The ultimate app for reading the internet

The ultimate app for reading the internet

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 18, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, happy holidays, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been combing this list for new board games to try, reading about the NFL’s obsession with ping pong and the rise of chess influencers and the wacky history of Yahoo Pipes, watching Lupe Fiasco thoroughly explain how rap works, testing Anytype as a Notion alternative, trying to figure out how to justify buying myself a Lego Polaroid, and adding Us to all my words on Threads to welcome my European friends.

I also have for you a new way to play Grand Theft Auto, some new AI-powered note-taking and journaling tools, new stuff to watch this weekend, a look into the creator economy, and much more.

I also have a question. We only have one more Installer this year, so I figured now’s the time to do it: what was your favorite thing of 2023? I promise I won’t hold this to, like, a legal standard of this is your only favorite forever. But when you look back on the last 12 months, what new show / book / blog / app / creator entered your life that you’re particularly happy about? Tell me one, or two, or three! Doesn’t have to be new this year, just new to you. Email installer@theverge.com, or text / WhatsApp me at (203) 570-8663, and tell me everything. All things Favorites, coming your way in two weeks.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you want to get Installer in your email inbox a day early, subscribe here.)

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The Drop

• The NPR app. If you gave me $100, I could not tell you the difference between the NPR One app and the NPR app, or why they both existed. Luckily, they don’t anymore! There is just the new and nice NPR app, which does a good job of both curating stories into newsy playlists and just playing the shows I’m looking for.
• The GTA trilogy on Netflix. Netflix’s gaming offering is becoming really impressive, really quickly. If you’re a subscriber, you now have free access to a bunch of good games, including three all-timer GTA titles: San Andreas, Vice City, and GTA III. They’re old, but they still rip.
• Finalist. One of the niftier to-do list apps I’ve seen in a while. My main issue with Finalist at the beginning was I hated the color choices. With the new version, you can design the app any way you want! And it’s still a super-simple and pretty clever tasks system.
• How Much I Make on TikTok vs Shorts vs Reels from Hank Green. Nobody explains the creator economy like Hank Green. (If you’ve never seen his rant against TikTok and creator funds, go watch it.) This is an unusually honest, and kind of bleak, look at how much money there really is in this game and where it comes from.
• Journaling Suggestions in Day One. When I wrote about Apple’s Journal app — which is out for everyone now in iOS 17.2! — I said that Journaling Suggestions, the API that combs through your photos, activities, locations, music, and more to offer you stuff to journal about, was the most intriguing part of the product. Day One, my favorite journaling app, now integrates Suggestions right into the app. It works really well.
• Epic’s holiday sale. This is one of the better “free games!” deals you’ll find: Epic is giving away a series of older titles over the course of the holiday season. Right now it’s the Destiny 2: Legacy Collection, which is a huge amount of Destiny content — and there are 16 more games left to claim. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one over the next few days.
• The new Apple TV app. Every day, I swear, my Roku TV gets a little slower. And every day, I get a little closer to just plugging in an Apple TV. I really like what Apple’s trying to do with this app — universal search, cross-platform recommendations, easy buying and renting — even though it’s missing Netflix and a few other important services.
• NotebookLM. Google’s AI-powered notes app still doesn’t have many features, and I still don’t totally understand why it’s not just a feature of Keep or Docs… but it’s a nifty app nonetheless. Upload your docs, summarize them, ask questions about them, make studying or researching a little easier.
• Xbox Cloud Gaming on Quest 3. This might be the best reason yet to buy a VR headset. If you’re a Game Pass subscriber, you can now connect your controller, fire up a huge virtual TV, and play games from anywhere. This is going to become part of my bedtime routine way too quickly.

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Deep dive

For a really long time, Instapaper was the most-used app on my phone. (This was back in the pre-TikTok era, when I spent more time reading and less time scrolling. But let’s not dwell on that change.) I read a lot for work, I will read any celebrity profile anywhere, and I’m forever looking for a better way to manage all the stuff I have to read.

This year, kind of by accident, I wound up doing a tour of all the best options. And good news, there are a bunch of them! Instapaper is still great; Matter is gorgeous; Omnivore is super powerful; Upnext is doing some clever AI stuff; even Pocket still does the job, though I dislike a lot of its recent design changes. We’re sort of spoiled for choice in this department.

But I’ve found the one for me, at least for now. It’s Readwise Reader, which works on iOS, Android, and the web. It’s still technically in beta but is already totally indispensable in my life and workflow. Here’s a few reasons why:

• Reader can handle everything. You can save articles, upload books, add videos, import RSS feeds, subscribe to newsletters, and more. The app does a really good job of sorting things into the right places, so you’re not just stuck with a giant mass of stuff. But it can parse, store, and organize practically anything of any file type, and I love it for that.
• It’s more than just a queue. The first thing I loved about Reader was the homescreen, which shows you categories like “quick reads,” “long reads,” and “recently added.” There’s also a Digest feature that just grabs a bunch of stuff you’ve saved and tells you to read it today. I try to get through my digest every day, and so I’m actually reading stuff I saved more than ever.
• It’s also kind of a note-taking app. Readwise’s original shtick was to compile all your notes and highlights from places like Kindle and Pocket into a searchable, reviewable archive. With Reader, I can highlight anything I upload, or any live webpage altogether, and everything goes into that same notes archive — all of which can sync to Notion, Obsidian, or other note-taking apps, too. All my reading, and all my notes, now live in the same place.
• You can… read… video. I watch a lot of YouTube, for, uh, journalism. Reader adds a (good but not perfect) transcript to every video you save, so you can highlight and take notes just like on an article. Everything gets time-stamped, too, so you can find it later. It’s so helpful.
• It’s super fast. One reason I’ve stopped using Reader in the past is that the app was kind of sluggish. One of those apps that always felt like it was working, you know what I mean? But recently it has been slimmed down and sped up, and now it feels pretty zippy — except when it’s loading the AI voice to read an article aloud, which takes forever, but I don’t care for that feature much anyway.

