The solar storms that have been wowing people with the Northern Lights across the United States the last two nights have also been disrupting GPS satellites, crippling some Midwest farmers’ operations, reports 404 Media. The issues have forced many to stop planting just as a crucial planting deadline for corn farmers approaches.

The storms reportedly knocked “some GPS systems” offline temporarily, which messed with the accuracy of “Real-Time Kinematic” (RTK) systems. Tractors from John Deere and other brands use RTK for “centimeter-level positional accuracy” when carrying out farming work like crop-planting or fertilizing, 404 Media writes.

The “extremely compromised” systems caused “drastic shifts in the field and even some heading changes” for those who continued planting during the outages, according to a warning from Kansas and Nebraska John Deere dealer Landmark Implement over the weekend. Landmark said that planted rows won’t be where AutoPath, a tractor guidance system, thinks they are later when it’s time to tend to them, and that it could be difficult or impossible to use it in fields that were planted while GPS systems were compromised.

While the solar storms, which are some of the worst to have hit the Earth in over two decades according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are expected to subside soon, it comes at a critical time for corn crops. Willie Cade of right-to-repair advocate group Repair.org told 404 Media that May 15th “is a critical date to get corn planted,” calling it “huge” if corn farmers can’t get their crops planted by then.

Organic farmer Tom Schwarz, who was also quoted in the story, said the solar storms halted their operations, and that now the weather forecast threatens to put off planting even further. His farm and others like it use RTK systems to plant crops right up to the edge of the lanes tractors use to drive between them, and if GPS was inaccurate while planting happens, they risk destroying crops later, because human drivers “can’t steer fast enough or well enough” to keep tractors between the rows.

On a broad scale, the farming that’s done today is heavily reliant on high-tech, often heavily automated tractors and other equipment. When they fail, farmers often have no recourse because the entire life cycle of their crops is wrapped up in the tech. That reliance is part of why there’s so much momentum behind right-to-repair laws now, as farmers want to be able to fix their tractors when they break, rather than be beholden to manufacturers for it.

Geomagnetic storms like the ones affecting farmers this weekend are created when plasma and magnetized particles are flung out of the sun in what’s called coronal mass ejections. The NOAA rates them on an increasingly severe scale from G1 to G5. The storm that’s been hitting the Earth the last couple of days has reached G5.

Such powerful storms can wreak havoc on our planet, as in March 1989 when a powerful storm knocked out power for millions in a Canadian province for several hours. Weaker storms can present issues as well, like when a 2022 storm knocked out dozens of Starlink satellites. Starlink has also been somewhat impacted this weekend.

The NOAA says “severe to extreme” solar storms of G4 or higher could occur again today. So far, the storms haven’t led to widespread reports of solar storm-related disruptions, though Starlink has experienced some “degraded performance,” as Reuters writes, while some on Reddit reported issues with flight systems or HAM radio transmissions.

iPhone users without a penchant for jailbreaking can finally enjoy the blocky polygons and shifty textures of the original PlayStation with Gamma, a free PS1 emulator that hit the iOS App Store last night. Gamma comes courtesy of developer ZodTTD, which has been creating emulators for the iPhone since the earliest days of third-party iOS apps.

The app has both iPhone and iPad versions with support for Bluetooth controllers and keyboards, as well as customizable on-screen controller skins. It uses Google Drive and Dropbox syncing for backing up your game files and save states (those are the snapshots you can save at any time and reload, a little like pausing your game — great for old-school games that don’t let you save any time you want). Like the Delta emulator that ruled the App Store’s top free apps list for weeks before being unseated by free donuts, the app will also go grab game cover artwork for you automatically.

Screen recording: Gamma

The default skin for landscape orientation is mostly transparent and hard to see, though, so you’ll want to replace that when you can.

Screenshot: Gamma

Thankfully, Gamma doesn’t require you to go find any BIOS files to run PS1 games. That said, I had trouble running the first two games I tried — NASCAR 98 and Shrek Treasure Hunt. But that may have just been the game files I was using, as I could run Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee just fine. Third time’s the charm, right?

According to Gamma’s App Store page, it collects identifiers that can be used to track you, and may collect location and usage data. For what it’s worth, the app didn’t trigger a location data access request for me, nor did it prompt me for tracking permission (though it did do so for my colleague, Sean Hollister).

