mardi 10 décembre 2024
Trump Picks Andrew Ferguson to Lead Federal Trade Commission
YouTube’s AI-powered dubbing is now available to many more creators
YouTube says it has expanded its AI-powered auto-dubbing to “hundreds of thousands of channels” in the YouTube Partner Program that are “focused on knowledge and information.” YouTube says it will bring the feature to “other types of content soon.”
What the dubs consist of depends on the language used in the original video. If it was in English to start, it’ll be translated into French, German, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, and Portuguese. If the starting video was made in one of those languages, YouTube will only produce an English dub.
For channels that have it, AI-dubbed videos are created automatically when the original video is uploaded, but creators can opt to preview them before they’re published. YouTube also provides options to unpublish or delete dubs, according to a support document for the feature.
The dubs aren’t very natural-sounding now, but YouTube promises they’ll get better at emulating “tone, emotion, and even the ambiance of the surroundings” with later updates. Here’s an English dub example of a French video about making potatoes au gratin:
However, YouTube cautions that “this technology is still pretty new, and it won’t always be perfect.” The company says it’s “working hard to make it as accurate as possible, but there might be times when the translation isn’t quite right or the dubbed voice doesn’t accurately represent the original speaker.”
YouTube initially announced its tests of auto-dubbing with “hundreds” of creators in June 2023.
Yelp’s new AI-powered review filters will show more of what you want to know
Yelp is introducing some new AI features that aim to help users discover new establishments and narrow down customer reviews. The AI-powered “Review Insights,” announced today as part of Yelp’s end-of-year product release, quickly summarize how customers feel about certain aspects of a business, such as food quality, service, ambiance, and wait times.
Review insights are aggregated sentiment scores that provide a quick overview of topics using facial icons — positive, neutral, and critical — displayed above a business’s reviews. Yelp users can click specific topics to read related reviews that focus on those aspects of the business, such as what customers are saying about the food or service.
Yelp says the feature is available on iOS for restaurant, food, and nightlife businesses, and will be expanded to services categories “next year.” Review insights builds on the AI-powered review summaries feature that Yelp introduced in January.
“When searching for a local restaurant, you might have a specific aspect in mind that matters most to you — be it the vibe of the space, how long it takes to get a table, or the quality of the food,” said Yelp’s Chief Product Officer Craig Saldanha in the announcement blog. “Even when a review doesn’t explicitly mention one of the topics, the LLM understands the context in the review to identify and surface the relevant topic and sentiment.”
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Image: Yelp
The home feed search bar on iOS now features a trending drop-down that highlights the most popular terms other local users are looking for, which will be coming to Android “early next year.” The iOS app home page has also been expanded to include new reviews, photos, and full-screen video spotlights uploaded by other users that surface recent experiences. Yelp says it’s rolling out an AI-powered update that “better tailors the home feed to your preferences” in the coming weeks.
How Crypto Insiders Turned ‘Debanking’ Into a Political Storm
lundi 9 décembre 2024
Google reveals quantum computing chip with ‘breakthrough’ achievements
Google’s quantum computing lab just achieved a major milestone. On Monday, the company revealed that its new quantum computing chip, Willow, is capable of performing a computing challenge in less than five minutes — a process Google says would take one of the world’s fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years, or longer than the age of the universe.
That’s a big jump from 2019 when Google announced its quantum processor could complete a mathematical equation in three minutes, as opposed to 10,000 years on a supercomputer. IBM disputed the claim at the time.
Along with more powerful performance, researchers also found a way to reduce errors, something Google calls “one of the greatest challenges in quantum computing.” Instead of bits, which represent either 1 or 0, quantum computing uses qubits, a unit that can exist in multiple states at the same time, such as 1, 0, and anything in between.
As noted by Google, qubits are prone to errors because they “have a tendency to rapidly exchange information with their environment.” However, Google’s researchers discovered a way to reduce errors by introducing more qubits to a system and were able to correct them in real time. Their findings were published in Nature.
“This historic accomplishment is known in the field as ‘below threshold’ — being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits,” Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven writes on Google’s blog. “You must demonstrate being below threshold to show real progress on error correction, and this has been an outstanding challenge since quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995.”
Introducing Willow, our new state-of-the-art quantum computing chip with a breakthrough that can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits, cracking a 30-year challenge in the field. In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would…
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) December 9, 2024
Willow, which has 105 qubits, “now has best-in-class performance,” according to Neven. Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM are working on quantum computing systems of their own.
Google’s next goal is to perform a first “useful, beyond-classical” computation that is both “relevant to a real-world application” and one that typical computers can’t achieve. Going forward, Neven says quantum technology will be “indispensable” for collecting AI training data, eventually helping to “discover new medicines, designing more efficient batteries for electric cars, and accelerating progress in fusion and new energy alternatives.”
Itch.io is currently offline due to a ‘trash AI-powered’ phishing report
Indie game storefront Itch.io is currently offline because of what it describes as a bogus phishing report. While the game store’s servers are still online, the domain for the website is currently pointing towards IP addresses that itch.io doesn’t own — making it inaccessible for most people.
Itch.io blames pop culture collectibles company Funko for the issues in a post on X, “because they use some trash ‘AI-powered’ Brand Protection Software called Brand Shield that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar.”
I kid you not, @itchio has been taken down by @OriginalFunko because they use some trash "AI Powered" Brand Protection Software called @BrandShieldltd that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, @iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain
— itch.io (@itchio) December 9, 2024
While the disputed page has been taken down, itch.io’s domain registrar, iwantmyname, still disabled the domain likely due to automated systems. According to a post on X, the indie game marketplace is now waiting on the domain registrar to respond and re-enable its domain.
If you know how to tweak your hosts file that maps hostnames to IP addresses then you can use the 45.33.107.166 IP address in the meantime, but you’ll need to remove the entry once the domain is restored. Itch.io is hoping the problems will be resolved in a matter of hours so it doesn’t have to deploy a new domain name instead.
The domain issues come just days after itch.io started allowing its users to use its domain name for Bluesky accounts. If you have spent $10 on the platform then you have the option to use your itch.io profile URL on Bluesky, but the current domain issues mean anyone who switched to the custom itch.io URLs has an “invalid handle” error on Bluesky until the main itch.io domain is back online.