I only have two ongoing issues with Reader, really. One, it’s not the most attractive app; it feels more Productivity Tool than Beautiful Reading Space, you know? (I hate the app icon, too. Fingers crossed there’s a better one coming.) And two, it actually might have too many features for my taste. You can add tags, there’s an Inbox and a Feed and Library and a Later and an Archive, there are a million Views, just figuring out where everything goes takes a while. Oh, and a bonus third thing: it’s not cheap. The whole Readwise service — note syncing, Kindle integration, all that — costs $8 a month. Well worth it, if you ask me, but not cheap.

Speaking of: if you use this link, I think you’ll get two free months before you start paying instead of just one. Give it a whirl, let me know what you think and what you use to read on your devices!

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Screen share

Tom Warren’s home office is probably cooler than yours. It’s definitely cooler than mine! He has a teleprompter, an outrageously cool custom-built PC, some sick wall art, and more. Tom is a setup connoisseur, in addition to being The Verge’s main authority on all things Microsoft, and I appreciate him for both things.

If you want all the desk-setup deets, you can find them on Reddit or ping Tom on Threads. But I wanted to know if he cares for his small screen as much as the big ones, so I asked him to share his homescreen with us.

Here’s Tom’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro.

The wallpaper: One of The Verge ones I think. (Editor’s note: it’s this one.)

The apps: Phone, Clock, Photos, Camera, App Store, Telegram, Messages, Settings, Slack, YouTube, Google Home, Discord, Instagram, Unread, Twitch, Xbox, WhatsApp, Outlook, Chrome, X, Threads, Bluesky.

The two widgets are smart ones that rotate between Spotify and my 30-min electricity cost on the right, and my calendar and the weather on the left. The electricity one is there to monitor the best times to run appliances and charge my EV, because electric costs in the UK spiraled after the invasion of Ukraine. I also have quick access to my security cameras through Google Home, which itself has widgets for smart home controls. I have X, Threads, and Bluesky all in one easily accessible folder because I can’t decide which one replaces Twitter!

I also asked Tom to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he shared:

• The Wombles. I was a huge fan of The Wombles growing up as a kid, so when I’m not listening to EDM loudly in my headphones, you’ll find me listening to an episode of The Wombles on BBC Sounds. It’s delightfully relaxing, thanks to the voice acting of Richard E. Grant.
• TeeDee. TeeDee came on my radar when he did a mix of Dave and Secondcity’s “I Wanna Feel” last year. Since then I’m fully invested in his SoundCloud because he constantly produces absolute bangers.
• The Finals. I’m obsessed with The Finals at the moment. It’s a destructive first-person arena shooter that’s blowing up on Twitch and Steam. It’s a big break from the usual Call of Duty, Overwatch, or battle royale formula, and I can’t stop smiling when I find some new way to explode buildings in the game.

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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.

“I used this shelf app called Anybox. This app is a box to quickly access any type of item: image, text, document, and links. The app allows customization for default action based on saved item type, we can preview, copy, share, and so on.” — Krishna

“Watching Fisk on Netflix. This Australian quirky comedy just released a second season this month. I love the short 25-minute episodes, makes it easy to watch and enjoy.” — Carter

“As you were talking about media organization / collection apps, please check out the game-tracking app developed by IGN called Playlist. It is free and I am liking it.” — OK

“Analogue Duo baybee.” — Chris

“AI wallpapers on the Google Pixel! I’ve been hooked on creating AI wallpapers and it feels like the combinations are truly endless. Going from an AI-generated painting of a mountain and spaceships to a surreal castle made of muslin with different color shades is wildly fun!” — Michael

“Listening to The Vergecast podcast on how Twitter officially died this year and Watching Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes animation.” — Paul

“If it hasn’t been mentioned yet, or even if it has, you should check out the show Scavengers Reign on Max. Brilliant and freaky sci-fi wonderfulness!” — Edward

“Using Calibre to subscribe to newsletters / newspapers and have them appear on my kindle every morning gives me a beautiful little ‘slow internet’ experience while I sip my coffee.” — Jon

“This week I discovered Mammoth, an insanely gorgeous Mastodon app. Until now I’ve not been able to see past Ivory. Also Longplay is a brilliant iOS app to rediscover my album collection in Apple Music.” — Chris

“Spotify audiobooks. I know you don’t own the audiobooks after but it is really convenient to get 15 hours for free. It’s enough to get me through at least one medium-sized book each month. I use it with Libby and Audible to read a bunch during the month!” — Harrison

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Signing off

This week, The Verge published one of my favorite packages we’ve ever done, all about the death of Twitter. The stories are good, read them all, but seriously, y’all: you have to go to The Great Scrollback of Alexandria and spend a few minutes / hours / months scrolling through thousands of the best tweets of all time. The list reorders every time you open the page, and if there’s a bottom of the list, I sure haven’t found it. Twitter was truly a deranged, horrible, wonderful place. And if you get to the 3944 tweet (you’ll know it when you see it), just know that I laughed for fully 15 minutes at that tweet. I hope you do, too.

We’re off next week for the holiday. Hope you have a great one, and see you in two weeks!

Ro Khanna Reminds Democrats: Americans Love Money

Ro Khanna Reminds Democrats: Americans Love Money “Maybe economics is one way of starting to unify this country,” says the congressman, often mentioned as a possible 2028 presidential candidate.

US Congress pushes warrantless wiretapping decision off until April next year

US Congress pushes warrantless wiretapping decision off until April next year

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Congress has extended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for a few more months to April 2024. According to The New York Times, the program was included in the $886 billion National Defence Authorization Act, which passed the House by a vote of 310 to 118, with support from the majority of both parties, on December 14th. FISA was due to expire on December 31st, 2023.

