Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 52, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I swear I don’t always just share absurdly expensive gadgets, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) I also have for you some expensive but excellent…
At the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) on Wednesday night, new technology allowed fans to shop their favorite artists’ styles as they appeared on the screen. Though the drama from last night’s event focused on Chappell Roan confronting a rude paparazzi and Sabrina Carpenter‘s onstage kiss with an alien, fans were also raving about the…
Kudos to Plaud for one thing: in a year otherwise marred by high-profile failures and oh so much AI vaporware, it made an AI gadget that does exactly what it claims to do and does it pretty well. The gadget is called the NotePin, and it’s a $169, pill-shaped voice recorder that can transcribe, summarize,…
Apple’s new “Visual Intelligence” feature was one of the most impressive things shown at Monday’s iPhone 16 event. The tool lets users scan the world around them through the iPhone’s camera to identify a dog breed, copy event details off a poster, or look up just about anything around them. It’s a handy-looking feature that…
Meta has confirmed that it’s restarting efforts to train its AI systems using public Facebook and Instagram posts from its U.K. userbase. The company claims it has “incorporated regulatory feedback” into a revised “opt-out” approach to ensure that it’s “even more transparent,” as its blog post spins it. It is also seeking to paint the move as…
Keurig made “inaccurate statements” about the recyclability of its single-use coffee pods, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company agreed to a cease and desist order and to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to settle the charges. Corporate recycling claims can be misleading It’s a helpful reminder that many corporate recycling…
OpenAI released its new o1 models on Thursday, giving ChatGPT users their first chance to try AI models that pause to “think” before they answer. There’s been a lot of hype building up to these models, codenamed “Strawberry” inside OpenAI. But does Strawberry live up to the hype? Sort of. Compared to GPT-4o, the o1…
Astro Bot is a game I cannot help but to evangelize, raving about its cute characters, its bright and varied level design, and its short but dense 8–10 hour runtime. But perhaps the biggest element contributing to the game’s joyousness is its sound design, which makes Astro Bot something that engages and delights more than…
Late Thursday evening, Oprah Winfrey aired a special on AI, appropriately titled “AI and the Future of Us.” Guests included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, tech influencer Marques Brownlee, and current FBI director Christopher Wray. The dominant tone was one of skepticism — and wariness. Oprah noted in prepared remarks that the AI genie is out…
The dust is still settling from Apple’s latest iPhone event, which introduced us to the Apple Watch Series 10, a new set of AirPods, and a suite of smartphones that are due to arrive later this month. And while we’ve only had some initial hands-on time with the new iPhone 16 models, preorders officially open…