Siri or Skynet? How to separate AI fact from fiction
Determining the way artificial intelligence is used and governed will be one of the century’s key political battlegrounds. Here’s what everyone needs to know
“Google fires engineer who contended its AI technology was sentient.” “Chess robot grabs and breaks finger of seven-year-old opponent.” “DeepMind’s protein-folding AI cracks biology’s biggest problem.” A new discovery (or debacle) is reported practically every week, sometimes exaggerated, sometimes not. Should we be exultant? Terrified? Policymakers struggle to know what to make of AI and it’s hard for the lay reader to sort through all the headlines, much less to know what to be believe. Here are four things every reader should know.
First, AI is real and here to stay. And it matters. If you care about the world we live in, and how that world is likely to change in the coming years and decades, you should care as much about the trajectory of AI as you might about forthcoming elections or the science of climate breakdown. What happens next in AI, over the coming years and decades, will affect us all. Electricity, computers, the internet, smartphones and social networking have all changed our lives, radically, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and AI will, too.
The first Thread motion sensor adds much-needed reliability to the smart home
The new Eve Motion Sensor is speedy and stable as long as you keep Bluetooth at bay
A smart home without sensors and automations is basically a remote-controlled home. Using your voice or an app to turn lights on isn’t much easier (and in some cases is harder) than flicking on a light switch. Smart is when lights just turn on as you walk into a room. But when you walk in and they don’t turn on, that’s worse. This common smart home frustration is something the Eve Motion Sensor ($39.99), with its shiny new Thread protocol on board, promises to fix.
Thread is a mesh networking protocol designed for the smart home. It claims to be faster, more reliable, and more energy-efficient than the current smart home protocols most sensors run on — Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, and Z-Wave. (Don’t buy Wi-Fi motion sensors. They are not good.) While all of these protocols have mesh components, Thread’s selling point is that it doesn’t have a single point of failure in the form of a single hub or bridge devices need to connect to.
I have motion sensors everywhere in my house from a number of manufacturers, all working to turn my lights on and off. I also use one to kickstart my morning routine. A sensor in my bedroom tells my kettle to start boiling, turns on the lights, plays my favorite radio station from a smart speaker, and adjusts the thermostat. All I have to do is get out of bed.
But my biggest complaints are that sometimes these sensors aren’t as fast as flipping a switch, and sometimes they don’t work at all. This is often down to how they communicate. In my two weeks with the Eve Motion, I never had this problem. It worked quickly and responded reliably — as long as it was on my home’s Thread network. When it was forced over to Bluetooth (which is what the previous Eve Motion ran on), it was slower and less reliable.
The Eve Motion Sensor can sit flat on a shelf or be attached to the wall with an included screw.
The new Eve Motion is the second-generation motion sensor from the European smart home company. The biggest changes, beyond the addition of Thread, are size (it’s much smaller), price (it’s a bit cheaper), and a new additional sensor (it can now measure light levels as well). It also uses two AAA batteries instead of two AAs, but battery life is still one year, according to Eve. It keeps the water resistant IPX3 rating of the earlier model, so this is still a good option for use in a bathroom or covered porch.
Currently, Eve’s products only work on Apple’s HomeKit platform, so you need an iPhone or iPad to set this up. You also need an Apple Home hub (such as a HomePod or Apple TV) to create automations and scenes with the Eve Motion. To take advantage of the new Thread protocol, you will need a HomePod Mini or Apple TV 4K (second gen or newer). Without one of those, the sensor will work over Bluetooth LE.
I tested the Eve Motion Sensor in several rooms of my house to turn on smart lights. It performed reliably in all of them as long as it was connected to Thread.
In testing the Eve Motion to trigger lights to turn on and off based on motion and light levels in various rooms of my house — my laundry room, kitchen, dining room, and an upstairs hallway — response time was impressive. It turned them on instantly when I walked in, even in the farthest corners of my house, where Eve’s earlier Bluetooth motion sensor had struggled to keep up.
But while its reactions were excellent, the Eve Motion isn’t noticeably faster than the Hue and Aqara motion sensors I use. The big difference is it always worked. Both of those Zigbee-based sensors require a dedicated hub — that single point of failure I was talking about. The Eve Motion uses Thread, which — in a robust Thread mesh network — means it has backup options.
I tested Thread’s robustness by disabling the Eve smart plug and HomePod Mini that the Eve Motion was relying on and retesting. (I can see the Thread network topology in Eve’s app.) It always continued to work, and while the network did take a few moments to reconfigure when a device went offline, I didn’t have to do any troubleshooting other than waiting a few seconds.
The only time I had any other issues with the Eve Motion was when I disabled all my Thread devices. Then the sensor kicked over to Bluetooth, and the reaction speed dropped dramatically — taking over five seconds in some places to respond to motion.
Eve has said all its Thread devices will support Matter when the smart home standard is released later this year. And when it arrives, there will be many more Thread border routers and devices the Eve Motion can rely on — including smart speakers from Google and Amazon. You’ll also be able to use Eve’s motion sensor and its other Thread products with those smart home platforms when Matter launches. But for now, it’s Apple HomeKit only.
In Apple’s Home app, you can set motion or light level automations. There are options to trigger during specific times of day or only when people are home. The lights can also turn off after a set time (up to four hours).
Setting up the Eve Motion was simple, open the Apple Home app or Eve app and scan the HomeKit code. You can then set up automations using the sensor. The Home app will suggest some for you based on which room you’ve placed it in. You can also create your own using “motion detected” or “no motion detected” as triggers.
The new LUX sensor in the Eve Motion also lets you create automations based on how bright it is in a room. For example, you can set it not to trigger lights on motion if the room is bright enough already. It can also pair with smart shades, such as Eve’s MotionBlinds, to adjust the shades based on the light level in the room.
From left: the original Eve motion sensor; the second-gen Eve; and the similar-looking Philips Hue Motion Sensor.
