Microsoft makes it easier to install Windows store apps from the web
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Microsoft is starting to improve the experience of downloading Windows store apps from the web. The software giant has built what it calls an “undocked version of the [Microsoft] Store” that works like a typical executable to install apps from the Microsoft Store. It should cut down on the complexity involved in finding Windows store apps on the web and installing them.
Instead of launching the Microsoft Store and a mini window, now when you download apps from the web version of the Microsoft Store it will download a standalone installer instead. This means you don’t have to click install on the web, then allow Chrome or Edge to open the Microsoft Store, and finally hit install to actually install the app. A lightweight installer will be downloaded instead, which you can launch and install the Microsoft Store app you were looking for.
Image: Rudy Huyn (X)
The old way of installing Windows store apps from the web. Image: Rudy Huyn (X)
The new way of installing Windows store apps from the web.
Microsoft Store developer Rudy Huyn claims this reduces the entire process down to just two clicks, but from my own testing it’s still three clicks to download and install Microsoft Store apps from the web. You click to download, you then click to open this new lightweight installer, and you still have to click install in the prompt that appears. Microsoft appears to have just simplified the process here by removing the prompt to approve the Microsoft Store being opened through Chrome or Edge.
Not all Microsoft Store apps seem to support this new lightweight installer, though. While I was able to download packaged versions of GroupMe and Snapchat, trying to download Discord this way still pushed me into the Microsoft Store instead. The standalone installers also don’t include the full app installer, as this is downloaded during the install process.
Microsoft has tested this new method over the past five months and it claims it has led, on average, to a 12 percent increase in installations and a 54 percent increase in the number of apps launched after install. That’s obviously good news for developers eager for Windows users to install and use their apps, so Microsoft is now expanding this experiment to “more products and markets,” according to Huyn.
Gaming giant Embracer Group is splitting into three companies
Embracer Group will house major properties like the Lord of The Rings under its new Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends company. | Image: Warner Bros.
Swedish gaming conglomerate Embracer Group announced plans on Monday to split itself into three distinct games and entertainment companies: Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends. These will be separate, publicly listed companies, according to Embracer’, which says the move will allow “each entity to better focus on their respective core strategies and offer more differentiated and distinct equity stories for existing and new shareholders.”
“This move towards three independent companies reinforces Embracer’s vision of backing entrepreneurs and creators with a long-term mindset,” says Lars Wingefors, co-founder and Embracer Group CEO, “allowing them to continue to deliver unforgettable experiences for gamers and fans across the globe.”
The three new companies will be broken down as follows:
Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends: This company, which will be renamed from Embracer Group, is described as a “creative powerhouse in AAA game development and publishing” that will retain ownership of the Dead Island, Killing Floor, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Tomb Raider, and The Lord of the Rings IPs.
Asmodee Group: a new arm dedicated to publishing and distributing tabletop games. The existing catalog includes established titles like Ticket to Ride, 7 Wonders, Azul, CATAN, Dobble, and Exploding Kittens. Asmodee is also developing licensed tabletop games based on The Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Game of Thrones, and Star Wars franchises. Embracer anticipates the spinoff and share listings will take place “within 12 months.”
Coffee Stain & Friends: described as a “diverse gaming entity” that will focus on indie, mid-market, and free-to-play games. Properties sitting under this new company include Deep Rock Galactic, Goat Simulator, Satisfactory, Wreckfest, Teardown, and Valheim. The share listings are projected to become available in 2025.
“This move has been made with the intention to unleash the full potential of each team and provide them with their own leadership and strategic direction,” said Wingefors. “This is the start of a new chapter, a chapter that I intend to remain part of as an active, committed, and supportive shareholder of all three new entities, with an evergreen horizon.”
States Move to Ban Deepfake Nudes to Fight Sexually Explicit Images of Minors Legislators in two dozen states are working on bills, or have passed laws, to combat A.I.-generated sexually explicit images of minors.
Gentler Streak quieted my evil brain goblin so I could run in peace
Streaks aren’t the only way to be consistent. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
Six weeks ago, I was having a tough time sticking to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was mostly fine. Mentally, the thought of running — a sport I usually love — made me roll into a blanket burrito and never leave my bed. I started hating myself, but none of my usual fitness apps and trackers were helping. After building a weeklong streak, I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed one Saturday. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.
Fed up, I went digging around the internet and ended up downloading the Gentler Streak app.
Gentler Streak is what it sounds like. It’s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more compassionate approach toward building a fitness habit. You can set an activity status: active, on a break, sick, and injured. Selecting one of the latter three won’t break your streak. Instead, your activity is represented on an “activity path,” which is a visualization for your overall training load. There’s educational reading about nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interplay between all three. Each day, you open the app, and it’ll give you a nudge. If you’re super well-rested, you might get told to push it a little. If you’re tired, you’ll get reminded that resting is good, actually. And if you really don’t know what to do, you can tap a “Go Gentler” button on the Apple Watch to see a series of suggested exercises based on activities you like, with recommended durations and intensity levels.
There’s a lot I love about all this. First and foremost, I enjoy that it incorporates breaks and “failure” into your eventual success — and doesn’t judge you for it.
Screenshot: Victoria Song / The Verge
Even phrasing it as “choosing to take a rest day” helps trick your brain into feeling more intentional.
That lack of judgment is what I needed. Eleven years into my running journey, I’d stumbled into my worst-ever slump. I was caught in a vicious cycle of falling off the horse, getting back on, and then getting angry whenever my efforts were less than perfect. A silly walking app helped with reframing my all-or-nothing mindset. The problem is, inside my brain resides an evil hypercritical goblin that will find and dwell in every tiny failing while minimizing all my successes. So what if a fun walking app was getting me out and about? Walking isn’t running. So what if I ran twice a week for a few weeks? You used to run four to five times a week, easy peasy.
