The Morning After: What we learned from the FTC v. Meta antitrust trial (so far)
Years after the Federal Trade Commission sued Meta in a bid to halt acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, the trial that will shape its future is finally underway. The trial kicked off last month when CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand, and it's expected to last several weeks.
Facebook's 2012 acquisition of Instagram is a central part of the FTC's case against Meta. The government says Zuckerberg bought Instagram to neutralize it as a competitor. When Instagram's cofounder and former CEO Kevin Systrom took the stand, he didn't exactly defend the move. While Zuckerberg had testified Meta had helped Instagram grow, Systrom testified Zuckerberg saw Instagram as a 'threat' to Facebook's growth and intentionally withheld company resources.
Further still, Facebook's decision to pay $1 billion for Instagram — an app with no revenue and just a handful of employees — seemed like an incredible sum. Sheryl Sandberg thought Zuckerberg had overpaid for Instagram. In an exchange between the two from 2012, she said, 'Yes, of course it's way too much.'
There are more nuggets, too. Like how Meta sees TikTok as an earnest threat, how Europeans aren't buying the ad-free subscriptions (duh), and why Zuckerberg thought about nuking users' friend lists annually to boost engagement. Read Karissa Bell's full breakdown of the FTC v. Meta antitrust trial so far.
— Mat Smith
Get Engadget's newsletter delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!
Samsung is ready to finally launch its slim iteration of the S25. It says it'll offer a look at 'the next evolution of Galaxy' devices and unveil 'more about the latest addition to the Galaxy S series.' Then the teaser coaxed something 'beyond slim.' So it's the S25 Edge, even if Samsung isn't saying the S25 Edge. The Unpacked event will kick off May 12 at 8PM ET.
Continue reading.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned the National Weather Service of possible attacks from an armed conspiracy group. According to a report from CNN, the group Veterans on Patrol is going after government radars because it believes they're being used as 'weather weapons.' Despite its cooler-than-average name, the NEXRAD or Next Generation Weather Radar is fairly mundane, used by NWS to detect precipitation in the atmosphere. NEXRAD plays a vital role in locating thunderstorms and tornados. National Weather Service staff have been advised to buddy up when working at remote radar sites and report anything suspicious to the authorities.
Continue reading.
Google I/O 2025 should be one of the more exciting tech keynotes in recent memory. Plus, for the first time, Google has spun out a dedicated Android showcase a whole week earlier. What can we expect to see in Android 16? We've had lots of hints at an upcoming design change to the platform, reportedly called Material 3 Expressive. A leaked blog post discusses the research behind Material 3 Expressive and how the visual overhaul led to action elements standing out more and greater responsiveness on the users' part. Then there are Gemini AI updates, more Google service updates and everything else. We break down what we're expecting to see.
Continue reading.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Robinhood, AppLovin Locked Out of S&P 500 Yet Again
Consider it the 'Hot or Not' list of the business world. And who's not hot? Robinhood and AppLovin, for starters. At least, not quite hot enough. Shares of both companies are slipping this week after each failed to break into the S&P 500, disappointing eager investors who thought they looked like strong candidates to get tapped for the big leagues during the index's quarterly adjustments. Alas, they remain on the outside looking in. READ ALSO: Meta's Scoping Out a Superintelligence Lab and Not Lovin' It: McDonald's Suffers Third Downgrade in as Many Trading Days Conventional wisdom says being on the S&P 500 isn't just a status symbol. It's one that is supposed to come with plenty of benefits. Namely: a steady rise in passive inflows, as index funds and ETFs tracking it buy up stock. It's a major reason why both Robinhood and AppLovin saw positive share price movement through May as speculation swirled that they might be called up to the A-Team. For context: Robinhood is still up 26% in the past month, and AppLovin almost 11%, though they have slipped 3% and 8%, respectively, since the index revealed on Friday it'd be adding no new companies in its latest round of quarterly rebalancing. That means short-term investors looking for a quick fix by betting that the companies would score S&P 500 membership — and post-membership gains — got singed by the bad news. On the other hand, research shows that scoring that shiny new credential may not mean much in the long run anyhow, despite what conventional wisdom might have you believe: In a study published last year, researchers at McKinsey analyzed hundreds of companies that were added or removed from the S&P 500 and found that company's stock prices ultimately returned to their 'intrinsic value' within two months of the inclusion or removal, writing 'shareholder returns drive index inclusion or exclusion, not the other way around.' In fact, that temporary bump may be getting smaller and smaller. In a study titled 'The Disappearing Index Effect' published last year, a pair of Harvard Business