Hulu is cracking down on password sharing, just like Disney Plus and Netflix
Image: Disney
Hulu has just laid the groundwork to kick friends, family, and freeloaders off its streaming service unless they pay for their own accounts. This week, the company revised its Terms of Service to explicitly ban password sharing outside of “your primary personal residence,” and it’s begun to tell subscribers they’ll need to comply by March 14th, 2024.
m. Account Sharing. Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household. “Household” means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein. Additional usage rules may apply for certain Service Tiers. For more details on our account sharing policy, please visit our Help Center.
We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement (including those set forth in Section 6 of this Agreement).
You will be responsible for any use of your account by your household, including compliance with this section.
The new ToS is dated January 25th, 2024; previous versions of the ToS didn’t mention account sharing at all.
Here’s an example of the emails being sent to Hulu subscribers:
“We’re adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations,” the most important paragraph reads.
Neither the email nor the ToS say how Hulu will measure compliance or how quickly it’ll take action, but Hulu will apparently “analyze the use of your account” and it reserves the right to “limit or terminate access” if it decides you’ve broken the policy.
The ToS also suggests there’s more info about its account sharing policy at the Hulu Help Center, but we’re not seeing any help articles about account sharing right now.
Death Stranding 2’s new trailer is delightfully disturbing
Image: Kojima Productions
The sequel to Death Stranding is shaping up to be just as strange as the original. At its State of Play showcase today, Sony showed off a new trailer for the game that... starts out with a particularly disturbing bit of surgery. The lengthy clip features a whole bunch of new locations outside of the US, as well as the return of a villain who has been given a Joker-esque makeover. And yes, the baby makes an appearance — along with a new, talking doll.
The sequel also has an official title now: Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. It’s due to launch in 2025. Here’s the premise:
Embark on an inspiring mission of human connection beyond the UCA. Sam — with companions by his side — sets out on a new journey to save humanity from extinction. Join them as they traverse a world beset by otherworldly enemies, obstacles and a haunting question: should we have connected?
Replika’s new AI therapy app tries to bring you to a zen island
Tomo, the AI avatar | Luka, Inc.
AI companion company Replika partnered with the team behind the AI dating simulator Blush to release Tomo, a wellness and meditation app with an AI-generated avatar guiding users. Its the kind of concept that seemed destined as soon as generative AI took off, but in the time I’ve spent with Tomo, I found myself wondering if I can ever open up to an AI like I can with a real therapist.
Tomo, now generally available on the Apple iOS store, brings users to a virtual island retreat, greeted by an AI-generated avatar guide named… Tomo. Tomo offers programs to help people explore personal growth, mental well-being, and fulfillment. It also provides guided meditation, yoga, affirmation classes, and, most of all, talk therapy.
Users can try out Tomo for free for three days, after which they have to choose between paying $7.99 a week or $49.99 per year.
I got to try Tomo before the launch. The first time I launched the app, I was greeted by spa music, signaling that the app wants users to feel like they’re in a retreat rather than a therapist’s office. Then the avatar Tomo, drawn as a young woman standing in front of a traditional Japanese house on an island, asks me if I’m ready to begin. Tomo started asking me some questions to figure out what I hoped to work on.
“We worked with coaches and psychologists to come up with the programs for Tomo. We focused on the most common problems but also thought about what would work best with conversational AI,” Eugenia Kuyda, founder and CEO of Replika, tells The Verge in an email. “We had a lot of experience building coaching programs for Replika with clinical psychologists from UC Berkeley; for Tomo, we expanded that to mindfulness teachers to combine Eastern and Western practices.”
The approach felt like texting a therapist on text-based therapy services like BetterHelp. I already go to in-person therapy, so the experience of sharing more about myself was not new. Yet I have never been a text therapy fan; I prefer stream-of-consciousness conversation to typing out my anxieties. But for the sake of a hands-on, I kept texting with Tomo. It began building a profile based on my answers. My profile shows I like to focus on work, have money anxieties, and need help coping with stress; in other words, a journalist existing in late-stage capitalism. Tomo summarized our conversation, but it did mistakenly assume I had a “determination to pursue pottery” when really I’m just curious about it as a possible stress reliever.
Screenshot: Luka, Inc.
Screenshot of a Tomo therapy session.
After the initial conversation, users can explore other activities or “areas” of the island. There was no virtual pottery for me to apparently pursue; instead, the programs Tomo offers range from mastering the art of work-life balance, driving motivation, and improving sleep, which comes in the form of modules that users can finish in anywhere from two weeks to a month. Eventually, the developers said, people can unlock 3D objects around the island “that facilitate a deeper exploration of their inner sanctuary.”
Tomo, the avatar guide, is supposed to be powered by generative AI to have better conversations with users. But honestly, talking to Tomo didn’t feel much different from speaking with a regular chatbot. I couldn’t get it to participate in a little art therapy with me (it wouldn’t draw) or retail therapy (it couldn’t help with shopping or travel tasks I tried to assign it) — which meant that instead of feeling like a fully formed digital being on which I could unload my troubles, it really just felt like someone put background music on ChatGPT.
And while I found the guided meditations helpful, it also felt like other guided meditation apps I’ve tried before. Eventually I found myself losing interest, mainly because by the time I remembered to open Tomo, I already had assignments from my therapist to work on.
Using AI for mental health therapy remains controversial, especially as privacy protections still fall short for many technology-based mental health solutions. It’s a tricky business, one for which Replika, which is behind Tomo’s digital avatar, has already gotten into hot water. Italy banned Replika last year for failing to meet security standards in its Replika chat app. But Replika’s CEO says it is taking more precautions with Tomo, though the company did not give me its full privacy policy.
“We don’t share any information with any third parties and rely on a subscription business model. What users tell Tomo stays private between them and their coach,” Kuyda said.
