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Aerial image of a controlled burn. | Image: Google

A Google-backed initiative aims to prevent raging infernos by using satellites that can detect small fires before they grow out of control.
The goal is to launch a constellation of satellites called FireSat into low Earth orbit. It’s a collaboration between a newly founded nonprofit coalition called Earth Fire Alliance and the startup Muon Space, which designs and operates satellite networks. Google.org is funding the project, and Google’s research team is also helping to develop the technology to spot wildfires and monitor their growth from space.
“There is a significant gap between the data we have available today and what we could have with better satellite coverage.”
Climate change is setting the stage for more monstrous wildfires as temperatures rise and droughts worsen in many places around the world. That’s why emergency responders and scientists are searching for new tools to help keep communities safe from more intense blazes.
Satellites already gather data used to warn people about large wildfires. The hope is that FireSat can provide more consistent, high-resolution data and spot flames sooner than existing satellites or even people on the ground can.
“There is a significant gap between the data we have available today and what we could have with better satellite coverage. So that’s why Google Research, we teamed up with a bunch of folks, scientists, and leaders in the fire community to develop a new satellite constellation,” Christopher Van Arsdale, lead researcher at Google Research’s Climate and Energy group and a board member for Earth Fire Alliance, said in a press briefing this week.

Fires are often spotted by people or planes first, rather than satellites. Existing satellites that gather data on wildfires might only come by a few times a day or can detect blazes only once they’ve reached a certain size. That makes them harder to use for detecting small fires. If they could gather more granular data, satellites could potentially find blazes in remote places before they reach more populated areas.
With more than 50 satellites dedicated solely to watching wildfires, FireSat is expected to check wildfire activity across the globe every 20 minutes. It’s also supposed to detect fires as small as 5 x 5 meters (the size of a classroom). That’s significantly smaller than earlier satellites, which were able to find blazes two to three acres in size (the size of two football fields), according to Google. To do this, the team behind FireSat developed custom sensors and algorithms to crunch the data using AI. FireSat will be able to quickly compare images of any 5 x 5-meter area over time to recognize a fire and contribute to a global record of fire spread for researchers.
Muon Space is scheduled to launch the first of these satellites in early 2025 and then three more spacecraft in 2026 as part of the first phase of the mission. The Earth Fire Alliance just launched publicly this year, although the technology for FireSat has been under development over the past five years.
“As a former firefighter, I can personally attest to the difference that this will make for firefighters in the field today,” Kate Dargan Marquis, former California state fire marshal and a senior adviser at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation that’s also funding FireSat, said in the press call. “It is a game changer, especially as wildfires are becoming more extreme, more frequent and more dangerous for everyone, information like this will make a life saving difference.”

Aerial image of a controlled burn. | Image: Google

A Google-backed initiative aims to prevent raging infernos by using satellites that can detect small fires before they grow out of control.

The goal is to launch a constellation of satellites called FireSat into low Earth orbit. It’s a collaboration between a newly founded nonprofit coalition called Earth Fire Alliance and the startup Muon Space, which designs and operates satellite networks. Google.org is funding the project, and Google’s research team is also helping to develop the technology to spot wildfires and monitor their growth from space.

Climate change is setting the stage for more monstrous wildfires as temperatures rise and droughts worsen in many places around the world. That’s why emergency responders and scientists are searching for new tools to help keep communities safe from more intense blazes.

Satellites already gather data used to warn people about large wildfires. The hope is that FireSat can provide more consistent, high-resolution data and spot flames sooner than existing satellites or even people on the ground can.

“There is a significant gap between the data we have available today and what we could have with better satellite coverage. So that’s why Google Research, we teamed up with a bunch of folks, scientists, and leaders in the fire community to develop a new satellite constellation,” Christopher Van Arsdale, lead researcher at Google Research’s Climate and Energy group and a board member for Earth Fire Alliance, said in a press briefing this week.

Fires are often spotted by people or planes first, rather than satellites. Existing satellites that gather data on wildfires might only come by a few times a day or can detect blazes only once they’ve reached a certain size. That makes them harder to use for detecting small fires. If they could gather more granular data, satellites could potentially find blazes in remote places before they reach more populated areas.

With more than 50 satellites dedicated solely to watching wildfires, FireSat is expected to check wildfire activity across the globe every 20 minutes. It’s also supposed to detect fires as small as 5 x 5 meters (the size of a classroom). That’s significantly smaller than earlier satellites, which were able to find blazes two to three acres in size (the size of two football fields), according to Google. To do this, the team behind FireSat developed custom sensors and algorithms to crunch the data using AI. FireSat will be able to quickly compare images of any 5 x 5-meter area over time to recognize a fire and contribute to a global record of fire spread for researchers.

Muon Space is scheduled to launch the first of these satellites in early 2025 and then three more spacecraft in 2026 as part of the first phase of the mission. The Earth Fire Alliance just launched publicly this year, although the technology for FireSat has been under development over the past five years.

“As a former firefighter, I can personally attest to the difference that this will make for firefighters in the field today,” Kate Dargan Marquis, former California state fire marshal and a senior adviser at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation that’s also funding FireSat, said in the press call. “It is a game changer, especially as wildfires are becoming more extreme, more frequent and more dangerous for everyone, information like this will make a life saving difference.”

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The AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation are worth springing for compared to the regular pair. Both sound good, but the ANC works surprisingly well — most of the time. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Apple’s regular AirPods. The first few models didn’t fit my ears securely, I found their sound quality to be adequate at best, and I preferred the noise isolation provided by earbuds with silicone tips. But I fully recognize that large swaths of people love the standard AirPods for their open design and the comfort that comes with it. And after spending a week with the new AirPods 4, I can already tell you that they’re going to be an instant upgrade for many.
From the outside, you won’t spot any drastic changes from the AirPods 3. Apple has continued to tweak the shape and contours of the earbuds for the best possible fit, and the charging case is now smaller than ever. (And yes, it’s got a USB-C connector this time.) But these still look the part of AirPods — and they still only come in white.
Bigger changes await inside: for the first time, Apple is offering two different versions of the regular AirPods. Both deliver the same sound quality, so don’t worry about that. And each contains the company’s H2 chip, which powers several new features that boost sound quality and voice call clarity. They’re also both IP54 dust and water resistant. The base AirPods 4 cost $129, and the more premium model is priced at $179. For the extra money, you get a few key upgrades, with the headlining differentiator being active noise cancellation.

So let’s start right there. How well can ANC possibly work in an open-style design that doesn’t fully seal into your ears? This isn’t the first time it’s been attempted — Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 also included noise cancellation — and the way it works is basically the same as with the AirPods Pro. The microphones on the AirPods 4 analyze your environment and generate anti-noise to dial down ambient loudness. But with other earbuds, ANC gets a helping hand from the natural noise isolation of ear tips. That’s not the case here, so you’ve got to go in with realistic expectations. There are no miracles. The AirPods Pro are capable of much more comprehensive noise cancellation, full stop. If you want a private bubble of tranquility, the AirPods 4 aren’t going to take you there.

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But I’ve been genuinely impressed by what they are capable of. If you just put the AirPods 4 in and turn on noise cancellation without any audio playing, you might not be wowed. You’ll hear… well, absolutely everything — but the din is less overwhelming. The ANC is best at tackling lower-frequency noises from airplane cabins, city traffic, and those random hums at many offices. The AirPods 4 even did a fairly remarkable job of cutting down the rumble of ferry engines at the pier near our office.

The design has been tweaked but remains similar to the third-gen AirPods.

You’re always going to hear a fair amount of ambient sound if you’re not listening to something, but once the music starts, that’s where the ANC proves its worth. I’ve found that I can keep the volume at around 50 percent and barely notice any distractions. With past AirPods (and with the non-ANC AirPods 4), I routinely find myself cranking the volume to combat my surroundings. You won’t need to face that battle with the AirPods 4 with ANC, and that means you should be listening at safer levels more often than not. One unfortunate downgrade compared to the AirPods Pro is that you can’t adjust volume directly on the earbuds; there are no swipe gestures like on Apple’s flagship buds.
The AirPods 4 aren’t going to get any of the hearing health features coming to the AirPods Pro, but their ability to shave off enough of the outside world to let you keep the volume slider at a sensible spot is a major reason to consider upgrading. There are definitely environments where they can struggle — the ANC didn’t put up much of a fight in a crowded bar — but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how useful the feature has proven in this open-ear style.
Along with noise cancellation, the higher-end model gets transparency mode and Adaptive Audio, a feature that blends the two so that important noises like sirens can pass through. Adaptive Audio is less useful here than on the AirPods Pro since the AirPods 4 always make it easy to hear what’s happening around you by nature of their design. But Conversation Awareness, which lowers the audio volume when you start talking, remains a helpful trick — unless you have a habit of muttering things to yourself like I often do.

The active noise cancellation works well enough to help you keep the volume at a reasonable level — even on city streets.

There are other perks included with the higher-end $179 AirPods 4. The case supports wireless charging either with Apple’s MagSafe pucks or any Qi-compatible charger. And there’s also a built-in speaker on the case that can emit a sound when you’re trying to track it down with Apple’s Find My app. The standard $129 AirPods 4 lack these features. I’m fine losing the speaker, but having to go without wireless charging in the base model stings and meaningfully takes away from their value.

As ever, the AirPods 4 still only come in white.

Sound-wise, these are Apple’s best regular AirPods yet. The overall sound signature hasn’t changed much from the AirPods 3, but the AirPods 4 provide a thicker layer of bass than their predecessors; I’ve noticed greater instrument separation when listening to songs like “Tiny Moves” by Bleachers; there’s more finesse and clarity to the upper range / treble. The AirPods Pro maintain a leg up when it comes to overall fidelity, but I’d have no issues living with the AirPods 4. And again, the regular and ANC models are identical in this department.
I still have to be intentional and twist these AirPods into my ears just right if I want them to stay put. But once they’re in, they’re fairly snug, even when I’m rushing down the subway station stairs to catch a train. With the AirPods Pro, I can just sort of cram them in without giving it any thought. But even I can admit that the AirPods 4 are more comfortable over long listening sessions.

Both the earbuds and case offer IP54 resistance against dust and water.

Head gestures are a new capability you get with both sets of the AirPods 4. When toggled on, you can respond to Siri by nodding your head up and down to engage with notifications or answer a call; shaking your head side to side will also dismiss them. I’m not someone who likes having my earbuds pester me with notifications, but in my brief tests, my head movements were detected accurately, even when they were fairly small. Some people might really come to like this way of dealing with Siri, but I’ll be sticking with the more traditional methods.
Anyone who frequently uses their AirPods for voice calls will appreciate the Voice Isolation feature — already available on the AirPods Pro — that has now come to the AirPods 4. By running machine learning algorithms simultaneously on the AirPods and source device, Apple can better isolate your voice, even in raucous environments. This is basically akin to Google’s Clear Calling feature, and it can make a significant difference if you need to take a call in less-than-ideal conditions. Note that Voice Isolation is only available on calls and can’t be used when, say, you’re recording a voice memo or a video with your phone.
On top of these new features, you get the usual slew of Apple ecosystem tie-ins like audio sharing, automatic switching between devices, hands-free “Hey Siri” commands, Apple TV integration, and more. I still very much wish that Apple would include genuine multipoint support so you could pair to two products at once, but at this point, the decision to leave it out seems like a philosophical choice that’s not going to change.

The AirPods 4 with ANC will be a tempting upgrade for many. The regular AirPods 4? Maybe less so.

Battery life is rated at four hours of playback time with noise cancellation or five hours with it off. Add in the charging case and you get a total of 20 and 30 hours, respectively. (The cheaper AirPods 4 obviously get the longer numbers since there’s no ANC.) I haven’t used them long enough to extensively verify those estimates, but they’ve seemed on point so far. Sadly, Apple still hasn’t made repairability a priority with the AirPods 4, so inevitably, there will come a time when that endurance starts to wane.
I’ll be going right back to regular earbuds after this review. That’s just who I am, and I like having as much noise isolation as possible. But the AirPods 4 with ANC are far and away Apple’s most compelling take on this open design yet. The noise cancellation isn’t on par with more expensive in-ear alternatives, but it’s easily good enough to ensure you can enjoy your music at a normal volume no matter where you might be. You can tell a difference when the ANC is working, which I can’t say of other open earbuds that have advertised noise cancellation. That, combined with the wireless charging, is the biggest reason I’d steer most people toward the more expensive model.
The standard AirPods 4 give you the same good audio performance, and they effortlessly weave into Apple’s ecosystem. They’re also a substantial upgrade over the second-gen model that they’ve replaced for the same $129, but beyond the walled garden tricks, Apple left them with relatively few frills compared to the ANC pair. So unless you’re very price-conscious, it’s worth stepping up. Your ears will be supremely grateful you spent the extra $50.
Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge

The AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation are worth springing for compared to the regular pair. Both sound good, but the ANC works surprisingly well — most of the time.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Apple’s regular AirPods. The first few models didn’t fit my ears securely, I found their sound quality to be adequate at best, and I preferred the noise isolation provided by earbuds with silicone tips. But I fully recognize that large swaths of people love the standard AirPods for their open design and the comfort that comes with it. And after spending a week with the new AirPods 4, I can already tell you that they’re going to be an instant upgrade for many.

From the outside, you won’t spot any drastic changes from the AirPods 3. Apple has continued to tweak the shape and contours of the earbuds for the best possible fit, and the charging case is now smaller than ever. (And yes, it’s got a USB-C connector this time.) But these still look the part of AirPods — and they still only come in white.

Bigger changes await inside: for the first time, Apple is offering two different versions of the regular AirPods. Both deliver the same sound quality, so don’t worry about that. And each contains the company’s H2 chip, which powers several new features that boost sound quality and voice call clarity. They’re also both IP54 dust and water resistant. The base AirPods 4 cost $129, and the more premium model is priced at $179. For the extra money, you get a few key upgrades, with the headlining differentiator being active noise cancellation.

So let’s start right there. How well can ANC possibly work in an open-style design that doesn’t fully seal into your ears? This isn’t the first time it’s been attempted — Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 also included noise cancellation — and the way it works is basically the same as with the AirPods Pro. The microphones on the AirPods 4 analyze your environment and generate anti-noise to dial down ambient loudness. But with other earbuds, ANC gets a helping hand from the natural noise isolation of ear tips. That’s not the case here, so you’ve got to go in with realistic expectations. There are no miracles. The AirPods Pro are capable of much more comprehensive noise cancellation, full stop. If you want a private bubble of tranquility, the AirPods 4 aren’t going to take you there.

But I’ve been genuinely impressed by what they are capable of. If you just put the AirPods 4 in and turn on noise cancellation without any audio playing, you might not be wowed. You’ll hear… well, absolutely everything — but the din is less overwhelming. The ANC is best at tackling lower-frequency noises from airplane cabins, city traffic, and those random hums at many offices. The AirPods 4 even did a fairly remarkable job of cutting down the rumble of ferry engines at the pier near our office.

You’re always going to hear a fair amount of ambient sound if you’re not listening to something, but once the music starts, that’s where the ANC proves its worth. I’ve found that I can keep the volume at around 50 percent and barely notice any distractions. With past AirPods (and with the non-ANC AirPods 4), I routinely find myself cranking the volume to combat my surroundings. You won’t need to face that battle with the AirPods 4 with ANC, and that means you should be listening at safer levels more often than not. One unfortunate downgrade compared to the AirPods Pro is that you can’t adjust volume directly on the earbuds; there are no swipe gestures like on Apple’s flagship buds.

The AirPods 4 aren’t going to get any of the hearing health features coming to the AirPods Pro, but their ability to shave off enough of the outside world to let you keep the volume slider at a sensible spot is a major reason to consider upgrading. There are definitely environments where they can struggle — the ANC didn’t put up much of a fight in a crowded bar — but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how useful the feature has proven in this open-ear style.

Along with noise cancellation, the higher-end model gets transparency mode and Adaptive Audio, a feature that blends the two so that important noises like sirens can pass through. Adaptive Audio is less useful here than on the AirPods Pro since the AirPods 4 always make it easy to hear what’s happening around you by nature of their design. But Conversation Awareness, which lowers the audio volume when you start talking, remains a helpful trick — unless you have a habit of muttering things to yourself like I often do.

There are other perks included with the higher-end $179 AirPods 4. The case supports wireless charging either with Apple’s MagSafe pucks or any Qi-compatible charger. And there’s also a built-in speaker on the case that can emit a sound when you’re trying to track it down with Apple’s Find My app. The standard $129 AirPods 4 lack these features. I’m fine losing the speaker, but having to go without wireless charging in the base model stings and meaningfully takes away from their value.

As ever, the AirPods 4 still only come in white.

Sound-wise, these are Apple’s best regular AirPods yet. The overall sound signature hasn’t changed much from the AirPods 3, but the AirPods 4 provide a thicker layer of bass than their predecessors; I’ve noticed greater instrument separation when listening to songs like “Tiny Moves” by Bleachers; there’s more finesse and clarity to the upper range / treble. The AirPods Pro maintain a leg up when it comes to overall fidelity, but I’d have no issues living with the AirPods 4. And again, the regular and ANC models are identical in this department.

I still have to be intentional and twist these AirPods into my ears just right if I want them to stay put. But once they’re in, they’re fairly snug, even when I’m rushing down the subway station stairs to catch a train. With the AirPods Pro, I can just sort of cram them in without giving it any thought. But even I can admit that the AirPods 4 are more comfortable over long listening sessions.

Head gestures are a new capability you get with both sets of the AirPods 4. When toggled on, you can respond to Siri by nodding your head up and down to engage with notifications or answer a call; shaking your head side to side will also dismiss them. I’m not someone who likes having my earbuds pester me with notifications, but in my brief tests, my head movements were detected accurately, even when they were fairly small. Some people might really come to like this way of dealing with Siri, but I’ll be sticking with the more traditional methods.

Anyone who frequently uses their AirPods for voice calls will appreciate the Voice Isolation feature — already available on the AirPods Pro — that has now come to the AirPods 4. By running machine learning algorithms simultaneously on the AirPods and source device, Apple can better isolate your voice, even in raucous environments. This is basically akin to Google’s Clear Calling feature, and it can make a significant difference if you need to take a call in less-than-ideal conditions. Note that Voice Isolation is only available on calls and can’t be used when, say, you’re recording a voice memo or a video with your phone.

On top of these new features, you get the usual slew of Apple ecosystem tie-ins like audio sharing, automatic switching between devices, hands-free “Hey Siri” commands, Apple TV integration, and more. I still very much wish that Apple would include genuine multipoint support so you could pair to two products at once, but at this point, the decision to leave it out seems like a philosophical choice that’s not going to change.

Battery life is rated at four hours of playback time with noise cancellation or five hours with it off. Add in the charging case and you get a total of 20 and 30 hours, respectively. (The cheaper AirPods 4 obviously get the longer numbers since there’s no ANC.) I haven’t used them long enough to extensively verify those estimates, but they’ve seemed on point so far. Sadly, Apple still hasn’t made repairability a priority with the AirPods 4, so inevitably, there will come a time when that endurance starts to wane.

I’ll be going right back to regular earbuds after this review. That’s just who I am, and I like having as much noise isolation as possible. But the AirPods 4 with ANC are far and away Apple’s most compelling take on this open design yet. The noise cancellation isn’t on par with more expensive in-ear alternatives, but it’s easily good enough to ensure you can enjoy your music at a normal volume no matter where you might be. You can tell a difference when the ANC is working, which I can’t say of other open earbuds that have advertised noise cancellation. That, combined with the wireless charging, is the biggest reason I’d steer most people toward the more expensive model.

The standard AirPods 4 give you the same good audio performance, and they effortlessly weave into Apple’s ecosystem. They’re also a substantial upgrade over the second-gen model that they’ve replaced for the same $129, but beyond the walled garden tricks, Apple left them with relatively few frills compared to the ANC pair. So unless you’re very price-conscious, it’s worth stepping up. Your ears will be supremely grateful you spent the extra $50.

Photography by Chris Welch / The Verge

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Illustration: The Verge

Instagram might roll out a way to share comments on other Instagram posts to Threads, according to Alessandro Paluzzi, who often reverse engineers Meta’s social media apps to find coming features.
Paluzzi shared an image showing that when commenting on an Instagram post, there could be a new dropdown menu that lets users choose to share the comment only to Instagram or “also share on Threads.”

Meta has made a few moves to integrate Threads with its other platforms in the past, such as showing Threads posts on Instagram or Facebook (and, later, letting users opt out of that). The Twitter-like short-posting social network also lacks DMs of its own, but users can still receive or send messages through Instagram.
The bigger effort, of course, is Meta’s slow work integrating Threads with the fediverse. The company’s moves to do so include being able to actually see replies from the fediverse under their posts, and, more recently, others’ posts.

Illustration: The Verge

Instagram might roll out a way to share comments on other Instagram posts to Threads, according to Alessandro Paluzzi, who often reverse engineers Meta’s social media apps to find coming features.

Paluzzi shared an image showing that when commenting on an Instagram post, there could be a new dropdown menu that lets users choose to share the comment only to Instagram or “also share on Threads.”

Meta has made a few moves to integrate Threads with its other platforms in the past, such as showing Threads posts on Instagram or Facebook (and, later, letting users opt out of that). The Twitter-like short-posting social network also lacks DMs of its own, but users can still receive or send messages through Instagram.

The bigger effort, of course, is Meta’s slow work integrating Threads with the fediverse. The company’s moves to do so include being able to actually see replies from the fediverse under their posts, and, more recently, others’ posts.

Read More 

The new take on Flappy Bird will include alternate game modes. | Screenshot: The Flappy Bird Foundation

Last week, The Flappy Bird Foundation announced a game called Flappy Bird. But while the group has been framing it as the triumphant return of a classic mobile game, Flappy Bird’s original developer, Dong Nguyen isn’t calling it a comeback — in fact, he says he’s not involved at all.
Nguyen posted as much on X (for the first time since 2017!) this morning, saying he didn’t “sell anything.” The Flappy Bird Foundation wrote in the announcement it shared with press last week that it had “acquired the rights from Gametech Holdings, LLC,” which had secured the trademark from Nguyen, but it doesn’t appear as though that was the result of any dealings between him and the group.

No, I have no related with their game. I did not sell anything. I also don’t support crypto.— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) September 15, 2024

Gametech filed in opposition of Nguyen’s Flappy Bird trademark in 2023, spotted X user Samperson. The filing came nearly a decade after Nguyen pulled the then-popular game and never released another version, and the US Patent and Trademark Office determined his trademark to be abandoned, terminating his claim to it in January.
The Flappy Bird Foundation didn’t say in its announcement that Nguyen was involved, but it certainly leans on nostalgia as it promotes the game. More than half of the game’s first trailer lingers on the game’s rise in popularity and the disappointment of its abrupt disappearance in 2013, before declaring that “In 2024, Flappy Bird will fly again.”
As for the crypto piece of this puzzle, cybersecurity researcher Varun Biniwale pointed out hidden pages from the Flappy Bird website that indicate there may be such a component in the game’s launch. One page that seems to have been removed (and is archived here) said Flappy Bird will “fly higher than ever on Solana as it soars into web 3.0,” and invited players to “build, create, play and stake to own.”
For now, Flappy Bird is listed as coming soon for iOS and Android. Just don’t expect it to be the Flappy Bird you knew — that, it seems, remains as gone as ever.

The new take on Flappy Bird will include alternate game modes. | Screenshot: The Flappy Bird Foundation

Last week, The Flappy Bird Foundation announced a game called Flappy Bird. But while the group has been framing it as the triumphant return of a classic mobile game, Flappy Bird’s original developer, Dong Nguyen isn’t calling it a comeback — in fact, he says he’s not involved at all.

Nguyen posted as much on X (for the first time since 2017!) this morning, saying he didn’t “sell anything.” The Flappy Bird Foundation wrote in the announcement it shared with press last week that it had “acquired the rights from Gametech Holdings, LLC,” which had secured the trademark from Nguyen, but it doesn’t appear as though that was the result of any dealings between him and the group.

Gametech filed in opposition of Nguyen’s Flappy Bird trademark in 2023, spotted X user Samperson. The filing came nearly a decade after Nguyen pulled the then-popular game and never released another version, and the US Patent and Trademark Office determined his trademark to be abandoned, terminating his claim to it in January.

The Flappy Bird Foundation didn’t say in its announcement that Nguyen was involved, but it certainly leans on nostalgia as it promotes the game. More than half of the game’s first trailer lingers on the game’s rise in popularity and the disappointment of its abrupt disappearance in 2013, before declaring that “In 2024, Flappy Bird will fly again.”

As for the crypto piece of this puzzle, cybersecurity researcher Varun Biniwale pointed out hidden pages from the Flappy Bird website that indicate there may be such a component in the game’s launch. One page that seems to have been removed (and is archived here) said Flappy Bird will “fly higher than ever on Solana as it soars into web 3.0,” and invited players to “build, create, play and stake to own.”

