.
The good news is that those headlines are fundamentally accurate; the EU is moving forward with regulation designed to require smartphones to have batteries that are easier to replace, to the benefit of the environment and end users. But this being the European Union, there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. And it’s these details that could have a significant impact on how and when manufacturers will actually have to comply.
Competing legislation
For starters, the widely cited 2027 deadline for offering smartphones with more easily replaceable batteries isn’t quite the whole story, according to Cristina Ganapini, coordinator of Right to Repair Europe. That’s because there’s another piece of legislation currently working its way through the EU’s lawmaking process called the Ecodesign for Smartphones and Tablets. It contains similar rules about making smartphone batteries easier to replace and is expected to come into effect earlier in June or July 2025. So by the time 2027 rolls around, some smartphone manufacturers may have already been selling devices with user-replaceable batteries in the EU for over a year.
Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge
Replacing the battery in HMD’s Nokia G22, the kind of repair process the EU wants to bring to all smartphones.
According to a draft version of the ecodesign regulation on the EU’s website, batteries should be replaceable “with no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools.” It also says that spare parts should be available for up to seven years after a phone’s release, and, perhaps most importantly, “the process for replacement shall be able to be carried out by a layman.” The legislation is currently being scrutinized by the European Parliament and Council, and Ganapini expects it to pass into law in September this year, with its smartphone battery replicability requirements coming into effect a year and a half later.
Despite the overlap between the two pieces of legislation, the battery regulation voted on by the European Parliament this month is still important. That’s because the battery regulation is more stringent than the ecodesign regulation in a key way: it doesn’t offer a loophole that would allow smartphone manufacturers to avoid having to make their batteries easy to replace if they’re able to make them long-lasting instead. Specifically, they’ll need to maintain 83 percent of their capacity after 500 cycles and 80 percent after 1000 cycles to qualify. Such devices would also have to be “dust tight and protected against immersion in water up to one meter depth for a minimum of 30 minutes,” according to the ecodesign rules — capabilities often achieved with glue.
“We would rather have seen longevity requirements alongside repairability requirements rather than leaving the trade-off to manufacturers,” says iFixit’s repair policy engineer Thomas Opsomer. “That said, 83 percent capacity after 500 cycles and 80 percent capacity after 1000 cycles is a fairly ambitious requirement; it would probably translate to at least five years of use.”
It’s unclear exactly how many manufacturers’ smartphone batteries may meet the requirements for this longevity loophole. For example, one Apple support page notes that a “normal battery” typically retains up to 80 percent of its original capacity after 500 complete charge cycles. But other manufacturers may already be providing batteries that are this long-lasting. Fairphone spokesperson Anna Jopp tells me the (fully replaceable) battery in its Fairphone 4 already fulfills these longevity requirements, while Oppo recently boasted that some of its batteries retain 80 percent of their charge after as much as 1,600 charge cycles.
In addition to not offering the longevity loophole, Opsomer also points out that the battery regulation covers all products with a portable battery; it’s far wider-reaching than the phone and tablet-focused ecodesign regulation.
What makes a battery “removable” anyhow?
So what exactly does it mean for a smartphone’s battery to be easy to replace? A lot of the EU’s definition boils down to what tools are required for the procedure. Although “removable” recalls the feature phone era or one of Fairphone’s devices that only require a fingernail to open, the definition used in the battery regulation voted on this month doesn’t go that far. Instead of requiring removal without tools, the battery regulation instead places limits on the kinds of tools that will be needed to replace a battery. Here’s the relevant section:
“A portable battery should be considered to be removable by the end-user when it can be removed with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy or solvents to disassemble it.”
Rather than calling for entirely tool-free battery replacement, the wording of the regulation focuses on preventing end users from having to use proprietary tools or finicky processes. So the EU’s goal is less about turning every phone into a Fairphone 4, with its battery you can pop out in a couple of seconds with your bare hands, and more like the recent HMD Nokia G22, whose iFixit battery replacement guide still calls for the use of a basic tool or two. In other words, the G22’s battery can be replaced using commercially available tools that don’t seem terribly specialized and doesn’t require proprietary tools, solvents, or thermal energy like heat guns or an iFixit iOpener, which are designed to melt the glue some manufacturers use to hold components together. Simple, right?
Image: iFixit
A Google Pixel smartphone, alongside the kinds of tools needed to repair it.
Not so fast, says iFixit’s Opsomer. He points out that while EU law only defines “basic tools, product group specific tools, other commercially available tools, and proprietary tools,” it doesn’t define “specialized tools.” “This current specification could easily give rise to a situation where in order to replace a battery, a user would have to purchase a tool that is in fact specialized but not officially defined as such,” Opsomer says, “The cost of which could easily exceed the cost of the replacement battery.”
So iFixit is pushing for lawmakers to count a device as user-repairable under the battery regulation if it can be repaired using “basic tools.” Included in this category are common screwdriver styles like flat-head, Phillips, and Torx, though Opsomer admits it’s likely to include some nicher implements like iFixit opening picks.