I know I’m not supposed to listen to the evil brain goblin, but there are times when life rudely hands it a mighty powerful megaphone. Adding Gentler Streak helped shut it up. It’s not rocket science for an app to say “taking a rest day won’t affect your overall fitness.” But many don’t. Seeing that phrase over and over again underscored that I had, against my better judgment, started conflating streaks with consistency. Streaks are just one measure of consistency and a flawed one at that. A single break — which may actually be the better choice for your health — will wreck your streak, and that’s perceived as a bad thing.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling beholden to one.
None of what Gentler Streak does is novel. Features that emphasize recovery are rampant in other fitness apps. It’s more that it leads with intuition instead of data. There’s a real emphasis on creating space for everything, as opposed to sticking to something. One teaches you how to adapt; the other relies on willpower — and willpower always runs out.
Take the daily “Go Gentler” suggestions. Rest and active recovery (e.g., yoga, walking, low-intensity activity, etc.) are always options 1 and 2. The remaining three are usually things that will help you maintain where you are, push you a little, or push you a lot. You don’t actually have to put in a lot of thought either because the suggestions are there. On stressful days when you’re out of willpower, that helps keep the evil brain goblin from waking up.
Like any app, Gentler Streaks still has its flaws, one of them being its reliance on the Apple Watch. You can use it with other trackers, but I’ve had issues with it pulling my sleep data from the Oura Ring reliably. Another is the subscription — $7.99 per month or $27.49 for a year. I paid, as features like the Go Gentler suggestions and extra data insights are paywalled.
Despite these shortcomings, a gentler approach seems to be working for me. Some people with iron wills may scoff. To them, I doff my cap and say I envy their blessedly silent brain goblins. But I’m running faster, longer, and more enjoyably than I have in six months. My calf remains uninjured. When I tell myself, “I’m busy today, I’ll squeeze in that run tomorrow” — the run actually happens. I’ll take it.
The game emulator your phone has been missing
Image: The Verge
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 35, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to open some tabs, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I also have for you a surprisingly gadget-y week! We have a new set of earbuds to try, a new handheld camera, an AI memory system, a new audio-first social network, and much more. (Oh, also, a programming note: Installer is off next week, back May 4th.) Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into this week? What should everyone else be playing / reading / watching / eating / doing? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
Delta. This retro gaming emulator instantly earned a spot on my homescreen. Leaving aside the complicated legal questions about emulators and ROMs, this app is mature and polished and supports a huge number of old consoles. The iPhone screen also turns out to be the absolute perfect size for playing some of those old pixelated Mario games. Just saying. (This was, not surprisingly, the most recommended thing this week and maybe in the history of Installer — thanks to everyone who sent it in!)
Airchat. I honestly don’t know how to feel about this app. Are voice-based social networks going to be a thing, or was Clubhouse just a strange pandemic-induced haze we were all in for a week? Lots of tech folks I know are into this one, though, so it’s at least worth keeping an eye on.
Limitless. A very different kind of AI gadget, this one. The “we’ll summarize your meetings” approach is… fine, but I think the vision here, to figure out how to record and give you access to your life, is pretty cool. I also really dig the Limitless Pendant, which looks much less gadget-y than your average AI device.
The Insta360 X4. Insta360 is doing some pretty nifty stuff in the action camera world. The $500 X4 does 8K footage at 30 frames per second, which goes a long way when you’re cropping and sharing videos later. It also has some ruggedness upgrades, which should help the more, uh, clumsy of us out there.
Soulver 3 for iPhone. Soulver is the coolest, smartest calculator you’ve ever seen, and at long (like, weirdly long) last, the latest version is on the iPhone. $14 is a lot for an app like this, but this one’s worth it just for converting recipes and splitting bills.
The Nothing Ear (a). Nothing’s earbuds have gotten pretty good, and I am extremely into the yellow accents and case on its new low-end models. (Which cost $99 and appear to be just about as good as the more expensive ones.) They don’t have a ton of extra platform-specific features, but as Bluetooth earbuds go, they’re a really good bet.
Maestro for Amazon Music. I love this as a use for AI: just telling your music services the kind of stuff you want to listen to. Get weird with your mood, or just type, like, “I like The 1975 and Van Morrison, play other bands” and see what happens.
Meta AI. Say this for Mark Zuckerberg and Co.: they are not going small with their AI plans. The new bot works across platforms (and on your smart glasses) and runs on the new Llama 3 model that Meta says rivals everything else on the market.
PodcastAP. A podcast app for the fediverse that can add new episodes to your timeline anywhere you are. It’s pretty basic right now, and Mastodon et al. need to work on being better podcast players, but this is a super cool idea.
The Circleseason 6. This is one of Netflix’s more unhinged reality shows, which is saying something! And this season, there’s a twist: one of the characters is actually an AI bot named “Max.” It’s going to get so weird.
Group project
In last week’s Installer, I asked you all to share what you use AI for. Thanks to everyone who emailed, texted, Threads-ed, and Mastodon-ed me with your thoughts!
The main thing I heard, over and over and over again, is that you don’t use AI. A lot of you said you actively avoid it, wish your favorite apps would stop integrating it, and don’t really see much use for it at all. I get that; that’s how I feel about a lot of AI. There are so many neat-sounding things out there that turn out to kind of suck and mostly be a hassle that, at some point, you just kind of give up.
But! I did get a bunch of cool recommendations of apps and tools y’all like, so let me share a few I heard about:
Chatbots. I mean, duh. ChatGPT seems to be the overwhelming favorite, but I heard some love for Claude, too, and even a little Gemini hype. No love for Meta AI just yet, but that might change. Oh, and some definite votes for Poe as a way to use all the bots in one place.
