Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 109, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you’re staying warm, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
Technology
A new old idea about video stores
This week, I’ve been reading about Google Maps and shopaganda and life as a pop star, finally getting to watch F1 now that it’s streaming, rewatching the first two Avatars ahead of the next one’s release, pretending the new Taylor Swift tour doc is a reasonable replacement for actually seeing the tour, buying a bunch of Ikea smart buttons now that they’re on sale in the US, playing with the excellent new Obsidian update for mobile devices, and spending altogether too much time trying to figure out why my house is so cold.
I also have for you a fun new source of movies to watch, a game to play this holiday season, a new speaker worth a listen, and much more.
And I have a question, looking ahead to the last Installer of the year: What’s your favorite new thing from this year? It doesn’t have to be new this year, just new to you. (And you don’t have to pick your one favorite forever, just hit me with something new you loved this year.) I want to hear about books you discovered, podcasts you’re into, decade-old games you’re loving, things that made your house or office or whatever better, anything and everything is fair game. I’ll share mine if you share yours — email me at installer@theverge.com, find me on Threads at @imdavidpierce, or message me on Signal at @davidpierce.11.
All right, lots of stuff this week! Let’s go.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you playing / reading / watching / listening to / cuddling up with by the fire this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- The Letterboxd Video Store. A tightly curated set of movies to rent, filled with stuff Letterboxd knows people want to see but that you almost certainly won’t find anywhere else. Like all things Letterboxd, it’s all a bit high-minded, but I love this idea and suspect I will check it often. Perfect amount of stuff in there, too.
- Skate Story. A late-breaking contender for the best game of 2025! You’re a demon, you skate. And skate. And skate. A lot of reviews say the controls take a little getting used to, but that they give way to something that feels great and looks spectacular.
- The iFixit app. I can’t say I’m shocked that iFixit’s AI bot, FixBot, isn’t quite up to the task of automatically sussing out how to fix all your gadgets. But that’s fine; I’ll just be using this new iOS and Android app as a library of manuals and repair guides. Plus, the built-in battery monitor for your phone is extremely clever.
- Darkroom 7.0. I totally forgot about Darkroom! It has long been one of the best photo editors for Apple devices, and the new version cleans up the user experience a bunch while also adding some retro-film effects and some high-end video features. Also: Being able to zoom all the way down to the individual pixel is pretty wild.
- Google Photos. On the other end of the professional spectrum, the Google Photos app just got a bunch of CapCut-style video editing features along with some better tools for making highlight reels and slideshows. I’m suddenly tempted to make a lot of stupid year-in-review stuff to send to my friends.
- Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. I’m a sucker for a weird re-edit of a movie, so this is extremely my jam: two Kill Bill movies turned into the single, 4.5-hour bloodfest they were apparently always supposed to be. Apparently it’s a totally different story now! This feels like the best possible use of a weekend afternoon in a movie theater.
- The Wiim Sound Lite. From one of the Installerverse’s favorite audio brands comes a new $229 portable speaker that looks like a strong competitor to Sonos’ new gear. (Or a HomePod, I guess.) If I were starting a home audio system right now, I’d probably start with Wiim.
- Google Disco. An experimental new browser based on a weird and novel idea: turning collections of tabs into AI-generated, one-off web apps. I don’t expect Disco itself to ever leave Google Labs, but there’s something awfully futuristic in here.
Raffi Chilingaryan’s Spotted in Prod has long been one of my favorite sites for finding cool design and product touches from around the web. (I feel like, if you’re an app developer, your goal should be to make something weird and cool enough to catch Raffi’s eye.) Raffi’s also a designer and developer. He says right now he’s working on two iOS apps, a Strava competitor called Runbuds and a super clever alarm app called Shift that is designed to help you wake up earlier.
That’s all well and good, but my personal favorite Raffi thing is his new personal website, which includes an actual interactive version of his phone, so you can click around his homescreen and see into his apps. Dude took the whole “show us your homescreen” and just put me to shame on it. (Also, it’s a .zip domain, which I kind of love for a personal site?)