Here is where I would have liked to see a temperature sensor included — which is in the Philips Hue sensor, this model’s closest competition. I live in the South, where it gets very hot, and I like to create automations that close the shades in a room if both the light level is high and the temperature rises above 78 degrees Fahrenheit. You could do this with Eve by adding an Eve Room or Eve Weather sensor, both of which detect temperature, but those cost $99 and $80, respectively, whereas the Hue Motion Sensor is $45.
Bear in mind that the more advanced automations work best when set up in the Eve app, as the Home app is limited when it comes to setting multiple conditions (unless you use the complicated Shortcuts workaround). The Eve app adds more options, such as only triggering motion in darkness, adjusting the motion sensitivity (low / medium / high), and changing the motion re-trigger time. This last one is helpful to tweak if you find your lighting automations keep turning off sooner than you want.
Eve’s app offers more advanced automations, data insight, and an overview of your Thread network. It shows all HomeKit devices — not just Eve products.
Overall, I was impressed with the Eve Motion and can see how this type of reliability and speed can make the smart home a better experience. But while there are more Thread border routers and compatible devices today than there were just a year ago, there still aren’t enough to make this an unequivocal recommendation. And Thread border routers from different manufacturers still can’t talk to each other (although a fix is coming).
If you don’t have any type of Thread network set up in your home, don’t buy this. Without Thread, the Eve Motion reverts to Bluetooth LE, which is nowhere near as fast or reliable as Zigbee or Thread. If all you want is to turn lights on and off, you’ll be better off with the excellent Philips Hue Motion Sensor ($45 plus a Hue bridge). The Hue app has much simpler automation options for lighting control, and it works with Apple’s HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings.
However, if you are like me and are gearing your smart home up to work with Matter when the standard arrives later this year, this little gadget will be an excellent block on which to build a truly smart home.
‘Risks posed by AI are real’: EU moves to beat the algorithms that ruin lives
‘Black-box’ AI-based discrimination seems to be beyond the control of organisations that use it
It started with a single tweet in November 2019. David Heinemeier Hansson, a high-profile tech entrepreneur, lashed out at Apple’s newly launched credit card, calling it “sexist” for offering his wife a credit limit 20 times lower than his own.
The allegations spread like wildfire, with Hansson stressing that artificial intelligence – now widely used to make lending decisions – was to blame. “It does not matter what the intent of individual Apple reps are, it matters what THE ALGORITHM they’ve placed their complete faith in does. And what it does is discriminate. This is fucked up.”
Why Don’t Expect Alex Jones’s Comeuppance to Stop Lies His success has inspired a new generation of conspiracy theorists, who have learned how to stay away from legal trouble.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 review: a little laptop for light work
The Go 2 is the rare, premium sub-compact laptop left
Small, premium laptops — truly small ones — have fallen out of fashion in recent years. The smallest computer Apple sells has a 13.3-inch screen. Dell’s tiniest XPS comes with a 13.4-inch panel. HP’s Spectre X360 line scales down to 13.5-inch screens, which the company lists as a 14-inch class. The 11- or 12-inch laptops you can buy (the ones that aren’t tablets trying to masquerade as something else) are typically cheap and slow. Modern laptops have trimmed weights and bezels and frames considerably, making it easier to tote around those 13-inch or larger screens, finding a premium, consumer laptop with 12-inch or smaller screen for the ultimate in portability is a challenge.
That’s where Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 2 comes in. The least expensive laptop Microsoft sells (not counting the education-only Laptop SE), the $599-and-up Laptop Go 2, is also the smallest and lightest, with a 12.4-inch screen and weight of just under two and a half pounds. But it maintains the Surface design aesthetic and features, including a comfortable keyboard, clear speakers and microphones, a smooth trackpad, and 3:2 aspect ratio.
Of course, that portability doesn’t come without compromise. The Go 2 doesn’t have the range of processor, RAM, and storage options of larger laptops, sticking with an 11th Gen Core i5 processor and maxing out at 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Battery life doesn’t even reach half a day of work for me. This isn’t a computer for heavy, demanding workloads (and certainly not gamers or those doing creative visual work). It’s meant for someone who just needs to stay on top of email, compose some documents, and browse the web and wants a small, light on-the-go machine. After all, it’s right in the name.
The Surface Laptop Go 2 maintains Microsoft’s minimalist Surface aesthetic: its squared-off wedge shape is identical to the first-generation Go, from 2020, or a slightly shrunken-down Surface Laptop 4. This time around, you can get it in a sage green in addition to the light blue, gold, or silver options. My review unit has this green color, and it’s quite nice. I’m not mad that this year’s green phone trend is bleeding over to laptops now.
Though this is Microsoft’s least expensive laptop, it doesn’t look or feel like a cheap computer, with tight tolerances, lack of chassis flex, and a stiff hinge with perfect one-finger opening. (The lack of tacky stickers on the deck is also rare in this price range.) Like the larger Surface computers, the Go 2 has an aluminum lid and deck — though Microsoft does use a plastic panel on the bottom, instead of aluminum like the Surface Laptop 4, it never once had a negative impact on my experience. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a nicer-feeling computer in this price range.
The Laptop Go 2 has the same port selection as its predecessor, which is to say, it’s kinda lousy. There’s a single USB-A port, a single USB-C port (not Thunderbolt, sadly), a 3.5mm headphone jack, and Microsoft’s magnetic Surface Connect port for charging and docking. You can use that USB-C to connect to external displays or charge the device, but you won’t get the benefits of superfast data transfer that Thunderbolt brings. Microsoft’s larger Surface Laptops are similarly port-limited, so this isn’t a surprise, but another couple USB ports here would really let you leave the dongle life behind.
Ports are limited to use one USB-C, one USB-A, and one 3.5mm headphone jack. The right side of the computer has Microsoft’s proprietary Surface Connect port.
