THE HOT LIST. Trump Announces $500 Billion AI Infrastructure Investment. CES 2025: the best stuff you’ll actually buy. Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 66, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy 2025, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about loneliness and Web3 scams and the future of procedural TV, watching Deadpool & Wolverine on an airplane like the director intended, rewatching Severance and Squid Game to get ready for the second seasons, eagerly awaiting the return of Kids Baking Championship, wondering if that’s real Sara Dietschy or AI Sara Dietschy, and giving an Apple News Plus subscription a whirl as my go-to news source.
I also have for you a big report from CES in Las Vegas. Also, and most importantly, my heart goes out to everyone in LA and elsewhere dealing with the fires this week. (As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. The Drop (A note on the links in here: I linked to product pages when they existed, as I always try to do. The LG StanbyME 2. Apple is pausing notification summaries for news in the latest iOS 18.3 beta. Apple has temporarily stopped showing notification summaries for news and entertainment apps as part of the iOS 18.3 developer beta released Thursday, according to reports from MacRumors and 9to5Mac.
The Apple Intelligence-powered feature was criticized after it inaccurately summarized content from outlets such as the BBC. Apple will reenable the notifications “with a future software update” as it continues to work on the feature, 9to5Mac reports. In the new beta, Apple will make it clear that the notification summary feature is a beta and “may contain errors.” Additionally, 9to5Mac says Apple will let you disable notifications for specific apps from the lock screen or Notification Center in iOS 18.3 by “swiping, tapping ‘Options,’ then choosing the ‘Turn Off Summaries.’” The company will also use italicized text on the lock screen to make it easier to tell notification summaries and standard notifications apart. Drake Sues UMG Alleging Defamation After Kendrick Lamar Diss Track. Big Tech Is Spending Big, but Consumers Aren't Buying AR/VR Headsets. OpenAI says BlackRock exec Adebayo Ogunlesi is joining board.
Bayo Ogunlesi, Chairman, Global Infrastructure Partners listens as US President Donald Trump speaks during a strategic and policy discussion with CEOs in the State Department Library in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 11, 2017 in Washington, DC. Pool | Getty Images OpenAI said Tuesday that Adebayo Ogunlesi, a senior managing director at BlackRock, is joining the startup's board of directors, the latest announcement in the company's move toward a for-profit structure.
Ogunlesi is a founding partner of Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investing firm that was acquired by BlackRock last year for $12 billion. Before helping to start GIP in 2006, Ogunlesi spent 23 years at Credit Suisse. "The rapid advancement and development of AI offers a unique opportunity to build a better future," Ogunlesi said in OpenAI's announcement Tuesday. For OpenAI, the addition of Ogunlesi to its board marks another step in its dramatic transformation to a for-profit company.
Rashida Jones, MSNBC President, Steps Down. The president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones, is stepping down from that position, the company said on Tuesday, a major change at the news network just days before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office. Rebecca Kutler, senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC, will succeed Ms. Jones as interim president, effective immediately. Ms. “Rebecca is the ideal leader to guide us through this moment, and I look forward to collaborating with her as we shape our collective future together,” Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, said in a note to staffers. Ms. Executives at the network are hopeful that audiences will return as Mr. MSNBC is among a bundle of cable channels that its parent company, Comcast, is planning to spin out later this year into a new company.
Ms. This is a developing story. Robots Are Getting More Useful — and Human-Like. Grammys and Oscars to proceed amid LA fires, but will put the spotlight on first responders | CNN. As they say in Hollywood, the show must go on. On Monday, it was announced that both the Grammys and Oscars would proceed as planned on February 2 and March 2, respectively, answering a question that has been debated behind the scenes by decision makers tasked with figuring out how to proceed with award season as Los Angeles grapples with devastating wildfires.
Some stars, like Jean Smart and Patricia Arquette, have called for award shows to be cancelled in lieu of charitable telethons to raise funds for the fires. Award season – the Golden Globes, Grammys, SAG Awards, Oscars and more – is a glitzy time in Hollywood. Watching well-paid stars take the stage to collect awards while thousands of LA families are displaced and have lost their homes runs the risk of being tone deaf, but economically, these shows also provide income for thousands of entertainment workers from caterers to drivers to lighting professionals who are integral to the industry. The Critics Choice Awards on E! Netflix Donates $10 Million to LA Fire Relief, Recovery Efforts. IAC CEO Joey Levin to Depart, Barry Diller Takes Over in Absence.