Perplexity. This one’s half chatbot, half search engine, and it’s probably the most popular thing I heard about this week. As a speedy way to get real-time answers to questions, it’s pretty great.
Arc. A bunch of you like Arc’s “browse for me” feature, which summarizes and curates websites for you. Lucky you, I think that feature is about to be in basically every browser everywhere.
Spacebar. An app that turns your IRL conversations into “memos,” with recaps and info about everything you talked about. Would it be weird to pull this out at dinner with friends? Maybe! But I heard some good things, and I’m intrigued.
More broadly, there were a few use cases I heard a bunch of times, not necessarily tool-specific but instead just something useful you can do with AI:
Summarize stuff. This appears to be your go-to use case for AI, and it’s definitely mine, too. What was the gist of that long article you read and already kind of forgot? What’s this true crime doc about?
Planning things. My other favorite use case: just ask the bot what people like to do wherever you’re going and start your itinerary from there. I loved the email I got from Jeff, who used ChatGPT to summarize a bunch of people’s ideas about where to go in Europe and got a travel itinerary out of it.
Test your knowledge. This is sort of related to the last one, but I heard from a few folks who said they’ll upload a doc to ChatGPT or Gemini and then have the bot quiz them on its contents. A fun study tool!
Check your writing. Lots and lots of grammar checkers out there, it seems. I heard from folks using AI tools to gut check ideas, check for errors, and just make sure all the sentences make sense.
Make your own art. Whether you’re making playlists, decorating Notion pages, or sketching character ideas for your novel, I heard from folks who love having an endless fountain of new art at their disposal.
The overarching theme of your responses was that AI is useful… as a starting point. It’s a good tool to go from “I have to do a thing” to “I have now done a first, not very good, version of a thing.” Which is progress! If you’d rather edit an email than write one or tweak your presentation rather than build it from scratch, AI can be a help. But do not trust it to finish the job. You’ll end up submitting Shrimp Jesus in the quarterly report, and nobody needs that.
I’ve been working on some stuff about other good AI tools, too, so stay tuned — and keep sending recommendations!
Screen share
One of my favorite things about Parker Ortolani, a product manager for consumer products here at Vox Media, is that he usually has better ideas about Apple products than Apple does. (Except for his deeply confusing love for the Vision Pro, but we’ll let that one go.) He’s always doing concept art for Apple apps, fixing dumb things about iOS, and even thinks Siri might someday be great. I love this for him.
Anyway, I asked Parker to share his homescreen with us because I figure Parker’s the kind of guy who might spend way too much time thinking about the layout and organization of everything. And I figured he’d have a bunch of custom icons and stuff no one even knew existed. I was right!
Here’s Parker’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: I’m currently using an iPhone 15 Pro in natural titanium. It’s easily my favorite iPhone since the X. Though I barely use the Action Button, the much lighter frame and USB-C have been game-changers.
The wallpaper: On the homescreen, I am using a dark knit background shared by the folks over at Impending who make the excellent Clear to-do list app, which is also my task manager of choice. I like a dark background generally, but using the pure black can get boring, so it’s nice to add a little texture. iOS just feels smoother with a black wallpaper.
I primarily use X to keep up with news, startups, the hot AI companies, and folks just building cool things, while Threads has become the best app for keeping up with entertainment and interacting with writers and journalists. Instagram is floating around there, too, but that’s more for just keeping up with friends and mindlessly scrolling through adorable dog videos.
Living in New York, knowing the current subway times is a must. I’ve tried all of the New York subway apps, even the new official MTA one that’s surprisingly good, but ultimately, nothing comes close to Transit. It has far and away the best user interface, updates fast, and always has what I want right at the surface. A great bonus is that it has an excellent Apple Watch app as well.
Fantastical has been one of my favorite apps for years. It’s just one of those tools you’ll have to pry from my cold, dead hands. The ticker and list UI is the absolute best calendar experience out there. And there are native counterparts on every Apple platform (sans tvOS, for obvious reasons).
There’s lots of AI stuff here, too. While folks tend to laud Arc Search’s AI-generated webpages that can replace traditional search (which are indeed awesome), I personally just love the care that’s gone into the user interface. I supplement Arc Search with Perplexity, which I tend to use as my go-to for complex deep searches. I find that it’s best at that. Bulletin is a relatively new RSS reader with powerful AI features and a gorgeous design — the progressive blurs just make me swoon.
Apple Weather and Apple Maps have gotten really good over the past few years, so I feel less compelled to use third-party alternatives these days. I like Apple Weather so much that I’ve given it a giant widget slot at the top for the hourly forecast. (I have a love / hate relationship with widgets on iOS: they take up a lot of space, and I often find more value in having a bunch of app icons.) I’ve tried Spotify a bunch of times but always come back to Apple Music.
I like my podcasts to be separated from music, though. And while I’ve been playing around with the new Apple Podcasts transcripts feature, I’ve come back to Overcast. I listen to so many shows that a dense, truly customizable interface is a must-have for me.
I also asked Parker to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he shared:
If you’re into LLMs, you’re probably aware of Hugging Face. The team recently released their first native mobile app, HuggingChat, that lets you use the open-source models that they host like Llama 3 and Gemma. The app is really nicely designed and a good change of pace from ChatGPT or Poe. In fact, it has no message limit. It’s quite powerful and lets you easily swap models on the fly. You can even build your own bots. It also shares the great haptic feedback that the ChatGPT app introduced.
I love smartwatches, but I have a personal affinity for traditional watches. Recently, I got lucky and landed a white Snoopy edition MoonSwatch. Not only is it the first all-white bioceramic version but it also has an adorable little Snoopy complication. It’s a delightful reprieve from constant bits and boops.
I stopped using the official Apple MagSafe wallet because it just doesn’t provide a whole lot of value. But I picked up the Satechi Magnetic Wallet that has a built-in stand, and it’s awesome. It has an additional slot for more cards than the Apple one.
Crowdsourced
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Emailinstaller@theverge.comor message +1 203-570-8663 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. Also, for even more recommendations than I could fit here, check outthis Threads… thread.
“I’ve been watching Delicious in Dungeon on Netflix, and I’m super loving it! Also been playing Helldivers 2 and the new Destiny 2 stuff and poking at a bunch of iPhone 15 reviews to see if I should get that over a 13 now that my 2020 SE has a basically defunct battery and I’ve never actually had a ‘flagship’ device.” – Tyler
“I’ve been really enjoying the new podcast from Seth Meyers and The Lonely Island. As well as being deeply silly, it’s a fascinating look behind the scenes of SNL at what went into making the legendary SNL Digital Shorts. It’s inventively called The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.” – Jonathan
“I recommend that you check out Lunch Money. I’ve been using this solopreneur-built app to organize my finances for the past couple of years. It’s been wonderful to use and has taught me financial discipline. It’s one of the few subscriptions that I’m happy to pay for.” – Akshobhya
“Recently played around with augmented reality to put together a mixed-space painting session. It was really fun. Footage here for anyone curious about it.” – K
“On the recommendation of my fav gaming podcast, The Besties, I’ve been playing Slice & Dice for iOS — it’s an RPG battler where all attacks, both yours and your enemies’, are determined by actual dice rolling around a virtual dice tray, and instead of leveling up to get better weapons, you get better dice. Really neat idea done well, great couch companion.” – Nick
“I wanted to share the app CropSize for iOS. I find myself taking multiple screenshots on social media (usually memes) and find it super cumbersome to have to crop every tweet or Instagram post so my friends don’t see the entirety of my feed. CropSize lets you batch-process images super easily and quickly. It is unfortunately $2.99, but tbh I’m just glad it’s not a subscription service. Time saver!” – Keyser
“Just finished the latest video from MKBHD’s “The Studio,” where Mariah [Zenk] talks about the future of food automation tech.” – Josh
“I changed podcast providers to AntennaPod from Pocket Casts, just got sick of the upselling and paywalls in the app. Weird to think I’d rather have an app that was less feature-rich than one that offered the extras for a subscription fee. Also it’s a very good app and I’m happy I made the change.” – Benjamin
“The Falloutshow got me hooked to head back into the Wasteland again... Gone back to my favorite, Fallout 3.” – Max
“Reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, setting up my first NAS, and hoping that the weather cooperates for me to go play Disc Golf this weekend.” – Dylan
Signing off
My house is full of Ikea furniture. Shelves, beds, tables, chairs, you name it, it’s mostly Ikea. (It was a big moment in my adult life when we graduated from “the cheap Ikea stuff” to “the fancy Ikea stuff,” and if you shop at Ikea, you know what I mean.) So, of course, I’m already looking around my basement office to see where I can fit stuff from the new Brännboll collection of rolling loungers, toy shelves, and deeply weird donut chairs that can’t possibly be comfortable. I don’t know why most of this qualifies as “gaming” furniture, but I do know I need that rolling pegboard cart thing as soon as possible. Forget the bar cart. I’m ready for a VR cart.
‘Catfish,’ the TV Show That Predicted America’s Disorienting Digital Future For 12 years, the MTV reality series “Catfish” has traveled the U.S., presenting hundreds of intimate snapshots of what can go wrong when the heart mixes with technology.
Is Crossrope’s smart jump rope worth $200?
Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
Skip Crossrope unless you really love skipping rope.
Like everybody else, my New Year’s resolution was to work out more. After moving to a new city, I fell out of my workout routine, and it didn’t help that the gym chain I belonged to was now a 30-minute drive in Los Angeles traffic.
So I started researching workouts I could do from home. Jump roping is fun and a great, full-body cardio workout that can also improve agility and coordination. So when I heard the $199 Crossrope AMP Jump Rope Set would quantify the experience and help me incorporate strength training into my routine with its weighted ropes, I was intrigued.
After testing the set for a month, I can confirm few jump ropes are as well-made as Crossrope’s, and its workouts and community offer a lot of value for jumping enthusiasts. Yet, at $199, plus a $12 monthly subscription, it’s only for those committed to jumping consistently — not casual users.
Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
The Crossrope AMP Jump Rope set comes with a set of Bluetooth-connected handles and three different weighted ropes.
The Crossrope system, which has been around since 2013, consists of interchangeable handles, ropes, and ropeless jumping attachments in a variety of weights from three ounces up to five pounds. The AMP set that I tested comes with a set of Bluetooth-connected handles plus quarter-pound, half-pound, and one-pound ropes.
The ropes and handles are built from strong materials and connect with steel clasps. They feel made to last, but unlike most jump ropes, each rope is a fixed length — you can’t adjust them. They come in six different lengths, but I tripped a few times despite using the size Crossrope recommended for my height. While I began to trip less as I improved as a jumper, when I asked the Crossrope community for help, several members acknowledged they had had the same issue.
Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
Crossrope’s handles feature steel clasps that make swapping out ropes really easy.
The AMP handles are what turn this from an expensive modular jump rope system to an expensive modular smart jump rope system. The Bluetooth-enabled handles connect to iOS and Android devices, allowing you to track jumps, streaks, power output, speed, and calories burned from the companion app. If you connect it with your Apple Watch, you can also import your heart rate data. It’s difficult to judge how accurate these stats were, but Crossrope correctly counted my jumps for the most part, and the other numbers didn’t seem like a stretch.