The Brave New World of A.I.-Powered Self-Harm Alerts
dimanche 8 décembre 2024
Trailers of the week: Star Trek, Severance, and Gundam
It’s the first week of December, and the end of the year is coming in fast and with a lot to look forward to at theaters this month. That very cool-looking Lord of the Rings anime hits US theaters on the 13th; Sonic the Hedgehog 3 follows on the 20th; and I’m deeply excited to see Nosferatu on December 25th. (If you’re not with me on that last one, give Matt Zoller Seitz’s RogerEbert.com review of it a read and get back to me.)
While I’m waiting to go be unnerved by Robert Eggers’ new spooky vampire movie, let’s take a look at some good trailers from the last week.
Star Trek: Section 31
I’ll admit that the biggest appeal for me about this straight-to-streaming spy movie spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery is Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou. She’s just having so much fun in this trailer. The trailers haven’t revealed yet what threat she’ll be facing, other than being forced to do teamwork, but it seems like it’ll be pretty heavy on the rag-tag team of antiheroes action thing.
The Olatunde Osunsanmi-directed movie also stars Omari Hardwick, Kacey Rohl, Sven Ruygrok, Humberly Gonzalez, Rob Kazinsky, and Sam Richardson. It premieres on Paramount Plus starting January 24th.
Severance
I was late to the Severance party, having finally finished it a few months ago, so I can only imagine how eager people who saw its cliffhanger ending have been to see the story continue. Well, the second season of creator Dan Erickson’s bizarro sci-fi drama is almost here, and it looks like it’s probably going to bring answers, with even more mystery heaped on top of it.
All of the first season’s main characters, including Mark (Adam Scott), Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) are returning, and they’ll be joined by characters played by the likes of Alia Shawkat, Gwendoline Christie, and Bob Balaban. Season two of Severance premieres January 17th on Apple TV Plus.
Invincible
The third season of Invincible will see a stronger, older Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) tell off GDA director Cecil Stedman (Walton Goggins) and episodes that show creator Robert Kirkman hopes will each feel like a finale. And there’s no season break this time around.
The show debuts with three episodes February 6th on Amazon Prime, with new episodes releasing every Thursday after until March 13th.
The Wheel of Time
The Wheel of Time continues its retelling of the Robert Jordan fantasy epic on March 13th next year. In its third season, the show follows Joshua Stradowski’s Rand al’Thor — the “Dragon Reborn” — and Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) as they go into the Aiel Waste. It’s been more than two decades since I read the book series, so I couldn’t spoil what happens there for you if I wanted to, but I seem to recall this was a fairly dark time in the series.
The Gorge
Who knows what evil is in The Gorge’s, uh, gorge, but it’s apparently contained well enough that humanity only needs two snipers — who aren’t allowed to interact with each other — stationed on either side of it to make sure it stays there. The snipers, Levi (Miles Teller) and Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), do interact and fall for eachother, then end up in the gorge. Oops!
Scott Derrickson directs the movie, which also stars Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, and William Houston. It premieres February 14th on Apple TV Plus.
Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX
Giant robot anime fans rejoice: there’s a new Mobile Suit Gundam coming next year. It’s called Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, and it’s produced by Khara, the studio behind the Rebuild of Evangelion films.
The weird name references a Gundam called the gMS-Ω GQuuuuuuX. The show will follow a highschooler — named Yuzuriha “Machu” Amate (Tomoyo Kurosawa) — who learns to co-pilot the building-sized, sword-wielding robot with pilot Shuji Ito (Shimba Tsuchiya). Some of its episodes will head to Japanese theaters on January 17th.
Apple and Sony are working on Vision Pro support for PSVR2 controllers
The Vision Pro could gain support for Sony PSVR2 controllers soon, according to Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg. Apple and Sony apparently planned to announce support for the controllers “weeks ago” but have pushed back the rollout. Under this rumored partnership, Apple would begin selling Sony’s controllers, which aren’t currently available on their own.
Sony has apparently been working on adding the support for months, while Apple has asked third-party developers if they would take advantage of Sony’s VR controllers. That’s potentially great news for Vision Pro owners who wish the headset had more gaming chops. (There are precious few good, native visionOS games — Thrasher, a mesmerizing game where you fling a giant worm / dragon thing around a psychadelic space using just hand movements, comes to mind.)
Gurman writes that Apple also wants to use the controllers for more than gaming — the controllers will be able to navigate visionOS, and would offer more precise controls in apps like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Photoshop. Right now, you can pair a standard Bluetooth controller and navigate visionOS — tapping buttons to select things, scrolling with the analog sticks, and so on. They also work for gaming, but you’re mostly limited to iPad and iPhone games with controller support or made-for-iOS emulators or that native Virtual Boy one.
Will this partnership bear fruit and help games actually flourish on the platform? I’m not immediately hopeful, given the Vision Pro’s sales and Apple’s track record of support from game publishers.
Still, the Vision Pro is fundamentally different from Apple’s other devices, and VR is its own landscape. And there are signs the community wants this, with at least one fully-funded Kickstarter project to develop Meta Quest 3-style controllers, called the Surreal Touch, for the Vision Pro. Maybe the Vision Pro will get some great VR games — whether anyone will be around to buy them is another question entirely.
The Installer gift guide, part two
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 63, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, it’s a lot of stuff to watch this week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about clog crime and bright headlights and Robert Pattinson, starting my 564th rewatch of Community, testing Sill as part of my news reading flow, taking copious notes on Mrwhosetheboss’ new office setup, watching a lot of videos about sports stadiums for some reason, trying out all of Esquire’s best podcasts of 2024, and continuing to eat too much Swedish candy. For journalism, I swear.
I also have for you a great new feature for a great to-do list app, a new Peloton app, a comic book series worth your time, a couple of good tech-culture documentaries I think you’ll like, and lots more. We’re definitely in “new stuff to watch on cold evenings” season rather than “new apps and gadgets” season, but I’m not mad at it. It is cold out there.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be playing / reading / watching / eating / building / doing...
samedi 7 décembre 2024
NZXT’s Flex PC rentals are still ‘misleading’ and ‘predatory,’ claims Gamers Nexus
Gamers Nexus has released a video deconstructing NZXT’s defense of its Flex gaming PC purchase and rental program. In it, host Steve Burke says the company is still misleading customers, despite adjustments made in response to his previous video in which he called the program “a scam.”
NZXT said in its response this week that it would clarify details about its Flex program, which Gamers Nexus had criticized for having specs that would change sometimes “day-to-day.” The company has appeared to update specs and performance numbers for its purchase builds. But Gamers Nexus reports it still spotted issues like inconsistent FPS numbers and a FAQ that implied NZXT’s for-sale Player: Three Prime build uses an RTX 4090 graphics card, despite its specs saying otherwise.
