The best apps and tools for managing your money online

The best apps and tools for managing your money online

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 14, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, you’re my favorite, so happy you’re here, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been traveling a bunch, so I’ve watched Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and most of Rick and Morty. I’ve also been reading about life as an OnlyFans star and the insane growth of WhatsApp, doing some holiday meal planning in Mela, nodding vigorously at how bonkers tipping culture has become, and trying to make a dent in Barack Obama’s very good AI reading list.

I also have for you a rundown of the best tools for managing money, new gadgets from Valve and Humane, way too many writing apps, new stuff from ChatGPT, and much more.

As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What have you been reading / watching / learning / doing that everyone should know about? 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.

Big week in the Installerverse! Let’s get to it.

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The Drop

• The Steam Deck OLED. Valve did a Nintendo! Which is to say, it took its already very good console and made a bunch of things about it — the screen, the fan, the battery life, the processor — a little better. I’m definitely going to end up buying this thing.
• The Humane AI Pin. Every gadget company has been asking the same question for the last few years: “what comes after smartphones?” So far, it’s… smartphones. Humane’s first AI-powered device doesn’t immediately strike me as the next big thing, but I can’t remember the last time I was so excited to actually try a new gadget. Is this the future? Is it anything? Who knows!
• GPTs. You can now create your own ChatGPT with whatever knowledge, character, and style you want, and it only takes like five minutes. I’m much more bullish on these smaller, more specific AI tools than I am the One True AI Machine idea, and I think these are going to be huge. (Also, seriously, kudos to OpenAI for brute-forcing the phrase “generative pre-trained transformer” into the mainstream.)
• Planet Earth III. The first episode of the third entry in the world’s most epic documentary series is out now in the US, and there are a bunch more episodes to come. The drone footage, the natural sound, the things the producers are able to do underwater and in the sky, it’s all just awesome to watch. (Also, stay tuned for some fun Planet Earth stuff coming to The Vergecast soon.)
• Aftermath. A new publication from some great video game reporters who are already off to a strong start covering Zelda, the Steam Deck, Overwatch, and much more. I love a good website, and so far, this is a very good website.
• Final Cut Pro. Every once in a while, Apple likes to remind Final Cut users that it remembers they exist and does in fact care about them. The big winner this time (and this year in general) is the iPad app, which got a bunch of handy keyboard shortcuts, workflow tricks, and a useful voiceover tool.
• The Marvels. A Marvel movie that both rewards superfans and manages not to confuse everyone else! What a concept! This movie has been somewhat divisive, but The Verge’s Charles Pulliam-Moore dug it, and I’m excited to see this one.
• Documents by Readdle. The Files app on iOS devices is so bad. Its organization makes no sense and moving stuff around is too hard. It’s just bad times all around. Readdle’s app has long been a better option, and it got a big update this week — which includes an inbox that just dumps all your files into one place. It’s messy and perfect.
• Elon, Inc. I’m not at all sure that a weekly podcast about the many chaotic goings-on of the world’s richest person is something I even want in my life, but Bloomberg is doing it really well. It’s chatty but thoughtful, and even the first episode covers a lot of ground.

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Group project

Last week, I asked you to share what systems you use for managing money. With the news that Mint was shutting down (which, ugh), I think a lot of people were left suddenly looking for a new way to easily keep track of their budget and spending. I figured y’all might have some good ideas. (The Verge’s Barbara Krasnoff also put together a list of Mint alternatives, and it’s a really good place to start.)

Once again, you came through! I got a ton of emails, texts, and mentions with good ideas for apps and systems for making this all work. Also, a lot of people who are very cranky with Mint, and trust me, I feel you on that.

One note before we get into it: you should, of course, be careful about where you manage your money and financial information and to whom you give access to any of that data. Many of the apps we’re about to talk about are popular and highly regarded, but you should always be cautious with this stuff. My credit score also once got dinged because I had signed up for too many personal finance apps — true story — so there are lots of reasons to be thoughtful here.

Cool? Cool. Let’s run through some of your ideas and findings:

• YNAB is the big winner. YNAB, which stands for You Need A Budget, was the overwhelming most popular recommendation I got this week. Folks liked that you can sync all your accounts and cards, that it’s an independent app you pay for instead of being bombarded by ads and credit card deals, and that it has a specific set of principles and systems you can just pick up and start using.
• Copilot is the other go-to. Copilot is much more polished than YNAB, and people love the app’s design, its dataviz tools, and just how easy it is to interact with. It’s only for iOS and Mac, which is unfortunate, but as finance apps go, it seems to be unbeatably fun to use.
• There are a lot of apps worth a look. Other apps you recommended, in rough order of popularity: Qapital, Buddy, Empower, HomeBank, Expenses, Quicken, EveryDollar, Nudget, Ledger, and Dime.
• Don’t sleep on spreadsheets. I heard from a number of people who said they’d tried the apps and built the systems but ultimately landed on a good ol’ spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets for tracking their spending. Especially for folks who just want a rough “here’s what I have, here’s where I want it to go” outline, you can’t beat the ‘sheet. (Is that a thing people say? I’m going with it.)
• Templates are your friend! A few people recommended Tiller as a way to make the Excel and Google Sheets setup a little cleaner and more automatic. This Notion template got some love, too.
• The manual way can be the way… but it’s more work. Some of you love having custom-built systems that you can tend to for a few minutes a week, and there’s certainly no beating “it’s just a file on your computer that you own.” But almost everyone who recommended this strategy also said it’s a lot of work and can be too easy to give up on.
• Or maybe just use your bank. A lot of banks now offer budget tools from right within your banking app, so you can manage your money right next to where it lives. (I hear good things about SoFi’s features on this front.) If you do most or all of your banking in one place, a few folks said this is the way.

Personally, after reading all your notes and doing some research, I’m going to give Copilot a run. I’ve tried YNAB in the past, and it’s great, but I just did a bad job keeping up with it. I’m also going to make an epic 2024 budget spreadsheet and see how far that gets me.

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Screen share

Kevin Nguyen, a deputy editor at The Verge, warned me when I first asked him to do this that he had four different writing apps on his homescreen. To which I said: sold, bring it on, we love an obsessive homescreen setup.

Then Kevin followed up and said, “Oh, sorry, it’s actually five writing apps.” Kevin gets it. Here’s Kevin’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro (already lightly scratched my screen).

The wallpaper: My background is actually my partner, but she would be mortified if I posted a photo of her here, next to a bunch of apps, so you guys just get Toshiro Mifune.

