Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 51, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I hope you love spy shows as much as I do, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about cobalt miners and religious AI and the history of the Moleskine, listening to pop-punk Disney songs on repeat, finally starting The Sopranos (I know, I know), soundtracking my workday with the Earth.fm app, giving Tweek another whirl for simple task and calendar stuff, and spending too much time debating whether NFL Sunday Ticket is worth the money. It’s definitely not, but it also, like, kind of is.I also have for you everybody’s favorite new PlayStation game,... Continue reading…

I've been a convert to E Ink displays ever since I got one of the early Kindle models, and have amassed an extensive collection of the best e-readers that I rotate between for my nightly reading. Lately, I've been alternating between the Kobo Clara Color and Onyx Boox Tab Ultra C, which are very different devices. Still, both use color E Ink screens, bringing joy to my withered heart while I use them to read.

From LDPlayer to Gameloop, there are plenty of emulators that can run Android games on PC. When compared to the most popular emulation apps, the Google Play Games Emulator offers one of the most straightforward ways to enjoy your favorite mobile titles on your powerful gaming system. Unfortunately, the first-party emulator has a marginally small library of games and zero apps that you can install from its built-in Play Store.

Benchmarking is one of the most popular pastimes of the PC community, whether the goal is to simply measure the performance of a PC or to get bragging rights on leaderboards. It's not difficult to run a benchmark; you just have to download some software, run it, and record the results. From casual users to professional reviewers, benchmarks are practically universal.

Illustration: The Verge Tomorrow’s iPhone 16 launch won’t be the final Apple event of the year, as the company plans to debut some M4 Macs and new iPads with another showing in October, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter.Apple could be announcing a new iPad Mini for the first time since 2021 in October, as well as a Mac Mini with an M4 chip, packed into a box about the size of an Apple TV, making that the first real redesign of the diminutive desktop in over a decade. So it’s about time for both! The event will include new versions of the iMac and MacBook Pro, both with M4 chips, as well, Gurman writes.Between that and updated iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods expected at tomorrow’s “Glowtime” event, only a handful of Apple... Continue reading…

Phew - IFA has really taken all of us at XDA for a spin. Everyone on the team has either been writing news about it, pitching features about it, or even walking among its hallowed halls and seeing all of the next-gen hardware up close and personal. I think I've seen more press releases in the last few days than I have in months.

What would you do if you got your hands on a cheap electronic kid's toy? If you're a tinkerer like most of the Raspberry Pi community is, there are probably a thousand and one different ways you could turn a cheap plastic device into something grander with a few extra boards, a bit of soldering, and some programming. As it turns out, someone has discovered that a $5 toy makes for an excellent video game controller if you tweak it correctly. But here's the best bit: the process is so noninvasive that you can revert it back to its original toy state if you want.

Illustration by Carlo Cadenas / The Verge A pair of security researchers say they discovered a vulnerability in login systems for records that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) uses to verify airline crew members at airport security checkpoints. The bug let anyone with a “basic knowledge of SQL injection” add themselves to airline rosters, potentially letting them breeze through security and into the cockpit of a commercial airplane, researcher Ian Carroll wrote in a blog post in August.Carroll and his partner, Sam Curry, apparently discovered the vulnerability while probing the third-party website of a vendor called FlyCASS that provides smaller airlines access to the TSA’s Known Crewmember (KCM) system and Cockpit Access Security System (CASS). They found that... Continue reading…

PC components are delicate, sensitive electronics that are easily broken if mishandled. I'm not referring to the disastrous mistakes during PC building that could virtually break your precious components. Instead, I'm about to focus on ways you could unintentionally endanger your PC or even break it beyond repair.

Audio quality is the most important thing when consuming online media these days. So much so, that even content creators focus on this more than their overall video quality. This is because it's much easier to watch a video that is a bit blurry than it is to listen to something with terrible audio quality. No one wants to hear crackling noises or, even worse, be unable to hear the person they are trying to listen to.

The first Apple Watch was announced on September 9th, 2014. A decade later, it’s the most popular smartwatch in the world. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s been ten years since the Apple Watch was announced. Where does it go from here? Continue reading…

AUKEY Aukey debuted three new magnetic wireless chargers at IFA in Berlin that come with fans to keep your phone cooler while it’s charging. The company says that means the chargers, called the MagFusion 3-in-1 Pro, the MagFusion GameFrost, and the MagFusion Dash Pro, will charge your phone faster, too.All three use the Qi2 standard, which means up to 15-watt charging for compatible phones and backward compatibility with normal Qi devices. Aukey claims they can drop charging temperatures as much as 68 degrees Fahrenheit compared to “traditional wireless chargers.” The MagFusion 3-in-1 Pro stand can simultaneously charge an iPhone, AirPods, and an Apple Watch. It can tilt up and down over a 30-degree range, also. The MagFusion GameFrost is,... Continue reading…