Benjamin Stark, aka ZodTTD, has been around the block. Stark pointed out to The Verge via email that Delta developer Riley Testut’s first iOS emulator, GBA4iOS, borrowed code from an emulator Stark had made called gpSPhone (something Testut wrote about in 2013). But even that app, Stark said, was based (with permission, he added) on gpSP, an Android emulator created by a developer called Exophase.

That tradition continues with Gamma, which Testut told The Verge via email is “based off Delta’s codebase (excluding the actual PSX core),” adding that “ZodTTD has my full permission to do that.” Testut said Stark is “the reason I started developing emulators in the first place.”

Stark also developed TurboGrafx-16 and N64 emulators for the iPhone in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Later, he had a run-in with Google when the company pulled his app PSX4Droid, also a PS1 emulator, from the Android Market in 2011, at a time when Google was removing many of the most popular emulators from the online store. He later made the emulator freely available and open-sourced the code.

Update May 12th, 11:36AM ET: Added additional context and details shared by Gamma developer Benjamin Stark.

Update May 12th, 2:10PM ET: Added comment from Delta developer Riley Testut.

I can’t think of anything permeating mainstream camera culture as aggressively as the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. The Fujifilm X100VI has stolen some of its thunder among film simulation enthusiasts, but DJI’s still having somewhat of a cultural moment on YouTube, Instagram, and the troubled TikTok by spurring all sorts of creator glee.

Of course, the camera buffs are all over it, but serious and casual creators from other genres have paused their usual programming to rave about how it transcends amateur vlogging pursuits, whether you’re filming a wedding or self-shooting a scene for a Sundance-hopeful short film.

Some of us at The Verge are excited, too: Vjeran liked it enough to call it his favorite gadget of 2023, and Sean just bought one after using it to elevate his Today I’m Toying With videos.

I felt tingles about the $519 Osmo Pocket 3 when DJI first announced it, but it wasn’t until I purchased a Creator Combo that I fully understood the hype. The video quality often comes close to my full-frame Sony mirrorless (although I can’t get all the same shots) and is very noticeably better than my phone.

The original Osmo Pocket and Pocket 2 couldn’t make those boasts, but the Pocket 3 is a cut above. Its larger one-inch-equivalent sensor is now bigger than those in most phones, with better low-light performance and more reliable autofocusing than predecessors. It has a much bigger display, longer battery life, faster charge time, more microphones — the list goes on like that for nearly everything that makes it tick.

My first heavy outing with the Pocket 3 was at a WWE SmackDown show at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Without a photographer’s pass, I couldn’t enter the venue with my Sony A7 IV or anything else bigger than pocket-sized. But the Osmo got in after I showed security that its battery grip wasn’t a selfie stick.

I’d gone with the simple hope of capturing some good stabilized audience point-of-view footage that might look a touch better than what my iPhone 12 Pro Max produced at the last show I attended. I left with clips that look so good that I could see them appearing in WWE’s social media reels or pre-match hype promos.

The Pocket 3 was better at capturing the majesty of the heavy light rays and pyrotechnic embers that define WWE’s grand productions than my iPhone, and its microphones did a better job at taming the loud audio levels without overly dampening the sound and stripping it of acoustic character. The footage was also considerably less hazy compared to the iPhone’s, with smoother stabilization, though the iPhone’s software stabilization compared decently.

Even if I could have brought a mirrorless or DSLR, the Osmo let me live more in the moment. I had a large popcorn and a cold one occupying one hand for most of the night, so I’d have been miserable trying to adjust dials and deep-dive menus. With the Pocket 3, powering it on is just a matter of swiveling open the display. The record button’s right under your thumb, and settings are a single swipe away.

The Pocket 3 has its limitations. It can only manage a 2X-equivalent digital zoom, for starters. That’s enough to capture impromptu closeups — like then-WrestleMania-bound Cody Rhodes looking into the rafters after he walked right past my seat, for example. But you won’t be able to achieve the dreamy, bokeh-heavy images reserved for interchangeable lens cameras.

Meanwhile, my iPhone’s telephoto sensor offered better reach at a Monday Night Raw show in October. I sat in the same exact seat at both shows, with a great view of the ring and decent visibility of the entrance stage from the first row of the risers. My iPhone gave me clear face shots of Becky Lynch and Damian Priest’s entrances, even if I greatly preferred the overall color, clarity, and exposure of the Osmo during the SmackDown show.

