vendredi 26 avril 2024
TikTok on the Clock, Tesla’s Flop Era and How NASA Fixed a ’70s-Era Space Computer
jeudi 25 avril 2024
Deepfake of Baltimore Principal Leads to Arrest of School Employee
How to Claim Your Part of a $5.6 Million Ring Settlement
How a Pirate-Clad Pastor Helped Ignite Trump Media’s Market Frenzy
mercredi 24 avril 2024
TikTok ban: all the news on attempts to ban the video platform
Here’s a roundup of all the news about a new law requiring parent company ByteDance to sell off its platform.
President Joe Biden signed a bill on April 24th that would ban TikTok, the short-form video app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, if the company doesn’t sell the platform off within a year. ByteDance has nine months from that date to divest itself from the app, with a potential three-month extension if the President is satisfied with its progress.
Discussions about banning TikTok, the short-form video app owned by Chinese company ByteDance, have seen politicians in the US and internationally accuse it of being a tool for propaganda and a security risk. Attempts to force a sale of TikTok first began under the Trump administration before culminating in the sudden, successful late-April legislative push.
Prior to the law’s signing, a slew of TikTok bans across the US barred the app from devices tied to universities and government hardware at the state, local, and federal levels.
While some experts say there’s no evidence the app has done any more damage or risked user privacy beyond what we’ve seen from companies like Facebook or Google, politicians nevertheless successfully passed a measure to ban TikTok entirely if they can’t force a separation from ByteDance.
Read on for all the latest news on a potential TikTok ban in the US.
‘To the Future’: Saudi Arabia Spends Big to Become an A.I. Superpower
Zuckerberg says it will take Meta years to make money from generative AI
The generative AI gold rush is underway — just don’t expect it to create profits anytime soon.
That was the message from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to investors during Wednesday’s call for the company’s first-quarter earnings report. Having just put its ChatGPT competitor in a bunch of places across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, much of the call focused on exactly how generative AI will become a money-making endeavor for Meta.
The company is already quite profitable, having grown net income to more than $12 billion on $36.5 billion in revenue in the last quarter alone. But its revenue growth is expected to slow going forward. At the same time, it’s spending more than ever on AI and the metaverse.
“Historically, investing to build these new scaled experiences in our apps has been a very good long-term investment for us and for investors who have stuck with us,” Zuckerberg said on the first quarter earnings call, drawing an analogy to the rollouts of Stories and Reels. “And the initial signs are quite positive here, too. But building the leading AI will also be a larger undertaking than the other experiences we’ve added to our apps, and this is likely going to take several years.”
He said that the Meta AI assistant has been “tried” by “tens of millions of people” since it was made widely available last week, though that’s to be expected given how prominently it’s now featured in areas like the Instagram search box. The real test will be whether Meta AI becomes a product that people come back to often and if lots of people want to use an AI assistant in social media apps.
Looking ahead, Meta sees multiple ways to monetize its assistant, which is free to use right now.
“There are several ways to build a massive business here, including scaling business messaging, introducing ads or paid content into AI interactions, and enabling people to pay to use bigger AI models and access more compute,” Zuckerberg said. “And on top of those, AI is already helping us improve app engagement, which naturally leads to seeing more ads and improving ads directly to deliver more value.”
In the next year or so, Zuckerberg suggested that usage of Meta AI could also improve the quality of its ads, which implies that the company will analyze the way people use its assistant to better understand what they’re interested in buying. This approach puts Meta on a different path than OpenAI, which has, so far, resisted advertising as a business model in favor of subscriptions and a nascent enterprise focus.
Apart from all of the generative AI stuff Meta is doing, Zuckerberg was bullish about the company’s smart glasses with Ray-Ban. He said on the call that they are sold out in “many styles and colors” and touted the device’s multimodal AI that recently became more widely available.