Tomo is only available on iPhones; an Android version will be released later this year. Replika also plans to launch an app on Apple’s Vision Pro, paving the way for an even more immersive Tomo-guided meditation.
Elon Musk won’t get his $55 billion pay package after all
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Elon Musk isn’t going to get that $55 billion pay package after all, a Delaware Court of Chancery judge has ruled. The ruling means Tesla’s board will need to come up with a new proposal.
The ruling threatens Musk’s fortune if it makes it through an appeal, Bloomberg reports. Without the options in that package, Musk may only be the third-richest man in the world.
Tesla shareholders approved the package in 2018, which gave Musk incentive to hit specific milestones, including a market valuation of $650 billion, which was more than 10 times Tesla’s value at the time. The trial hinged on a specific question: did Musk mislead the shareholders when he gave them the plan?
Greg Varallo, attorney for the investor who sued, Richard Tornetta, said the investors weren’t told that Musk himself came up with the plan or that the board’s members were beholden to Musk. Last February, Judge Kathaleen McCormick called this argument a “kill shot.”
“Defendants were unable to prove that the stockholder vote was fully informed because the proxy statement inaccurately described key directors as independent and misleadingly omitted details about the process,” McCormick wrote in her decision. “The defendants proved that Musk was uniquely motivated by ambitious goals and that Tesla desperately needed Musk to succeed in its next stage of development, but these facts do not justify the largest compensation plan in the history of public markets.”
One of the big questions in the case was how much of Tesla Musk controlled — and not just through his shares. “Musk wielded the maximum influence that a manager can wield over a company,” McCormick wrote.
The board of directors consisted of a lot of people who had close relationships with Musk:
Elon Musk.
Antonio Gracias, a member of the compensation committee and friend of Musk’s who has amassed a great deal of wealth from investing in Musk’s companies as far back as PayPal.
James Murdoch, another Musk buddy who vacationed with Musk across the globe.
Musk’s brother, Kimbal.
Ira Ehrenpreis, one of the members of the compensation committee, acknowledged to the court that his relationship with Elon and Kimbal Musk had “significant influence on his professional career.”
Brad Buss, another member of the compensation committee who “owed 44 percent of his net worth to Musk entities.”
Robyn Denholm, a member of the compensation committee whose compensation as a Tesla board chair was more money than she made from other sources.
Linda Johnson Rice, who appears to have been truly independent.
Steve Jurvetson, who had a prolonged period of absence during this incident and wasn’t considered a major player by the judge.
“Ultimately, the key witnesses said it all — they were there to cooperate with Musk, not negotiate against him,” McCormick wrote.
Musk has demanded more control over Tesla lately, posting on X earlier this month that he wanted at least 25 percent ownership of the company in order to pursue artificial intelligence work. That would roughly be double his current ownership stake of around 13 percent.
Musk said in follow-up posts that he was waiting for a ruling in the shareholder lawsuit before taking his proposal for a larger ownership stake to the board. “The reason for no new ‘compensation plan’ is that we are still waiting for a decision in my Delaware compensation case,” he wrote on January 15th. “The trial for that was held in 2022, but a verdict has yet to be made.”
He added, “I put ‘compensation plan’ in quotes, because, from my standpoint, this is primarily about ensuring the right amount of voting influence at Tesla.”
Minutes after today’s ruling, Musk posted: “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware.”
Watch Me Lose My Job on TikTok Some tech workers are filming their layoffs and sharing them on social media. They say it’s part catharsis, part transparency.
TikTok goes full YouTube
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
Vertical video platform TikTok wants users to turn their phones around and start shooting horizontal videos — long ones, too.
TikTok appears to be incentivizing creators to start posting horizontal videos that are more than a minute long, according to a prompt seen by creators @candicedchap and @kenlyealtumbiz. The platform says it will “boost” these videos within 72 hours of posting. Creators who’ve been on TikTok for more than three months will be eligible for the viewership boost, as long as the videos are not ads or from political parties.
The Verge reached out to TikTok for additional information but didn’t immediately hear back.
Most people who watch TikToks do so on their phones, which lends perfectly well to the vertical video format. Turning a TikTok on its side relies on getting viewers to do the same.
The YouTube-ization of TikTok has been happening for a while. The platform is testing 30-minute long videos, and that comes just a few months after it began expanding video lengths up to 15 minutes. Most YouTube videos tend to be 10 minutes or longer (think of “a week in the life” vlogs) for monetization reasons rather than the bite-sized-length content for which TikTok is famous.
This isn’t the first time TikTok has encouraged its most valuable asset, its creators, to post more YouTube-like content on the platform. Its new paywall program, Series, lets users make collections of videos, up to 20 minutes long, for paying subscribers. Creators can set their prices from $1 all the way to $190.
With horizontal videos — and an increasing preference for longer content — creators might be tempted to cannibalize their YouTube material instead. While YouTube, or at least YouTube Shorts, still pays creators more, rehashing the same content across multiple platforms already happens anyway. YouTube, on the other hand, introduced more features so it will feel more like TikTok.
Microsoft says Apple’s new App Store rules are ‘a step in the wrong direction’
Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Apple’s new plan to comply with the European Union’s tech regulations has already drawn criticism from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Spotify. Now Microsoft is weighing in with its own concerns, calling the App Store changes in the EU “a step in the wrong direction.”
Apple has proposed a new Core Technology Fee for apps that want to operate on third-party app stores in the EU. It will require developers using third-party app stores to pay €0.50 for each annual app install after 1 million downloads. Apple will also still take a 17 percent commission from the developers who choose to use third-party payment processors.
“Apple’s new policy is a step in the wrong direction,” says Xbox president Sarah Bond in a post on X. “We hope they listen to feedback on their proposed plan and work towards a more inclusive future for all.”
