Wednesday, 20 November 2024

The Morning After: DOJ wants Google to sell Chrome

The Department of Justice is reportedly planning to make Google sell its Chrome browser to address its search monopoly. It’s in response to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the DOJ and several US states that was finally ruled upon in August. Google has, naturally, said such a sale would be a terrible idea and would harm American competitiveness in the tech industry. I’m more curious about how much inherent value Chrome has without the backing of its parent company.

— Dan Cooper

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News in Brief

Image of a proposed Minecraft Theme Park
Merlin Entertainments

The company behind Legoland is teaming up with Mojang to build Minecraft theme parks in the US and UK. Both locations will have interactive attractions based on the game, as well as rides, gift shops and restaurants designed to milk cash out of weary parents. The announcement came on the same day as the first full trailer for A Minecraft Movie, another sign of the game’s growing cultural dominance. Given I can’t move in my own home without hearing famous Minecraft YouTuber Aphmau screech-shouting at the top of her lungs, I can’t wait to grind my teeth into powder taking my kids to enjoy both.

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Image of the PlayStation Portal held aloft.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget

Someone at Sony has finally noticed the PlayStation Portal was shipped without its raison d’être: cloud streaming. The company is pushing a software update for users to test the feature with more than 120 PS5 Plus games. It only took them a whole damn year to get around to it.

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Over the weekend, two undersea data cables in Europe were cut, with one German politician claiming sabotage. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has gone public with his belief the two lines were deliberately cut, but admits he has no proof to support his claim. Both Germany and Finland, two of the countries affected, say a thorough investigation is in progress.

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Sonos
Sonos

Sonos hasn’t had a great year, but one highlight has been the Arc Ultra soundbar, the first model to debut its Sound Motion technology. Now, I bet you’re wondering what that tech is and what it does, which is why Engadget’s audio expert Billy Steele has cooked up this guide. He’ll talk you through what it’s good for, why Sonos spent $100 million to own it and what it means for the future of your home audio.

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Snippet from the cover art from Warcraft
Blizzard Entertainment

I’ve got fond memories of playing Warcraft II as a kid, with They’re destroying our city!” a regular rallying cry in me and my friend Shane’s playground games. Engadget’s Igor Bonifacic has a similar love for the series and leapt in to play the recently released remaster. Sadly, it looks like Blizzard phoned this one in, prompting Igor to look a little closer at what’s going on.

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Uber’s new XXL rides will have extra room for your big-ass suitcase

Uber is rolling out some new features for the holiday travel season. On Wednesday, it announced a new, super-duper-sized option with extra trunk space for airport travel. In addition, there will be a third shuttle route for NYC travelers.

UberXXL is the company’s new extra-spacious rideshare option. These airport-only rides offer more trunk space and plenty of “comfortable” seating room “for you and your group.” Uber says pricing for the new jumbo-sized service will fall somewhere between UberXL and Uber Black. Upfront pricing will be available in the app.

The service is launching at 40 airports in the US and Canada, including New York’s Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark. Other participating UberXXL airports include (among others) LAX, SFO, Reagan National, O’Hare, DFW, Miami and Atlanta. It will be available at over 60 airports globally.

Two Uber app screenshots show the new Flight Capture feature and airport rideshares.
Uber

Holiday travelers will also have new ways to save a few bucks on their trips this year. UberX Share is launching at eight US airports and two international ones. The service lets you book a trip with “just one other airport traveler” to save up to 25 percent compared to UberX fares. The company says the cheaper rates will apply even if you aren’t matched with a random stranger.

UberX Share for flights will launch at Austin, Denver, Newark, Dulles, Miami, New Orleans and Phoenix airports.

Uber Reserve, the company’s schedule-ahead feature, is adding Flight Capture, which lets you enter your flight info and schedule your trip around it. The app will recommend the best time to leave and ask if you want to adjust your drop-off if your flight is delayed. In addition, Uber Reserve will now give you the option of adding multiple stops when setting up your ride.

After launching in New York City last month, Uber Shuttle has added an extra stop to and from LaGuardia. The $18 shuttle service, which lets you save some money on its preset routes, will now include a third stop at the World Trade Center site at 198 Fulton St. It joins the previous two shuttle pickup and drop-off points: Midtown Manhattan (with stops at Port Authority Terminal and Grand Central) and Penn Station.

Finally, the Uber app for iPhone has added a widget that could shave a few seconds off the time it takes to schedule a pickup. Starting today, the iOS app has a new Home Screen widget that lets you request a ride “in as little as two taps.” You can check the App Store for the update today. The company added a ride-tracking Live Activities feature last year.

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The best depressing games to languish to in 2024

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Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Instagram will let you ‘reset’ your recommendations

If your Instagram recommendations have been feeling a little stale, you’ll soon have a way to make the app’s algorithm forget everything it thinks it knows about you. Meta is testing a new feature that will allow users to reset the algorithmic suggestions that power the app’s feed, Reels and Explore section.

The company described the feature as a “test,” but said the update “will soon roll out globally.” With the change, users will be able to “reset suggested content” from the content preferences section in Instagram’s settings. This will, according to Meta, allow you to “start fresh” and provide an opportunity to re-tune the app’s suggestions.

But while this may help you get an Instagram feed that better reflects your current interests, Meta notes that doing this kind of “reset” doesn’t delete any of your data from the app or change how the company serves you ads. (Instagram has a separate setting to personalize ad preferences.)

Meta is framing the change as part of its push to bring new safety features to teens, even though the feature will be available to all users. “We want to give teens new ways to shape their Instagram experience, so it can continue to reflect their passions and interests as they evolve,” the company wrote in a blog post. The service has previously faced criticism over its recommendations, which EU regulators have suggested could encourage “addictive behavior.”

The company notes that it has other teen-specific features meant to prevent its younger users from seeing inappropriate content. It recently introduced “teen accounts,” which have stricter privacy settings, and attempts to block certain types of harmful content from appearing in their feeds.

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The best soundbars to boost your TV audio in 2024

Spotify is now the default music player in the Opera One browser

It has long been possible to listen to music from within Opera's browser. If you go down its sidebar, you'll see a player icon where you can choose from Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer and then log into any of them with your account details. But now Opera has teamed up with Spotify and has made the music streaming service the default option on the company's flagship browser with generative AI features, Opera One

After logging into your account and activating the player, you'll be able to detach it from the sidebar and move it around the screen to a place that wouldn't interrupt your workflow. The player will float inside the browser and will not disappear if you tab away. It also automatically fades out the audio that's currently playing when you join meetings and calls. Your songs will remain paused for the duration of the call or meeting and will resume as soon as it's over. 

Perhaps the best thing about the companies' teamup, if you live in a certain location at least, is that you can get Spotify Premium for free if you don't have a subscription yet. If you're in Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, the US or Vietnam, you can redeem two to three months of Spotify Premium at no cost from within the browser's sidebar. 

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