The FAQ entry Burke mentions seems to be gone now, but as of this writing, there’s still an entry titled “What GPU is right for me?” that lists the RTX 4090 and its benefits. Such inconsistencies are a problem for potential customers, Burke says.
The fact that NZXT misrepresented its product, even after its statement, as having a 4090 when it still had a 4080 Super ... seemingly indicates that even NZXT can’t keep up with its own specs changes. If NZXT can’t keep up with it ... how are they expecting the customer to keep up with it?
Gamers Nexus offers other criticisms of the company’s rental program, from “improper packaging” damage fees with upper bounds that exceed the cost of equivalent non-rental versions of the PCs to the creator-based ad videos that continue to exist, despite the company saying it had “pulled all influencer-led Flex advertising.” NZXT did not immediately respond to our request for comment on the new video.
Gamers Nexus said Thursday that it’s working on a deeper investigation, and its video today ends with Burke saying he’s received “a number of very concerning tips” from former employees and customers.
Google’s AI weather prediction model is pretty darn good
GenCast, a new AI model from Google DeepMind, is accurate enough to compete with traditional weather forecasting. It managed to outperform a leading forecast model when tested on data from 2019, according to recently published research.
AI isn’t going to replace traditional forecasting anytime soon, but it could add to the arsenal of tools used to predict the weather and warn the public about severe storms. GenCast is one of several AI weather forecasting models being developed that might lead to more accurate forecasts.
“Weather basically touches every aspect of our lives ... it’s also one of the big scientific challenges, predicting the weather,” says Ilan Price, a senior research scientist at DeepMind. “Google DeepMind has a mission to advance AI for the benefit of humanity. And I think this is one important way, one important contribution on that front.”
Price and his colleagues tested GenCast against the ENS system, one of the world’s top-tier models for forecasting that’s run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). GenCast outperformed ENS 97.2...
On These Apps, the Dark Promise of Mothers Sexually Abusing Children
vendredi 6 décembre 2024
Elon Musk and the Tech Billionaires Steering Trump’s Transition Team
The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide for dads
If you’re unsure what to gift the father figure in your life this year, we have more than a few suggestions.
jeudi 5 décembre 2024
Google will support the Pixel 6, 7, and Fold with two extra years of OS updates
Owners of Pixel 6-series, 7-series and Pixel Fold phones can look forward to a couple extra years of OS upgrades than initially expected, as discovered by Android expert Mishaal Rahman and confirmed by Google on X. When they were introduced, Google originally promised three years of OS upgrades and five years of security patches for each device, starting from the time they went on sale. But a quiet update to a support page confirms that these phones will get two additional OS upgrades, giving them a full five years of OS and security support that “may also include new and upgraded features with Pixel Drops.” That, my friends, rules.
Google’s three-and-five policy wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the best either — after the Pixel 6 arrived in 2021, Samsung did one better by offering four years of OS updates for the Galaxy S22. Google got its act together with the Pixel 8, announcing a class-leading seven years of OS and security update support. Which is great! But you wouldn’t blame a Pixel 6 or 7 owner for feeling like they were unfairly left behind. Google seems to be making up some of the shortfall by offering these additional OS upgrades, and it’s a welcome change.
And ICYMI, #PixelFold along with #Pixel6 and #Pixel7 generation users will now get two additional years of OS updates! This extended support will total five years starting from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US: https://t.co/Y50A92TiqC
— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) December 5, 2024
Of course, an ‘OS update’ isn’t quite what it used to be — for better and worse. Google is emphasizing pushing out more updates across older versions of Android through its Play framework. That’s a great thing, but it does mean that the yearly OS upgrade isn’t quite as important as it once was. The company can also gate certain features to pricier or more recent models, as it has with Night Sight Video and Zoom Enhance. Google’s mention of new features via Pixel Drops for the next couple of years is promising, though.
Going by Google’s original schedule, the Pixel 6 should have gotten its last OS platform upgrade with this year’s Android 15. Inquiring minds wondered if something was up when the Pixel 6 series was deemed eligible for the Android 16 beta, and now we know: Pixel 6 phones are on track to get Android 16 and 17 when they become available. Not too shabby.
Google just made it easier to turn off personalized search results
Google is making it easier to switch off personalized search results thanks to an option that sometimes appears at the bottom of the results page, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. After searching for something, scroll all the way down and look for a link to “Try without personalization.” Click or tap that and Google will load a new page without personalized results.
The link might not be present for you in all searches. Some results for me include a message at the end of the results page that already says “Results are not personalized.” This might be user error — maybe I have other settings that prevent it from appearing or am not using the right queries. But I did get the option to turn off personalized results much more often for searches on my iPhone than on my Mac, for some reason.
You have already been able to get unpersonalized search results for a very long time; as Search Engine Roundtable reported in 2007, you can see unpersonalized results by appending a parameter, “&pws=0,” to the end of a Google search URL. You can also turn off personalized search from your Google account settings.
US phone companies could face fines for weak security under a proposed new rule
Following news that foreign hackers may still be in US telecom networks, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new rule that would require telecom companies to secure their networks from “unlawful access or interception of communications.” It would also force providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC stating they have implemented a plan to counter cybersecurity threats.
On Wednesday, US officials recommended Americans use encrypted apps to make phone calls and texts in response to the ongoing infiltration of telecom networks linked to the Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon. Deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger confirmed that at least eight telecom providers have been impacted by the hack, as reported by Bleeping Computer.
“We cannot say with certainty that the adversary has been evicted because we still don’t know the scope of what they’re doing,” Neuberger said during a press briefing, Bleeping Computer reports. Neuberger added that the attack has been going on for “likely one to two years” but doesn’t “believe any classified communications has been compromised.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in October that Chinese hackers had broken into AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen’s networks and even targeted members of President-Elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaigns. In a letter on Wednesday, Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) urged Department of Defense Inspector General Robert Storch to investigate the DOD’s “failure to secure its unclassified telephone communications from foreign espionage.”
If the FCC’s proposed rule is adopted, it will go into effect immediately.
“While the Commission’s counterparts in the intelligence community are determining the scope and impact of the Salt Typhoon attack, we need to put in place a modern framework to help companies secure their networks and better prevent and respond to cyberattacks in the future,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in the press release.
mercredi 4 décembre 2024
Bitcoin just hit $100,000
Bitcoin has passed $100,000, marking its highest price since the cryptocurrency launched more than a decade ago, and as of this writing, it has reached $103,359.00, according to Kraken. Despite its triumphs, Bitcoin’s value is still being measured in USD, emerging as an alternate payment option or investment rather than a replacement for fiat currency.
The price of Bitcoin spiked following the news that Donald Trump won the 2024 US Presidential Election. Bitcoin sat around $69,000 on Election Day but later shot to $75,000 following the news that Trump won, according to data from CoinDesk. Its price has been rising since, as investors expect a more crypto-friendly environment under the Trump administration.
Trump, who has launched his own cryptocurrency platform, has promised to hold onto the Bitcoin owned by the federal government while also vowing to fire Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, who has fought to regulate crypto firms. Gensler later announced that he would step down from the position in January.
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Image: Dune AnalyticsThe final push past the $100k mark occurred a few hours after Trump announced several nominations for his administration, which included adding former Republican Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins as his pick to lead the agency. Atkins has served as co-chair of the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s Token Alliance, and Trump said he “recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.”
Other factors contributed to the Bitcoin spike as well, including the start of options trading on Blackrock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, which saw $1.9 billion traded during its first day.
Bitcoin Price Surges to a Milestone: $100,000
Humane wants to put the AI Pin’s software inside your phone, car, and smart speaker
Humane, which makes the not-great AI Pin, wants other companies to build AI devices and gadgets that use its CosmOS operating system, and it has released a video that appears to show that the company already has it working in a car, TV, smart speaker, and phone.
But note that the video, according to Humane’s own fine print, is for “illustrative purposes only” — it shows “working prototypes” and some “simulated experiences,” and the print says that all “designs, features, and specifications” are subject to change. So don’t take it entirely at face value.
In one example, the video shows a person talking to CosmOS in their car (with a blurred out logo on the steering wheel) to turn the heat up at their house and figure out what time people are coming over. They ask their (blurred out) smart speaker about a guacamole recipe, and their TV about how many goals a soccer player onscreen has scored. The video also shows CosmOS reading an email on the person’s phone and responding to a question about whether the person can attend a meeting.
If you’ve been following recent AI hype, especially around agents, none of these examples should feel particularly novel — Humane wants to demonstrate that CosmOS is capable of powerful agent-like capabilities, and for companies to consider it as a possible backbone for their devices. But the items in this video aren’t Humane’s own products, and Humane clearly isn’t promising to make them. It’s building an SDK for others to do so.
That CosmOS SDK isn’t available publicly yet — the company’s website only says that it’s “coming soon,” though you can click a button to “sign up to build with us,” which takes you to a form to fill out. Humane doesn’t mention any partners building devices that rely on CosmOS — the blurred-out logos on the car and smart speaker suggest the company may have not gotten that far yet. We’ve asked Humane if it can share any examples.
Humane may be looking for a new line of business after the AI Pin flopped; we reported in August that daily returns of the device were outpacing sales. The product initially launched in April, but the company dropped the price of the Pin just six months later. Earlier this year, Humane was reportedly looking for a buyer, with HP at one point being a contender.
Jeff Bezos says he’s ‘very optimistic this time around’ about Trump
Jeff Bezos and President-elect Donald Trump famously didn’t get along the last time Trump was in the White House. This time, Bezos says he’s “very optimistic” and even wants to help out.
“I’m actually very optimistic this time around,” Bezos said of Trump during a rare public appearance at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday. “He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help him do that, I’m going to help him.”
Trump railed against Bezos and his companies — Amazon, Blue Origin, and The Washington Post — during his 2016 term. Bezos defended himself but it did little to help his reputation with Trump. Now, his companies have a lot at stake in the coming administration, from the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon to Blue Origin’s efforts to compete with SpaceX for government contracts.
Onstage at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Bezos called Trump “calmer this time” and “more settled.” He said he will try to “talk him out of” the idea that the press, which includes The Washington Post, is an enemy of the people.
“You’ve probably grown in the last eight years,” he said to DealBook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “He has, too.”
Bezos also echoed Sam...
Microsoft closes the door on Windows 11 supporting older hardware
Microsoft has poured cold water on any hopes of lower hardware requirements for Windows 11. With Windows 10 end of support approaching in October 2025, the software giant now says that its Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 is “non-negotiable.”
In a blog post entitled “TPM 2.0 – a necessity for a secure and future-proof Windows 11,” Microsoft makes it very clear that it won’t lower Windows 11’s strict hardware requirements to encourage people to upgrade from Windows 10.
TPM was a surprise requirement for Windows 11 when it was first announced in 2021, and now practically every modern PC ships with support for TPM 2.0. It’s a hardware-level chip or firmware capability that helps encrypt or decrypt data, confirm digital signatures, and assist with any other cryptographic operations.
“TPM 2.0 plays a crucial role in enhancing identity and data protection on Windows devices, as well as maintaining the integrity of your system,” says Steven Hosking, a senior product manager at Microsoft. “TPM 2.0 also helps future-proof Windows 11. One way it does so is by helping to protect sensitive information as more AI capabilities come to physical, cloud, and server architecture.”
Microsoft details how TPM integrates with new security features in Windows 11 like Credential Guard and Windows Hello for Business, as well as BitLocker disk encryption. TPM 2.0 also helps support Secure Boot, a key technology that secures the boot process from any unauthorized changes.
Hosking says Microsoft has implemented TPM 2.0 “as a non-negotiable standard for the future of Windows,” so there’s no going back on the hardware requirements here. Microsoft also requires that Windows 11 devices are capable of virtualization-based security and hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI), which means Windows 11 is only supported on CPUs released from 2018 onward.
Despite the requirements, there have been several workarounds over the years to allow Windows 11 to run on unsupported hardware. Microsoft didn’t apply a hardware-compliance check initially for virtualized versions of Windows 11, but the company has been gradually locking down the upgrade and setup process in recent years — especially with the 24H2 update.
The improved compatibility checks with 24H2 have forced tools like Flyby11 to leverage a feature of the Windows 11 setup that uses a Windows Server variant of the installation to bypass the hardware compatibility checks. Businesses can also use Microsoft’s official Windows 11 LTSC 2024 release, which makes TPM an optional requirement but still enforces a list of compatible CPUs.
Microsoft is now trying to convince Windows 10 users to buy a new PC with full-screen prompts. The latest prompts follow warnings about the Windows 10 end of support date earlier this year. Microsoft has used similar prompts like this in the past, with the company pushing Windows 10 upgrades for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users.
mardi 3 décembre 2024
Ubisoft shooter XDefiant is shutting down and sending refunds to players
Despite only officially launching the game in spring of this year, Ubisoft has already announced that it’s ending development and sunsetting its free-to-play team-based shooter XDefiant. Like Hyper Scape before it, XDefiant had high expectations, with Ubisoft touting more than 1 million players in its closed beta last year. Now, it will disappear quickly, as it’s no longer accepting new players as of today and is scheduled to shut off the servers entirely next June.
Despite a delayed launch, Ubisoft said that XDefiant had reached more than 10 million players in its first two weeks and “outperformed expectations thanks to acquisition and strong average revenue per session day.” However, it couldn’t maintain that momentum, and by this fall, rumors of trouble surfaced, with Insider Gaming reporting that concurrent player numbers across all platforms had fallen below 20,000.
Ubisoft states, “The game will remain available to all players who joined XDefiant before December 3rd, 2024. All functionalities, including progression, events, rewards, and achievements, will continue to be available until June 3rd, 2025.” The planned Season 3 content will still launch, and the company is refunding anyone who bought the Ultimate Founders Pack, as well as players who bought VC and DLC in the last month.
Like with Concord developer Firewalk Studios, this shutdown comes with job losses. According to Ubisoft, “difficult consequences” are leading to “the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney.”
Walmart bought Vizio
After announcing plans to acquire Vizio in February, Walmart officially owns the company after the $2.3 billion transaction closed on Tuesday. The retail giant says the acquisition will help bolster its advertising business, as Platform Plus — the TV-maker’s advertising and data division — “accounts for all the company’s [Vizio's] gross profit.”
All that data will be a boon for Walmart’s growing advertising business, which has already started leveraging shopper information to target ads on Disney Plus and Hulu. The move will likely open up more opportunities for Walmart to sell more ads on Vizio TVs in stores, something it talked about expanding earlier this year, and maybe even stick ads on the Vizio TVs in people’s living rooms.
The deal has raised concerns among privacy advocates, as Vizio has gotten in trouble over advertising and data tracking in the past. In 2017, it paid a $2.2 million fine to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that accused it of tracking viewers without their consent.
An acquisition by Walmart could help Vizio compete with other budget-friendly TV brands that rely on advertising as a significant source of revenue. Roku, which started selling its own TVs last year, made $908.2 million in advertising sales and subscriptions in the third quarter of 2024, with an average revenue per user of $41.10, while Vizio’s last earnings report showed it was making about $37.17 per user.
There’s also Amazon’s ad-friendly Fire TVs, Telly — the company that promises free TVs in exchange for showing persistent advertisements, and an incoming platform from advertising firm The Trade Desk that Sonos will use.
Despite the acquisition, Walmart and Vizio will continue operating independently “for the foreseeable future.” Vizio CEO William Wang will also remain in his position.
“VIZIO has also expertly changed their business over time, like building and quickly scaling a profitable advertising business,” Seth Dallaire, the executive vice president and chief growth officer of Walmart US, said in the announcement. “Pairing it with Walmart Connect will be impactful and allow us to invest in our business even further on behalf of our customers.”
lundi 2 décembre 2024
GM sells stake in EV battery plant to partner LG Energy Solutions
General Motors is selling its stake in an electric vehicle battery facility to its partner LG Energy Solutions, the automaker announced Monday.
The nearly completed factory in Lansing, Michigan, was being developed by Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between GM and South Korea’s LG. Following the non-binding agreement, LG will become the sole owner and complete the plant. The company will then sell the batteries to other customers. GM said it would get back the $1 billion it invested in the factory.
GM and LG already jointly develop batteries at factories in Warren, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tennessee, where they produce batteries for the Cadillac Lyriq and Chevy Equinox EVs. The automaker also has a battery factory in joint ownership with Samsung SDI in New Carlisle, Indiana. After today’s announcement, the number of battery factories in the US owned by GM will drop to three.
GM says it is close to making a profit on its EV business, in part because it can mass produce batteries domestically, simplifying its supply chains and giving it access to financial incentives from the Biden administration. But Donald Trump has vowed to cancel out EV subsidies once he assumes office, which could derail GM and other automaker’s efforts to develop an EV business that’s as profitable as the sale of gas cars.
“We believe we have the right cell and manufacturing capabilities in place to grow with the EV market in a capital efficient manner,” Paul Jacobson, GM’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “When completed, this transaction will also help LG Energy Solution meet demand by leveraging capacity that’s nearly ready to come online and it will make GM even more efficient.”
GM and LG also announced plans to develop rectangular “prismatic” battery cells that can hold more energy capacity than cylindrical cells. Prismatic cells are packed flat in rigid cases and are generally thought to be less complex to manufacture.
Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package gets rejected — again
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package was struck down once again. In a ruling on Monday, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick upheld her decision to block the compensation plan over concerns about conflicts of interest following its approval in 2018.
After warning shareholders in June that Musk could leave the company if his pay package isn’t approved, Tesla held a vote in hopes of reversing the judge’s decision. Shareholders voted to approve the hefty compensation, but this still wasn’t enough to convince the judge to reinstate it.
The decision states that Musk has “no procedural ground for flipping the outcome of an adverse posttrial decision based on evidence they created after trial.” It also calls claims that shareholders can change the outcome of a court decision “dubious generally and unquestionably false” in this scenario.
Judge McCormick granted $345 million to the lawyers representing the Tesla shareholders who sued over the $56 billion plan. Musk is expected to appeal the decision.
Even without the package, Musk still remains the richest man in the world, and Tesla stocks continue to soar following Donald Trump’s win in the US Presidential Election.
Elon Musk’s $50 Billion Tesla Pay Can’t Be Reinstated, Delaware Judge Rules
Animal Crossing’s paid mobile app launches a day early
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is making its return a little earlier than expected. The free-to-play mobile game shut down on November 28th after launching seven years ago, and Nintendo had plans to launch a new version that would allow players to transfer their campgrounds to a new app that cuts out the microtransactions but requires a one-time paid fee. Originally slated to launch on December 3rd, the paid app — called Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete — is available now on both iOS and Android, for a launch price of $9.99.
The new version is largely the same as the original, and will still feature seasonal events and all of the other content from the base game. The biggest changes are the welcome removal of microtransactions and the ability to play offline. But the paid app also introduces a number of gameplay additions, including a new location where you can hang out with K.K. Slider, and the option to import custom designs from the Switch game New Horizons into Pocket Camp Complete. Here’s how it works:
While you can start up a fresh game if you haven’t played before, Complete seems largely designed so that existing players won’t lose all of their campground progress for good, making it an interesting solution for an ongoing problem with mobile and live service games. Unfortunately, at launch the game seems to be having issues with save transfers, which Nintendo has acknowledged. “The issue may be occurring due to a high number of users attempting to use this service,” the company says. If you’re having issues, you can check out the support page right here. Players have until June 2nd, 2025 to transfer saves.
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares resigns from struggling carmaker
Carlos Tavares is stepping down as Chief Executive Officer of Stellantis, effective immediately, following a sharp decline in the carmaker’s sales. As the Wall Street Journal notes, in July, the company reported that its net profit for the first half of the year had dropped by 48 percent compared to 2023.
The resignation comes over a year earlier than Tavares’ planned retirement in early 2026. In a statement, Stellantis senior independent director Henri de Castries said that “different views have emerged” between Tavares and the Stellantis board of directors in recent weeks that drove the decision. A special board committee headed by Stellantis chairman John Elkann will lead the company behind brands like Vauxhall, Jeep, Fiat, Dodge, and Chrysler until a new CEO is appointed “within the first half of 2025.”
Tavares has led Stellantis since the company was formed in 2021 following the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot SA. Now the fourth-largest automaker in the world behind Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai, Stellantis issued a profit warning on its 2024 results in September, citing widespread supply chain issues and increased competition from Chinese vehicle manufacturers.
“Our thanks go to Carlos for his years of dedicated service and the role he has played in the creation of Stellantis, in addition to the previous turnarounds of PSA and Opel, setting us on the path to becoming a global leader in our industry,” Elkann said in the announcement. “I look forward to working with our new Interim Executive Committee, supported by all our Stellantis colleagues, as we complete the process of appointing our new CEO.”
The company behind Arc is building a new AI web browser called Dia
The Browser Company CEO Josh Miller teased in October that it was launching a more AI-centric product, which a new video reveals is Dia, a web browser built to simplify everyday internet tasks using AI tools. It’s set to launch in early 2025.
According to the teaser, Dia has familiar AI-powered features like “write the next line,” — which fetches facts from the internet, as demonstrated by pulling in the original iPhone’s launch specs — “give me an idea,” and “summarize a tab.” It also understands the entire web browser window, allowing it to copy a list of Amazon links from open tabs and insert them into an email via written prompt directions.
“AI won’t exist as an app. Or a button,” a message on the Dia website reads. “We believe it’ll be an entirely new environment — built on top of a web browser.” It also directs visitors to a list of open job roles that The Browser Company is recruiting to fill.
Another feature in the video shows Dia “performing actions on your behalf” by typing commands into the address bar — such as asking it to find a specific document based on a description and then sending it to someone via your preferred email platform. A third, more ambitious prototype feature shows Dia automatically completing more complex tasks, such as adding a list of generic items like “a sleeping mask” and “jelly beans” to the user’s Amazon shopping cart or emailing individually tailored information like call times to a list of staff on a video recording session.
So, what does this mean for Arc? Miller has said the startup isn’t planning to kill its first browser. In this video, he notes concern from users that a second product would result in the Arc browser being discarded, however, and says, “In my bones, I feel like this is so obviously where the world’s going.”
dimanche 1 décembre 2024
I can’t get over how good a deal the Pixel 8A is for $399
For someone who wants to spend the absolute least on a phone and not have to think about buying another one for a good long while, I’ll always recommend Google’s A-series Pixel phone. That’s doubly true now with the Pixel 8A on a $100 discount for Black Friday-ish Cyber Shopping Holiday or whatever it is we’re currently experiencing. The 8A is a solid value at its full $499 price, and cut down to $399 it’s a ridiculously good deal.
Here’s the kicker: Google is promising to update the Pixel 8A with OS version upgrades and security releases through May 2031. That means you can expect it to run Android 21. If you bought the 8A now for $400 and owned it for six years, that works out to $66 per year. You’d have to use a $1000 flagship phone for 15 years to get the same ROI. See? You’re practically making money with the Pixel 8A.
More importantly, the 8A is the kind of phone I recommend to friends and family who don’t care about fancy features and don’t want to be bothered with buying a new one every few years. Seriously: my mom has a 7A and my dad has the 8A.
A $400 phone is also much more feasible to buy out-of-pocket than a flagship phone, Pixel or otherwise. If you don’t want to be beholden to the terms of a wireless carrier’s promotion in exchange for a “free” phone, the Pixel 8A is a good deal — no strings attached.
Eufy’s excellent X10 Pro Omni mopping robovac hits a record low for Cyber Monday
2024 has been a rough year. It might be nice to go into the new year with a robot that can take some housework off your plate. Unfortunately, there’s no telling when or if Elon Musk’s all-purpose Tesla robots will ever be ready, but in the meantime, a robot vacuum can be a great starter.
Thankfully, many robot vacuums are at all-time low prices for Cyber Monday, including the Eufy X10 Pro Omni. It’s one of our favorite midrange mopping robot vacuums, and it’s down to $549.99 (from $800) at Amazon and Eufy’s store with code WS24T2351. It’s a good deal already at its regular price, and at $250 off, it’s even more compelling.
Dustbin capacity: Unknown / Self-empty dock option: Yes / Auto-refill mop option: Yes / Mop-lift: Yes, 12mm / Mop washing: Yes, hot air drying / Mapping: Yes, lidar / AI-powered obstacle avoidance: Yes / Suction power: 8,000Pa / Remote check-in: No / Keep-out zones: Yes, virtual / Brush style: single rubber / bristle hybrid / Works with: Amazon Alexa, Google Home
The X10 Pro Omni can suck up loose dirt and debris with the best of them thanks to its 8,000pa section, although its rubbery brushes aren’t quite as good for pet hair as we’d like. Unlike many others in this price range, it has effective lidar-powered room mapping and AI object avoidance. And not many can match its mopping prowess. It has dual oscillating brushes and enough pressure to wash up dried stains, not to mention a squared shape that makes it a bit better for baseboard mopping than most circular models. The auto-lifting brushes don’t completely clear standard carpeting, we’ve found, but it’s a nice trick.
You can manage the X10 Pro Omni using the Eufy Clean app, which lets you easily set up schedules and no clean zones. It’ll also empty itself, dry and clean its own pads, and refill itself at the included base — all helpful to limit how much daily babysitting it needs. There’s even a Smart Track feature that lets you redirect the robot to a spot it’s missed by nudging it with your foot and walking over to the spot that needs more cleaning.
Intel Arc B570 GPU specs leak just days before launch
Intel is expected to release a pair of entry-level Battlemage GPUs this week, and now marketing materials posted by reliable leaker Roland Quandt show what we might see from the lower-specced Arc B570. The leaked materials, which have details for a dual-fan ASRock Arc B570 Challenger OC GPU, suggest that the new chip may feature 18 Xe2 cores and 10GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 160-bit memory bus.
The leak also indicates that Intel’s Arc B570 chip could come with the 8-pin PCIe power connector and a 2.6GHz GPU clock, along with support for HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1.
Intel Arc B570
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt.bsky.social) 2024-11-30T23:40:03.305Z
The rumored specs for the Arc B570’s slightly more powerful counterpart — the Arc B580 — have been floating around as well. An early Amazon listing spotted by VideoCardz suggests that the Arc B580 could arrive with 20 Xe2 cores, 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 192-bit memory bus, a 2.8GHz GPU clock, and an 8-pin PCIe power connector.
Judging by these specs, it seems Intel’s Battlemage chips are designed to compete with more affordable graphics cards, like the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 7600. Though we still don’t know how much Intel’s new chips will cost, a product listing shared by @Momomo_us shows Intel’s “Limited Edition” B580 card priced at $250 — less than the $399 RTX 4060Ti and $269 Radeon RX 7600.
The reveal of Intel’s new Battlemage GPUs is just days away, as the company confirmed that it will make an Arc-related announcement on December 3rd at 9AM ET from its YouTube channel.
The 2024 Installer gift guide, part one
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 62, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy Post-Thanksgiving Chill Weekend, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about junk food and Madden 2004 and Anthony Jeselnik, watching Wicked and immediately making sure to hold space for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity,” exploring the back catalog of 60 Second Docs (which I found thanks to Jason Kottke), watching a lot of Thomas the Tank Engine with my toddler, marveling at how complicated it is just to shop for pizza stones, and listening to the first episodes of The Rest is Classified.
I also have for you a productivity app that I truly love, a new portable mic, another lovely-looking music-making gadget, and lots of fun stuff to watch this weekend. It’s a fairly light week for new stuff since it’s a holiday in the US, but luckily you all delivered on the recommendations as always. Let’s dig in.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you reading / watching / playing / building / eating / installing Linux on this week? What should everyone else be as into as you are? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
- Craft 3. I say this with (I think) no hyperbole or recency bias: this is the closest thing I’ve ever tried to my perfect note-taking app. The new version does a wonderful job integrating tasks, events, and notes, and the whole thing just makes sense. I’ve been living in the beta for a while, and if you’re on any platform but Android, I can’t recommend it enough. (And I’m told Android is coming! … Eventually.)
- The DJI Mic Mini. I trust The Verge’s Andru Marino on all things audio and microphones, and he’s a fan of DJI’s small, surprisingly good-sounding $169 portable mic. Please, please use this instead of that stupid lapel mic everybody holds on TikTok.
- It’s in the Game. Four hours of archival footage, behind-the-scenes process, and NFL players raving about how much they love Madden is a pretty good argument for me to watch a doc. It skews a little more infomercial than thoughtful in spots, but it’s still a really fun watch if you like virtual football.
- Robot Dreams. This one’s not strictly new — it came out in 2023 and was nominated for Best Animated Feature — but until now, it’s been hard to stream this adorable, surprisingly affecting movie about a robot and dog duo. Add this to the list this holiday season.
- The Telepathic Instruments Orchid. Oh no, another extremely cool-looking music maker that I will never make proper use of but totally want anyway. This one’s from Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, and there’s not much detail yet, but it looks fantastic.
- Stuff. A new, nice-looking app for notes and tasks. I really like its Dependencies feature, which keeps projects in order — you can’t do task 3 until you do task 2, which you can’t do before task 1. Stuff’s developer got some flack for the fact that this app looks like Things, which it does! But that’s more a compliment than a problem.
- The B&O Beoplay Eleven. AirPods Pro, only way better-looking. And $500. B&O is making big claims about sound quality and noise cancellation here, and I’m somewhat skeptical of them, but the design alone (especially that copper model) is a huge upgrade.
- Microsoft Recall. For a while, it looked like Microsoft’s all-knowing private AI was never going to launch. But it’s here, ish! You’ll need a Qualcomm-powered Copilot Plus PC, which you … probably don’t have. But if you do, give this a whirl and tell me how you like it. I’m so curious.
Gift guide (part one)
I think I like reading gift guides more than I like even getting gifts. I cannot explain this! But there’s something to the shopping-y nature of it all that is fun and aspirational and feels like a peek into other people’s brains. I tend to gravitate toward individual people’s guides, too: Helen Rosner always does great ones, and Robin Sloan is always finding stuff I’d never seen before. Special mention to Rambull, too, which compiled a lot of people’s recommendations into a truly delightful gift guide.
Last week, I asked all of you to share your gift ideas for this year, and I got so many good ones! But then something in our Gmail system broke, and I haven’t been able to access the Installer email for a few days. I’ll get it back, though, and we’ll do more gift-y stuff next week — sorry to everyone I’ve left hanging this week! We’ll get it fixed ASAP, and we’ll do this even bigger next weekend. And please send me more recommendations! installer@theverge.com.
For now, I figured I’d share a few of my recommendations. To be clear, this is not an exhaustive gift guide. The Verge’s gift guides are filled with much more cool stuff. Go read those! Click the links! Buy the things! All I have to offer you is a bunch of stuff that I personally love and can vouch for. I tried to keep it all within at least a semi-reasonable price point because how many of us are really out here giving each other $3,000 laptops for the holidays, you know?
Anyway, here are a bunch of my favorite things, and things I think you might like, too:
- Ultimate Ears Bluetooth speakers. I have a Wonderboom in my bathroom for shower tunes, another in my luggage for travel, and a third just in case. UE’s lineup of speakers ranges from huge and expensive to tiny and cheap, but they’re all durable and long-lasting and sound good. You truly can’t go wrong.