But that information comes at a price: $11.99 per month. That’s right: along with forking out $199 for the set (or $99 for the handles if you already have Crossrope ropes), you also have to pay a monthly fee to get any value from the smart handles. Even the jump counter is paywalled. That fact was — and still is — jarring to me and is the biggest downside to the set.
Crossrope’s workouts incorporate other exercises besides jumping, like crunches for those wanting to strengthen their core.
Crossrope curates Spotify playlists by beats per minute, which was helpful for when I needed extra motivation.
That said, you’re not paying just for metrics. Along with a helpful Facebook community of nearly 100,000 people, Crossrope includes an app with over 2,500 workouts created by its personal trainers and on-demand classes taught by instructors popular in the jumping world. Jumping rope is obviously the focus, but the custom workouts also include other exercises like squats and dumbbell lifting. There are also longer programs focused on specific fitness goals, from burning fat in, say, six weeks to improving endurance. If you don’t like any of the options, you can also create your own workout, which was helpful when I required a slower pace.
I appreciated how well thought out the workouts are, with a timer included for each set and rest sessions. Crossrope’s own programs even feature Spotify playlists curated by beats per minute geared for different rope weights and speeds. Unlike, say, Apple Fitness Plus or Fitbit Premium workouts, Crossrope also displays a (weird) 3D avatar of the trainer performing the same exercise in real time, which helps with form. And unlike Apple’s and Fitbit’s programs, you can even message Crossrope’s trainers with questions for a more personalized experience.
Watching a 3D version of Crossrope’s personal trainer exercise in real-time with me was simultaneously helpful and bizarre.
But we have to address the elephant in the room: the Crossrope AMP costs two hundred dollars, plus $12 a month. It exists in a niche market with little direct competition, but it also exists in a world with a lot of cheaper jump ropes. To pull an example almost at random, the Te-Rich Smart Weighted Jump Rope I found on Amazon costs $17 and has a built-in LCD display with a timer and jump counter, while the YaoYao app also tracks jumps and time and only costs $0.99 per month (or $10 for a one-time unlock). Both also estimate calories burned, and YaoYao also lets you set the length of workouts and rest sessions and compete with others via a leaderboard.
Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
The Te-Rich Smart Weighted Jump Rope features a built-in LCD display with a timer and jump counter. It also comes in fun colors, like pink.
While YaoYao often overestimated my jumps, the Te-Rich Smart Weighted Jump Rope’s stats were consistent with Crossrope’s, and sometimes even counted my jumps more accurately. The flimsy 9.8-foot PVC rope tangles easily, but that’s forgivable at this price, especially as the rope is adjustable. The Te-Rich lacks custom workouts, on-demand video classes, and community, but you can find similar ones online. In fact, some on-demand class instructors offer their own YouTube channels. Plus, you can always use the free or paid versions of Crossrope’s app without the AMP handles if you want the workouts and don’t mind losing the jump counter, personalized targets, benchmarks, and leaderboards.
Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
YaoYao thought I jumped 22 times when the real number was closer to 14.
The most effective workout is the one you’re going to stick with. If a smart jump rope with guided workouts and an encouraging community makes it easier for you to exercise consistently, Crossrope is worth it. It’s overpriced, but it’s also smaller and cheaper than other home gym equipment I considered, like treadmills. Crossrope’s 60-day return policy also means you can get your money back if you decide you’re not going to use it enough to justify the expense.
I enjoyed my time with the Crossrope. It helped put some of the fun back into fitness for me. But I don’t think jumping will replace jogging and walking as my primary cardio workout — though it’s a fun accessory — so I won’t be buying the Crossrope AMP once I send the review unit back. The Te-Rich didn’t come with a bunch of workout programs or a Facebook group or track my heart rate, but it still gave me a rough idea of jumps and calories burned and didn’t cost $200.
How to change or cancel your music streaming services
The Verge
There are more digital subscriptions around than ever, and among them, you may well have a music streaming service (or two or three). What with “free” trials and trying to find a service you really like, it’s easy to suddenly realize you’re oversubscribed. Luckily, canceling a music subscription — or switching to a free tier — isn’t too difficult. And remember that you can always sign up again. It doesn’t have to be goodbye forever.
Here’s how it’s done on the four best-known platforms. The options will be similar on other services.
Spotify has a variety of plans for individuals, families, and even two people.
Spotify has a free tier with ads, without downloads, and with limits on playlists, while the individual Premium plan is $10.99 per month. If you have other people you can sign up with, you can get a Duo plan (two people) for $14.99 per month and a Family plan (up to six people) for $16.99 per month. Students get a discount at $5.99 a month.
To change the plan you’re on via the Spotify web app:
Click your profile picture (top right).
Choose Account.
Click Manage your plan > Change plan.
Pick the plan you want to switch to.
You can get to the same screens in the mobile app by tapping your profile picture (top left), Settings and privacy > Account, and then the name of your current plan.
To close your Spotify account completely, you need to head to this page and follow the link.
You can manage Apple Music subscriptions on the web.
Apple Music costs $10.99 per month for an individual plan and $16.99 per month for a Family plan (for up to six people); students can get it for $5.99 per month. There’s also Apple One, which bundles various Apple services together including Apple Music; those bundles start at $19.95 per month. There’s no free tier for Apple Music cloud streaming, though you can use the free Apple Music app to listen to digital music files stored on your devices.
To change your Apple Music subscription on an iPhone:
Open Settings on iOS.
Tap your name at the top.
Choose Subscriptions > Apple Music.
Tap See All Plans to switch plans or Cancel Subscription to cancel.
If you’re signed up to Apple One, you’ll see slightly different options. You’ll be able to see the individual subscriptions included in your package and unsubscribe from them one by one or cancel the entire subscription.
The same options to switch plans or cancel can be found on macOS:
Open the App Store.
Click your name (bottom left).