The screen on the Laptop Go 2 is also unchanged from its predecessor — a 12.5-inch, 3:2, 1536 x 1024 touch panel. It’s not the brightest or most pixel-dense screen you can get, but in my testing, peak brightness hit a respectable 360 nits, which is enough to let me use the laptop outdoors under an umbrella without much issue. In normal indoor situations, comfortable brightness (about 200 nits) was around 70 percent on the slider. (One aside: if you do plan to use the Go 2 outdoors, you might want to leave the polarized sunglasses at home. The polarization on the screen means the display was black when I wore my sunglasses, unless I rotated the computer 90 degrees. I do not have this issue with MacBooks and the same sunglasses, so it’s possibly something Microsoft could fix for next time.) Touch response on the screen is right in line with expectations, though it is not compatible with Microsoft’s Surface Pens for stylus input.
Like other Surface computers, the Go 2’s screen is well-calibrated and color-accurate out of the box. It covers 99 percent of the sRGB spectrum, 74 percent of AdobeRGB, and 76 percent of P3, according to my colorimeter, which means it could be used for photo editing work without much issue. But most people buying this computer will just appreciate the screen’s pleasing colors and contrast and lack of color shifting or ghosting. They will also appreciate the 3:2 aspect ratio, which provides more vertical real estate than the typical 16:9 screens you get in this price range, ideal for web browsing and document work.
The Laptop Go 2 has an excellent keyboard, despite the laptop’s smaller dimensions, with well-spaced keys, comfortable travel, and quiet feedback. My only real complaint is the lack of keyboard backlight, which should be non-negotiable at this price and is found on many other popular laptops in this price range. The trackpad is smaller than you’ll find on a modern MacBook or XPS laptop, but it works perfectly fine for tracking, scrolling, and other multifinger gestures, and I had no issues with palm rejection.
The Laptop Go 2’s keyboard and trackpad are excellent. But bafflingly, it lacks any keyboard backlighting.
There’s a fingerprint scanner on certain configurations that makes logging in to Windows a breeze.
The power button, in the upper-right-hand corner of the keyboard, has an integrated fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello authentication (on upgraded tiers, not the base model). More expensive Surface computers use facial recognition cameras, but the fingerprint sensor is quick and easy to use; I didn’t miss facial recognition at all. There’s even a little light around the scanner to help you find it easily when you open the lid.
The camera uses a 720p sensor instead of the 1080p one found in other Surface computers. It’s not stunning by any means, but it isn’t the worst either, with sharper images and more detail than Dell’s XPS cameras or the 720p camera on Apple’s latest 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro. It’s flanked by two microphones that, along with the Laptop Go 2’s speakers under the keyboard deck, provide clear video call audio.
All Surface Laptop Go 2 models have the same Core i5-1135G7 quad-core processor inside. It’s a capable chip and had no issues handling my typical workload of dozens of browser tabs, Slack, Twitter, email, Zoom, and other work apps spread across multiple virtual desktops. It is not, however, useful for AAA gaming or creative work. For fun, I ran the PugetBench benchmark for Adobe Premiere Pro that we use to evaluate more powerful laptops, and it scored a 155. We typically see scores in the 700 and up range in laptops that have discrete graphics cards and more powerful processors. Don’t buy this if you plan on editing 4K video; this isn’t the laptop for you.
The $599 base configuration comes with just 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which isn’t enough. My $799 review unit has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage; that’s the only model I recommend buying. Any less RAM or storage and you’ll run into performance issues or storage problems relatively soon. That price is $100 less than a similarly equipped first-gen Surface Laptop Go, but it’s still far from cheap. (As of this writing, both Microsoft and Best Buy have discounted the range from $40 to $100, which means you can get a top spec one for about $700. That’s not a bad deal.)
Despite its small size and weight, the Laptop Go 2 is not a fanless computer, and its small fan is audible and often annoying. My first review sample had a clicking sound when the fan was at a low speed (which it frequently spins at) that was quite irritating while in a quiet room. A replacement didn’t have that problem, so it’s possible it’s limited to that specific unit. Higher fan speeds present a more common whooshing sound, but I typically only heard those when in Zoom calls or running benchmark tests. The bottom of the laptop also gets warm, but the deck and palm rests remain comfortably cool.
Battery life is perhaps the biggest problem I have with the Surface Laptop Go 2, however. With my standard workload and the screen set to about 200 nits, I averaged less than five hours of use between charges. Many days I had to plug in before noon to ensure it didn’t die in the middle of a meeting or working on a document. I have the uncanny ability to kill laptop batteries faster than a lot of my colleagues, but many 13-inch laptops can easily last twice as long with my workload, so you really have to value the slightly smaller size and lighter weight to accept this kind of battery performance.
Between the fan noise, noticeable heat, and lousy battery life, I wish Microsoft had just used an Arm-based processor in this computer. Plenty of Arm chips, like what’s in the Surface Pro X, Apple’s latest computers, and a few Chromebooks, have enough power to match the usage profile of a computer like this, plus run cooler, don’t need fans, and have much better battery life. Windows 11 continues to get better with Arm too, and this feels like the right kind of computer to leverage that.
The Laptop Go 2 has the same design aesthetics as Microsoft’s larger and more expensive laptops.
During my entire time using the Surface Laptop Go 2, I was reminded of Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air and 12-inch MacBook from 2015. Both of those were high-end, small computers that were designed to be as light and portable as possible, while still providing excellent keyboards, trackpads, and capabilities. They also had compromises when it came to battery life and power (and ports).
The Surface Laptop Go 2 feels like a modern version of those compact laptops, complete with many of the same limitations. It’s too expensive to be a real budget option, not powerful enough to be for demanding users, and doesn’t have the battery life to last all day away from an outlet. You can pay less money and get more performance, battery life, and computer from a Chromebook or even another Windows laptop.
What the Laptop Go 2 is, though, is a small, lightweight computer with a comfortable keyboard, trackpad, and screen, wrapped in a nice-looking and -feeling package. It also comes with a real processor and enough RAM and storage to do real work, unlike other subcompact computers. If those are the specific things you value and are looking for in a laptop, well… the Surface Laptop Go 2 is basically your only option right now.
MSI GS77 Stealth review: don’t let the name fool you
The Stealth line has outgrown its name
Don’t let the name fool you — there is nothing stealthy about this device.
