Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge The European Union (EU) has formally opened an investigation into X, the platform previously known as Twitter, to ensure it’s complying with the Digital Services Act (DSA) following Hamas’ attack on Israel in early October and subsequent Israeli air assault on Gaza. According to the request, this comes after “indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech.”Earlier this week, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton sent a letter to X owner Elon Musk alleging that the platform is “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU.”The EU is requesting that X provide information related... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Somebody sent a strange tip about Spotify to The Verge on Wednesday.The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, ! lucasrpx and ! vitornovaes.” The tipster followed up two minutes later to share a screenshot showing the profile pictures from the accounts, which featured characters from the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo. Weird stuff.This seemed pretty innocuous — we doubted they were hackers — but we had to investigate. It was easy to disprove that the accounts followed “every English account in America”; the accounts were not following me. (Though full disclosure that I’ve been an Apple Music user for years.) But the accounts did follow two other Verge staffers,... Continue reading…

Samsung just recently introduced an all-encompassing Galaxy FE line with the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Tab S9 FE series, and the Galaxy Buds FE. All of these try to offer great value for money by bringing flagship-level specs to a much more affordable price point, and because of this, they're all very tempting. So, say you're looking to buy the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablets — we're here to help with that. We've rounded up all the best deals and the best places to grab yourself one of these tablets as early as possible.

Illustration: The Verge Google is experimenting with the inclusion of a Discover Feed on its desktop homepage that shows recommended content alongside the company’s traditional search box. A screenshot from MSPowerUser, which spotted the change, shows a feed that includes news headlines, a weather forecast, sports scores, and stock information for a trio of companies. The search giant previously added the Discover Feed to its US homepage on mobile devices in 2018,Google spokesperson Lara Levin confirmed the change in a statement given to The Verge, noting that it’s an experiment that’s currently being run in India. Any change to google.com is significant as it continues to be the world’s most visited website. Image: MSPowerUser A... Continue reading…

Despite the best Chromebooks being cloud-based machines for web browsing, you can unlock an entirely new level of productivity and entertainment with Android apps. Most Chromebooks are compatible with the feature right out of the box. Launch the Google Play Store, browse for your favorite Android app, and get going.

It's true that smartphones are getting bigger and better with larger displays and more powerful internals. There's also been an influx of foldables phones on the market right now, that are trying to blur the line between a phone and PCs.That being said, they're not quite ready to replace tablets just yet for a few obvious reasons. Tablets are still the perfect companions to have alongside your smartphone, laptop, or PC, as they let you work on things more effectively.

Image: James Bareham / The Verge Popular online adult film sites in Texas have published “Texas Health and Human Services” disclaimers warning visitors about the unproven health risks of watching porn, reports 404 Media. The move comes after a US appeals court temporarily overturned an order blocking a Texas law that required porn sites to verify users’ ages and display government health warnings.Though they don’t require age verification, every Vixen Media Group site — which includes Deeper, Blacked, and Vixen — now displays factually debatable disclaimers warning that porn is “potentially biologically addictive” and “proven to harm human brain development.” The warnings appear to users within the state of Texas.These pop-ups also claim porn “increases the demand for... Continue reading…

Shadow, which offers services that let you stream a Windows PC, has disclosed a security breach that led an attacker taking some private customer data. The company is sending emails to customers notifying them that a bad actor was able to extract their first and last name, email address, date of birth, billing address, and credit card expiration date.Shadow’s CEO confirmed the breach in a statement to The Verge. “We were recently the victim of a highly sophisticated social engineering attack which led to the exfiltration of the database of one of our service providers, resulting in the unauthorized exposure of certain customer data,” Eric Sele says. “We have since then taken immediate steps to secure our systems, including reinforcing... Continue reading…

Morty and Rick on a mission. | Image: Adult Swim The Rick and Morty season 7 premiere makes quick work of dealing with the elephant in the room and getting back to business. Continue reading…

From Google Drive to Chrome Remote Desktop, you'll find several of Google's progressive web apps (PWA) in ChromeOS. There is one more of a similar kind from Google that has recently made its debut on Chromebooks to give you control over your Pixel Buds' customization.

Caroline Ellison didn’t crack under pressure. Granted, she wasn’t under that much pressure. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Agustina Torres, Getty Images The defense botched the cross examination of Caroline Ellison. Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been approved by UK regulators. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that the deal can proceed after Microsoft recently restructured the deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. The decision clears the way for the deal to close now that the UK regulator has given the green light.“The CMA has decided to give Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) consent to acquire Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Activision) (the Parties) excluding Activision’s cloud streaming rights outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) (the Merger) subject to the condition that the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights... Continue reading…