Technology

What is BERT?

Published

1 year ago

May 3, 2023

BERT is an open-source machine studying framework that’s used for numerous pure language processing (NLP) duties. It’s designed to assist computer systems higher perceive nuance in language by greedy the that means of surrounding phrases in a textual content. The profit is that context of a textual content will be understood somewhat than simply the that means of particular person phrases.

It’s no secret that synthetic intelligence impacts society in shocking methods. A method that most individuals have used AI with out their information is when looking on Google. When doing so, it’s possible that the searcher unknowingly used BERT within the type of a synthetic intelligence algorithm since about 10% of all searches put it to use. This framework has allowed Google to acknowledge how customers search by higher understanding phrases inside their appropriate order and context. BERT is extra than simply part of Google’s algorithm, although. As an open-source framework, anybody can use it for a big selection of machine-learning duties.

Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, US, on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023. Alphabet Inc. is predicted to launch earnings figures on February 2. (Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg through Getty Photos)

What’s BERT?

BERT, Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, is a machine studying mannequin structure pre-trained to deal with a variety of pure language processing (NLP) duties in ways in which weren’t doable earlier than. Since its launch as a tutorial paper titled BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding (Devlin et al., 2018), it has revolutionized the world of machine studying. Google Analysis then launched it as an open-source platform. Which means anybody can use BERT to coach their very own system to carry out pure language processing duties.

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BERT grew to become such a giant deal within the machine studying group as a result of as an alternative of studying textual content sequentially, BERT fashions will have a look at the entire surrounding phrases to grasp the context. It understands a phrase primarily based on the corporate it retains, as we do in pure language. For instance, the time period “rose” can carry completely different meanings relying on whether or not the encompassing phrases embody “thorn,” “chair” or “energy.” BERT can perceive the goal phrase primarily based on the opposite phrases within the sentence, whether or not they come earlier than or after.

What can BERT do?

A part of what makes BERT distinctive is that it’s a bidirectionally pre-trained framework that may present contextual understanding of language and ambiguous sentences, particularly these comprised of phrases with a number of meanings. It’s, subsequently, helpful in language-based duties.

BERT is used inside chatbots to assist them reply questions. It will possibly assist summarize lengthy paperwork and distinguish between phrases with numerous meanings. As an algorithm replace in Google, it distributes higher ends in response to a person’s question.

Since Google has made the pre-trained BERT fashions obtainable to others, the open supply mannequin is able to be utilized, after fine-tuning takes place, for all kinds of language-based duties, similar to query answering and named entity recognition.

How is BERT utilized in Google’s search engine?

A 12 months after the analysis paper was launched, Google introduced an algorithm replace to the search queries utilizing English. At launch, Google mentioned BERT would affect 1 out of each 10 searches. Moreover, BERT impacts featured snippets, which is a definite field offering the reply to the searcher immediately somewhat than an inventory of URLs.

Fairly than changing RankBrain (Google’s first AI algorithm technique), it’s additive to the underlying search algorithm. BERT helps the search engine perceive language as people communicate to at least one one other.

Signatories of the letter argue that language fashions like ChatGPT and Bard are primarily based on the neural networks of animal brains, however within the close to future, AI techniques will likely be constructed to imitate “elements of higher-level mind structure and functioning.”

Take into account the web as essentially the most in depth library in existence. If Google is a librarian, this algorithm replace helps the search engine produce essentially the most correct outcomes primarily based on the request made by the searcher. Google makes use of BERT in its algorithm to assist perceive not simply the definition of the phrase however what the person phrases imply when put collectively in a sentence. BERT helps Google course of language and perceive a search term’s context, tone and intent in the way in which it seems, permitting the algorithm to grasp the searcher’s intent.

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This new algorithm layer additionally helps Google perceive nuance within the question, which is more and more very important as folks conduct searches in the way in which they suppose and communicate.

Earlier than BERT, Google would pull out phrases it thought have been a very powerful in a search, usually resulting in less-than-optimal outcomes. Google fine-tuned its BERT algorithm replace on pure language processing duties, similar to query and answering, to assist it perceive the linguistic nuances of a searcher’s question. These nuances and smaller phrases, like “to” and “for,” at the moment are thought of when a part of a search request.

Moreover, the expertise takes cues from the order of the phrases within the question, just like how people talk. Now, Google can higher perceive the that means of a search somewhat than simply the that means of the phrases within the phrase.

BERT will not be utilized in each search, nonetheless. Google will put it to make use of when it thinks that the algorithm can higher perceive the search entry with its assist. This algorithm layer could also be referred to as upon when the search question’s context must be clarified, similar to if the searcher misspells a phrase. On this case, it could actually assist find the phrase it thinks the searcher was making an attempt to spell. Additionally it is used when a search entry contains synonyms for phrases which might be in related paperwork. Google may make use of BERT to match the synonyms and show the specified consequence.

Robotic hand typing on keyboard with AI text over image

Robotic hand varieties on pc. AI modifications the way in which that we work together with computer systems and the information that we obtain.

How is BERT educated?

BERT was pre-trained concurrently on two duties. The primary is the masked language mannequin. The target is to have the mannequin study by making an attempt to foretell the masked phrase in a sequence. This coaching technique randomly masks some enter phrases with a [Mask] token, after which the pc predicts what that token can be on the output. Over time, the mannequin learns the completely different meanings behind the phrases primarily based on the opposite phrases round them and the order by which they seem within the sentence or phrase. Language modeling helps the framework develop an understanding of context.

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Subsequent sentence prediction then pre-trains BERT. With this coaching system, the pc receives a pair of sentences as enter, and it should predict whether or not the second is subsequent to the primary. Throughout this coaching, 50% of the time, the sentences are a pair the place the second sentence follows the primary, whereas 50% of the time, the second sentence is randomly chosen from the textual content corpus.

The ultimate coaching stage is ok tuning for all kinds of pure language processing duties. Since BERT is pre-trained on lots of textual content, it’s distinguished from different fashions and solely requires a remaining output layer and an information set distinctive to the duty the person is making an attempt to carry out. Anybody can do that, as BERT is open supply.

What makes BERT ‘unsupervised’?

BERT’s pre-training course of is taken into account unsupervised as a result of it was pre-trained on a uncooked, unlabeled dataset, which is one more reason why it’s a state-of-the-art language mannequin. BERT’s pre-training used plain textual content corpus, similar to Wikipedia and a corpus of plain textual content books.

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What does bidirectional imply in BERT?

BERT goals to resolve the boundaries that exist in the course of the pre-training strategy of earlier commonplace language fashions. Beforehand, these fashions may solely have a look at textual content from left to proper or proper to left. In that case, context doesn’t take into account subsequent phrases within the sequence.

Google search shows up on laptop on Chrome browser

Google search engine shows on the pc (Cyberguy.com)

BERT, somewhat, can study the context of a phrase primarily based on the phrases round it so it could actually perceive your complete sentence, or enter sequence, directly somewhat than one phrase at a time. That is how people perceive the context of a sentence. This bidirectional studying is made doable by the way in which that the framework is pre-trained with transformer-based structure.

What’s a Transformer, and the way does BERT use it?

The Transformer is an encoder-decoder structure by which BERT can higher perceive the contextual relationship of particular person phrases in a textual content. In fundamental phrases, the benefit is that Transformer fashions can study equally to people: figuring out a very powerful a part of a sequence (or a sentence).

WHAT IS CHATGPT?

The usage of self-attention layers within the Transformer structure is how the machine can higher perceive context by relating particular enter elements to others. Because the title suggests, self-attention layers permit the encoder to deal with particular elements of the enter. With self-attention, illustration of a sentence is deciphered by relating phrases throughout the sentence. This self-attention layer is the principle factor of the transformer structure inside BERT.