School researchers found 'the abnormal return associated with a stock being added to the S&P 500 has fallen from an average of 7.4% in the 1990s to less than 1% over the past decade.' Door Policy: To get an S&P 500 nod, companies have to meet several criteria, including having a market cap of $20.5 billion or higher and having a positive sum of GAAP net income over the four most recent consecutive quarters. Robinhood and AppLovin check those boxes, so why the rejection? One theory recently floated by Barron's is that they've both been more volatile than the broader market — though that didn't prevent the similarly volatile CoinBase from getting accepted in May. In other words: Earning a spot on the premier index is sort of like trying to enter Berghain, the popular all-night dance club in Berlin with an infamously arbitrary door policy. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Not Lovin' It: McDonald's Suffers Third Downgrade in as Many Trading Days
Could GLP-1 weight loss drugs and changing economic winds really take a bite out of the almighty Big Mac? Analyst after analyst after analyst seems to think so, as Redburn Atlantic on Tuesday became the third firm in as many trading days to downgrade McDonald's stock, often heralded as recession-proof. READ ALSO: Meta's Scoping Out a Superintelligence Lab and Robinhood, AppLovin Locked Out of S&P 500 Yet Again For years, McDonald's has been like the Dennis Rodman of the market. No, not for the ear piercings or the wild publicity antics or the Van Damme action movie: for being possibly the best defensive stock in the business. Shares in the fast food company outperformed the market in the 12 months leading up to all five recessions in the past 40 years and in the majority of recessionary periods that followed. With 41,000 locations, its massive scale allows it to set competitive prices, and 90% of its locations are franchises, meaning it obtained that scale with minimal capital investment. That has allowed McDonald's to focus on its chief proposition to customers: value. The sudden spate of downgrades, however, has called into question whether both behavioral and financial realities could erode the defensive prowess of the Golden Arches by rendering that proposition insufficient on its own: First under threat is McDonald's value proposition to consumers worried about the economy. McDonald's has seen same-store sales drop in the US for two straight quarters, with a 3.6% dip in the latest period and executives flagging even more concerning 10% drop-offs in traffic from lower- and middle-income consumers in the same period. On top of that, Redburn Atlantic analysts argued as they double-downgraded McDonald's from 'buy' to 'sell' on Tuesday, there are 'new behavioral challenges': the proliferation of glucagon-like peptide-1 drugs such as Ozempic, they said, could have a 'cumulative' impact on the chain's business, noting 'a 1% drag today could easily build to 10% or more over time.' There's also, according to Morgan Stanley analysts, a threat to McDonald's value proposition to investors: They pointed out on Monday upon their downgrade of the stock that the fast food chain is trading at nearly 25 times this year's earnings estimates. Compare that with Burger King-owner Restaurant Brands, Wendy's and Jack in the Box, which trade at 19, 12, and 4 times earnings estimates, respectively. An ongoing 'value war' among these and other chains, they noted, also means McDonald's 'pricing power has eroded,' reducing its leverage against its bargain-priced competitors. What Others Are Saying: Loop Capital, which downgraded McDonald's on Friday, cited negative feedback about the company's new chicken strips. Other words on the street might not bode well for business either. In April, Pepsico CEO Ramon Laguarta said GLP-1 consumers were 'keeping our brands in their repertoire, probably in a smaller portion,' hinting that food brands might have to cope with less consumptive consumers. Campbell's CEO Mick Beekhuizen said earlier this month that the budget-friendly canned goods company is observing people eating at home the most since the start of the pandemic in 2020. McDonald's shares fell 1.4% on Tuesday, paring this year's gains to 2.7%. Still, if you don't believe in the Cramer curse, CNBC clairvoyant Jim Cramer says the analysts betting against the Golden Arches are wrong. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. Sign in to access your portfolio


Android Authority
44 minutes ago
- Android Authority
This small quick settings tweak is low-key my most anticipated Android 16 improvement
Joe Maring / Android Authority Android 16 is shaping up to be the biggest visual update to Google's mobile operating system since the introduction of Material You with Android 12. That release was all about making the experience feel more personal to each user, with dynamic theming that could extract your wallpaper colors and apply them to other parts of the system. There was also a much more playful approach to form and motion across the OS. With its latest design system update, Material 3 Expressive, Google is taking that philosophy one step further, with even bolder colors and shapes, springier animations, and some quirky new typography choices. While many of the upcoming changes in Android 16 feel somewhat superficial, with little practical significance, there are some small tweaks that I think will make a big difference to the way I interact with my Pixel phone. Chief among them is a seemingly minor update to the quick settings panel that sits atop the notification shade. And it's something I've been yearning for ever since the launch of Android 12 back in 2021. What's your most anticipated Android 16 feature? 