Choose Account Settings > Manage (next to subscriptions).
Click Edit to make changes.
On Apple Music on the web, click your profile picture (top right) and then Settings and Manage to edit your subscription status. On Android, tap the three dots (top right), then Account > Manage Subscription.
Your Amazon Music settings are tied to your Amazon account.
There are three tiers to Amazon Music: the free tier that comes with every Amazon account; the Prime tier that comes with an Amazon Prime subscription ($14.99 per month); and Amazon Music Unlimited ($10.99 per month or $9.99 per month if you already pay for Prime). There’s also a Family plan for Amazon Music Unlimited, which is $16.99 per month for up to six people (and the head of the family must have Amazon Prime).
Still with us? These different tiers offer different features, including whether you get ads between songs, audio quality, the ability to download tracks, and the number of devices you can listen on.
To cancel an Amazon Music Unlimited or Prime subscription on the web:
Click the gear icon (top right).
Choose Your Amazon Music Settings.
You get the choice to switch between individual or Family plans if you want to.
Click Cancel Subscription to do just that.
To unsubscribe from Amazon Prime, choose Manage your Prime membership.
These same options aren’t available through the mobile apps — you need to access them through a web browser to manage or cancel your various subscriptions.
If you want, you can put a temporary pause on your YouTube Music sub instead of canceling it.
YouTube Music is available as both an ad-supported free tier with no support for downloads and a Premium tier that’ll set you back $10.99 per month or $109.99 a year. A Family plan for $16.99 per month is also available, which covers up to six people; a plan for students costs $5.49 per month. YouTube Music Premium also comes included with YouTube Premium, which is $13.99 per month.
Click your profile picture (top left) and then Paid memberships (or Get Music Premium if you’re on the free plan and want to upgrade).
Select Manage membership and select your subscription.
Choose Pause if you want to pause the membership for up to six months.
Click Cancel to stop the subscription.
These same options can be found inside the YouTube Music mobile apps: tap your profile picture (top right), then Paid memberships (or Get Music Premium if you’re on the free plan and want to upgrade).
Controversial US surveillance program (briefly?) lapses amid congressional dysfunction
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
The Senate has passed a bill reauthorizing Section 720 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial program that allows warrantless spying on foreign “targets,” but a long, knock-down, drag-out fight over amendments kept the Senate in session past midnight on Friday, when the surveillance program officially expired.
To be clear, the spying wasn’t actually going to stop. As Sen. Mike Lee (R-OH) pointed out on the Senate floor on Friday afternoon, the FISA court recently granted a government request to allow the program to continue until April 2025.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed that the FISA court’s extension of Section 702 certification “doesn’t mean the program can continue uninterrupted for another year.”
“In the event of a lapse,” Cornyn continued, “tonight at midnight, some communication service providers will stop cooperating with the United States government. That’s exactly what happened in 2008 when the predecessor of 702, called the Protect America Act, lapsed.”
Cornyn was keen on the importance of the FISA spying program, saying, “FBI Director Chris Wray said allowing 702 to expire would be, quote, an act of unilateral disarmament in the face of the Chinese Communist Party, close quote. So the stakes are extremely high.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also stressed the urgency of reauthorizing of Section 702, claiming that “sixty percent” of the president’s daily brief comes from material collected through the surveillance program.
Less than three hours before Section 702’s expiration, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a version of the Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act as an amendment to the reauthorization bill. (It ultimately failed 31-61.) Paul was clearly frustrated at other senators’ comments that it was too late to add new amendments to the bill.
“The idea that we don’t have enough time is a specious one,” Paul said. “The only reason we don’t have time is because the supporters of this bill delayed it to the last hour. We’ve had five years to renew this!” In his colleagues’ defense, the House had three failed votes on Section 702 before it was finally able to send its bill to the other chamber, leaving the Senate with barely a few days before the FISA sunset for its own proceedings.
“The House is still here,” Paul pointed out. “They’re going to be voting tomorrow. We should pass the good amendments today, send them to the House tomorrow.”
The House is scheduled to be in session on Saturday to vote on aid packages and a potential TikTok ban.
With two hours to go before Section 702’s expiration, the so-called act of unilateral disarmament in the face of the Chinese Communist Party, the senators then took a five-minute interlude to congratulate Susan Collins for making her 9000th roll call vote. “Day after day, year after year, our senior-most appropriator has demonstrated, through her dedication: do your homework, show up to vote on everything, on time,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced an amendment that would have struck language in the House bill that expanded the definition of “electronic communications service provider.” Under the House’s new provision, anyone “who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.” The expansion, Wyden has claimed, would force “ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying.” The Wyden-Hawley amendment failed 34-58, meaning that the next iteration of the FISA surveillance program will be more expansive than before.
Both Sens. Paul and Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced separate amendments imposing warrant requirements on surveilling Americans. A similar amendment failed in the House on a 212-212 vote. Durbin’s narrower warrant requirement wouldn’t require intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant to query for those communications, though it requires one to access them.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) objected to a warrant requirement for Americans’ communications on the basis that many terrorists — like the 2015 San Bernardino shooters or the Boston Marathon bombers — are American. “If we had suspected them of terrorism and —” he began to say, before he caught himself, and then corrected himself, “none of these were prevented, but if these cases emerged today and we suspected them of terrorism, under this amendment you would not be able to surveil them to prevent a terrorist attack.”
Lee introduced an amendment would expand the role amicus curiae briefs play in FISA court proceedings. At this point, with about half an hour until midnight and the official expiration of Section 720, senators were visibly flagging.
Rubio began to give his objection to the amendment, but Warner interjected and took over, saying, “If we can get this and pass the bill before noon — before midnight — we can meet our goal, and I commit to work with all to make sure that we can continue to review the amicus proceedings in the next intel authorization bill.” Earlier in the day, Warner told his colleagues that the reauthorization is for “a mere two years,” so they might as well pass it.