“I used to think that AR glasses wouldn’t really be a mainstream product until we had full holographic displays,” he said. “But now it seems pretty clear that there’s also a meaningful market for fashionable AI glasses without a display.”
mardi 23 avril 2024
Steam will stop issuing refunds if you play two hours of a game before launch day
Eight years ago, Valve began offering no-questions-asked refunds for any game you buy on Steam — as long as you asked for that refund within 14 days of purchase and hadn’t played more than two hours of a game.
But when Valve started letting you play games ahead of their release dates with its “Early Access” and “Advanced Access” programs, it introduced a loophole: people could play for many, many hours ahead of launch and still request a refund after.
Today, Valve’s closing the loophole: Your Advanced Access and Early Access playtime now counts against the two-hour refund limit.
Here’s what Valve’s updated refund policy says about that as of today:
REFUNDS ON TITLES PURCHASED PRIOR TO RELEASE DATE
When you purchase a title on Steam prior to the release date, the two-hour playtime limit for refunds will apply (except for beta testing), but the 14-day period for refunds will not start until the release date. For example, if you purchase a game that is in Early Access or Advanced Access, any playtime will count against the two-hour refund limit. If you pre-purchase a title which is not playable prior to the release date, you can request a refund at any time prior to release of that title, and the standard 14-day/two-hour refund period will apply starting on the game’s release date.
Compare to earlier this month:
REFUNDS ON PRE-PURCHASED TITLES
When you pre-purchase a title on Steam (and have paid for the title in advance), you can request a refund at any time prior to release of that title. The standard 14-day/two-hour refund period also applies, starting on the game’s release date.
Simple enough!
A cheaper Tesla is back on the menu
Tesla says it will build more affordable electric vehicles — perhaps as soon as 2025 — refuting recent reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had canceled plans for a cheaper “Model 2” vehicle in favor of getting a robotaxi out the door. But Musk didn’t clarify whether the lower-cost EV would be a brand new model for Tesla or simplified versions of its current vehicles.
“In terms of a new product roadmap, there’s been a lot of talk,” Musk said during the company’s first quarter earnings call, addressing the concerns investors have expressed over the past month about the delayed plans for a low-cost EV. “We’ve updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models.” Musk said we might see the vehicles in early 2025, if not later this year.
The vehicles will blend “aspects” of a next-generation platform with the current platform that undergirds the company’s top-selling Model 3 and Model Y. “This is not contingent on a new factory or massive new production lines, it’ll be made on our current production lines much more efficiently,” Musk said, predicting it could accelerate the company’s production to over 3 million vehicles a year.
Tesla has reported $21 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2024, a 9 percent drop year over year. Net income dropped 55 percent to $1.1 billion. The company sold fewer models this quarter as demand for electric vehicles cooled. Analysts say a more affordable model is crucial to Tesla’s future growth.
Musk started the call by addressing concerns that the market is emphasizing the development of hybrid vehicles over fully electric ones, which he believes is “not the right strategy.”
“We’ll talk about this more on August 8th,” Musk said, as he reemphasized that 7 million cars by the end of this year will be part of a robotaxi fleet. August 8th is the date Tesla plans to unveil a new robotaxi vehicle.
Although Tesla is again promising to release cheaper EVs, it hasn’t confirmed whether entirely new cheap models will come. It’s possible cheaper models could just be stripped down Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, which alone drive the majority of the company’s revenues.
Right now, you can buy a Model 3 for $38,990, which is nearly the cheapest the vehicle has ever been — but still not at the elusive $35,000 price point that was promised almost a decade ago. The company has promised that a simplified “unboxed” manufacturing process will bring down costs even further.
When asked directly by an investor about cheaper EVs like Model 2 and where Musk’s “heart is at,” Musk largely shut down on the subject. In contrast, he was happy to go on at length about autonomy, self-driving, and even aliens.
“If you have a great product at a great price, sales will be excellent,” Musk said at one point, responding to a question about value. He said Tesla will keep improving affordability to make the “value for money” better.