For now, Flappy Bird is listed as coming soon for iOS and Android. Just don’t expect it to be the Flappy Bird you knew — that, it seems, remains as gone as ever.

Read More 

Image: Hungry Eyes Film & Television

R.T. Thorne’s postapocalyptic thriller frames farming and community as the keys to humanity’s survival after society collapses. In a media landscape that is thoroughly saturated with postapocalyptic movies centering white families whose stories of survival are assumed to be relatable, cowriter / director R.T. Thorne’s debut feature 40 Acres stands out as an inspired new entry in the genre’s canon. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, the film plays things straight with its brutal exploration of what it takes for hope to take root in a world that seems doomed.
Set in a near future where the world has been ravaged by a global pandemic, widespread famine, and the outbreak of a new civil war in the United States, 40 Acres tells the tale of Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) a soldier-turned-farmer fighting to keep her family safe. With society largely collapsed and the food production system destroyed by the depletion of arable land, fertile farms like Hailey’s where crops still grow are a precious gift that people would gladly kill for.
To Hailey, the farm’s more than just a remote plot of land up in the Canadian wilderness — it’s a family heirloom passed down through generations from her ancestors who first claimed it during the Reconstruction. It’s also the home she shares with her partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes), and their blended family of children (Leenah Robinson, Jaeda LeBlanc, Haile Amare). But as relatively safe as the Freemans are living off the grid and surrounded by their electrified fence, Hailey and Galen know it could all be taken from them in an instant. That’s why they keep their children trained for combat and ready to defend their land by any means necessary.

Image: Hungry Eyes Film & Television

Hailey’s sternness and insistence that they can’t trust anyone are reflections of a deeper inability to connect or be emotionally vulnerable with people — especially in the eyes of her teenage son Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor). Every time he sneaks away to be by himself in the woods, there’s part of him that can’t help but hope he’ll see someone new who can make his small world feel bigger. It seems like his wish is coming true when he unexpectedly spots Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas), a girl whose beauty inspires him to start filling up a sketchbook with drawings. But when the Freemans receive word that the small, secretive network of farmers they’re a part of is being methodically attacked by bands of marauding cannibals, Hailey puts them on high alert to prepare for the inevitable.
40 Acres comes in incredibly hot with a slick and brutal opening action sequence that immediately sets the tone Thorne — known best for his work in music videos and creating Hulu’s Utopia Falls — is going for with his first foray into feature-length filmmaking. The Freemans move like a well-oiled machine as they dispatch a group of intruders with precise headshots from clear across corn fields and close-up knife stabs to make sure the job is finished. They’re lethal by necessity because anything less would mean running the risk of being tortured, murdered, and probably eaten. But Thorne and cowriter Glenn Taylor also foreground how, for all of Hailey’s strictness with her children, she’s also instilled in them a deep understanding of how protecting their lives is key to preserving the Black and Indigenous cultural legacies they are a part of.

In stark contrast to other apocalyptic thrillers like the first two A Quiet Place(s) and the recent Mad Max features, where people of color were few and far between, 40 Acres gets very explicit about how the Freemans’ racial identities shape their experiences in the end times. Often, these kinds of movies lean heavily into images of white nuclear families in a way that makes them read like expressions of social anxiety about dehumanized Others™. But 40 Acres frames the Freemans as people keeping in their families’ tradition of survival in a world that has never really afforded them any sense of guaranteed safety.
Though the film’s very much an ensemble piece, Deadwyler is the standout with a magnetic and frankly terrifying performance that conveys just how scared Hailey is for her children. She would rather her kids hate her than see them devoured by ghouls, but you can feel that it still hurts her when sensitive romantic Emanuel pulls away. Because Deadwyler is so effective at delivering Hailey’s grim warnings about the danger lurking everywhere, it’s a little exasperating to watch as people make exceedingly dumb decisions that set 40 Acres’ plot into motion. But as predictable as some of the movie’s beats are, Thorne and cinematographer Jeremy Benning excel at making 40 Acres’ action set pieces shine in ways that keep things as exciting as they are stressful to watch unfold.
Though its final act falters a bit as it tries to amp up the already high emotional stakes, 40 Acres finishes strong with a powerful reaffirmation of its central ideas. And as overstuffed with middling stories as this subgenre has become, 40 Acres feels like something truly special.
40 Acres does not yet have a distributor or theatrical release date.

Image: Hungry Eyes Film & Television

R.T. Thorne’s postapocalyptic thriller frames farming and community as the keys to humanity’s survival after society collapses.

In a media landscape that is thoroughly saturated with postapocalyptic movies centering white families whose stories of survival are assumed to be relatable, cowriter / director R.T. Thorne’s debut feature 40 Acres stands out as an inspired new entry in the genre’s canon. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, the film plays things straight with its brutal exploration of what it takes for hope to take root in a world that seems doomed.

Set in a near future where the world has been ravaged by a global pandemic, widespread famine, and the outbreak of a new civil war in the United States, 40 Acres tells the tale of Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) a soldier-turned-farmer fighting to keep her family safe. With society largely collapsed and the food production system destroyed by the depletion of arable land, fertile farms like Hailey’s where crops still grow are a precious gift that people would gladly kill for.

To Hailey, the farm’s more than just a remote plot of land up in the Canadian wilderness — it’s a family heirloom passed down through generations from her ancestors who first claimed it during the Reconstruction. It’s also the home she shares with her partner Galen (Michael Greyeyes), and their blended family of children (Leenah Robinson, Jaeda LeBlanc, Haile Amare). But as relatively safe as the Freemans are living off the grid and surrounded by their electrified fence, Hailey and Galen know it could all be taken from them in an instant. That’s why they keep their children trained for combat and ready to defend their land by any means necessary.

Hailey’s sternness and insistence that they can’t trust anyone are reflections of a deeper inability to connect or be emotionally vulnerable with people — especially in the eyes of her teenage son Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor). Every time he sneaks away to be by himself in the woods, there’s part of him that can’t help but hope he’ll see someone new who can make his small world feel bigger. It seems like his wish is coming true when he unexpectedly spots Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas), a girl whose beauty inspires him to start filling up a sketchbook with drawings. But when the Freemans receive word that the small, secretive network of farmers they’re a part of is being methodically attacked by bands of marauding cannibals, Hailey puts them on high alert to prepare for the inevitable.

40 Acres comes in incredibly hot with a slick and brutal opening action sequence that immediately sets the tone Thorne — known best for his work in music videos and creating Hulu’s Utopia Falls — is going for with his first foray into feature-length filmmaking. The Freemans move like a well-oiled machine as they dispatch a group of intruders with precise headshots from clear across corn fields and close-up knife stabs to make sure the job is finished. They’re lethal by necessity because anything less would mean running the risk of being tortured, murdered, and probably eaten. But Thorne and cowriter Glenn Taylor also foreground how, for all of Hailey’s strictness with her children, she’s also instilled in them a deep understanding of how protecting their lives is key to preserving the Black and Indigenous cultural legacies they are a part of.

In stark contrast to other apocalyptic thrillers like the first two A Quiet Place(s) and the recent Mad Max features, where people of color were few and far between, 40 Acres gets very explicit about how the Freemans’ racial identities shape their experiences in the end times. Often, these kinds of movies lean heavily into images of white nuclear families in a way that makes them read like expressions of social anxiety about dehumanized Others™. But 40 Acres frames the Freemans as people keeping in their families’ tradition of survival in a world that has never really afforded them any sense of guaranteed safety.

Though the film’s very much an ensemble piece, Deadwyler is the standout with a magnetic and frankly terrifying performance that conveys just how scared Hailey is for her children. She would rather her kids hate her than see them devoured by ghouls, but you can feel that it still hurts her when sensitive romantic Emanuel pulls away. Because Deadwyler is so effective at delivering Hailey’s grim warnings about the danger lurking everywhere, it’s a little exasperating to watch as people make exceedingly dumb decisions that set 40 Acres’ plot into motion. But as predictable as some of the movie’s beats are, Thorne and cinematographer Jeremy Benning excel at making 40 Acres’ action set pieces shine in ways that keep things as exciting as they are stressful to watch unfold.

Though its final act falters a bit as it tries to amp up the already high emotional stakes, 40 Acres finishes strong with a powerful reaffirmation of its central ideas. And as overstuffed with middling stories as this subgenre has become, 40 Acres feels like something truly special.

40 Acres does not yet have a distributor or theatrical release date.

Read More 

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge

For so many years, the Evernote elephant was a truly iconic logo. Evernote was one of the first productivity apps to embrace smartphones, to enable cross-platform sync, and to make it really easy to store and create almost anything. And so Evernote was huge.
But Peak Evernote was roughly a decade ago. Since then, the product has often felt stagnant (or worse), the company churned through executives and business plans, and it seemed like Evernote was slowly turning into a zombie app. Not gone, not even forgotten, just sort of… there.
In 2022, when Bending Spoons acquired the company and soon after laid off nearly all its staff, millions of Evernote users were confused about what the future held for the tool they had relied on for so long. Things got even worse when the company went essentially silent for months. But since then, the narrative and pace around Evernote has shifted pretty dramatically. In 2024 in particular, Evernote has shipped a laundry list of new features, retooled its design, added some core new functionality, and made the app begin to feel modern again. With all that change has come a shift in price, too — and not everyone’s thrilled.

On this episode of The Vergecast, the third and final installment in our series about productivity and digital life, we sit down with Federico Simionato, the Evernote product lead at Bending Spoons. We talk about the acquisition process, how he perceives Evernote in today’s landscape, what it took to start shipping new stuff again, why Bending Spoons changed the subscription price, and much more.
We also talk about the future of Evernote, and productivity tools in general. Evernote is more than two decades old, and is as such filled with old ideas about what people want and how they want to use it. Simionato and his team are tasked with figuring out how AI fits into Evernote, how the product should integrate with all the other tools that now exist, and turning Evernote into something that works for the old users and appeals to new ones.

If you want to know more about the things we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:

Federico Simionato on X
From 2016: Evernote’s new CEO on the company’s critics: ‘I love to be underestimated’

From Jason Kincaid: Evernote, the bug-ridden elephant

From 2022: Evernote’s getting acquired by mobile developer Bending Spoons

From 2023: Evernote has laid off most of its US staff and will move most operations to Europe

Our other Work Smarter episodes: A Googler’s guide to getting things done and What’s in a productivity system?

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge

For so many years, the Evernote elephant was a truly iconic logo. Evernote was one of the first productivity apps to embrace smartphones, to enable cross-platform sync, and to make it really easy to store and create almost anything. And so Evernote was huge.

But Peak Evernote was roughly a decade ago. Since then, the product has often felt stagnant (or worse), the company churned through executives and business plans, and it seemed like Evernote was slowly turning into a zombie app. Not gone, not even forgotten, just sort of… there.

In 2022, when Bending Spoons acquired the company and soon after laid off nearly all its staff, millions of Evernote users were confused about what the future held for the tool they had relied on for so long. Things got even worse when the company went essentially silent for months. But since then, the narrative and pace around Evernote has shifted pretty dramatically. In 2024 in particular, Evernote has shipped a laundry list of new features, retooled its design, added some core new functionality, and made the app begin to feel modern again. With all that change has come a shift in price, too — and not everyone’s thrilled.

On this episode of The Vergecast, the third and final installment in our series about productivity and digital life, we sit down with Federico Simionato, the Evernote product lead at Bending Spoons. We talk about the acquisition process, how he perceives Evernote in today’s landscape, what it took to start shipping new stuff again, why Bending Spoons changed the subscription price, and much more.

We also talk about the future of Evernote, and productivity tools in general. Evernote is more than two decades old, and is as such filled with old ideas about what people want and how they want to use it. Simionato and his team are tasked with figuring out how AI fits into Evernote, how the product should integrate with all the other tools that now exist, and turning Evernote into something that works for the old users and appeals to new ones.

If you want to know more about the things we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:

Federico Simionato on X
From 2016: Evernote’s new CEO on the company’s critics: ‘I love to be underestimated’

From Jason Kincaid: Evernote, the bug-ridden elephant

From 2022: Evernote’s getting acquired by mobile developer Bending Spoons

From 2023: Evernote has laid off most of its US staff and will move most operations to Europe

Our other Work Smarter episodes: A Googler’s guide to getting things done and What’s in a productivity system?

Read More 

Image: David Pierce / The Verge

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.)
This week, I’ve been reading about Chappell Roan and college football and the problem with pennies, watching Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist and Jennifer Garner’s delightful AD home tour, taking copious notes on Ben Thompson’s newslettering process, making surprisingly great bread with a random recipe from Reddit, and trying out Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
I also have for you some expensive but excellent new gadgets, a couple of great new tech podcasts, the best pause music ever, a new game that will take over your weekend, and much more. Let’s dig in.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be watching, reading, playing, building, buying, or singing in the car? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

The PS5 Pro. I can’t imagine spending $700 on any game console, let alone one with no disc drive. That said, I do love the idea of flying around in Spider-Man 2 — the only game I love to just aimlessly explore for hours at a time – with perfect graphics at blistering frame rates. Technically this isn’t up for preorder for a couple of weeks, but I’m sharing it now because we’re all going to need to start saving money ASAP.

The AirPods 4 with ANC. I’m sure the iPhone 16 is fine, but to my mind, this is the most exciting thing Apple launched this week — a set of open-ear headphones with decent noise cancellation is a rare and exciting thing. (The AirPods Pro hearing aid stuff is also extremely cool.)

The Huawei Mate XT. This is the phone of the week. I can’t stop watching the video of the trifold, which gives intense Westworld tablet vibes, in the best possible way. You probably can’t buy it, and at $2,800, you probably wouldn’t want to anyway, but I love that this thing exists.

Will & Harper. I keep hearing great things about this doc, in which Will Ferrell and Harper Steele drive across the country and try to make sense of their relationship after Steele came out as trans. There’s a great New York Times interview with them about the process, too.

Channels with Peter Kafka. Nobody does insidery tech media pods like Kafka, so I was psyched to see him back on the digital airwaves once again. (I guess, disclosure, he’s making the show with Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.) The first episode, with New Yorker editor David Remnick, was a good one.

Panic World. Another great new podcast! Ryan Broderick writes one of my absolute favorite newsletters about the internet, Garbage Day, and the first episode of the podcast has the same “smart but borderline unhinged” vibe to it. It’s delightful.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. I’m a pretty simple gamer. I like games where I get to battle with and / or against cool robots, and I love when everything is needlessly intense and gory. All of which is to say, I’m confident I will find the latest Warhammer installment utterly ridiculous and delightful — just as everyone else seems to.

“Goldeneye Watch Music.” This song is 100 percent guaranteed to be on my Spotify Wrapped this year, just based on this week alone. The epic pause music from an all-time great game is now six minutes long, super high-def, and constantly on repeat while I work.

iFixit’s FixHub Smart Soldering Iron. I trust The Verge’s Sean Hollister completely when it comes to techie DIY, and he loves iFixit’s super-portable, super-simple tool for all things liquid metal. It’s not cheap, but it sounds like a heck of a lot of fun.

Chrome Tab Groups on iOS. A tiny but really welcome browser upgrade: you can now sync tab groups from your computer to your iPhone. (It already worked on Android.) Tab management on mobile is generally trash, and tab groups are a really good, not-quite-bookmarks way to keep things in order.

Screen share
When I mentioned a couple of months ago how much I liked Andrew Bosworth’s idea of “Inbox Ten,” which focuses on ending every day not finished with everything but in a manageable place, I heard from a bunch of you who liked the approach, too. Bosworth’s system is simple and straightforward but also a good way to keep a lot of things in order.
When he’s not a productivity blogger, Bosworth (everybody calls him Boz) is the CTO of Meta. He’s been there a hair shy of two decades and right now seems to spend a lot of his time thinking about AI, AR, headsets, the metaverse, and apparently all of the other 60 million things Meta is up to these days.
I asked Boz to share his homescreen to see how he manages it all and what else he might be thinking about. Here’s Boz’s homescreen — he’s a company man! — plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: I actually have two phones, an Android and an iPhone; my work phone is an Android, and that’s where I have beta versions of our apps to dogfood. I’ve always been into smaller phone form factors, so I’m currently using a Motorola Razr Plus for work, but I did have to go in for the iPhone 15 Pro because I love the wide-angle camera.
The wallpaper: My lockscreen is a composite of photos I took of the solar eclipse in 2017. My homescreen wallpaper is a valley oak that is special to my wife and me, at the property in Carmel Valley where we got married.
The apps: Savant, Alarm.com, Authy, 1Password, Siedle, Unity Video, Find My, Clock, Tidal, Asana, Noom, Settings, Mercedes Me Connect, Bill, Meta Horizon, Meta View, Messages, Phone, Camera, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, Instagram, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Safari.
Definitely a one-screen guy so I try to keep all my most used apps on one screen with no folders. If they aren’t there, I just search for them.
My homescreen is more or less apps by frequency of use, with the apps at the bottom left used most often and toward the top right used less often. Communication roughly in the lower-left segment, home things upper left, media lower right, and miscellaneous upper right.
I also asked Boz to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

I’m a huge photography buff and I’ve really gotten into developing my own film lately using a Lab-Box. I’ve been shooting a lot with film cameras, including a medium format Mamiya C330 Professional and Hasselblad 500C/M — then I scan to digital from there.
I also collect and shoot with rare or unusual lenses and am in the early stages of building my own lens, but still very much in the design phase, and this will likely take me a while to execute.
I have young kids, so a lot of my time revolves around transporting them to various activities and locations, but I really enjoy the time I spend with them and the people who support them in all their myriad pursuits.
I’ve got glasses on the mind — I’ve been talking about the challenges we’ve overcome building our first working AR glasses prototype, and I’m very excited about them, as is Mark [Zuckerberg]. We’ve seen the success and appeal of displayless smart glasses with AI built into them with the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, and the prototype we’ve built is on the other end of that spectrum, where you now also have a wide FOV display in a true glasses form factor. That, coupled one day with always-on sensors and contextualized AI, will be a game-changer for personal computing, and we can’t wait to share more on that work in the coming weeks.

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 great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads.
“I’ve recently picked up a pair of the brand-new IK Multimedia MTM MKII studio monitors, and I am BLOWN AWAY by the quality of the sound. They’ve got to be the best-sounding ‘desk-friendly’ studio audio monitors available. They literally make me giddy by how full and rich and accurate they sound.” – Brooks
“I’m giving Mammoth a try, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite Mastodon client. It does a good job of combining the firehose with curated and algorithmic feeds. And the UI is nice.” – Joseph
“I’m running out of iCloud space at 200GB. I have 18,500 files in my Photos app, but Apple provides no way to tell which are larger. Turns out, the trial of the PowerPhotos Mac app lets you sort by size while your photos are still in the cloud! In my case, just 500 files take up 100GB. That’s honestly totally feasible to sort through manually and will give me back 50 percent of my storage!” – Nikolaj
“I’m basically just watching Chappell Roan’s VMA performance on repeat.” – Noah
“After the recent ebook versus paper book debate on The Vergecast, I wanted to point to Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. It’s a really fascinating dive into how digital reading affects the brain — with the latter half focused on childhood exposure. Definitely an important consideration!” – Brad
“No Rolls Barred, especially “Monopoly, but Communist.” The channel is all about playing board games, and they will also do classic games, but they add some rules or use the board game as a base and essentially make a completely new game that you can kind of relate to the original (“Monopoly, but Communist,” for example).” – Anthony
“Atlas Creed is a new indie author that I really enjoy. He self-published a crime thriller with some supernatural elements called Armitage, and it’s surprisingly killer. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrators do a great job! Not terribly important, but the inside cover for the hardcover is sick, too.” – Steve
“‘How to Monetize a Blog.’ Maybe read this article / commentary / art piece / disaster on desktop instead of mobile? It’s worth it.” – Hunter
“While reading the most recent issue, I thought of a video essay YouTube channel that I want to recommend. The channel is called Summoning Salt. It focuses on the history and techniques used to obtain world records in various video games. The videos are captivating, and the narrator does a fantastic job of keeping your attention. I highly recommend it.” – Grant
“After a successful playtest, friends and I have had our first session of Daggerheart this week. It’s a TTRPG, like D&D, from the folks at Critical Role. The mechanics are simpler, and it focuses on collaborative storytelling and quick decisions. It feels much lighter to play and it’s less load on the DM! Highly recommended for newbies, too!” – René
“I don’t usually buy new games at full price, but Astro Bot is awesome!” – Sam

Signing off
Sometimes I find myself in a brand-new corner of YouTube. Sometimes it’s like, “Oh, of course there are tons of people doing cool gardening tutorials on YouTube!” But sometimes, like what happened to me recently, it’s a total surprise. I’ve spent a lot of the last week or so on what I guess you’d call “Short Film YouTube” — it’s just an endless supply of short, simple movies on every topic and story you can imagine: horror flicks; inspirational shorts; extremely meta stories; action movies; stories about coffee runs with big-twist endings; student films; more student films; so many student films. I don’t know how I never thought to look for this before, but this is now my go-to way to relax when I have a few minutes to kill. And if you’ve never seen “Nothing, except everything,” you should. It’s a Short Film YouTube classic.
See you next week!

Image: David Pierce / The Verge

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.)

This week, I’ve been reading about Chappell Roan and college football and the problem with pennies, watching Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist and Jennifer Garner’s delightful AD home tour, taking copious notes on Ben Thompson’s newslettering process, making surprisingly great bread with a random recipe from Reddit, and trying out Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

I also have for you some expensive but excellent new gadgets, a couple of great new tech podcasts, the best pause music ever, a new game that will take over your weekend, and much more. Let’s dig in.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be watching, reading, playing, building, buying, or singing in the car? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

The PS5 Pro. I can’t imagine spending $700 on any game console, let alone one with no disc drive. That said, I do love the idea of flying around in Spider-Man 2 — the only game I love to just aimlessly explore for hours at a time – with perfect graphics at blistering frame rates. Technically this isn’t up for preorder for a couple of weeks, but I’m sharing it now because we’re all going to need to start saving money ASAP.

The AirPods 4 with ANC. I’m sure the iPhone 16 is fine, but to my mind, this is the most exciting thing Apple launched this week — a set of open-ear headphones with decent noise cancellation is a rare and exciting thing. (The AirPods Pro hearing aid stuff is also extremely cool.)

The Huawei Mate XT. This is the phone of the week. I can’t stop watching the video of the trifold, which gives intense Westworld tablet vibes, in the best possible way. You probably can’t buy it, and at $2,800, you probably wouldn’t want to anyway, but I love that this thing exists.

Will & Harper. I keep hearing great things about this doc, in which Will Ferrell and Harper Steele drive across the country and try to make sense of their relationship after Steele came out as trans. There’s a great New York Times interview with them about the process, too.

Channels with Peter Kafka. Nobody does insidery tech media pods like Kafka, so I was psyched to see him back on the digital airwaves once again. (I guess, disclosure, he’s making the show with Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.) The first episode, with New Yorker editor David Remnick, was a good one.

Panic World. Another great new podcast! Ryan Broderick writes one of my absolute favorite newsletters about the internet, Garbage Day, and the first episode of the podcast has the same “smart but borderline unhinged” vibe to it. It’s delightful.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. I’m a pretty simple gamer. I like games where I get to battle with and / or against cool robots, and I love when everything is needlessly intense and gory. All of which is to say, I’m confident I will find the latest Warhammer installment utterly ridiculous and delightful — just as everyone else seems to.

“Goldeneye Watch Music.” This song is 100 percent guaranteed to be on my Spotify Wrapped this year, just based on this week alone. The epic pause music from an all-time great game is now six minutes long, super high-def, and constantly on repeat while I work.

iFixit’s FixHub Smart Soldering Iron. I trust The Verge’s Sean Hollister completely when it comes to techie DIY, and he loves iFixit’s super-portable, super-simple tool for all things liquid metal. It’s not cheap, but it sounds like a heck of a lot of fun.

Chrome Tab Groups on iOS. A tiny but really welcome browser upgrade: you can now sync tab groups from your computer to your iPhone. (It already worked on Android.) Tab management on mobile is generally trash, and tab groups are a really good, not-quite-bookmarks way to keep things in order.

Screen share

When I mentioned a couple of months ago how much I liked Andrew Bosworth’s idea of “Inbox Ten,” which focuses on ending every day not finished with everything but in a manageable place, I heard from a bunch of you who liked the approach, too. Bosworth’s system is simple and straightforward but also a good way to keep a lot of things in order.

When he’s not a productivity blogger, Bosworth (everybody calls him Boz) is the CTO of Meta. He’s been there a hair shy of two decades and right now seems to spend a lot of his time thinking about AI, AR, headsets, the metaverse, and apparently all of the other 60 million things Meta is up to these days.

I asked Boz to share his homescreen to see how he manages it all and what else he might be thinking about. Here’s Boz’s homescreen — he’s a company man! — plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: I actually have two phones, an Android and an iPhone; my work phone is an Android, and that’s where I have beta versions of our apps to dogfood. I’ve always been into smaller phone form factors, so I’m currently using a Motorola Razr Plus for work, but I did have to go in for the iPhone 15 Pro because I love the wide-angle camera.