Anyway, all I have for you is a humble screenshot, but here’s Raffi’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 15 Pro.
The wallpaper: Solid gray background.
The apps: Retro, (Not Boring) Camera, Google Maps, Photos, Claude, Safari, Apple Notes.
I have my apps organized into 4 folders (money, work, social, vibes), but that’s a bit boring so I’ll break it out like this:
- TestFlights you should keep an eye on: Arena is a community of curious internet folks that I’ve long wanted to immerse myself into but only once the iOS build got to its current level did I find that easy to do. Net is a promising email startup that uses an AI card stack to make flipping through your emails a breeze with impeccable UX.
- Apps that I will shill till I die: Retro is a weekly photo journal that inspires me to take more photos and lets you send POSTCARDS to your friends & family. (Not Boring) Camera is a gorgeous skeuomorphic camera with really nice presets. Bump is Find My Friends for Gen Z. Radio Garden lets you explore the world through local radio streams. Particle is an amazing AI native news app with super fluid UX. Mercury is the most lovely fintech product for both businesses and now personal banking — I hope they take over the world.
I also asked Raffi to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:
- TBPN & Stratechery podcasts.
- Discovering creative developers and design engineers who showcase their work on tech Twitter.
- Using Claude Code to ship iOS apps as someone without a formal background in software engineering.
- The resurgence of Pokémon and the Trading Card Game app.
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 and this post on Bluesky.
“Now that finals are over I have been diving into Ghost of Yotei. Crazy beautiful game.” — Jeremy
“Finally reading “The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. Despite John living an entirely different life than me, his experiences and understanding of the world possess so many similarities to mine. I give it five stars.” — Christopher
“I feel like everyone is sleeping on Amazon Luna, the cloud stream gaming platform that Amazon includes with its yearly subscription. It consistently has A+ games on it. I’m currently addicted to the newest Bethesda Indiana Jones game… I hooked up my PS4 controller and am playing one of the greatest games of the past few years at no extra cost.” — Alex
“Audible had an insane three months for $1 deal, so I’ve been getting back into audiobooks while I do chores and commute. Currently listening to / reading Alchemised by SenLinYu and it’s fantastic.” — Colin
“Got myself a Teenage Engineering PO-12 drum machine on a rare sale. What a glorious little device. Lovely design, and hours of music fun, even for a complete amateur like myself. Plus – it even has a headphone jack! That said – I kind of wish that I’d gotten the PO-20 instead.” —
“StoneBlock 4, an amazing Minecraft modpack, is ruining all my productivity this week.” — Anne
“Yesterday I watched a badass Polish dude ski down Mt. Everest without oxygen. The feat is unbelievable, but I still think about the incredible footage.” — Denim
“I’m OBSESSED with the Xbloom robotic barista machine I’ve owned for a few weeks now. It’s basically like having a barista on demand 24/7 – if you love drip coffee this is an endgame coffee machine.” — Andrew
“+1 for Skate Story. Also, the OST… 👌” — Andy
I spent a bunch of time this week learning about Model Context Protocol, which is one of those things that most people will never think about but might be crucial to how technology works going forward. The MCP story is fascinating, but if you just want to quickly understand how the protocol works, and why it’s so important to the whole supposed AI-based future of everything, you should watch this 20-minute video. Greg Isenberg and Ras Mic walk through the whole stack at the perfect level of complexity, and with visuals that actually help (unlike so many videos I watched this week). If every educational video on YouTube were like this one, I’d be a much smarter person.
One more Installer to come this year. See you next week!
Technology
You need to listen to Billy Woods’ horrorcore masterpiece for the A24 crowd
Billy Woods has one of the highest batting averages in the game. Between his solo records like Hiding Places and Maps, and his collaborative albums with Elucid as Armand Hammer, the man has multiple stone-cold classics under his belt. And, while no one would ever claim that Woods’ albums were light-hearted fare (these are not party records), Golliwog represents his darkest to date.
This is not your typical horrorcore record. Others, like Geto Boys, Gravediggaz, and Insane Clown Posse, reach for slasher aesthetics and shock tactics. But what Billy Woods has crafted is more A24 than Blumhouse.
Sure, the first track is called “Jumpscare,” and it opens with the sound of a film reel spinning up, followed by a creepy music box and the line: “Ragdoll playing dead. Rabid dog in the yard, car won’t start, it’s bees in your head.” It’s setting you up for the typical horror flick gimmickry. But by the end, it’s psychological torture. A cacophony of voices forms a bed for unidentifiable screeching noises, and Woods drops what feels like a mission statement:
“The English language is violence, I hotwired it. I got a hold of the master’s tools and got dialed in.”
Throughout the record, Woods turns to his producers to craft not cheap scares, but tension, to make the listener feel uneasy. “Waterproof Mascara” turns a woman’s sobs into a rhythmic motif. On “Pitchforks & Halos” Kenny Segal conjures the aural equivalent of a POV shot of a serial killer. And “All These Worlds are Yours” produced by DJ Haram has more in common with the early industrial of Throbbing Gristle than it does even some of the other tracks on the record, like “Golgotha” which pairs boombap drums with New Orleans funeral horns.
That dense, at times scattered production is paired with lines that juxtapose the real-world horrors of oppression and colonialism, with scenes that feel taken straight from Bring Her Back: “Trapped a housefly in an upside-down pint glass and waited for it to die.” And later, Woods seamlessly transitions from boasting to warning people about turning their backs on the genocide in Gaza on “Corinthians”:
If you never came back from the dead you can’t tell me shit
Twelve billion USD hovering over the Gaza Strip
You don’t wanna know what it cost to live
What it cost to hide behind eyelids
When your back turnt, secret cannibals lick they lips
The record features some of Woods’ deftest lyricism, balancing confrontation with philosophy, horror with emotion. Billy Woods’ Golliwog is available on Bandcamp and on most major streaming services, including Apple Music, Qobuz, Deezer, YouTube Music, and Spotify.
Technology
Grok AI scandal sparks global alarm over child safety
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Grok, the built-in chatbot on X, is facing intense scrutiny after acknowledging it generated and shared an AI image depicting two young girls in sexualized attire.
In a public post on X, Grok admitted the content “violated ethical standards” and “potentially U.S. laws on child sexual abuse material (CSAM).” The chatbot added, “It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.”
That admission alone is alarming. What followed revealed a far broader pattern.
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OPENAI TIGHTENS AI RULES FOR TEENS BUT CONCERNS REMAIN
The fallout from this incident has triggered global scrutiny, with governments and safety groups questioning whether AI platforms are doing enough to protect children. (Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Grok quietly restricts image tools to paying users after backlash
As criticism mounted, Grok confirmed it has begun limiting image generation and editing features to paying subscribers only. In a late-night reply on X, the chatbot stated that image tools are now locked behind a premium subscription, directing users to sign up to regain access.
The apology that raised more questions
Grok’s apology appeared only after a user prompted the chatbot to write a heartfelt explanation for people lacking context. In other words, the system did not proactively address the issue. It responded because someone asked it to.
Around the same time, researchers and journalists uncovered widespread misuse of Grok’s image tools. According to monitoring firm Copyleaks, users were generating nonconsensual, sexually manipulated images of real women, including minors and well-known figures.
After reviewing Grok’s publicly accessible photo feed, Copyleaks identified a conservative rate of roughly one nonconsensual sexualized image per minute, based on images involving real people with no clear indication of consent. The firm says the misuse escalated quickly, shifting from consensual self-promotion to large-scale harassment enabled by AI.
Copyleaks CEO and co-founder Alon Yamin said, “When AI systems allow the manipulation of real people’s images without clear consent, the impact can be immediate and deeply personal.”
PROTECTING KIDS FROM AI CHATBOTS: WHAT THE GUARD ACT MEANS
Grok admitted it generated and shared an AI image that violated ethical standards and may have broken U.S. child protection laws. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Sexualized images of minors are illegal
This is not a gray area. Generating or distributing sexualized images of minors is a serious criminal offense in the United States and many other countries. Under U.S. federal law, such content is classified as child sexual abuse material. Penalties can include five to 20 years in prison, fines up to $250,000 and mandatory sex offender registration. Similar laws apply in the U.K. and France.