Another potential point of contention is how user-replaceable batteries could coexist with waterproofing. The battery regulation contains an exemption for devices “that are specifically designed to be used, for the majority of the active service of the appliance, in an environment that is regularly subject to splashing water, water streams or water immersion.” Opponents of such rules often bring up waterproofing as a feature that could suffer if a device is designed to be easily opened.
In a statement, Opsomer said the EU’s exemption is based on “unfounded safety claims” and cited underwater flashlights as an example of a device that’s able to offer both a user-replaceable battery alongside a waterproof construction. In a YouTube video, repair technician Louis Rossmann cites the Samsung Galaxy S5 (IP67 — so it can be immersed in relatively shallow water for up to 30 minutes) and Sonim XP10 (IP68 — which can be immersed in deeper water for longer periods of time) as phones with good water resistance that also offer removable batteries, though other recent repairable phones like the Fairphone 4 (IP54 — offering protection against splashing water) and Nokia G22 (IP52 — protected against dripping water) fare less well.
A good start
Qualms about the specifics aside, the result of this month’s vote on new battery regulation was broadly welcomed by right-to-repair campaigners. Right to Repair Europe’s Ganapini called it “a big success for the right to repair,” while Fairphone’s legal counsel Ana-Mariya Madzhurova said the regulation “will further empower consumers by ensuring that batteries across industries are more durable, sustainable and repairable.”
The EU’s user-replaceable battery rules still have a long way to go, despite this month’s successful vote. The battery regulation will need to be formally endorsed by the Council of the EU while the ecodesign rules are still being scrutinized by the European Parliament. Although the passage of both sets of rules seems likely given their current progress, discussions are ongoing behind the scenes between different groups vying for looser or stricter interpretations of the written rules.
But, in the years ahead, it’s looking like smartphone buyers in Europe will have a far easier time keeping their devices running and out of the landfill after their batteries degrade naturally over time. And, unless manufacturers want to produce devices with user-replaceable batteries that are only sold in Europe, it seems like the rest of the world is also set to benefit.
NFC technology is getting better range and charging capabilities
Apple Pay uses NFC technology, and it requires you to effectively touch the terminal to make a connection. | Image: The Verge
Tap-to-pay services like Apple Pay may soon no longer need the actual tapping part to work. That’s because NFC, the technology that enables you to pay at shops by touching your phone to a payment terminal, is getting new capabilities over the next next two to five years, such as a communications range boost, more powerful wireless charging for tiny devices like earbuds, and more (via Android Authority).
NFC, which stands for Near Field Communication, is inside thousands of devices today ranging from smartphones to video game-enhancing figurines. Now the body that decides how to standardize the technology, the NFC Forum, is outlining key areas that will move NFC tech forward through 2028. The Forum is comprised of hundreds of companies, including Apple, Google, Huawei, Sony, NXP, and Qualcomm.
Image: Nintendo
Nintendo’s Amiibo figures use NFC, and perhaps future iterations with upgraded NFC won’t need this instructional on where exactly to make contact.
One of the friction points of using NFC tech is its incredibly short range. For an NFC connection to be successful, the devices need to be within 5mm of each other — which is short enough to make “contactless payments” a misnomer. The NFC Forum is looking to stretch that “four to six times” further, which would make it more like 30mm (or 1.18 inches).
With the added distance (and power), people taking public transit in places like New York City could more easily wave their hand bags on terminals instead of taking out their phones. And merchants can stress less about customers magic-wanding their smartphones around payment terminals hunting for the precise connection point.
The NFC Forum is also looking to increase wireless charging power from the 1W currently, to a more usable 3W. While that’s far less than the Qi standard’s max of 15W, it’s enough for the Forum to boast that “The change will bring wireless power and charging to new and smaller form factors, disrupting industrial design while defining new markets.” So, standards-based wireless charging of individual earbuds? Maybe!
The roadmap includes changes meant to make point-of-sale transactions easier, as well. Apple had enabled a Tap to Pay API last year that lets developers turn iPhones into payment terminals. Future NFC standards aim to make this functionality native so that businesses and individuals can receive payments anywhere.
In addition, the NFC Forum is looking to add a “multi purpose tap” that could do several actions in just one tap, like having all your crew’s tickets being allowed entry at a concert with just one tap instead of swiping to the next one by one. And NFC is planning for a feature that can act like an info drop on the device it’s attached to, specifically to share its composition for easier recycling instructions.
The NFC Forum will be presenting its development roadmap during a public webinar on June 27th.
Reddit Wants to Grow Up. Will Its Community Let It? As the social media site matures, its users and moderators have made their displeasure about corporate changes known, putting the company into a bind.
A.I. Beach + Vibes-Based R.T.O. + the ‘Black Mirror’ Quamputer Generative artificial intelligence can increasingly do the work of creatives — so why aren’t we seeing more A.I. ads and A.I. actors?
New Study Bolsters Room-Temperature Superconductor Claim A team of researchers verified a key measurement from a study earlier this year that had faced doubts from other scientists.
Canada’s Online News Act Targets Facebook and Google A new Canadian law will require technology companies to license news content. Facebook’s owner said it would drop news from the platform.
Reddit pressures mods to end the blackout as they find new ways to protest
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Reddit appears to be ramping up the pressure on moderators to open communities that closed in the blackout protest against recently announced platform changes. A Reddit admin — an employee of Reddit — has told unpaid volunteer moderators of a subreddit that the “expectation here is that communities reopen,” according to a message shared publicly by a moderator of r/DIY.
The pressure worked. The community was closed, but it reopened on Thursday, and a mod said that fears of Reddit actions forced the team’s hand: “We’re re-opening because if we don’t, the mods that Reddit appoint may not care about the subreddit the way we do,” the mod wrote.
The mod’s post also announced a vast number of changes to the subreddit’s rules that hew more closely to Reddit’s general requirements, while also undoing many of the norms and rule tweaks that were in place to improve the quality of content. The changes include no longer requiring users to do basic research and lowering the standard for what the subreddit counts as spam. Reddit has its reopened community, but at what cost?
We’ve seen messages from other moderators where the admin, ModCodeofConduct, uses similar rhetoric. To the moderators of r/homeimprovement the admin said that “to be very clear you cannot remain closed so we need to know if any mods here wish to participate in opening the community.”
To the moderators of r/harrypotter, the admin account wrote that “keeping the community closed is not an option” — even though users have voted for the subreddit to be private, according to a post from a r/harrypotter mod.
More than 2,600 subreddits remain dark in protest, and users on r/ModCoord (moderator coordination) are still sharing their stories of receiving messages from Reddit that they view as threatening and intimidating. “My tiny 27-user sub is being threatened for staying blacked out,” one user wrote. “Reddit is a BULLY,” said another, sharing a screenshot of where they told ModCodeofConduct their messages were “harassment and intimidation.”
Reddit didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. According to Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt, “We’ll no longer comment on hearsay, unsubstantiated claims, or baseless accusations from The Verge. We’ll be in touch as corrections are needed.” In the absence of corrections, then, you can assume Reddit believes none are necessary.
Meta is yanking news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Meta will be removing news from Facebook and Instagram in Canada now that the country’s Senate has passed the Online News Act, the company announced on Thursday. The legislation, officially Bill C-18, will force tech companies like Meta and Google to negotiate with news publishers and pay them for their content.
Meta has been a vocal opponent of the Online News Act for some time. “The world is constantly changing and publishers, like everyone else, have to adapt,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a statement in May. “Asking a social media company in 2023 to subsidize news publishers for content that isn’t that important to our users is like asking email providers to pay the postal service because people don’t send letters any more.” Meta also warned on June 1st that it would begin testing the removal of news from the apps in anticipation of the passage of the law. Bill C-18 will take effect six months after it gets royal assent, according to the Associated Press.
Pablo Rodriguez, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, has pushed back on Meta’s choice to pull news. “Facebook knows very well that they have no obligations under the act right now,” Rodriguez wrote on Twitter. “Following Royal Assent of Bill #C18, the Government will engage in a regulatory and implementation process.”
Google has also tested blocking news content for some Canadian users, but in a statement to The Verge, the company said that it’s still working with the government on a potential solution that would address the company’s concerns.
“We’re doing everything we can to avoid an outcome that no-one wants,” Google spokesperson Jenn Crider said in a statement to The Verge. “Every step of the way, we’ve proposed thoughtful and pragmatic solutions that would have improved the Bill and cleared the path for us to increase our already significant investments in the Canadian news ecosystem. So far, none of our concerns have been addressed.”
According to National Post, the company is in “last-minute talks” with Rodriguez as of Thursday afternoon.
Meta has removed news in an entire country in the past. The company pulled news content from Facebook in Australia in 2021 in opposition to a law similar to Canada’s, but it brought news back after the Australian government amended the law.
YouTube is getting AI-powered dubbing
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
YouTube wants to make it easier to dub your videos in other languages by giving you some help with AI. The company announced Thursday at VidCon that it’s bringing over the team from Aloud, an AI-powered dubbing service from Google’s Area 120 incubator.
Here’s how it works, according to Aloud’s website. The tool first transcribes your video, giving you a transcription that you can review and edit. Then, it translates and produces the dub. This video has the details.
YouTube is already testing the tool with “hundreds” of creators, YouTube’s Amjad Hanif says in a statement to The Verge. And Hanif says that Aloud currently supports a “few” languages, with “more to come”; according to spokesperson Jessica Gibby, Aloud is currently available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Still, even with a limited number of languages, Aloud could be a useful tool as a growing number of creators add multi-language dubs to their videos. And if you want to hear an example of Aloud’s results for yourself, check out the Spanish dub track in this video from the Amoeba Sisters channel. (Click the gear icon, then “Audio track.”)
Down the line, YouTube is “working to make translated audio tracks sound like the creator’s voice, with more expression, and lip sync,” Hanif says. Those features are planned for 2024, Gibby says.
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