This week on The Vergecast, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Makena Kelly, and Casey Newton join a Zoom call to discuss the upcoming big congressional antitrust Zoom call featuring CEOs from Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
Though the hearing is likely to be postponed (that news came after this episode was recorded), the discussion is still relevant. Signaling a big move to regulate Silicon Valley, the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee will talk to Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai about their potential monopoly powers in the digital marketplace and social media. The Vergecast crew discusses what to expect at the event, the likelihood of legislation as a result of the hearing, and how various investigations factor into the future of Big Tech regulation.
Also, in the middle of the show, games editor Andrew Webster and reporter Megan Farokhmanesh stop by to give us a brief breakdown of what was announced at the Xbox Games Showcase — from the new Halo game to the growing significance of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription model.
There’s a whole lot more in between all of that — like some of the week’s latest gadget rumors — so listen through here or in your preferred podcast player to hear it all.
Stories from this week:
- New COVID testing strategy could speed up backlogged labs
- ‘COVID parties’ are a pandemic urban legend that won’t go away
- The tech antitrust hearing is shaping up to be one for the ages
- Antitrust investigations aren’t the biggest threat to Facebook’s future
- The big winner in Slack’s Microsoft fight could be Google
- Xbox Games Showcase: all the news from Microsoft’s July 2020 event
- Sony’s first vlogging camera almost nails it
- Latest iOS 14 beta offers more evidence of a 5.4-inch iPhone
- Alexa will soon be able to launch Android and iOS apps using voice commands
- Samsung promises new mobile and TV products at virtual September event
- Blurry Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 leak hints at camera upgrades and gold model
- Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra may try to be the Xbox Phone
- This is what Samsung’s bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live will look like in your ears
- The brain behind the Google Pixel camera is building a universal camera app for Adobe
- Windows 10X might not arrive until 2021
The Vergecast /
Weekly tech roundup and interviews with major figures from the tech world.