We believe constructive conversations drive change and progress towards open platforms and greater competition. Apple's new policy is a step in the wrong direction. We hope they listen to feedback on their proposed plan and work towards a more inclusive future for all. https://t.co/mDRI5KPJf6
Bond is now responsible for overseeing all of Microsoft’s Xbox platform and hardware work, just as the company is hoping to launch its own Xbox mobile store. Microsoft has been quietly building a mobile Xbox store that may launch as soon as this year. The Xbox mobile store is designed as an alternative to Apple and Google’s mobile gaming store dominance, and it will rely on content from Activision Blizzard like Call of Duty: Mobile and Candy Crush Saga — two hugely popular mobile games published by Activision and King, respectively.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer previously discussed the potential for the Xbox mobile store last year, referencing the EU’s Digital Markets Act as a “huge opportunity” for Microsoft.
Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeney has labeled Apple’s App Store changes “hot garbage,” and said that “Apple’s plan to thwart Europe’s new Digital Markets Act law is a devious new instance of Malicious Compliance.” Sweeney fought a long-running legal battle against Apple’s App Store policies and payment processing in the US.
Spotify has also accused Apple of “extortion” with this new App Store tax, and calls on the EU regulators to take action. The European Commission says it will issue a response to Apple’s changes when the regulations officially go into effect in March, and it promises “strong action” if Apple’s “proposed solutions are not good enough.”
Microsoft’s reaction to Apple’s latest policy changes could also spell trouble for a potential Xbox Cloud Gaming app on iOS. Apple opened the App Store to cloud gaming services last week, at the same time that it announced its new App Store policies for EU markets. “Developers can now submit a single app with the capability to stream all of the games offered in their catalog,” Apple wrote in a blog post.
Nvidia, Microsoft, and other cloud gaming providers haven’t reacted to Apple’s acceptance of cloud gaming services. We’re still waiting to hear if Apple’s changes are enough to convince these providers to publish iOS apps for their services.
Hottest Job in Corporate America? The Executive in Charge of A.I. Many feared that artificial intelligence would kill jobs. But hospitals, insurance companies and others are creating roles to navigate and harness the disruptive technology.
Nomad’s first Qi2 charger is shipping now for $10 less than its MagSafe model
The Nomad Stand offers 15W of wireless iPhone fast charging for $100. | Image: Nomad
Nomad’s Stand is the latest Qi2 charger to hit the market, offering up to 15W of wireless charging speed to Qi2-compatible phones like the iPhone 15. The accessory was announced in late December, but it’s now shipping in a choice of black or white for $100 from Nomad’s website.
It’s $100 price point makes the Stand $10 cheaper than Nomad’s equivalent MagSafe model, the Stand One, and offers the same “up to 15W” charging speeds and magnetic attachment compatibility as Apple’s MagSafe (Apple helped develop the Qi2 charging standard). The bad news is that Nomad’s $100 asking price doesn’t include the required 20W power adapter — you just get a USB-C to USB-C cable.
Image: Nomad
Nomad’s Stand in black.
Nomad’s accessory is part of an initial wave of Qi2-compatible chargers, with companies like Belkin, Anker, Satechi, and Mophie all having either released or announced their own devices for the bedside, workspace, and car. And there are some more affordable competitors to Nomad’s Stand in that list. Belkin’s BoostCharge Pro convertible stand ships early next month for $59.99 (though it looks like you’ll also have to provide your own charging brick here), and Satechi’s 2-in-1 charging stand will come with a 45W power supply and cost $79.99 when it ships sometime in the second quarter of 2024.
Arc Search combines browser, search engine, and AI into something new and different
Arc Search browses the web for you, and then builds you the webpage you wanted. That’s the idea, anyway. | Image: The Browser Company / David Pierce
A few minutes ago, I opened the new Arc Search app and typed, “What happened in the Chiefs game.” That game, the AFC Championship, had just wrapped up. Normally, I’d Google it, click on a few links, and read about the game that way. But in Arc Search, I typed the query and tapped the “Browse for me” button instead.
Arc Search, the new iOS app from The Browser Company, which has been working on a browser called Arc for the last few years, went to work. It scoured the web — reading six pages, it told me, from Twitter to The Guardian to USA Today — and returned a bunch of information a few seconds later. I got the headline: Chiefs win. I got the final score, the key play, a “notable event” that also just said the Chiefs won, a note about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, a bunch of related links, and some more bullet points about the game.
Basically, instead of returning a bunch of search queries about the Chiefs game, Arc Search built me a webpage about it. And somewhere in there is The Browser Company’s big idea about the future of web browsers — that a browser, a search engine, an AI chatbot, and a website aren’t different things. They’re all just parts of an internet information finder, and they might as well exist inside the same app.
Arc Search is part of a bigger shift for the Arc browser, too. The company’s mobile app has until now been mostly a companion app to the desktop, a way to access your open tabs and not much else. With Arc starting to roll out to Windows users, The Browser Company is also getting ready to roll out its own cross-platform syncing system, called Arc Anywhere, and to bring some of these AI-powered features to Arc on other platforms. (Eventually, CEO Josh Miller says, Arc Search will just be called Arc and will be the company’s only mobile app.)
The “Browse for me” feature isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty impressive. When I search “What’s Pete Davidson up to,” for instance, it gives me some broad-strokes information about his recent film and breakup news (very useful!), links to his Wikipedia page, and a couple of news sites’ tag pages for Pete Davidson (meh), and then a bunch of information about his recent personal and professional goings-on. Like many AI tools, Arc Search isn’t great at citing its source, so I can’t completely trust that Davidson and Chase Sui Wonders actually broke up, but there is a “Dive Deeper” section at the bottom with a bunch of links. Most of those links are the same generic stuff, like a “Pete Davidson’s net worth” webpage that I’m confident isn’t right, but there’s good stuff here too.
The system has improved a lot even in the time I’ve been testing the app, and Miller says there’s plenty more room for Arc Search to get smarter. (The underlying AI models come from a mix of OpenAI and others.) Arc has been deeply invested in AI for a while, and some of its Arc Max features have been a hit with users. As the whole industry of generative AI tools improves, so will Arc.
I like Arc Search as a browser, too — it’s simple and fast and always opens to an empty search box, which feels right on mobile. But it does put The Browser Company in the middle of a lot of complicated AI discussions. Will the company work with the publishers whose information it’s using to populate these answers? How will Arc’s AI cite its sources? How personalized should these things be? How personalized can they be? A search like this is bound to be expensive; will Arc Search be a paid product over time? The company hasn’t shared much about its plans on these fronts yet, but there are a lot of questions to be answered.
But from a pure product perspective, this feels closer to the way AI search should work than anything I’ve tried. Products like Copilot and Perplexity.AI are cool, but they’re fundamentally just chatbots with web access. Arc Search imagines something else entirely: an AI that explores websites by building you a new one every time you ask.
Next week, millions of people will start typing the internet’s favorite phrase: “What time does the Super Bowl start.” I already know, because I clicked “Browse for me,” and I also now know where the game is, how to watch it, and to be sure and clear my schedule for Usher at halftime. That’s a pretty good search result.
Ring to Stop Allowing Police to Request Videos From Security Cameras Ring, a maker of internet-connected cameras that is owned by Amazon, said the police could no longer ask people to share video recordings using the company’s app, Neighbors.
Netflix is different now — and there’s no going back
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
The past two years have been a whirlwind of changes at Netflix — and it’s all to transform the company into a revenue-driving machine that outlives other streamers.
For about a decade, it seemed like Netflix wouldn’t stop growing. The company became synonymous with the idea of streaming itself: cozy nights in and binge-watching, setting a high standard for the rest of the industry. The company released a mountain of original content as its subscriber count only continued to soar, bringing its market cap to a peak of more than $300 billion in 2021.
But executives made some complete reversals when the company started shedding subscribers in 2022, and nothing’s been the same since. Netflix had to make changes — and fast — if it wanted to keep investors happy. That year, Netflix did something co-founder Reed Hastings continuously rejected: it launched a cheaper, ad-supported tier with the goal of attracting a new pool of subscribers, while cashing in on the money earned from advertisers.
Despite a slow start, Netflix’s ad-supported tier garnered 5 million subscribers in just six months. The plan is now one of Netflix’s most popular tiers, as its latest earnings report revealed that 40 percent of new subscribers are choosing the cheaper option. Netflix has only continued building out the plan, adding 1080p video and the ability to watch two streams simultaneously. But the company’s plan to reverse a dwindling subscriber base didn’t end there.
The streamer took things a step further by cracking down on password sharing, something Netflix is now notoriously known for embracing in a 2017 tweet. The move didn’t do much to improve morale in a subscriber base hit with frequent price hikes, and yet, it still seems like it’s working in Netflix’s favor. Shortly after the start of the crackdown, Netflix said paid sharing resulted in more signups than cancellations and also led to higher revenue.
Netflix has only continued to push the envelope with another price hike last fall (its third in three years). It also stopped letting subscribers sign up for its cheapest, $11.99 per month ad-free plan. It’s now moving to get rid of the plan completely for those who already signed up as part of its attempt to push users toward its $6.99 per month ad-supported plan or its $15.49 per month standard tier.
While that might seem counterintuitive to point users to the least expensive tier, ads are a big part of Netflix’s business now.
Last year, the company said it already saw a higher revenue per customer on its ad-supported plan, as opposed to its $15.49 ad-free plan, which means its $11.99 per month basic plan likely isn’t doing much for Netflix’s bottom line. During an earnings call this week, co-CEO Greg Peters said the company’s top priority in its advertising business is “scale.” To Netflix, that means “making the ads plan more attractive” and “shifting our plans and pricing structure and other places where we think it’s appropriate.”
Then there’s Netflix’s $5 billion deal for WWE Monday Night Raw. Sources tell CNBC that Netflix won’t show ads during Raw for subscribers to its ad-free tier. If true, users on Netflix’s $6.99 plan would still have commercials during the three-hour-long show, creating yet another revenue driver for the streamer.
“WWE content is used to a younger demographic that allows Netflix to reach perhaps portions of the greater audience that it will not be able to reach through lower price alone,” Paul Erickson, the founder and principal of Erickson Strategy & Insights, tells The Verge. “When viewed against their other recent move to eliminate the lowest priced ads-free tier, I would say that they are looking to, much like the rest of the industry… improve their bottom lines.”
And Monday Night Raw isn’t your traditional type of sports broadcast — it’s “sports entertainment,” as Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos put it on the company’s last earnings call. That’s a plus for Netflix, according to Erickson, because it increases engagement, meaning “people who watch it tend to keep watching.” Erickson also points out that, unlike traditional sports, WWE isn’t seasonal, so Netflix can keep streaming it throughout the entirety of the 10 years it signed up for — and users interested in watching will stay subscribed without offseason breaks that can prompt cancellations.
All of these changes add up to a very different Netflix than the one we saw a few years ago. Netflix isn’t being shy about what it’s doing, either, in part because it can’t be. After years of vying for subscribers, streaming services now need to prove that they’re actually profitable. That has led streamers — not just Netflix — to issue price hikes and combine their services into a singular app, like Max and Disney Plus with Hulu. “Netflix is very aware of the fact that they’re one of the very few must-have streaming brands for a lot of households,” Erickson says. “They need to keep that title as a must-subscribe service even in the face of aggressive competition.”
Netflix is no longer synonymous with streaming partly because it’s not the only game in town anymore. But even the Netflix that exists today is a far cry from what it once was, and it’s bound to keep pushing further away from that original vision. That ideal of a streamer was buoyed by an ever-rising stock price, which has since come back down to reality. As for what that future means for streaming — whether it will soon become a mixture of live and on-demand content with ads — one thing is clear: Netflix’s rapid evolution is allowing the company to stay ahead in a more competitive industry than ever, and there’s no turning back from here.
