Technology

Foldables are in and suddenly really thin

Published

6 months ago

July 13, 2025

Foldables are in and suddenly really thin

Hi! Welcome to Installer No. 89, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My name is Jay Peters, and I will be taking care of Installer while David is on parental leave. All of us here at The Verge are very excited for him and his family, and he’ll be back later this year.

It’s a huge honor to be writing this. I look forward to Installer every week to see what awesome things David is obsessed with and what you all are into. (Thanks to everyone who sent over their favorite non-famous apps to get me started. Keep reading for some of those!) I’m really excited to keep the party going. (If you’re new here, welcome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, as I am at around this time every year, I’ve been obsessed with the annual Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon. If you’ve never watched, the event is an annual, weeklong, always-on livestream of people playing video games at an extremely high level to raise money for charity. Throughout the week, I’ll tune in when I have a moment and then find myself watching somebody obliterate a beloved classic or a game that I’ve never heard of.

The show, which you can watch for free on Twitch, typically ends very early in the morning on Sunday, and you can watch replays on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel. My two favorite runs so far have been a Beat Saber showcase and a nail-biter Cuphead race. (If you have any suggested runs I should watch, let me know — maybe I’ll feature them in a future Installer!)

Anyway, let’s dive in. This week, I have for you some new Samsung foldable phones, a check-in with the developer of one of the great Reddit apps, and more.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here. It’s free, and you get it a full day early!)

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Foldables have never really interested me, but even I am extremely impressed by just how thin the Z Fold 7 looks. But then I look at the price: $1,999, a $100 increase from the Z Fold 6! Too rich for my blood. The Z Flip 7, with its edge-to-edge cover display, also seems like a good upgrade.
Samsung Galaxy Watch 8: As Victoria Song said, “the squircle has taken over”: Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 8 and Watch 8 Classic now have circle faces set in rounded square bodies. The change means the watches can sit flatter on your wrist, which sounds like a good thing to me; I’ll always take a thinner watch over a bulkier one.
Nothing Phone 3: This was technically announced last week, but Installer took the week off for the July 4th holiday in the US, so I’m including it now. Nothing is touting this phone as its “first true flagship” — though perhaps the most noticeable thing about it is its unusual camera layout.
Nothing Headphone 1: Nothing announced its first pair of over-ear headphones last week, too, and they seem like a decent pair of cans. The translucent design isn’t my cup of tea, but props to Nothing for trying something funky and new.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4: This game puts remakes of two classics into one package, and it’s awesome. I’ve been playing on my Switch 2 — where it runs pretty well! — and have had a blast reliving my youth. Turns out that I’m pretty rusty now, but thankfully, the game has some helpful settings to make things easier for the less skilled among us.
HBO Max: Max is HBO Max again, like it probably always should have been, even though HBO Max isn’t a great name, either.
Perplexity’s Comet browser: The AI “answer” engine’s new browser naturally uses Perplexity as its main search engine but also has an AI assistant built in. Browsers could be the next big turf war for AI companies, and Perplexity is beating OpenAI to the punch. There is a catch, though: right now, it’s only available to subscribers of Perplexity’s $200-per-month subscription.
Anker’s Nano Wireless Car Charger: This new car charger with a long, flexible arm looks like a super useful and malleable way to mount your phone inside your car. I don’t even own a car and I want this.
Superman: I don’t have any strong feelings about Superman or DC Comics, but it seems like James Gunn’s new ~~DC cinematic universe Hail Mary~~ film is actually pretty good. The Fantastic Four: First Steps looks great, too — 2025 is shaping up to be a big superhero summer.

If you followed the Reddit protests in 2023, then you probably recognize the name Christian Selig. He was the developer of the beloved Apollo for Reddit iOS app, but he became a central figure of the protests because Reddit’s API changes were going to be so cost-prohibitive that they forced him to shut Apollo down.

I’ve gotten to know Selig, and nowadays, he works on an app called Pixel Pals, is an advisor to the new Digg, and recently posted a great PC build video that has more than 2.5 million views. (Yes, he does poke fun at another, let’s say, infamous PC build video.) I got to catch up with him to learn about his homescreen and what he’s into.

Image: Christian Selig

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro Blue Titanium 128 GB

The wallpaper: I’m pretty sure it’s just something random someone posted on Twitter ages ago that I saved. But I love how simple it is, and I love how it looks on the home screen with the default iOS blur applied.

The apps: I try to keep things simple and positioned in an easy-to-reach area. I don’t keep social media apps on my phone in an attempt to be healthier, so it’s mostly things that are useful: vehicle apps (still a bit cold in Canada, so gotta love being able to preheat your vehicle), with Overcast for podcasts, Microsoft To Do (née Wunderlist) for my to-dos, ChatGPT because it’s 2025, YouTube because I spend way too much time there, Pixel Pals because it’s an app I build so I like to have it nice and handy, the Chess.com app for passing some time, and the alpha for Digg, which has been a ton of fun to use.

I also asked Christian to share a few things he’s into right now:

I’ve gotten into chess lately, and that’s been a ton of fun to play around with and learn as a total noob.
I’ve been digitizing old VHS and Hi8 tapes from my childhood and that has been such a massive rabbit hole to go down, but so, so cool and satisfying to see the results of.
I’m super into all things solar and battery technology. I have a very amateur setup at my apartment with our very limited space, but my partner and I bought land recently and are excited to go down the solar route and hopefully gain some energy independence.

And about his role at Digg:

What an advisor means in this case is basically just being brutally honest with the team on what I think about their mobile app (what is great, what sucks, what could be improved) as well as advising on their developer strategy as they get into that in the future. No bullshit, they’ve been phenomenally receptive and humble in getting feedback.
As for why I got on board, I’ve just kind of been sad about the modern state of community in social networks. Even outside of the Reddit API stuff, Reddit itself just feels more and more lately like a corporate shell of its former fun, vibrant community-based self. Kevin Rose seemed so jazzed about the possibility of imagining a community for the people of the future, and that really spoke to me as something that I also wanted to see exist in the world.
As you can imagine, a lot of folks have pitched me on “Reddit but better!” pie-in-the-sky ideas over the years. Kevin was the first one to come to me with concrete plans for a modern, community-based platform that felt like it had actual wood behind the arrow. And having now talked to the folks that make up the team at “New Digg,” I feel that even more so. They’ve got some really bright people.

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 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 The Verge, this post on Threads, and this post on Bluesky.

This week’s section is a mix of everyone’s favorite non-famous apps and some more typical recommendations.

“I want to give a shoutout to my favorite mobile game designer who’s based here in Germany: Arnold Rauers and his little studio Tiny Touchtales develop some beautiful, addictive light strategy games. My favorites are Card Thief, Geo Gods, and Miracle Merchant.” — Nick

“I use Panic’s Nova to make websites and truly love it. Probably my favorite app. Mimestream is also fantastic! Can’t wait for the iPhone version.” — Jeanne

“My favorite non-famous app is Live Soccer TV. Shows you the complete worldwide soccer schedule, and the list of broadcast networks/platforms in each county airing the game. Been on my home screen for ages now. It simply does what it says it does. No fluff and for 5 dollars a year, I pay for the ad free upgrade. Perfect app. Hope it never changes.” — Dustin

“Obsidian and Anybox.” — Peter

“I’m constantly shocked whenever recommendations come up for recipe apps that Crouton is not mentioned. To me, if Apple were to have made a recipe app themselves, this would be it. Even better, it’s cheap — only $14.99/yr and has some incredibly cool features like ‘hands free’ mode that allows you to simply blink your eyes to move to the next step of a recipe for those times when you have chicken juice all over your fingers.” — Justin

“All of Claire North’s books are fantastic! Her stuff is super original: sci-fi-ish but more about big ideas like time, memory, and identity. She does a really good job of bringing out the nuances and real-life feelings and consequences of the roles her characters have. It’s smart and emotional without being heavy, and her characters always stick with me. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August or Touch are great places to start.” — Dave

“I know it’s been out for a while, but my whole family is addicted to Marvel Snap. The new season with The Fantastic Four is really fun so far and this gives my kids things that help them tickle their brain with logic. Also, all the different variants for the cards are really cool to see.” — WALL-E

“Been using Folio as my Pocket replacement and have been quite happy.” — Carter

“All four The Trip movies are streaming on Criterion Channel. Very funny, very mean comedies — and the longer BBC episodic cuts are also available too, if you want the extended play version (which you will).” — Kevin

“Despite my backlog, I’m checking out A Solitaire Mystery, as I have no choice but to play anything from the Baba Is You developer.” — Tristan

“Just made the switch to the Pixel line from iOS, and I’m really digging trying a new OS. Outside of that, I’ve been taking a slight tech break and going back to physically painting, reading paperbacks, and being present.” — EmpireStrikesBacktotheFuture

All week, I have been mourning the recent end of the latest series of Taskmaster, a British comedy show where five comedians must all complete absurd tasks and be graded on them by the show’s mercurial host. This batch of episodes, series 19, was my favorite set yet: the cast of comedians (the first to feature an American, Jason Mantzoukas) were all hilarious, and the tasks were ridiculous.

If you’re looking for something new and funny to watch, I can’t recommend series 19 enough. Best of all, you can watch every series of the show for free on YouTube. Your time starts now.

Technology

You need to listen to Billy Woods’ horrorcore masterpiece for the A24 crowd

Published

10 hours ago

January 12, 2026

Press Room

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

Published

10 hours ago

January 12, 2026

Press Room

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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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Google pulls AI overviews for some medical searches

Published

22 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

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.