The Morning After: Did Microsoft simply neg Blizzard Activision? | Engadget

In a latest submitting, Microsoft instructed New Zealand’s Commerce Commission that Blizzard Activision produces no “must-have” video games. Weird factor to say when the corporate plans to spend $68.7 billion to purchase the gaming big behind Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft and lots extra.

In the doc, Microsoft mentioned: “There is nothing unique about the video games developed and published by Activision Blizzard that is a ‘must have’ for rival PC and console video game distributors that give rise to a foreclosure concern.”

Attempting to downplay the significance of Call of Duty is simply one of many methods Microsoft has tried to placate regulators. In February, the corporate pledged it could proceed to make the franchise out there on PlayStation consoles past any current agreements between Sony and Activision.

— Mat Smith

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It left its tools within the streets in some cities.

An e-bike- and scooter-sharing startup co-founded by Olympian Usain Bolt seems to have stopped operations. Bolt Mobility supplied bikes in 5 cities, together with Portland, Burlington, Vermont and Richmond in California, and others. “We learned a couple of weeks ago (from them) that Bolt is ceasing operations,” a transportation planner in Chittenden County, Vermont, instructed TechCrunch. “They’ve vanished, leaving tools behind and emails and calls unanswered.”

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You’ll additionally see them on particular person app pages.

Apple it’ll by no means invade your privateness to serve adverts, however it does have an advert enterprise on its App Store and elsewhere. The firm is now increasing that enterprise by including a brand new advert slot to its Today homepage tab and on particular person app pages. The firm says these new advert slots will adhere to Apple’s insurance policies on privateness and transparency, by not providing customized adverts to customers below 18, by no means utilizing delicate knowledge and avoiding hyper-targeting.

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Whether you’ve gotten Series X, Series S, One X or One S, there’s one thing right here for you.

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Microsoft’s console technique is exclusive. Someone with a nine-year-old Xbox One has entry to an almost-identical library of video games because the proprietor of a brand-new Xbox Series X. That makes it tough to keep up meaningfully totally different lists for its numerous consoles — at the least for now. But whereas next-gen exclusives could also be few and much between, there are loads of avid gamers who merely haven’t skilled a lot of what Microsoft has needed to provide for the reason that mid-’10s.

It’s in that state of mind that we method this checklist, now up to date: What video games would we advocate to somebody selecting up an Xbox at the moment? Expect extra up to date guides to one of the best video games all through the week.

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The proposed class motion swimsuit accuses Musk of breaching his fiduciary responsibility to Twitter shareholders.

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Reuters

It’s not solely attempting to pressure Elon Musk to purchase the corporate for $44 billion. An investor filed a proposed class motion lawsuit to attempt stopping Musk from . Luigi Crispo’s swimsuit accuses Musk of breach of contract and breach of fiduciary responsibility to Twitter’s shareholders. Musk final month claimed the corporate made “false and misleading representations,” and that it misrepresented the variety of bots and pretend accounts on its platform. Crispo concurred with Twitter’s claims that Musk is utilizing false claims about bots and spam to wriggle out of the deal and not using a legitimate authorized standing.

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Premium options.

It’s 2022 and Spotify is including essentially the most fundamental of capabilities to its iOS and Android apps: devoted play and shuffle buttons on playlists and album pages. Until now, tapping the button on most playlists began playback, shuffled. This vanilla playback ‘feature,’ nevertheless, will solely be out there to Spotify Premium subscribers.

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There’s already a “TikTok Music” trademark software filed.

TikTok’s father or mother firm, ByteDance, has filed a trademark software with the US Patent and Trademark Office for “TikTok Music.” The service would let customers “purchase, play, share, download music, songs, albums, lyrics… live stream audio and video… edit and upload photographs as the cover of playlists… [and] comment on music, songs and albums.”

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