Category: Technology

Google is conducting a “test” in which results from EU-based news publishers will be omitted. The company says the time-limited test will only affect a small portion of users in nine EU countries and “will help assess how results from EU news publishers impact the search experience for our users and publishers’ traffic.”

But given the delicate position of news media — and the company’s history of threatening to withdraw its services in the face of news-related regulations — it could be considered the equivalent of a mafia boss conducting a “small test” to see how the corner laundromat fares without security.

Google describes this experiment (via The Verge) as a “small, time-limited test” to omit EU results from Search, Google News, and the personalized Discover feed. It will affect only one percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Those users will still see results from other websites, including non-EU news publications.

The company says news results will reappear as usual after the test ends. (It didn’t give a specific timeline.) Google has stressed that the experiment will not affect payments it makes to publishers under the European Copyright Directive (EUCD), under which the company has struck deals with more than 4,000 EU publishers.

Google has a history of using the potential withdrawal of its visibility as a negotiating tool in similar situations. In some cases, the tactic has helped it win concessions.

Last year, Google pulled its news links from Canada in response to Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), which required tech companies to negotiate compensation with online publishers for linked content. After months of negotiations, Google said Canada had addressed its concerns and granted it an exemption. Canada said it granted Google an exemption last month, under which the company agreed to pay news organisations $100 million annually.

In April this year, Google briefly removed links to California news outlets in response to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require Google to pay news publishers in exchange for continuing to link to their websites. Although the fate of the bill is still uncertain, Google reached a deal with state lawmakers this summer, promising to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to a fund that supports local news.

In 2021, the company threatened to pull its entire search engine from Australia, as proposed legislation at the time required tech companies to share royalties with news publishers. The country’s then-prime minister stood firm. “Let me be clear. Australia makes our rules for the things you can do in Australia,” Scott Morrison said. After the bill was passed and enacted, Google entered into agreements with Australian media companies to license content.

Google says it hopes the data analysis tools it provides to publishers will help them use the EU test to “understand traffic patterns”.

If money’s no constraint, the best gaming mouse with a symmetrical design we’ve tested is the Razer Viper V3 Pro. It costs $160, but if you play a lot of competitive PC games and can afford the price, you’ll find little to complain about.

With its slightly grooved edges, noticeable but not aggressive hump, and slight flare-out at the back, the Viper V3 Pro’s shape should be comfortable for a range of hand sizes and grip types. It’s a little wide, and it probably works best with a claw or fingertip grip, but it’s not so short or flat that it can’t accommodate palm grippers.

The main mouse buttons are laid out in a way that gives your fingers a natural resting place, and there are small ledges on either side to guide them into the right place when you’re moving around in a game. In other words, it’s one of the most secure shapes we’ve tested.

The Viper’s build quality is excellent. It’s impressively light at 54g, making it easy to move around in fast-paced games, yet its matte plastic frame isn’t covered in dust-attracting pores, unlike many other options of similar weight. We’ve noticed no signs of creaking, flexing or rattling after months of testing. The finish shows some fingerprints, but it’s comfortable to grip and pleasantly soft to the touch.

The main click buttons use durable optical switches, but aren’t particularly loud. Although they’re not as full or clear as the best mechanical switches, they’re still easy to press, neither too hard nor too light. The two programmable side buttons are well-sized and easy to reach. The scroll wheel, meanwhile, is tight and quiet, with clearly defined steps and a textured finish.

Performance, as with many high-end gaming mice these days, is effectively flawless. Razer’s Focus Pro 35K optical sensor Gen-2 – five times faster – is basically overkill from a technical standpoint, but still makes the mouse exceptionally accurate and consistent. There’s generously sized, smooth-gliding PTFE feet and a rock-solid connection with the included “hyperpolling” dongle.

