Apple wields its powerful App Store as a cudgel to stifle innovation, weaken competition and unfairly tax its rivals, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said Wednesday, after the world’s biggest music streaming service filed a complaint with European regulators.  “In Apple’s case, they continue to give themselves an unfair advantage at every turn,” Ek said in a post.  …

On this podcast, we talk about: A Motorola foldable phone reviving the classic Razr vibe. Facebook’s longest outage ever. DirecTV Now cutting channels but raising prices. The 3:59 gives you bite-size news and analysis about the top stories of the day, brought to you by the CNET News team in New York and producer Bryan VanGelder. Check out the extended shows on …

Facebook is testing a new format of its Watch Party social-video chat that’s meant for live TV unavailable to stream Facebook itself.  The company made the announcement Wednesday at a South by Southwest event in Austin, Texas. It also announced that its original series Red Table Talk, a talk program with Jada Pinkett Smith, would return with 20 new episodes starting in May.  …

As a chain-laden ghost, I lumber through slices of moonlight in a dark, fire-lit room. I morph into a demonic specter, arching and slumping my massive frame around a pauper’s kitchen, before I re-materialize as a faceless floating apparition, taking you by the hand through a snow-covered graveyard. At least, that’s what I would look like to you. In your Oculus …

Apple is expected to unveil its rumored video service and a news subscription service at an event March 25 at its Cupertino, California, campus, according to reports this week. But don’t expect to see revamped Airpods or a new iPad Mini, one report said. Apple didn’t respond to a message seeking comment about the video service details.  Both video and news …

At the Sundance Film Festival, I unintentionally slayed a rat in a child’s bedroom, summoning experimental pop star Poppy to foment a rodent uprising. I faced an ultimatum to either sacrifice myself or kill a boy held in a cage behind a hidden panel in the wall. Like a live child actor blinking at me from behind bars.  Poppy, the …

Netflix is widening its “smart downloads” feature to Apple mobile devices, the company said Thursday, giving more mobile users the option to let Netflix automate your offline cache so you don’t need to keep on top of the episodes downloaded to your device.  The streaming-video giant introduced “smart downloads” on Android devices in July as a way to automatically remove downloaded …

Spotify picked up podcast companies Gimlet and Anchor as it looks for new listeners, the streaming service said Wednesday.  “Our podcast users spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a statement. “We have also seen that by having unique programming, people who previously thought Spotify …

In a post on Tuesday about her 2019 goals, YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki touted several milestones Google‘s massive video site surpassed last year, and she fessed up to one she wasn’t proud of.  “One record we definitely didn’t set out to break was the most disliked video on the Internet,” she said. “Even at home, my kids told me …

I ended up in an absurdist maze world yesterday. A bemused godlike creature helped me find the back entrance to his nightclub, “The Under,” in the hull of an overturned ship. On stage, a green-skinned lounge performer sang and danced with her drumming skeleton sidekick, Tina. When a cruise-boat captain ran up to me and touched my hand, I teleported …