- The Steam Deck OLED. At $549, this one’s certainly no stocking stuffer, but I’d argue this is the best gift you can give a gamer right now. (With a possible nod to the PlayStation Portal, which now streams games and suddenly seems way more worthwhile than before.)
- The Shokz OpenRun Pro 2. Look, you’ll probably end up gifting or getting AirPods. Which are great! But if you’re looking for headphones to wear on walks, runs, bike rides, or just while you’re also living the rest of your life, open-ear is the way. These are my most-used headphones right now, and it’s not close.
- A charger / power bank combo. It’s like a universal charger — plug it into the wall, or just plug it into your device, and you’ll always have juice. I have this Anker one, which I like, but I don’t have particular brand loyalty here. It’s just the combo that’s magic.
- The Kindle Paperwhite. I love the Boox Palma, but it’s probably more expensive and complex than most people need. If all you need is a book reader, I don’t think you can beat the speed and simplicity of the new Paperwhite. (Also, this might be a hot take, but: save the $20 and get it with ads. They don’t bother me one bit.)
- Streaming service gift cards. Giving someone a few free months of Netflix or Max or whatever is great, if you know they don’t have it. But I say get weird with it! Give your friend a year of Shudder and introduce them to horror movies; give them the Criterion Channel and turn them into a film snob. There are so many niche services out there, and this is a great way to explore them.
- Gift cards in general. Gift cards rule! “I didn’t know exactly what you wanted, so here’s some money for your favorite store / platform / whatever that you can use on anything that makes you happy.” EVERYBODY WINS. That is all. Gift cards forever.
- The Nothing CMF Phone 1. One of the coolest, and cheapest, Android phones to come out this year. I dig the modular backplates and accessories, and mostly I think everyone could use a cheap Android phone for reading, gaming, and more. Think of it like a pocket-sized tablet.
- A Bluetooth game controller. I continue to be amazed at how useful an accessory a good gaming controller is. They’re great for games, obviously, but you can often connect these to all your devices and use them as a remote and all kinds of other things. I have the 8BitDo Pro 2, which is great, but again there are plenty of good options.
- The Studio Neat Totebook. I’ve tried a lot of notebooks over the years, and I keep coming back to this one. It’s light and thin but still pretty sturdy and feels really great to write in.
- The Google TV Streamer. The longer I use Google’s set-top box, the more I like it. It’s easy to set up, runs all the streaming apps you need, and does a better job of just… showing you stuff to watch than any other platform out there. For $100, I don’t think you can beat this one.
Screen share
Over the last couple of months, I’ve seen a lot of folks in productivity nerd circles getting really excited about this thing called Forever Notes. It’s a system, created by Matthias Hilse, for adding some really useful organization and structure to Apple Notes without making the whole thing needlessly complicated. It’s really clever, and also really easy to adapt to other apps. I’ve even stolen some ideas for my own system.
It all made me curious, too, what Matthias’ other systems and setups look like. If you’re the guy who solves Apple Notes, what else have you figured out? So I asked him to share his homescreen with us.
Here’s Matthias’ homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
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The phone: I’m still holding on to my iPhone 14 Pro. Once Apple gives me a real reason to upgrade, I will.
The wallpaper: I designed this wallpaper on my lockscreen to go along with the cover images I created for Forever Notes. They are free to download on the website. I wanted something that’s visually bold and can be associated with the framework.
The apps: Insight Timer, Newsify, WienMobil, Arc, Apple Notes.
I love RSS feeds and have been using Newsify forever. The Alto widget tracks any recurring Apple Reminders, I track my yoga workouts. Could do better. The three dock shortcuts go to my Home note, current Month note, and my Daily note in Apple Notes.
I also asked Matthias to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:
- Watching: Somebody Somewhere — a show inspired by the life of Bridget Everett. I get to be in Manhattan, Kansas, once a week with a whole bunch of great characters. I love the indie vibe of the show.
- Not playing: Tiny Glade — a PC-only game where the only thing you do is build tiny cottages and castles in a forest. As I’m a Mac user, I only get to watch and listen (!) to others playing it on YouTube. It’s ASMR therapy.
- The YouTuber @SunnyKindJourney: Minimalist from Finland — just started following him recently. Feel-good content.
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 me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more recommendations than I can fit here, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.
“My latest app obsession has been Fitbod. It actually gets me to work out and track strength training progress! I’ll definitely be using it to feel better after Thanksgiving.” — Mai
“I’m listening to the podcast Raising Parents with Emily Oster. After reading books by social economists Jonathan Haidt and Richard Reeves and having two toddlers, it is a lot to think about raising kids in an overprotective and tech-filled world.” — Mitchell
“Watching Architectural Digest’s video about the production design of the Wicked movie — fascinating stuff.” — Eli
“I’ve never played a lick of League of Legends, but season 2 of Arcane is some of the best damn compelling television I’ve seen in a long time.” — Noah
“Dropout has essentially become my default streaming app. From Make Some Noise to Gastronauts, almost everything is a banger.” — Brad
“Watching the Waveform podcast’s trivia extravaganza. Ellis’s intro alone deserves a listen!” — Colin
“Going to check out the Pope drama Conclave now that it’s on VOD. Sounds like it’s a right proper Grown Up movie with killer performances from Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini.” — Marty
“Picked up Stephen Fry’s Odyssey, his fourth book in the retelling of Greek mythology. The man is gifted. His books are just so damn readable and fun. I hope he picks up a new mythology after this one.” — Payasam
“Say Nothing, a TV show on Hulu based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.” — Darragh
“I’m currently listening to Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew. It’s a great read for anyone interested in tech who wants to examine the difference between gadgets and social technologies and learn a lot about disability communities.” — Jeanne
“Leaving my 2024 games on the backlog while playing last year’s Robocop: Rogue City. The best part is that it simulates the less-exciting parts of Robocop’s job. I’ve already issued two parking tickets!” — Arnold
Signing off
I love Thanksgiving, but I don’t honestly love most Thanksgiving food. Huge slices of turkey, mashed potatoes, weird casseroles, it’s all just not exactly what I’d pick for a huge all-day meal, you know?
But the leftovers. THE LEFTOVERS. The weekend after Thanksgiving is better eating than Thanksgiving, if you ask me. All for one reason, two words: Stuffing waffles. Trust me. It changes everything.
Hope everyone who celebrates is having a great holiday. See you next week!
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