Author: News Room

I knew things were not quite right when I had to throw a towel over a broken Ikea lamp to block out its light. How did I get here? I cover fancy and capable tech for a living, and yet, it took me two years to get rid of a pair of old, broken Ikea lamps in my bedroom. Then I got some floor lamps from Govee that changed everything.Those Ikea lamps were around for two years after I moved from Orange County to Los Angeles. Soon after that move, my mom’s Parkinson’s disease — a neurodegenerative condition with no…

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 125, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, send me cereal recommendations, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I’ve been reading about NASA seamstresses and friction and Muskism and scooters, highlighting the heck out of Jeff VanderMeer’s terrific new short story, listening to the Dissect podcast’s new season about Daft Punk, giving Firefox another run as my go-to browser, having my mind blown by amazing music video directors, and nodding along to John Oliver on prediction markets.…

Apple and Samsung dominate the US phone market, and they’ve done so for years. Together with Google, they’ve shaped our sense of what a smartphone is and what it can do, pushing the boundaries of mobile photography, software, and processing power. But over the last few years, they’ve sat back, content to iterate rather than innovate — and in the interim, China’s tech giants have plowed ahead. Now a gulf is growing between the phones on sale in the US and those available in the rest of the world. US phone buyers are missing out.Some of the blame for that…

My time with Apple gear began at school. In English, I was unceremoniously plonked in front of a Mac Classic running PageMaker and told to design a school magazine. The reasoning? “You like computers!” Which was true, but I mostly played games on my Commodore 64. It’s testament to the Mac that I muddled through. And maybe that’s why, come the mid-1990s, I chose a Mac over a PC for uni art and multimedia projects, despite prevailing wisdom that Apple was ‘doomed’. Back then, Gil Amelio was Apple’s CEO. He didn’t last long, in part because his one really good decision cost him…

Windows users will no longer be forced to run automatic updates in the middle of a game or a busy day. Microsoft is rolling out some long-awaited changes to Windows Update to users on its Dev and Experimental Windows Insider channels, including the ability to indefinitely delay updates up to 35 days at a time.Last month, Microsoft announced a slew of upcoming changes to improve Windows 11 and address some of users’ most common complaints about the platform. Chief among the company’s planned fixes was making updates less disruptive. In its blog post on Friday, Microsoft says you’ll be able…

Spotify users can finally organise their favourite playlists into folders on their phone, making it easier to access their favourite playlists. While Spotify has offered this functionality via its desktop app for donkeys years, the vast majority of Spotify listening takes place on mobile. So, 16 years after it arrived on desktop, Spotify users are getting the privilege to add folders on mobile too. Redditors have reported (via Digital Trends) seeing the fixture on iOS and Android. Those with access are seeing the Folder option at the bottom of the Create options. It’s not there for me yet, but I…

Tesla’s Cybercab is now in production at the company’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, but Elon Musk is sounding unusually cautious about the rollout.The robotaxi’s start of production was announced Thursday on X, with Tesla posting a video shot from inside a steering wheel-less Cybercab as it drove out of the factory with the caption, “Purpose built for autonomy.” The company made a few initial Cybercabs back in February, but continuous production only started this month.But with the company’s robotaxi plans creeping along much slower than expected, many Tesla watchers are left scratching their heads about the future — especially as…

The RAM shortage caused by demand from AI datacenters is already driving up prices on phones, PS5s, and Raspberry Pis, but it could be about to get even worse. Samsung is facing employee protests over demands for wages that are more competitive with rival chip manufacturer SK Hynix, including removing Samsung’s cap on bonus pay, allocating more money for bonuses, and raising base salaries. According to AP News, an estimated 40,000 union members attended a rally on Thursday outside Samsung’s Pyeongtaek, South Korea chip manufacturing facility.If the union and management can’t come to an agreement, the union is planning an…

Apple is developing six ‘major new product categories’ right now, including the recently rumoured security camera, according to the erstwhile Cupertino watcher Mark Gurman. In an appearance on the TBPN show this week, Gurman spoke of the products outside of the company’s usual remit that’ll continue the hardware diversification and lessen the reliance on the iPhone. We’ve head rumours concerning all of them at some point, but seeing them listed all together offers insight into the scale of Apple’s ambitions to enter uncharted territory. Gurman said: “There are six major Apple products in development right now, six major new product…

BMW’s previous concepts wrapped the entire vehicle in a patchwork of E Ink panels that were all custom-sized and shaped to match its contours. It was an approach that wasn’t practical for mass production, and one that wasn’t very durable. The new BMW iX3 Flow Edition is potentially the most exciting of all of BMW’s concepts as it embeds the E Ink Prism technology directly into the structure of the vehicle’s hood panel, instead of just slapping it on top. The new approach has “undergone BMW’s stringent quality testing” so that it meets the “requirements of automotive engineering and everyday…

Apple is reportedly planning on giving the standard iPhone 18 model a significant RAM boost that might make the base model a little more attractive this year. The analyst Dan Nystedt has passed on a recurring rumour that the iPhone 18 might get a 50% RAM boost as part of a new A20 chip. The rumour, first circulated over a year ago, suggests the iPhone 18 might come with 12GB of RAM. The original rumour, Nystedt passed along from a UDN report in China, suggested the A20 will be the first made with TSMC’s first 2mn production run. It may…

If you’re in the market for the best tablet, it’s worth considering a few options beyond the popular models from Apple and Samsung. One of those is, of course, Amazon, which has emerged as a major player at the cheaper end of the tablet market. Amazon offers a pretty diverse range of tablets under the Fire branded lineup, so we’ve rated the best Fire tablets to make your decision easier. As they all derive from Camp Bezos, Amazon Fire tablets come with a certain seal of approval that other retailers may not provide. Much like the Echo, Fire tablets are…