The Vergecast

The Verge's Makena Kelly and Nilay Patel sit down with senator and presidential candidate Michael Bennet to discuss his new book "Dividing America"

Stories discussed this week: Smart ovens have been turning on overnight and preheating to 400 …June Oven competitors want you to know their smart ovens can't ...Apple explains the new iPhone warning for 'unauthorized' battery …Apple is locking iPhone battery repair, says iFixit - The VergeThe FAA has banned recalled MacBook Pros from all flights — like any ...Spotify takes Spotify for Podcasters out of beta Apple and Spotify are reportedly in talks to let Siri play your Discover …Spotify is testing a new Favorite Device feature for handing off music toSonos is making a Bluetooth speaker, and here are some of its ...Snap announces Spectacles 3 with an updated design and a second …Facebook now lets anyone make an Instagram face filterSecurity researchers find that DSLR cameras are vulnerable to ransomware attackHuawei delays Mate X launch beyond SeptemberHuawei's new operating system is called HarmonyOSThe Honor Vision TV is Huawei's first HarmonyOS device 

Automattic just bought Tumblr from Verizon for reportedly 3 million dollars. CEO of Automattic Matt Mullenweg sits down with The Verge's Julia Alexander and Nilay Patel for this emergency episode of the Vergecast to share what his plans are for the micro-blogging platform. 

This week on the Vergecast interview series, The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel sits down with Berin Szóka, the president of TechFreedom. TechFreedom is a tech policy think tank based in Washington, DC that “digs deep into the hard policy and legal questions raised by technological change.”Berin and Nilay have differed on a few issues regarding tech policy, like net neutrality, but what they do agree on is the state of the tech policy conversation — it’s bad. Szóka says Republicans he has previously worked with are now getting important topics like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act wrong, and bad-faith politicians are misinterpreting it to try to score points and pass policy in their favor.Hear Berin talk about what’s happening now with legislation like Sen. Josh Hawley’s platform moderation bills, why it’s weird for conservatives to want to directly regulate speech on the internet, and how this might play out in the future. Below is a lightly edited excerpt of the conversation.Subscribe to Waveform with MKBHD at http://bit.ly/WaveformVergecast

Stories this week: Samsung Galaxy Note 10: two sizes, new S Pen, and DeX on your …Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Unpacked event: the biggest ... Samsung didn't mention Bixby once during its entire Galaxy Note 10 …Samsung confirms its long-delayed Galaxy Home smart speaker is still in the worksSamsung isn’t going it alone in the fight against Apple and GoogleSamsung's new Galaxy Book S is a Qualcomm-powered laptop with …Pixel 4 will reportedly feature a screen with a 90Hz 'Smooth Display …Google releases final beta for Android Q and changes the back …Android Q’s back gesture controversy, explained Samsung's Galaxy Watch Active 2 brings back the bezel controlDisney announces $12.99 bundle for Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ Disney has made $8 billion at the box office, but its ambitions are …Disney is drastically changing Fox’s future after a number of flopsJuul launches a Bluetooth e-cigarette that tracks how much you vapeApple stops letting contractors listen to Siri voice recordingsDeleting your Siri voice recordings from Apple's servers is confusing …Microsoft contractors are listening to select Skype calls and Cortana recordingsThe Apple Card starts rolling out today

This week on the interview episode of The Vergecast, editor of cheif of The Verge Nilay Patel sits down with CEO of Postlight Paul Ford. Paul Ford co-founded Postlight in 2015 and is a writer, product strategist, educator, programmer, and software consultant. If you read a lot of tech writing, you probably know Paul’s name. In 2015, Ford wrote an entire issue of Bloomberg’s Business Week titled “What is code?”  which colorfully explained how programming works on the web for people who don’t do it. Recently, he wrote a piece in Wired about how we should still be hopeful and excited about tech and what it can still do for us. Theres a lot of negative conversation about tech lately — regulating huge companies, what Facebook and Amazon are doing wrong — but from someone who builds things for the web, Paul brings an optimistic look at how tech can positively and creatively impact our lives in a fun and exciting way. Paul comes in to talk about his hopefulness, his piece in Wired, the state of building stuff for the web, and  how people think about tech today. 

Stories this week:The iPhone now makes up less than half of Apple’s businessApple confirms the Apple Card is coming in AugustGoogle is asking people on the street to scan their faces for $5The Google Pixel 4 will unlock using a face scanThe less expensive Pixel 3A helped Google sell twice as many smartphones last quarterNew bill would ban autoplay videos and endless scrollingThe major broadcasters are suing to shut down this app that streams ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC for freeT-Mobile CEO on 5G: Verizon is ‘clueless,’ AT&T is ‘lying, confusing’Dish confirms that it will become a major US mobile carrierVerizon says it has a secret 5G plan after T-Mobile CEO calls company ‘clueless’Verizon expands its 5G network to four more citiesVerizon’s CEO thinks half of the US will have access to 5G next yearLook upon Samsung’s new 3.5mm to USB-C dongle, ye mighty, and despairYou can already reserve the Galaxy Note 10 and it will arrive on August 23rdNew Nvidia Shield TV box shows up at FCCMophie’s iPhone XS and XR battery cases are now available for allIt’s a keyboard! It’s a trackpad! It’s almost a great iPad mouseYou can now run Android on a Nintendo Switch

Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban stops by to discuss his views on artificial intelligence, net neutrality, breaking up Big Tech, investment opportunities he’s excited about, and why he thinks Facebook’s Libra is dangerous. 

Stories discussed this week: Apple buys Intel’s smartphone modem businessSamsung says it has fixed the Galaxy Fold and will release it in SeptemberT-Mobile won’t sell the Galaxy Fold when it is rereleasedSony’s latest RX100 camera finally gets a mic jackThe first speakers from Ikea and Sonos are inexpensive and sound greatFTC hits Facebook with $5 billion fine and new privacy checksFacebook will have to monitor its own privacy rules — and that’s likely not enoughFTC sues Cambridge Analytica and restricts former CEO’s business activityFacebook confirms new FTC antitrust investigation after posting strong earningsWhy wasn't the FTC harder on Facebook?Facebook design flaw let thousands of kids join chats with unauthorized usersJustice Department announces broad antitrust review of Big TechAmazon ‘destroyed the retail industry across the US’ says Treasury Secretary MnuchinTrump keeps losing tech policy fightsDish reportedly reaches deal with T-Mobile and Sprint to become the new fourth major US carrierOrigin PC’s Big O gaming PC has a built-in PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, and Nintendo SwitchAnker CEO Steven Yang is all in on USB-CApple iPhone 11 rumors: Lightning port, new Taptic Engine, upgraded …This year's iPhone should be the last with LightningYou can subscribe to Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon here

Vox Senior Correspondent and host of The Weeds Matt Yglesias joins Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel in this special crossover episode to explain what Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which allows platforms to circumnavigate liability for user content, really means. They also discuss Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to break up big tech platforms, and how it may or may not fix anything.Subscribe to The Weeds for free here