Inside the Meta monopoly trial

Meta has a well-earned reputation as the fastest follower in tech. Did your startup launch a cool feature that people like? Before you can say "Series B," Meta will have built something eerily similar, embedded it into its vastly more popular platforms, and eaten your lunch. This probably isn't how CEO Mark Zuckerberg would like to see his empire, but it's genuinely an asset; few companies have done as good a job of identifying and jumping on trends.

Sometimes, though, jumping on trends means spending billions to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. And sometimes that lands you in an antitrust trial against the FTC. Over the last several weeks, in a courtroom in DC, executives and experts have been asked whether Meta bought those companies and helped them achieve greatness, or bought them to prevent them from doing so. Which argument Judge James Boasberg ultimately believes will have huge ramifications for the whole industry.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Lauren Feiner takes us through what we've learned so far in the trial. (Lauren has been in the courthouse for virtually every day of testimony - we finally caught her on a day off.) She explains why WhatsApp is s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Pandora Stories lets artists add commentary to their own playlists

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The Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, more or less fully unfolded. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Asus’ first foray into the world of folding-screen laptops, the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, is now on sale for $3,499.99, the company has announced . Asus says the laptop is being sold in the US via B&H and Newegg though as of this writing only Newegg seems to have the laptop available for immediate shipping, with B&H listing it as “coming soon.” That aligns with the Q4 target date given to us when we reviewed the laptop in August . At $3,499.99, Zenbook 17 Fold OLED is eye-wateringly expensive, but my colleague Monica Chin points out that it’s the first such device that starts to deliver on the promise of this new form factor. You can either use the laptop with its 17.3-inch 2560 x 1920 screen fully unfolded and paired with a bluetooth keyboard... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/P4q7sej

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