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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M. Ward // Phosphorescent - Matthew Houck