The MSI GS77 Stealth has long been the portable option among MSI’s gaming elite, and while that fact remained dubiously true with last year’s 5.4-pound GS76 Stealth, this year’s 0.79-inch-thick, 6.17-pound GS77 has effectively launched that idea into the sun. This laptop is big, thick, and bulky, and while it lacks the light strips and LED grids that other showy gaming laptops boast, its RGB keyboard still makes very clear that it’s for gaming above all else.
This isn’t necessarily a huge knock against the device — the GS76 was quite light for what it was, and the GS77 has brought the Stealth series back in line with the rest of the 17-inch market. It now weighs a bit more than Razer’s Blade 17 and Asus’ Zephyrus S17. And it’s almost the same weight as MSI’s more powerful GE76 Raider.
One can see why MSI may have wanted to go bigger because the chips inside have been frying just about every chassis they touch this year. The model we were sent includes a 12th Gen Core i7-12900H — one of the most powerful mobile chips in Intel’s history — paired with Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage, all powering a 240Hz QHD screen.
But the new girth takes away a major advantage that the GS77 used to have over these models: the GS77 Stealth appears to have lost some of what made it desirable as a “portable” buy. The keyboard is on the flat side, the touchpad is uncomfortably stiff, the battery life isn’t good, and the device is too big and too heavy to reliably bring anywhere. What we’re left with is a computer that asks many of the same compromises as the most powerful gaming laptops on the market without bringing the same exceptional frame rates.
For more information on our scoring, seehow we rate.
The primary advantage the Stealth has now is its price. My test unit is currently listed for $2,899. To get this GPU in the GE76 Raider (which has an even beefier Core i9 as well as a fancier design) would be $100 more, while a QHD Razer Blade 17 with the 3070 Ti would be a whole $3,399.99. I’ve also been able to find GS77 models for as low as $1,799 (for a 144Hz 1080p screen, an RTX 3060, and 16GB of RAM), while the cheapest Blade on Razer’s site is $2,799 and the 12th Gen Raider starts at $2,299. Still, $2,899 is hardly a budget price, and it’s worth knowing what compromises you’re making for that lower cost.
The lid is fairly fingerprint-free.
So is much of the keyboard deck.
First, the aspect of the GS77 that’s an unquestionable improvement over last year: build quality. I’ve had gripes about MSI’s chassis in the past, but the GS77’s base and lid are both sturdy and unyielding. The trackpad collected some fingerprints fairly easily, but the rest of the chassis wasn’t too much of a magnet for them. It’s a nice-looking computer, and it didn’t pick up any scratches or dents after being battered around in a suitcase for a few days.
Other perks of previous models remain. There’s a good range of ports including two USB-C, two USB-A, a headphone jack, HDMI, ethernet, and an SD card reader. (The SD reader is weirdly slower than it was last year, however, as other reviewers have noted.) The QHD display does make games look great. There are a whopping six speakers inside, and while they don’t deliver the best audio on the 17-inch market, my games still sounded pretty good. I had no trouble with the microphones, which support AI noise cancellation, and the webcam has a physical shutter switch on the side for some peace of mind.
But the touchpad’s another story.
That said, I really can’t see myself using this device as a daily driver for two important reasons: the keyboard and touchpad. The keyboard has pretty lighting, but it is quite thin to type on, with more of a spongy than a clicky feel. And while there is a number pad, the keys are all a bit cramped as a result. The arrow keys, in particular, feel small.
And the touchpad is where I really had trouble. It’s large but was as difficult of a click as I’ve ever experienced on a touchpad. (And it’s quite loud as well.) I felt like I really had to thunk my finger down to get a click registered. I was close to plugging in a mouse (something I don’t do when I’m testing for productivity use cases, as a general policy) because of how much I hated navigating with it. These aren’t unheard-of compromises when it comes to 17-inch gaming laptops, but they do underscore how little I’d recommend this to double as a daily driver.
The dragon’s still there, but it’s subdued.
When it comes to frame rates, how do these specs stack up? With all sliders maxed out, Red Dead Redemption 2 ran at an average of 60 frames per second at native resolution (technically 59.3, but we can call it 60). That jumped up to 65 at 1080p. On Shadow of the Tomb Raider in 1080p, we saw an average of 83 frames per second with ray tracing on Ultra (its maximum setting) and 121 with the feature off. At native resolution, these translated to 58 frames per second (another number we can loosely call 60) and 86, respectively. All in all, more than playable.
The GS77 put up an absurd 400 frames per second on the CPU-heavy CS:GO in 1080p and a still quite high 286 at native 1440p. The only title that gave the game any trouble was Cyberpunk 2077, which — at native resolution, at maximum settings, with ray tracing cranked up to “Psycho” — ran at 19 frames per second (but achieved 33 at those settings in 1080p).
All in all, these are certainly an improvement over the results from last year’s model, and they show that you shouldn’t have trouble running most modern games at QHD resolution, though they’re below what you can get out of pricier Core i9 and RTX 3080 machines. There’s a disappointing omission, though: the GS77 doesn’t support MUX. This component (which both the Raider and the Blade do have) allows laptops to support adaptive features like G-Sync and can also lead to a substantial performance difference. It’s an odd thing to exclude at this price point and something I’d imagine many folks who are willing to pay $2,900 won’t be keen to compromise on.
See that little switch? That’s for the webcam.
When it comes to other workloads, the Stealth was more competitive. It completed our five-minute, 33-second 4K Adobe Premiere Pro video export test in two minutes and 15 seconds. The Raider beat this time, clocking in at one minute and 56 seconds, but it’s one of very few laptops that has ever done so. Last year’s 3070 GS76 was 12 seconds slower. (These aren’t meant to be apples-to-apples comparisons, as different versions of Premiere can change over time; they’re more meant to give you an idea of how long an export might take.)
The GS77 also beat the GS76, as well as the Blade and other creative workstations like the Gigabyte Aero 16, on the Puget Systems benchmark for Premiere Pro, which tests live playback and export performance at 4K and 8K. (It did lose to the Raider by a lot). This isn’t a laptop I’d recommend people use for office workloads, so the GS77’s good performance here isn’t the biggest point in its favor.
Two USB-C and an SD on the right.