With this structure, BERT can relate completely different phrases in the identical sequence whereas figuring out the context of the opposite phrases as they relate to at least one one other. This system helps the system perceive a phrase primarily based on context, similar to understanding polysemous phrases, these with a number of meanings, and homographs, phrases which might be spelled the identical however have completely different meanings.

Is BERT higher than GPT?

Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) and BERT are two of the earliest pre-trained algorithms that carry out pure language processing (NLP) duties. The primary distinction between BERT and earlier iterations of GPT is that BERT is bidirectional whereas GPT is autoregressive, studying textual content from left to proper.

The varieties of duties Google BERT and ChatGPT-4 are used for are the principle distinction in these fashions. ChatGPT-4 is used primarily for conversational AI, similar to inside a chatbot. BERT handles question-answering and named-entity illustration duties, which require context to be understood.

BERT is exclusive as a result of it appears to be like in any respect the textual content in a sequence and carefully understands the context of a phrase because it pertains to the others inside that sequence. The Transformer structure, together with BERT’s bidirectional pre-training, accomplishes this growth.

Breana Scheckwitz is an search engine marketing Editor at Fox Information Digital.

Technology

How Netflix turned from chasing HBO to signing a deal with WWE

Published

7 hours ago

May 27, 2024

Press Room

How Netflix turned from chasing HBO to signing a deal with WWE

His dream project: a Netflix series created by Warren Beatty. “He’s great in long form,” Sarandos says. “His only problems have been when he’s constrained.” Sarandos is also warming up Jodie Foster, who directed an episode of Orange Is the New Black. “The goal,” he says, “is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us.” His seductive pitch to today’s new breed of TV auteurs: a huge audience, real money, no meddlesome ecutives (“I’m not going to give David Fincher notes”), no pilots (television’s great sucking hole of money and hope), and a full-season commitment.

Technology

Can you bypass VPN blocks, protect your online privacy?

Published

7 hours ago

May 27, 2024

Press Room

Can you bypass VPN blocks, protect your online privacy?

In today’s digital age, the significance of virtual private networks (VPNs) cannot be overstated. These powerful tools are essential for safeguarding your online activities and maintaining privacy against ever-evolving cyberthreats. Despite widespread recognition of their benefits, many users, like Beth, who recently contacted us, encounter challenges in effectively leveraging VPNs.

“Hi. I recently had some jerk hack my Amazon account and cause all sorts of problems and I believe they also hacked my Etsy account. … Anyway, I wanted to start using a VPN since 99% of my time both for work and at home is spent online and the same for my son and my husband. However, we noticed that a HUGE number of sites want to block people who are using VPNs. Do you have a suggestion for a VPN that is less likely to be blocked or noticed or however that works?” — Beth, Verbena, Alabama

Hey Beth, I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through such an ordeal. It’s understandable that you want to protect your online privacy and security by using a VPN. However, it’s true that some websites block VPN connections to prevent fraudulent activities and protect their own security. Below are the reasons why VPN connections are blocked and how to circumvent that.

CLICK TO GET KURT’S FREE NEWSLETTER, THE CYBERGUY REPORT

A woman working on her laptop and holding her phone (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

Tips for choosing a reliable VPN

Use a reputable VPN provider

Major paid VPN services invest significant resources into evading VPN blocking by websites and services. Their server networks are large and constantly rotating IP addresses, making it harder to blacklist.

Avoid free VPNs

Free VPN services tend to have smaller server networks and get their IP address ranges blacklisted more easily by anti-VPN measures. Paid providers are generally better at bypassing blocks.

Enable VPN obfuscation

Many VPNs offer an obfuscation or camouflage mode that disguises VPN traffic as regular internet traffic, helping evade deep packet inspection used to identify VPNs.