A star creator’s go-to travel gear
Image: William Joel / The Verge
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 23, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I also have for you a new show from the Silicon Valley creator, a(nother) new calendar app, the hottest new game on the market, a camera worth lusting over, and much more. Let’s get to it.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them, and tell them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
Masters of the Air. Okay, so, I need you to clear your weekend schedule. Because first, you’re going to rewatch Band of Brothers, which is exactly as good as you remember. Then, you’re going to watch The Pacific, finally, which you kind of forgot about until recently. Then, you’re going to fire up Apple TV Plus and watch this show, the newest in the kinda-series. Sound good? Good. See you Monday.
Lumiere. Google Research just kind of quietly dropped a new image-to-video AI model, which it calls “a space-time diffusion model for video generation,” which is an extremely cool thing to call it. As far as I can tell, you can’t actually use it yet, but its results look pretty impressive.
The Hasselblad 907X & CFV 100C. Quite the name, and quite the price — $8,200! — but also quite the camera. As smartphone cameras continue to eat everything, I love watching high-end cameras get even more beautiful, even more impressive, and even more… real? Non-AI-y? Whatever you call it, it’s all camera and no shenanigans, and I love it. (Also, my colleague Becca Farsace made a super fun video about this thing.)
The mint Pixel 8. I own a black iPhone, and it’s boring and lame and I wish it looked a lot more like this. Bring back phones with cool, vibrant, unusual colors! I don’t know that I’d buy this one — I mean, Pixel 9 leaks are already happening — but I dig the look.
Palworld. Technically, I should have mentioned this last week, but it became such a phenomenon this week that we just have to talk about it. Pokemon! With guns! And dubious legal standing! This game is on a historic popularity run, has a weird road ahead of it, and you better believe I will be putting in some hours this weekend.
In the Know. About once a day, I wish Silicon Valley would come back to HBO. This is the closest I’m gonna get, I think: Mike Judge and Zach Woods made another satire show, only this time, it’s animated and about NPR. I’ve only seen the first episode, which feels extremely “internet in 2024”-y. In a good way. Mostly.
Transcripts for Apple Podcasts. I’ve been a very happy Pocket Casts user for a long time, and this feature — which generates transcripts for every episode you listen to and scrolls them live like they’re song lyrics — is the first thing I’ve ever been jealous of. Every podcast app should do this.
Setups
Last week, I asked you to share what you use to read the news. Or not even news, really, just where you go when you want to know what’s new, what’s going on, what’s the haps. (Sorry for saying “what’s the haps.”) I’ve gotten some great answers and thoughts, and next week, we’re going to dive into that — keep ’em coming to installer@theverge.com. Tell me everything.
This week, I want to do something a little different. On The Vergecast this week, I talked to Ali Abdaal, a creator and author (and doctor!), all about his new book, Feel Good Productivity, and what it means to be a productive and happy and fulfilled person on the internet. Or if it’s even possible.
At the end of our chat, we talked a bit about Ali’s new life as a digital nomad and the gear he’s using to make everything work while he’s on the road. That bit didn’t make it into The Vergecast, but I figured I’d share here. So here’s Ali Abdaal’s setup for life as a creator on the road:
In one cube: a Sony A7S III camera. “My main filming angle.”
In the other cube: a Sony A7C. “With a 50mm lens, with an extra lens. That’s my photo camera, and it means if I want to do a podcast, I have double cameras, double angles.”
A Falcon Eyes Rollflex light. “It’s a rollable LED panel with a softbox that folds down into like a third of a half of a suitcase. People are always like, ‘Whoa, how does your camera look so good?’ And it’s because of the light. That light is incredible.”
A Manfrotto Nano light stand. “Which weighs almost nothing.”
Along with all of that, there’s also the requisite set of cables and dongles and an extension cord. Ali says the whole thing just manages to get underneath the 50-pound limit for checked luggage. He’s also carrying a 14-inch MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro in a Peak Design Everyday Sling. And in the course of our chat, I convinced him not to throw it all away and buy a giant gaming laptop, which he seems to desperately want to do. I told him to just get a Switch instead.
Screen share
One of my favorite new apps in a while officially launched this week. It’s called Amie, and it’s this delightfully designed, slightly bonkers take on managing your time. And after talking to Dennis Müller, Amie’s founder and CEO, I learned he’s up to some really interesting stuff in the calendar space.
I also learned Dennis has strong feelings about software design and how we ought to interact with all our digital stuff. So I asked him to share his homescreen, guessing it would be carefully curated and nicely designed. Other than one outrageously long folder name that makes me itchy to look at, I was right.
Here’s Dennis’ homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 15 Pro, titanium.
The wallpaper: Apple’s weather one, I LOVE the ambience it provides. I think that design will move a lot more into this direction (and also align with what Brian Chesky said about bringing more depth into design that is unequal to skeuomorphism).
The apps: Photos, Health, Google Maps, Safari, Dennis, Spotify, Chrome, Apple Maps, Amie.
Especially notable is probably my JOY folder. As the name says, they’re there because they create a feeling of joy for me. Often not functionally, but more through their design, interactions, etc. Some of the apps inside are:
Noto is a lovely indie note-taking app built by a Pinterest engineer. Very interesting scroll interactions and overall interesting information hierarchy.
Haptic is a small app designed by my friend Alexey Sekachov. He is one of the best designers I know.
Ice Rage is a random old game I love. Hasn’t been updated for many years and is still GOATed.
Honk and Family. Benji Taylor (and team) are setting the bar on design, especially UI and interaction.