In Silicon Valley, You Can Be Worth Billions and It’s Not Enough
lundi 22 avril 2024
Microsoft Makes a New Push Into Smaller A.I. Systems
Fortnite will let players hide mean emotes
Fortnite is rolling out an update on Tuesday that includes a new setting that filters out “confrontational” emotes. The v29.30 update will let players “choose not to see” the following emotes: “Laugh It Up”, “Take the L”, “Whipcrack”, and “Make it Plantain.”
The four emotes won’t exactly be hidden per se, they’ll appear as still images in the game — but players performing them won’t dance and they won’t play music. Players can opt to only see these emotes from friends, or hide them altogether.
Though Fortnite has hundreds of different emotes, this group of four are controversial because of how and when players will use them. Fortnite players will often play emotes like “Laugh it Up” and “Take the L” after killing another player or winning a match. Players over the years have complained that emote use has gotten toxic and overly aggressive on the game, with a few players using them to anger other players, or as a sign of disrespect.
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Epic GamesEpic Games has taken some flak for its emotes in the past — but for a completely different reason. Many of the emotes mimic popular dance moves, and multiple dance move creators have sued Epic Games accusing the game developer of ripping off their work. Back in February, Epic appeared to reach an agreement with celebrity choreographer Kyle Hanagami that led him to dropping his lawsuit over the “It’s Complicated” emoji.
Although emotes are a widely used feature in Fortnite, they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. This latest update appears to be a recognition on Epic’s part that, for at least some players, certain emotes just ruin the vibes. While those players won’t be able to block the emotes outright, they’ll certainly be able to make them less annoying.
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) April 22, 2024
AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material May Overwhelm Tip Line
Microsoft makes it easier to install Windows store apps from the web
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.
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Image: Rudy Huyn (X)
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Image: Rudy Huyn (X)
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
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.”
Embracer Group, which is known for acquiring the rights to a dizzying number of franchises like Tomb Raider and Lord of the Rings, has been aggressively “restructuring” since losing out on a $2 billion partnership deal last year. Since then, the company has shut down several projects and studios, laid off employees globally, and sold Borderlands developer Gearbox to Take-Two for a fraction of the $1.3 billion it was valued at when it was purchased three years ago.
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
dimanche 21 avril 2024
Gentler Streak quieted my evil brain goblin so I could run in peace
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.
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Screenshot: Victoria Song / The Verge
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
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.)
This week, I’ve been rewatching Killing Eve now that it’s on Netflix, reading about Maggie Rogers and flying cars and the Today in Tabs newsletter, nodding along as MKBHD talks about gadget reviews, testing the Godspeed to-do list app, talking to everyone I know about the Papyrus 2 sketch, listening on repeat to The Tortured Poets Department, and playing with the Plaud AI voice recorder.
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 Circle season 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:
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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.
The apps: Messages, Photos, YouTube, Instagram, Fantastical, Soulver, Slack, Transit, Maps, Copilot, Perplexity, Delta, Bulletin, Clear, Overcast, Arc, X, Threads, Apple Music.
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! Email installer@theverge.com or 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 out this 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 Fallout show 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.
See you next week!
‘Catfish,’ the TV Show That Predicted America’s Disorienting Digital Future
samedi 20 avril 2024
Is Crossrope’s smart jump rope worth $200?
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.
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Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
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.
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Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
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.
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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.
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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.
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Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
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.
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Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
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
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
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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.
Apple Music
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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.
Amazon Music
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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.
YouTube Music
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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.
To manage your YouTube Music account on the web:
- 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).
vendredi 19 avril 2024
Controversial US surveillance program (briefly?) lapses amid congressional dysfunction
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.”
Paul’s warrant requirement amendment failed 11-82, Durbin’s amendment failed 42-50.
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
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.
Read our review.
jeudi 18 avril 2024
Razer’s Kishi Ultra gaming controller brings haptics to your USB-C phone, PC, or tablet
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
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
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 success of show continues a strong run of video game adaptations including HBO’s The Last of Us and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
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