Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors discuss the biggest stories in tech news this week.

This week on The Vergecast, the show is split into three sections, hosted by Verge executive editor Dieter Bohn.

In part one, Dieter and Verge managing editor Alex Cranz chat with Verge policy editor Russell Brandom to talk about President Biden’s criticism of Facebook’s handling of misinformation on its platform, the continuing fight for the right to repair, and the nomination of Google critic Jonathan Kanter to lead the Department of Justice’s antitrust division.

In section two, Dieter talks with Verge deputy editor Liz Lopatto and Verge space reporter Joey Roulette about Jeff Bezos’ trip to the edge of space Tuesday morning on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.

Liz and Joey discuss details of the launch, the other members of the crew like aviation legend Wally Funk, the press conference after landing, and the backlash from the people back on Earth. Joey also describes his experience being at the launch site in person and asking Bezos some questions about pricing for these space flights.

If you’re a listener of The Vergecast, you may have guessed the topics for our third segment this week — RCS and gadgets. On Tuesday, Verizon announced it will be switching to Android Messages as the default texting app on all Android phones it sells — which is a big step for pushing RCS as the new texting standard. Dieter and Alex discuss what this means for the texting platform and how Apple is still in the way of full adoption in the US.

There are also a bunch of gadgets to talk about! Alex and Dieter discuss the video game handheld the Playdate, OnePlus’ Buds Pro, and Amazon’s latest announcements for developers on its Echo products.

You can listen to the full discussion here or in your preferred podcast app.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/23/22590248/vergecast-podcast-459-blue-origin-launch-jeff-bezos-rcs-verizon-biden-facebook