Senator Ron Wyden wrote in a press release on December 8th that the vote to reauthorize FISA was inserted into the NDAA “without a vote or debate” before the Senate authorized and passed it to the House. Now, the vote has headed to the desk of President Biden, who has called for it to be reauthorized.

Section 702 empowers US intelligence agencies to spy on foreign targets’ communications without a warrant and is behind much of the US intelligence community’s behind-the-scenes data collection. According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, although it was introduced in 2008 as a counterterrorism measure, Section 702 is now used for other illicit activity like cyberattacks, foreign espionage, and, as the Biden administration notes in a release last month, drug trafficking.

Privacy advocates say the tools it provides to US spy agencies enable spying on American citizens. Such as revelations earlier this year that the FBI used it inappropriately to gather details on US citizens 280,000 times in 2020 and 2021.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other privacy advocates wrote in a letter urging Congress not to renew Section 702 on November 21st that the FBI has used it to access the communications of “tens of thousands” of American citizens, including protestors, activists, political donors, and Congressional members.

However, the EFF sees some hope, writing yesterday that the stalemate that led to its temporary authorization “means that the pro-surveillance hardliners of the intelligence community were not able to jam through their expansion of the program.” The group has called for reform of Section 702, including requiring warrants to access Americans’ communications, closing a loophole that lets spy agencies buy Americans’ data on the open market, and placing “reasonable limits on the scope of intelligence surveillance.”

California settles Activision Blizzard gender discrimination lawsuit for $54 million

California settles Activision Blizzard gender discrimination lawsuit for $54 million

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A California regulator has settled its blockbuster lawsuit that alleged a culture of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard. Now under the ownership of Microsoft, the gaming company will pay about $54 million as part of the settlement, according to a press release from California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD).

The CRD (formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing or DFEH) filed this lawsuit in July 2021, alleging that Activision Blizzard had a “frat boy” culture where women were subject to sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination. Following the suit, employees walked out, executives including then-Blizzard president J. Allen Brack and Blizzard’s former SVP of HR left the company, and, months later, The Wall Street Journal reported that CEO Bobby Kotick had known of sexual misconduct allegations for years.

However, as part of the settlement agreement, the CRD said that “no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations” of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard and that there wasn’t evidence of wrongdoing by Kotick, according to The New York Times. (The company told the SEC last year that an internal investigation found “no evidence to suggest” that senior executives ignored allegations of gender harassment.) The WSJ also reported on the lawsuit on Friday.

If a court approves the settlement, Activision Blizzard will pay about $54,875,000 to “cover direct relief to workers and litigation costs,” with $45,750,000 of that going to “a settlement fund dedicated to compensating workers,” the CRD says.

Months after California’s lawsuit, Microsoft announced that it intended to acquire Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion deal. Following a series of regulatory hurdles, that deal finally closed in October. Kotick will stay at Activision Blizzard until the end of the year.

In 2022, a judge approved Activision Blizzard’s $18 million settlement with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over a separate lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and discrimination at the company.

Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The Apple Watch Series 9 isn’t a massive step up from the prior model, but it does offer a few new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A few months ago, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the Apple Watch Ultra 2 ($799) alongside the new Apple Watch Series 9 ($399). Each wearable has its own pros and cons, as does the second-gen Apple Watch SE ($249), but the introduction of the new wearables also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.

But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 10, just launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer, though no one can say with certainty whether the Series 4 will get the next big software update or whether it will be exclusive to newer watches.

Picking up a watch from the latest (or a recent) generation ensures you’re getting a smartwatch with an updated design, a robust number of features, and plenty of sensors. Now, let’s get into the deals.

The best Apple Watch Series 9 deals

The Apple Watch Series 9 represents the latest wearable in Apple’s flagship Series lineup. It introduces a slightly faster S9 SiP chip and a second-gen ultra wideband chip, which allow for onboard Siri processing and precision finding with your iPhone. It also offers a brighter, 2,000-nit display and works with Apple’s new “double tap,” a feature that lets you tap your thumb and index finger together to carry out various actions. While the improvements are welcome, the Series 9 isn’t a vast departure from the prior model, the Series 8.

The Apple Watch Series 9 only just arrived, but the GPS-equipped model is already on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy in the 41mm sizing for $329 ($70 off) or in the larger 45mm configuration at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for as low as $359 ($70 off). As for the LTE model with cellular connectivity, it’s currently available at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy starting at $429 ($70 off), matching its all-time low.

Read our Apple Watch Series 9 review.

The best Apple Watch SE deals

The Apple Watch SE received a refresh in late 2022. It has the same chipset as the Series 8, which is great, but with fewer sensors, no always-on display, and a slightly outdated design compared to the Series 8 and Series 9. Those omissions might take this out of the running for some people, but it still may be exactly what you’re after. Best of all, it starts at $249 for the 40mm Wi-Fi / GPS model, which is $30 less than the previous generation’s baseline cost. Opting for cellular connectivity bumps up the starting price to $299 for the 40mm size (44mm adds $20 to each configuration).

Right now, the 40mm Apple Watch SE with GPS is on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for $199 ($50 off); it’s also available in the 44mm sizing for $229 ($50 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. And if you want the LTE configuration, it’s available at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy starting at $249 ($50 off), one of its lowest prices to date.

Read our Apple Watch SE (second-gen) review.

The best Apple Watch Ultra 2 deals

Apple’s latest Apple Watch Ultra launched at $799 in September with GPS and LTE support, much like the original model. The ultra-capable smartwatch has the most features, sensors, and ruggedness of any Apple Watch model available thus far, along with a display that’s 50 percent brighter than the first Ultra. The 49mm smartwatch also packs Apple’s new S9 SiP and second-gen ultra wideband chips, just like the Apple Watch Series 9, while maintaining long-lasting battery life, precise GPS tracking, and a bevy of diving-friendly sensors.

