Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 87, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy It’s Officially Too Hot Now Week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Sabrina Carpenter and Khaby Lame and intimacy coordinators, finally making a dent in Barbarians at the Gate, watching all the Ben Schwartz and Friends I can find on YouTube, planning my days with the new Finalist beta, recklessly installing all the Apple developer betas after WWDC, thoroughly enjoying Dakota Johnson’s current press tour, and trying to clear all my inboxes before I go on parental leave. It’s… going.I also have for you a much-awaited new browser, a surprise update to a great photo editor, a neat trailer for a meh-looking movie, a classic Steve Jobs speech, and much more. Slightly shorter issue this week, sorry; there’s just a lot going on, but I didn’t want to leave y’all hanging entirely. Oh, and: we’ll be off next week, for Juneteenth, vacation, and general summer chaos reasons. We’ll be back in full force after that, though! Let’s get into it.(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, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)The DropDia. I know there are a lot of Arc fans here in the Installerverse, and I know you, like me, will have a lot of feelings about the company’s new and extremely AI-focused browser. Personally, I don’t see leaving Arc anytime soon, but there are some really fascinating ideas (and nice design touches) in Dia already. Snapseed 3.0. I completely forgot Snapseed even existed, and now here’s a really nice update with a bunch of new editing tools and a nice new redesign! As straightforward photo editors go, this is one of the better ones. The new version is only on iOS right now, but I assume it’s heading to Android shortly.“I Tried To Make Something In America.” I was first turned onto the story of the Smarter Scrubber by a great Search Engine episode, and this is a great companion to the story about what it really takes to bring manufacturing back to the US. And why it’s hard to justify.. That link, and the trailer, will only do anything for you if you have a newer iPhone. But even if you don’t care about the movie, the trailer — which actually buzzes in sync with the car’s rumbles and revs — is just really, really cool. Android 16. You can’t get the cool, colorful new look just yet or the desktop mode I am extremely excited about — there’s a lot of good stuff in Android 16 but most of it is coming later. Still, Live Updates look good, and there’s some helpful accessibility stuff, as well.The Infinite Machine Olto. I am such a sucker for any kind of futuristic-looking electric scooter, and this one really hits the sweet spot. Part moped, part e-bike, all Blade Runner vibes. If it wasn’t $3,500, then I would’ve probably ordered one already.The Fujifilm X-E5. I kept wondering why Fujifilm didn’t just make, like, a hundred different great-looking cameras at every imaginable price because everyone wants a camera this cool. Well, here we are! It’s a spin on the X100VI but with interchangeable lenses and a few power-user features. All my photographer friends are going to want this.Call Her Alex. I confess I’m no Call Her Daddy diehard, but I found this two-part doc on Alex Cooper really interesting. Cooper’s story is all about understanding people, the internet, and what it means to feel connected now. It’s all very low-stakes and somehow also existential? It’s only two parts, you should watch it.“Steve Jobs - 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.” For the 20th anniversary of Jobs’ famous (and genuinely fabulous) speech, the Steve Jobs Archive put together a big package of stories, notes, and other materials around the speech. Plus, a newly high-def version of the video. This one’s always worth the 15 minutes.Dune: Awakening. Dune has ascended to the rare territory of “I will check out anything from this franchise, ever, no questions asked.” This game is big on open-world survival and ornithopters, too, so it’s even more my kind of thing. And it’s apparently punishingly difficult in spots.CrowdsourcedHere’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.“I had tried the paper planner in the leather Paper Republic journal but since have moved onto the Remarkable Paper Pro color e-ink device which takes everything you like about paper but makes it editable and color coded. Combine this with a Remarkable planner in PDF format off of Etsy and you are golden.” — Jason“I started reading a manga series from content creator Cory Kenshin called Monsters We Make. So far, I love it. Already preordered Vol. 2.” — Rob“I recently went down the third party controller rabbit hole after my trusty adapted Xbox One controller finally kicked the bucket, and I wanted something I could use across my PC, phone, handheld, Switch, etc. I’ve been playing with the GameSir Cyclone 2 for a few weeks, and it feels really deluxe. The thumbsticks are impossibly smooth and accurate thanks to its TMR joysticks. The face buttons took a second for my brain to adjust to; the short travel distance initially registered as mushy, but once I stopped trying to pound the buttons like I was at the arcade, I found the subtle mechanical click super satisfying.” — Sam“The Apple TV Plus miniseries Long Way Home. It’s Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s fourth Long Way series. This time they are touring some European countries on vintage bikes that they fixed, and it’s such a light-hearted show from two really down to earth humans. Connecting with other people in different cultures and seeing their journey is such a treat!” — Esmael“Podcast recommendation: Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Christianity Today. A deep dive into the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s.” — Drew“Splatoon 3 (the free Switch 2 update) and the new How to Train Your Dragon.” — Aaron“I can’t put Mario Kart World down. When I get tired of the intense Knockout Tour mode I go to Free Roam and try to knock out P-Switch challenges, some of which are really tough! I’m obsessed.” — Dave“Fable, a cool app for finding books with virtual book clubs. It’s the closest to a more cozy online bookstore with more honest reviews. I just wish you could click on the author’s name to see their other books.” — Astrid“This is the Summer Games Fest week (formerly E3, RIP) and there are a TON of game demos to try out on Steam. One that has caught my attention / play time the most is Wildgate. It’s a team based spaceship shooter where ship crews battle and try to escape with a powerful artifact.” — Sean“Battlefront 2 is back for some reason. Still looks great.” — IanSigning offI have long been fascinated by weather forecasting. I recommend Andrew Blum’s book, The Weather Machine, to people all the time, as a way to understand both how we learned to predict the weather and why it’s a literally culture-changing thing to be able to do so. And if you want to make yourself so, so angry, there’s a whole chunk of Michael Lewis’s book, The Fifth Risk, about how a bunch of companies managed to basically privatize forecasts… based on government data. The weather is a huge business, an extremely powerful political force, and even more important to our way of life than we realize. And we’re really good at predicting the weather!I’ve also been hearing for years that weather forecasting is a perfect use for AI. It’s all about vast quantities of historical data, tiny fluctuations in readings, and finding patterns that often don’t want to be found. So, of course, as soon as I read my colleague Justine Calma’s story about a new Google project called Weather Lab, I spent the next hour poking through the data to see how well DeepMind managed to predict and track recent storms. It’s deeply wonky stuff, but it’s cool to see Big Tech trying to figure out Mother Nature — and almost getting it right. Almost.See you next week!See More:

With the ongoing jobs cuts across the gaming industry, the shift of “Grand Theft Auto 6” from release this fall to a launch next spring, and the distraction of the first new Nintendo console in eight years, there was a chance that Summer Game Fest 2025 wouldn’t have the same allure as the annual video game showcase has had in years past. (There was also the factor of the actors strike against video game companies, which, as of June 11, has been called off by SAG-AFTRA.) Related Stories But the gamers came out in full force for the Geoff Keighley-hosted event on June 6, which live-streamed out of the YouTube Theater at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Popular on Variety “Viewership was up significantly year over year,” Keighley told Variety. “Stream charts said it doubled its audience year over year for the peak concurrency to over 3 million peak concurrent viewers, which does not include China.” In person, both the Summer Game Fest live showcase event and its subsequent weekend Play Days event for developers and press saw “significantly higher” media creator attendance this year: more than 600 registered attendees vs. “somewhere in the 400s” in 2024, per SGF. The boost is an indicator that both the current U.S. political climate and significant changes in 2025’s game release schedule, like the delay of “Grand Theft Auto 6” until next May, didn’t affect interest in the event. “Things happen in the industry all the time that are big news worthy happenings,” Summer Game Fest producer and iam8bit co-creator Amanda White. “Switch 2 just happened and we’re here, it’s all working out, everybody’s having a great time playing games. It’s not irrelevant — it’s just part of the way things go.” As big a hit as the Switch 2 was with consumers upon release — selling more than 3.5 million units during the first four days after its June 5 launch — and noted multiple times during the Summer Game Fest live showcase on June 6, Nintendo’s new console was not the star of the three-day Play Days event for developers and media in Downtown Los Angeles, which ran June 7-9. “I have not seen a single attendee with a Switch 2 on campus,” SGF producer and iam8bit co-creator Jon M. Gibson said with a laugh. “There’s a few Switch 2s that Nintendo supplied. Some dev kits for Bandai and for Capcom. Of course, the launch happened on Thursday, so bandwidth from Nintendo is stretched thin with all the midnight launches and stuff. But they’re really supportive and supply some for some pre-release games, which is exciting.” Some big video publishers such as EA, Take-Two and Ubisoft skipped this year’s SGF, eliminating potential splashy in-show hits for eagerly anticipated games like “Grand Theft Auto 6.” But SGF still managed a few big moments, like the announcement and trailer release for “Resident Evil Requiem.” Gibson and White attribute that reveal and other moments like it to the immense trust the festival has managed to build up with video game publishers in just a few years. “We are very proud of our ability to keep the trust of all the publishers on campus,” Gibson said. “Six years into SGF as a whole, four years into Play Days, we’re very good. Because we have to print everything ahead of time, too. So there are lots of unannounced things that we’re very careful about who sees what. We have vendors who print and produce and manufacture physical objects under very tight wraps. We’re just very protective, because we know what it means to have to keep a secret because we’ve had our own games that we’ve had to announce, as well. Capcom is a great example with ‘Resident Evil.’ We knew that for a very long time, but they trusted us with information, and we were very careful about what our team actually knew what was going on.” And even though some of the gaming giants sat this year out, White says conversations were already happening on the Play Days campus about who is ready to return next year and what they’ll bring. “People get excited, they come and see. And each year we grow, so people see more potential,” White said. As for next year, the June show will take place just a few weeks after the planned May 26 release for “GTA 6.” While Switch 2 didn’t seem to distract too much, will the draw of playing the newly launched “GTA 6” prove to be so powerful it outshines whatever could be announced at SGF 2026? “My view is that all boats rise with ‘GTA’ launch,” Keighley said. “It is a singular cultural event that is the biggest thing in all of entertainment this decade. It will bring more people into gaming, sell lots of consoles and bring back lapsed gamers. There will never be a better time to feel the excitement and energy around gaming than SGF 2026.” See more from Variety‘s Q&A with Keighley about Summer Game Fest 2025 below. How was this year’s show impacted by the date shift for “GTA 6”? How much was planned before and after that big announcement? So far as I know there wasn’t any material impact, but I think the date move did allow a number of teams to feel more confident announcing their launch dates. Halfway through the year, what do you see as some of the biggest trends in gaming for 2025, and how did you look to reflect that in the show? We continue to see some of the most interesting and successful games come from smaller teams outside of the traditional publisher system – games like “Clair Obscur,” “Blue Prince” and “REPO.” So we wanted to highlight some of those projects at the show like “Ill” and “Mortal Shell 2.” What game announcements and trailers do you think resonated most with audiences after this show? What assets were the most popular? “Resident Evil Requiem” was a massive moment. Also we saw a lot of love for “Ill” from a small team in Canada and Armenia.

First Enchantment The Sims 4 Enchanted by Nature gets an official reveal trailer confirming that fairies are so back As promised, Maxis has dropped the first trailer for the next major expansion to The Sims 4, coming this July. Image credit: EA / Maxis News by Sherif Saed Contributing Editor Additional contributions by Rebecca Jones Published on June 12, 2025 Our first look at Enchanted by Nature, the new expansion coming to The Sims 4 next month, has officially arrived. Maxis and EA previously confirmed that the first trailer would be dropping today, before we get a deep look at gameplay on June 26. This is the game’s first major expansion since Businesses & Hobbies arrived in March, and as the name suggests, adds nature-inspired content. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The major reveal, of course, is the long-anticipated return of fairies to The Sims, and it looks as though plenty of notes have been taken from their extremely well-received debut as a playable occult type back in The Sims 3. We all kind of saw that one coming though, since EA are surely too canny to blatantly tease Simmers with a popular returning feature only to pull the rug out. More unexpectedly, it seems that your Sims will soon be able to reject indoor life entirely by foraging for their meals, wild bathing, and sleeping out under the stars. All fun and games until they run afoul of one of several new and interesting ailments being introduced in the pack; fortunately, treating said ailments with traditional remedies also seems to have a big role to play as part of the new Apothecary... crafting type? Skill? Career? We'll surely find out more in that gameplay trailer, due out later this month. All of this takes place the new world of Innisgreen, which is partially inspired by Ireland, but only if you squint through a heavy layer of folklore and fantasy theming. It's definitely more Hobbiton than 21st century hometown for the most part, unless our Irish cousins have started living in whimsical treehouses and neglected to tell us; although one neighbourhood does seem to be based on the more down-to-earth setting of Cobh, County Cork — home of the famous "Deck of Cards" painted houses. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Enchanted by Nature is part of a larger nature-themed season for The Sims 4. Though the expansion itself doesn’t arrive until July 10, the limited-time event, Nature’s Calling, kicks off June 24 to set the scene for what’s to come. Then, on July 1, the game’s next update will arrive, bringing with it more nature-themed skins and other customisation options. This is all part of The Sims 4’s June-August roadmap, which developer Maxis outlined just last week. The roadmap also revealed another major update is scheduled for August 19, itself adding even more customisation options to the game. Next up, of course, is the proper Enchanted by Nature gameplay reveal, which takes place just two weeks from now, on Thursday, June 26.

IntroductionHello! My name is Denys. I was born and raised in Nigeria, where I'm currently based. I began my journey into 3D art in March 2022, teaching myself through online resources, starting, of course, with the iconic donut tutorial on YouTube. Since then, I've continued to grow my skills independently, and now I'm working toward a career in 3D generalism, with a particular interest in environment art.I originally got into Blender because SketchUp wasn't free, and I could not keep up with the subscriptions. While searching for alternatives, I came across Blender. That's when I realized I had installed it once years ago, but back then, the interface completely intimidated me, and I gave up on it. This time, though, I decided to stick with it – and I'm glad I did.I started out creating simple models. One of my first big projects was modeling the entire SpongeBob crew. That led to my first animation, and eventually, the first four episodes of a short animated series (though it's still incomplete). As I grew more confident, I began participating in online 3D competitions, like cgandwe, where I focused on designing realistic environments. Those experiences have played a huge role in getting me to where I am today.Getting Started Before starting any scene, I always look for references. It might not be the most original approach, but it's what works best for me. One piece that inspired me was a beautiful artwork by Calder Moore. I bookmarked it as soon as I saw it back in 2023, and luckily, I finally found the time to bring it to life last month.BlockoutThe goal was to match the original camera angle and roughly model the main frame of the structures. It wasn't perfect, but modeling and placing the lower docks helped me get the perspective right. Then I moved on to modeling and positioning the major structures in the scene.I gave myself two weeks to complete this project. And as much as I enjoy modeling, I also enjoy not modeling, so I turned to asset kits and free models to help speed things up. I came across an awesome paid kit by Bigmediumsmall and instantly knew it would fit perfectly into my scene.I also downloaded a few models from Sketchfab, including a lamp, desk console, freighter controls, and a robotic arm, which I later took apart to add extra detail. Another incredibly helpful tool was the Random Flow add-on by BlenderGuppy, which made adding sci-fi elements much easier. Lastly, I pulled in some models from my older sci-fi and cyberpunk projects to round things out.Kitbashing Once I had the overall shape I was aiming for, I moved on to kitbashing to pack in as much detail as possible. There wasn't any strict method to the madness; I simply picked assets I liked, whether it was a set of pipes, vents, or even a random shape that just worked in the sci-fi context. I focused first on kitbashing the front structure, and used the Random Flow add-on to fill in areas where I didn't kitbash manually. Then I moved on to the other collections, following the same process.The freighter was the final piece of the puzzle, and I knew it was going to be a challenge. Part of me wanted to model it entirely from scratch, but the more practical side knew I could save a lot of time by sticking with my usual method. So I modeled the main shapes myself, then kitbashed the details to bring it to life. I also grabbed some crates from Sketchfab to fill out the scene.Texturing This part was easily my favorite, and there was no shortcut here. I had to meticulously create each material myself. Well, I did use PBR materials downloaded from CGAmbient as a base, but I spent a lot of time tweaking and editing