The wallpaper: My lockscreen is a composite of photos I took of the solar eclipse in 2017. My homescreen wallpaper is a valley oak that is special to my wife and me, at the property in Carmel Valley where we got married.

The apps: Savant, Alarm.com, Authy, 1Password, Siedle, Unity Video, Find My, Clock, Tidal, Asana, Noom, Settings, Mercedes Me Connect, Bill, Meta Horizon, Meta View, Messages, Phone, Camera, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, Instagram, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Safari.

Definitely a one-screen guy so I try to keep all my most used apps on one screen with no folders. If they aren’t there, I just search for them.

My homescreen is more or less apps by frequency of use, with the apps at the bottom left used most often and toward the top right used less often. Communication roughly in the lower-left segment, home things upper left, media lower right, and miscellaneous upper right.

I also asked Boz to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

I’m a huge photography buff and I’ve really gotten into developing my own film lately using a Lab-Box. I’ve been shooting a lot with film cameras, including a medium format Mamiya C330 Professional and Hasselblad 500C/M — then I scan to digital from there.
I also collect and shoot with rare or unusual lenses and am in the early stages of building my own lens, but still very much in the design phase, and this will likely take me a while to execute.
I have young kids, so a lot of my time revolves around transporting them to various activities and locations, but I really enjoy the time I spend with them and the people who support them in all their myriad pursuits.
I’ve got glasses on the mind — I’ve been talking about the challenges we’ve overcome building our first working AR glasses prototype, and I’m very excited about them, as is Mark [Zuckerberg]. We’ve seen the success and appeal of displayless smart glasses with AI built into them with the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, and the prototype we’ve built is on the other end of that spectrum, where you now also have a wide FOV display in a true glasses form factor. That, coupled one day with always-on sensors and contextualized AI, will be a game-changer for personal computing, and we can’t wait to share more on that work in the coming weeks.

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 great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads.

“I’ve recently picked up a pair of the brand-new IK Multimedia MTM MKII studio monitors, and I am BLOWN AWAY by the quality of the sound. They’ve got to be the best-sounding ‘desk-friendly’ studio audio monitors available. They literally make me giddy by how full and rich and accurate they sound.” – Brooks

“I’m giving Mammoth a try, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite Mastodon client. It does a good job of combining the firehose with curated and algorithmic feeds. And the UI is nice.” – Joseph

“I’m running out of iCloud space at 200GB. I have 18,500 files in my Photos app, but Apple provides no way to tell which are larger. Turns out, the trial of the PowerPhotos Mac app lets you sort by size while your photos are still in the cloud! In my case, just 500 files take up 100GB. That’s honestly totally feasible to sort through manually and will give me back 50 percent of my storage!” – Nikolaj

“I’m basically just watching Chappell Roan’s VMA performance on repeat.” – Noah

“After the recent ebook versus paper book debate on The Vergecast, I wanted to point to Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. It’s a really fascinating dive into how digital reading affects the brain — with the latter half focused on childhood exposure. Definitely an important consideration!” – Brad

“No Rolls Barred, especially “Monopoly, but Communist.” The channel is all about playing board games, and they will also do classic games, but they add some rules or use the board game as a base and essentially make a completely new game that you can kind of relate to the original (“Monopoly, but Communist,” for example).” – Anthony

“Atlas Creed is a new indie author that I really enjoy. He self-published a crime thriller with some supernatural elements called Armitage, and it’s surprisingly killer. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrators do a great job! Not terribly important, but the inside cover for the hardcover is sick, too.” – Steve

“‘How to Monetize a Blog.’ Maybe read this article / commentary / art piece / disaster on desktop instead of mobile? It’s worth it.” – Hunter

“While reading the most recent issue, I thought of a video essay YouTube channel that I want to recommend. The channel is called Summoning Salt. It focuses on the history and techniques used to obtain world records in various video games. The videos are captivating, and the narrator does a fantastic job of keeping your attention. I highly recommend it.” – Grant

“After a successful playtest, friends and I have had our first session of Daggerheart this week. It’s a TTRPG, like D&D, from the folks at Critical Role. The mechanics are simpler, and it focuses on collaborative storytelling and quick decisions. It feels much lighter to play and it’s less load on the DM! Highly recommended for newbies, too!” – René

“I don’t usually buy new games at full price, but Astro Bot is awesome!” – Sam

Signing off

Sometimes I find myself in a brand-new corner of YouTube. Sometimes it’s like, “Oh, of course there are tons of people doing cool gardening tutorials on YouTube!” But sometimes, like what happened to me recently, it’s a total surprise. I’ve spent a lot of the last week or so on what I guess you’d call “Short Film YouTube” — it’s just an endless supply of short, simple movies on every topic and story you can imagine: horror flicks; inspirational shorts; extremely meta stories; action movies; stories about coffee runs with big-twist endings; student films; more student films; so many student films. I don’t know how I never thought to look for this before, but this is now my go-to way to relax when I have a few minutes to kill. And if you’ve never seen “Nothing, except everything,” you should. It’s a Short Film YouTube classic.

See you next week!

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Image: Goblinz Publishing

Shogun Showdown sometimes breaks my brain. The new deckbuilding roguelike is all about tactics, and a key part of the game is that you can always see what the enemies plan to do next. Every once in a while, that gets me in a quandary where I know I’ll lose. But when things click into place and I clear everyone out in one fell swoop, I feel like a strategic genius.
In the game, which just left early access, you’re constantly trying to position your character across a small level to either attack your foes or dodge their moves. As you play, you can upgrade your “tiles” (think: cards) to improve their damage, add perks like freezing ice, or lower their cooldown so that you can use them more frequently. You’re also able to stack up to three tiles so that, with one press of the attack button, you send off a salvo of moves to take out a bunch of bad guys at once.

Image: Goblinz Publishing
Since you can see everyone’s moves, there’s usually a lot of options to mull through.

Since you can see what the enemies will do, you’re constantly strategizing about whether to move in to strike or if you need to back off to stay alive. It can get complex, and sometimes it feels like I have to galaxy brain each move to survive difficult rounds. The strategizing is all worth it when you pull off a series of attacks that clear the battlefield.
Here’s an example of how it comes together. Playing as the starter character, called the Wanderer, I start with a pair of swords that can simultaneously hit the spaces to my left and right as well as an arrow that can fire across the level. With some strategic maneuvering, I can set up the Wanderer so that she strikes a baddie that’s behind her and then shoots an arrow in front of her to eliminate all the dangers on the map.
During each run, you’ll have opportunities to improve your tiles, pick up new ones, and shop for upgrades. Sure, those are all familiar roguelike trappings, but with a little planning, you can make some extraordinarily powerful tiles. For my first winning run, I upgraded an arrow tile so it had high damage and no cooldown, meaning I was firing off arrows without breaking a sweat.

Image: Goblinz Publishing
Upgrades galore!

As you play, you’ll also collect skulls that can be used to unlock things like new tiles and more things to buy at item shops. Spending those skulls quickly adds variety to each run, and I don’t think I’ve doubled up on a build yet. Once, I went all in on a dragon punch move that sent enemies flying into each other, and while it didn’t get me a win, I loved punching bad guys across levels to open up space.
I’m still early in the game, and I’ve only unlocked one of four additional characters, so there’s still a lot for me to see. As you clear runs, you can also play through harder “days” with added challenges like tougher enemies or fewer item drops.
Even though I’m working through bigger games like Astro Bot and a long-in-the-works Mass Effect trilogy playthrough, I keep coming back to Shogun Showdown; it’s just too much fun to experiment with the game’s many weapons and strategies. Maybe it’s time for me to try that dragon punch build again — or stumble into something completely unexpected.
Shogun Showdown is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.

Image: Goblinz Publishing

Shogun Showdown sometimes breaks my brain. The new deckbuilding roguelike is all about tactics, and a key part of the game is that you can always see what the enemies plan to do next. Every once in a while, that gets me in a quandary where I know I’ll lose. But when things click into place and I clear everyone out in one fell swoop, I feel like a strategic genius.

In the game, which just left early access, you’re constantly trying to position your character across a small level to either attack your foes or dodge their moves. As you play, you can upgrade your “tiles” (think: cards) to improve their damage, add perks like freezing ice, or lower their cooldown so that you can use them more frequently. You’re also able to stack up to three tiles so that, with one press of the attack button, you send off a salvo of moves to take out a bunch of bad guys at once.

Image: Goblinz Publishing
Since you can see everyone’s moves, there’s usually a lot of options to mull through.