The charging port, HDMI, and ethernet are in the back.
MSI’s software is definitely not as glitchy as it has been in the past few years, which is an encouraging sign. I had no problem adjusting fan profiles and such with the preinstalled programs. I did run into one glitch where the screen started turning off when I tried to run games (a problem on a gaming laptop). MSI sent me a replacement unit, which didn’t exhibit that problem. Still, it’s not the sort of thing we love to see on $2,900 products.
And then we get to what I see as the biggest compromise here: the battery life. I was only averaging about two hours and 16 minutes of continuous use on this thing, with some trials even lasting under two hours. That’s got to be close to the worst battery run I’ve ever gotten out of a gaming laptop. While it’s generally understood that cheaper laptops will have less powerful chips in them, having to give up battery life in addition to that power (the Raider lasted me about two hours longer with the same workload) is a tough pill to swallow.
If you’re looking purely at frame rates on paper, this laptop is a fine buy. It can run all kinds of games at QHD resolution without burning your basement down.
But the Stealth moniker, and the way the line has historically been positioned, might imply to some people that this device is a good pick for more than just gaming. It’s not; MSI’s changes to the Stealth line have made it more powerful at the expense of other features that made it, well Stealthy. It’s too big and heavy to be consistently carrying around in a briefcase or backpack, the battery life isn’t usable for daily work away from an outlet, and the keyboard and touchpad just wouldn’t be my choice to use every day. This is no longer really a portable alternative to the Raider. It’s just a more affordable version of the Raider.
Which is fine, if that’s what you’re after. But with the Raider delivering more powerful specs, better battery life, more RGB, and an MUX switch for a couple hundred dollars more, I think it delivers an all-around better experience that will be worth the money for people shopping in this range.
Can artificial intelligence really help us talk to the animals?
A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubters
A dolphin handler makes the signal for “together” with her hands, followed by “create”. The two trained dolphins disappear underwater, exchange sounds and then emerge, flip on to their backs and lift their tails. They have devised a new trick of their own and performed it in tandem, just as requested. “It doesn’t prove that there’s language,” says Aza Raskin. “But it certainly makes a lot of sense that, if they had access to a rich, symbolic way of communicating, that would make this task much easier.”
Raskin is the co-founder and president of Earth Species Project (ESP), a California non-profit group with a bold ambition: to decode non-human communication using a form of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning, and make all the knowhow publicly available, thereby deepening our connection with other living species and helping to protect them. A 1970 album of whale song galvanised the movement that led to commercial whaling being banned. What could a Google Translate for the animal kingdom spawn?
Don’t Expect Alex Jones’s Comeuppance to Stop Lies His success has inspired a new generation of conspiracy theorists, who have learned how to stay away from legal trouble.
Alex Jones hit with $45.2 million defamation verdict — but could pay much less
Alex Jones speaks to supporters of President Donald Trump during a protest on December 12th, 2020 | Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
A Texas jury has ordered Alex Jones to pay around $45.2 million for spreading a false conspiracy theory about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The punitive damages come on top of a $4.1 million verdict from yesterday, potentially marking a major blow to Jones’s Infowars media empire. But the number could be vastly reduced by limits built into the Texas legal code, which caps damages on defamation punishments.
The jury handed back its verdict on Friday after hearing testimony about Jones’s finances — something he’s allegedly taken significant steps to obscure. It included an assessment that Jones’ company Free Speech Systems was worth at least $130 million; previous testimony indicated its annual revenue in recent years has been $50 million or above. Jones claimed in court that a fine of $2 million or more could “sink” Infowars.
As Bloomberg explains, Texas law caps punitive damages at twice the level of compensatory economic damages per defendant plus a maximum of $750,000 for non-economic damages. Jones’ attorneys plan to file for a reduction of the fine based on that rule, something the plaintiffs’ attorneys told Bloomberg they will “certainly litigate” if necessary.
This concludes one of three trials involving the parents of children who were killed at Sandy Hook in 2012, an event Jones and other Infowars employees claimed had been staged. The plaintiffs — Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin — had asked for $150 million.
TikTok moderators say they were shown child sexual abuse videos during training
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A Forbes report raises questions about how TikTok’s moderation team handles child sexual abuse material — alleging it granted broad, insecure access to illegal photos and videos.
Employees of a third-party moderation outfit called Teleperformance, which works with TikTok among other companies, claim it asked them to review a disturbing spreadsheet dubbed DRR or Daily Required Reading on TikTok moderation standards. The spreadsheet allegedly contained content that violated TikTok’s guidelines, including “hundreds of images” of children who were nude or being abused. The employees say hundreds of people at TikTok and Teleperformance could access the content from both inside and outside the office — opening the door to a broader leak.
Teleperformance denied to Forbes that it showed employees sexually exploitative content, and TikTok said its training materials have “strict access controls and do not include visual examples of CSAM,” although it didn’t confirm that all third-party vendors met that standard.
The employees tell a different story, and as Forbes lays out, it’s a legally dicey one. Content moderators are routinelyforced to deal with CSAM that’s posted on many social media platforms. But child abuse imagery is unlawful in the US and must be handled carefully. Companies are supposed to report the content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), then preserve it for 90 days but minimize the number of people who see it.
The allegations here go far beyond that limit. They indicate that Teleperformance showed employees graphic photos and videos as examples of what to tag on TikTok, while playing fast and loose with access to that content. One employee says she contacted the FBI to ask whether the practice constituted criminally spreading CSAM, although it’s not clear if one was opened.
The full Forbes report is well worth a read, outlining a situation where moderators were unable to keep up with TikTok’s explosive growth and told to watch crimes against children for reasons they felt didn’t add up. Even by the complicated standards of debates about child safety online, it’s a strange — and if accurate, horrifying — situation.
Can artificial intelligence really help us talk to the animals?
A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubters
A dolphin handler makes the signal for “together” with her hands, followed by “create”. The two trained dolphins disappear underwater, exchange sounds and then emerge, flip on to their backs and lift their tails. They have devised a new trick of their own and performed it in tandem, just as requested. “It doesn’t prove that there’s language,” says Aza Raskin. “But it certainly makes a lot of sense that, if they had access to a rich, symbolic way of communicating, that would make this task much easier.”