Use a browser plugin

Some VPN providers offer browser extensions that can sometimes bypass VPN blocks when the desktop app fails. The extensions route only the browser traffic through the VPN.

No VPN is 100% unblockable, but following these tips can help find a service that minimizes the chances of being blocked when trying to access restricted websites and services.

VPN on a woman’s smartphone (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

MORE: HOW TO USE VPNs WITHOUT COMPROMISING YOUR BANKING APPS

Reasons why VPN connections are blocked

Regarding your online privacy, it’s true that companies like Google have been caught taking information they were not given permission to access. However, it’s important to note that websites have the right to block VPN connections if they suspect fraudulent activities. This is because VPNs can be used to mask the identity of the user and bypass geographical restrictions, which can be used for illegal activities. Below are the top four reasons VPN connections are blocked.

1) Transparency: Financial institutions, in particular, often block VPNs because they want to preserve the transparency of transactions. In short, these institutions have a vested interest in seeing where and who the funds are coming and going. PayPal actually will go as far as to ban VPN users for life as it violates their Terms of Service agreements.

2) Limiting services: Streaming services do not want users to use VPN because it bypasses specific region-based restrictions. Certain content is only available to specific regions of the world, and VPN would mask the user’s location. Streaming services actively block VPN IP addresses, and if it is discovered you managed to bypass their IP blacklists with a regular VPN or VPN obfuscation, you can come under “fire” from the streaming services.

3) Preventing illegal activities: Some governments and companies utilize VPN blocking to ensure that they are protected against misuse, fraud, and other illegal activities.

4) Control: Some governments and companies use VPN blocking to monitor and trace back activities by individuals online. For instance, some companies ban VPN use, limiting nonwork access online, etc.

ASK ANY TECH QUESTION AND GET KURT’S FREE CYBERGUY REPORT NEWSLETTER HERE

A woman on her computer (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

MORE: HOW TO SECURE YOUR HOT SPOT PRIVACY, SECURITY WITH VPN

Changing the VPN server location

One effective way to bypass VPN blocking is to connect to a different VPN server location or city. Many websites and services that attempt to block VPNs do so by blacklisting known VPN IP address ranges. By switching to a VPN server in a different city or country, you can obtain a new IP address that may not be blocked.

Most reputable VPN providers have a large global server network spanning hundreds or thousands of servers across dozens of countries. This gives you many options to try different server locations until you find one that is not blocked by the website or service you’re trying to access.

The steps are usually:

Disconnect from your current VPN server
In your VPN app, browse the server list and select a new city or country
Connect to the new VPN server location

By changing your virtual location frequently, you make it much harder for anti-VPN measures to keep up with blacklisting all the IP addresses associated with a particular VPN service.

How to choose a VPN that keeps you connected

Consider using a VPN to protect against being tracked and to identify your potential location on websites that you visit. Many sites can read your IP address and, depending on their privacy settings, may display the city from which you are corresponding. A VPN will disguise your IP address to show an alternate location. See my expert review of the best VPNs for browsing the web privately on your Windows, Mac, Android & iOS devices.

MORE: WILL A VPN PREVENT APPS FROM TRACKING ME?

Kurt’s key takeaways

Given the tremendous amounts of personal data gleaned through daily online use, it is understandable why you might want to utilize a VPN service. Unfortunately, some companies and government agencies block VPN users, which is completely legal. While it is not foolproof and can slow down your connection speed, VPN obfuscation might help you continue to use VPN without getting blocked.

Do you think the benefits of using a VPN outweigh the inconvenience of potentially being blocked by some websites? Why or why not? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

For more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/Newsletter.

Ask Kurt a question or let us know what stories you’d like us to cover.

Follow Kurt on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Answers to the most asked CyberGuy questions:

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

A big list of the best tiny games on the internet

Published

14 hours ago

May 27, 2024

Press Room

A big list of the best tiny games on the internet

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 39, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready for gadgets this week, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been writing about Surfaces and other tablets, chatting with some internet friends about the fall of Red Lobster, reading about Magic: The Gathering and the history of emoji, watching MoviePass, MovieCrash, weeding my patio with a literal flamethrower, and for some reason, eating a lot of popcorn. Like, a lot of popcorn.

I also have for you a bunch of cool new gadgets, a new YouTube channel you’re going to love, a new-old Mario game, a clever new AI tool for Windows, lots and lots of fun new games, and a whole bunch more. Let’s do it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into this week? What should everyone be into? What is so awesome that everyone needs to know about it right this second or else? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, and tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

The Sonos Ace headphones. I’m generally very happy with my Bose QuietComfort Headphones, which are kind of beaten up but still work great. Even for $450, though, the Ace look really nice — I dig the super-minimalist vibe, almost like they’re an early prototype the company shipped. Really curious to see the reviews on these.
The new Surface Pro. If you’re one of the “why can’t my iPad do more stuff” kinds of people, the device you want might not be an iPad. It might be the new $999 Surface Pro, which Microsoft promises has great performance and battery, comes in cool colors, and has a really nifty new keyboard attachment.
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Another great reboot from Nintendo, which is remarkably good at sprucing up old Mario games and getting me hooked on them all over again. Like my colleague Andrew Webster wrote, the Switch is turning into a retro Mario RPG machine, and it’s awesome.
Howtown. I love a good “no mystery too small” show, which is why I’m a religious consumer of things like Search Engine and Underunderstood. This new YouTube channel, from two excellent creators, is an insta-subscribe for me. And they have some really fun guests lined up!
Microsoft Recall. One of the cooler AI apps I’ve seen — and maybe the best argument yet for why you need an “AI PC.” Sure, an app that tracks everything you do on your computer feels slightly creepy, but that’s kind of already how your computer works. This just makes it useful.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Fury Road is one of the coolest movies ever made, if you ask me, and by all accounts, Furiosa is a worthy — if slightly slower and less, uh, bonkers — follow-up. It’s also apparently the rare prequel that adds something to the first flick; guess which two movies I’ll be watching this weekend.
Stompers. I’m currently very into silly, chill, less-intense workout apps, and this is such a funny one. You compete with your friends to walk more, and when you’re winning, your friends get, like, virtual bananas to slow you down. Delightful!
Canva. Canva launched a big redesign this week (at least, if you can find a “secret portal”), which comes with a bunch of clever AI features and some new ways for your IT department to give Canva money. I don’t use Canva much personally, but the folks I know who do tend to love it. This should be good news.
Hellblade II. This game sounds genuinely terrifying — and there’s not much I love more than a game that makes me scream out loud. The sound design appears to be particularly intense, so if you need me this weekend, I’ll be holed up in the dark scaring myself half to death.
The Daylight DC1. Half of me rolls my eyes at anyone who’s like, “Gadgets are bad. Here’s a gadget to save you from gadgets.” And it’s $729! But I love the retro-future aesthetic here, I’m hopeful the screen tech works, and I’ll be keeping an eye on this thing for sure.

Group project

Last week, I asked you to share your favorite minigames on the internet. Things you can play in a few minutes. Maybe you play once a day, maybe you play it 50 times in a row while you’re on the train to work. Did I ask for this because selfishly I’m sort of bored of Quordle and Name Drop and wanted new stuff to try? Partly! But I also suspected I’m not the only one who loves these games.

Oh boy, was I right. Thank you to everyone who responded! I got a ton of great suggestions, and I want to share as many of them as I can. First of all, here are the ones you recommended the most often:

Coffee Golf. A new five-hole golf course to play every day. (This was the most recommended game of the week, by a lot, and I can see why. I love it.)
Bandle. Guess the song, one instrument at a time.
Travle. Get from one place to another, one adjacent country at a time.
Connections. Find the four words that belong together.
Framed. Guess the movie, one screenshot at a time.
Wordle. Can’t forget the OG!