them to get everything just right.Texturing has always been my favorite stage when building scenes like this. Many artists prefer external tools like Substance 3D Painter (which I did use for some of the models), but I've learned so much about procedural texturing, especially from RyanKingArt, that I couldn't let it go. It's such a flexible and rewarding approach, and I love pushing it as far as I can.I wanted most of the colors in the scene to be dark, but I did keep the original color of the pipes and the pillars, just to add a little bit of vibrance to the scene. I also wanted the overall texture to be very rough and grungy. One of the biggest helps in achieving this was using the Grunge Maps from Substance 3D Painter. I found a way to extract them into Blender, and it helped.A major tool during the texturing phase was Jsplacement, which I used to procedurally generate sci-fi grids and plates. This was the icing on the cake for adding intricate details. Whenever an area felt too flat, I applied bump maps with these grids and panels to bring the materials to life. For example, both the lamp pole and the entire black metal material feature these Jsplacement Maps.Lighting For this, I didn't do anything fancy. I knew the scene was in a high altitude, so I looked for HDRI with a cloudless sky, and I boosted the saturation up a little to give it that high altitude look.Post-Production The rendering phase was challenging since I was working on a low-end laptop. I couldn't render the entire scene all at once, so I broke it down by collections and rendered them as separate layers. Then, I composited the layers together in post-production. I'm not big on heavy post-work, so I kept it simple, mostly tweaking brightness and saturation on my phone. That's about it for the post-production process.Conclusion The entire project took me 10 days to complete, working at least four hours each day. Although I've expressed my love for texturing, my favorite part of this project was the detailing and kitbashing. I really enjoyed piecing all the small details together. The most challenging part was deciding which assets to use and where to place them. I had a lot of greebles to choose from, but I'm happy with the ones I selected; they felt like a perfect fit for the scene.I know kitbashing sometimes gets a negative reputation in the 3D community, but I found it incredibly relieving. Honestly, this project wouldn't have come together without it, so I fully embraced the process.I'm excited to keep making projects like this. The world of 3D art is truly an endless and vast realm, and I encourage every artist like me to keep exploring it, one project at a time.Denys Molokwu, 3D Artist

In a confident nod to the enduring power of print, Glasgow-based Newspaper Club has launched The Printing Press, its first-ever self-published newspaper. Known for helping designers, brands, and artists print their own publications, Newspaper Club is now telling its own story through a medium it knows best. "We're always sharing the brilliant things people print with us – usually online, through our blog and Instagram," explains CMO Kaye Symington. "Our customers have some great stories behind their projects, and it just made sense for a newspaper printing company to have a newspaper of its own!" Teaming up with their brilliant design partner Euan Gallacher at D8 Studio, Kaye said they also wanted to show what's possible with the format: "A lot of people just think of newspapers as something for breaking news, but there's so much more you can do with them." The tabloid-style publication explores the creative resurgence of newspapers as branding tools and storytelling devices, which is music to our ears. Inside, readers will find thoughtful features on how modern brands are embracing print, including interviews with Papier's head of brand on narrative design, Cubitts' in-house designer on developing a tactile, analogue campaign, and Vocal Type's Tré Seals on transforming a museum exhibition into a printed experience. Why the mighty turnaround? "There's just nothing quite like newsprint," says Kaye. "It slows you down in the best way, especially when there's so much competing for your attention online. A newspaper isn't trying to go viral, which is refreshing." She adds: "Putting together a newspaper makes you think differently. It's scrappy and democratic, which makes it a great space to play around and tell stories more creatively. And at the end of it, you've got something real to hand someone instead of just sending them a link." To celebrate this almighty launch, Newspaper Club is going beyond the page with a striking national ad campaign. In partnership with Build Hollywood, the company has installed billboards in Glasgow, Birmingham, Brighton, and Cardiff, all proudly showcasing the work of Newspaper Club customers. These include colourful pieces from artist Supermundane and independent homeware designer Sophie McNiven, highlighting the creative range of projects that come to life through their press. In London, the celebration continues with a special collaboration with News & Coffee at Holborn Station. For two weeks, the kiosk has been transformed into a shrine to print — complete with stacks of The Printing Press and complimentary coffee for the first 20 early birds each weekday until 17 June. The timing feels deliberate. As digital fatigue sets in, social media continues to disappoint, and brands look for fresh ways to stand out in a 'post-search' world, newspapers are experiencing a quiet renaissance. But they're being used not just for news but also as limited-edition catalogues, keepsakes for events, and props in photo shoots. It's this playful, flexible nature of newsprint that The Printing Press aims to explore and celebrate. Since 2009, Newspaper Club has built its reputation on making newspaper printing accessible to all — from major brands like Adobe and Spotify to indie creators, students and storytellers. This campaign marks a new chapter: a chance to turn the lens inward, shine a spotlight on the creative possibilities of print, and reassert the joy of ink on paper. As Kaye puts it, "We want people to see that newspapers can be a really creative format. It might be a traditional medium, but that's exactly what makes it stand out in a digital world. "Sometimes the hardest part is just knowing where to start with a new project, so we hope this campaign helps spark ideas and inspire people to print something they're excited about!" As The Printing Press hits streets and kiosks across the UK, one thing is clear: print isn't dead. It's just getting started.

AI researchers have recently been asking themselves a version of the question, “Is that really Zuck?”As first reported by Bloomberg, the Meta CEO has been personally asking top AI talent to join his new “superintelligence” AI lab and reboot Llama. His recruiting process typically goes like this: a cold outreach via email or WhatsApp that cites the recruit’s work history and requests a 15-minute chat. Dozens of researchers have gotten these kinds of messages at Google alone. For those who do agree to hear his pitch (amazingly, not all of them do), Zuckerberg highlights the latitude they’ll have to make risky bets, the scale of Meta’s products, and the money he’s prepared to invest in the infrastructure to support them. He makes clear that this new team will be empowered and sit with him at Meta’s headquarters, where I’m told the desks have already been rearranged for the incoming team.Most of the headlines so far have focused on the eye-popping compensation packages Zuckerberg is offering, some of which are well into the eight-figure range. As I’ve covered before, hiring the best AI researcher is like hiring a star basketball player: there are very few of them, and you have to pay up. Case in point: Zuckerberg basically just paid 14 Instagrams to hire away Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. It’s easily the most expensive hire of all time, dwarfing the billions that Google spent to rehire Noam Shazeer and his core team from Character.AI (a deal Zuckerberg passed on). “Opportunities of this magnitude often come at a cost,” Wang wrote in his note to employees this week. “In this instance, that cost is my departure.”Zuckerberg’s recruiting spree is already starting to rattle his competitors. The day before his offer deadline for some senior OpenAI employees, Sam Altman dropped an essay proclaiming that “before anything else, we are a superintelligence research company.” And after Zuckerberg tried to hire DeepMind CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu, he was given a larger SVP title and now reports directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. I expect Wang to have the title of “chief AI officer” at Meta when the new lab is announced. Jack Rae, a principal researcher from DeepMind who has signed on, will lead pre-training. Meta certainly needs a reset. According to my sources, Llama has fallen so far behind that Meta’s product teams have recently discussed using AI models from other companies (although that is highly unlikely to happen). Meta’s internal coding tool for engineers, however, is already using Claude. While Meta’s existing AI researchers have good reason to be looking over their shoulders, Zuckerberg’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale is making many longtime employees, or Scaliens, quite wealthy. They were popping champagne in the office this morning. Then, Wang held his last all-hands meeting to say goodbye and cried. He didn’t mention what he would be doing at Meta. I expect his new team will be unveiled within the next few weeks after Zuckerberg gets a critical number of members to officially sign on. Tim Cook. Getty Images / The VergeApple’s AI problemApple is accustomed to being on top of the tech industry, and for good reason: the company has enjoyed a nearly unrivaled run of dominance. After spending time at Apple HQ this week for WWDC, I’m not sure that its leaders appreciate the meteorite that is heading their way. The hubris they display suggests they don’t understand how AI is fundamentally changing how people use and build software.Heading into the keynote on Monday, everyone knew not to expect the revamped Siri that had been promised the previous year. Apple, to its credit, acknowledged that it dropped the ball there, and it sounds like a large language model rebuild of Siri is very much underway and coming in 2026.The AI industry moves much faster than Apple’s release schedule, though. By the time Siri is perhaps good enough to keep pace, it will have to contend with the lock-in that OpenAI and others are building through their memory features. Apple and OpenAI are currently partners, but both companies want to ultimately control the interface for interacting with AI, which puts them on a collision course. Apple’s decision to let developers use its own, on-device foundational models for free in their apps sounds strategically smart, but unfortunately, the models look far from leading. Apple ran its own benchmarks, which aren’t impressive, and has confirmed a measly context window of 4,096 tokens. It’s also saying that the models will be updated alongside its operating systems — a snail’s pace compared to how quickly AI companies move. I’d be surprised if any serious developers use these Apple models, although I can see them being helpful to indie devs who are just getting started and don’t want to spend on the leading cloud models. I don’t think most people care about the privacy angle that Apple is claiming as a differentiator; they are already sharing their darkest secrets with ChatGPT and other assistants. Some of the new Apple Intelligence features I demoed this week were impressive, such as live language translation for calls. Mostly, I came away with the impression that the company is heavily leaning on its ChatGPT partnership as a stopgap until Apple Intelligence and Siri are both where they need to be. AI probably isn’t a near-term risk to Apple’s business. No one has shipped anything close to the contextually aware Siri that was demoed at last year’s WWDC. People will continue to buy Apple hardware for a long time, even after Sam Altman and Jony Ive announce their first AI device for ChatGPT next year. AR glasses aren’t going mainstream anytime soon either, although we can expect to see more eyewear from Meta, Google, and Snap over the coming year. In aggregate, these AI-powered devices could begin to siphon away engagement from the iPhone, but I don’t see people fully replacing their smartphones for a long time. The bigger question after this week is whether Apple has what it takes to rise to the occasion and culturally reset itself for the AI era. I would have loved to hear Tim Cook address this issue directly, but the only interview he did for WWDC was a cover story in Variety about the company’s new F1 movie.ElsewhereAI agents are coming. I recently caught up with Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi ahead of his company’s annual developer conference this week in San Francisco. Given Databricks’ position, he has a unique, bird’s-eye view of where things are headed for AI. He doesn’t envision a near-term future where AI agents completely automate real-world tasks, but he does predict a wave of startups over the next year that will come close to completing actions in areas such as travel booking. He thinks humans will need (and want) to approve what an agent does before it goes off and completes a task. “We have most of the airplanes flying automated, and we still want pilots in there.”Buyouts are the new normal at Google. That much is clear after this week’s rollout of the “voluntary exit program” in core engineering, the Search organization, and some other divisions. In his internal memo, Search SVP Nick Fox was clear that management thinks buyouts have been successful in other parts of the company that have tried them. In a separate memo I saw, engineering exec Jen Fitzpatrick called the buyouts an “opportunity to create internal mobility and fresh growth opportunities.” Google appears to be attempting a cultural reset, which will be a challenging task for a company of its size. We’ll see if it can pull it off. Evan Spiegel wants help with AR glasses. I doubt that his announcement that consumer glasses are coming next year was solely aimed at AR developers. Telegraphing the plan and announcing that Snap has spent $3 billion on hardware to date feels more aimed at potential partners that want to make a bigger glasses play, such as Google. A strategic investment could help insulate Snap from the pain of the stock market. A full acquisition may not be off the table, either. When he was recently asked if he’d be open to a sale, Spiegel didn’t shut it down like he always has, but instead said he’d “consider anything” that helps the company “create the next computing platform.”Link listMore to click on:If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe to The Verge, which includes unlimited access to Command Line and all of our reporting.As always, I welcome your feedback, especially if you’re an AI researcher fielding a juicy job offer. You can respond here or ping me securely on Signal.Thanks for subscribing.See More:

Bungie’s Marathon is still coming out, and when it does, PlayStation plans on giving the extraction shooter a fair shot. During a recent investor interview, Sony Interactive Entertainment head Herman Hulst assured the game would come out before March 31, 2026, when Sony’s fiscal year ends. Touching on its recent alpha test, he descbied the feedback as “varied, but super useful. […] The constant testing, the constant re-validation of assumptions that we just talked about, to me is just so valuable to iterate and to constantly improve the title, so when launch comes, we’re going to give the title the optimal chance of success.” Hanging over PlayStation is 2024’s sci-fi shooter Concord, which shut down weeks after launch and later led to developer Firewalk Studios closing down. That’s been just one of several botched attempts from PlayStation’s attempts to enter live-service games, which includes several canceled projects and layoffs across its first-party studios. While acknowledging these “unique challenges” and attributing Concord’s failure to the “hypercompetitive market” of hero shooters, Hulst talked up how they’re avoiding the same mistakes with Marathon. “It’s going to be the first new Bungie title in over a decade, and it’s our goal to release a very bold, very innovative, and deeply engaging title. We’re monitoring the closed alpha cycle the team has just gone through. We’re taking all the lessons learned, we’re using the capabilities we’ve built and analytics and user testing to understand how audiences are engaging with the title.” One thing Hulst didn’t touch on, though, was the recent accusations of art plagiarism levvied against Bungie. In May, artist Fern “Antireal” Hook released evidence alleging the studio stole assets she made from previous work and failed to credit her. After investigating, Bungie attributed the theft to the work of a former employee, publicly apologized, and said it would do “everything we can to make this right” with Hook. It also promised to review all in-game assets and replace “questionably sourced” art with original, in-house work. With the mention of its arriving before the fiscal year ends, Marathon may be delayed out of its current September 23 launch. At time of writing, Bungie and PlayStation have kept mum on a potential delay, but the game failed to make an appearance at PlayStation’s recent State of Play in early June. [via IGN] Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

The recent wave of cyber attacks targeting UK retailers has been a moment of reckoning for the entire retail industry. As someone who went through supporting one of the largest retail breaches in history, this news hits close to home. The National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) call to strengthen IT support protocols reinforces a hard truth: cybersecurity is no longer just a technical/operational issue. It’s a business issue that directly affects revenue, customer trust, and brand reputation. Retailers today are navigating an increasingly complex threat landscape, while also managing a vast user base that needs to stay informed and secure. The recent attacks don’t represent a failure, but an opportunity - an inflection point to invest in stronger visibility, continuous monitoring and a culture of shared responsibility that meets the realities of modern retail. We know that the cyber groups responsible for the recent retail hacks used sophisticated social engineering techniques, such as impersonating employees to deceive IT help desks into resetting passwords and providing information, thereby gaining unauthorised access to internal systems. Employees are increasingly a target, and retailers employ some of the largest, most diverse workforces, making them an even bigger risk with countless touchpoints for breaches. In these organisations, a cybersecurity-first culture is vital to combatting threats. Cybersecurity-first culture includes employees that are aware of these types of attacks and understand how to report them if they are contacted. In order to establish a cybersecurity-first culture, employees must be empowered to recognise and respond to threats, not just avoid them. This can be done through simulation training and threat assessments - showcasing real life examples of threats and brainstorming possible