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Disney's Fubo Disney makes antitrust problem go away by buying majority stake in Fubo Fubo to merge with giant it accused of trying to monopolize sports streaming. Scharon Harding Jan 6, 2025 3:58 pm | 52 Credit: Fubo Credit: Fubo Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreDisney is buying Fubo and plans to merge the sports streaming platform with its Hulu + Live TV service, gaining 70 percent ownership of the company that up until today was suing it over antitrust concerns and allegations of anticompetitive practices.According to Fubos announcement today, the unified company will be known as Fubo, and Fubo executives will run it. People will also continue to be able to subscribe to Fubo without subscribing to Hulu + Live TV and vice versa. Also part of the announcement is the revelation that Fubo has settled its antitrust lawsuit against Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) over Venu, a joint venture sports app that the companies plan to launch and that Fubo was seeking to block, citing the three firms' allegedly anticompetitive practices.Fubo had previously claimed that Disney, Fox, and WBD had forced it to pay for irrelevant channels that dont appeal to sports fans by bundling those networks with sports networks. Fubos lawsuit accused Disney and Fox of forcing it to spend millions on unwanted content and forcing it to drop valuable channels through price hikes.Under the Disney merger, though, Fubo will seemingly gain access to channels that it wants. Per the announcement:In connection with the Transaction, Disney will enter into a new carriage agreement with Fubo that will allow Fubo to create a new Sports & Broadcast service, featuring Disneys premier sports and broadcast networks including ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, as well as ESPN+.Sweetening the deal is an agreement from Disney, Fox, and WBD to pay Fubo an aggregate cash payment of $220 million upon the deals closure.The merger is still subject to regulatory and Fubo shareholder approval as well as other customary closing conditions, per Fubo. Its expected to take 12 to 18 months to close, The Hollywood Reporter said.Fubos about-faceFubo's merger with Disney represents a shocking about-face for the sports-streaming provider, which previously had raised alarms (citing Citi research) about Disney's ownership of 54 percent of the US sports rights marketESPN (26.8 percent), Fox (17.3 percent), and WBD (9.9 percent). Fubo successfully got a preliminary injunction against Venu in August, and a trial was scheduled for October 2025.Fubo CEO David Gandler said in February that Disney, Fox, and WBD are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors."Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anticompetitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers, and cheat consumers from deserved choice," Gandler also said at the time.Now, set to be a Disney company, Fubo is singing a new tune, with its announcement claiming that the merger will enhance consumer choice by making available a broad set of programming offerings.In a statement today, Gandler added that the merger will allow Fubo to provide consumers with greater choice and flexibility" and "to scale effectively," while adding that the deal "strengthens Fubos balance sheet and sets Fubo up for positive cash flow.Ars Technica reached out to Fubo about its previously publicized antitrust and anticompetitive concerns, whether or not those concerns had been addressed, and new concerns that it has settled its lawsuit in favor of its own business needs rather than over a resolution of customer choice problems. Jennifer Press, Fubo SVP of communications, responded to our questions with a statement, saying in part:We filed an antitrust suit against the Venu Sports partners last year because that product was intended to be exclusive. As its partners announced last year, consumers would only have access to the Venu content package from Venu, which would limit choice and competitive pricing.The definitive agreement that Fubo signed with Disney today will actually bring more choice to the market. As part of the deal, Fubo extended carriage agreements with Disney and also Fox, enabling Fubo to create a new Sports and Broadcast service and other genre-based content packages. Additionally, as the antitrust litigation has been settled, the Venu Sports partners can choose to launch that product if they wish. The launch of these bundles will enhance consumer choice by making available a broad set of programming offerings.... a total deceptionSome remain skeptical about Disney buying out a company that was suing it over antitrust concerns."My initial reaction is that a defendant should not be able to buy its way out of antitrust liability by purchasing the plaintiff in a lawsuit. To the extent the plaintiffs (Fubos) claims had any merit, then the deal will enshrine those anticompetitive effects, Hal Singer, an economics professor at the University of Utah and managing director at Econ One, told Ars.Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, which had joined two amicus briefs supporting Fubo's lawsuit, said in a statement shared with Ars that Fubo had previously "led sports fans and industry observers to believe they were genuinely interested in challenging Disneys illegal joint venture in sports streaming, only to cash a check and leave consumers and the entire streaming industry worse off."Its a total deception," Hepner continued. "This deal does not resolve any of the concerns laid out by Fubo in litigation against Disneys attempts to concentrate the sports streaming market and in fact worsens the status quo. We urge President-Elect Trumps antitrust enforcers, along with state AGs and private stakeholders, to challenge this blatantly illegal deal to protect consumers and competition.A statement from the American Economic Liberties Project today also described the merger as "a troubling escalation" that showed Disney "reinforcing its dominance in the sports streaming market and silencing opposition to its monopolistic practices.""This move will leave consumers with fewer choices, higher prices, and less innovation in an already concentrated industry," the group said.Scharon HardingSenior Technology ReporterScharon HardingSenior Technology Reporter Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She's been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Toms Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK. 52 Comments

A buggy ride Im getting dizzy: Man films Waymo self-driving car driving around in circles Waymo software fix addressed "looping events" after car kept circling parking lot. Jon Brodkin Jan 6, 2025 3:43 pm | 26 The dashboard in a Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco, California, on August 20, 2024.Smith Collection/Gado Credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado The dashboard in a Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco, California, on August 20, 2024.Smith Collection/Gado Credit: Getty Images | Smith Collection/Gado Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThe Waymo self-driving company says it has fixed a problem that caused a car to repeatedly circle a parking lot for about five minutes while its rider was trying to get to an airport.Last month, Mike Johns posted a video on LinkedIn showing what happened after he was picked up by a Waymo self-driving car in Scottsdale, Arizona. Johns' post said the car made eight circles. After a Waymo support agent helped get the car moving in the right direction, he was driven to the airport in time to make his flight."Why is this happening to me on a Monday? I'm in a Waymo car and this car is just going in circles... I got a flight to catch, why is this thing going in a circle? I'm getting dizzy," he said in the video.During the video, Johns spoke with a Waymo customer-support representative. "It's circling around a parking lot. I've got my seat belt on, I can't get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What's going on, I feel like I'm in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?" he told the rep. He also asked the Waymo rep if the company would "take care of the flight" if he missed it.The support rep told Johns, "I don't have an option to control the car," but added, "I am trying to pull it over right now." The car appeared to come to a stop with about two seconds left in the short video, which you can watch here:Waymo: Software update fixed looping problemWhile the frustrating ride occurred about a month ago, it received attention in several news articles this past weekend. A CBS News Los Angeles report said that Johns "loves the idea of driverless cars and was really excited to ride in one... but now he says he won't take one again until he knows they worked the kinks out."Johns, who is the founder and CEO of an AI consulting firm, told CBS News in an interview that Waymo lacks a "human connection" and that it's "a case of today's digital world, a half-baked product, and nobody meeting the customer, the consumers, in the middle."Waymo says the problem only caused a delay of just over five minutes and that Johns was not charged for the trip. A spokesperson for Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, told Ars today that the "looping event" occurred on December 9 and was later addressed during a regularly scheduled software update.Waymo did not answer our question about whether the software update only addressed routing at the specific location the problem occurred at, or a more general routing problem that could have affected rides in other locations.The problem affecting Johns' ride occurred near the user's pickup location, Waymo told us. The Waymo car took the rider to his destination after the roughly five-minute delay, the spokesperson said. "Our rider support agent did help initiate maneuvers that helped resolve the issue," Waymo said.Rider would like an explanationCBS News states that Johns is "still not certain he was communicating with a real person or AI" when he spoke to the support rep in the car. However, the Waymo spokesperson told Ars that "all of our rider support staff are trained human operators."Waymo told Ars that the company tried to contact Johns after the incident and left him a voicemail. Johns still says that he never received an explanation of what caused the circling problem.We emailed Johns today and received a reply from a public relations firm working on his behalf. "To date, Mike has not received an explanation as to the reason for the circling issue," his spokesperson said. His spokesperson confirmed that Johns did not miss his flight.It wasn't clear from the video whether Johns tried to use the "pull over" functionality available in Waymo cars. "If at any time you want to end your ride early, tap the Pull over button in your app or on the passenger screen, and the car will find a safe spot to stop," a Waymo support site says.Johns' spokesperson told us that "Mike was not immediately aware of the 'pull over' button," so "he did not have an opportunity to use it before engaging with the customer service representative over the car speaker."While Waymo says all its agents are human, Johns' spokesperson told Ars that "Mike is still unsure if he was speaking with a human or an AI agent."Jon BrodkinSenior IT ReporterJon BrodkinSenior IT Reporter Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry. 26 Comments