The apps: Years ago, I read this interview with novelist Donna Tartt about her writing process. I assumed, as a famous person of letters, she would have an elaborate, possibly pretentious system — at least an especially fancy leather Moleskine. It turns out she just kept four different notebooks: cheap ones, sporting different Beatles album covers, each serving a different purpose. I forgot what each was for, but it was something like “Revolver is for characters, Sgt. Pepper’s is for plot.”

I don’t know if I was channeling Tartt when I decided to regularly use a rotation of five different writing apps. They are iA Writer, Google Docs, Bear, Apple Notes, and Scrivener, and they all have more weaknesses than strengths. Each feels like it’s been designed for a fairly specific use case. But that’s not really the point. I know that when I open iA Writer, it’s to try and get words down as quickly as possible. Docs is for revising and fidgeting. Bear is for thoughtful notes. Notes is for garbage notes (I really hate that app, but it also syncs our household grocery list). Scrivener is its own beast, built from the ground up for real sickos (authors).

I’m sure five apps that do essentially the same thing sounds like a nightmare to some people. But for me, writing and editing is a messy process, like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Or I guess, in this case, five different bottles.

Non-writing apps: Wallet, Google Authenticator, Photos, Camera, Google Maps, Settings, Clock, Chase, Arc (the iOS app is fairly incomplete, but it will sync with your sidebar, so I’ll open a bunch of tabs, then read those links on my phone when I get on the subway), Slack, Hello Weather (my salvation since the death of Dark Sky), Pins (I use Pinboard to save longform stories, and I meticulously tag them with the kind of notes you might expect from a features editor), Letterboxd (quietly the best social app and a great way to triangulate what’s out, streaming, or in theaters — if two or three friends have all logged an older film recently, it probably means it just hit Criterion or there’s a revival at IFC).

As always, I also asked Kevin to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

• Surround by Hiroshi Yoshimura. This recently released ambient record was originally made to be the music of… prefab homes? But it reveals so much on closer listen: shimmering drone, swirls of pleasing synths, a touch of humor. Still, if you’re lazy like I am most days, you can just put it on while you work and let it wash over you.
• Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park. I’m halfway through Ed Park’s long-awaited second novel, and so far, it’s a funny, genre-busting saga that is deeply obsessed with Korean history. For fans of anyone who is wanting a big, immersive read who is usually daunted by a big, immersive book.
• Anatomy of a Fall. I reviewed this courtroom thriller when it premiered at New York Film Festival, and now you can catch it in select cities. A dark, twisty murder mystery that surrenders itself to a much richer set of questions than your usual whodunit. The best thing in theaters at the moment! (And in general, I recommend going to the theater. Replace your screen time with the biggest-possible-screen time.)

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Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.

“There’s a website called RetroAchievements that adds trophies to old-school games. It’s a great excuse to go back and play games from your childhood or games you never got around to playing.” – Nick

“Fluttermind, the Moonring dev, hasn’t ported the game to Mac yet, but I did discover some of their other games, and I’ve started to play Spellrazor. It’s a very interesting haunted arcade game.” – Drake

“Just finished The Kids of Rutherford County, the new podcast from the Serial folks, and it was great. Reading Adam Grant’s new book, Hidden Potential. Not done yet, but it’s excellent so far, especially for someone like me who struggles with imposter syndrome.” – Nick

“Castro, my favorite podcast app. I appreciate the way that it treats episodes more like emails so I can queue, save for later, or delete them individually. After using it, I can’t move to any other podcast app.” – Mike

“Found the show Detroiters. Really fun 30-minute comedy starring Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson, with their sensibilities.” – Travi

“I’m playing a game called Chants of Sennaar right now, and it is unlike any other puzzle / logic game I have played. You wake up in a tower with different classes of people on each level, and they all speak different languages (and obviously, you don’t know any of them). You try to learn each language through context from people or environment. It is super chill but challenging.” – Bahadir

“I stumbled upon the Beli app for tracking and discovering restaurants, and it is by far the best option for that sort of thing, far better than a crowded Google Maps or noisy FourSquare. It has a lot of potential in its ability, and you get to keep discovering features as it learns about your preferences.” – Rich

“I have recently gotten into the 60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s podcast. I am definitely not an early adopter here but am loving the deep dives on the songs paired with just the right amount of sarcasm and history.” – Antek

“I’m pumped for the finale of Scavengers Reign! Really enjoyed the season with fantastic planet symbiotic flora, Aeon Flux adult animation / themes, and not everyone is making it out alive.” – BG

“For over 15 years I have made a regular pilgrimage to Kriegs.net to check out the wallpaper that he puts out consistently by the start of the month. The design is usually themed to the season and comes with the option of a calendar in the image. I don’t know if this is a widely known resource, but it has always felt like a little secret that only I know about, which I am now willing to share.” – Jonathan

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Signing off

This weekend, pour one out for Tumblr, one of the most interesting social networks on the internet, which appears to be in trouble. It’s not dying, but it’s not… not dying, you know? Whatever happens next, this state of affairs is a bummer for a lot of reasons, including that Tumblr promised to work with ActivityPub — which would have been a big win for the fediverse — and I think is still maybe the web’s best and most versatile posting tool. Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic (which owns Tumblr), spent a bunch of time this week answering people’s questions about the future of Tumblr, and it paints a sad but interesting picture of what it really takes to build a better social network. It’s all making me root for Mastodon even harder.

See you next week!

You Paid $1,000 for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

You Paid $1,000 for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It The company codes its devices with software that complicates repairs by triggering safety warnings and malfunctions.

The Witcher continues on Netflix with the Sirens of the Deep animated movie

The Witcher continues on Netflix with the Sirens of the Deep animated movie

Image: Netflix

Season 4 of The Witcher may be far off on the horizon, but there’s still plenty more of Geralt of Rivia in store on Netflix. At its Geeked Week event today, the streamer announced The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep, an animated movie that takes place right in the middle of season 1 of the live-action show and is based on the short story A Little Sacrifice. Doug Cockle, the voice actor from The Witcher 3 video game, will be reprising the role of Geralt.

Here’s the official description:

Geralt of Rivia, a mutated monster hunter, is hired to investigate a series of attacks in a seaside village and finds himself drawn into a centuries-old conflict between humans and merpeople. He must count on friends — old and new — to solve the mystery before the hostilities between the two kingdoms escalate into all-out war.

The live-action Witcher series first premiered in 2019, and its success prompted a huge expansion of the franchise: season 3 wrapped up in July, while the spinoffs Nightmare of the Wolf and Blood Origin are also on Netflix. The main series will continue on until at least season 5, though a new actor, Liam Hemsworth, will be taking up the role of Geralt.

As for Sirens of the Deep, it’s not expected to hit Netflix until late 2024.

Unity is probably going to do layoffs

Unity is probably going to do layoffs

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

In its Q3 earnings report published Thursday, game development software company Unity announced that it will “likely” be implementing layoffs as part of broader cost saving measures.