solutions to control and prevent further and future damage. This allows security teams to focus on strategy instead of constant firefighting, while leadership support - through budget, tools, and tone - reinforces its importance at every level. In addition to support workers, vendors also pose a significant attack path for bad actors. According to data from Elastic Path, 42% of retailers admit that legacy technology could be leaving them exposed to cyber risks. And with the accelerating pace of innovation, modern cyber threats are not only more complex, but often enter through unexpected avenues, like third-party vendors. Research from Vanta shows 46% of organisations say that a vendor of theirs has experienced a data breach since they started working together. The M&S breach is a case in point, with it being reported that attackers exploited a vulnerability in a contractor’s systems, not the retailer’s own. This underscores that visibility must extend beyond your perimeter to encompass the entire digital supply chain, in real time. Threats don’t wait for your quarterly review or annual audit. If you're only checking your controls or vendor status once a year, you're already behind. This means real-time visibility is now foundational to cyber defence. We need to know when something changes the moment it happens. This can be done through continuous monitoring, both for the technical controls and the relationships that introduce risk into your environment. We also need to rethink the way we resource and prioritise that visibility. Manual processes don’t scale with the complexity of modern infrastructure. Automation and tooling can help surface the right signals from the noise - whether it’s misconfigurations, access drift, or suspicious vendor behavior. The best case scenario is that security measures are embedded into all digital architecture, utilising a few security ‘must haves’ such as secure coding, continuous monitoring, and regular testing and improvement. Retailers who want to get proactive and about breaches following the events of the last few weeks can follow this action plan to get started: First, awareness - have your security leadership send a message out to managers of help desks and support teams to make sure they are aware of the recent attacks on retailers, and are in a position to inform teams of what to look out for. Then, investigate - pinpoint the attack path used on other retailers to make sure you have a full understanding of the risk to your organisation. After that, assess - conduct a threat assessment to identify what could go wrong, or how this attack path could be used in your organisation. The final step is to identify - figure out the highest risk gaps in your organisation, and the remediation steps to address each one. Strong cybersecurity doesn’t come from quick fixes - it takes time, leadership buy-in, and a shift in mindset across the organisation. My advice to security teams is simple: speak in outcomes. Frame cyber risk as business risk, because that’s what it is. The retailers that have fallen victim to recent attacks are facing huge financial losses, which makes this not just an IT issue - it’s a boardroom issue. Customers are paying attention. They want to trust the brands they buy from, and that trust is built on transparency and preparation. The recent retail attacks aren’t a reason to panic - they’re a reason to reset, evaluate current state risks, and fully understand the potential impacts of what is happening elsewhere. This is the moment to invest in your infrastructure, empower your teams, and embed security into your operations. The organisations that do this now won’t just be safer - they’ll be more competitive, more resilient, and better positioned for whatever comes next. Jadee Hanson is the Chief Information Security Officer at Vanta Read more about cyber security in retail Content Goes Here Harrods becomes latest UK retailer to fall victim to cyber attack Retail cyber crime spree a ‘wake-up call’, says NCSC CEO Retail cyber attacks hit food distributor Peter Green Chilled

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here The Squid Game collaboration is the next big thing for Fortnite. Its release date is right around the corner, and Epic Games has already revealed some of the things that will come with it. The iconic South Korean series will bring much more than just cosmetics, and here’s everything you need to know about it. In this article, we will reveal everything we know about Squid Game skins in Fortnite, as well as Creative tools. Furthermore, we will reveal the release date and take a look at several leaks that have come out since the collab announcement. Will the Squid Game collaboration bring Fortnite skins? According to trusted Fortnite leakers, the Squid Game partnership will introduce new cosmetics, including character skins. At the moment, it’s unknown what these skins will look like, but we should find out more details soon. The release date of the Squid Game collab is set for Friday, June 27, which is also the release date of the last season of the series. Earlier this month, Epic Games confirmed that the collaboration will bring new UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite) tools. Thanks to this, creators will be able to make Squid Game-themed maps with new items and mechanics. The Squid Game collaboration will bring new Fortnite cosmetics. Image by VideoGamer Epic has already released a cryptic teaser for the collab which reveals the following: “Red Greens, Square Meals, Affluent Arrivals, June 27th.” With less than two weeks to go until the big update, we expect even more teasers and possibly skin leaks. Considering how popular Squid Game is, this could become one of Fortnite’s most iconic collaborations. The next Fortnite update is set to come out on Tuesday, June 17. Since this update will contain Squid Game data, we could see more early leaks in just a few more days. Fortnite Platform(s): Android, iOS, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X Genre(s): Action, Massively Multiplayer, Shooter 9 VideoGamer Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Ivy Grant, SVP of Strategy & Operations, Twilio June 13, 20255 Min Readpeshkova via alamy stockAsk technologists and enterprise leaders what they hope AI will deliver, and most will land on some iteration of the "T" word: transformation. No surprise, AI and its “cooler than you” cousin, generative AI (GenAI), have been hyped nonstop for the past 24 months. But therein lies the problem. Many organizations are rushing to implement AI without a grasp on the return on investment (ROI), leading to high spend and low impact. Without anchoring AI to clear friction points and acceleration opportunities, companies invite fatigue, anxiety and competitive risk. Two-thirds of C-suite execs say GenAI has created tension and division within their organizations; nearly half say it’s “tearing their company apart.” Most (71%) report adoption challenges; more than a third call it a massive disappointment. While AI's potential is irrefutable, companies need to reject the narrative of AI as a standalone strategy or transformational savior. Its true power is as a catalyst to amplify what already works and surface what could. Here are three principles to make that happen. 1. Start with friction, not function Many enterprises struggle with where to start when integrating AI. My advice: Start where the pain is greatest. Identify the processes that create the most friction and work backward from there. AI is a tool, not a solution. By mapping real pain points to AI use cases, you can hone investments to the ripest fruit rather than simply where it hangs at the lowest. Related:For example, one of our top sources of customer pain was troubleshooting undeliverable messages, which forced users to sift through error code documentation. To solve this, an AI assistant was introduced to detect anomalies, explain causes in natural language, and guide customers toward resolution. We achieved a 97% real-time resolution rate through a blend of conversational AI and live support. Most companies have long-standing friction points that support teams routinely explain. Or that you’ve developed organizational calluses over; problems considered “just the cost of doing business.” GenAI allows leaders to revisit these areas and reimagine what’s possible. 2. The need for (dual) speed We hear stories of leaders pushing an “all or nothing” version of AI transformation: Use AI to cut functional headcount or die. Rather than leading with a “stick” through wholesale transformation mandates or threats to budgets, we must recognize AI implementation as a fundamental culture change. Just as you wouldn't expect to transform your company culture overnight by edict, it's unreasonable to expect something different from your AI transformation. Related:Some leaders have a tendency to move faster than the innovation ability or comfort level of their people. Most functional leads aren’t obstinate in their slow adoption of AI tools, their long-held beliefs to run a process or to assess risks. We hired these leaders for their decades of experience in “what good looks like” and deep expertise in incremental improvements; then we expect them to suddenly define a futuristic vision that challenges their own beliefs. As executive leaders, we must give grace, space and plenty of “carrots” -- incentives, training, and support resources -- to help them reimagine complex workflows with AI. And, we must recognize that AI has the ability to make progress in ways that may not immediately create cost efficiencies, such as for operational improvements that require data cleansing, deep analytics, forecasting, dynamic pricing, and signal sensing. These aren’t the sexy parts of AI, but they’re the types of issues that require superhuman intelligence and complex problem-solving that AI was made for. 3. A flywheel of acceleration The other transformation that AI should support is creating faster and broader “test and learn” cycles. AI implementation is not a linear process with start here and end there. Organizations that want to leverage AI as a competitive advantage should establish use cases where AI can break down company silos and act as a catalyst to identify the next opportunity. That identifies the next as a flywheel of acceleration. This flywheel builds on accumulated learnings, making small successes into larger wins while avoiding costly AI disasters from rushed implementation. Related:For example, at Twilio we are building a customer intelligence platform that analyzes thousands of conversations to identify patterns and drive insights. If we see multiple customers mention a competitor's pricing, it could signal a take-out campaign. What once took weeks to recognize and escalate can now be done in near real-time and used for highly coordinated activations across marketing, product, sales, and other teams. With every AI acceleration win, we uncover more places to improve hand-offs, activation speed, and business decision-making. That flywheel of innovation is how true AI transformation begins to drive impactful business outcomes. Ideas to Fuel Your AI Strategy Organizations can accelerate their AI implementations through these simple shifts in approach: Revisit your long-standing friction points, both customer-facing and internal, across your organization -- particularly explore the ones you thought were “the cost of doing business” Don’t just look for where AI can reduce manual processes, but find the highly complex problems and start experimenting Support your functional experts with AI-driven training, resources, tools, and incentives to help them challenge their long-held beliefs about what works for the future Treat AI implementation as a cultural change that requires time, experimentation, learning, and carrots (not just sticks) Recognize that transformation starts with a flywheel of acceleration, where each new experiment can lead to the next big discovery The most impactful AI implementations don’t rush transformation; they strategically accelerate core capabilities and unlock new ones to drive measurable change. About the AuthorIvy GrantSVP of Strategy & Operations, Twilio Ivy Grant is Senior Vice President of Strategy & Operations at Twilio where she leads strategic planning, enterprise analytics, M&A Integration and is responsible for driving transformational initiatives that enable Twilio to continuously improve its operations. Prior to Twilio, Ivy’s career has balanced senior roles in strategy consulting at McKinsey & Company, Edelman and PwC with customer-centric operational roles at Walmart, Polo Ralph Lauren and tech startup Eversight Labs. She loves solo international travel, hugging exotic animals and boxing. Ivy has an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a BS in Applied Economics from Cornell University. See more from Ivy GrantReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like