Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
These two practices—predatory pricing and integration across business lines—may sound normal. But under old readings of U.S. antitrust law, they are illegal. Still, it’s unclear whether consumers have seen higher prices as a result of either strategy. As such, Amazon rejects the “predatory pricing” label. And Republican Senator Orrin Hatch last August decried the new…
Image: Tara Jacoby Yesterday, Valve announced a sweeping new policy for Steam: From now on, the platform will allow “everything” except for games Valve decides are “illegal, or straight up trolling.” In light of controversies like the recently removed school shooter game Active Shooter, the announcement came as a surprise to those who were expecting…
Fallout 76 will have nukes. Provided players find the keys, they will be able to fire these nukes off whenever they please. This gameplay feature, announced at last night’s Bethesda press conference, is presumably meant to encourage player-created drama in the upcoming online survival game. It’s also the clearest signal yet that the Fallout series,…
It’s not just you. Those pesky robocalls — at best annoying disturbances and at worst costly financial scams — are getting worse. In an age when cellphones have become extensions of our bodies, robocallers now follow people wherever they go, disrupting business meetings, church services and bedtime stories with their children. Though automated calls have…
The battle to protect your privacy is like a roller coaster, with breathtaking highs and turbulent lows. It is, after all, a constant game between the technology that guards your information and the trackers that find new ways to profile you. Apple hit a high point for privacy last week. Now Playing: Watch this: MacOS gets better…
The next Assassin’s Creed is going to turn heads. That won’t just be because it’s set in ancient Greece, nor simply because it lets you play as a man or a woman. It’s also changing the series’ combat yet again, offering more options for stealth, and even fleshing out the modern-day stuff that’s been lacking…
Image: EA (Anthem) I sat down with Anthem, BioWare’s upcoming shared-world third-person shooter, for 30 minutes today. I came away surprised at just how good it feels to move around in the game’s fantasy sci-fi world. Flying through its gorgeous environments on my way to kill some bad guys, fix an ancient relic, or take…
Back in the summer of 2016, when the female “Ghostbusters” remake hit theaters, aggrieved fans of the original regarded the new film as a politically motivated assassination. Replacing their childhood comedy idols with women was a kind of narrative murder, committed by a cabal of Hollywood moguls and humorless feminists. This summer’s own splashy female…
Chip Somodevilla/Pool via CNP via AP Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. The other evening I was on a cable news show to cover the latest Russia news of the day—and I had an epiphany. We were talking about a recent scoop from Michael Isikoff, the co-author of my latest…
Last November, Vox published a story by politics editor Laura McGann about New York Times politics reporter Glenn Thrush and what she called his “history of bad judgment” around young women journalists. The story detailed four women’s assertions that Thrush came onto or harassed them, usually in situations involving alcohol. Three allegedly took place during…