In the report, the company says it is assessing its product portfolio “to focus on those products that are most valuable to our customers” and is “evaluating the right cost structure that aligns with the more focused portfolio.” It plans to make changes during the fourth quarter, and they will “likely include discontinuing certain product offerings, reducing our workforce, and reducing our office footprint.” The company expects to complete its changes before the end of Q1 2024.

Unity has taken a beating the last few months. In September, it announced a disastrous new pricing model that sought to charge developers meeting certain criteria every time a user downloaded a Unity game to a device. The announcement was met with vocal backlash from indie developers, ridicule from and increased interest in competing game engine companies, and a boycott. In the aftermath, CEO John Riccitiello announced his retirement and Unity eventually amended its pricing model. But the damage to the company’s reputation within the game development community has already been done.

Layoffs have become an unfortunate trend in the video game industry this year. Whole studios have been shut down, while companies commit massive layoffs after rapacious acquisitions. News of potential layoffs and restructuring at Unity comes even as the same earnings report stated that the company’s third quarter results were “mixed” with revenue falling within expectations. “While revenue came in within guidance, we believe we can do better,” the report says.

One wonders then if “better” could have meant not pissing off a vocal chunk of its users.

Google won’t say if companies beyond Spotify got secret special app store deals

Google won’t say if companies beyond Spotify got secret special app store deals

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

After Google confirmed yesterday that it gave Spotify a sweetheart deal on Android app store fees, we were curious if dating company Bumble or any of the other 80 or so developers that have joined Google’s “User Choice Billing” program were similarly given an alternative arrangement or other sweeteners.

Google spokesperson Dan Jackson would not answer our question.

Jackson confirmed that “the standard service fee the developer pays is reduced by 4 percent” with User Choice Billing, and he pointed us toward Bumble’s Q4 2022 earnings call, where CFO Anu Subramanian suggests to investors that Bumble, at least, did not have a special rate at the time:

Yeah, on User Choice Billing, you know, we don’t expect that to have any impact on margins. As you know, we will still end up paying in aggregate the 15 percent that we pay today to Google Play. The composition of that is just going to be different. So, from a margin perspective, we don’t expect that that will have any impact at all.

Court documents suggest that “different composition” involves developers still paying an effective 15 or 30 percent on the Android Play store because they’d have to spend the 4 percent they saved from Google on their own separate payment processor. Google VP of Play partnerships Purnima Kochikar admitted that developers would generally end up paying the same effective rate with or without User Choice Billing.

Bumble’s Q3 2023 earnings call suggests that, far from a Spotify-esque deal, it’s actually now paying higher app store fees:

As a percentage of revenue, cost of revenue was 29 percent versus 27 percent in the year-ago period, mostly due to higher App Store fees as a result of compliance with the Google Play mandate.

And yet: “I would say at the moment, we are quite positive on the impact on users,” Bumble’s president said about User Choice Billing on an earlier Q1 2023 earnings call.

So there must have been some reason why Bumble sticks with User Choice Billing, if it was either a wash or negative for the company’s margins!

The benefit might be enabling features Google doesn’t offer — we heard Google say in court today that User Choice Billing could let Bumble, for instance, offer one-day subscriptions to its dating apps. When Bumble lost those one-day subscriptions with its app Badoo as part of a forced move to Google Play Billing, VP of product revenue Richard Watts testified, it led to a drop in paying users. But without a clear answer from Google or any of the other parties involved, we can’t know if that’s the reason.

We also don’t know, and may never know, just how good a deal Spotify got. We first learned about the secret deal after Google argued that Epic should not be allowed to reveal the specific rates it allowed Spotify to pay in open court, lest other companies use them to get better deals, too. Judge Donato declined to decide either way on short notice.

Instead, he let Epic and Google work it out among themselves — and on Wednesday, while the jury saw Spotify’s “two numbers,” Epic didn’t speak them aloud.

Call of Duty anti-cheat update will make cheaters go splat

Call of Duty anti-cheat update will make cheaters go splat

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Activision is getting set to launch a new, and dare I say fun, system to counter cheaters in Call of Duty: Warzone. As part of an update to the game’s Ricochet anti-cheat system, a new feature called Splat will randomly and without warning plummet detected cheaters straight to the ground after deployment at the start of a match. (Hence the name, Splat.)

Activision has toyed with Call of Duty cheaters in a few different ways as of late. The publisher gifted an automatic god mode and invisibility to players getting shot by detected cheaters and later shamed cheaters by announcing they’ve been booted in the kill feed.

Taking away parachutes isn’t the only mitigation included with Splat. If people are detected as cheating after the start of a game, Splat can turn “a bunny hop into a 10,000-foot drop,” instantly taking them out.

Activision has also been working on an improved server and client-side anti-cheat systems ahead of Friday’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III release. The company has also made enhancements using machine learning to more quickly and accurately detect cheating perpetrators.

Apple to pay up to $25 million over hiring discrimination

Apple to pay up to $25 million over hiring discrimination

Illustration: The Verge

Apple has agreed to pay up to $25 million to settle claims that it engaged in hiring discrimination. On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced that $18.25 million will go toward creating a backpay fund for affected victims, while the remaining $6.75 million is in civil penalties.

The DOJ found that Apple violated the Immigration and Nationality Act when recruiting through a permanent labor certification program (PERM), which lets companies hire foreign workers permanently in the US. When recruiting workers for this program, the DOJ says Apple didn’t advertise openings on its website “even though its standard practice was to post other job positions on this website.”

The DOJ also found that Apple only accepted PERM position applications through the mail and “did not consider certain applications” from existing Apple employees if they were sent electronically. “These less effective recruitment procedures nearly always resulted in few or no applications to PERM positions from applicants whose permission to work does not expire,” the DOJ says.

Apple denies engaging in illegal hiring practices in the terms of the settlement. “When we realized we had unintentionally not been following the DOJ standard, we agreed to a settlement addressing their concerns,” Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “We have implemented a robust remediation plan to comply with the requirements of various government agencies as we continue to hire American workers and grow in the U.S.”

In addition to the up to $25 million fine, the DOJ requires that Apple “conduct more expansive recruitment for all PERM positions” by posting PERM positions on its job website and accepting applications digitally. The DOJ says Apple has already addressed some of these issues.

Aside from Apple, the DOJ also hit SpaceX with a hiring discrimination lawsuit, alleging the Elon Musk-owned company refused to hire asylum seekers and refugees. However, SpaceX managed to block the case by arguing the administrative judges overseeing the case were “unconstitutionally appointed.”

