Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the tussle-continues department: The European Union is determined to enforce its full digital rule book no matter who is in charge of companies such as X, Meta, Apple and Tiktok or where they are based, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Politico. From a report: "That's why we've opened cases against TikTok, X, Apple, Meta just to name a few. We apply the rules fairly, proportionally, and without bias. We don't care where a company's from and who's running it. We care about protecting people," Politico quoted von der Leyen as saying on Sunday. The EU's Digital Markets Act has been strongly criticised by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Posted by Timothy Monbleau from Kotaku
When I heard Ubisoft claim that Assassin’s Creed Shadows would be Steam Deck verified at launch, I responded by saying “yeah right” with all the sass I could muster. I’ve tested a lot of games on Steam Deck here at Kotaku. I’ve seen games that should be slam dunks on the device fall short, and even games with the…

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Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
A flood of well-made, affordable gaming handhelds out of China has made the last few years a great time to be a retro enthusiast. Many of them are made by Anbernic, which offers everything from $50 Game Boy-style throwbacks to higher-end modern Android-powered handhelds. Or at least it used to. Fans in the U.S. will…

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Posted by Samuel Moreno from Kotaku
You’ll unlock a ton of equipment while playing through Monster Hunter Wilds’ campaign, including multiple mantles with unique perks. One such is Corrupted Mantle, which was recently nerfed to a more balanced state instead of being overpowered as hell. The recent nerf, combined with its compromising effects and…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the end-game department: Google is confronting an existential threat as the U.S. government tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into an illegal monopoly. From a report: The drama began to unfold Monday in a Washington courtroom as three weeks of hearings kicked off to determine how the company should be penalized for operating a monopoly in search. In its opening arguments, federal antitrust enforcers also urged the court to impose forward-looking remedies to prevent Google from using artificial intelligence to further its dominance. "This is a moment in time, we're at an inflection point, will we abandon the search market and surrender them to control of the monopolists or will we let competition prevail and give choice to future generations," said Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist.

The proceedings, known in legal parlance as a "remedy hearing," are set to feature a parade of witnesses that includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition, share its repository of valuable user data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser. Google's attorney, John Schmidtlein, said in his opening statement that the court should take a much lighter touch. He said the government's heavy-handed proposed remedies wouldn't boost competition but instead unfairly reward lesser rivals with inferior technology. "Google won its place in the market fair and square," Schmidtlein said.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the time-to-face-music department: The Federal Trade Commission filed suit against Uber on Monday, alleging the transportation giant violated federal consumer protection laws through deceptive billing and cancellation practices for its Uber One subscription service. According to the complaint, Uber violated both the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act by misleading consumers about subscription terms, charging users without consent, and implementing deliberately complicated cancellation processes.

"Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel," FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said in announcing the action. The $9.99 monthly service, launched in 2021, offers benefits including fee-free delivery and discounted rides.

Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
Epic and Lucasfilm announced the next Star Wars-themed season of Fortnite starts on May 2. And one of the new characters skins being added to the popular free-to-play shooter is Darth Jar Jar, a fan-created meme character from a 2015 Reddit post. We live in the weirdest timeline.

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Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
Last night’s episode of The Last of Us was pretty brutal, especially if you didn’t already know what was coming from playing the games. If you, like me, would like a palate cleanser for all this anguish and violence, perhaps I can interest you in lead actors Pedro Pascal, Kaitlyn Dever, and Bella Ramsey being chummy…

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Posted by Kenneth Shepard and Andy Mills from Kotaku
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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath has declared that net neutrality regulations "went literally nowhere." Sampath claimed he couldn't identify what problem net neutrality was attempting to solve, despite Verizon's history of aggressive lobbying against such rules. "I don't know what net neutrality does," Sampath told The Verge. "I still don't know what problem we are trying to solve with net neutrality."

When pressed about potential anti-competitive behaviors like zero-rating services, Sampath deflected by focusing exclusively on traffic management concerns, arguing that networks require prioritization capabilities during congestion. "For traffic management purposes, we need to have some controls in the network," he stated. The interview comes as Verizon faces a different regulatory challenge from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who is holding up Verizon's Frontier acquisition over the company's diversity initiatives.

Posted by Tony_Bacala from The Toyark


Bandai Tamashii Nations have shared out details on an all new S.H. Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan Goku.  This is based on his first appearance in the Cell Saga, and features an all new sculpt with new articulation technology ...

The post S.H. Figuarts Super Saiyan Goku (All New – Cell Saga) appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
If you have a functioning Xbox Series X and a GameStop membership, the meme stock retailer will give you “up to” $420.69 in store credit for the four-year old console. The week-long trade-in deal is an April 20 shitpost but also very real and possibly the best deal available for anyone currently looking to hop off the…

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Posted by from MMO Champion
The State of PvP: Unavailable Rewards, Mass Reports, Boosting, Exploits & Bugs

PvP in The War Within has been received positively by the community; however, there appear to be several unresolved issues. In this post, we highlight unobtainable rewards, exploits, and other player concerns affecting the PvP experience.

Unavailable Rewards

Solo Shuffle Medic: The War Within and Battleground Blitz Medic: The War Within were introduced in this expansion to encourage healers to queue for solo PvP modes. Both achievements are currently marked unobtainable, which is likely an oversight from when all Feats of Strength for Season 1 were flagged the same way. As a result, the associated toy pennants are also unavailable at the moment.

These achievements can be tracked with the following script:

/run C_ContentTracking.ToggleTracking(2,40792,2)

/run C_ContentTracking.ToggleTracking(2,40795,2)

tbody>tr" data-default-sort-slug="name" data-default-sort-order="asc"> Name Reward
Solo Shuffle Medic: The War Within Win 100 Solo Shuffle rounds as a Healer at or above Rival I during The War Within.
Reward: Unbound Legend's Pennant

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: Major scholarly databases have removed dozens of academic journals after researchers discovered they had been purchased by questionable companies and transformed into predatory publications. A January 2025 study identified 36 legitimate journals acquired by recently formed firms with no publishing experience, who then dramatically increased publication fees and output while lowering quality standards.

According to information scientist Alberto Martin-Martin from the University of Granada, publishers are being offered up to hundreds of thousands of euros per journal title. Once acquired, journals typically introduce or raise article-processing charges while churning out papers often outside the publication's original scope. Scopus has delisted all 36 identified journals, and Web of Science removed 11 of 17 affected titles from its index. "As there has been significant change (different ownership), there is no guarantee that review quality is at the same level as the original journals," an Elsevier spokesperson told Nature.

Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
If you’re a long-time fan of something, one of the only ways to recapture playing, viewing, or reading it for the first time is to experience it vicariously through newcomers. That’s what The Last of Us fans got to do last night in season two’s second episode, as millions of viewers who never played the games saw one…

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Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
After years of rumors, leaks, and speculation, Bethesda has finally confirmed the worst-kept video game industry secret of 2025. Yes, we are getting an Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster.

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the stranger-things department: The FBI says it is unable to find records related to its purchase of a series of hacking tools, despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on them and those purchases initially being included in a public U.S. government procurement database before being quietly scrubbed from the internet. From a report: The news highlights the secrecy the FBI maintains around its use of hacking tools. The agency has previously used classified technology in ordinary criminal investigations, pushed back against demands to provide details of hacking operations to defendants, and purchased technology from surveillance vendors.

"Potentially responsive records were identified during the search," a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request I sent about a specific hacking tool contract says. "However, we were advised that they were not in their expected locations. An additional search for the missing records also met with unsuccessful results. Since we were unable to review the records, we were unable to determine if they were responsive to your request." In other words, the FBI says it identified related records, then couldn't actually find them when it went looking.

Posted by Randall Munroe from XKCD
'Wow, that must be why you swallow so many of them per year!' 'No, that's spiders. You swallow WAY more ants.'

Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
The first time I ever set hands on a PlayStation 2, it was a rental from Blockbuster. It came in a big black suitcase. I played The Bouncer all weekend. It was fantastic. The practice of lending out entire video game consoles did not last very long, but it’s recently become a hit in Japan again. Fans are reportedly…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Over 100 mid-market software companies are caught in a dangerous "squeeze" between AI-native startups and tech giants, according to a new AlixPartners study released Monday. The consulting firm warns many face "threats to their survival over the next 24 months" as generative AI fundamentally reshapes enterprise software.

The squeeze reflects a dramatic shift: AI agents are evolving from mere assistants to becoming applications themselves, potentially rendering traditional SaaS architecture obsolete. High-growth companies in this sector plummeted from 57% in 2023 to 39% in 2024, with further decline expected. Customer stickiness is also deteriorating, with median net dollar retention falling from 120% in 2021 to 108% in Q3 2024.