Lee’s amendment failed 40-53.
“Mr. President, in the nick of time, bipartisanship has prevailed here in the Senate,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, as the final amendment was defeated. “We are reauthorizing FISA, right before it expires at midnight — twenty minutes before midnight. All day long, we persisted and persisted and persisted in trying to reach a breakthrough, and in the end we have succeeded and we are getting FISA done.”
The Senate commenced voting on the reauthorization bill with fifteen minutes to midnight, clearing a 60 vote threshold at about midnight. As of writing, the Senate still has not officially adjourned.
The bill is now headed to the president. If signed into law, the Section 720 surveillance program will expire in 2026, upon which we will have to do this all over again.
You can buy a refurbished Steam Deck for almost half off
Valve says each unit has received over 100 tests and meets the same performance standards as new Steam Decks. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
It’s not often we see an excellent portable gaming PC like the Steam Deck on sale for nearly half off, but today’s your lucky day. So long as you don’t mind buying it in certified refurbished condition, you can save hundreds when you purchase it directly (with a one-year warranty included) from Valve right now.
The refurbished Steam Deck starts at $279 for the base model with 64GB of storage, which is about $120 cheaper than buying it in new condition. And if you need more storage, the 256GB and 512GB models are both on sale, too, for $319 and $359, respectively. Given they both start at $529 and $649 in new condition, that’s almost like getting them for up to half off. What’s great, too, is that Value says it’s thoroughly tested each refurbished unit, and all meet the same performance standards as new retail units — just with some small cosmetic blemishes.
In case you need a refresher, Valve’s Steam Deck is a handheld that looks a lot like the Nintendo Switch. However, you can use it to play PC games, and it is a lot more powerful, with a seven-inch screen that’s more spacious than the one on the standard Switch. It also features tons of customizable controls, while the 512GB model even comes with an anti-glare screen.
Razer’s Kishi Ultra gaming controller brings haptics to your USB-C phone, PC, or tablet
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Razer’s latest mobile gaming controller just released today, the Kishi Ultra, is an all-rounder that can switch between multiple devices. The controller has a built-in USB-C port that can work with the iPhone 15 series as well as most Android smartphones (Razer says it’s compatible with the Galaxy 23 series, Pixel 6 and up, the Razer Edge, and “many other Android devices.”) It also seems to work perfectly fine with Galaxy Z Fold 5 and other foldables. The controller can expand to fit your iPad Mini and any 8-inch Android tablets, and you can also tether it to your PC.
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Razer’s Kishi Ultra can also work on tablets.
One interesting feature in the Kishi Ultra is the inclusion of Razer’s Sensa HD immersive haptics, which the company claims can take any audio — whether that be a game, movie, or music — and convert it to haptics. We saw the same haptics in Razer’s Project Esther concept gaming chair that it unveiled at CES. The Kishi Ultra is the first commercially available Razer product to feature the Sensa haptics, so it’ll give the general public a chance to try them out. The Sensa haptics won’t support iOS — it currently only works with Android 12 or above and Windows 11. The controller is also outfitted with a small pair of Chroma RGB lights, right below the joysticks.
Note that you’ll need to download the Razer Nexus app (available for both iOS and Android) for the Kishi Ultra to work. The app can launch mobile games, and is integrated with Apple Arcade, Xbox Game Pass, and the Google Play Store.
Razer also announced a new version of its less expensive Kishi V2 with a USB-C port for iPhone 15 and Android, one which similarly supports wired play on PC and the iPad.
Both the Razer Kishi Ultra and Kishi V2 USB-C are available in stores or online now, and are priced at $150 and $99, respectively.
Amazon’s Fallout has been renewed for season 2
Image: Amazon
Just a week after the show first premiered, Amazon has confirmed that there’s more of its live-action Fallout series on the way. As of now there are no details available other than the fact that the show has been renewed for season 2.
While there are no specific numbers about how well the show has done on Prime Video, Amazon says that “in its first four days, the high-octane fueled series has become a hit with its global audience, ranking among the service’s top three most-watched titles ever and the most-watched season globally since Rings of Power.” The aforementioned Lord of the Rings show premiered back in 2022.
Set in LA, Amazon’s take on Fallout is told through three different perspectives: vault dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell), Brotherhood of Steel member Maximus (Aaron Moten), and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins). Instead of a direct adaptation of Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG, it’s a new story set in the same universe. “Just like a player of the video game, we go down paths that interest us,” executive producer Graham Wagner told The Verge. “And we hope that those are shared interests.”
The Meta Quest 2 gets a permanent price cut to $199
The Meta Quest 2 and its bundled controllers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Meta Quest 2 has been on sale for nearly a month, and today, Meta’s making that price permanent — $199 is the new sticker price for the virtual reality headset, the company announced today. That’s half what it originally cost in 2020, and Meta is permanently cutting the price of Quest 2 accessories like the Elite Strap with Battery (which I highly recommend) in half as well.
The Quest 2 is currently being supplanted by the $500 Quest 3, of course, but it’s still an incredible entry point to VR, one that plays every Quest game except for a single Quest 3-exclusive title announced last month. It doesn’t have color passthrough vision or good mixed reality gaming, and I definitely prefer the Quest 3 for comfort and immersion, but I don’t know if I prefer it by $300.
I do have concerns about how long Meta will support the Quest 2 after seeing how much the company dissed the original Quest by retroactively shutting down fan-favorite games and pulling support. Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth told me we should expect first-party games to support Quest 2 for “quite a while” last June but didn’t answer my question about whether Meta might retroactively shut down games on Quest 2.