Maine’s right-to-repair law for cars wins with 84 percent of the vote

Maine’s right-to-repair law for cars wins with 84 percent of the vote

A January 13, 2020 picture from a right to repair hearing in Boston, Massachusetts. | Photo: David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe / Getty Images

The right-to-repair movement gained a significant victory yesterday as a Maine law regarding auto repair rights won over 84 percent public support, according to Ballotpedia’s unofficial tally. As 404 Media reported, the “Question 4” measure asked if voters want auto manufacturers to enable owners and their preferred mechanics to access their car’s diagnostics systems. Voters said yes.

Maine follows four states that enacted new right-to-repair laws this year. In California, a law signed into effect last month now guarantees seven years of parts for electronics and appliances.

Both Minnesota and Colorado passed repair laws pertaining largely to electronics and farm equipment, respectively, as well as exemptions for certain modifications in Colorado and specific product categories in Minnesota, including medical devices and motor vehicles. Neither law’s exceptions were as objectionable to right-to-repair advocates as the New York state law passed last year that exempted entire industries and enterprise products.

One exclusion in Maine’s law lets carmakers offer a secure portal where owners and independent mechanics can look up how to reset a car’s security features rather than publicizing that information. The law requires that automakers standardize unfettered “access to the vehicle on-board diagnostic systems of all motor vehicles” for owners and independent mechanics.

There’s more specific language for heavy-duty vehicles, such as a requirement for automakers to sell tools and parts for 2002 vehicles that weigh over 14,000 pounds, and a requirement for a “motor vehicle telematics system notice” for car buyers to explain how access to the car’s data works.

Manufacturers would be allowed to require authorization to access diagnostics systems, but only with a standardized procedure approved by a third-party panel of industry representatives from car companies, independent repair shops, aftermarket parts makers, and others.

The head of consumer rights group USPIRG’s right to repair project, Nathan Proctor, said to 404 Media that people support the right to repair “because it’s common sense—at least to those who aren’t manufacturers.” Tim Winkeler, who runs VIP Tire and Service in Auburn, Maine, told News Center Maine that the vote will let Maine families “rely on their local repair shop, who knows them and their vehicle.”

Popular Lego marketplace went offline after a ‘ransom’ demand

Popular Lego marketplace went offline after a ‘ransom’ demand

Closeup of a Lego Batcave set. | Image: Lego

BrickLink, the unofficial online Lego parts marketplace, is back online after several days of downtime due to a cybersecurity incident that apparently targeted some merchant accounts. The company said it received a “threat and ransom demand” last Friday, presumably in regard to company or user data, leading it to shut down the site “out of an abundance of caution.”

The site has been detecting “limited suspicious activity” since mid-October, where unauthorized sellers fraudulently attempted to collect money through unrealistically discounted listings.

BrickLink says a “relatively small” amount of accounts may have been compromised but does not see any evidence that its systems were breached. It says “credential stuffing” occurred, where bad actors input compromised passwords from other sources to try to break into owners’ accounts on different sites.

Lego reviewer and blogger Jay Ong, who writes for Jay’s Brick Blog, posted that they received a message from BrickLink that all users must change their passwords. Ong says they were assured their BrickLink account was not compromised. Notably, BrickLink does not yet offer two-factor authentication, although it plans to in the future.

Exclusive leak: all the details about Humane’s AI Pin, which costs $699 and has OpenAI integration

Exclusive leak: all the details about Humane’s AI Pin, which costs $699 and has OpenAI integration

Humane’s AI Pin is set to officially be revealed this Thursday. | Image: Humane

Humane has been teasing its first device, the AI Pin, for most of this year. It’s scheduled to launch the Pin on Thursday, but The Verge has obtained documents detailing practically everything about the device ahead of its official launch. What they show is that Humane, the company noisily promoting a world after smartphones, is about to launch what amounts to a $699 wearable smartphone without a screen that has a $24-a-month subscription fee and runs on a Humane-branded version of T-Mobile’s network with access to AI models from Microsoft and OpenAI.

The Pin itself is a square device that magnetically clips to your clothes or other surfaces. The clip is more than just a magnet, though; it’s also a battery pack, which means you can swap in new batteries throughout the day to keep the Pin running. We don’t know how long a single battery lasts, but the device ships with two “battery boosters.” It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and uses a camera, depth, and motion sensors to track and record its surroundings. It has a built-in speaker, which Humane calls a “personic speaker,” and can connect to Bluetooth headphones.

Since there’s no screen, Humane has come up with new ways to interact with the Pin. It’s primarily meant to be a voice-based device, but there’s also that green laser projector we’ve seen in demos, which can project information onto your hand. You can also hold objects up to the camera and interact with the Pin through gestures, as there’s a touchpad somewhere on the device. The Pin isn’t always recording or even listening for a wake word, instead requiring you to manually activate it in some way. It has a “Trust Light,” which blinks on whenever the Pin is recording.

The $24-per-month Humane Subscription includes a phone number and cell data through T-Mobile

The documents show that Humane wants the Pin to be considered a fully standalone device, rather than an accessory to your smartphone. $699 gets you the Pin, a charger, and those two battery boosters. But the real story is that it costs $24 per month for a Humane Subscription, which includes a phone number and cell data on Humane’s own branded wireless service that runs on T-Mobile’s network, cloud storage for photos and videos, and the ability to make unlimited queries of AI models, although we’re not sure which ones specifically.

Humane didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Pin’s operating system is called Cosmos, and rather than operate as a collection of apps, Humane seems to be imagining a more seamless system that can call up various AIs and other tools as you need them. It sounds a bit like ChatGPT’s plugins system, through which you can attach new features or data to your chatbot experience — which tracks with reports that the Pin would be powered by GPT-4.

The documents we’ve seen say the Pin can write messages that sound like you, and there’s a feature that will summarize your email inbox for you. The Pin can also translate languages and identify food to provide nutritional information. There is support for Tidal music streaming, which involves an “AI DJ” that picks music for you based on your current context. It will also offer AI-centric photography features, but it’s not clear what that means.

Humane clearly intends the Pin to be a self-contained and simple wearable, but there is a way to manage the device: a tool called Humane.center, which is where you’re meant to set up and customize your device before you start wearing it. It’s unclear whether this is a website or a phone app, but it’s how you access the notes, videos, and photos you collect while you’re wearing the Pin.

Humane is set to announce the device officially tomorrow, at which point we might get more answers about when the Pin will ship, how well it will work, and whether there’s really a case to be made for a smartphone without a screen.

Google is is bringing generative AI to advertisers

Google is is bringing generative AI to advertisers

Very clickable good dogs. | Image: Google

Google is rolling out new generative AI tools for creating ads, from writing the headlines and descriptions that appear along with searches to creating and editing the accompanying images. It’s pitching the tool for use by both advertising agencies as well as businesses without in-house creative staff. Using text prompts, advertisers can iterate on the text and images they generate until they find something they like.

Google also promises that it will never generate two of the same images, which can avoid the awkward possibility that two competing businesses end up with the exact same photo elements.

The step-by-step ad creator is coming to those who use Google’s Performance Max ad campaign product, and it’s capable of generating ads designed for Google spots like search and shopping. An advanced image editing solution similar to the Magic Editor abilities (like sky replacement) available on the new Google Pixel 8 is also coming.

Customers can use the editor to update existing visual ads that can retain a hero asset while making relevant changes. In one Google-provided example, a user reused a model with a skincare product but replaced the background with a Christmas tree so it's ready for the holidays. Additionally, you can generate ad variations to use in different situations.

Retailers that use Merchant Center Next, a tool that controls how products look throughout Google, will also get the AI-generative tools. According to Google, all AI-generated ad content will be subject to SynthID, a metadata watermark to help detect content that was made with AI.

Nintendo is making a live-action Zelda movie

Nintendo is making a live-action Zelda movie

Image: Nintendo

Nintendo’s foray into movies isn’t stopping anytime soon: the company has confirmed that it’s working on a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. The movie will be directed by Wes Ball, best known for the Maze Runner trilogy and the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto will serve as a producer, much as he did on this year’s animated Super Mario Bros. movie. He’ll be producing alongside Avi Arad.

“This is Miyamoto. I have been working on the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda for many years now with Avi Arad-san, who has produced many mega hit films,” Miyamoto said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter. We might be waiting a while for the movie, however; Miyamoto said, “It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.”

While there aren’t many details on the movie itself, Nintendo says that it will be co-financed by itself and Sony, with Nintendo footing more than 50 percent of the bill.

The announcement comes at a pivotal time for Nintendo, as the company has made its ambitions to become a broader entertainment company clear. That includes not only the Super Mario movie but also a line of theme park attractions. This year also saw the release of the latest major entry in the Zelda series with Tears of the Kingdom.

“By producing visual contents of Nintendo IP by itself, Nintendo is creating new opportunities to have people from around the world to access the world of entertainment which Nintendo has built, through different means apart from its dedicated game consoles,” the company said in a statement about the Zelda film. “By getting deeply involved in the movie production with the aim to put smiles on everyone’s faces through entertainment, Nintendo will continue its efforts to produce unique entertainment and deliver it to as many people as possible.”

It was previously rumored that Nintendo was working on a live-action Zelda series for Netflix, though that project never came to pass.

Samsung launches premium S Pen to tempt iPad artists in the US

Samsung launches premium S Pen to tempt iPad artists in the US

The slightly thicker shape of the Creator Edition S Pen should feel more natural to grip — like a real pencil. | Image: Samsung

The S Pen Creator Edition tablet stylus that Samsung unveiled alongside its Galaxy Tab S9 series in July is now available to buy in the US for $99.99. Designed with writing, sketching, and digital painting in mind, the S Pen Creator Edition is a more premium stylus compared to the standard $59.99 S Pen that ships with Galaxy Tab S9 devices, providing more benefits for creative professionals like additional tilt-sensitivity and a thicker shape for improved grip.

The S Pen Creator Edition is compatible with Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and higher, Galaxy Note10 and higher, Galaxy Tab S Series, and PCs that already support the existing S Pen. It cannot be used with any Galaxy Z series of folding devices. The stylus is battery-free and doesn’t require charging, and the flat side can magnetically attach to compatible Galaxy Tab devices for storage, just like an Apple Pencil.

Image: Samsung

The silver button is a dead giveaway that this isn’t an Apple Pencil, but there are certainly similarities in the design.

Samsung claims that this latest stylus is its “most advanced S Pen yet,” though that does come with some caveats as Air Commands — an S Pen feature that allows users to quickly access various functions by pressing the stylus button while hovering over the screen— are strangely not supported. The S Pen Creator Edition is only available in white, and features a single button on the side that can be used to interact with tools in creative applications (such as switching between pen and eraser functions). It also carries an IPX4 rating — meaning it can withstand light splashes — which is less protection than the submersible IP68 rating on the cheaper S pen.

Image: Samsung

The stylus comes with two replacement nibs and a simple tool to aid in safely inserting them.

Right down to its appearance, the S Pen Creator Edition is Samsung’s real rival to the Apple Pencil which has gained a loyal fanbase of iPad creatives who prefer its combined convenience over traditional, bulkier drawing tablet setups. This popularity is largely driven by the iPad platform (owing to its well-supported catalog of iOS-exclusive apps like Procreate and Forger), but the Apple Pencil itself — particularly its $129 second generation model — has its own merits, such as creative-focused features like gesture controls for swapping between tools in drawing apps.

Samsung will need to improve its creative software offerings across the Galaxy Tab series to have any real hope of competing against the reputation Apple has already built, but the S Pen Creator Edition is certainly a start. At the very least, it’s better equipped to handle creative tasks than the $79 USB-C Apple Pencil that was announced last month, which ditches features like pressure sensitivity entirely.

How Your Child’s School Bus Might Prevent Blackouts

How Your Child’s School Bus Might Prevent Blackouts When not driving around, electric buses and other vehicles could help utilities by storing their solar and wind energy and releasing it to meet surges in demand.

The WeWork soap opera’s latest episode includes filing for bankruptcy

The WeWork soap opera’s latest episode includes filing for bankruptcy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Co-working office space provider WeWork has filed for bankruptcy covering its locations in the US and Canada, and in a filing, it said it had liabilities of between $10 and $50 billion.

It’s the latest turn for a company that went from being valued at $47 billion in January 2019 to unsuccessfully attempting an IPO later that year. Investors were unimpressed with a company that counted its founder and CEO, Adam Neumann, as a significant risk factor.

As Elizabeth Lopatto eventually described it:

That paperwork revealed, all in one place, the following things: that Neumann was renting his own buildings to The We Company, that Neumann had secured loans from The We Company, and that to change its name to The We Company from WeWork, the company paid for naming rights from… Adam Neumann. It kind of started to feel like the point of The We Company, lofty language about “elevating” one’s “consciousness” aside, was just to give Adam Neumann money.

Afterward, Neumann was ousted, and Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank — which reportedly invested $18.5 billion into WeWork — took over 80 percent of the company. Its fall was eventually captured in both a documentary for Hulu, WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn, and the podcast-turned-TV show for Apple TV, WeCrashed.

The company eventually went public in 2021 via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC — if you’re not familiar, we can explain), and after struggling with increasing debts and hefty losses ever since, it lost almost 98 percent of its stock valuation in the last year and shares were trading at 83 cents before a halt early Monday.

In the press release announcing its Chapter 11 filing, the company says, “As part of today’s filing, WeWork is requesting the ability to reject the leases of certain locations, which are largely non-operational and all affected members have received advanced notice.” The company says it has reached restructuring agreements with creditors holding 92 percent of its debt.

An increase in remote working following the covid pandemic is credited as a contributing factor in WeWork’s fall from financial grace, as well as its massive operational costs.

On October 30th, WeWork told the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it had made agreements with creditors to temporarily postpone some of its debt payments. A Wall Street Journal report last week that WeWork intended to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy noted that since its founding, the company had amassed $16 billion in losses as of June 2023 and was still paying over $2.7 billion a year in rent and interest — over 80 percent of its entire revenue.

PS5 ‘slim’ teardown shows the clever engineering of its detachable disc drive

PS5 ‘slim’ teardown shows the clever engineering of its detachable disc drive

The new PS5. | Image: Sony

The new PlayStation 5 hasn’t come out yet — it doesn’t even have a specific release date — but a few YouTubers have gotten their hands on it, including Dave Lee from the Dave2D channel. Lee posted his teardown of the console yesterday, and if you’ve been curious about how that detachable disc drive works, this is the best look you’ll get at it without buying the $499.99 PS5 yourself later this month.

After Lee pries off the PS5’s plastic side cover, you can see the drive sitting there with three screws staring back at you. I thought they were pentalobe screws at first, but a later zoomed-in shot shows they’re just standard crosshead screws. Philips head, if you like. Okay, no surprises there. Good.

Clip: Dave2D / GIF: The Verge

It can’t be that easy. But it is!

But then it just pops right out. The screws were a red herring! Such sleek modularity!

Screenshot: The Verge

The PS5 disc drive connector.

When Lee pulls the drive aside, it reveals a port framed within an oblong hexagon where the drive’s connecter settles. This is what I loved about so much of the design of machines like the PowerMac G5. You see the part, you grab it, and you take it out — there’s no hard, angular plastic connector to stab your sweaty fingers as you wriggle it free. Very tasteful.

The drive aside, the new PS5 is a nice-looking system if you’re into the pointy Dracula collar look of the first one. And when Lee puts it next to the original, the size disparity is more drastic than past comparisons have made it seem, even if they’re really not that differently sized; it’s still larger than the Xbox Series X, after all. Lee says it feels significantly lighter, too — great for when you take your PS5 out for its afternoon walk (or over to your friend’s house).

Here’s the full video, if you’d like to check out the rest of the teardown.

And for some different energy, there’s always Linus Tech Tips.

Tech Start-Ups Try to Sell a Cautious Pentagon on A.I.

Tech Start-Ups Try to Sell a Cautious Pentagon on A.I. Shield AI, a tech start-up, already has a drone run by artificial intelligence being used by the Israeli military. But persuading the Pentagon to embrace the technology remains a big challenge.

WhatsApp’s sticker AI is adding guns to prompts for Palestinian children

WhatsApp’s sticker AI is adding guns to prompts for Palestinian children

Illustration: The Verge

In Meta’s WhatsApp, users can generate stickers using AI prompts. The Guardian reported Friday that the AI model used to create those stickers sometimes generates images of children holding guns when prompted with “Palestine” and similar words. Meanwhile, according to the outlet, “Israel” prompts resulted in no such imagery.

A month ago, Meta’s AI sticker generator started rolling out with the tendency to create inappropriately violent or crass imagery, including, yes, child soldiers. According to the article, an unnamed source said some of the company’s workers had flagged and escalated the issue with prompts related to the war in Israel.

Meta spokesperson Kevin McAlister told The Verge via email that the company is addressing it, adding that Meta will “continue to improve these features as they evolve and more people share their feedback.”

Meta has had other issues with bias in its AI models, such as Instagram’s auto-translate feature inserting the word “terrorist” into user bios written in Arabic, echoing a Facebook mistranslation that led to a Palestinian man’s 2017 arrest in Israel.

ChatGPT subscribers may get a ‘GPT builder’ option soon

ChatGPT subscribers may get a ‘GPT builder’ option soon

Illustration: The Verge

Just as OpenAI is preparing for its first-ever developer conference, a significant ChatGPT update has leaked. According to The Decoder, leaked screenshots and videos show a custom chatbot creator with many of the same features already available in ChatGPT using GPT-4, like web browsing and data analysis. OpenAI will apparently also have a new marketplace where users can share their chatbot or browse those made by others.

A user called Choi posted a summary of the rumored updates a few days ago. This morning, SEO tools developer Tibor Blaho shared a video of the UI for the feature in action, showing a GPT Builder option that lets users enter a prompt — an example reads “make a creative who helps generate visuals for new products.” — to create a chatbot.

Here is a short video preview of the new ChatGPT Prototype - Gizmo V8.

The feature previously known as "Magic Maker" for creating new GPTs is now called "GPT Builder".

It seems that the "Welcome Message" has been removed, and GPT Builder can now also generate profile pictures… pic.twitter.com/Rfbl8dIXvX

— Tibor Blaho (@btibor91) November 5, 2023

On the “Create” tab, there are options to choose a default language, tone, and writing style for the bot. Then, a “Configure” tab has fields for naming, describing, and giving instructions to the bot about what it can and can’t do. Users can also upload files for a bespoke knowledgebase and toggle capabilities like web browsing and image generation. There’s also a box for adding custom actions to your chatbot.

Finally, next to the configure options, there’s a “Preview pane” with a prompt box for testing the bot as it’s edited. Braho posted a detailed breakdown of the GPT Builder in a LinkedIn post, as well.

More than 90% rumors:
- Gizmo announcement.
- Features:
* Sandbox - Provides an environment to import, test, and modify existing chatbots.
* Custom Actions - Define additional functionality for your chatbot using OpenAPI specifications
* Knowledge… pic.twitter.com/XB1FYgliLE

— CHOI (@arrakis_ai) November 2, 2023

In addition to the new Gizmo tool, Choi claims that OpenAI is planning to release an enterprise “Team” subscription plan with “Flexible” and “Annual” options. Choi shared a screenshot that breaks down the Team plan’s features, like unlimited high-speed GPT-4 and four times longer context. The screenshot says it’s priced at $25 per user, per month. Choi says the non-annual option will be $30 per month, and both plans have a three-user minimum.

Recent ChatGPT beta features include live web results, image generation, and voice chat. OpenAI says it will preview new tools at the developer conference on Monday, so we probably won’t have to wait long to find out if these rumors are accurate.