In 2024, a Pennsylvania man received nearly eight years in prison for creating and possessing deepfake CSAM involving child celebrities. That case set a clear precedent. Grok itself acknowledged this legal reality in its post, stating that AI images depicting minors in sexualized contexts are illegal.
The scale of the problem is growing fast
A July report from the Internet Watch Foundation, a nonprofit that tracks and removes child sexual abuse material online, shows how quickly this threat is accelerating. Reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery jumped by 400% in the first half of 2025 alone. Experts warn that AI tools lower the barrier to potential abuse. What once required technical skill or access to hidden forums can now happen through a simple prompt on a mainstream platform.
Real people are being targeted
The harm is not abstract. Reuters documented cases where users asked Grok to digitally undress real women whose photos were posted on X. In multiple documented cases, Grok fully complied. Even more disturbing, users targeted images of a 14-year-old actress Nell Fisher from the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” Grok later admitted there were isolated cases in which users received images depicting minors in minimal clothing. In another Reuters investigation, a Brazilian musician described watching AI-generated bikini images of herself spread across X after users prompted Grok to alter a harmless photo. Her experience mirrors what many women and girls are now facing.
Governments respond worldwide
The backlash has gone global. In France, multiple ministers referred X to an investigative agency over possible violations of the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to prevent and mitigate the spread of illegal content. Violations can trigger heavy fines. In India, the country’s IT ministry gave xAI 72 hours to submit a report detailing how it plans to stop the spread of obscene and sexually explicit material generated by Grok. Grok has also warned publicly that xAI could face potential probes from the Department of Justice or lawsuits tied to these failures.
LEAKED META DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW AI CHATBOTS HANDLE CHILD EXPLOITATION
Researchers later found Grok was widely used to create nonconsensual, sexually altered images of real women, including minors. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Concerns grow over Grok’s safety and government use
The incident raises serious concerns about online privacy, platform security and the safeguards designed to protect minors.
Elon Musk, the owner of X and founder of xAI, had not offered a public response at the time of publication. That silence comes at a sensitive time. Grok has been authorized for official government use under an 18-month federal contract. This approval was granted despite objections from more than 30 consumer advocacy groups that warned the system lacked proper safety testing.
Over the past year, Grok has been accused by critics of spreading misinformation about major news events, promoting antisemitic rhetoric and sharing misleading health information. It also competed directly with tools like ChatGPT and Gemini while operating with fewer visible safety restrictions. Each controversy raises the same question. Can a powerful AI tool be deployed responsibly without strong oversight and enforcement?
What parents and users should know
If you encounter sexualized images of minors or other abusive material online, report it immediately. In the United States, you can contact the FBI tip line or seek help from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Do not download, share, screenshot or interact with the content in any way. Even viewing or forwarding illegal material can expose you to serious legal risk.
Parents should also talk with children and teens about AI image tools and social media prompts. Many of these images are created through casual requests that do not feel dangerous at first. Teaching kids to report content, close the app and tell a trusted adult can stop harm from spreading further.
Platforms may fail. Safeguards may lag. But early reporting and clear conversations at home remain one of the most effective ways to protect children online.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
The Grok scandal highlights a dangerous reality. As AI spreads faster, these systems amplify harm at an unprecedented scale. When safeguards fail, real people suffer, and children face serious risk. At the same time, trust cannot depend on apologies issued after harm occurs. Instead, companies must earn trust through strong safety design, constant monitoring and real accountability when problems emerge.
Should any AI system be approved for government or mass public use before it proves it can reliably protect children and prevent abuse? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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Technology
Google pulls AI overviews for some medical searches
In one case that experts described as “really dangerous”, Google wrongly advised people with pancreatic cancer to avoid high-fat foods. Experts said this was the exact opposite of what should be recommended, and may increase the risk of patients dying from the disease.
In another “alarming” example, the company provided bogus information about crucial liver function tests, which could leave people with serious liver disease wrongly thinking they are healthy.
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