Still, there are millions more reasons to support Quest 2: it was the most popular headset the company’s ever produced and the lion’s share of the 20 million headsets Meta sold as of February 2023. It was in such high demand during the pandemic that Meta actually raised the price on a then-two-year-old gadget in 2022.
For now, the Quest 2 can even get some updates ahead of the Quest 3, like the lying down mode that arrived in March and took another month to hit Meta’s newer headset.
Coding bootcamp Lambda School — now BloomTech — is finally getting punished
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
In 2020, we wrote how coding bootcamp Lambda School seemed like a bit of a bait-and-switch. Four years later and one rebranding to “BloomTech” later, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is finally slapping it on the wrist — it’s permanently banning it from issuing any more student loans, fining the company and its CEO $164,000, and releasing some students from some of their debt.
Why? Among other deceptive practices, the “Bloom Institute of Technology” didn’t call them loans. It advertised a way for students to get high-paying tech jobs “risk free” with “no loans” by paying 17 percent of their future income for five years — rather than the $20,000 sticker price of tuition.
But those Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs) were definitely loans, the CFPB has decided, since Bloom was earning an average finance charge of $4,000 on each one, students could default and get sent to collections if they failed to make payments, and Bloom was turning around and selling those student debts to investors for $7,000 to $10,000 a pop.
Bloom handed out more than 11,000 of these loans between 2017 and 2023, according to the CFPB consent order you can read at the bottom of this story. But it doesn’t offer them as of 2024, so the ban on future loans may be too little, too late.
That said, the agency’s also ordering Bloom to cancel all loans for students who haven’t made a payment in the last 12 months, let current students immediately quit the program with no debt, and return a small amount of money to graduates who paid Bloom a premium and yet didn’t manage to land a job making $70,000 or more. That last group of students will still have loans, but retroactively capped at the sticker price of tuition.
BloomTech has already agreed to the order; company CEO Austin Allred signed his consent last Friday. He’ll personally be paying $100,000 out of the $164K penalty, and is banned from student lending activities for 10 years.
None of this puts BloomTech out of business, by the way — it can keep operating with third-party loans instead.
In 2020, Lambda students told us their fears weren’t just about the worrying financial terms of the loan, but also how the company didn’t seem to be hiring professional instructors to provide students with the skills to actually land jobs despite promising “world class” industry experts. The CFPB’s report backs this up:
BloomTech’s curricula frequently changed and relied in part on teaching assistants paid $15 per hour with limited programming backgrounds. As a result, many students complained that they had to teach themselves the course content.
In a similar vein:
Allred tweeted that the school achieved a 100 percent job placement rate in one of BloomTech’s cohorts. In a private message, he later acknowledged that the sample size was just one student.
And:
From 2019 forward, BloomTech touted job placement rates of at least 71 percent. But BloomTech’s non-public reporting to investors, which relied on more accurate methodologies, has consistently shown placement rates closer to 50 percent.
There’s more in the full consent order, which you can read below.
TikTok to restrict users who repeatedly post problematic topics from ‘For You’ feed
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok will make entire accounts temporarily ineligible for its For You feed if users have a pattern of posting about extreme fitness, conspiracy theories, sexually suggestive material, and a wide range of other topics that the platform won’t promote on the feed. The change was included in an update to TikTok’s Community Guidelines issued on Wednesday. While videos about such topics are still technically allowed on TikTok, the content itself and the accounts of those who post them could be temporarily restricted.
“We’re introducing a policy to make an entire account temporarily ineligible for recommendation in the For You feed if a creator repeatedly posts content that goes against our For You feed standards. Their account and content will be harder to find in search. We will notify creators when their account has been restricted in this way, and they will be able to appeal,” wrote Adam Presser, TikTok’s head of operations and Trust and Safety.
The change, which goes into effect on May 17th, appears to be the first to directly target the accounts of creators who post videos about topics that TikTok considers unfit for a broader audience, even though the content itself doesn’t violate the Community Guidelines. This could further discourage certain creators from posting about such topics entirely to avoid the risk of being temporarily hidden from the For You feed. For example, a fitness influencer may avoid talking about extended intermittent fasting or posting “Before and After” videos, both of which are ineligible for the For You feed.
In an update to its For You feed eligibility standards issued today, TikTok also stated it would also interrupt any cases of “repetitive content patterns,” even if such videos are still eligible for the feed.
“Certain types of content may be fine if seen occasionally, but problematic if viewed in clusters. This includes content such as dieting, extreme fitness, sexual suggestiveness, sadness (such as statements of hopelessness, or sharing sad quotes), and overgeneralized mental health information (such as a quiz that claims to diagnose someone). This type of content may be eligible for the FYF, but we will interrupt repetitive content patterns to ensure it is not viewed too often,” the update reads.
TikTok, along with Instagram, has long been criticized for promoting harmful or objectionable content to its young user base. The platform began cracking down on “problematic” content in its For You Feed back in 2021 when it announced it would break up clusters of videos on extreme fitness, breakups, sadness, and other topics to keep users from going down harmful content holes. But such content still thrives on the platform. An Amnesty International investigation from November concluded that TikTok’s For You feed amplified depressive content that risked worsening the mental health of children and young people.
Given that a potential ban from Congress is looming, TikTok is taking more drastic action now to improve its public image. But there’s also a possibility that this effort could backfire. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and others have taken similar steps to crack down on “problematic” sexual or nude content over the years that had the effect of discriminating against women and LGBTQ users. It’s left to be seen whether TikTok can learn from their errors.
Women Talk Through Their Abortions on TikTok At a time of heightened confusion and legal battles over access to abortion, women are looking to social media for answers.
Everything You Need to Know About Smartphone Backups It doesn’t take a lot of work to keep copies of your phone’s photos, videos and other files stashed securely in case of an emergency.
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