Otherwise:
Dennis, an app I built for myself. I believe modern artists use software, not paint. It’s an app with the simplest interface ever. It uses your camera, and there are no buttons. You can press anywhere on the screen, and that will record a 0.2-second clip. You keep doing that until you have ⇐10s collected. You can export it into a jump-cut video, auto-underlaid with music (so the cuts happen on beat). I want to build two apps as artwork with no other aspiration: one called Dennis, the other will be a game called Müller. I think it’s a bit sad people don’t put their name on their creations anymore. This may have actually lowered the bar for quality.
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Emailinstaller@theverge.comor message +1 203-570-8663 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.
“Loved the first episode of Delicious in Dungeon on Netflix — beautifully drawn, delightfully unhinged, absolutely earnest.” – Jordan
“Something dead simple but so helpful — a shared Reminders Smart List on iOS. My gf and I moved in last fall and wanted an easy way to keep track of groceries as we alternate who goes. Nice use of AI without trying to be more than a shopping list.” – Connor
“I was looking for a new comfort show, so I have started watching Superstore. It’s an incredibly funny and heartwarming show. And it’s very addictive.” – Tirth
“Luck be a Landlord. I’ve been spending too much time playing this silly game. It’s a perfect 10-minute break game.” – Tara
“Started back my (however-many-I-lost-count) rewatch of Psych, with the added benefit of increased playback speed on my iPad.” – Sean
“I’m really enjoying the memoir Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs! Steve Jobs’ daughter shares a personal, more down-to-earth experience with the person the world idolizes. I think it humanizes him, which doesn’t necessarily detract from his impact on the world but makes it more well-rounded. It’s been very compelling!” – Ben
“If your jam is videos of experts showing you their process, I strongly recommend Baumgartner Restoration on YouTube.” – Gaetan
“The iOS game QSWaterMelon : Monkey Land has been taking over my life for the past couple of weeks — it’s very intuitive but has more strategy than first appears and is insanely addictive. My mom, who has never played a video game in her life, is hooked!” – Mohsin
“I am currently reading SuperBetter, which is a book about the power of games and how a gameful approach to life would do us good. Also, I have been watching Citizen Khan, a British comedy show about a British Pakistani named Mr. Khan.” – Clive
“Really been enjoying building and rebuilding my Neo70s, in-stock FRL TKL keyboards.” – Noah
“For anyone else that is dropping Castro in the wake of its recent troubles, I’d like to recommend Airshow. While not a direct replacement for Castro’s Inbox, I’ve been able to approximate that feature with Airshow’s playlists. It took some work, but I’m happy with it!” – Mike
Signing off
This week is the 40th anniversary of the original Macintosh launch, which is a pretty cool milestone for a pretty cool computer. I’ve been watching Mac stuff all week: the launch event itself, the epic 1984 ad, MKBHD’s fun “Retro Tech” episode on the Macintosh, a two-hour retrospective with some of the people who helped build the thing, and more. There is so much tech history inside this one little computer, it’s wild.
Also, everyone’s been sharing stories about their first Macs, so here’s mine. I grew up on Windows, and when I decided I wanted a Mac, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, so I went on Craigslist and bought a Power Mac G4 Cube. I think I paid like $150 for it. This was in 2009, when the Cube was already seven years old. It barely worked, looked so cool, and I loved it to bits. I’ve always had a Mac around ever since — but none are cooler than the Cube.
X plans to create a content moderation ‘headquarters’ in Austin
Image: The Verge
X says it will hire 100 full-time employees for a new trust and safety office in Austin, Texas, according to a Saturday report by Bloomberg. The plan comes, as the article notes, just a few days before CEO Linda Yaccarino’s scheduled January 31st hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding X’s handling of child sexual exploitation moderation.
The team would reportedly focus mainly on CSE and would be the first proper trust and safety team since Elon Musk gutted it shortly after purchasing the platform formerly known as Twitter. X updated a blog post about its CSE moderation approach to mention the new office yesterday, as well, though it doesn’t reveal what the new team will be doing, nor when the office will open.
The company’s business operations head, Joe Benarroch, told Bloomberg that the team will also help with other moderation enforcement, such as those forbidding hate speech. A content moderation job posting for X in Austin says moderators will investigate issues like “spam and fraud” and provide customer support.
Satya Nadella says the explicit Taylor Swift AI fakes are ‘alarming and terrible’
Laura Normand / The Verge
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has responded to a controversy over sexually explicit AI-made fake images of Taylor Swift. In an interview with NBC Nightly News that will air next Tuesday, Nadella calls the proliferation of nonconsensual simulated nudes “alarming and terrible,” telling interviewer Lester Holt that “I think it behooves us to move fast on this.”
In a transcript distributed by NBC ahead of the January 30th show, Holt asks Nadella to react to the internet “exploding with fake, and I emphasize fake, sexually explicit images of Taylor Swift.” Nadella’s response manages to crack open several cans of tech policy worms while saying remarkably little about them — which isn’t surprising when there’s no surefire fix in sight.
I would say two things: One, is again I go back to what I think’s our responsibility, which is all of the guardrails that we need to place around the technology so that there’s more safe content that’s being produced. And there’s a lot to be done and a lot being done there. But it is about global, societal — you know, I’ll say, convergence on certain norms. And we can do — especially when you have law and law enforcement and tech platforms that can come together — I think we can govern a lot more than we think— we give ourselves credit for.
Microsoft might have a connection to the faked Swift pictures. A 404 Media report indicates they came from a Telegram-based nonconsensual porn-making community that recommends using the Microsoft Designer image generator. Designer theoretically refuses to produce images of famous people, but AI generators are easy to bamboozle, and 404 found you could break its rules with small tweaks to prompts. While that doesn’t prove Designer was used for the Swift pictures, it’s the kind of technical shortcoming Microsoft can tackle.