We recently saw the Apple Watch Ultra 2 dip to $739 for Black Friday. Thankfully, it’s currently on sale for even less at Amazon, where you can grab it starting at just $699 ($100 off) when you clip the on-page coupon. The current promo only applies to the model with an Alpine Loop strap, however, you can also pick up Apple’s latest wearable with either a Trail Loop or an Ocean Band for around $729 ($70 off) using a similar on-page coupon.

Read our Apple Watch Ultra 2 review.

A note on the more premium models

While all of the Apple Watch models and colorways covered here are encased in aluminum (except the Ultras, which have a titanium build), Apple does make a more premium range built out of stainless steel and titanium. These offerings are functionally and aesthetically similar to their aluminum counterparts, with slightly refined colors and finishings — polished for the stainless steel and brushed for the titanium. However, they start at much steeper prices of $749 and above. They, too, can often be found on sale, but they’re never discounted as low as the standard base models, so we don’t include them here.

Apple fixed the iPhone’s Flipper Zero problem

Apple fixed the iPhone’s Flipper Zero problem

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Apple has blocked a Bluetooth attack carried out with the Flipper Zero that sent a barrage of pop-ups to iPhones, causing them to lock up and crash. While Apple hasn’t formally announced the change, it appears the company has rolled out a fix in iOS 17.2, according to tests from ZDNET and 9to5Mac.

The attack, which allowed users to crash nearby iPhones running iOS 17.0, involved the Flipper Zero, a tiny, jack-of-all-trades hacking device. A third-party firmware called Flipper Xtreme included a feature that allowed the Flipper’s built-in Bluetooth radio to blast an overwhelming number of Bluetooth alerts to devices.

Until now, the only way to prevent the attacks was to completely disable Bluetooth on the iPhone, but it looks like Apple has finally addressed the vulnerability. When attempting to lock up an iPhone running iOS 17.2 with the Flipper Zero, both ZDNET and 9to5Mac found that only a few pop-ups appeared on the device. Fortunately, the number of notifications wasn’t enough to cause the device to crash.

We still don’t know exactly what Apple did to make the fix, but The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for more information, and we’ll update this article if we hear back. For now, though, it’s a good idea to update your iPhone to iOS 17.2 if you haven’t already.

Studios are loosening their reluctance to send shows to Netflix.

Studios are loosening their reluctance to send shows to Netflix. When building their own streaming companies, many entertainment studios ended lucrative licensing deals with Netflix. But they missed the money too much.

Vivo’s X100 Pro offers another massive camera sensor to an international audience

Vivo’s X100 Pro offers another massive camera sensor to an international audience

The Vivo X100 Pro in blue. | Image: Vivo

Even in tiny smartphone cameras, lenses matter. Vivo seems to agree since lens improvements are a major emphasis on its new flagship smartphones: the Vivo X100 and Vivo X100 Pro. They launched in China first on November 13th, and now Vivo is releasing them internationally with matching 6.78-inch 120Hz OLED screens.

The X100 will be available in Southeast Asian markets, including India and Indonesia, and the higher-tier X100 Pro will also be available in European markets. And no surprise — the US isn’t getting either of the devices.

Like the X90 Pro before it, the X100 Pro offers a 50-megapixel one-inch-type main camera — a huge sensor by smartphone standards. Vivo says it’s been tuned with “Optical Precision Calibration” for “consistent sharpness and quality.” The X100 Pro’s 50-megapixel telephoto camera also gets a bump up to 4.3x optical magnification versus 2x on the previous model. It comes with a new APO designation, which is Zeiss’ terminology for a lens designed to reduce chromatic aberration. There’s also a floating lens element — which, no, doesn’t literally float — to enable close-up photography with the tele lens.

Image: Vivo

The non-Pro X100, which isn’t coming to Europe.

The X100 has a more pedestrian 50-megapixel 1/1.49-inch-type main camera sensor, as well as a 64-megapixel 3x optical telephoto. There’s no floating element here, but Zeiss coatings have been applied to lenses on both devices. Both phones have 50-megapixel ultrawide cameras as well as a secondary imaging chip, but the X100’s is an older V2 while the Pro gets the newest V3, enabling 4K cinematic portrait video.

The X100 and X100 Pro are both built on MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 flagship chipset. Most other flagship series put a smaller screen in the “lesser” model. Not so with Vivo — both use that same 6.78-inch OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. They both come with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, too. So the primary differences are the camera ones detailed above.

Vivo’s X90 Pro showed a lot of promise when I tested its camera earlier this year against the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. The company is sticking with the big image sensor strategy, which has certain advantages like better baseline noise performance and more natural bokeh. But at the time, Samsung still came out ahead in most situations with its more-pixels-more-better ethos and savvy computational processing. It’s nice to see Vivo doubling down on lens quality — in my tests, the X90 Pro showed some lens aberrations that spoiled some of my images. In any case, it probably won’t be too long until the X100 Pro and the seemingly imminent Galaxy S24 Ultra meet for a rematch.

Vivo declined to share European pricing information under embargo but said that the X100 Pro will retail for HK$7,998 in Hong Kong, which translates to around €937 or $1,024. The non-Pro X100, meanwhile, will cost HK$5,998 (around $768 / €702).

The Last of Us Multiplayer Video Game Is Scrapped

The Last of Us Multiplayer Video Game Is Scrapped The video game studio Naughty Dog said The Last of Us Online was too resource-intensive to complete without delaying the development of future single-player versions of the game.

