The Vergecast: Ad-Free Edition

Today on the flagship podcast of what the future of Kindle turns out to be: We’re once again trying out a couple of our favorite new show formats. In Version History, we talk through the whole story of Quibi, from its early days as NewTV to its extremely ill-timed launch to its ultimate demise.  From Variety: Quibi Has Raised $1.75B After Closing $750M Round to Fund Launch From Variety: Jeffrey Katzenberg’s NewTV Closes $1B, Major Studios Among Investors Quibi’s CES 2020 launch Quibi app review: short-form streaming in a shifting landscape Steven Spielberg is writing a horror series you’ll only be able to at night Quibi’s Super Bowl 2020 commercial From The Wall Street Journal: Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman Struggle With Their Startup—and Each Other How Quibi imploded less than six months after launch 11 reasons why Quibi crashed and burned in less than a year Next, we try out our as-yet-untitled debate show. The Verge’s Kevin Nguyen and Alex Cranz take on a surprisingly contentious topic: is the future of books print or digital?  The Boox Palma is an amazing gadget I didn’t even know I wanted Kobo’s great color e-readers are held back by lock-in From The Wall Street Journal: How the Kindle Became a Must-Have Accessory (Again) The Playdate makes a surprisingly good e-reader Later, producer Andru Marino answers a question from The Vergecast Hotline about a very unusual shopping situation for MP3 players.  NW-E394 Walkman Digital Music Player  Mighty’s ‘iPod shuffle for Spotify’ gets upgraded battery and Bluetooth Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Verge's Nilay Patel, Allison Johnson, and Victoria Song discuss Apple iOS 18.1 beta. upcoming Pixel 9 rumors, Olympics coverage, AI deepfake regulation, and more.Further reading: The best way to watch the Olympics is on TikTok Apple releases iOS 18.1 developer beta with the first ‘Apple Intelligence’ iPhone features  Apple’s iOS 18.1 developer beta adds AI call recording and transcription A first look at Apple Intelligence and its (slightly) smarter Siri Apple’s new AI features will reportedly miss the iOS 18 launch and wait for iOS 18.1.  Google Pixel 9 event: rumors and what to expect  Pixel 9’s ‘Add Me’ feature puts you in a group photo even when you’re not there   Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra review: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em  Samsung hypes the Galaxy Z Flip as a great police bodycam Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever Microsoft wants Congress to outlaw AI-generated deepfake fraud Google tweaks Search to help hide explicit deepfakes Lawmakers want to carve out intimate AI deepfakes from Section 230 immunity  Elon Musk posts deepfake of Kamala Harris that violates X policy The Copyright Office calls for a new federal law regulating deepfakes.  Senators will introduce the No Fakes Act to keep AI ... Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the flagship podcast of dedicated streaming hardware: We try out a couple of show formats we’ve been planning for a while. In Version History, we tell the story of the Roku Netflix Player, debate its legacy, and try to decide whether this thing belongs in the Version History Hall of Fame.  From Fast Company: Inside Netflix’s Project Griffin: The Forgotten History Of Roku Under Reed Hastings From CNBC: How Roku used the Netflix playbook to rule streaming video From CNN: Netflix Player offers PC-free movie watching From Wired: Review: Roku Netflix Set Top Box Is Just Shy of Totally Amazing From The New York Times: Why the Roku Netflix Player Is the First Shot of the Revolution After that, it’s time for debates. Nilay Patel and David Pierce yell at each other about who should own the screens in your car. Are CarPlay and Android Auto the answer, the solution to universally crappy automaker software? Car companies haven’t figured out if they’ll let Apple CarPlay take over all the screens The rest of the auto industry still loves CarPlay and Android Auto Everybody hates GM’s decision to kill Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its EVs Rivian CEO says CarPlay isn’t going to happen Apple’s fancy new CarPlay will only work wirelessly Later, David answers a question from The Vergecast Hotline about political spam texts. From The Washington Post: How to stop receiving spam texts From PCMag: Stop Robotexts: How to Block Smishing and Spam Text Messages Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of The Vergecast, we look at why TV and movie recommendations are so complicated, and whether AI might be able to make them better. If Spotify can build infinite playlists of music you’ll like, and YouTube and TikTok always seem to have the perfect thing ready to go, why can’t Netflix or Hulu or Max seem to get it right?If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are a few links to get you started: Movievanders Reelgood The internet is a constant recommendations machine — but it needs you to make it work Netflix’s Greg Peters on a new culture memo and where ads, AI, and games fit in From Scientific America: How Recommendation Algorithms Work—And Why They May Miss the Mark From Google: Multimodal prompting with a 44-minute movie Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Verge's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Jake Kastrenakes discuss OpenAI's new SearchGPT product, Amazon's plan to launch a paid version of Alexa, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold review, and whole lot more.Further reading: OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine Bing’s AI redesign shoves the usual list of search results to the side Reddit is now blocking major search engines and AI bots — except the ones that pay Google had a massive quarter thanks to Search and AI Amazon’s paid Alexa is coming to fill a $25 billion hole dug by Echo devices The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a great phone that’s out of ideas Asus ROG Ally X review: the best Windows gaming handheld by a mile Samsung Galaxy Ring review: keeping you in Samsung’s orbit Apple’s first foldable iPhone could arrive in 2026 Apple Maps launches on the web to take on Google The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is now available Rivian CEO says CarPlay isn’t going to happen The NBA’s new TV deals put a lot of games on Amazon’s Prime Video starting in 2025 Reddit’s NFL, NBA deals bring more sports highlights — and ads Spotify CEO confirms a ‘deluxe’ version with hi-fi audio is coming soon Sonos CEO apologizes for disastrous rollout of new app Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the flagship podcast of configuration changes:The Verge's Tom Warren joins the show to to talk about the story and legacy of the CrowdStrike crash.  