Since you can see what the enemies will do, you’re constantly strategizing about whether to move in to strike or if you need to back off to stay alive. It can get complex, and sometimes it feels like I have to galaxy brain each move to survive difficult rounds. The strategizing is all worth it when you pull off a series of attacks that clear the battlefield.

Here’s an example of how it comes together. Playing as the starter character, called the Wanderer, I start with a pair of swords that can simultaneously hit the spaces to my left and right as well as an arrow that can fire across the level. With some strategic maneuvering, I can set up the Wanderer so that she strikes a baddie that’s behind her and then shoots an arrow in front of her to eliminate all the dangers on the map.

During each run, you’ll have opportunities to improve your tiles, pick up new ones, and shop for upgrades. Sure, those are all familiar roguelike trappings, but with a little planning, you can make some extraordinarily powerful tiles. For my first winning run, I upgraded an arrow tile so it had high damage and no cooldown, meaning I was firing off arrows without breaking a sweat.

Image: Goblinz Publishing
Upgrades galore!

As you play, you’ll also collect skulls that can be used to unlock things like new tiles and more things to buy at item shops. Spending those skulls quickly adds variety to each run, and I don’t think I’ve doubled up on a build yet. Once, I went all in on a dragon punch move that sent enemies flying into each other, and while it didn’t get me a win, I loved punching bad guys across levels to open up space.

I’m still early in the game, and I’ve only unlocked one of four additional characters, so there’s still a lot for me to see. As you clear runs, you can also play through harder “days” with added challenges like tougher enemies or fewer item drops.

Even though I’m working through bigger games like Astro Bot and a long-in-the-works Mass Effect trilogy playthrough, I keep coming back to Shogun Showdown; it’s just too much fun to experiment with the game’s many weapons and strategies. Maybe it’s time for me to try that dragon punch build again — or stumble into something completely unexpected.

Shogun Showdown is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.

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Adam Driver in a Megalopolis trailer. | Screenshot: YouTube

Francis Ford Coppola wanted voice recognition software to let audience members ask Adam Driver’s Cesar character a question during theatrical showings of Megalopolis, according to a Telegraph interview with the director. Then, the software would trigger the theater’s projector to play a clip of “the most relevant response” from Driver.
Apparently, it was actually in the works. Amazon had agreed to make a “custom version of its Alexa voice-recognition software” to do this, but the team working on it was laid off during a huge round of layoffs in 2022, writes The Telegraph. Alas.
“Imagine!” Coppola beams. “You could see Megalopolis five times in its opening week and it would be different each time! It would have been the future of the movies and ancient theatre rolled into one!”

Coppola apparently almost completely abandoned the idea, when Driver suggested preserving one of those responses to answer a pre-determined question from an usher. Most of us won’t see it in our local theaters, but it will happen in “some cinemas for its UK release,” according to The Telegraph. It also played out at some Megalopolis festival screenings. Here’s an abridged version of Vogue’s recounting of one such event.

Somewhere in the middle of the film, as Driver’s Cesar is speaking to camera, the screen briefly went blank. There was a confused smattering of applause from those who thought it was all over—if only we’d been so lucky—but then, with the lights still down, a man ran onto the stage in front of the cinema screen from the wings, holding a long microphone.
…Positioning himself on one side of the stage, and now lit by a spotlight, the man then faced Driver, now back on screen, and asked him a question, as if participating in some strange pandemic-era Zoom press conference. Driver answered, and the man then rushed off stage again. It was so odd, and felt so completely pointless, that I didn’t know how to respond.

Megalopolis is in theaters now. Be sure to read Andrew Webster’s Verge review before you grab tickets.

Adam Driver in a Megalopolis trailer. | Screenshot: YouTube

Francis Ford Coppola wanted voice recognition software to let audience members ask Adam Driver’s Cesar character a question during theatrical showings of Megalopolis, according to a Telegraph interview with the director. Then, the software would trigger the theater’s projector to play a clip of “the most relevant response” from Driver.

Apparently, it was actually in the works. Amazon had agreed to make a “custom version of its Alexa voice-recognition software” to do this, but the team working on it was laid off during a huge round of layoffs in 2022, writes The Telegraph. Alas.

“Imagine!” Coppola beams. “You could see Megalopolis five times in its opening week and it would be different each time! It would have been the future of the movies and ancient theatre rolled into one!”

Coppola apparently almost completely abandoned the idea, when Driver suggested preserving one of those responses to answer a pre-determined question from an usher. Most of us won’t see it in our local theaters, but it will happen in “some cinemas for its UK release,” according to The Telegraph. It also played out at some Megalopolis festival screenings. Here’s an abridged version of Vogue’s recounting of one such event.

Somewhere in the middle of the film, as Driver’s Cesar is speaking to camera, the screen briefly went blank. There was a confused smattering of applause from those who thought it was all over—if only we’d been so lucky—but then, with the lights still down, a man ran onto the stage in front of the cinema screen from the wings, holding a long microphone.

…Positioning himself on one side of the stage, and now lit by a spotlight, the man then faced Driver, now back on screen, and asked him a question, as if participating in some strange pandemic-era Zoom press conference. Driver answered, and the man then rushed off stage again. It was so odd, and felt so completely pointless, that I didn’t know how to respond.

Megalopolis is in theaters now. Be sure to read Andrew Webster’s Verge review before you grab tickets.

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NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke about their continued stay aboard the International Space Station during a press conference held yesterday. The two are now fully incorporated into the ISS crew, as the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was meant to take them home last week was instead sent back to Earth uncrewed.
Early on, the two were asked if they felt “let down” by Boeing.
“Absolutely not,” said Wilmore:
“This operation is not easy. NASA does a great job — the people at Nasa do a great job — of making a lot of things look easy. Sending probes beyond the edge of our solar system; going in [and] getting samples from asteroids; humans in space. It’s a very risky business and things do not always turn out the way you want.”
NASA decided not to fly the craft back with the two aboard after finding thruster issues and helium leaks in Starliner. But Wilmore said that with more time, “we could have gotten to the point, I believe, where we could have returned on Starliner. But we just simply ran out of time.” Instead, the two have become part of the ISS crew.

Williams, who Wilmore said will become the Commander of the ISS soon, said the transition to the space station’s crew was “not that hard,” as she and Wilmore had been preparing to go to the station for years prior to their flight earlier this year. She said their later return in a SpaceX Dragon capsule at the conclusion of NASA’s Crew-9 mission is a unique opportunity for the two test pilots, adding, “We’re excited to fly in two different spacecraft; I mean, we’re testers, that’s what we do.”
Neither astronaut expressed dismay at being aboard ISS longer. “Space is my happy place,” Williams said, ”…every day you do something that’s ‘work’ — you can do it upside down, you can do it sideways, so it adds a little different perspective.”
NASA’s Crew-9 mission, which is due to launch later this month, is expected to bring both astronauts back to Earth as soon as February next year.

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spoke about their continued stay aboard the International Space Station during a press conference held yesterday. The two are now fully incorporated into the ISS crew, as the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that was meant to take them home last week was instead sent back to Earth uncrewed.

Early on, the two were asked if they felt “let down” by Boeing.

“Absolutely not,” said Wilmore:

“This operation is not easy. NASA does a great job — the people at Nasa do a great job — of making a lot of things look easy. Sending probes beyond the edge of our solar system; going in [and] getting samples from asteroids; humans in space. It’s a very risky business and things do not always turn out the way you want.”

NASA decided not to fly the craft back with the two aboard after finding thruster issues and helium leaks in Starliner. But Wilmore said that with more time, “we could have gotten to the point, I believe, where we could have returned on Starliner. But we just simply ran out of time.” Instead, the two have become part of the ISS crew.

Williams, who Wilmore said will become the Commander of the ISS soon, said the transition to the space station’s crew was “not that hard,” as she and Wilmore had been preparing to go to the station for years prior to their flight earlier this year. She said their later return in a SpaceX Dragon capsule at the conclusion of NASA’s Crew-9 mission is a unique opportunity for the two test pilots, adding, “We’re excited to fly in two different spacecraft; I mean, we’re testers, that’s what we do.”

Neither astronaut expressed dismay at being aboard ISS longer. “Space is my happy place,” Williams said, ”…every day you do something that’s ‘work’ — you can do it upside down, you can do it sideways, so it adds a little different perspective.”

NASA’s Crew-9 mission, which is due to launch later this month, is expected to bring both astronauts back to Earth as soon as February next year.

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