Naughty Dog cancels its The Last of Us multiplayer game

Naughty Dog cancels its The Last of Us multiplayer game

Image: Sony

Naughty Dog announced Thursday that it’s canceled the multiplayer game it was building in The Last of Us universe.

The studio says it has been in pre-production on The Last of Us Online even while working on The Last of Us Part II. “We were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed,” according to a blog post about the news.

However, “to release and support The Last of Us Online we’d have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games,” Naughty Dog says. “So, we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage.”

Clearly, Naughty Dog is picking the latter path — it also says it has “more than one” big new single-player title in the works.

The Last of Us Online development already seemed to be in some trouble, as Naughty Dog announced a delay to the game in May shortly after Bloomberg reported that Sony was re-evaluating the game’s direction. (In that same delay announcement, Naughty Dog also revealed it was working on a “brand-new single player experience.”) In Kotaku’s October report about Naughty Dog laying off some contractors, the publication said that The Last of Us’ Online was “basically on ice.”

The cancellation of The Last of Us Online adds to Sony’s broader pushback of its live service ambitions. Instead of releasing 12 live service games by March 2026, it now only plans to release six.

Sony and Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part II Remastered will be released on January 19th, 2024. The second season of the hit HBO show is set to debut in 2025.

The Tesla Cybertruck’s infamous wiper will reportedly cost $165 to replace

The Tesla Cybertruck’s infamous wiper will reportedly cost $165 to replace

Parker Ortolani / The Verge

The Verge, your source for Tesla Cybertruck windshield wiper news, is unreasonably happy to potentially reveal: a Cybertruck windshield wiper replacement may cost as little as $165 for the entire arm and blade assembly, or $75 for just the wiper blade itself.

That’s the word from Tesla watcher Nic Cruz Patane, who, like all good windshield wiper enthusiasts, has seemingly been paging through the Tesla parts catalog for the Cybertruck but, unlike the rest of us, seemingly has access to prices for each part. We can see the same page, without prices, and it appears to be one single wiper blade after all.

Screenshot via Nic Cruz Patane (Twitter/X)

Twitter embeds weren’t working so I took a screenshot.

The Cybertruck’s entire windshield will also be replaceable, of course, and will cost you a cool $1,900, assuming these prices are accurate and assuming they’re consumer prices rather than internal prices. (I am not sure if that’s a safe assumption, but if so, they seem reasonable for a $60K-and-up vehicle.)

Meanwhile, the truck’s merely baseball-proof side windows should run between $225 and $260 per chunk of glass.

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Tesla delivered the first Cybertrucks to customers at an event at the end of November.

Now Microsoft PowerPoint for the web can add videos with closed captions

Now Microsoft PowerPoint for the web can add videos with closed captions

Illustration: The Verge

PowerPoint for the web now lets users insert videos with closed captions and subtitles into presentations, reports Windows Central. It should make presentations created in the Microsoft 365 suite more accessible to Deaf people or those hard of hearing, but the feature also offers other benefits.

You can add closed captions in multiple languages, allowing users to connect with audiences worldwide, and captions also make it easier to watch videos in loud environments or quietly without disturbing people around you. It’s also become a feature people expect to see as support for subtitling expands in apps like TikTok, Netflix, Zoom, and more.

To embed a video and insert captions, users must first create closed caption files in the WebVTT format by either using a caption-creation tool or a text editor like Notepad.

After doing so, users can sign into PowerPoint for the web with their Microsoft account and create a new presentation. Upon selecting Video, they then need to click on Insert and choose Insert Video. Once they’ve added the video file, they need to select the captions file by clicking on Video and Insert Captions.

To add captions in multiple languages, you’ll need to insert multiple caption files. You’ll also need to rename the end of the file title to the standard locale, so it looks something like “MyClosedCaptions.en.vtt” for English or “MyClosedCaptions.es.vtt” for Spanish.

Microsoft has increasingly prioritized accessibility, recently calling Windows 11 its most “inclusive version” of the Windows operating system. It highlighted updates that allow users to generate live captions in even more languages and employees to sign in to PCs with just their voices. Meanwhile, in March, Microsoft introduced an “Accessibility Assistant” for Microsoft 365 to let users know when they’re writing inaccessible content, along with 3D-printed attachments and grips for the Surface Pen.

Political Debate Is Rife on TikTok. Politicians? Not So Much.

Political Debate Is Rife on TikTok. Politicians? Not So Much. Very few politicians, including the top candidates for president, are on the hugely popular video app — perhaps ceding much of the political discussion to others.

Starlink loses out on $886 million in rural broadband subsidies

Starlink loses out on $886 million in rural broadband subsidies

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The FCC announced today that it won’t award Elon Musk’s Starlink an $886 million subsidy from the Universal Service Fund for expanding broadband service in rural areas. The money would have come from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program (RDOF), but the FCC writes that Starlink wasn’t able to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service” and that giving the subsidy to it wouldn’t be “the best use of limited Universal Service Fund dollars.”

That was the same reason the FCC gave when it rejected Starlink’s bid last year, which led to this appeal. SpaceX had previously won the bidding to roll out 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload “low-latency internet to 642,925 locations in 35 states,” funded by the RDOF.

“The FCC is tasked with ensuring consumers everywhere have access to high-speed broadband that is reliable and affordable,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. “This applicant had failed to meet its burden to be entitled to nearly $900 million in universal service funds for almost a decade.” FCC commissioner Brendan Carr dissented, writing that “the FCC did not require — and has never required — any other award winner to show that it met its service obligation years ahead of time.”

President Biden has promised more equitable internet access since taking office. But his funding plan was slashed by the time it became law, with the final version offering no money for locally-run internet service.

Christopher Cardaci, head of legal at SpaceX, writes in a letter to the FCC that “Starlink is arguably the only viable option to immediately connect many of the Americans who live and work in the rural and remote areas of the country where high-speed, low-latency internet has been unreliable, unaffordable, or completely unavailable, the very people RDOF was supposed to connect.”

Snapchat now lets subscribers share AI-generated snaps

Snapchat now lets subscribers share AI-generated snaps

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snapchat is getting even more generative AI features. The messaging app now lets Snapchat Plus subscribers create images based on a text prompt and send them to friends.

Those who subscribe to Snapchat’s $3.99 plan can use the feature by tapping the “AI” button from the toolbar on the right side of the camera interface. This opens up a window where users can type a text prompt or choose from one of the premade options, like “a futuristic disco” or “a rocket preparing for liftoff.”

Image: Snap

From there, Snapchat’s AI will spit out an image based on the prompt, allowing users to edit it and add a message before sending it off to friends and family on the app. Snapchat is rolling out some other AI-powered perks for subscribers as well, including a way to make the subject of a photo appear farther away from the camera by using AI to fill in the background. Users can try the feature by taking a close-up, pressing the “crop” icon in the camera interface, and selecting “extend.”

There’s also a new way to use “Dreams” — Snapchat’s AI selfie feature that transforms photos based on specific themes — with photos containing friends. Snapchat Plus subscribers get access to one free pack of eight Dreams each month. All this adds to the flood of AI features Snapchat and other apps have added throughout the year. In addition to launching an AI chatbot for all users in April, Snapchat recently added a way for developers to create filters with ChatGPT.

Google Loses Antitrust Court Battle With Makers of Fortnite Video Game

Google Loses Antitrust Court Battle With Makers of Fortnite Video Game The ruling could reshape the rules of how other businesses can make money on the Android operating system.

Google is finally saying goodbye to Google Play Movies & TV

Google is finally saying goodbye to Google Play Movies & TV

Illustration: The Verge

Google is about to fully move on from the Google Play Movies & TV. It had already moved Android and iOS users to the Google TV app, removed the app from every Roku and most smart TVs, and pulled the app from Android TV in October. In a recently published support document, however, Google detailed the ways you’ll be able to watch the shows and movies you’ve bought through Google Play Movies & TV once the brand is gone for good in January.

If you have a TV or streaming device powered by Android TV, you can watch things you’ve purchased or things you want to rent from the Shop tab starting January 17th, according to Google. If you have a cable box or a set-top box that runs Android TV, you’ll watch / rent from the YouTube app starting that same day. And on a browser, YouTube is the place to go, too.

Google has been slowly pushing users away from Google Play Movies & TV for quite awhile, and 9to5Google reports that the Google Play Movies & TV app on Android TV has already started pointing to the Shop tab, so hopefully these changes won’t make for too jarring of a transition. Notably, you’ll still be able to watch the things you’ve purchased even though you’ll be getting the content from a different place, which is better than Sony’s announcement that it will be removing Discovery content that users paid for from their libraries.

Google isn’t the only one consolidating its entertainment apps and platforms. Apple introduced a refreshed TV app that lets you access things like Apple TV Plus as well as buy and rent shows and movies all in one app.

The Nation Magazine to Become Monthly

The Nation Magazine to Become Monthly The progressive publication will move to the new schedule in January, and each issue will be 84 pages instead of 48.

What Ails Offshore Wind: Supply Chains, Ships and Interest Rates

What Ails Offshore Wind: Supply Chains, Ships and Interest Rates Government officials and energy developers misjudged the difficulty of building huge clean energy projects in the United States, which has built very few of them.

Be skeptical about QR codes, warns the FTC

Be skeptical about QR codes, warns the FTC

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned the public against scanning any old QR code in a consumer alerts blog last week. Naturally, the warning comes down to security and privacy — bad actors can put QR codes in inconspicuous places or send them via text or email, then just sit back and wait for a payday in the form of money, logins, or other sensitive information.

The New York Times reported that John Fokker, who heads threat intelligence at cybersecurity company Trellix, says Trellix found over “60,000 samples of QR code attacks” in the third quarter this year alone. The Times wrote that the most popular scams involved payroll and HR personnel impersonators and postal scams, among others. Early last year, police in several Texas cities said they’d found fraudulent QR codes placed on parking meters, directing people to a false payment site.

To avoid being victimized by a bad code, the FTC suggests ignoring unexpected emails or other messages you weren’t expecting that come with some sort of urgent request. It’s also good to check the URL that shows up on your screen when scanning to make sure it’s a site you trust. Then again, even a legitimate QR code can show you a garbled and meaningless shortened web address, so if you know what site you want to visit, it’s best to go there directly.

The Commission also recommends the old standby of updating your devices and ensuring you have good, strong passwords and multi-factor authentication in place for sensitive accounts. If you’re unsure how to do that second part, check out our two-factor authentication guide, which has instructions for several of the most popular sites and services.

Beyond the FTC’s recommendation, there are other things you can do. Don’t download a QR code scanning app, for one — built-in camera apps for Android and iOS already do that, and apps can sometimes be made for nefarious purposes themselves. The FBI also has a list of recommendations in a similar blog it published in September, but in general, if you aren’t sure about a code, don’t scan it.

Apple’s iPad plans for next year could be a lot less confusing

Apple’s iPad plans for next year could be a lot less confusing

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Apple is reportedly making some changes next year that it hopes will make it easier for people to fit a specific iPad to their needs. For instance, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter today that the next iPad Air will get an M2 chip in addition to the larger second model that’s been rumored.

One of the other ways Apple is reportedly tackling the issue is to drop the 9th-generation model that’s been dangling off of the front of the lineup since last year’s pricier 10th-generation iPad redesign launched. Gurman says sending the 9th-gen iPad out to pasture will let the company “slowly phase out some of its older Pencils.” Presumably, the 2015 Apple Pencil will be the first to go, once there’s no Lightning port iPad to awkwardly plug it into.