The latter lets the mouse reach a maximum polling rate of 8,000Hz, but as explained below, few people will actually see any benefit from jumping that high. Mostly, it’ll reduce battery life: Razer says the Viper V3 Pro can last up to 95 hours at 1,000Hz, which is fine for this market and roughly consistent according to our experience, but it drops to just 17 hours at 8,000Hz.

If the price didn’t make it clear, the Viper V3 Pro is for gaming enthusiasts. As such, it doesn’t offer some of the benefits you’ll find on more mainstream mice: there’s no RGB lighting or Bluetooth, while the power button/DPI switcher is located on the bottom of the device, making it difficult to press accidentally. Since the device uses a special dongle rather than a traditional receiver, it requires you to run a separate USB-C cable from your PC or gaming laptop.

Thankfully, you can connect with that cable when the battery is low, but it’s relatively thick. And while Razer’s Synapse software makes adjusting settings fairly simple, it’s somewhat resource-intensive. It’s also Windows-only. These are all minor quibbles, though. The Viper V3 Pro is excellent, and it will feel right at home in the hands of committed FPS players.

If you want a premium gaming mouse with a more ergonomic shape, get the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro. It has the same features as the Viper V3 Pro, but it has a taller, slightly wider and more dramatically protruding design that’s geared toward right-handed users.

Most people with medium to large hands will find it a natural fit with a palm or claw grip, though it’ll probably be a bit too chunky for people with smaller hands and fingertip grips. This shape isn’t as easy to maneuver as the Viper, but its higher, side-sloping bulge will provide a more comfortable place to rest your hand throughout the day.

Razer sells two variants of the DeathAdder V3 Pro: one with the same soft-touch finish as the Viper V3 Pro, and another with a more textured matte plastic coating. We tested the latter; it’s not as grippy or smooth to the touch, but it’s still nice, and it’s much less of a fingerprint magnet.

Plus, the side buttons are larger, closer together and a little less tight, but they’re still hard to press accidentally. The design is 63 grams heavier, but still seriously lightweight. The PTFE feet are tiny, but still glide reliably. And while the sensor is technically a generation old, performance is effectively flawless.

Otherwise, you’re looking at a similar feature set. The optical main buttons are satisfying and consistent, but not overly sensitive. The lightly notched scroll wheel is soft, quiet, and resistant enough, if not firm. Battery life is rated for 90 hours, and you can connect a lighter and more flexible USB-C cable in a pinch.

Threads could start getting ads much sooner than Meta previously revealed. According to a new report from The Information, the company is now planning to bring ads to its new app “early next year,” with the first ads arriving in January 2025.

This suggests that Meta wants to start making money on the fast-growing service much sooner than Meta executives previously suggested. In August, when the app reached 200 million users, Mark Zuckerberg said that Threads could become the company’s next billion-user service. He added that making money from the app would be a “multi-year” effort.

“All of these new products, we ship them, and then there’s a multi-year time horizon between scaling them and then scaling them into not just consumer experiences but very large businesses,” Zuckerberg said. In the company’s most recent earnings call, Meta CFO Susan Lee said the company “does not expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue at this time.”

According to The Information, Meta is planning a slow rollout for ads on Threads. The company will begin with a “small number” of advertisers in January. It’s unclear how quickly this effort could expand. “Since our priority is to build consumer value first and foremost, there are currently no ads or monetization features on Threads,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

Meta’s reported plans highlight how quickly the service has grown in recent months. According to Zuckerberg, Threads has 275 million monthly users and is seeing more than 1 million new sign-ups per day. That makes it by far the largest of the X alternatives that have emerged in the past few years.

BlueSky, another popular Twitter-like service, has also seen significant growth recently, adding one million new users in the past week, the company said on Tuesday. It’s still much smaller than Threads, which has 15 million users. Like Threads, it also currently has no ads and the company has said it plans to experiment with subscription-based features.