But AI tools have massively simplified the process of creating fake nudes of real people, causing turmoil for women who have far less power and celebrity than Swift. And controlling their production isn’t as simple as making huge companies bolster their guardrails. Even if major “Big Tech” platforms like Microsoft’s are locked down, people can retrain open tools like Stable Diffusion to produce NSFW pictures despite attempts to make that harder. Far fewer users might access these generators, but the Swift incident demonstrates how widely a small community’s work can spread.
There are other stopgap options — like social networks limiting the reach of nonconsensual imagery or, apparently, Swiftie-imposed vigilante justice against people who spread them. (Does that count as “convergence on certain norms”?) For now, though, Nadella’s only clear plan is putting Microsoft’s own AI house in order.
Fossil is quitting smartwatches
The Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Fossil Group has decided to call it quits on smartwatches.
The company announced this afternoon that it would leave the smartwatch business and redirect resources to its less-smart goods instead. The company has been one of the most prolific makers of Wear OS smartwatches over the years, and its absence will leave a large gap in the market.
“As the smartwatch landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years, we have made the strategic decision to exit the smartwatch business,” Fossil spokesperson Amanda Castelli tells The Verge. “Fossil Group is redirecting resources to support our core strength and the core segments of our business that continue to provide strong growth opportunities for us: designing and distributing exciting traditional watches, jewelry, and leather goods under our own as well as licensed brand names.”
This means that the Gen 6, which first launched in 2021, will be the last Fossil smartwatch. Castelli says the company will continue to keep existing Wear OS watches updated “for the next few years.”
This shouldn’t come as a huge shock if you’ve been paying attention to Fossil the past few months. Some Reddit users had been reporting Fossil retail employees as saying Fossil was pulling out of the business, while others on the platform claiming “insider” knowledge said the company was waiting for a new chipset. The company regularly put out smartwatches through Wear OS’s toughest years and was often a permanent fixture at CES. However, the company was notably absent from the show earlier this month. What’s more, Fossil was expected to announce news of a new Gen 7 featuring the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 Plus platform in 2023 — however, it was nothing but crickets the entire year. Well, now we know why.
Fake Explicit Taylor Swift Images Swamp Social Media Fans of the star and lawmakers condemned the images, probably generated by artificial intelligence, after they were shared with millions of social media users.
OpenAI cures GPT-4 ‘laziness’ with new updates
Illustration: The Verge
In a blog post, OpenAI said the updated GPT-4 Turbo “completes tasks like code generation more thoroughly than the previous preview model and is intended to reduce cases of ‘laziness’ where the model doesn’t complete a task.”
The company, however, did not explain what it updated.
Some ChatGPT users recently complained about the chatbot frequently refusing to complete prompted tasks and blamed the lack of updates to GPT-4. However, OpenAI’s update is for GPT-4 Turbo, a version of the more widely available GPT-4 that was trained on information as recent as April 2023 and is only available in a preview. Those using GPT-4, which learned from data available prior to September 2021, may still experience the same laziness issues.
OpenAI said in the post that more than 70 percent of those using GPT-4 via its API have moved to GPT-4 Turbo because of its more updated knowledge base.
The company said more updates to GPT-4 Turbo are coming in the next few months, including the general availability of GPT-4 Turbo with vision. This will allow users to do more multimodal prompts like text-to-image generation.
OpenAI also launched smaller AI models called embeddings. OpenAI defines Embeddings as a “sequence of numbers that represents the concepts within content such as natural language or codes.” This helps applications using retrieval-augmented generation — a type of AI that takes information from a database instead of generating its answer — figure out the relationship of different contents it’s accessing.
These new models, text-embedding-3-small and a more powerful version called text-embedding-3-large, are available now.
Launching improved GPT models in the API, as well better and cheaper embedding models (e.g. one model is 5x cheaper than our previous embedding models with stronger performance): https://t.co/rFlFLFFJ4e
L.A. County to Pay $5 Million to Election Executive Wrongly Charged With Data Breach Eugene Yu, the owner of an election software company, was arrested in 2022 on charges of breaching election data. Those charges were dropped weeks later.
Google’s Pixel 8 phones now come in a new mint color
Google wasn’t exactly subtle with its teases earlier this week, and now the company has confirmed that it’s launching both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro in a new mint green color. The latest color option is a bit muted compared to the “bay” blue 8 Pro. But if you’re a fan of the smaller regular Pixel 8, this is your first chance at a color beyond the very safe black, hazel, and rose gold options that have been available since the phone shipped back in October.
For both phones, mint is only available with the base 128GB of storage. If you need more than that, you’ve gotta stick with the original colors. Google sent a sample of the 8 Pro over to me, and a pamphlet included in the package describes mint as “inspired by the vibrant hue you’d find in nature” and “a luminous color that invites the mind into a state of energizing calmness.” Yes, there’s more. It’s “a color that’s equal parts daring, focused, and optimistic for a fresh new year, and a fresher version of you.” Right. Whatever you say, Google design team.
Seeing it in person, daring isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind. In most indoor light, mint can look almost white. Hit it with some natural light, and the color comes out a bit more. It’s tasteful, but if you were hoping for a saturated seafoam green-type finish, this isn’t that. At the very least, it’s giving buyers more choice, with both Pixel 8 models now available in four different colors. I’d be curious to see whether the glossy glass on the smaller standard 8 makes mint pop a bit more than it does on the matte 8 Pro.
Personally, the blue is still far and away my favorite because it’s the most colorful of the lot — and that’s something sorely lacking from a lot of “pro” smartphones these days. But if you prefer a less in-your-face option, maybe mint’s just the thing. Most phones inevitably find their way into cases, anyway. (Google’s already got mint covered there.)
Google’s porcelain Pixel 8 Pro (left), with the new mint color (right).
The mint Pixel 8 and 8 Pro will be exclusively available from the Google Store — carriers and retailers won’t be getting them — and you can also purchase either phone through Google Fi. US customers will be able to buy the new color starting on January 25th. In addition to releasing the new color, Google is also detailing the latest feature drop for its Pixel devices, which you can read more about here. Meanwhile, the leaks for this year’s Google phones have already begun.