Gurman has pegged March for the launch of the new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Air, which would keep Apple’s mid-level on a two-year upgrade cycle. His report today that the Air will get an M2 chip while the Pro models get the M3 nod would firmly put the Air one processor generation behind. But that doesn’t mean the iPad Air will suffer for it, nor that Apple even should give it an M3 chip. Barring any drastic changes in how iPadOS functions that turns iPads into practical laptop replacements for more varied and compute-intensive tasks, the OLED screen that’s rumored for the iPad Pro will be a bigger differentiator for most people than which Apple silicon chip is doing the work.

Gurman also wrote that the new 12.9-inch Air will work with the same Magic Keyboard that’s available today for the iPad Pro. If that’s true, it would make sense if Apple gives the next iPad Air models iPad Pro-like camera arrays. After all, I doubt we’ve phased into an alternate dimension where it wouldn’t drive the company bonkers to see a keyboard case with a big square camera hole on the Air’s single tiny, round camera.

These are good moves for Apple, even if the updates don’t fully sort out the iPad’s awkward situation. Today’s iPads are just too different from one another. Picking based on power needs and hardware features is so much easier if certain other features, like screen size, are the same or at least close enough. But if you really want a big tablet and don’t give a hoot about high refresh rate or high-contrast displays, it’s been annoying that only the iPad Pro offers it — the bigger Air fixes that. Now, if only the company could rectify the iPad accessory situation.

Google finally gives ChatGPT some competition

Google finally gives ChatGPT some competition

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 17, 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 A Murder at the End of the World and (finally!) Barbie, reading about Gary Gensler’s war on crypto, robot trucks, and Taylor Swift’s world takeover, playing Puzzmo’s Really Bad Chess, and catching up on all the super-popular TikToks I missed this year.

I also have for you a new Mastodon app, a bunch of new AI tools, a whole new Fortnite universe, an espresso maker, and much more. And I have some thoughts about messaging. Let’s dig in.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What apps are you into right now? What have you read or watched or eaten or played or built recently? 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.)

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The Drop

• Google Gemini. Talking to Google CEO Sundar Pichai this week, I got the distinct sense that he sees the new Gemini model as the moment Google starts to win the AI war. Is he right? Who knows! Gemini certainly has its issues. But you can play with it now in Bard and on the Pixel 8 Pro, and it’s coming to Google products everywhere really soon.
• Beeper Mini. What a saga this was! The universal messaging app released a new app for Android that did one thing — let you send blue-bubble iMessages — and did it well. So well, it seems, that Apple quickly figured out a way to shut it down. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this back-and-forth.
• The Artificial podcast series. I think every reporter I know is currently digging into the history of OpenAI, trying to figure out how this weirdly structured organization came to be the biggest thing in artificial intelligence. This episode of The Journal (the first in a four-part series, I think) is the clearest origin story I’ve heard so far.
• Mammoth 2. I’ve used a lot of Mastodon apps, and this is my new favorite. Mammoth is nice-looking and fast but also really devoted to helping you find good people and posts on the platform. It’s only for Apple devices, which is a bummer, but it’s a really nice app.
• Resident Evil 4’s VR Mode. You could argue that Resident Evil games have been the best thing in VR for a long time. Now, PSVR users are getting a pretty full VR version of Resident Evil 4, which is one of the best games in the series and was remade as one of the best games of the year. I might need to buy a PSVR for this.
• Lego Fortnite. I played a lot of OG Fortnite recently and actually loved the game minus all the tie-ins and branded stuff. But this is something else: a massive new island and almost an entirely new game within Fortnite. I’ve only played it a bit, but it’s very cool.
• Digital Foundry’s Grand Theft Auto VI trailer breakdown. Have you watched the GTA VI trailer yet? Statistically speaking, I think everyone on earth already has. And if you’re as excited about it as I am, you’ll love this 37-minute, absurdly deep exegesis of practically every frame and pixel we’ve seen so far.
• Disney Plus with Hulu. Disney’s combined streaming service is now in beta testing, which means you might start to see a Hulu tab inside of your Disney app. Fast Company has a fun story on all the unexpected challenges of shoving two services together like this, but ultimately, it looks pretty simple. Hulu is a channel; Disney Plus is the cable bundle. That’s where we’re headed.
• Visual Electric. A new and clever riff on AI image generation — this one gives you all kinds of dynamic control, so instead of prompting and re-prompting, you can tweak your images almost as if you’re in Photoshop. It also has auto-complete suggestions as you type, which has led me down some deeply weird rabbit holes.

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Screen share

I’ve known Dan Seifert a long time, and I can’t remember a time when he has only had one phone. This is partly an occupational hazard: Dan runs The Verge’s reviews team, so his home seems to frequently resemble a terrifying cross between a Best Buy and a FedEx warehouse. But Dan’s also just a multiple-device kind of guy, because the other thing I can’t remember is when there was one device that did everything he needed.

I asked Dan to share his homescreen with us, slightly terrified of how many screenshots I might get back. (Dan’s also a “download all the apps in the app store” kind of guy, just like me.) Somewhat miraculously, he only sent me two. Well, three, depending on how you count a foldable.

Here are Dan’s homescreens, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: Apple iPhone 15 Pro.

The wallpaper: This changes depending on my Focus mode, but my current Work Focus has the Apple Astronomy wallpaper for Jupiter, which looks cool and was my favorite planet as a kid. Everyone had a favorite planet as a kid, right?

The apps: I love useful widgets, so I always have a large one taking up a good chunk of my screen. It’s a widget stack, so I can flick through things like my calendar, to-do list, Siri Suggestions, and weather. This is the homescreen I use for my Work Focus mode, so a lot of the time, the stack is showing Fantastical, which I love because it blends both calendar appointments and to-dos from my Todoist list in one view, while giving me a quick date and month calendar overview. Below that are Slack, Reeder for RSS, Artifact, and Apple News, the latter three of which I use to keep up with news throughout the day.