make new CPUs, but keep the old AMDs new laptop CPU lineup is a mix of new silicon and new names for old silicon New Ryzen AI CPUs boost speeds, but cheaper laptops get another Ryzen rebrand. Andrew Cunningham Jan 6, 2025 3:31 pm | 9 One of AMD's Ryzen AI Max processors. Credit: AMD One of AMD's Ryzen AI Max processors. Credit: AMD Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAMD's CES announcements include a tease about next-gen graphics cards, a new flagship desktop CPU, and a modest refresh of its processors for handheld gaming PCs. But the company's largest announcement, by volume, is about laptop processors.Today the company is expanding the Ryzen AI 300 lineup with a batch of updated high-end chips with up to 16 CPU cores and some midrange options for cheaper Copilot+ PCs. AMD has repackaged some of its high-end desktop chips for gaming laptops, including the first Ryzen laptop CPU with 3D V-Cache enabled. And there's also a new-in-name-only Ryzen 200 series, another repackaging of familiar silicon to address lower-budget laptops.Ryzen AI 300 is back, along with high-end Max and Max+ versions Ryzen AI is back, with Max and Max+ versions that include huge integrated GPUs. Credit: AMD We came away largely impressed by the initial Ryzen AI 300 processors in August 2024, and new processors being announced today expand the lineup upward and downward.AMD is announcing the Ryzen AI 7 350 and Ryzen AI 5 340 today, along with identically specced Pro versions of the same chips with a handful of extra features for large businesses and other organizations. Credit: AMD The 350 includes eight CPU cores split evenly between large Zen 5 cores and smaller, slower but more efficient Zen 5C cores, plus a Radeon 860M with eight integrated graphics cores (down from a peak of 16 for the Ryzen AI 9). The 340 has six CPU cores, again split evenly between Zen 5 and Zen 5C, and a Radeon 840M with four graphics cores. But both have the same 50 TOPS NPUs as the higher-end Ryzen AI chips, qualifying both for the Copilot+ label.For consumers, AMD is launching three high-end chips across the new "Ryzen AI Max+" and "Ryzen AI Max" families. Compared to the existing Strix Point-based Ryzen AI processors, Ryzen AI Max+ and Max include more CPU cores, and all of their cores are higher-performing Zen 5 cores, with no Zen 5C cores mixed in. The integrated graphics also get significantly more powerful, with as many as 40 cores built inthese chips seem to be destined for larger thin-and-light systems that could benefit from more power but don't want to make room for a dedicated GPU. Ryzen AI Max and Max+ chips have big integrated GPUs with as many as 40 cores, which should provide decent gaming performance without taking up as much space as a dedicated GPU. Credit: AMD The Ryzen AI Max+ 395 includes 16 Zen 5 CPU cores and a Radeon 8060S GPU with 40 cores. The Ryzen AI Max 390 has 12 CPU cores and a Radeon 8050S GPU with 32 cores, and the AI Max 385 has eight CPU cores and the same Radeon 8050S GPU. All chips include the same 50 TOPS NPU as the other Ryzen AI processors.All three of those chips also have Pro counterparts. There's one more Ryzen AI Max CPU that only comes in a Pro version: the six-core Ryzen AI Max Pro 380, which still has the same NPU but only includes 16 graphics cores. All of these Max+ and Max processors are slated for sometime in either Q1 or Q2 of 2025.Ryzen HX and HX3D: Desktop-class CPUs for gaming laptops and workstations AMD is repackaging desktop CPUs for high-performance gaming laptops and workstations, including its second mobile 3D V-Cache CPU. AMD AMD is repackaging desktop CPUs for high-performance gaming laptops and workstations, including its second mobile 3D V-Cache CPU. AMD One CPU with 3D V-Cache and two without. AMD One CPU with 3D V-Cache and two without. AMD AMD is repackaging desktop CPUs for high-performance gaming laptops and workstations, including its second mobile 3D V-Cache CPU. AMD One CPU with 3D V-Cache and two without. AMD For gigantic gaming laptops that will take advantage of dedicated GPUs, AMD has three new CPUs, all without NPUs or high-performance integrated GPUs. The 16 core Ryzen 9 9955HX and 12-core Ryzen 9 9850HX are essentially laptop versions of the Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X, while the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D is a laptop version of the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D desktop chip. It's AMD's second laptop processor (after the rare 7945HX3D) to take advantage of 3D V-Cache, 64MB of extra L3 cache stacked underneath one of the processor's CPU chiplets.Like other recent HX-series CPUs, these are essentially Ryzen desktop chips repackaged to fit in laptops, rather than silicon purpose-built for laptops. (It's the reverse of what AMD does with the Ryzen 8000G desktop chips, which are laptop CPUs repackaged for desktop systems.) It's why these processors stick with the same naming convention as the Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs and why they lack the NPUs and modern integrated GPUs of all the Ryzen AI processors.Ryzen 200: Blast from the (recent) pastFor cheaper laptops, AMD is announcing a slate of seven processors in the new Ryzen 200 familynote that there's no "AI" here, indicating that these chips don't have an NPU fast enough to qualify for Copilot+ functionality.But none of these processors is truly new. Though AMD retired its complicated decoder ring system for its CPU model numbers, looking at context clues like NPU performance (16 TOPS) and the amount of cache available, you can tell that these are rebadged versions of the Ryzen 8040 series chips announced in December 2023. Those CPUs were themselves very lightly refreshed revisions of the Ryzen 7040 chips from May 2023. Everything old is new again, again. If the Ryzen 200 lineup seems familiar, it's because these are all essentially a year-old refresh of 19-month-old silicon. None of them meetMicrosoft's Copilot+ performance requirements. Credit: AMD Aside from clock speeds, the Ryzen 9 270, Ryzen 7 260, and Ryzen 7 250 are all basically the same chip, with eight Zen 4 CPU cores and a Radeon 780M GPU with 12 graphics cores. The Ryzen 5 240 and 230 are the next big step down, with six Zen 4 CPU cores and Radeon 760M GPUs with eight GPU cores. The Ryzen 5 220 still has six CPU cores, but split between two Zen 4 cores and four smaller, lower-performance Zen 4C cores. The four-core Ryzen 3 210 is the slowest of the lot, with just one full-speed Zen 4 core and three Zen 4C cores. Both of those last two processors have Radeon 740M GPUs with four cores.These processors are still relatively new, all things considered, and they'll be a fairly significant improvement over anything in a 5- or 6-year-old system. It's just another example of a frustrating trend, present in both Intel's and AMD's CPU lineups and the USB spec: the tendency to simply rename old things to make them seem "new" or to make them fit into yet another rebranding scheme that never actually seems to make things any easier to understand than they were before.Andrew CunninghamSenior Technology ReporterAndrew CunninghamSenior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 9 Comments

A wastewater treatment plant in CaliforniaJustin Sullivan/Getty ImagesWastewater treatment facilities are a major source of PFAS contamination in drinking water in the US they discharge enough of the forever chemicals to raise concentrations above safe levels for an estimated 15 million people or more. They can also release long-lasting prescription drugs into the water supply.Even though these plants clean wastewater, they do not destroy all the contaminants added upstream and the chemicals that remain behind are released back into the same waterways that supply drinking water. Its a funnel into the environment, says Bridger Ruyle at New York University. You capture a bunch of things from a bunch of different places, and its all released in one place. AdvertisementPerfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are of particular concern because they contain carbon-fluorine bonds, which make them extremely persistent in the environment. Regular exposure to several types of PFAS has been associated with increased risk for many health problems, from liver damage to various forms of cancer. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently set strict limits in drinking water for six of the best-studied PFAS.Wastewater treatment facilities are a known source of PFAS contamination in the sewage sludge they produce as a by-product, which is sometimes used for fertiliser. To find out whether similar contamination remains in the treated water, Ruyle and his colleagues measured the concentration of PFAS and other molecules that contain carbon-fluorine bonds in wastewater at eight large treatment facilities around the US.Their findings suggest wastewater treatment plants across the US discharge tens of thousands of kilograms of fluorine-containing compounds into the environment each year, including a substantial amount of PFAS. Once treated wastewater is discharged from a facility, it mixes with natural waters in rivers and lakes. Thats going to create a downstream drinking water problem, says Ruyle. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month.Sign up to newsletterApplying these figures within a model of the US drinking water system, the researchers estimated wastewater could raise concentrations of PFAS above EPA limits in the drinking water of around 15 million people. During droughts, when there is less natural water to dilute the wastewater, the model suggests concentrations would rise above the limit for as many as 23 million people. And Ruyle says these may be conservative estimates their model assumes the natural waters do not already contain PFAS.It demonstrates that wastewater treatment plants are really important sources for these compounds, says Carsten Prasse at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, who was not involved with the study. There are ways to remove or destroy PFAS in water, and more drinking water facilities are installing such systems, but currently, our wastewater treatment plants are not set up to deal with this, he says.Forever chemicals alone would be a problem, but the researchers also found PFAS made up only a small fraction of the total volume of fluorinated chemicals discharged from the facilities. Most were not PFAS at all, but other compounds used in common pharmaceuticals, such as statins and SSRIs. These pharmaceuticals are also of concern for ecosystems and people.Another person could be drinking a cocktail of fluorinated prescription medication, says Ruyle. However, he says the consequences of long-term exposure to low doses of such compounds arent well understood.We need to start conversations about whether or not we should be using a lot of fluorine in pharmaceuticals, says Ruyle. Fluorination is widely used in drugs to enhance their effect in the body, but preventing widespread chemical contamination should also be important, he says.Journal reference:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2417156122Topics:

The site of a Roman-era lead mine at Charterhouse in Somerset, UKAndrew WilsonExtensive silver mining may have exposed ancient Romans to high levels of lead pollution in the air, probably leading to a general drop in their IQ and their resistance to disease.Analyses of Arctic ice layers point to concentrations of atmospheric lead at the Roman Empires height that were about threefold what they are today in the US. The effect on the intelligence of ancient people across Europe especially in major coin-making regions in Iberia would have been significant and might have even made

Certain medical events, like a stroke, can make speech difficultwanderluster/Getty ImagesPeople who find it difficult to speak due to a stroke or Parkinsons disease could communicate more easily with the help of artificial intelligence. A new model constructs what a person is trying to say based on tiny vibrations in their throat, but also takes into account other factors, such as what time it is and the emotions they may be experiencing.Some neurological conditions can result in dysarthria, where people lose fine control over their voice box, jaw or tongue. Previous solutions using brain-computer interfaces have

Trump has won three sentencing delays since his historic May 30 felony conviction in Manhattan.On Monday, Trump sought a fourth delay of his hush-money sentencing, now set for Friday.A judge rejected that request.President-elect Donald Trump failed on Monday to win an immediate halting of Friday's sentencing date for his Manhattan hush-money conviction.In turning down what would have been Trump's fourth delay of his sentencing date, the trial judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, said most of the president-elect's arguments were a repetition of those he's raised "numerous times in the past"Trump's defense lawyers still have the rest of the week to challenge the sentencing date and the conviction itself while pursuing a state-level appellate petition. The petition was also filed Monday and challenges what Trump's lawyers call "this politically-motivated prosecution."Merchan's decision shifts the focus of Trump's sentencing-delay efforts to the appellate division, which can decide to hear his challenge either before or after Friday or simply send the case back to Merchan for sentencing as scheduled.The filing asks the state Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, for the chance to be heard on January 27 when they would argue against Merchan's two recent refusals to dismiss the case.A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment. Merchan's denial was the latest loss in Trump's two-year battle to free himself from his sole criminal indictment to reach a trial and conviction.Repeatedly starting before his 2023 indictment, he has asked state and federal judges to dismiss his hush-money prosecution, citing grounds of presidential immunity, prosecutorial and judicial bias, and most recently the interest of justice given his November election win.Trump continues to fight to clear his rap sheet now despite Merchan revealing last week that Friday's sentencing will likely result in zero punishment.State sentencing guidelines allow Merchan to sentence Trump to anywhere from no jail up to four years in prison on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.But Merchan said last week that he is inclined to hand down a sentence of no punishment at all no jail, no probation, no fines, no community service, granting what's called an unconditional discharge in recognition of the demands of the presidential transition and pending his second term in office.Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did not oppose a no-jail sentence. In writing Merchan on Monday to oppose a fourth sentencing delay, Bragg revealed that Trump has elected to appear virtually if Friday's sentencing happens.A jury in May found that throughout his first year in office, Trump ordered that 34 Trump Organization records be altered to retroactively hide a $130,000 hush-money payment that silenced porn actress Stormy Daniels 11 days before the 2016 election.In a letter to Merchan on Monday, Bragg urged the judge to proceed with Friday's sentencing, "given the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings."Besides, it's Trump's own fault that his sentencing will happen just 10 days before his inauguration, Bragg said."He should not now be heard to complain of harm from delays he caused," the DA said.This would have been the fourth sentencing delayPrior to rejecting this latest request, Merchan granted Trump three sentencing delays in the months since his May 30 conviction.The first delay allowed the parties time to respond to the US Supreme Court's July 1 opinion granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution. Sentencing was pushed back a second time after Trump complained the new date was too close to the November election, and it was moved a third time to let the parties respond to Trump's win.