That Spotify Daylist That Really ‘Gets’ You? It Was Written by A.I. The music-streaming platform’s new “daylist” feature serves users three personalized playlists a day, with titles ranging from quirky to bewildering.
Rivian’s R2 vehicle launch date appears to leak in town council minutes
Photo by Daniel Golson for The Verge
City council members in Laguna Beach, California met last night prepared to approve a request (PDF) from Rivian to park six vehicles on the grass in a city park for a March 7th “R2 launch.” The company appears to be planning to officially announce its forthcoming electric SUV, the R2, which is supposed to be smaller and more affordable than its current lineup of EVs.
A local community publication called Stu News Lagunareported yesterday that a small item on the city council’s consent calendar showed that it was planning to approve the event in a single motion along with many other agenda items. The six vehicles Rivian wants to park are “for informational purposes only,” Stu News writes.
Although the filing itself doesn’t mention specifically what the “worldwide launch event” is for, a diagram at the bottom of the planned layout for the cars reads “RIVIAN R2 LAUNCH v11.pln,” which is... pretty straightforward.
Rivian doesn’t seem to have made any official announcement around that date just yet, but the company recently took over a building called South Coast Theater near the spot where the vehicles would be parked. Now named Rivian South Coast Theater, it serves as the company’s “first flagship retail location.” A spokesperson for the company declined to comment.
The company’s R2 platform will undergird its next vehicle, which is expected to go into production as soon as 2026. Rivian has said one of the first vehicles will be a smaller SUV priced between $40,000 and $60,000. The current lineup of R1 vehicles each start at around $80,000.
Rivian has also said it aims to slash the carbon footprint of its next-gen vehicles by increasing the amount of recycled materials and by using more renewable energy in its manufacturing process.
For now, passkeys are only available in the US, and X hasn’t revealed when it’s rolling out the login technology on Android, for desktop operating systems, or in other countries. Also, X’s rollout of passkeys doesn’t seem to be complete yet (some users reported still not having access as of Tuesday night on the East Coast), so don’t fret if the feature hasn’t popped up yet.
Today we’re excited to launch Passkeys as a login option for our US-based users on iOS!
A passkey is a new, easy to use, and secure way to log in to your account - all from your device. Passkeys are more secure than traditional passwords since they’re individually generated by…
Passkeys tie your account’s security to the security of your device by generating two cryptographic keys, with one stored on X and another one locally, like a very secure “remember this device” system. X is the latest major tech company to enable passkey technology, joining the company of Google, PayPal, Microsoft, Nintendo, and others in allowing passwordless logins.
eBay will lay off 1,000 employees — 9 percent of the company
The Verge
eBay is following in the footsteps of Google, Discord, Twitch, Unity, and more — by laying off loads of workers this January instead of right before the holidays. The company writes it’s laying off around 1,000 workers, or 9 percent of the company’s full-time employees, and that’s just the start: eBay will also lay off an unspecified number of contractors “over the coming months.”
Despite reporting profit of $1.3 billion last quarter, which it described as “another quarter of solid results,” eBay today suggests that there is a “Need for Change.” Company president and CEO Jamie Iannone writes that “there is more we can do to ensure our success,” and argues that eBay should be a “more nimble” company that “makes decisions more quickly” to position itself for “long-term, sustainable growth.”
Never mind that last quarter, eBay CFO Steve Priest already said he was “extremely proud of our teams for delivering on their quarterly financial commitments, maintaining prudent cost discipline, and executing key deliverables in support of our strategy.”
eBay also argues that it hired too quickly, an excuse tech companies have been trotting out for over a year: “While we are making progress against our strategy, our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business,” writes Iannone today.
eBay says the memo, which you can read in full below, was also sent to employees internally. It asks that all US employees work from home tomorrow while the company processes this news.
Team,
We are on a path to building a stronger eBay for the future — one that is growing, and resilient in the face of any challenge. Over the past three years, we made fundamental changes in our experiences across categories and accelerated the pace of innovation at eBay. In areas where we’re investing, we are seeing consistent increases in customer satisfaction and a meaningful improvement in our growth relative to the market.
Our strategy is the right one, but there is more we can do to ensure our success. We need to better organize our teams for speed — allowing us to be more nimble, bring like-work together, and help us make decisions more quickly. Today, I am sharing news about changes we are implementing to better position eBay for long-term, sustainable growth.
The most significant and toughest of these decisions is to reduce our current workforce by approximately 1,000 roles or an estimated 9% of full-time employees. Additionally, we plan to scale back the number of contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months. These are not actions we take lightly — and we recognize the impact they will have on all eBayers. We have to say goodbye to people who have made so many important contributions to the eBay community and culture, and this isn’t easy.
The Need for Change
Despite facing external pressures, like the challenging macroeconomic environment, we know we can be better with the factors we control. While we are making progress against our strategy, our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business. To address this, we’re implementing organizational changes that align and consolidate certain teams to improve the end-to-end experience, and better meet the needs of our customers around the world.
Next Steps
Shortly, we will begin notifying those employees whose roles have been eliminated and entering into a consultation process in areas where required. Leaders will communicate the news directly via Zoom, and your VP or eLT member will send an email once the notifications in their group have been completed.
We request that all U.S. employees work from home on January 24th to provide some space and privacy for these conversations. We’re committed to treating everyone with respect and empathy through this transition and providing impacted employees with support and resources.
Looking Ahead
These changes are difficult, but I’m confident that by working together we will become stronger than ever. In the months ahead, you will see a more focused, agile, and responsive eBay — one that is better positioned to advance our purpose of creating economic opportunity for all.
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Screenshot: Luka, Inc.
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Image: Nomad
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