Raskin is the co-founder and president of Earth Species Project (ESP), a California non-profit group with a bold ambition: to decode non-human communication using a form of artificial intelligence (AI) called machine learning, and make all the knowhow publicly available, thereby deepening our connection with other living species and helping to protect them. A 1970 album of whale song galvanised the movement that led to commercial whaling being banned. What could a Google Translate for the animal kingdom spawn?
The best noise-canceling headphone deals
You can currently buy the AirPods Max for around $449 instead of $549. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions.
That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a buying decision, we’ve put together a guide to the best noise-canceling headphones, which can help you determine which is right for you.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Bose QuietComfort 45s are our pick for the most comfortable noise-canceling headphones.
Bose QuietComfort 45 deals
Bose QuietComfort 45s, our pick for the most comfortable noise-canceling headphones, are a pair frequent travelers will surely appreciate. They’re lightweight and foldable, so you can easily carry them around with you, and ear fatigue is unlikely, thanks to their oval ear cups. Battery life now sits at 24 hours as well, meaning you needn’t worry about constantly having to charge them. The new transparency mode, meanwhile, comes in handy when you need to be more aware of your surroundings, like when you’re about to cross the street, while a firmware update introduced earlier this year allows you to customize the bass, mid-range, and other aspects of the EQ. The USB-C-equipped headphones don’t offer the same bassy response as Sony’s 1000XM4s, but if comfort is what you’re after, the QC45 offer it in spades.
The Bose QuietComfort 45s retail for $329, but right now you can buy them for $279, an all-time low, from Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose. Bose will also take 15 percent off when you buy two QC45s, two Sport Earbuds, or one pair of QC45 and one pair of Sport Earbuds, applying the discount to the item of equal or lesser value. Just note you must buy the two devices within the same order. Read our review.
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
The AirPods Max is a good pick for those deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem.
Apple’s AirPods Max deals
If you’re looking for the best sound quality you can get in a pair of noise-canceling headphones, we recommend the AirPods Max. The headphones pair seamlessly with other Apple devices and they sound superb, especially combined with Apple’s spatial audio feature, which allows for a more immersive experience when listening to or watching compatible content. They also tout the best transparency mode of all the headphones on our list, and they boast incredible build quality thanks to a luxe design that opts for aluminum, steel, and fabric over plastic.
With an MSRP of $549, the AirPods Max can be pretty expensive, but many retailers have been discounting them as of late. Right now, for instance, the headphones are currently on sale at Amazon in black, silver, and blue for $449.99 (discount applies at checkout). If you live close to a Micro Center, you can also pick them up in all colorways for $474.99. Read our review.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Bose’s Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are great for voice calls.
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 deals
If you plan to frequently use your headphones for voice calls, Bose’s Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are the best option on this list for doing so. They boast excellent voice call quality, meaning everybody on your Zoom call will be able to hear you loud and clearly, and they offer great noise cancellation with satisfactory sound. Like the QC45, the over-ears can also connect to two devices simultaneously, but they can’t be folded and only offer 20 hours of battery life, which is also less than other headphones on this list provide.
We’ve seen several discounts on the 700s over the past year or so, and right now Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and Target are all currently selling them for $299 instead of $379 – an all-time low. Read our review.
Sennheiser’s Momentum Wireless 3 headphones offer a retro-inspired design and terrific sound.
Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 3 deals
If you’re a non-Apple user looking for a pair of noise-canceling headphones that sound fantastic, Sennheiser’s Momentum Wireless 3 is your best option. We found that they boast detailed, bass-rich sound, a stylish, retro-inspired design, and are extremely comfortable to wear — even when you’re donning glasses. Although their noise cancellation might not rival other models on our list, they make up for it with convenient software features like ambient passthrough and a customizable EQ. Plus, unlike many other headphones, they integrate with the location tracking device, Tile.
The Momentum Wireless 3 typically retail for $399.99, but we’ve seen them drop to as low as $241 in select instances. Right now, you can buy them at Best Buy for around $250, which is just $9 shy of their best price to date. Read our review.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Shure’s Aonic 50 boast bass-rich, vibrant sound.
Shure Aonic 50 deals
Shure’s Aonic 50 are some of the best noise-canceling headphones available at a lower price point, offering first-class sound quality, adequate noise cancellation, and support for advanced Bluetooth codecs like apt-X HD and LDAC. They’re also comfortable to wear, boast detailed, bass-rich sound, and offer features like ambient passthrough and a customizable EQ. Normally $299.99, the Aonic 50 are on sale right now for around $249 at Amazon, GameStop, and B&H Photo, which is just $10 more than their best-ever price.
The Verge
Microsoft’s Surface Headphones 2 are great for multitasking.
Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 deals
Multitaskers will appreciate Microsoft’s Surface Headphones 2 given they offer terrific multipoint Bluetooth support, which allows you to pair them with multiple devices and switch back and forth between them with ease. The headphones also offer intuitive dial controls for both volume and noise cancellation, as well as improved sound quality and battery life over their predecessor. While Microsoft’s noise-canceling tech isn’t quite as effective as Bose’s and Sony’s, the Surface Headphones 2 still adequately silence outside noises so you can focus.
During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Microsoft’s Surface Headphones 2 dropped to around $162, which is almost half their typical asking price of $249.99. We’re not currently seeing any deals that steep right now, however, you can buy them in black on Amazon for $189.99 and from Microsoft for just $199.99. Read our review.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Beats Studio 3 are nearly half off and thus a good alternative if you’re looking for a more budget-friendly pair of headphones.
Beats Studio 3 Wireless deals
While we couldn’t recommend these to anybody outside of the Apple ecosystem, the Beats Studio 3 Wireless could be a decent alternative if you want a pair of over-ear headphones from Apple but find the AirPods Max to be too expensive. The Beats Studio 3 are comfortable to wear, fold inward for easy stowing, and feature Apple’s last-gen W1 wireless chip, which still allows you to quickly connect and switch between Apple devices. Note, however, that unlike those built with Apple’s newer H1 chip, the headphones lack hands-free Siri support. They also charge via a Micro USB port instead of a Lightning port or USB-C.