0 votes Live Updates NaN % Upgraded quick settings NaN % Magic Portrait wallpapers NaN % New visuals and animations NaN % Expanded Find Hub app NaN % Fixing what Android 12 broke As far as I'm concerned, Google perfected the quick settings panel as far back as Android 7.1. Easily accessible toggles debuted with Nougat (7.0), where a single swipe down from the top would reveal five quick settings icons in a single row, with the sixth spot being reserved for a down arrow that revealed expanded settings with more information. Google moved the arrow and replaced it with another toggle in the next point release (7.1). We now had six customizable toggles in a single line, leaving plenty of space below for our all-important notifications. Swipe down again and you'd see nine expanded toggles with information about WiFi networks, connected devices, and so on. Aside from tweaks to the styling, this remained almost unchanged for the next four Android versions (see Android 9 Pie in the image above). Android 11 irked some users when it reduced the number of expanded quick settings from nine to six (to make room for new media controls). But Android 12 is when the biggest change to this feature arrived, and it's hard not to see it as a major misstep from Google. Instead of the 6 quick settings toggles in the notification shade that we'd all gotten used to, we were now greeted by just four extra-wide tiles with text labels. They also took up more vertical space since they were spread across two lines. It seems that Google wanted to make some information more glanceable, such as which Bluetooth device you were connected to. But this wasn't consistently applied, so you'd have tiles such as 'Internet' that only showed your connected network when the quick settings panel was expanded. Other toggles, such as 'Flashlight' and 'Hotspot', were given unnecessary labels even though their utility was obvious from the icon. The on/off status was still conveyed by the color of the tile, as it had been previously. Robert Triggs / Android Authority Like many others, I found this change to be incredibly frustrating. Having access to fewer toggles with a single swipe down was already less convenient, but Google also made changes to how some of these toggles functioned. You could no longer turn WiFi on or off with a single tap — instead, you'd have to open the now combined 'Internet' menu and tap again to enable or disable your connection. Android 12's large tiles was a misstep Android 16 will fix. This is how Android's quick settings have worked for the last four years, at least on a Google Pixel device. Mercifully, Android 16 is set to bring back smaller toggles and give us much more control over the layout of our quick settings. As shown by our own Mishaal Rahman in the video below (an earlier version), it's going to be possible to edit the size of each quick settings tile. If you don't mind the larger 1×2 tiles, you can leave them as they are. Those of us who want smaller 1×1 toggles can shrink them accordingly, on a per-toggle basis. The quick settings panel at the top of the notification shade will still take up two rows, which means we'll be able to have up to eight toggles within easy reach if we make them all 1×1. The best part of this is the ability to mix and match. I can see myself keeping the wide Bluetooth tile so I can easily glance at my connected devices while making most of the other toggles smaller. The 'Flashlight' tile no longer needs to so brazenly announce its presence every time I pull down my quick settings, as if it were begging to be switched on. It can go back to subtly waiting in the wings for that once-in-a-blue-moon occasion when I quickly need to access it. Adding to my delight, Google is also arranging quick settings tiles in neatly organized categories in the editor view. This will make it easier and faster to find the ones you want to use — yet another user-friendly tweak that I can get behind. All in all, I think these quick settings improvements represent some of the most utilitarian quality-of-life changes I've seen in an Android update for quite some time. It's especially welcome since many of the Material 3 Expressive upgrades seem to be focused more on form than function. Quick settings improvements are the most utilitarian quality-of-life changes for some time. The Android platform has always been praised for its personality and customizability, but Google's Pixel software experience tends to be more rigid than what's offered by Samsung and other OEMs. Apple has also closed the gap when it comes to personalization in recent years, with the introduction of tinted app icons, lock screen customization, and a more editable Control Center. So what would otherwise be a fairly minor quick settings tweak represents a big win for the tinkerers out there. With exciting additions such as Live Updates, new motion physics, and bolder UI elements, Android 16 could be Google's most user-friendly OS yet. And thanks to innovative new wallpaper settings, an intriguing new Pixel themes feature, and the aforementioned quick settings changes, our Pixels are also going to be more customizable than ever before.