The best Google alternative I’ve tried yet

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 8, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, first of all, hi, hello, welcome, and second of all, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve spent an alarming amount of my free time playing EA Sports FC 24, the new soccer game that just released in full on Friday. I’ve also been reading about Apple’s plans to change the sports TV world, the truly unhinged Survivor casting process, and Sam Altman’s plan to either save the world or end it. I’ve been watching Special Ops: Lioness, listening to NSYNC’s new song on repeat, and taking copious notes on Kashmir Hill’s excellent Longform interview.

I also have for you a new VR / AR / MR...

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LG is dropping ATSC 3.0 from its TVs next year

A picture of two LG TVs at CES 2022. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

LG told the FCC it’s pulling support for the ATSC 3.0 standard in its TVs next year because of a “challenging and uncertain patent landscape,” according to LightReading (via ZatzNotFunny). ATSC 3.0, aka Nextgen TV, is the next-generation broadcast format that would bring 4K TV and advanced video and audio formats like HDR and Dolby Atmos, as well as interactive apps, for free.

As we wrote about the standard in 2017:

ATSC 3.0 is the next major version of the broadcast TV format. (Version 2.0 was intended as a backward compatible update that was eventually canceled in favor of the more significant 3.0 update.) Where ATSC 1.0 added digital technology and HD video, ATSC 3.0 is planned to be an IP-based (internet protocol) system. It’s still...

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Apple blames iOS 17 bugs and apps like Instagram for making iPhone 15s run hot

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple has acknowledged user complaints that iPhone 15 and 15 Pro phones are overheating, reports Forbes, but said that contrary to speculation, it has nothing to do with the phone’s hardware design. Forbes noted an update to Instagram has already rolled out with version 302, released September 27th, to address some of the issues.

Bloomberg notes an unnamed Apple spokesperson specifically mentioning Instagram, Uber, and the game Asphalt 9 as examples of apps that could cause the devices to “run warmer than normal.”

Apple also says there is no safety risk in the thermal issues but that other factors, like USB-C power adapters with more-than-20W charging and background processing that occurs shortly after a phone is restored, can make a...

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The Sphere’s first show looks like it was a mind-blowing spectacle

The outside of The Sphere during the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live concert on September 29th, 2023. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

U2 played the first-ever show at the Las Vegas Sphere, a massive, dome-shaped venue wrapped in over a million LEDs. The concert, a live performance centered on the band’s Achtung, Baby album, was also the band’s first in a series of performances it will put on at the venue through the end of December. The cheapest tickets for the shows that haven’t sold out yet start at about $400, as of this writing.

From videos being posted to social media, it looks like shows at The Sphere can be breathtaking, probably more than a little nauseating, and undoubtedly expensive to produce.

A review in The New York Times says the concert alternated between gigantic, trippy visual effects sweeping across the domed display and the more standard concert...

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Here are a few discounted chargers to make use of iOS 17’s StandBy mode

Apple’s StandBy mode is a convenient feature that gives you a good excuse to buy a MagSafe stand. | Image: Apple

The iPhone 15 and iOS 17 do a whole bunch of new things that many of us here at The Verge enjoy, but one of our favorites is Apple’s StandBy mode. The simple little feature turns your iPhone into a small smart display once you place it on a MagSafe / magnetic Qi stand in landscape orientation. This allows you to see an assortment of full-screen widgets, including a pleasant desk clock, a calendar, or both.

Using the new StandBy mode may involve some menu diving if you want to customize it to your liking (which is definitely part of the fun), but getting started is as simple as turning on the feature and plopping your phone on a charger sideways.

Of course, if you don’t already own a magnetic charging stand for your iPhone, you’ll need...

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These are the biggest wins in the WGA’s new labor contract

The Simpsons c_reator Matt Groening draws strike sign collectibles for picketers._ | Image: Brittany Woodside / The Writers Guild of America

From its new writers room staffing minimums to guarantees that staffers will receive a bigger cut of streaming residuals, the WGA’s new labor contract is set to fundamentally improve working conditions in the entertainment industry.

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The Humane Ai Pin makes its debut on the runway at Paris Fashion Week

The Humane Ai Pin, up-close on a model at coperni’s Ready to Wear show during Paris Fashion Week, September 29th, 2023. | Photo by Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

It’s Paris Fashion Week, and Humane was designer Coperni’s latest buzzy tech name to be included. Humane’s Ai Pin — a device we’ve so far only seen in silhouette on the company’s website or peeking out of Humane co-founder Imran Chaudhri’s breast pocket in a TED demo earlier this year — was pinned on the clothes of multiple Coperni models during its presentation. And it’s a rounded-corner square thing that makes me think just a little of a _Star Trek: TNG-_style communicator.

The Coperni showcase doesn’t answer our many questions about the device since nobody seems to have used it on the runway as far as we can tell, but at least we know basically what it will look like now. We still have no real idea how self-contained it is, whether it...

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Smart glasses need to be stylish to really go mainstream

Style is crucial to wearable devices in a way that’s not necessarily true of other personal gadgets. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

When I first saw the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses a few weeks ago, I noticed something. In the event space Meta had so carefully prepared, there was a wall showcasing the different frames, colors, and lenses. It was meant to visualize all the different style options — more than 150, in fact. But standing about 10 feet away, they all blended together.

That bothered me.

For the most part, my hands-on with the Meta smart glasses went better than I’d expected. Photo and video quality was dramatically improved thanks to the new 12MP camera. Pain points like audio leakage seemed to be addressed because they now have five microphones instead of one. Sound quality was also better and supported spatial audio. You could livestream with them! After...

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‘The Android of agriculture’: Monarch Tractor CEO Praveen Penmetsa on the future of farming

Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge

Monarch Tractor’s Praveen Penmetsa has a grand vision for agriculture, and it includes autonomous electric smart tractors powered by AI.

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The Pixel 8 is Google’s best opportunity to bring its AI ideas together under one roof

Google Assistant, but make it Bard. | Illustration: The Verge

If there’s one job I’d like AI to take from me, it’s my daily email deleting ritual.

Every morning at 8:30AM, Google Calendar pings me with a reminder containing just one word: EMAILS. Thus, my formal workday begins as I speed-delete nearly every email that landed in my inbox overnight. They are largely useless and clog up the space between legitimate emails that I need to read and respond to.

Imagine for a minute, though, if you could just tell an AI assistant to show you your most important emails and delete all the rest. I asked Google Assistant on a Pixel 7 Pro to do this, and it just wordlessly escorted me to my inbox so I could deal with it myself. Thanks a bunch.

Google, like almost every other tech company in the world, is all...

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Apple’s dark sci-fi comedy Fingernails turns love into science

Image: TIFF

Fingernails, a sci-fi romcom coming to Apple TV Plus from director Christos Nikou, imagines a future where one very specific technology has changed the world. In this timeline, scientists have figured out how to conclusively determine if two people are in love. This upends relationships as we know them, with couples sticking steadfastly to the results of the test; if they get a negative result, they end up splitting up. It’s a cute conceit for exploring the ways relationships can grow stale or change over time, and Fingernails builds on that with its darkly comedic vibe. It also has a surprising amount of body horror — the nature of which you might be able to glean from the title.

The film centers on Anna (Jessie Buckley), a teacher who...

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Why New York and other cities still aren’t prepared for floods

A general view of a flooded street in Williamsburg, New York, United States on September 29th, 2023. | Photo by Fatih Aktas / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

New York City came to a grinding halt Friday as floods shut down roads and subways and inundated schools in one of the biggest storm-related emergencies since the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit in 2021.

It isn’t a problem that’s unique to New York. Flood risk is rising across the US with worsening weather disasters and growing strain on outdated infrastructure.

“The water has nowhere to go”

What should a flood-proof city look like? The Verge asked Samuel Brody, Director of the Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas and a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science at Texas A&M University at Galveston.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Are cities uniquely vulnerable to flooding?...

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The co-founder of a collapsed crypto hedge fund was arrested in Singapore

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Su Zhu, the co-founder of the collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), was arrested in Singapore on Friday. Zhu was taken into custody while attempting to leave the country from Singapore’s Changi Airport, as reported earlier by Bloomberg.

Teneo, the liquidation firm in charge of liquidating 3AC’s assets, says it received a committal order against Zhu after he failed to comply with a court order that compelled him to cooperate with the liquidation process. That committal order directs Singaporean police to arrest Zhu and hold him in prison for four months. Teneo says it obtained a “similar” committal order for 3AC’s other co-founder, Kyle Davies.

During his time in prison, Teneo says the liquidators will engage with Zhu...

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Here’s where you can preorder Sony’s upcoming PlayStation Portal

Sony’s $200 gaming device is just around the corner. | Image: Sony

For months, rumors had been circulating about the release date for Sony’s upcoming handheld, the PlayStation Portal. And last month, Sony finally gave us an answer: the PlayStation Portal will launch on November 15th. The portable device, which will be able to stream PlayStation 5 games over Wi-Fi, will retail for $199.99.

There is a chance the PlayStation Portal will sell out as quickly as the PlayStation 5 did when it was first released, which is perhaps why Sony is currently limiting orders to one device per customer. We have yet to test the Portal, but if you’re someone who wants to secure a unit at launch, rest assured that multiple retailers have already opened up preorders in the US and several other countries. Here’s what you...

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Every single Onewheel is being recalled after four deaths

Onewheel at CES in 2015. | Image: The Verge

Future Motion, the maker of the Onewheel electric skateboard, is recalling every one of them, including 300,000 Onewheel self-balancing vehicles in the US. Alongside the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the company now seeks to remedy the products after four known death cases — three without a helmet — between 2019 and 2021.

The recall comes a year after Future Motion took issue with the CPSC’s calls for recall and claimed that it tested and found nothing wrong with the Onewheels. At the time, the company issued a press release in objection to the CPSC and called the agency’s statements “unjustified and alarmist.”

Now Future Motion is moving forward with a voluntary recall it chose not to do almost a year earlier. The...

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Pokémon’s Van Gogh collaboration turned out to be kind of a disaster

A painting of Munchlax and Snorlax inspired by Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom.” | Image: The Pokémon Company

The horde of people that descended upon the Van Gogh Museum yesterday to snatch up as much merchandise as they could was the first sign that the Pokémon x Van Gogh collaboration might be a bit more chaotic than expected. While there was hope that all the fracas might die down and give everyone a chance to get in on the fun, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case.

Initially, it seemed like The Pokémon Company’s plan was for people to be able to easily find multiple pieces of merchandise from the special Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum collection online at the Pokémon Center, even if you couldn’t make it to the actual exhibit in Amsterdam. This afternoon, though, The Pokémon Company announced that its online store is...

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October’s video game release calendar is a little too stacked

Image: Nintendo / Insomniac Games / Sega

October is a lousy month for games. It’s just stuffed full of some of the biggest releases of the year. Remember back in the summer when Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo IV, and Final Fantasy XVI all released in the span of five weeks? October is that on steroids — a greater number of high-profile games concentrated in a much shorter stretch of time. Here’s what we’re looking at.

• Wargroove 2 - October 5th

Assassin’s Creed Mirage - October 5th

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is billed as a return to the series’ action-adventure roots. The game returns to the Middle East having you play as Basim, a character AC fans might recognize from Valhalla as he comes into his own as a Hidden One, the precursors to the Assassins. Ubisoft is all in on A...

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‘There’s no tracing Xbox 360 chat,’ claimed guy now charged with insider trading

An Xbox 360 wireless headset. | Photo by Alphathon (Wikimedia Commons)

If you’re going to do financial crimes, maybe an Xbox isn’t your best bet? That is one but hopefully not the only lesson learned by 26-year-old Anthony Viggiano, a former Goldman Sachs investment analyst who’s been indicted for insider trading, along with two of his friends.