Fake news and ridiculing the dead — what’s wrong with Microsoft’s AI news

Fake news and ridiculing the dead — what’s wrong with Microsoft’s AI news

Image: The Verge

A new CNN report about the MSN AI model’s news aggregation kicks off with examples of questionable editorial calls, like highlighting a story claiming President Joe Biden dozed off during a moment of silence for Maui wildfire victims (he didn’t), or an obituary that inexplicably referred to an NBA player as “useless.” An editorial staff of humans probably would've spotted the problems. But Microsoft’s system, which continues to feel more like a social experiment than a helpful tool after ditching human efforts in favor of algorithms a few years ago, did not.

That these stories were picked by MSN’s AI is no better than a travel guide Microsoft said was created by its algorithm and reviewed by a human that suggested Ottawa tourists grab a meal at the local food bank, or an AI-created poll that asked readers to vote on why a young woman died.

It’s not just Microsoft, of course. AI is creeping into journalism just as it is everywhere else. The BBC is undertaking AI experiments, sites like Macworld use chatbots to query their archive, and The Associated Press has used AI for its “Automated Insights” for over eight years.

Egregious examples in the last year of error-riddled Star Wars stories and bad financial advice doled out by chatbots show why AI chatbots shouldn’t be journalists, but at least those stories are generally just SEO plays.

Microsoft Start and MSN are presented as resources for finding actual news. But its automated system keeps featuring or generating content with needlessly upsetting language and outright falsehoods, and there’s little indication anyone involved in the process cares. There are no careless journalists to blame, no editors with names and faces to take (or even shirk) responsibility. It’s all just software doing what it’s made to do and spokespeople shrugging when it goes wrong and saying they’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.

How AI brought the Beatles back together one more time

How AI brought the Beatles back together one more time

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 13, 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.)

This week, I’ve been watching Barbarian and No Hard Feelings, reading about the challenges of building “the next Twitter” and Marvel’s complicated future, using Pager to make sense of all my screenshots, and sending everyone this article about aphantasia to explain that no, I really don’t see pictures in my head, yes it’s wild, no I didn’t even realize other people could do that.

I also have for you a couple of nifty AI tools, a robot vacuum, a bunch of new stuff about the new Beatles song, a Simpsons GIF generator, a Godzilla movie, and a three-hour podcast about Facebook.

And I have a specific question I’m hoping we can figure out together this week: how do you manage your budget and money? I’m not looking for, like, wealth manager tips over here. But Mint is shutting down, and Mint was an excellent, simple way to track your money. Do you have an app you like even better, either for one small thing or for your whole financial life? Do you do it all in Excel, do you tell ChatGPT everything you buy, do you just YOLO it and hope for the best? Email installer@theverge.com or text me at 203-570-8663, and tell me how you do it.

In general, of course, the best part of Installer is always your ideas and tips. What cool stuff are you reading, watching, playing, installing, whittling, knitting, or otherwise doing right now? 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.

Alright, lots of good links this week. Let’s go.

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The Drop

• Bitwarden. If you only ever take my advice once, make it this: use a password manager. It’s the best place for all your logins, loyalty numbers, license codes, and all the other stuff you need online all the time. I’m a longtime 1Password fan, but Bitwarden’s a great choice, too — and now it does passkeys, too! Passkeys rule.
• Google Keep. I am perpetually afraid Google is going to kill Keep, its excellent and useful note-taking tool, but I think instead it might be… investing in it? What a world! Its handy formatting tools have come over to Android, and Google is now putting shopping lists and Assistant notes back in Keep where they belong.
• The new MacBook Pro. The M3 chip lineup is slightly confusing this year, and I really wish the space black were more black and less gray, but the outcome is still this: the new Pros appear to be faster than ever, and I can’t think of a spec that excites me more than “22 hours of battery life.” I’m still an Air user, personally, but the 16-inch Pro is a monster of a machine.
• Blank Check with Griffin & David: “The Social Network.” This is not what you would call a “focused” podcast. It’s longer than the movie it’s ostensibly about. But it’s super fun and funny and does in fact talk a lot about Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, being cool, and the legacy of one of my all-time favorite movies.
• Fortnite OG. My Fortnite sweet spot was in the 2019–2020 era, which means I have fond memories of Tilted Towers and roaming the terrain in shopping carts. For its new season, the game is going back through its history, with some new twists along the way. I haven’t played much recently, but I’ll be dropping back in this weekend for sure.
• RUIN: Money, Ego and Deception at FTX. Now that we know the end of the story — that Sam Bankman-Fried was just found guilty of fraud — this Bloomberg documentary about the whole rise and fall of FTX feels even more interesting and ominous.
• Brave Leo. An AI assistant that doesn’t store your data, doesn’t keep a record of your chats, and doesn’t use everything you do and say to train its model? Brave’s onto something here, especially if it can make a privacy-first product that doesn’t end up as “ChatGPT but worse.” And I like having this stuff built right into the browser.
• Raycast Quick AI. Speaking of cool AI things: Raycast is one of my favorite and most-used Mac apps, and it just got access to GPT-4’s real-time web results. It’s now the fastest way I have to search “Who won the Warriors game” or “Was SBF found guilty.”
• The Matic robot vacuum. Ugh, it’s $1,800, which is ridiculous. But I find this thing fascinating: it has some really clever hardware to keep it from getting stuck, and it never needs to be online. It’s also just a tiny bit adorable, which never hurts.

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Deep dive

I’m probably only ever going to get one chance to do this here, so: let’s talk about the Beatles.

The most important band of all time (I will not be taking questions on this) put out what is almost certain to be the last Beatles song ever, called “Now and Then,” this week. It’s based on a 50-year-old demo that the late John Lennon recorded badly onto a cassette, and while it’s definitely not by a long shot the Beatles’ best song, it’s one of the more remarkable.

• The first thing you should do is watch the 12-minute mini doc about how the song came together, the AI tech that helped make it happen, and why “Now and Then” couldn’t have existed before now. It sets the scene perfectly.
• Vulture also has a great backstory of how “Now and Then” came together, and the BBC’s Eras podcast (which has six Beatles episodes, all of which you should listen to) has an excellent 30-minute episode on the song’s history.
• Then listen to the song. And then listen to it a few more times. Then watch the music video a few times. Then check out the new mix of “Love Me Do.” Then back to “Now and Then.”
• You honestly should watch all 6,000 hours of Get Back, Peter Jackson’s documentary series in which the MAL tech figures prominently, but this 20-minute interview does a good job of explaining how the tech works. Jackson also has his own delightful 10-minute explanation of de-mixing. And here’s a really cool 60-second example of what it does to audio.

The music industry is speedrunning the whole AI boom, and there are so many reasons to be concerned about where it will all land. But for me, this is just unambiguously good: thanks to AI, we’re going to get to hear old music again, better than it ever sounded before. I’m in.