I’ve shot a number of personal videos since SmackDown and spent a fair bit of time comparing my footage to my Sony and iPhone results. Compared to my phone, colors don’t look overly muddy and washed out in low light, and there’s far less noise. I get more leeway to push and pull colors in post-process when shooting in D-Log M. (Though, that might be a wash if I had an iPhone 15 Pro with a similarly flexible ProRes Log color profile.)

Even in well-lit scenarios, there’s still a decent gap: the bokeh on the Osmo Pocket 3, while subtle, is more noticeable and pronounced than the iPhone. It’s enough to draw the viewer’s eye to your subject while muting an otherwise distracting background.

Sean filmed the Transformer above with iPhone 14 Pro and Pocket 3 — you can probably tell which shot is which!

And it’s just so easy to use. Going from powered off to an effortlessly stabilized video is as simple as swiveling open the screen and hitting the record button right next to it, no separate multi-pound gimbal or balancing weights needed. Tap the screen to flip it into selfie mode, and it’ll automatically pan and tilt to keep your face in frame.

Most phones don’t let you use the higher quality sensor to record yourself while previewing your shot; here, you can frame your own walk-and-talking headshots on the two-inch OLED screen, then spin the same sensor around to capture viral content, short films, and the world’s beauty in front of you.

You can also fire up DJI’s smartphone app to remotely preview and control the entire camera over Bluetooth — and if you spring for the $669 Creator Combo, you get a high-quality wireless lav mic with 32-bit float recording that effortlessly integrates, too. The mic automatically connects to the Osmo as soon as you power it on, can record separately to its own internal storage, has both a clip and a strong magnet to keep it attached to clothing, vibrates in specific patterns so you know when you’re rolling, and can charge and transfer recordings over USB-C. (Plus, the combo comes with a nice extended battery grip, an iffy wide-angle lens, and other accessories.)

No, you won’t find the same shooting options that enthusiasts and professionals seek out of a proper camera body. You can adjust white balance, shutter, and ISO to varying degrees, but you don’t get advanced recording codecs, LUT previews, alternative metering modes, and the like. It’s not exactly comfortable to have in your pocket despite the name, and for still photography, I’d sooner grab my phone. Did I mention you should run like hell if you see a raindrop? There’s no waterproofing at all.

But everything about the Osmo Pocket 3 makes me want to get out and record because it’s fun and easy to do. It encourages the lazy part of my brain to stop whining. It narrows the gap for people who need an ultra-portable camera that can shoot better-looking footage than their iPhone and lightens the load for those who don’t need a more complex camera for every shoot. For me, right now, it’s up there with the wallet, keys, and phone as something I’ll always consider grabbing on my way out the door.

That’s remarkable for a camera that isn’t much larger than the average vape pen — and costs less than a new phone.

Not all video games need video. Over the years, games that exist only in audio have taken players into entirely new worlds in which there’s nothing to see and still everything to do. These games have huge accessibility implications, allowing people who can’t see to play an equally fun, equally immersive game with their other senses. And when all you have is sound, there’s actually even more you can do to make your game great.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we explore the history of audio-only games with Paul Bennun, who has been in this space longer than most. Years ago, Bennun and his team at Somethin’ Else made a series of games called Papa Sangre that were among the most innovative and most popular games of their kind. He explains what makes an audio game work, why the iPhone 4 was such a crucial technological achievement for these games, and more.

Bennun also makes the case that, right now, even in this ultra-visual time, is the perfect time for a rebirth of audio games. He points to AirPods and other spatial audio headphones along with devices like the Vision Pro, advances in location tracking, and improvements in multiplayer gaming as reasons to think that audio-first games could be a huge hit now. It even sounds a bit like Bennun might have a game in the works, but he won’t tell us about that.

If you want to know more about the topics we cover in this episode, here are a few links to get you started:

• Gaming in darkness: Papa Sangre II is a terrifying world made entirely of sound
• From Polygon: Blind games: the next battleground in accessibility
• From Audiomob: Six of the best audio-only (and audio-first) video games
• Blind Drive
• Feer
• The Papa Sangre II trailer
• The Audio Defence trailer

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 37, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, send me links, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been writing about iPads and LinkedIn games, reading about auto shows and typewriters and treasure hunters, watching Everybody’s in LA and Sugar, looking for reasons to buy Yeti’s new French press even though I definitely don’t need more coffee gear, following almost all of Jerry Saltz’s favorite Instagram accounts, testing Capacities and Heptabase for all my note-taking needs and Plinky for all my link-saving, and playing a lot of Blind Drive.