CrowdStrike and Microsoft: all the latest news on the global IT outage Major Windows BSOD issue hits banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters What is CrowdStrike, and what happened? CrowdStrike’s faulty update crashed 8.5 million Windows devices, says Microsoft CrowdStrike outage: Photos, videos, and tales of IT workers fixing BSODs Then we talk with The Verge's Victoria Song and Zombies, Run creator Adrian Hon about making exercising fun without making it competitive and awful. Zombies, Run Adrian Hon’s Substack Finally, the Apple Watch will let you rest This walking app let me whack my co-workers with a baseball bat Ignore your fitness tracker and walk to Mordor instead Finally, we answer a hotline question about handheld gadgets for new parents — because there's a lot of time to kill when there's a baby around. Backbone One review: the best mobile gaming controller yet Handheld consoles are the future of gaming Holedown Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode of The Vergecast, senior producer Will Poor explores the AI-tinged worlds of Dries Depoorter. Depoorter has built all manner of quirky and provocative installations and online experiments. There’s a clock that tells you how much of your life you’ve already lived; a phone charger that only works when your eyes are closed; a mobile chat app that you can only use when your phone has less than 5% battery.His most eyebrow-raising work, though, is around AI and surveillance. In his projects Depoorter takes publicly available webcam footage from around the world, and uses it to stalk celebrities, catch jaywalkers in the act, keep politicians honest, and generally make you wonder about your own privacy and anonymity.We talked with Depoorter about how he creates his work, how he thinks about the future of AI, and how he responds to the people who see his art and want to turn it into commerce. It’s a wild conversation, so check it out above. To see all of Dries’ work, head over to his portfolio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nilay, Alex, and David talk about what's happening on social media — and around the web — in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Then they talk about their early impression of Apple's public betas, from the redesigned homescreens to the iPad's fancy new math abilities. After that, it's time for a bunch of gadgets all asking the same idea: is this anything? Then it's off to the lightning round, filled with 4K streams and leaky infinity pools.Further reading: A custom sticker printer infuriated clients with a pro-Trump mass text message Shooting conspiracies trend on X as Musk endorses Trump Donald Trump likes TikTok, not Zuckerberg. The FBI said it found the Trump rally shooter’s Steam account, then took it back The Trump rally shooter had a Discord account, company says The Trump rally shooting is a cash cow for the dropshippers  The FBI says it has ‘gained access’ to the Trump rally shooter’s phone  J.D. Vance likes Lina Khan and crypto, hates ‘Big Tech’ Elon Musk, Joe Lonsdale, and tech elites back a pro-Trump super PAC Apple’s public betas: all the news on iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and more Apple is finally embracing Android’s chaos iOS 18 might help you rescue photos you thought were gone forever The watchOS 11 beta slowed me down, in a good way RCS in iOS 18: Apple’s new messaging standard almost solves the green-button problem Testing Math Notes and the Calculator app in iPadOS 18 Phone mirroring on the Mac: a great way to use your iPhone, but it’s still very much in beta Canon’s long-awaited EOS R1 and R5 Mark II have eye-controlled autofocus Dyson unmasks its super customizable OnTrac headphones A long-delayed hands-on with Essential’s skinny Android phone This case turns your Apple Watch into a tiny iPod Google solves its Pixel 9 Pro leaks by just showing the phone early Leaked photos reveal Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Xreal Beam Pro review: an AR tablet with good ideas but not enough power The OnePlus Pad 2’s vibrating stylus simulates writing on paper Sling TV adds 4K streaming for free Comcast will have high bitrate, low latency 4K feeds of the Olympics OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s $27 million mansion is a ‘lemon’ with a leaky pool, lawsuit alleges Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the flagship podcast of nose bridge microphones: 03:10 - The Verge’s David Pierce enlists help from Alex Cranz and Sean Hollister to figure out the best gadget setup for his handheld gaming needs.  The Steam Deck wasn’t born ready, but it’s ready now Nintendo Switch OLED review: screentime Sony PlayStation Portal review: flawed but fun Asus ROG Ally updated review: it’s a bit better now This amazing knockoff GBA SP comes stuffed with software piracy 42:10 - Victoria Song joins the show to test out the microphones on a bunch of smart glasses and headsets.  Razer’s new Anzu smart glasses break from the pack with truly wireless audio The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually make the future look cool Amazon’s latest Echo Frames are more style than substance Meta Quest 3 review: almost the one we've been waiting for Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not 01:10:26 - Later, David answers a question from the Vergecast Hotline.North Focals glasses review: a $600 smartwatch for your faceEmail us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Humans are terrible at remembering things. On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk to one of the people who has been working on this problem for a very long time: Dan Siroker, the CEO of Limitless. We talk about what it takes to build a great memory aid, how we might use them in the future, and why it’s so tricky to get right.We also talk about the human side of it all — what does it change about our lives when we stop forgetting things? Is remembering your friend’s birthday different when it’s actually an AI model doing the remembering? And will these tools ever really work outside of work? Tools like Limitless are coming fast and improving quickly, and we’re going to have to figure out how to live with them.Further reading: From The New York Times: Can’t See Pictures in Your Mind? You’re Not Alone. Limitless AI: a new wearable gadget, and app, for remembering your meetings Recall is Microsoft’s key to unlocking the future of PCs Microsoft’s all-knowing Recall AI feature is being delayed The Pixel 9’s ‘Google AI’ is like Microsoft Recall but a little less creepy Apple announces iOS 18 with new AI features and more customizable homescreen Notion AI can automatically write your notes, agendas, and blog posts for you Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices