The AI bots and tools coming for your web browser

Hello friends! you are welcome installer Number 33, your guide to the best and the verge-The best stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, you've made us very excited, and you can also read all the older versions here installer front page.)

This week, I'm writing about End of Google Podcasts And The rise of AI gadgetsWatching girls5eva and watch again Middleditch and Schwartzreading about The ubiquity of AllTrails And Danny McBride's Comedy Compoundlistening to ezra klein podcast About this Aye, I am seeing if 5K runner After all I may like running and playing too much retro target,

I've got smart thoughts on AI from a lot of people for you, a bunch of new AI tools in web browsers, a fun new newsletter about cool things on the Internet, a big statement on delivery apps, and much more. let's go.

Oh, wait before you do that! i'm gonna at the Chicago Humanities Festival Next weekend, take the stage to talk about creativity and AI with Wonder Dynamics co-founders: Nikola Todorovich and Ty Sheridan. (You may know Ty better as an actor, including Wade Watts Ready player one. I have questions about that too.) If you're around, come hang out with us next Saturday! Ok Now Let's join in.

(As always, the best part of installer Have your thoughts and suggestions. What are you excited about right now? What are you watching, reading or playing that everyone else should be watching too? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know anyone else who might enjoy installerForward this to them and ask them to subscribe here.)

• Opera's local AI, I know, I know, every browser is doing AI related things and I keep bringing it up. But Opera is doing something new and clever: It's letting you download various open-source AI models to your computer, so you can do AI stuff in the browser but also completely locally. I dig it.
• ,I made a graph of Wikipedia…this is what I found, This video broke my brain in the best way. It's just a descriptor and a lot of graphs, but it shows how Wikipedia really works – the most linked articles, the central topics of the forum, the funny ending. Wikipedia keeps getting more amazing.
• Bahadur Singh, Another browser AI thing! Brave's Mixtral-based chatbot, Leo, is also trying to do AI in a privacy-preserving way, and I'm always here for it. lion's Now available on iOS, coming to Android a few months later, meaning you can use Leo anywhere you use Brave. It is also designed in a very close and helpful way in the browser.
• ,Jon Stewart on the false promises of AI, As concise an argument against AI as you'll ever hear. And it's not even really against AI, just against the hype cycle and the way it's talked about versus the way it's used. Too, Stewart's interview with Lena Khan Interesting take on antitrust and AI – and full of good streaming drama.
• Last week on food delivery apps tonight, Both John Stewart and John Oliver recommend: novels, right? In fact, new ground is being prepared here. But it's too good not to share, and not just because it's prominently displayed the verge, Delivery apps don't really work for anyone involved, and Oliver solves the problem perfectly. And angry.
• retro, I doubt it and everyone will be like “Instagram but these are your real friends again!” Application. but I to do Retro's newest feature, like Journals, brings a collaborative album-creation system to the app. I only do this in Google Photos, but it's a smart add to any app like this.
• Gotham City Lego Set, Four thousand, two hundred and ten pieces. This is something I'm passionate about and to be honest, I'm a little intimidated by it. The $300 price tag puts it in the serious luxury range, but it became the first and only thing on my birthday list this year.
• were here, I don't recommend the other newsletters here enough, and I'm going to change that, starting with Hank and John Green, two of the best guys on the Internet, at least so far. A collection of weird, insightful internet stuff, Insta-subscribe.

As part of writing this newsletter, I have a big folder full of great homescreens I found around the web. (I should share a bunch of them here, now that I think about it — we'll come back to that.) But there are very few things in that folder that make me the noise that I did when I first saw them. Was. Daniel Ansari's homescreen,

It actually turned out to be Daniel Creates and sells these homescreen designswith icons and widgets and other items – and I found myself paging through them all, looking for tips on how to make your phone sleek and simple and Cold As created by Daniel. But I thought the best step was to go to the source, so I asked him to share some tips with us.

Here's Daniel's homescreen, along with some information about the apps he uses and their usage:

Phone: iPhone 13 128GB in starlight.

Wallpaper: The wallpapers are solid backgrounds in colors matching the dock. The HEX code for light mode is #F3F3F3 and for dark mode is #242424. Doing this hides the Dock completely, giving my homescreen a cleaner look.