And here is a list, in no particular order but very slightly categorized, of some of the other great game recommendations I got. First up, there are the games that I’d describe as “Wordle, but not exactly:”

Worldle. Guess the country by its shape.
Summle. Put the numbers and operators in place to make math equations work.
Episode. Like Framed, but for TV shows.
CineQuote. Guess the movie, one line at a time.
Murdle. Solve a mystery with only a few clues.
Waffle. Rearrange the board until all the letters are in the right place.
Knotwords. Like sudoku meets a crossword puzzle.
Strands. A word search with a theme.
Queens / Pinpoint / Crossclimb. The three new daily games on LinkedIn, which are all pretty fun.
Housle. Guess the house price by the photo.

I heard about a bunch of Immaculate Grid games, which are a huge new category and are very fun:

Immaculate Grid. The original, I think? Guess the athlete, across lots of sports.
GeoGrid. Guess the country.
Cinematrix. Guess the movie.

And last but not least, there were the other games. Not all of them are daily, but I think they fit the “it’s a thing you can do a couple of minutes at a time,” so I’ll allow them:

Pedantle. Find words in a redacted page to figure out which Wikipedia entry it is.
Chrome’s Dino Game. Best use of a broken webpage ever.
Contexto. Try to guess the word just by guessing other words.
Football Bingo. Turns out, I don’t know soccer as well as I thought.
Untitled Game. It loads a blank webpage. You figure out what to do next.
Random battles on Pokemon Showdown.
Universal Paperclips. You make paperclips. And sell them. As many as you can. Forever.
Box Office Game. The game gives you a weekend and some numbers, you try to guess the most popular movies.

I now have about two-thirds of these games bookmarked in my browser, and I will be playing them all every day forever. I may never be productive again. Thanks again to everyone who shared their favorite games, and I hope you find something fun to play!

Screen share

David Imel is a man of many talents. He uses weird, old photography equipment to make truly gorgeous panoramic photos; he makes great videos going super duper deep into how we talk to each other online; he hosts podcasts and makes videos with the rest of the MKBHD crew.

I asked David to share his homescreen, both to see which of his cool photos he picked as a wallpaper and to snoop on whether he had any cool photography / podcasting apps I didn’t know about. Turns out, he’s pretty minimalist! Here’s David’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The wallpaper: A picture I took in Ohio while chasing the eclipse on a Fujifilm GFX 100S II Frankenstein attached to my Chamonix 4×5 view camera.

The apps: Photos, Settings, Viewfinder, Fujifilm Camera Remote, Telegram, Gmail, Pocket Casts, Messages, Arc, Spotify.

Gotta be honest, I generally use the swipe down to search apps gesture every time I want to use an app. I don’t know if that makes me a psycho, but I only keep a few on the homescreen. The widgets are for my bedroom lights and blinds — all running on Matter. 🤙 I get very little light in my apartment, so the blinds close at 9PM and open at 7AM to help me wake up, and I toggle the lights manually.

Viewfinder Preview. This is my favorite app for shooting film. I mostly use it for my 6:17 and 6:24 120 film cameras, but it’s amazing. You can emulate any film format and field of view, and you can take digital copies to both remember which image you shot and what your settings were. It’s also a light meter and has been super accurate.

Fujifilm Camera Remote. I use this to transfer photos from my X100 (my daily camera) to my phone. The new app (Fujfilmi XApp) never works for me for some reason, but the old app still works great.

Pocket Casts. This is probably the most-used app on my phone. I’ve used this app since like 2010 for podcasts, and since I bought it once for $7 way back in the day, I got grandfathered in for a lifetime pro tier once they added a subscription model. It’s a really fantastic podcast app, but I am aware that they hide a lot of features behind a subscription now, which kinda sucks.