I also have for you a thoroughly impressive new iPad, a clever new smart home hub, a Twitter documentary to watch this weekend, a sci-fi show to check out, a cheap streaming box, and much more. Let’s do it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you reading / watching / cooking / playing / building right now? What should everyone else be into as well? Email me at [email protected] or find me on Signal at @davidpierce.11. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, and tell them to subscribe here.)

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The Drop

• The new iPad Pro. The new Pro is easily the most impressive piece of hardware I’ve seen in a while. It’s so thin and light, and that OLED screen… gorgeous. It’s bonkers expensive, and the iPad’s big problem continues to be its software, but this is how you build a tablet, folks.
• Animal Well. Our friends over at Polygon called this “one of the most inventive games of the last decade,” which is obviously high praise! By all accounts, it’s unusual, surprising, occasionally frustrating, very smart, and incredibly engaging. Even the trailer looks like nothing I’ve seen before. (I got a lot of recommendations for this one this week — thanks to everyone who sent it in!)
• Final Cut Camera. This only got a quick mention at Apple’s event this week, but it’s kind of a huge deal! It’s a first-party, pro-level camera app for iPhones and iPads that gives you lots of manual control and editing features. It’s exactly what a lot of creatives have been asking for. No word yet on exactly when it’ll be available, but I’m excited.
• The Aqara Hub M3. The only way to manage your smart home is to make sure your devices can support as many assistants, protocols, and platforms as possible. This seems like a way to do it: it’s a Matter-ready device that can handle just about any smart-home gear you throw at it.
• “Battle of the Clipboard Managers.” I don’t think I’ve ever linked to a Reddit thread here, but check this one out: it’s a long discussion about why a clipboard manager is a useful tool, plus a bunch of good options to choose from. (I agree with all the folks who love Raycast, but there are a lot of choices and ideas here.)
• Proton Pass. My ongoing No. 1 piece of technology advice is that everyone needs a password manager. I’m a longtime 1Password fan, but Proton’s app is starting to look tempting — this week, it got a new monitoring tool for security threats, in addition to all the smart email hiding and sharing features it already has.
• The Onn 4K Pro. Basically all streaming boxes are ad-riddled, slow, and bad. This Google TV box from Walmart is at least also cheap, comes with voice control and support for all the specs you’d want, and works as a smart speaker. I love a customizable button, too.
• Dark Matter. I’ve mostly loved all the Blake Crouch sci-fi books I’ve read, so I have high hopes for this Apple TV Plus series about life in a parallel universe. Apple TV Plus, by the way? Really good at the whole sci-fi thing.
• The Wordle archive. More than 1,000 days of Wordle, all ready to be played and replayed (because, let’s be honest, who remembers Wordle from three weeks ago?). I don’t have access to the archive yet, but you better believe I’ll be playing it all the way through as soon as it’s out.
• Black Twitter: A People’s History. Based on a really fun Wired series, this is a three-part deep dive Hulu doc about the ways Black Twitter took over social media and a tour of the internet’s experience of some of the biggest events of the last decade.

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Screen share

Kylie Robison, The Verge’s new senior AI reporter, tweeted a video of her old iPhone the other day that was like a perfect time capsule of a device. She had approximately 90,000 games, including a bunch that I’m 100 percent sure were scams, and that iPod logo in her dock made me feel a lot of things. Those were good days.

I messaged Kylie in Slack roughly eight minutes after she became a Verge employee, hoping I could convince her to share her current homescreen — and what she’d been up to during her funemployment time ahead of starting with us.

Sadly, she says she tamed her homescreen chaos before starting, because something something professionalism, or whatever. And now she swears she can’t even find a screenshot of her old homescreen! SURE, KYLIE. Anyway, here’s Kylie’s newly functional homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why.

The phone: iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The wallpaper: A black screen because I think it’s too noisy otherwise. (My lock screen is about 20 revolving photos, though.)

The apps: Apple Maps, Notes, Spotify, Messages, FaceTime, Safari, Phone.

I need calendar and weather apps right in front of me when I unlock my phone because I’m forgetful. I use Spotify for all things music and podcasts.

Work is life so I have all those apps front and center, too (Signal, Google Drive, Okta).

Just before starting, I reorganized my phone screen because 1) I had time and 2) I knew I’d have to show it off for David. All the apps are sorted into folders now, but before, they were completely free-range because I use the search bar to find apps; I rarely scroll around. So just imagine about 25 random apps filling up all the pages: Pegasus for some international flight I booked, a random stuffed bell pepper recipe, what have you.

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

• Stardew Valley took over my life during my work break.
• I actually started 3 Body Problem because of an old Installer. Also, I loved Fallout and need more episodes.
• My serious guilty pleasure is Love Island UK, and I’ve been watching the latest season during my break.

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Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] or hit me up on Signal — I’m @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. And if you want even more recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads.

“I have always found Spotify’s recommendation algorithm and music channels to be terrible; wayyy too much fussing and tailoring required when all I want is to hit play and get a good diversity of music I will like. So I finally gave up and tried Pandora again. Its recommendation / station algorithm is so wildly better than Spotify’s (at least for me), it’s shocking how it has seemed to fade into cultural anonymity. Can’t speak for others, but if anyone out there is similarly frustrated with Spotify playlists, I highly recommend the Pandora option.” – Will

“Everything coming out of Netflix Is a Joke Fest has been 10/10.” – Mike

“Mantella mod for Skyrim (and Fallout 4). Not so much a single mod, but a mod plus a collection of apps that gives (basically) every NPC their own lives and stories. It’s like suddenly being allowed to participate in the fun and games with Woody and Buzz, rather than them having to say the words when you pull the string.” – Jonathan

“The Snipd podcast app (whose primary selling point is AI transcription of podcasts and the ability to easily capture, manage, and export text snippets from podcasts) has a new feature that shows you a name, bio, and picture for podcast guests, and allows you to find more podcasts with the same guest or even follow specific guests. Pretty cool!” – Andy

“I have recently bought a new Kindle, and I’m trying to figure out how to get news on it! My current plan is to use Omnivore as my bookmarks app, which will sync with this awesome community tool that converts those bookmarks into a Kindle-friendly website.” – David

“Turtles All the Way Down! Great depiction of OCD.” – Saad

“With all the conversation around Delta on iOS, I have recently procured and am currently enamored with my Miyoo Mini Plus. It’s customizable and perfectly sized, and in my advanced years with no love for Fortnite, PUBG, or any of the myriad of online connected games, it’s lovely to go back and play some of these ‘legally obtained’ games that I played in my childhood.” – Benjamin

“Rusty’s Retirement is a great, mostly idle farm sim that sits at the bottom or the side of your monitor for both Mac and Windows. Rusty just goes and completes little tasks of his own accord while you work or do other stuff. It rocks. Look at him go!” – Brendon

“Last week, Nicholas talked about YACReader and was asking for another great comic e-reader app for DRM-free files. After much searching myself, I settled on Panels for iPad. Great Apple-native UI, thoughtful features, and decent performance. The free version can handle a local library, but to unlock its full potential, the Pro version (sub or lifetime) supports iCloud, so you can keep all your comics in iCloud Drive, manage the files via a Mac, and only download what you’re currently reading — great for lower-end iPads with less storage.” – Diogo

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Signing off

I have spent so much time over the years trying to both figure out and explain to people the basics of a camera. There are a billion metaphors for ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, and all of them fall short. That’s probably why a lot of the photographer types I know have been passing around this very fun depth of field simulator over the last few days, which lets you play with aperture, focal length, sensor size, and more in order to understand how different settings change the way you take photos. It’s a really clever, simple way to see how it all works — and to understand what becomes possible when you really start to control your camera. I’ll be sharing this link a lot, I suspect, and I’m learning a lot from it, too.

See you next week!

Steam, Epic, and Green Man Gaming are reportedly canceling and refunding preorders of the PC port of Ghost of Tsushima for buyers who live in over 170 countries without PlayStation Network access, reports Eurogamer. That’s despite the fact that arguably the most important part of the game is still playable without PlayStation Network account linking. The news comes after Valve abruptly delisted the game in those countries yesterday.

