Technology

The new iPad Pro looks like a winner

Published

2 years ago

May 12, 2024

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 37, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, send me links, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been writing about iPads and LinkedIn games, reading about auto shows and typewriters and treasure hunters, watching Everybody’s in LA and Sugar, looking for reasons to buy Yeti’s new French press even though I definitely don’t need more coffee gear, following almost all of Jerry Saltz’s favorite Instagram accounts, testing Capacities and Heptabase for all my note-taking needs and Plinky for all my link-saving, and playing a lot of Blind Drive.

I also have for you a thoroughly impressive new iPad, a clever new smart home hub, a Twitter documentary to watch this weekend, a sci-fi show to check out, a cheap streaming box, and much more. Let’s do it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you reading / watching / cooking / playing / building right now? What should everyone else be into as well? Email me at installer@theverge.com or find me on Signal at @davidpierce.11. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, and tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

The new iPad Pro. The new Pro is easily the most impressive piece of hardware I’ve seen in a while. It’s so thin and light, and that OLED screen… gorgeous. It’s bonkers expensive, and the iPad’s big problem continues to be its software, but this is how you build a tablet, folks.
Animal Well. Our friends over at Polygon called this “one of the most inventive games of the last decade,” which is obviously high praise! By all accounts, it’s unusual, surprising, occasionally frustrating, very smart, and incredibly engaging. Even the trailer looks like nothing I’ve seen before. (I got a lot of recommendations for this one this week — thanks to everyone who sent it in!)
Final Cut Camera. This only got a quick mention at Apple’s event this week, but it’s kind of a huge deal! It’s a first-party, pro-level camera app for iPhones and iPads that gives you lots of manual control and editing features. It’s exactly what a lot of creatives have been asking for. No word yet on exactly when it’ll be available, but I’m excited.
The Aqara Hub M3. The only way to manage your smart home is to make sure your devices can support as many assistants, protocols, and platforms as possible. This seems like a way to do it: it’s a Matter-ready device that can handle just about any smart-home gear you throw at it.
“Battle of the Clipboard Managers.” I don’t think I’ve ever linked to a Reddit thread here, but check this one out: it’s a long discussion about why a clipboard manager is a useful tool, plus a bunch of good options to choose from. (I agree with all the folks who love Raycast, but there are a lot of choices and ideas here.)
Proton Pass. My ongoing No. 1 piece of technology advice is that everyone needs a password manager. I’m a longtime 1Password fan, but Proton’s app is starting to look tempting — this week, it got a new monitoring tool for security threats, in addition to all the smart email hiding and sharing features it already has.
The Onn 4K Pro. Basically all streaming boxes are ad-riddled, slow, and bad. This Google TV box from Walmart is at least also cheap, comes with voice control and support for all the specs you’d want, and works as a smart speaker. I love a customizable button, too.
Dark Matter. I’ve mostly loved all the Blake Crouch sci-fi books I’ve read, so I have high hopes for this Apple TV Plus series about life in a parallel universe. Apple TV Plus, by the way? Really good at the whole sci-fi thing.
The Wordle archive. More than 1,000 days of Wordle, all ready to be played and replayed (because, let’s be honest, who remembers Wordle from three weeks ago?). I don’t have access to the archive yet, but you better believe I’ll be playing it all the way through as soon as it’s out.
Black Twitter: A People’s History. Based on a really fun Wired series, this is a three-part deep dive Hulu doc about the ways Black Twitter took over social media and a tour of the internet’s experience of some of the biggest events of the last decade.

Screen share

Kylie Robison, The Verge’s new senior AI reporter, tweeted a video of her old iPhone the other day that was like a perfect time capsule of a device. She had approximately 90,000 games, including a bunch that I’m 100 percent sure were scams, and that iPod logo in her dock made me feel a lot of things. Those were good days.

I messaged Kylie in Slack roughly eight minutes after she became a Verge employee, hoping I could convince her to share her current homescreen — and what she’d been up to during her funemployment time ahead of starting with us.

