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Justice Department launches sweeping review of competition in tech

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Officials vowed to “seek redress” if they found any lawbreaking. Wall Street Journal sources claimed that the DOJ wouldn’t ignore violations of other laws if discovered during the review.

The Department didn’t name specific targets, but it’s not hard to guess which tech giants are likely to come under the crosshairs. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft all exert tremendous influences on the internet, even if they don’t always have a monopoly in a given area.

And those companies are likely to be nervous. They’ve already been asked to testify in front of Congress on competitive issues, and reports have circulated of regulators divvying oversight of Amazon and Google ahead of seemingly likely action. That’s not including an imminent Facebook settlement with the FTC. There’s a real chance they’ll be asked to change their practices or even split into multiple companies.

You know these firms will put up stiff opposition, too. Apple has already denied that its App Store is a monopoly, and companies like Google have typically argued that you’re not locked into using their web services the way you might be with software. They’re determined to maintain the status quo, and they know the consequences of losing could be severe.

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Snapchat had more than 200 million daily users last quarter

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Not coincidentally, the redesigned Snapchat app that rolled out to all Android users last quarter has made an impact as well. Snap says that users are sending seven percent more Snaps with the new app, though it comes with the confusing caveat that this represents “the majority of Android devices used by new users.” Likely, that’s an acknowledgement that there are Android users with older devices not running the updated app. Snap also say that new users are more likely to stick with the Snapchat app these days — the company “saw more than a ten percent increase in the retention rate of people who open Snapchat for the first time.”

As for its financial performance, Snap still isn’t profitable — but it’s slowly inching closer to that day. The company pulled in $388 million in revenue, a big 48 percent increase over Q2 one year ago. But the company still lost $255 million in the quarter; that’s 28 percent less money than it lost in Q2 2018.

Somewhat surprisingly, Snap’s Discover platform is also getting more engagement than it has in the past. The audience of people watching content on Discover daily grew 35 percent in the last year — though Snap didn’t provide any numbers to quantify how big (or small) that audience is. Total daily time spent watching Discover is also up to the tune of 60 percent year-over-year.

As for the host of partner-focused announcements Snap made back in April, it’s a bit too early for much of them to have come to fruition. But we’ll be listening in to today’s earnings call to see if CEO Evan Spiegel has any other details to share and we’ll update this post with anything we hear.

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A new bill could ban facial recognition in federally-funded housing

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If passed, the bill would prohibit facial recognition in public housing units that receive Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding. It would also require HUD to submit a report on facial recognition and its impacts on public housing units and tenants. The legislation will be proposed by Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

The bill would be the first federal legislation to determine which technology landlords can impose. As CNET points out, it would only impact HUD housing, but it could serve as a model for future bills. This spring tenants won the right to have physical keys to access their New York City apartment building, rather than smart locks. As more landlords look to install smart home tech, legislation and cases like these could become more common.

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Amazon’s ‘Homecoming’ casts Janelle Monáe as its new lead

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It’s Monáe’s first major role in a TV series. Along with her successful music career, she’s putting together an impressive screen résumé. She starred in the excellent NASA drama Hidden Figures and Oscar winner Moonlight. Later this year, Monáe will appear in the Harriet Tubman biopic Harriett and a live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp, which’ll be a Disney+ exclusive. Homecoming is her second Prime Video project after an episode of the anthology Electric Dreams.

Homecoming will forge a separate path from its namesake Gimlet Media podcast for its second run, Deadline reports, with a bevy of new characters onboard. It remains to be seen how many of the original cast will return to the psychological thriller.

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Quakecon’s Steam sale offers steep discounts on ‘Doom’ and ‘Wolfenstein’

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It won’t surprise you to hear that Bethesda is also using this as an excuse to slash prices on games that wouldn’t make much sense outside of QuakeCon. You can get the reimagined Prey and Dishonored 2 at 80 percent discounts, while Fallout 4 and its VR counterpart are both 75 percent off. And if you haven’t played Skyrim by this point, you can snag it or its VR edition at a 67 percent price reduction.

Yes, Bethesda is laying the groundwork for Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein: Youngblood and other upcoming games. This is still a good excuse to explore id’s back catalog, though, and might help explain why QuakeCon persists 22 years later.

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FTC to accuse Facebook of misusing phone numbers and facial recognition

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The violations, expected to be announced tomorrow, are part of wide-ranging complaint and accompany the FTC’s probe into Facebook’s privacy practices. Last week, the FTC reportedly voted to approve a $5 billion settlement with Facebook. The settlement isn’t official yet, but it’s already being criticized for being too soft on the company. The complaint could shed more light on the FTC’s reasoning. We’ll have to wait to see what kind of restrictions will be put in place to monitor Facebook moving forward.

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Alphabet’s internet balloons have spent a million hours in the stratosphere

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The record comes in part through the way the balloons operate. Instead of fighting the wind, they use AI to change their altitude and ride currents to their destination. That leads to routes that can be long and winding, but don’t require massive amounts of energy. Loon even encourages its balloons to “stroll” so that they provide more consistent internet access.

Broadband balloons are still in their early stages and have seen only limited adoption elsewhere. Satellites have been in vogue lately. With that said, the milestone shows that they’re viable. It may just be a matter of how widespread their use becomes, rather than whether or not they have a future in the first place.

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Exploratory adventure 'Vane' is now available on Steam

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Several months after the PS4 launch, the trippy adventure game Vane is ready for the PC crowd. Friend & Foe has launched the title on Steam for $20, with the soundtrack available separately through Steam and Bandcamp for $7. It preserves the ex…

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Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Active 2 may have a touch-sensitive bezel

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This could also be helpful if you tend to wander away from your phone. The Active 2 is reportedly Samsung’s first Bluetooth 5.0 watch, promising up to four times the range, support for two audio targets and lower power consumption. You might reliably receive notifications at the gym while your phone stays safe in a changing room locker.

The wristwear is still expected to come in 40mm and 44mm cases sizes with regular and LTE variants, not to mention aluminum and steel cases. Samsung hasn’t said anything about a release date, but its Galaxy Note 10 event is just around the corner on August 7th. If the Active 2 is launching any time in the near future, that would be a good place to unveil it.

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Toyota’s 2020 Olympics robots will include a javelin-carrying cart

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Most of the other bots were already known, such as the Human Support Robot (for guiding people to their seats), the Delivery Support Robot (drinks and other orders) and the T-HR3 humanoid robot (remote interactions with athletes).

However, there will be one more Olympics-specific bot. The Mascot Robot in Miraitowa and Someity variants (you’re looking at Someity below) will welcome people to venues through object detection and remote-controlled limbs. Toyota is also “considering” a way to enhance the games for Japanese kids through the mascot machines.

The robots serve as marketing material for Toyota and Japan’s technology industry as a whole. Like other Japanese worker robots, though, they’re also an acknowledgment of the country’s labor shortages. With a declining population and a reluctance to invite foreign workers, the country can’t always count on having enough people to fill jobs. The Field Support Robot and its peers could ensure that Tokyo 2020 proceeds without a hitch, even if there aren’t as many human staffers as the organizers would like.

Toyota's Mascot Robot Someity

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