Ghost of Tsushima only requires PSN account linking for its Legends multiplayer mode, a requirement the single player campaign is exempt from, the game’s developer went out of its way to say in a recent post. Steam, Green Man Gaming, and Epic Games Store each had disclaimers noting the same thing. In theory, that would mean if you don’t care about multiplayer modes, you could still play — but in practice, the platforms are now delisting the game.

The Steam team is sending this message out to players who are being refunded:

You are receiving a refund for a game you pre-purchased - Ghost of Tsushima. The publisher of this game is now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game - and this account cannot be created from your country.

Here’s an example with Green Man Gaming:

Frustrating as it is, the situation with Tsushima feels cut-and-dry compared to that of Helldivers 2. Earlier this month, Sony announced it would add mandatory PSN account linking to Helldivers 2, which had already been available to buy in non-PSN countries for almost three months. Steam quickly restricted where the game could be sold to only countries where PSN was available. Players weren’t happy.

Following a review-bombing campaign that slid the game’s Steam rating from “overwhelmingly positive” to “overwhelmingly negative” in a matter of days, Sony walked back the change. But despite that, Steam didn’t remove the sale restrictions.

Then yesterday, three more countries— Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — were added to Steam’s list of sale-restricted countries. The CEO of Arrowhead, Johan Pilestedt, said on Discord he wasn’t told about the newly-added regions, only finding out about them through the game’s Discord community.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

He later said this came down to Valve noticing an administrative error, and that the countries were supposed to be there from the start.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Pilestedt has said he is trying to get both PlayStation and Valve to undo the sale restrictions. That this decision was made by Sony seems plausible, given the situation with Ghost of Tsushima on multiple game store platforms. However, Since neither Sony nor Valve have responded to The Verge’s request for comment on this situation, it’s impossible to say for sure whether that’s true, or if the stores are delisting Sony’s games on their own.

OpenAI has been showing some of its customers a new multimodal AI model that can both talk to you and recognize objects, according to a new report from The Information. Citing unnamed sources who’ve seen it, the outlet says this could be part of what the company plans to show on Monday.

The new model reportedly offers faster, more accurate interpretation of images and audio than what its existing separate transcription and text-to-speech models can do. It would apparently be able to help customer service agents “better understand the intonation of callers’ voices or whether they’re being sarcastic,” and “theoretically,” the model can help students with math or translate real-world signs, writes The Information.

The outlet’s sources say the model can outdo GPT-4 Turbo at “answering some types of questions,” but is still susceptible to confidently getting things wrong.

It’s possible OpenAI is also readying a new built-in ChatGPT ability to make phone calls, according to Developer Ananay Arora, who posted the above screenshot of call-related code. Arora also spotted evidence that OpenAI had provisioned servers intended for real-time audio and video communication.

None of this would be GPT-5, if it’s being unveiled next week. CEO Sam Altman has explicitly denied that its upcoming announcement has anything to do with the model that’s supposed to be “materially better” than GPT-4. The Information writes GPT-5 may be publicly released by the end of the year.

Altman also said the company isn’t announcing a new AI-powered search engine. But if what The Information reports is what’s revealed, it could still take some wind out of Google’s I/O developer conference sails. Google has been testing using AI to make phone calls. And one of its rumored projects is a multimodal Google Assistant replacement called “Pixie” that can look at objects through a device’s camera and do things like give directions to places to buy them or offer instructions on how to use them.

Whatever OpenAI plans to unveil, it plans to do so via livestream on its site on Monday at 10AM PT / 1PM ET.

We found a collection of unique gift ideas that go beyond the flowers and chocolates that typically rule the day.

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The right-to-repair movement has logged some serious wins over the past several years, with states like California, New York, and Minnesota having recently passed laws that make it easier for consumers to repair their own devices. But being able to obtain parts and manuals is only part of the process — you also need the tools. Luckily, iFixit’s Pro Tech Toolkit is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and iFixit for $59.96 ($15 off), matching the lowest price we’ve seen on the versatile tool set.

Chances are you know iFixit for its in-depth teardowns of various gadgets and gizmos, including iPhone 15 Pro Max, headsets like the Apple Vision Pro, and the confounding mess that is the Humane AI Pin (sorry not sorry). That said, the company also makes some truly excellent screwdriver sets that come with a lifetime warranty and all kinds of exotic bits for opening up modern tech, which is precisely why they’ve become a tried-and-true staple among Verge staffers who like to tinker with small electronics.

