Sony’s Xperia 1 VIII is still a phone for the fans
The 1 VIII doesn’t look much like any Xperia that’s come before. The Xperia 1 VIII marks an attempt at a step change for Sony’s flagship phone line. Not only has it had an aesthetic overhaul, but Sony has also revamped the camera system, dropping the continuous optical zoom telephoto that’s defined the last […]
The Atlantic created a searchable database of the music used to train AI
Atlantic reporter Alex Reisner recently uncovered four datasets of music being used to train AI models and made them fully searchable for the public. Two of the sets are absolutely enormous at 12 million and 9 million tracks. The other two are much smaller, but still represent a significant amount of training data at […]
Musician and YouTuber Hainbach on ‘Breath of the Wild’ and Swiss Army Knives
Indulging in the “Dark Souls of synthesis.” | Image: Aleksander Stojanov / Hainbach Stefan Paul Goetsch, better known as Hainbach, is a German experimental composer, artist, and YouTuber who is perhaps most famous for making music with laboratory equipment and scientific instruments. He describes it as being like the “Dark Souls of synthesis.” Despite […]
Moves of the Diamond Hand is an unfinished, irresistibly weird dice-based RPG
From its opening minutes, Moves of the Diamond Hand is upfront about what it offers: You’re going to have a lot of strange conversations, and you’re going to roll a lot of dice. Get on board with this proposition, and the reward is one of the most creative roleplaying games I’ve seen in years, […]
Toy Story has the right take on tech
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 133, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy belated Juneteenth, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Sam Bankman-Fried and PE Guy and admin nights (which […]
SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan is worth fighting for
I’m a fan. I can’t remember the last time I got excited about a fan. Normally, I just buy whatever Vornado or Dreo model fits my budget, but that was before I started testing the battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan from SwitchBot. As the name indicates, the SwitchBot fan is a 3D circulator – a […]