If you spend a good portion of your waking hours behind a desk, simply slapping an ergonomic mouse and keyboard on your desk won’t solve the real problem, which is sitting still for too long. But after you’ve peppered in a few walks and added some stretches for good measure, your workstation ergonomics is the next thing to consider. Hunching, twisting and contorting are all likely to lead to discomfort in the long run.

Ergonomic keyboards can help: these boards split, tilt and/or angle the keys in ways that help keep your shoulders and chest more open and your forearms and wrists more aligned. One ergonomic board won’t work for everyone, so I tested out 15 different models, and considered a mix of ergonomic features that include Alice and fully split designs, columnar orientations, thumb clusters, programmable keys and more. Here are the best ergonomic keyboards we could find.

Most ergonomic keyboard layouts fall into two categories: Alice and split. The former is a single board with the two halves of the keys rotated about 30 degrees apart at the bottom. The separation forms an A-shaped space between the keys — which has nothing to do with why it’s called an Alice layout, it’s just a happy coincidence.

This subtle tweak pushes your elbows away from your ribs while keeping a straight line from your forearm to your middle knuckle. Using one, I pretty instantly felt more open along the front side of my body. This layout more closely resembles a traditional keyboard, so it should be easier for most folks to get used to than a fully split option.

Speaking of, split boards break the keys into two separate parts you can position individually. You can put them shoulder distance apart, bring them closer together or angle them as much as feels comfortable.

You can also put your mouse between the halves, which may feel like an easier trip for your cursor hand and could potentially help with conditions like repetitive strain injuries. Personally, I like being able to put my current snack between the two parts. I’ve also found that pairing a split keyboard with a good ergonomic mouse has helped me even more, particularly a vertical mice.

Tenkeyless

You can find ergonomic keyboards with and without number pads. Not having those number keys on the right side lets you keep your mouse closer in, minimizing overall reach. But if you work with numbers a lot, you’ll likely want that pad included. Some programmable boards allow for the use of layers, which temporarily repurpose keys and can provide you with a ten-key option through clever remapping of letter keys.

Tenting and negative tilt

Tenting raises the middle of the keyboard up, so your hands move closer to a “handshake” position. Alice keyboards usually angle up towards the middle and always to a fixed degree, since the two sides are connected. Split boards often let you adjust the degree of tenting, going from flat to subtle to extreme lift.

You may have encountered keyboards with an optional lift at the back of the board, raising the top keys higher than the space bar. Every set of hands is different, but for most people, pulling the backs of the hands towards the forearms increases strain. Negative tilt has the opposite effect by sloping in the other direction, lowering the top number keys while raising the edge with the spacebar. Many Alice and some split keyboards offer an optional negative tilt. I found it was more comfortable to enable that feature when I’m standing, and I preferred to have the keys flat when sat at my desk.

Staggered vs columnar

This decision seems to be one of the more hotly-contested among ergo enthusiasts. A conventional keyboard has staggered keys, with each row slightly offset to the rows above and below it — so the A key is about halfway between the Q and W above it. This is a holdover from vintage mechanical typewriters, in which each press activated a hammer that smashed ink onto paper in the shape of a letter. To fit the hammers as close together as possible, while still allowing for finger pads, the keys were staggered.

Columnar or ortholinear keyboards stack the keys in orderly columns, often with rows that are not linear. Proponents claim this makes the keys easier to reach. Whether that’s true will be up to your fingers to decide, but I can say for certain that if you learned to type on a staggered keyboard, switching to a columnar layout is tough. It will take days, possibly weeks before you instinctively hit the C key. The N, M and B keys don’t fare much better.

Programmable keys

With a few exceptions, most ergonomic keyboards will work with PCs or Macs as a standard typing input, but the use of function and hot keys may require some remapping. It can be as easy as an onboard switch to toggle between Mac and PC layouts, or as involved as downloading software to change up the keys. Some boards even include (or let you buy) extra keycaps to change, say, the Mac’s Command and Option keys to PC’s Start and Alt buttons.