The heart of the Pro Tech Toolkit is its 64-bit driver kit, though, you also get spudgers, tweezers, several case-opening picks, a SIM removal tool, and a magnetic case that doubles as a sorting tray. The kit itself includes an extremely well-curated selection of bits, too, including pentalobe bits for opening devices like iPhones, tri-wing bits for cracking into consoles like the Nintendo Switch, and even Torx bits for working with vintage Apple computers and some PCs. It also comes with basic Phillips and flatheads, so you can tune up your bike or tackle whatever small household chores you’ve been putting off.

More deals to shop this weekend

• If you’ve been on the fence about foldables, the OnePlus Open is available from Amazon and OnePlus for $1399.99 ($300 off), which is a new low for the premium flagship. The price tag is still steep when compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold — especially since it lacks full water resistance and wireless charging — but it’s a handsome phone with great multitasking support, respectable specs, and four years of OS upgrades. Plus, it almost feels like a normal phone when you close it, which isn’t necessarily the case with some of its beefier rivals. Read our review.
• There’s no reason to settle for your average, run-of-mill charger when Sharge’s Macintosh-inspired Retro 67 is on sale at Amazon for $44.99 ($5 off) with an on-page coupon. The three-port USB-C PD and PPS charger is a great option for tablets and smaller laptops given it can put out up to 67W via a single port, and it comes with a handy dot-matrix display that shows your total power output at any given moment. It’s no wonder my colleague Sean Hollister recently took to The Verge to highlight the little charging gizmo.
• Last week, we launched our 2024 graduation gift guide, which pulls together a selection of Verge-approved ideas for graduates of all ages. Not everything in there is a deal per se, though you can pick up the Cotopaxi Allpa 35L Travel Pack at Backcountry for $160 ($40 off) at checkout if you have a free Backcountry Expedition Perks membership. It’s a great carry-on backpack made of 1680-denier ballistic nylon, one that’s loaded with organizational pockets for stowing clothes, cables, and whatever tech you travel with.

Google is preparing to hold its annual Google I/O developer conference next week, and naturally, it will be all about AI. The company has made no secret of that. Since last year’s I/O, it has debuted Gemini, its new, more powerful model meant to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and has been deep in testing new features for Search, Google Maps, and Android. Expect to hear a lot about that stuff this year.

When Google I/O will happen and where you can watch

Google I/O kicks off on Tuesday, May 14th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET with a keynote talk. You can catch that on Google’s site or its YouTube channel, via the livestream link that’s also embedded at the top of this page. (There’s also a version with an American Sign Language interpreter.) Set a good amount of time aside for that; I/O tends to go on for a couple of hours.

AI at I/O

Google has been clear: I/O this year will be all about AI. Gemini has been out in the world — not without some controversy — for a few months now, as has the company’s smaller Gemma model. A lot of the keynote will probably cover how Google is fusing Search and generative AI. The company has been testing new search features like AI conversation practice for English language learners, as well as image generation for shopping and virtual try-on.

Google will probably also focus on ways it plans to turn your smartphone into more of an AI gadget. That means more generative AI features for Google’s apps. It’s been working on AI features that help with dining and shopping or finding EV chargers in Google Maps, for instance. Google is also testing a feature that uses AI to call a business and wait on hold for you until there’s actually a human being available to talk to.

The Pixel as an AI gadget

I/O could also see the debut of a new, more personal version of its digital assistant, rumored to be called “Pixie.” The Gemini-powered assistant is expected to integrate multimodal features like the ability to take pictures of objects to learn how to use them or get directions to a place to buy them.

That kind of thing could be bad news for devices like the Rabbit R1 and the Human Ai Pin, which each recently launched and struggled to justify their existence. At the moment, the only advantage they maybe sort of have is that it’s kind of hard (though not impossible) to pull off using a smartphone as an AI wearable.

Image: OnLeaks / 91Mobiles

Will there be Hardware at I/O?

It seems unlikely that Google will focus much on new hardware this year, given that the Pixel 8A is already available for preorder and you can now buy a relaunched, cheaper Pixel Tablet, unchanged apart from the fact that the magnetic speaker dock is now a separate purchase. The company could still tease new products like the Pixel 9 — which, in typical Google fashion, is already leaking all over the place — and the Pixel Tablet 2, of course.

The search giant could also talk about its follow-up to the Pixel Fold, which is rumored to get a mouthful of a rebrand to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.