He allegedly tipped off those friends to big financial deals using both encrypted messaging and — incredibly — a game console’s audio chat.

According to the indictment (via Kotaku), the FBI secretly recorded Viggiano admitting that he passed on illegal info, possibly via an Xbox 360, of all things:

Salamone: You have shit where you’re giving fucking information to fucking Steve [Forlano Jr.]?

VIGGIANO: Nah. Nah. Because similar to you . .. signal, or like XBOX...

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Letterboxd has been acquired — and promises ‘very little’ will change

Image: Letterboxd

Letterboxd, a beloved film reviews and social media platform that took off during the pandemic, has been acquired. Its new owner is a Canadian holding company called Tiny, which promises a “fast, friendly, and simple” process for founders looking for “quick, straightforward exits.”

The deal, as reported by The New York Times, values Letterboxd at $50 million. Tiny also owns companies like AeroPress, according to its website.

Letterboxd has been around since 2011, founded by Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow, and has grown its user base to around 10 million people — a drop in the bucket compared to bigger, noisier sites, but home to film buffs, critics, and even a few celebrities.

The app is part social media and part personal log —...

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Ford accuses UAW of holding contract negotiations ‘hostage’ over EV battery plants

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Ford CEO Jim Farley accused the United Auto Workers of holding contract negotiations “hostage” over the company’s forthcoming electric vehicle battery plants. The UAW strike, which is now in its third week, expanded today to include more facilities, including those operated by Ford.

The strike comes amid a historically consequential shift in the auto industry away from gas-guzzling vehicles to battery-powered ones with zero tailpipe emissions.

Like other automakers, Ford is committed to investing tens of billions of dollars in the transition, including the construction of four new EV battery plants in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan. Three of the four factories are joint ventures with a Chinese battery company, which has spurred...

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Now you can water-cool your PS5, too

A PS5’s internals, inside a QuantumX waterblock, inside a Raijintek case, with custom water cooling and bracket. | Image: EK Water Blocks

Changing the look of your PS5? Easy — the slightest amount of elbow grease will let you pop on new plates. But if you want to seriously mod that sucker for bragging rights, you can now preorder a $450 monoblock that lets you liquid-cool every single component on both sides of Sony’s board.

It’s called the QuantumX, and it’s by EK Water Blocks, a company that sells all kinds of gear for DIYers to build their own custom loop water cooling for high-end PCs.

Image: EK Water Blocks

A closer look at the waterblock, mounted inside a case.

And let’s be clear: you will need all kinds of custom liquid cooling gear if you go down this road. The company isn’t selling an entire DIY kit, just the cooling block. Your $450...

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A movie about the failed Titan submersible is already in the works

Image: OceanGate

It’s only been months since the implosion of OceanGate’s Titan tourist submersible, but Hollywood producers are already working on a film based on the incident. MindRiot Entertainment will make the film, with E. Brian Dobbins (The Blackening, Black-ish) serving as co-producer, according to a report from Deadline.

The movie will follow the events that took place before, during, and after the Titan’s implosion, Deadline reports. In June, the Titan submersible set off on a journey to tour the wreckage of the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. After losing contact with the surface, the US Coast Guard found that the Titan experienced a “catastrophic implosion” on the way down, killing all five passengers on board, including the CEO...

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This Pixel Watch 2 leak shows features adopted from Fitbit

Screenshot by Wes Davis / The Verge

Google’s Pixel launch event is next week, but the company can’t stop the bleeding when it comes to leaks on product reveals. This latest leak gives us a peek at new Fitbit features included on the upcoming Pixel Watch 2, which leaker Evan Blass shared on X, the social platform previously known as Twitter (via 9to5Google).

One of the leaked Pixel Watch 2 images shows support for Fitbit Sense 2’s “Body responses” feature, which is supposed to tell when you’re feeling stressed. While the current Pixel Watch doesn’t have the electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor that’s required to enable this feature, it looks like the Pixel Watch 2 will come with it. EDA sensors measure minuscule amounts of sweat on your skin to detect when you’re stressed...

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Supreme Court to hear landmark social media moderation cases

Photo by Celal Gunes / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Supreme Court announced Friday that it would be taking up two major First Amendment cases, challenging a pair of Florida and Texas laws allowing states to control how large social media companies moderate content.

The GOP-backed laws, both passed in 2021, make it illegal for social platforms like Facebook and Instagram to suspend or punish users in many cases, particularly in instances Republican lawmakers characterize as being biased against conservatives.

Two tech industry trade groups, NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), challenged the laws in short order, accusing the states of violating the First Amendment by unlawfully instructing how private platforms moderate speech on their platforms.

“...

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AMC Plus is getting an ad-supported subscription tier

The ad-supported tier will cost $4.99 monthly. | Screenshot by Wes Davis / The Verge

AMC Networks says it’s introducing an ad-supported version of its AMC Plus streaming service. The plan will cost $4.99 per month and provide users access to the same content library as the $8.99 ad-free version.

According to the press release, the service’s “light” ad load will be limited to “less than five minutes per hour.” Series and films included on AMC Plus include The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, Dark Winds, and Interview with a Vampire, as well as classics like Mad Men. The ad-supported version will also enable access to Shudder, Sundance Now, and IFC Films Unlimited.

“This ad-supported version of AMC+ gives consumers more flexibility while bringing ads to the only piece of our distribution ecosystem that wasn’t already...

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The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years

Fairphone’s latest repairable device is for people who hate saying goodbye to an old smartphone more than they like buying a new one.

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Amazon will charge you to use its new Echo Show 8 as a digital photo frame

The special “Photos Edition” of the new Show 8 costs extra to show your photos as the “primary content.” | Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge

Amazon is finally turning its Echo Show into a proper digital photo frame, but you have to pay extra for the privilege. Announced at its fall hardware event this week, the new Echo Show 8 Photos Edition costs $10 more than the standard edition of the new smart display but lets you make your photos the “primary home screen content.”

The Show 8 Photos Edition is coming this Fall for $159.99 and has all the same features as the new Echo Show 8 (third-gen). But for the extra $10, you get a six-month subscription to Amazon’s new PhotosPlus service, which enables this new “enhanced photo mode.”

PhotosPlus enables Photo Mode, making personal memories and photos shared by family and friends the primary content you see on the Echo Show 8 Photos...

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EA Sports FC 24 isn’t a huge change — but EA hopes it’s the start of something bigger

Image: EA

EA Sports FC 24 — or FC24, for short — is a huge release for Electronic Arts, launching today on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Switch. But you wouldn’t necessarily know its importance from playing the new game. FC24 is the first title since the publisher’s split from FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, a chance for EA to break out on its own with one of the most popular franchises in gaming. But the game also feels like well, FIFA. Instead of a whole new franchise, it plays a lot like the one that came before it, with the kinds of updates and additions that are typical of an annualized sports game. It’s not a jarring change if you’ve spent a lot of time with FIFA 23.

This is not to say that FC24 is a bad game. I’ve mostly been enjoying...

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The best Ring video doorbell you can buy is $100 off right now

Ring’s flagship doorbell records in a square aspect ratio for a full porch view. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

One of the best video doorbells you can get is matching its all-time low price. The Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2, the highest-end model offered by the Amazon-owned company, is on sale for $149.99 ($100 off) at Wellbots — matching its Lightning Deal price from the most recent Prime Day. If you’re already invested in Amazon’s smart home ecosystem, or if you don’t mind allying your home with Alexa, Ring’s wired Pro 2 offers excellent video quality in a helpful square format (for seeing more of your porch) with HDR, motion detection, and package detection. That last feature requires Ring’s $3.99 per month service subscription, but it may be worth it if you often have packages landing at your front door.

And coupling nicely with this deal is a...

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AMD CEO Lisa Su on the AI revolution and competing with Nvidia

Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge

At this year’s Code Conference, the CEO of one of the world’s largest computer chip companies discusses competing with Nvidia’s leading GPU, AI regulation, and the global supply chain.

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