Arc Search. David, I think you and I are probably both the biggest Arc fans on the internet. The browser is just so delightful, and the desktop app is absolutely incredible for research; segmenting out my work life / accounts / research projects, and spaces is great. I could talk forever about how much I love the actually useful AI features they have in the desktop app like tab renaming, download / file renaming, tidy tab sorting, etc., alongside pinned tabs, the ability to share folders, and more.

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

Right now, I’m in the middle of getting a Hasselblad Flextight film scanner up and running. It’s the highest-quality scan you can get outside of a drum scan, but they’re so old, you have to use a super old Mac for it. My friend Willem Verbeeck made a video on it recently. A nice ex-professional photographer in California found out I’m into panoramic photography (especially my Fujifilm TX-1) and had a mask specifically made for it. It weighs 60 pounds.
I’m a big fan of Casey Newton and Kevin Roose’s Hard Fork podcast. It’s not exactly new, but I think they have a great dialogue, and considering they both cover similar things in their respective publications, the conversations are a great mix of funny, intelligent, and engaging.
I don’t watch a ton of movies, shows, or YouTube, but I’ve been going back through VSauce’s channel and watching his old videos just because I really like the style of WHY WHY WHY storytelling. Oldie, but very goodie. Also Gawx Art might be the best YouTuber on the platform right now, and this interview with him on Jack Conte’s Digital Spaghetti channel is freaking awesome.

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.

“I loved Jenny Nicholson’s YouTube essay about the demise of the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel experience. It’s long (four hours!), but she goes into every detail, from concept, to her own visit, to why it failed. Totally worth the time.” – Mike

“ReminderCal is a really awesome app that syncs iOS Reminders so they appear in iOS Calendar. I’ve set up Shortcut automations for it, and now it works like magic (even when using the app switcher!) and feels like Apple integrated it! Plus I’m absolutely loving Hit Me Hard and Soft. The whole album is Billie Eilish at her best, and I can’t get “Chihiro” out of my head!” – John

“Just saw someone mention SequoiaView, which is great, but WizTree is about 1 billion times faster. Hope it helps someone in a rush to clean up a disk…” – César

“I installed a Synology NAS in my home and set it up as a NAS (obviously) but also as a Plex server, which works really well! I can now watch my old DVDs and Blu-rays again using Plex, after importing them as MP4s, and it can also configure itself automatically to be accessible from outside my local network.” – Wenzel

“Bought a bike recently and am really enjoying viewing my Apple Watch metrics on my iPhone. Using the Peak Design case and bike mount.” – Hobie

“After a long day, my favorite way of winding down before sleeping is watching this YouTube channel, Virtual Japan, that makes videos walking around Tokyo and other cities of Japan in a beautiful 4K HDR. My favorite videos are this one from an Onsen town and this one from a rainy midnight in Kyoto. It’s one of the best ways of calming the mind and the body before sleeping.” – Guilherme

“Apparently this isn’t new, but I just heard about Hoopla this week! It’s an app that you can connect your local library card to and gain access to their library of digital content including streaming movies and TV shows! I’ve found several shows on there that are otherwise only available on a streaming service I don’t want to pay for, so it’s been a great find for me this week!” – Charles

“Probably not new, but I learned about PlayCover and have been using it to replay the GTA III / Vice City / San Andreas games on my MacBook using my Netflix subscription.” – Alex

Signing off

About this time of year, a lot of people start asking me (and everyone else I know who likes gadgets) which Bluetooth speaker to buy. It’s party and barbecue time, I guess! There are lots of good choices out there, but let me just save you a bunch of time: buy a UE Wonderboom. The whole Boom lineup is great, honestly, but this one’s plenty loud, it’s tiny, it lasts forever, it sounds great, it’s $100. You might be able to beat it on one of those things, but I’ve never found a better “awesome speaker in a tiny box” anywhere. When the weather’s good, mine goes everywhere with me. Maybe we can hang at the beach and sync ours up for some sweet stereo tunes. Hit me up.