Microsoft has closed its $19.7 billion takeover of speech-tech company Nuance Communications. It announced the acquisition last April and cleared the final regulatory barrier this week when the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority signed off on the deal. Regulators in the EU, US and Australia rubber stamped the buyout last year.

Mark Benjamin will remain as Nuance CEO, though he now reports to Microsoft Cloud and AI executive vice president Scott Guthrie. The duo wrote in a blog post that Microsoft and Nuance will build on "AI, digital and cloud advancements to create solutions that transform how we – as global citizens – work, shop, bank, engage and receive care." Healthcare will be a major focus of their work.

Microsoft has another massive deal in the works: its proposed $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. It expects the deal to be completed by mid-2023 if regulators give the thumbs up.

If you've been looking for a solid deal on a smart display, it's worth considering the Google Nest Hub Max. It's on sale for $169, which is $60 less than the regular price, at both Adorama and B&H. We saw it dip to the same price in a one-day sale on Adorama in January.

The Nest Hub Max has a 10-inch HD display on which you can stream shows and movies from the likes of YouTube and Netflix, control your smart home gear and take video calls. Google Assistant is baked in, of course, and the device has stereo speakers.

The built-in camera supports a feature called Face Match. The smart display can recognize who's using it and tailor information such as messages and calendar alerts to that person. It can also act as a Nest Cam, allowing you to monitor what's happening in your home while you're away or keep an eye on family members in another room.

There are some gesture controls as well, which allow you to play and pause media. Those who keep the Hub Max next to their bed can also snooze alarms and dismiss timers without having to groggily find the right prompt on the display.

We gave the Nest Hub Max a score of 86 in our review in 2019. Although we took issue with a couple of aspects, such as gestures not always working properly, we lauded it for the great screen, solid sound quality and fair price. The latter is an even better selling point for the time being.

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Disney has announced an ad-supported tier is coming to Disney+ later this year. It will be available to folks in the US at first and there are plans to expand it to other countries starting in 2023.

The company hasn't revealed pricing for the new tier, though it'll cost less than the current ad-free plan. That costs $8 per month in the US. Nor did Disney say in its press release exactly when the ad-supported version of the service will be available.

Disney believes the move will help it reach its target of having between 230 million and 260 million Disney+ subscribers by the end of its 2024 fiscal year. As of the end of 2021, the streaming service had 129.8 million subscribers, a third of whom are in the US and Canada.

Hulu, which Disney took full control of in 2019, has long offered an ad-supported tier. The ad-free tier was introduced in 2015.

A company called Cana has revealed what it's calling the planet's first "molecular beverage printer." The idea is that, using a single cartridge of flavorings, the machine can mix one of thousands of different beverages, including juice, soft drinks, iced coffee, sports drinks, wine and cocktails.

With Cana One, which is designed to sit on a kitchen countertop, you'll be able to select a drink from a wide range of beverage types and brands using a touchscreen. You can customize the levels of alcohol, caffeine and sugar (alcoholic and caffeinated drinks can be locked behind a PIN). Cana has teamed up with beverage brands from around the world and created its own concoctions.

A team of scientists spent three years studying popular beverages at the molecular level, Cana says. The researchers seemingly isolated the trace compounds behind flavor and aroma, and used those to create a set of ingredients that can deliver a large variety of drinks.

Cana

The system uses a "novel microfluidic liquid dispense technology" to mix the beverages. Cana says at least 90 percent of what we drink is water with flavorings, sugar and alcohol added in.

The company claims Cana One can reduce waste and associated emissions by helping people avoid bottled and canned drinks. Cana also says it can reduce water waste that's needed to grow ingredients for things like orange juice and wine.

Cana will automatically replace ingredient cartridges (which should each last around a month) as needed at no cost. However, you'll pay for the device's concoctions on a per-drink basis. Each will cost between 29 cents and $3, though Cana claims the average price will be lower than bottled beverages at retailers. The system also requires sugar and spirits cartridges — both of which are replaced automatically — and a CO2 cylinder.

Cana

It remains to be seen how well the company's claims hold up in practice, though you can reserve a Cana One now. You'll need to plunk down $99, which is a refundable credit toward the full price. Cana One will cost $499 for the first 10,000 orders, rising to $799 after that. The company expects to start shipping the machine in early 2023.

Twitch has updated its misinformation policies and says it will ban those who frequently share falsehoods. Under the new rules, the platform will block “harmful misinformation superspreaders who persistently share misinformation on or off of Twitch," as The New York Times first reported.