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Screen share

Chris Plante, the editor-in-chief of our sister site Polygon, never makes me feel bad for liking Assassin’s Creed as much as I do, even though I suspect he rolls his eyes at me every time I bring it up. In addition to having excellent video game taste, Chris also loves telling everyone to watch ultra-deep-cut streaming shows, trying to make the gaming industry a better place for everyone, and frequently almost convincing me to buy a Steam Deck. (So far, only almost.)

I asked Chris to share his homescreen with us, figuring he’d have, like, 93 pages full of video games. I was wrong! For a good and fascinating reason. Here’s Chris’ homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro

The wallpaper: My son! But sorry, I don’t put pictures of my kid on the internet because one time I wrote that the Batmobile shouldn’t have giant guns, and people told me to kill myself.

The apps: I had a toxic relationship with my homescreen for most of my adult life. That ended about five years ago when 1) I got diagnosed with anxiety 2) I had a kid and subsequently lost most of my free time and 3) I began to delete all of my social media apps — an exhausting process that culminated this summer with me finally saying “fuck off” to Twitter.

In place of all of these apps and games that inspired some really nasty, compulsive behavior, I started a new hobby: learning Japanese. If I’m being honest, I can’t stop myself from obsessively picking at my phone at all times, but I can choose what I obsess over.

I started with Duolingo two years ago before having the epiphany all Japanese learners have — Duolingo isn’t meant for Japanese. Since then, I’ve tried all sorts of different apps. This current group has lasted the longest: Anki helps me retain vocabulary; Bunpro covers grammar (it’s technically a test app and unavailable on the App Store); and the 日本語 folder has dictionaries, reading apps, and some kanji stuff. I also keep Google Translate ready to go at all times so I don’t spend too much time on my phone when checking the kanji in whatever children’s manga I’m struggling through.

Otherwise, it’s the usual: Signal and Authenticator for work; YNAB because I’m a dullard with finances and envelope budgeting saves me from myself; and Letterboxd, arguably the one social media app I’ve kept. Though pro tip for Letterboxd: write it for yourself and nobody else. You feel less pressure, and you have the benefit of recalling what a movie made you feel in the moments after you watched it. I can’t remember ever reading old tweets or Facebook posts, but every couple of weeks, I’ll be curious about, say, what I thought of some horror movie I watched during the pandemic. And there it is, waiting for me!

Oh, and Overcast. I use the widget so I can hit pause when I’m doing chores.

Speaking of compulsions, I keep Slack on the third screen. And video games get deleted the moment I stop enjoying them. Did I mention I have anxiety?

As always, I also asked Chris to name a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he came back with:

• Happy End. It’s hard to say one thing in particular inspired me to learn a language in my 30s, but these albums play a major part. I learned about this Japanese pop / rock / folk band in college when Rolling Stone Japan named one of their albums the “great Japanese rock album of all time.” I’m no expert in Japanese rock, but I have been chasing down Happy End’s vinyl records ever since. You won’t find them on Spotify, but you can hear their music if you make even the smallest effort on this powerful tool called Google dot com. If you’d like to know more, Pitchfork wrote a review / band history last year.
• Godzilla Minus One. For the first time since 2016’s Shin Godzilla, we’re getting a new live-action Japanese Godzilla film. I’ve seen it. It rules. It should be in theaters this December.
• The Besties podcast. Each week, these adorable four best friends talk about the best video games. It’s a great way to discover new games — especially if you aren’t reading Polygon every day. Fans of My Brother, My Brother and Me and The Adventure Zone will recognize Justin and Griffin McElroy. Plus, the show stars Polygon’s Russ Frushtick and me. Oh, I’m sorry, this isn’t a place for plugs?
• Moonring. I know Baldur’s Gate 3 is the big D&D-style RPG of 2023, but let me give you two reasons to try Moonring. It’s designed by Fable co-creator Dene Carter, and it’s free. Like, free, free. No in-app purchases. No subscriptions. Just a brilliant, Ultima-style RPG that I’m positive will appeal to the older Verge readers who wasted away the late ’80s playing text adventures on their parents’ Mac II.

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Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.

“My inbox has absolutely been saved by Shortwave — finally get to relive the glory of those Inbox by Gmail days.” – Hillary

“I find myself explaining how to use computers for a large portion of my life. At work, nothing is a better aid than CleanShot X. Nothing, nothing makes me happier than sending a 15-second GIF on how to complete a task instead of 10 bullet points in a Slack message.” – Liam

“I thought Genie was pretty cool. It lets you make 3D models with gen AI the way you would with Midjourney or DALL-E. I’ve been on their Luma Labs beta for a while, and what they have is pretty dang good.” – Matt

“Found this amazing website called Frinkiac with millions of screengrabs of the Simpsons series (till season 17). I use it all the time to make GIFs and share stills. You can search by quotes or even season and episode. It’s such a simple idea but a technical marvel.” – Priyantan

“Somehow, I ended up binge-watching Yoshua Bengio’s lectures on YouTube for hours on end. That led to books on ML, and now I’m reading neuroscience books? The connection between those is fascinating. Don’t know what got into me, but that’s been pretty much the last two weeks of my life.” – Kruti

“Big fan of Retro at the moment.” – Tim

“I’ve been enjoying Music League. We have a weekly league set up, and the winner chooses the theme for the next week. It’s been a fantastic way to find new music from the other submissions, and I’ve been using playlists to narrow down my own songs, so I have 15–20 themed playlists mostly full of favorites from my own library that I’d often forgotten about.” – Michael

“Stumbled upon Book Tracker this week. No extras, clean, basic UI, fair price.” – Zook

“I am listening to and loving Andrew Leland’s memoir, The Country of the Blind. I also want to recommend getting a laptop stand and separate peripherals for people working from home all day. I have been using a Twelve South folding thing for a couple of weeks and have a lot less neck and shoulder pain already.” – Jeanne

“The Lazarus Heist, a BBC podcast about how North Korean government-sponsored hackers nearly stole $1B.” – Dave

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Signing off

It’s the daylight saving time switchover this weekend, which means people all over the US will change their clocks back an hour and grumble about it for the rest of the weekend. For me, it means dealing with my kid, who does not understand when clocks switch, trying to sync my microwave clock and my oven clock even though that’s apparently physically impossible, and forgetting the clock in my car only to panic in three days when I think I’m an hour off. Mostly, though, it means that daylight saving time jokes TikTok is all over my feed once again, and that is frankly worth the hassle. Plus, it’s always possible that we finally get our act together and get rid of DST altogether, so treasure this fun while you can.

See you next week!