Author: News Room

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 115, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, go Seahawks I guess, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I’ve been reading about The Washington Post and the Murdochs and Polymarket and whatever a “Soho House for creators” is, watching Independence Day for the first time and Jurassic Park for roughly the 50th, bailing on everything for the next few weeks so I can watch the Olympics full-time, loving the timeline-task-manager look of Paso, learning more about Furby…

Hoarding documents or rendering endless video: the best portable SSDs give your workflow some much-needed breathing space. And if you’re in the market for a storage expansion, this is the list you need. From pocket-friendly plug-ins to rugged drives that can withstand some serious fieldwork, the round-up below features our pick of the best portable SSDs for every user. They’re perfect for upgrading a laptop (which you should have chosen from our best laptops guide). Whether you need somewhere to stash gigabytes of game files or terabytes of 4K footage, we’ve picked out a cache of external drives for different…

EU regulators have declared that TikTok’s “addictive design” may put it in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), in the preliminary results of an ongoing investigation into the social media app. If those findings are confirmed, TikTok could face a major fine and be required to “change the basic design of its service” in order to comply with the law.The European Commission took particular issue with TikTok’s “infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and its highly personalised recommender system,” arguing that TikTok failed to implement proper safeguards to ensure the “addictive” features don’t “harm the physical and mental wellbeing of…

Three years ago, I was wrong about Apple – specifically, Apple Arcade. I know, I’m as shocked as you are. But at least I’m self-aware enough to admit my inability to predict the future of tech with any degree of accuracy. And at least this wasn’t quite an “iPod will never take off” blunder (something I once said in MacUser magazine, which one former staffer delights in periodically reminding me about). Still, I did write ‘Why I want Apple Arcade to include classic arcade games – and why that’ll never happen’. But now it has happened, thanks to Retrocade. And here’s the bit…

Where’s the Trump phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone’s whereabouts. This time, surprisingly, we received a response — and an interview.The Trump phone is real — maybe, sort of, soon? — and I’ve seen it. Not in the flesh, but during an hourlong video call with two Trump Mobile executives who showed me a phone, and told me more about why it was delayed, when it might actually reach buyers, and why its spec sheet has changed again and again.I spoke to Don Hendrickson —…

Valentine’s Day is coming up fast, and if you haven’t started shopping yet, there are a lot of great gifts on sale that should still arrive in time if you order soon. Several Verge-approved gadgets are seeing some of their best discounts since the holidays, with options we think will appeal to a wide range of interests, from thoughtful picks like digital photo frames to e-readers, smart speakers, smartwatches, massagers, and even practical stuff like vacuums. While some are bigger-ticket items, quite a few cost under $100, so there’s something here for a range of budgets, too.Below, we’ve rounded up…

CarPlay users could soon be able to use their chatbot of choice instead of Siri. As Bloomberg reports, Apple is working to add support for CarPlay voice control apps from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others. Previously, users who wanted to access third-party chatbots in the car would need to go through their iPhone, but soon they may be able to talk with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini directly in CarPlay.However, Apple reportedly “won’t let users replace the Siri button on CarPlay or the wake word that summons the service.” So, users will need to manually open their preferred chatbot’s app. Developers…

Analogue has announced another collection of limited-edition colors for its modern remake of the Nintendo 64. Last December it introduced several transparent versions of the Analogue 3D inspired by Nintendo’s Funtastic N64 series, but this time the company says it drew inspiration from colored versions of the nearly 30-year-old console that Nintendo prototyped, but never released to the public.The Prototype Limited Editions versions of the Analogue 3D will be available for purchase through the company’s website in limited quantities starting on February 9th at 8AM PT / 11AM ET, and are expected to ship 24 to 48 hours after that.…

Apple is planning to bring access to a number of third-party AI chatbots to its CarPlay in-car platform, according to a new report. Right now, Apple only enables drivers to interact with Siri, but that looks set to change. Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman’s sources claim that Apple is planning to enable drivers to consult rivals like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Apple already offers ChatGPT as an option within iOS, while it is working with Google to bring Gemini’s skills to Siri starting this spring. So it would make sense for Apple to bring the chatbots to CarPlay too. It won’t work…

Fortnite developer Epic Games says the account some people believed to be linked to Jeffrey Epstein is a “ruse.” In a reply on X, the developer writes, “an existing Fortnite account owner changed their username” to “littlestjeff1,” an alias spotted in several emailed receipts from YouTube in the Epstein files.The email suggests that “littlestjeff1” may have been connected to Epstein’s YouTube account, prompting online sleuths to search for the username on other platforms. Users later uncovered a “littlestjeff1” account on Fortnite, along with a 2019 email that mentions purchasing VBucks in Fortnite — though the sender and recipient are redacted.…

Sony is set to debut its next-generation noise-cancelling earbuds next week. Judging by a teaser clip, the WF-1000XM6 buds will be unveiled on February 12. The teaser posted on YouTube promises a reveal next Thursday at 8:00 pacific time. That’s 4:00pm UK time. We can’t be absolutely certain. They might not be the WF-1000XM6, but the timing lines up given the recent speculation and mounting leaks. We can’t glean an awful lot from the teaser, which shows what appears to be an open earbuds case with the buds poking out. The Walkman Blog recently predicted the February 12 launch date,…

300 journalists have lost their jobs at The Washington Post. Over 300,000 readers have canceled their subscriptions. Owner Jeff Bezos, who purchased the legendary publication in 2013, has driven his reputation into the ground by using his vast empire to churn out content designed to make President Donald Trump happy: Amazon MGM Studios spent $40 million to produce a fawning documentary about Melania Trump, which premiered days before the Post sent out mass layoff notices. And yet, he’s gotten nothing out of his attempts to suck up to Donald Trump — at least, nothing that’s a net positive to his…