"Every day, people come together on Twitch to build communities that celebrate a variety of interests, passions, and talents," Twitch wrote in a blog post. "We’re proud that Twitch can bring people together — but we do not believe that individuals who use online services to spread false, harmful information, have a place in our community. While these individuals are not prevalent on Twitch, they could cause significant harm if allowed on our service."

Fewer than 100 channels will be affected by the policy at the outset, Twitch said. It sees these primarily as precautionary measures. For the platform to take action under these rules, channels must meet several criteria. "We seek to remove users whose online presence is dedicated to persistently sharing widely disproven and broadly shared harmful misinformation topics," the policy reads.

The "Harmful Misinformation Actors" rules cover lies about COVID-19 vaccines and election fraud, as well as conspiracy theories related to dangerous medical treatments. The policy also means that those who peddle "misinformation promoted by conspiracy networks tied to violence and/or promoting violence" or share falsehoods that could put public safety at risk during emergencies risk being booted off of the platform.

Twitch says it works with independent misinformation experts like the Global Disinformation Index, along with election boards and congressional certification to assess civic misinformation claims, such as election fraud and ballot tampering.

The platform also noted to The Times that the policy applies to Russian state-run media channels that are spreading lies, though it has only spotted one of those to date. Other platforms — such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify and Reddit — have banned, labeled or limited the spread of content from Russian state media outlets over the last week amid the country's invasion of Ukraine.

It's notable that the policy covers actions carried out by creators outside of their Twitch streams. If you learn about a streamer who may be violating the away from Twitch, you can report them by email. Last year, the service said it would ban users for serious misconduct that took place offline or on other platforms.

Engadget has contacted Twitch for comment.

The Senate will vote on the nominations of Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission and Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission, respectively. The Senate Commerce Committee moved forward their nominations, though the 14-14 tie means there will be an additional procedural step for each before a full Senate vote.

Democrats and Republicans each have 50 senators though Vice President Kamala Harris has a tie-breaker vote. Should Sohn and Bedoya be confirmed as commissioners, the Democrats will hold a majority in both the FCC and FTC.

The committee delayed a vote on the nominations after Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) suffered a stroke in January. Luján, whose vote was needed for Democrats to move the nominations forward, has since returned to work.

President Biden nominated Sohn at the same time he put forward Jessica Rosenworcel as FCC chair in October. While the Senate approved Rosenworcel's permanent appointment in December, Sohn's appointment has taken longer. As such, the FCC has been deadlocked at 2-2 along party lines, leaving Rosenworcel unable to, among other things, advance a net neutrality policy.

Opposition to the nomination of Sohn, a longtime advocate for net neutrality, has come from a number of quarters, including the Directors Guild of America. The group urged senators to vote down Sohn's nomination due to her "hostility towards copyright law." Sohn was previously on the board of Locast, a defunct service that rebroadcast over-the-air TV broadcast signals via the internet. She said she'd recuse herself from issues concerning retransmission consent and broadcast copyright.

In confirmation hearings, Republicans portrayed Sohn as an extreme partisan. She hit back at those assertions, arguing that she had been subject to "unrelenting, unfair and outright false criticism and scrutiny."

The FTC, meanwhile, is in the process of reviewing some significant proposed mergers. According to reports, those include Amazon's planned buyout of MGM and Microsoft's bid to acquire Activision Blizzard. Reports suggest the FTC is mulling an antitrust challenge to block the Amazon-MGM deal, though it would need a majority vote to proceed with a lawsuit.

Volvo will put a wireless EV charging system through its paces as part of a program to test alternative charging options. A small fleet of electric Volvo XC40 Recharge cars will be used as taxis in Gothenburg, Sweden in a three-year pilot.

The cars are equipped with a wireless charging system from Momentum Dynamics. Charging pads will be embedded in the ground at two taxi ranks. Volvo will use 360-degree cameras to help drivers put the cars in the correct position and when they're in the right spot, the taxis' batteries will automatically topped up. An image shared by Momentum Dynamics showed an EV charging at a rate of 41kW. 

The EVs will be on the road for more than 12 hours a day and are expected to be driven for upwards of 100,000 km (62,000 miles) per year. Volvo says this is the first durability test of its electric EVs in a commercial setting. Momentum Dynamics has also teamed up with Jaguar to test wireless charging in electric taxis in Norway.

The concept of building charging tech into roads is hardlynew, but it hasn't exactly taken off yet. Still, researchers and engineers are working on other ways to charge EVs as they drive, so at some point in the future, drivers may never need to visit a typical charging station.

