The Vergecast: Ad-Free Edition

Congress is in the process of passing a non-partisan bill to increase support for enforcement against illegal pirate radio operations: Fines can now go as high as $2 million, and the FCC will fund “enforcement sweeps” in major radio markets. Does this target well-intentioned community radio, designed to speak to immigrant communities?Episode three of The Verge's Pirate Radio mini-series featuring Bijan Stephen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How the Hmong diaspora uses the world's most boring technology to make something weird and wonderful.Episode two of The Verge's Pirate Radio mini-series featuring Mia Sato. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the US entered Afghanistan, local DJs were hired to help with the war effort. And when the American military pulled out, they abandoned those voices, leaving many of them for dead.Episode 1 of The Verge's Pirate Radio mini-series featuring Chris Harland-Dunaway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Vergecast, Nilay, Dieter, and Paul go through the products announced this week including Apple's 16-inch Macbook Pro and Motorola's new Razr foldable phone. Julia Alexander then joins the show to cover the initial launch of Disney+ and the ongoing streaming wars.Stories this week: The everything town in the middle of nowhere Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro is here, and it has a good keyboard A fully loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro costs $6,099 Apple’s new Mac Pro is shipping next month Google’s rollout of RCS chat for all Android users in the US begins today Motorola resurrects the Razr as a foldable Android smartphone John Carmack stepping down as CTO of Oculus to work on AI Disney+ experiencing ‘unable to connect’ errors on launch day The Mandalorian’s first episode shows that Star Wars can work on the small screen Disney+ doesn’t have to sell anyone on streaming How to get a year of free Disney+ from Verizon The Simpsons’ aspect ratio is messed up on Disney+ Verizon’s new set-top box is possibly the worst option out there for streaming Apple could bundle news, TV, and music into one subscription as soon as 2020 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this week’s Vergecast interview, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to finance professor and an economist at the NYU stern school of business Thomas Philippon. Thomas just wrote a book called The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets all about competition and consolidation in different markets.When Thomas moved to the United States from France in the 90s, he noticed everything from laptops to internet access was cheaper in America, but over time has gotten more and more expensive. In the interview Nilay and Thomas discuss why that is — unsurprisingly the answer is consolidation in a lot of our markets.Thomas makes a point that in some places, concentrations are actually good and creates value for the consumers, but in some markets like healthcare, technology, and airtravel, that consolidation has resulted in way higher prices for Americans. Since the prices go up slowly, we don’t actually notice.If you have been listening to The Vergecast and been paying attention to our big conversations about whether or not we should be breaking up big tech companies, whether we should regulate them, or whether tech companies with network effects like Google and Facebook are different than companies like AT&T and GE, this conversation is up your alley. Below is lightly edited except of the conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a bonus episode of The Vergecast this week, Dieter Bohn hosts a Microsoft Surface roundup with deputy editor Dan Seifert and senior editor Tom Warren. The trio go through reviews of this years new product lineup and how they compare with their counterparts.Links: Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 15-inch review: it’s a bigger Surface Laptop Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 13.5-inch review: have a normal one Microsoft Surface Pro 7 review: I wish this looked like a Surface Pro X Microsoft Surface Pro X review: heartbreaker Surface Pro X vs. Pro 7: ARM needs some legs Microsoft bet against Intel with its new Surfaces — and lost Microsoft leak reveals Windows 10X will be coming to laptops Microsoft unveils new Edge browser logo that no longer looks like Internet Explorer Microsoft’s Edge Chromium browser will launch on January 15th with a new logo Microsoft previews the future of Office documents with Fluid Framework for the web Hands-on with Microsoft’s xCloud game streaming service Xbox Game Streaming hands-on: turn your Xbox into a game streaming server Xbox Elite 2 controller review: Microsoft’s best Xbox controller just got better Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Vergecast, everything that happened at Adobe Max 2019, reviews for the Microsoft Surface Pro X and AirPods Pro, and missed text messages from Valentines Day.Stories this week: Adobe Max 2019: all the top announcements Adobe’s Photoshop for the iPad is finally here, with more features to come  Adobe is developing Illustrator for the iPad, to be released 2020 Adobe Aero turns Photoshop layers into interactive AR experiences Adobe’s Fresco drawing app arrives on Windows Photoshop adds an extremely helpful AI subject selection tool  Adobe previews an AI feature that can tell when an image has been manipulated-  Adobe’s AI-powered video framing tool is available now in Premiere Pro Adobe is launching a free AI-powered Photoshop Camera app Adobe is building live-streaming into Creative Cloud apps Adobe’s Premiere Rush can now publish directly to TikTok Microsoft Surface Pro X review: heartbreaker Microsoft's Edge Chromium browser will launch on January … Microsoft unveils new Edge browser logo that no longer looks ... Microsoft’s new Office app for iOS and Android combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Microsoft previews the future of Office documents with Fluid Framework for the we A ton of people received text messages overnight that were originally sent on Valentine’s Day Somehow, Android's messaging mess is about to get even … AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile have finally agreed to ... Apple AirPods Pro review: perfect fit Google buys Fitbit for $2.1 billion Google is buying Fitbit: now what? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week on The Vergecast, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks with Jeremy Singer-Vine, the data editor for the BuzzFeed News investigative unit, about his story that was published recently regarding the fake comments on the Federal Communications Commission’s online net neutrality debate.If you haven’t read the piece, you should. The investigation details where all of the fake comments in the FCC’s net neutrality process came from, including dead people leaving comments and shady political operatives involved in the scam.It’s not really a story about net neutrality; rather, it’s about how systems designed for public participation in the government are so easily scammed, and what the challenges are for preventing such scams from happening.Nilay and Jeremy discuss why it happened, how it happened, and what happens next if we want to use the internet to encourage open access participation in government without corruption. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Live at The Glass Room in San Francisco, Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Ashley Carman are joined by Google Pixel camera product manager Isaac Reynolds and Instagram head of product Robby Stein to talk about how the photos we share influence the photos we take — and vice versa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel interviews cryptocurrency expert Amber Baldet, co-founder of Clovyr and on the board of the Zcash foundation. Nilay and Amber discuss where cryptocurrencies on the blockchain are going, the potential of Facebook's Libra project, and how the blockchain can revive our trust in putting our data online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices