Apple released new AirPods. The new FireFox browser prevents the most annoying feature on the web. And Google is fined by the European Union for the third time.
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Trending on Google, Apple’s new AirPods. Apple announced the second generation of its wireless earbuds yesterday. Apple says that the embedded H1 chip, specially designed for headphones, brings some new features wit it. The new AirPods will last for one hour of extra talk time, compared to the previous generation. They will connect with your devices more quickly. And you can talk to Siri without even pressing a button. There’s also a new wireless charging case, so you can charge up your headphones while you’re on the go. In Canada, the new AirPods sell for $219 with the standard case, or $269 with the wireless case. They’re available now. And if you buy them, you can add a personal engraving for free.
Trending on Reddit, the new version of the Firefox browser blocks autoplaying audio and video. If you find you’re constantly annoyed by videos that start playing automatically as you scroll through Facebook, this is the feature for you. Firefox is kind to websites that play video with muted audio and allow for that. But anything else gets muted. You just click the play button if you do want to hear the video. Or you can add websites to a whitelist to allow for autoplay to work.
Trending on Google, the European Union has fined Google $1.7 billion USD for illegal practices in search advertising. The EU says that Google used its monopoly position to force third-paries to use AdSense when they wanted to purchase search engine ads. The case was initially triggered by a complaint from Microsoft, which operates search engine competitor Bing. One of the main problems was that Google did not allow publishers to place advertising from competitors on search results pages, forcing them to use Google’s ads in that space. The misconduct lasted longer than 10 years. This is the third fine Google has been hit with by the EU. But it’s in the process of appealing the previous two fines.