Sadly, she says she tamed her homescreen chaos before starting, because something something professionalism, or whatever. And now she swears she can’t even find a screenshot of her old homescreen! SURE, KYLIE. Anyway, here’s Kylie’s newly functional homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why.

The phone: iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The wallpaper: A black screen because I think it’s too noisy otherwise. (My lock screen is about 20 revolving photos, though.)

The apps: Apple Maps, Notes, Spotify, Messages, FaceTime, Safari, Phone.

I need calendar and weather apps right in front of me when I unlock my phone because I’m forgetful. I use Spotify for all things music and podcasts.

Work is life so I have all those apps front and center, too (Signal, Google Drive, Okta).

Just before starting, I reorganized my phone screen because 1) I had time and 2) I knew I’d have to show it off for David. All the apps are sorted into folders now, but before, they were completely free-range because I use the search bar to find apps; I rarely scroll around. So just imagine about 25 random apps filling up all the pages: Pegasus for some international flight I booked, a random stuffed bell pepper recipe, what have you.

I also asked Kylie to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she shared:

Stardew Valley took over my life during my work break.
I actually started 3 Body Problem because of an old Installer. Also, I loved Fallout and need more episodes.
My serious guilty pleasure is Love Island UK, and I’ve been watching the latest season during my break.

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 hit me up on Signal — I’m @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. And if you want even more recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads.

“I have always found Spotify’s recommendation algorithm and music channels to be terrible; wayyy too much fussing and tailoring required when all I want is to hit play and get a good diversity of music I will like. So I finally gave up and tried Pandora again. Its recommendation / station algorithm is so wildly better than Spotify’s (at least for me), it’s shocking how it has seemed to fade into cultural anonymity. Can’t speak for others, but if anyone out there is similarly frustrated with Spotify playlists, I highly recommend the Pandora option.” – Will

“Everything coming out of Netflix Is a Joke Fest has been 10/10.” – Mike

“Mantella mod for Skyrim (and Fallout 4). Not so much a single mod, but a mod plus a collection of apps that gives (basically) every NPC their own lives and stories. It’s like suddenly being allowed to participate in the fun and games with Woody and Buzz, rather than them having to say the words when you pull the string.” – Jonathan

“The Snipd podcast app (whose primary selling point is AI transcription of podcasts and the ability to easily capture, manage, and export text snippets from podcasts) has a new feature that shows you a name, bio, and picture for podcast guests, and allows you to find more podcasts with the same guest or even follow specific guests. Pretty cool!” – Andy

“I have recently bought a new Kindle, and I’m trying to figure out how to get news on it! My current plan is to use Omnivore as my bookmarks app, which will sync with this awesome community tool that converts those bookmarks into a Kindle-friendly website.” – David

“Turtles All the Way Down! Great depiction of OCD.” – Saad

“With all the conversation around Delta on iOS, I have recently procured and am currently enamored with my Miyoo Mini Plus. It’s customizable and perfectly sized, and in my advanced years with no love for Fortnite, PUBG, or any of the myriad of online connected games, it’s lovely to go back and play some of these ‘legally obtained’ games that I played in my childhood.” – Benjamin

“Rusty’s Retirement is a great, mostly idle farm sim that sits at the bottom or the side of your monitor for both Mac and Windows. Rusty just goes and completes little tasks of his own accord while you work or do other stuff. It rocks. Look at him go!” – Brendon

“Last week, Nicholas talked about YACReader and was asking for another great comic e-reader app for DRM-free files. After much searching myself, I settled on Panels for iPad. Great Apple-native UI, thoughtful features, and decent performance. The free version can handle a local library, but to unlock its full potential, the Pro version (sub or lifetime) supports iCloud, so you can keep all your comics in iCloud Drive, manage the files via a Mac, and only download what you’re currently reading — great for lower-end iPads with less storage.” – Diogo

Signing off

I have spent so much time over the years trying to both figure out and explain to people the basics of a camera. There are a billion metaphors for ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, and all of them fall short. That’s probably why a lot of the photographer types I know have been passing around this very fun depth of field simulator over the last few days, which lets you play with aperture, focal length, sensor size, and more in order to understand how different settings change the way you take photos. It’s a really clever, simple way to see how it all works — and to understand what becomes possible when you really start to control your camera. I’ll be sharing this link a lot, I suspect, and I’m learning a lot from it, too.

Technology

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth designates Anthropic a supply chain risk

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth designates Anthropic a supply chain risk

This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.

Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted access to Anthropic’s models for every LAWFUL purpose in defense of the Republic.

Instead, @AnthropicAI and its CEO @DarioAmodei, have chosen duplicity. Cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of “effective altruism,” they have attempted to strong-arm the United States military into submission – a cowardly act of corporate virtue-signaling that places Silicon Valley ideology above American lives.

The Terms of Service of Anthropic’s defective altruism will never outweigh the safety, the readiness, or the lives of American troops on the battlefield.

Their true objective is unmistakable: to seize veto power over the operational decisions of the United States military. That is unacceptable.

As President Trump stated on Truth Social, the Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives.

Anthropic’s stance is fundamentally incompatible with American principles. Their relationship with the United States Armed Forces and the Federal Government has therefore been permanently altered.

In conjunction with the President’s directive for the Federal Government to cease all use of Anthropic’s technology, I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a Supply-Chain Risk to National Security. Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic. Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.

America’s warfighters will never be held hostage by the ideological whims of Big Tech. This decision is final.

Technology

What Trump’s ‘ratepayer protection pledge’ means for you

Published

12 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

What Trump’s ‘ratepayer protection pledge’ means for you

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

When you open a chatbot, stream a show or back up photos to the cloud, you are tapping into a vast network of data centers. These facilities power artificial intelligence, search engines and online services we use every day. Now there is a growing debate over who should pay for the electricity those data centers consume.

During President Trump’s State of the Union address this week, he introduced a new initiative called the “ratepayer protection pledge” to shift AI-driven electricity costs away from consumers. The core idea is simple.

Tech companies that run energy-intensive AI data centers should cover the cost of the extra electricity they require rather than passing those costs on to everyday customers through higher utility rates.

It sounds simple. The hard part is what happens next.

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At the State of the Union address Feb. 24, 2026, President Trump unveiled the “ratepayer protection pledge” aimed at shielding consumers from rising electricity costs tied to AI data centers. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Why AI is driving a surge in electricity demand

AI systems require enormous computing power. That computing power requires enormous electricity. Today’s data centers can consume as much power as a small city. As AI tools expand across business, healthcare, finance and consumer apps, energy demand has risen sharply in certain regions.

Utilities have warned that the current grid in many parts of the country was not built for this level of concentrated demand. Upgrading substations, transmission lines and generation capacity costs money. Traditionally, those costs can influence rates paid by homes and small businesses. That is where the pledge comes in.

What the ratepayer protection pledge is designed to do

Under the ratepayer protection pledge, large technology companies would:

Cover the full cost of additional electricity tied to their data centers
Build their own on-site power generation to reduce strain on the public grid

Supporters say this approach separates residential energy costs from large-scale AI expansion. In other words, your household bill should not rise simply because a new AI data center opens nearby. So far, Anthropic is the clearest public backer. CyberGuy reached out to Anthropic for a comment on its role in the pledge. A company spokesperson referred us to a tweet from Anthropic Head of External Affairs Sarah Heck.

“American families shouldn’t pick up the tab for AI,” Heck wrote in a post on X. “In support of the White House ratepayer protection pledge, Anthropic has committed to covering 100% of electricity price increases that consumers face from our data centers.”

That makes Anthropic one of the first major AI companies to publicly state it will absorb consumer electricity price increases tied to its data center operations. Other major firms may be close behind. The White House reportedly plans to host Microsoft, Meta and Anthropic in early March to discuss formalizing a broader deal, though attendance and final terms have not been confirmed publicly.

Microsoft also expressed support for the initiative.

“The ratepayer protection pledge is an important step,” Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president, said in a statement to CyberGuy. “We appreciate the administration’s work to ensure that data centers don’t contribute to higher electricity prices for consumers.”