Momentum Dynamics Corporation

CD Projekt Red says it will stop selling its games until further notice in Russia and Belarus following the invasion of Ukraine. People in those two countries will no longer be able to buy the publisher's own games — such as Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — or any title from its GOG store.

"Today, we begin working with our partners to suspend digital sales and cease physical stock deliveries of CD PROJEKT Group products, as well as all games distributed on the GOG platform, to the territories of Russia and Belarus," CDPR wrote in a statement on Twitter. The publisher's games are sold on several digital platforms, including the Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch stores, as well as Steam, Epic Games Store and Google Stadia.

In a note to investors, CDPR said that Russia and Belarus accounted for around 9.1 percent of sales of its games and titles on GOG over the last 12-month period.

CDPR said it "stands firm with the people of Ukraine." The day after the invasion started, It donated approximately $242,000 to a humanitarian group in support of the conflict's victims.

"While we are not a political entity capable of directly influencing state matters, and don’t aspire to be one, we do believe that commercial entities, when united, have the power to inspire global change in the hearts and minds of ordinary people," CDPR said. It acknowledged the decision will impact gamers in Russia and Belarus who aren't involved in the invasion and perhaps oppose it, "but with this action we wish to further galvanize the global community to speak about what is going on in the heart of Europe."

The move follows a request from Ukraine's vice prime minister for gaming companies to temporarily block player accounts in Russia and Belarus. EA Sports said on Wednesday it's removing Russian and Belarusian teams from FIFA and NHL games.

A group of state attorneys general is investigating TikTok. They're seeking information to determine if and how the service increases the risks of online harm to children. It's an expansion of a probe the AGs opened into Instagram in November concerning the effect of that app's on teens. Specifically, the prosecutors are looking into whether TikTok and Instagram put the public at risk and if they broke state consumer protection laws.

A bipartisan group of eight AGs from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee and Vermont is leading the probe, as The Wall Street Journal reports. AGs from several other states have joined them.

“Today, attorneys general across the nation joined an investigation into TikTok for providing and promoting its social media platform to children and young adults while use is associated with physical and mental health harms,” the AGs said in a statement. "The investigation will look into the harms such usage causes to young users and what TikTok knew about those harms."

Among other things, the coalition will look into the ways TikTok tries to boost engagement among young users, including the "frequency of engagement" with the platform and how long kids spend using it. 

"We care deeply about building an experience that helps to protect and support the well-being of our community, and appreciate that the state attorneys general are focusing on the safety of younger users," a TikTok spokesperson told Engadget. "We look forward to providing information on the many safety and privacy protections we have for teens." 

The spokesperson noted that TikTok limits some features by age, offers parents tools and resources and builds the wellbeing of younger users into its policies. The Federal Trade Commission fined TikTok $5.7 million in 2019 over reported violations of child privacy rules.

The Instagram probe followed the publication of an investigation by The Journal based on leaked internal research from Instagram parent Meta. According to the report, the data suggested using Instagram was linked to an increased risk of mental and physical health harms to teens.

The prosecutors are investigating Meta "for providing and promoting the social media platform Instagram to children and young adults despite knowing that such use is associated with physical and mental health harms." Meta said at the time that the accusations were "false" and that AGs showed "a deep misunderstanding of the facts." Around that time, the company halted work on a version of Instagram for kids.

At the State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden urged Congress to "ban targeted advertising to children" and called on tech companies to "stop collecting personal data on our children." Last month, two bipartisan Senators introduced a bill that seeks to instruct the Federal Trade Commission to look into ways of reducing "the harm of algorithmic amplification and social media addiction."

EA says it's removing the Russian national team and clubs from FIFA 22, FIFA Mobile and FIFA Online. The move follows FIFA kicking Russia out of World Cup 2022 qualifying and UEFA suspending club teams from international competitions.

"EA Sports stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and, like so many voices across the world of football, calls for peace and an end to the invasion of Ukraine," a statement shared on Twitter reads. The publisher said it was "actively evaluating related changes to other areas of our games" and that it would keep players informed about actions it takes.

In addition, EA will drop Russian and Belarusian national and club teams from NHL 22 in the coming weeks. The International Ice Hockey Federation banned teams from both countries from its competitions until further notice.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine's vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov urged Sony, Microsoft and other gaming companies to suspend Russian and Belarusian player accounts. He called on esports organizations to ban Russian and Belarusian teams and players from international events too. "We are sure that such actions will motivate the citizens of Russia to proactively stop the disgraceful military aggression," Fedorov wrote in an open letter.