Apps: I try to keep my home screen clean. The app I like the most is YouTube Music. It's not as popular, but the combination of YouTube Premium and YouTube Music makes a lot of sense to me. I keep the Notes app handy, and I have different folders in it to dump information in a classified manner.

I create custom widgets using an app called Weird On App Store. It's an incredible app that syncs with built-in Apple apps and presents information like weather, calendar events, reminders, etc. with a variety of customization options, so you can create the look you want. I also use two apps called md blank And transparent app icon Which lets you create blank spaces on your homescreen (because Apple won't allow us to).

I also asked Daniel to share some of the things he's interested in right now. Here's what he sent back:

• The show I'm on right now drive to survive, I started following Formula One a few years ago and I love how engineering and sports come together.
• I'm really interested in productivity apps and really enjoy wave episode with you, I have started experimenting Assumption CalendarAnd yes, the three-day spectacle is amazing.
• The creators I follow most are mkbhd And StarTalk with Dr. Neil deGrasse TysonBut I would like to especially mention david email, There are only five videos on his YouTube channel (he should make more), but the way he explains every concept is extraordinary. It's almost like he's a really good professor who is very good at explaining the basics. His “How the Italian Renaissance could save the smartphone camera“My favorite YouTube video of all time is this. As a post-grad in literature and someone interested in technology, that video suits my interests.

what's here installer Community is in this week. I also want to know what you are doing right now! E-mail installer@theverge.com Or text +1 (203) 570-8663 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we'll feature some of our favorites here each week.

“Artifact has become a dead Yahoo product, I've moved to bulletin For iOS and Mac, which I'm really enjoying.” -Justin

“I would describe the way you described Tiny Desk as 'everything delightful about the Internet' taste tour, a YouTube channel and DJ duo from Luxembourg. They stream their chill house music sets (often with live guitar) from venues across Europe. He also cooks food during the set. Feels less like watching a DJ set and more like hanging out with friends. Here's a recent favorite, – Daniel

“Running my own private, single-user Mastodon instance, courtesy of Masto.host. you can Read about my experience If you're interested.” —Mike

“If you like screamo music, we're in the golden age of it right now. New WristMeTreasure is a modern classic, new boundaries Gets tough as hell, death metal vet abortion One of their best albums, Melodic/Tech Death Newcomers, is released carrion well released a great album like the OG band job for a cowboy And dark hour Present some of your best work so far. It's a great time to be into music where everyone beats each other at concerts. – John

,Godspeed: is a very thoughtful, keyboard-driven task manager – I think more people should try it.” – Matt

“I love games that take two completely unrelated genres and combine them together. peglin Takes Peggle And turns it into a roguelike. The more pegs you hit, the more damage you do to enemies. There are different balls with different effects and power-ups that you can collect. I've been playing it on my phone, and it's a great way to kill time during a train journey. – Voltaire

“I would like to recommend listy, This is a simple app for keeping lists. I started using it to track books, board games, movies, and TV shows. I used to use the Stock Notes app for this, but Listy is much easier to use because you can use your browser's share function to add a new entry. – Peter

,picotron, It's a little strange, but for a certain kind of person it's gold. This is the 'fantasy workstation' of the guy who created the Pico-8. It's still very early days and very buggy, but it's very exciting to be at this early stage, almost like a return to the early days of computing. People are already building primitive web browsers and calculators and games for it.” – Tom

,gideon ninth This is the most fun, wild, crazy, charming, unlike anything book I have read in forever. Mad Plot…Eight feudal houses of the Emperor Immortals, Necrolord Prime, send their Necromancer adepts and mounted Primarchs to the solar system to undergo challenges with the goal of becoming Lyctors to serve their Emperor. Highly descriptive/visual and perfect for portraying as a movie or mini-series. Highly recommended!” -Tyler

Here's the least surprising thing I'll write all week: Me Love Video about people's setup. Studio tours, desk tours, homescreen deep dives, whatever. I love it as a way to see how people work and think, and I believe you can learn a lot about people by learning how they set up their space, both virtual and physical. , maybe that's why I saw it now This video from Adam Savage's “beautifully chaotic” studio About six times. This place is chaotic and it is also carefully thought out and organized. There's a story about every little piece of everything. And it's all about making things work, not making things pretty. I swear, there are about 60 life lessons in this one studio. And now I also have a strong desire to buy a table saw. This is going to be a problem.