NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 5, 2023--

Thousands of Reddit communities are planning a widespread blackout next week that will impact millions of users. The revolt comes in response to proposed charges for third-party app developers, which they claim will make the social media platform inaccessible for a significant proportion of users. On 12 June, many of the site’s biggest subreddits, including r/videos and r/gaming and r/bestof, will go dark for 48 hours in an effort to prevent the new pricing from coming into force. Reddit launched in 2005, but did not develop its own app until 2016. This meant that for the firs decade third-party apps became a popular way to access the platform, with many still preferred over the official app due to the user experience. These third-party apps need an API – which stands for Application Programming Interface – in oder to access the site’s information so that it can display it in the app for users. “Had a call with Reddit to discuss pricing,” a popular third-party app called Apollo announced in a post to Reddit. “Bad news for third-party apps, their announced pricing is close to Twitter’s pricing, and Apollo would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year to keep running as is.” According to Apollo, Reddit plans to charge $12,000 for 50 million API requests. “I’m deeply disappointed in this price,” Apollo wrote. “For reference, I pay Imgur (a site similar to Reddit in user base and media) $166 for the same 50 million API calls. “I don’t see how this pricing is anything based in reality or remotely reasonable. I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card.” The Independent has reached out to Reddit for comment. Despite being owned and operated by Advance Publications, Reddit forums are controlled by volunteer administrators, who have organised the protest. One moderator named Toptomcat wrote in a post that the proposed pricing changes would make it “impossible” to keep operating in the way many Reddit users are used to. “Many subreddits will be going dark to protest this policy,” the user wrote. “Some will return after 48 hours: others will go away permanently unless the issue is adequately addressed, since many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app.” Read More Reddit founder says 90% of games will pay you to play them in 5 years Reddit boss calls TikTok 'fundamentally parasitic' for its privacy flaws Elon Musk responds to bizarre AI images of him as baby Apple finally fixed one of the most embarrassing things about typing on an iPhone Apple Vision Pro $3,499 VR headset unveiled at WWDC 2023 heralds ‘new era’

There are eight planets in our solar system – plus poor old Pluto, which was demoted in 2006 – but what if there were more? Turns out that might be the case. Astronomers have calculated there is a 7 per cent chance that Earth has another neighbour hiding in the Oort cloud, a spherical region of ice chunks and rocks that is tens of thousands of times farther from the sun than we are. “It’s completely plausible for our solar system to have captured such an Oort cloud planet,” said Nathan Kaib, a co-author on the work and an astronomer at the Planetary Science Institute. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Hidden worlds like this are “a class of planets that should definitely exist but have received relatively little attention” until now, he said.. If a planet is hiding in the Oort cloud, it’s almost certainly an ice giant. Large planets like Jupiter and Saturn are generally born as twins. They have huge gravitational pulls of their own, however, and sometimes destabilise one another. That could have led to a planet to be nudged out of the solar system entirely – or exiled to its outer reaches, where the Oort cloud resides. “The survivor planets have eccentric orbits, which are like the scars from their violent pasts,” said lead author Sean Raymond, researcher at the University of Bordeaux’s Astrophysics Laboratory. That means that the Oort cloud planet could have a significantly elongated orbit, unlike the near-perfect circle Earth tracks around the sun. Trouble is, when things are that far away, they’re pretty difficult to spot. “It would be extremely hard to detect,” added Raymond. “If a Neptune-sized planet existed in our own Oort cloud, there’s a good chance that we wouldn’t have found it yet,” said Malena Rice, an astronomer at MIT not involved in this work. “Amazingly, it can sometimes be easier to spot planets hundreds of light-years away than those right in our own backyard.” Time to crack out the telescope. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Akash Sriram, Samrhitha A and Sheila Dang Threads, Meta Platform's broadside to Twitter, is seen by some

Microsoft, Google and other leading artificial intelligence companies committed Friday to put new AI systems through outside testing before they are publicly released and to clearly label AI-generated content, the White House announced.

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The US Federal Trade Commission has sued to stop Microsoft buying Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard. It is just the latest problem for the deal, which has already been blocked by UK regulators. If completed, it will become one of the largest takeovers ever – but has faced scrutiny from regulators around the world, who argue that it might cause problems for the gaming market. The FTC's Monday filing in a federal court in San Francisco seeks a restraining order and injunction to stop Microsoft's $69 billion purchase of the California gaming company behind hit franchises such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Microsoft, maker of the Xbox game system, has been struggling to win worldwide approval for the deal with just over a month before the deadline to close it, according to the contract it signed with Activision. “We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court," said a statement Monday from Brad Smith, Microsoft's vice chair and president. "We believe accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the market.” The FTC already took Microsoft to court to block the merger, but that was before the U.S. agency's in-house judge in a trial set to start on Aug. 2. That administrative process doesn't preclude the parties from closing the deal. The contract between Microsoft and Activision required the deal to close by July 18, but the FTC's latest action seeks to stop that from happening. “Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have represented in the past that they cannot close their deal due to antitrust reviews of the transaction in other jurisdictions," the FTC said in a statement Monday. "But Microsoft and Activision have not provided assurances that they will maintain that position. In light of that, and public reporting that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are considering closing their deal imminently, we have filed a request for a temporary restraining order to prevent them from closing while review continues.” Microsoft's other main obstacle is in the United Kingdom, where antitrust regulators have also taken action to block the acquisition. The all-cash deal announced in January 2022 has been scrutinized by regulators around the world over fears that it would give Microsoft and its Xbox console control of Activision's hit franchises and give it an unfair boost in the emerging business of cloud-based game subscriptions. It could be the priciest tech industry merger in history. Fierce opposition has been driven by rival Sony, which makes the PlayStation gaming system. Microsoft sought to counter the resistance by striking a deal with Nintendo to license Activision titles like Call of Duty for 10 years and offering the same to Sony if the deal went ahead. European regulators representing the 27-nation bloc approved the deal last month on condition that Microsoft make some promises meant to boost competition in the cloud-based gaming market. A number of other countries, including China, Japan, Brazil and South Korea, have also approved it. But the blockbuster deal has remained in jeopardy because of the surprise April decision by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority and the ongoing case in the U.S. Microsoft in late May filed an appeal of the British regulator's decision and has also voiced strong public opposition directed at top government officials. U.S.-based consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, an opponent of the deal, welcomed the FTC's move Monday. “Although the agency has already used its authority to block the merger through administrative proceedings, Microsoft is pushing to culminate the purchase of Activision before the agency can finish its process," said a statement from Public Citizen's competition policy advocate Matt Kent. ""By filing in federal court to enjoin the transaction, the FTC is showing that it won’t back down in the face of Microsoft’s escalatory tactics.” Additional reporting by Associated Press

Last year, I got over-the-ear wireless headphones for the first time ever, wanting to prove that the headphones we wear are a vital styling choice. Although I had always been enthused by the way they made people look cool without trying so hard, it had never occurred to me to wear headphones that mimicked the look of a bygone era. My generation did grow up in the time of wired headphones, but it was at the point when the sleek white string of Apple earphones hung over your outfit. As such, I just could never understand why other commuters chose over-the-ear headphones, or even wireless Airpods.

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Apex Legends' average monthly player count hovers around 65,000,000 players in 2023, with over 66,000,000 people playing Apex Legends in August 2023.