HBO Max will be replaced next year by a new service combined with Discovery Plus
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
HBO Max isn’t dead...yet. But come the summer of 2023 it will be, and there will be a new service replacing both HBO Max and Discovery Plus, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav said on an earnings call today.
“HBO Max has a competitive feature set, but it has had performance and customer issues,” Zaslav said, being much more polite than I would be about the app, which regularly struggles to stream when people tune in for big appointment shows like Euphoria and Succession. He went on to claim Discovery Plus has a better tech stack and would become the core of the new service which will combine the content of HBO Max with the content and tech of Discovery Plus.
“We think that product is going to be superb,” Zaslav said later in the call, after assuring listeners that the company would not be going on an HBO Max-focused cancellation spree. This news comes after a week of anxiety for users. Early in the week, the company made the decision to remove the nearly complete Batgirl from the release calendar and shuttle it off to the vault. Additional films exclusive to HBO Max disappeared from the service—but are still available to buy or rent. The Wrap then reported that things were looking dire for HBO Max and the creative development teams working there.
Zaslav made efforts to calm those fears during the call and insisted the HBO Max programming overall was good and supported by the company at large. During the question and answer segment of the call Zaslav said HBO Max has started to become a brand in and of itself—and one specifically associated with quality. It’s not clear what Warner Brothers Discovery will call the new combined service, but it’s certain we will be hearing more as Zaslav shuffles his new company even more in the year to come.
Musk Says Twitter Committed Fraud in Dispute Over Fake Accounts The billionaire, in a high-profile legal fight, was sued by the company after he said he wanted to back out of a $44 billion deal to acquire it.
How to minimize distractions when you work from home
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge | Photography by Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images
I’ve been working from home for close to 15 years. I also have ADHD. And a lot of streaming subscriptions. And a PlayStation. And hundreds of books. And a partner who also sometimes works from home and is equally aware of the presence of said streaming subscriptions, PlayStation, and books.
The point is that my home is full of distractions. Yours probably is, too. Maybe different distractions from mine, but distractions nonetheless. And, like many workers, it may have taken you a pandemic to discover that it can be hard to avoid these distractions when working from home. (Work itself provides plenty of distractions already, if you’re not careful— the continuous pings of emails and Slacks can make you feel like you’re working all the time but never actually getting anything done.)
Sure, there are productivity and project management apps. But Todoist isn’t going to help you resist the siren call of TikTok, and Trello isn’t going to play catch with the dog. At a certain point, you can only manage your distractions by managing yourself.
Accept your distractibility
The first step to mitigating distractions when working from home is to accept that you become distracted because humans are distractible. It is part of your nature. And that’s okay.
Take, for instance, someone who keeps oversleeping because they hit the snooze button on their alarm nine times before finally getting up. Seasoned oversleepers know that one way to overcome this is to keep the alarm clock several feet from the bed — requiring the would-be oversleeper to get out of bed and walk across the room to hit the snooze button each time the alarm goes off. At a certain point, it becomes more restful to just stay awake.
You can do the same thing with distractions — by setting yourself up to be distracted from your distractions when you inevitably succumb to them (if not beforehand).
Let’s say that your weakness is television, and you know if you decide to “take a quick break” in front of the TV, it’s an even-money shot that you’ll still be on the couch three hours later.
If you can’t resist the siren call of your Vizio, then set yourself up for, if not success, minimal failure. Don’t risk getting sucked into a binge-worthy hour-long drama with eight episodes to go — and if you do, don’t wait to pull out until the end of an episode, when you’ll probably be at your most desperate to see what happens next. Instead, put on something simple that gets in and out of a story fast. A kids’ cartoon that’s separated into six-minute installments. A documentary series that takes only five minutes to explain how baseball gloves are made before moving on to medical electrodes. A daytime talk show that settles questions of a child’s paternity or a lover’s fidelity between commercials for mesothelioma lawyers. Something that will quickly leave you ready to move on to something new.
Or let’s say your weakness is a particular phone app. You might benefit from some kind of barrier to getting sucked into it. My editor Nathan tells me that he’s had success logging out of, or outright deleting, addictive apps if he’s on deadline. Personally, I like to leave my phone in the next room sometimes. (After all, the phone is there for my convenience, not other people’s.
Set daily limits
But let’s say you don’t want to go quite that far, either because you have the kind of job that requires you to frequently have or be using your phone or because you’ve got a bad case of nomophobia. You can set daily time limits for individual apps in Android and iOS.
In Android
Tap the chart to set your timers
Choose your app and set your timer.
Go to Settings > Digital Wellbeing & parental controls
Tap the chart
Tap Set timer next to the app you want to limit
Select the time limit you want to set, then tap Set
In iOS
Screen Time lets you set limits.
Choose which apps you want to limit.
Go to Settings > Screen Time
Make sure Screen Time is turned on
Go to App Limits
Tap Add Limit
Select app categories or individual apps that you want to limit
Tap Next
Select the time limit you want to set (Optional: You can tap Customize Days to set time limits for specific days)
If you live with someone sufficiently kind and understanding (and especially if they work from home, too), try the buddy system. Know each other’s bad habits. Then, if one of you catches the other “stuck” in some distraction, gently call it to the other’s attention in a bid to snap them out of it. A simple “Hey. You’re stuck. Get unstuck” can work wonders if you’re both committed to doing better.
To be clear, the goal isn’t to avoid non-work at all costs. The goal is to manage distractions. Sometimes, that means leaning in.
Schedule everything
While recovering from a car accident years ago, my occupational therapist told me not only to take frequent breaks as I worked from home but also to schedule those breaks on my calendar — and to stick to them as religiously as if they were a work call or a deadline. Ditto for household chores, walks outside, and just about anything else that wasn’t “work.” Even eating had to go in the calendar.
I smiled and nodded and ignored this advice. I continued to struggle.