Industry groups also point to companies such as Google and utilities including Duke Energy and Georgia Power as making consumer-focused commitments tied to data center growth. However, enforcement mechanisms and long-term regulatory details remain unclear.

CHINA VS SPACEX IN RACE FOR SPACE AI DATA CENTERS

The White House plans talks with Microsoft, Meta and Anthropic about shifting AI energy costs away from consumers. (Eli Hiller/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

How this could change the economics of AI

AI infrastructure is already one of the most expensive technology buildouts in history. Companies are investing billions in chips, servers and real estate. If firms must also finance dedicated power plants or pay premium rates for grid upgrades, the cost of running AI systems increases further. That could lead to:

Slower expansion in some markets
Greater investment in renewable energy and storage
More partnerships between tech firms and utilities

Energy strategy may become just as important as computing strategy. For consumers, this shift signals that electricity is now a central part of the AI conversation. AI is no longer only about software. It is also about infrastructure.

The bigger consumer tech picture

AI is becoming embedded in smartphones, search engines, office software and home devices. As adoption grows, so does the hidden infrastructure supporting it. Energy is now part of the conversation around everyday technology. Every AI-generated image, voice command or cloud backup depends on a power-hungry network of servers.

By asking companies to account more directly for their electricity use, policymakers are acknowledging a new reality. The digital world runs on very physical resources. For you, that shift could mean more transparency. It also raises new questions about sustainability, local impact and long-term costs.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HELPS FUEL NEW ENERGY SOURCES

As AI expansion strains the grid, a new proposal would require tech firms to fund their own power needs. (Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images)

What this means for you

If you are a homeowner or renter, the practical question is simple. Will this protect my electric bill? In theory, separating data center energy costs from residential rates could reduce the risk of price spikes tied to AI growth. If companies fund their own generation or grid upgrades, utilities may have less reason to spread those costs among all customers.

That said, utility pricing is complex. It depends on state regulators, long-term planning and local energy markets.

Here is what you can watch for in your area:

New data center construction announcements
Utility filings that mention large commercial load growth
Public service commission decisions on rate adjustments

Even if you rarely use AI tools, your community could feel the effects of a nearby data center. The pledge is intended to keep those large-scale power demands from showing up in your monthly bill.

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Kurt’s key takeaways

The ratepayer protection pledge highlights an important turning point. AI is no longer only about innovation and speed. It is also about energy and accountability. If tech companies truly absorb the cost of their expanding power needs, households may avoid some of the financial strain tied to rapid AI growth. If not, utility bills could become an unexpected front line in the AI era.

As AI tools become part of daily life, how much extra power are you willing to support to keep them running? 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

Here’s your first look at Kratos in Amazon’s God of War show

Published

23 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Here’s your first look at Kratos in Amazon’s God of War show

Amazon has slowly been teasing out casting details for its live-action adaptation of God of War, and now we have our first look at the show. It’s a single image but a notable one showing protagonist Kratos and his son Atreus. The characters are played by Ryan Hurst and Callum Vinson, respectively, and they look relatively close to their video game counterparts.

There aren’t a lot of other details about the show just yet, but this is Amazon’s official description:

The God of War series storyline follows father and son Kratos and Atreus as they embark on a journey to spread the ashes of their wife and mother, Faye. Through their adventures, Kratos tries to teach his son to be a better god, while Atreus tries to teach his father how to be a better human.

That sounds a lot like the recent soft reboot of the franchise, which started with 2018’s God of War and continued through Ragnarök in 2022. For the Amazon series, Ronald D. Moore, best-known for his work on For All Mankind and Battlestar Galactica, will serve as showrunner. The rest of the cast includes: Mandy Patinkin (Odin), Ed Skrein (Baldur), Max Parker (Heimdall), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Thor), Teresa Palmer (Sif), Alastair Duncan (Mimir), Jeff Gulka (Sindri), and Danny Woodburn (Brok).

While production is underway on the God of War series, there’s no word on when it might start streaming.