Political Dynamics and Big Tech Engagement

Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks with games reporter Ash Parrish and senior reporter Alex Heath about Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion and Google building a new AR headset.

Policy editor Russell Brandom joins the show to discuss the battle between the FAA, AT&T, Verizon, and airlines over 5G and the antitrust bills in Congress this week.

Further reading:

• The US’s free COVID test website has more visitors than all other .gov sites combined
• Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion
• Read Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s email to employees about the Microsoft acquisition
• Read Microsoft Gaming CEO’s email to staff about the Activision Blizzard acquisition
• Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service grows to 25 million subscribers
• Microsoft’s Activision acquisition would instantly make it a force in mobile gaming
• A guide to Microsoft’s Xbox game studios empire
• Is Microsoft building a gaming monopoly?
• Sony expects Microsoft to ‘continue to ensure’ Activision games stay multiplatform
• Google is building an AR headset
• AT&T and Verizon are limiting C-band 5G expansion around airports even more
• AT&T begins 5G C-band rollout in limited number of metro areas
• Verizon’s faster C-band 5G is live and off to a promising start
• Apple and Google split with startups over antitrust bill
• Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are personally lobbying senators against antitrust legislation: report
• Lawmakers approve Big Tech antitrust overhaul, but with strings attached
• US competition enforcers launch overhaul of merger approval process
• Democrats unveil bill to ban online ‘surveillance advertising’

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