You’ll see that I have two to-do list apps here because, for a while, I was trying to see if I could make Apple Reminders work for me. I can’t, and I always fall back on Todoist, my one true to-do list app love. I should probably remove Reminders at this point, but I haven’t figured out another app to put there yet, and I like the symmetry of two full app rows. My home row is super boring, but Outlook remains the best email app on the iPhone, fight me.

Dan Seifert’s Fold homescreen. Widgets for days!

The phone: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5.

The wallpaper: Something I found in the Backdrops app, the best wallpaper app for Android, that I thought looked cool. I don’t really get to see it all that often, though, because I crap my homescreen up with so much stuff, but oh well.

The apps: The Fold 5 lets me set different layouts for its inner and outer screens, and you bet your ass I take advantage of that. The outer screen is optimized for stuff I access most often while on the go, and once again, widgets and widget stacks play a big role here. The top widget stack has: calendar, to-do list, battery, Samsung’s version of Siri Suggestions (which works about as well as Apple’s version, read into that however you’d like), and the Alexa shopping list we use for groceries.

Below that is another widget stack with media widgets for Pocket Casts, Apple Music, Sonos, and my Galaxy Buds 2 Pro controls. Then a third widget below that is for the Samsung Weather app, which has a handy insights thing that came in the One UI 6 / Android 14 update. I’ve got some folders for music apps, smart home controls, and news apps like Artifact and Google News. FocusReader is my RSS app of choice on Android that I plug my Feedly account into, and I obsessively check the Play Store for app updates throughout the day, so there’s a shortcut to take me right to it next to the weather widget. Then there’s the ubiquitous Google Search widget that can now launch apps — so that’s mostly what I use it for — and my kind of boring home row with a folder for multiple messaging apps since Beeper Mini came out. Outlook is the best email app on Android, and Samsung Internet is the best browser on Android, fight me twice.

The inner screen is optimized for the things I do on a bigger screen, so there are a lot more apps and folders. I’ve got a books folder and a read-later folder for all the reading apps I use on my Fold, which is one of the primary things I do with it, plus social media time wasters like Megalodon for Mastodon, Threads, and Instagram. The calendar widget is a stack, of course, and I’m experimenting with the big battery widget, which is more useful when I have my earbuds connected and can see their status in it, too. Home row is boring again, but I took the phone app out of it because I don’t really take calls with the Fold open.

I also asked Dan to share a few things he’s into right now, other than constantly maintaining thousands of phones and widget stacks. Here’s what he shared:

• I’ve been reading the Silo trilogy of books about a decade late, and I’m about a third of the way through the last one, Dust. I loved the show on Apple TV Plus earlier this year, and I’ve been really enjoying the books, which have similar vibes, even if the story doesn’t line up 1:1 with the show.
• There’s finally a new season of Fargo airing now, and I love it. I’m extremely here for the Jon Hamm-aissance this year; he was great in the most recent season of The Morning Show, too.
• I stuck a MagSafe ring sticker to the back of my Z Fold 5 a few weeks ago, and it opened up a whole world of fun accessories I can share between my iPhone and it. Grips, kickstands, chargers, and batteries all work great, but my favorite is the hack I did by gluing a second MagSafe ring to the sleeve for an S Pen, and now I have a detachable S Pen holder without a bulky case.

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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.

“I was just introduced to the Canadian ‘board game’ Crokinole, and it’s pretty rad. The boards are the size of a small table.” – Tom

“Throwback to an earlier Installer that brought up Omnivore as a read-it-later service. I have since moved all of my newsletters (including Installer) over to Omnivore and out of my standard email inbox. Having newsletters in a dedicated reader app not only cleans up my email but also is a much better format — and it has high-quality AI text-to-speech to read them to me.” – Nicholas

“Godzilla Minus One was fantastic and deserves attention from those that haven’t been traditionally interested in kaiju movies.” – Luke

“Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is an alternative story to the original comics. The cast from its movie adaptation is back. Combine that with the anime-like animation, and you have the perfect binge-watch for the weekend.” – Bahadir

“The Vergecast reminded me that this little device has connected my Nest devices to Apple HomeKit for over three years without breaking once. I forgot I even used it in my setup.” – Chris

“Informed. It’s a kinda new news app. Looks super clean. Articles don’t refresh as often as I’d like. Still rocking with it though.” – Omar

“Using DuckDuckGo / Firefox Relay to remove trackers from emails and clean up links. Useful for newsletters or shopping websites.” – Lucens

“Been loving the espresso I’ve been making this week with my new Wacaco Picopresso.” – James

“I’d like to recommend NowPlaying. This app is the most beautiful way to detect fun details about any song, album, or artist.” – Hidde

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Signing off

I’m writing to you this week from Las Vegas, where one of the year’s great sporting events is taking place. No, not that one. Not that one, either. Yes! It’s the Excel World Championships! There’s a huge community of exceptional Excel users out there, and they get together periodically to use spreadsheets to solve puzzles. It’s growing fast and is a surprisingly fun spectator sport — it even went kind of viral after showing up on ESPN last year.

If you’re reading this on Saturday, you can watch the finals live tonight on YouTube (look for me in the crowd!). If you’re not seeing this until Sunday, head over to the Financial Modeling World Cup’s YouTube page, and you can see all the competitions from this year. It’s nerdy, it’s thrilling, and I love it so much. If only I knew what a VLOOKUP was, I’d be unstoppable.

See you next week!

This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go

This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go The eccentric pro-tech movement known as “Effective Accelerationism” wants to unshackle powerful A.I., and party along the way.