Finally, I gave in — scheduling things like laundry, snacks, and exercise such that I was never working for more than 55 uninterrupted minutes (and usually less). A typical day in my calendar would have 30- to 55-minute work blocks punctuated by chore breaks, food breaks, exercise breaks, rest breaks, and errands. Every minute during my scheduled workday was accounted for.
And sure enough, my physical condition gradually improved. (I’m better now, by the way.) But there was a curious side effect: I was way more productive. Scheduling my distractions and my other non-work into my day, compelling myself to engage in them as forcefully as I would any “work” task, made me more efficient at and more focused on my work. And sticking to a strict schedule for mundanities like “watch TV” and “do laundry” helped me manage my ADHD symptoms — without it ever feeling grueling.
(I also got more laundry done.)
It turns out this resembles the Pomodoro Technique — a time-management method developed in the 1980s, whereby you work in 25-minute intervals punctuated by short breaks. And my routine even more closely resembles the 52/17 rule — a Pomodoro variation proposed by the Draugiem Group, makers of the productivity app DeskTime. In 2014, the company reported finding that DeskTime’s most productive users would work for 52 minutes at a time, then break for 17 minutes, and so on. Their breaks became more “effective” because they would be 100 percent dedicated to taking a break during those 17-minute allotments — and, by extension, more dedicated during their 52 minutes of work.
The takeaway here is that breaks need to happen, so put them on your calendar. To the extent practicable, schedule everything during your work-from-home workday. Everything. From that phone call you need to make to your doctor’s office to the time you’d like to spend playing Fortnite. (And, of course, your actual work.)
Ditto for meeting the needs of your cohabitants. Roommates, partners, family, pets — anyone you live with is going to want something from you from time to time. You’ll need to get really good at saying no if you want to minimize distractions (learning to say no goes beyond the scope of this article), but there are things you’re going to have to say yes to. At some point, the kids will need to be picked up, the trash will need to go out, dinner will have to be made / ordered, etc. Schedule as much as you can in advance. And if you both work from home, tag-team responsibilities (e.g., “I’ll take toddler duty during the even hours, you take toddler duty during the odd hours.”)
Also, don’t forget negative scheduling. Sometimes, distractions are even more unwelcome than usual (such as when you’re on a video call, working on a complicated problem, or rushing to get a project finished). Just as you would do (or, at least, should do) with your remote coworkers, be communicative. Let those you live with know in advance that 1:30-2:30PM tomorrow is off-limits. Or that if your door is all the way closed, don’t come a-knockin’.
The corollary of all of this is that, to avoid distractions while working from home, you also have to avoid work distractions while living from home. Unless you truly have the kind of job where you have to be available 24/7, make sure that when you’re off the clock, you’re off the clock — whether for dinnertime, bedtime, family time, or alone time. You can’t make the most of your work if you’re making the least of your life.
Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker sequel planned for release in October 2024
Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. | Screenshot: Joker
The sequel to 2019’s Oscar-winning Joker is planned for release on October 4th 2024, Deadline reports. Director Todd Phillips previously confirmed the sequel was moving ahead in Juneunder the title Joker: Folie à Deux, which literally translates to “madness for two.”
Joaquin Phoenix, who won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of the character in the first movie, is expected to return for the sequel, Variety reports, while Lady Gaga is reportedly in talks to star alongside him, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The speculation is that Gaga may play Joker’s long-standing partner Harley Quinn (previously played by Margot Robbie in the DCEU), and that Gaga’s potential involvement could even lead the film to incorporate more musical elements.
Although Joker had originally been intended as a standalone film, its success at the box office and the Academy Awards (where it received 11 nominations including for Best Picture) made a sequel an obvious choice. That’s especially the case given the bumpy performance of Warner Bros. films based on titles from DC Comics. Although this year’s The Batman was widely considered to be a success (with a sequel quickly greenlit), Ezra Miller’s solo outing as The Flash has been mired in difficulties, and last year’s The Suicide Squad flopped at the box office.
Production on the Joker sequel is due to kick off in December, Deadline reports.
Best podcasts of the week: How one of history’s biggest call centre scams was exposed
In this week’s newsletter: Follow the team who uncovered a $300m plot to rob ordinary people of their savings over the phone in Chameleon: Scam Likely. Plus: five of the best women’s football podcasts
Van that detects if drivers are holding a mobile phone trialled in UK
Stationary roadside vehicle can also tell if passing drivers are not wearing seatbelt
A van with technology that can automatically detect drivers holding a mobile phone at the wheel or not wearing a seatbelt is being trialled in the UK for the first time.
National Highways are working with Warwickshire police to try out the “sensor test vehicle” on motorways and major A roads, and drivers who are caught may be prosecuted.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23921608/jtuohy_220801_226099_0002.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23921606/jtuohy_220801_226099_0001.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23923936/Eve_Apple_automation.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23921611/jtuohy_220801_226099_0006.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23924103/Eve_App__3_.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23642697/akrales_220617_5293_0045.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23642696/akrales_220617_5293_0038.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23642699/akrales_220617_5293_0051.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23642701/akrales_220617_5293_0088.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470779/akrales_220510_5162_0028.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470785/akrales_220510_5162_0057.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470780/akrales_220510_5162_0038.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470786/akrales_220510_5162_0063.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470783/akrales_220510_5162_0051.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470784/akrales_220510_5162_0055.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23470778/akrales_220510_5162_0017.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22883429/cwelch_202109_4775_5635.jpg)
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22173543/IMG_6828_3.jpg)
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/18314842/akrales_190716_3546_0185.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19167216/bfarsace_190903_3639_0007.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20663802/16605325_EF7D_46D0_9852_12CE9CEAF229.jpeg)
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23150872/Screen_Shot_2022_01_06_at_2.26.42_PM.png)
The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9478833/akrales_171013_2047_0009.jpg)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23893595/Screenshot_20220722_142255.png)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23893599/Screenshot_20220722_142352.png)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23893584/IMG_CF287DF46C63_1.jpeg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23893587/IMG_AF6D6768CCFB_1.jpeg)