Joey Levin, CEO of media company IAC, is set to depart the company. His departure comes as IAC’s board of directors approved a plan to spin off IAC’s stake in home services platform Angi, to shareholders. Levin will depart upon completion of the spinoff and will become executive chairman of Angi, working alongside CEO Jeff Kipp. IAC does not plan to appoint a new CEO. Rather, the company’s CFO, COO and chief legal officer will report directly to Barry Diller, chairman of IAC. “Joey Levin has wanted a store of his own for some time and the spin-off of Angi affords him this opportunity.
The spinoff will make IAC and Angi fully separate entities. “I consider myself among the luckiest in the world to have spent the past two decades working with and learning from Barry Diller and the many brilliant minds he has always attracted to his orbit,” Levin said. Trump's FCC pick wrote a letter to Disney that should worry all Americans. In 2022, the authors of the so-called Twitter Files argued that statements from Biden administration officials to social media companies posed an “existential threat to free speech.”
The act of government officials using threats or coercion to compel private actors to take actions the government cannot take on its own is generally referred to as jawboning. Government officials are, generally, allowed to try to persuade private actors to act in a particular manner (i.e., “using the bully pulpit”), but they cannot cross over into coercive behavior that threatens retaliation for failing to abide by the official’s wishes. The Supreme Court ruled in June that there was no evidence to support the allegations that government officials had made threats amounting to “open and explicit censorship programs.” The Supreme Court saw no evidence of coercion that crossed the line into unconstitutional jawboning. In November, Carr posted: “Broadcast licenses are not sacred cows. I Asked ChatGPT for 2025 Market Predictions. Here's What It Said.
The Washington Post lays off roughly 100 staffers as star journalists exit | CNN Business. New York CNN — The Washington Post on Tuesday laid off roughly 100 employees across its business division, the latest indication of the newspaper’s financial woes after subscribers and staffers revolted over owner Jeff Bezos’s decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. The cuts amounted to roughly 4% of the publication’s staff and did not affect the newsroom, a spokesperson for the Post said. The news, which was first reported in the Status newsletter, comes as the beleaguered newspaper has hemorrhaged several high-profile journalists in recent weeks and top candidates pulled out of the running for the Post’s executive editor job.
“The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are,” a Post spokesperson told CNN. The Post’s financial woes are nothing new. “To speak candidly,” Lewis said in a May meeting, “we are in a hole, and we have been for some time.” Amazon Prime Will Release a Melania Trump Documentary.
Amazon said on Sunday that its Prime Video streaming service would release a “behind the scenes” documentary about Melania Trump’s life. The film will head to movie theaters and stream on Amazon Prime in the second half of this year, the company said in a statement. Mrs. Trump will be an executive producer of the documentary, which started filming in December, the month after her husband, Donald J.
Trump, won the presidential election. Amazon said it was “excited to share this truly unique story.” The company and its founder, Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, had a rocky relationship with Mr. During his first presidential term, Mr. Amazon now appears to be eager to turn the page. In October, The Post said it would stop endorsing presidential candidates, a decision made by Mr. Last week, Ann Telnaes, a Post cartoonist, said she was resigning after the paper’s opinion section rejected a cartoon that showed Mr.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Disney: 157 million monthly active users watch ad-supported content. The atmosphere at the Disney Bundle Celebrating National Streaming Day at The Row in Los Angeles on May 19, 2022. Presley Ann | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images Disney said Wednesday it has an estimated 157 million global monthly active users watching ad-supported content across its streaming platforms — Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. That number includes 112 million users domestically and is an average per month over the last six months. While traditional TV outlets have a standard way of measuring ratings and viewership, there is still no industry standard methodology for measuring global streaming advertising audience size.
The company said that its Disney Advertising unit has "set out to define a globally consistent approach and methodology to estimate ad-supported audience numbers. " Media companies have become particularly focused on generating profits from their streaming businesses, and advertising has become a key way to do that. Amazon Is Reportedly Exploring Investments in Original News Programming. There may be a new kid on the news media block. Variety reports that Amazon is exploring investments in more original news programming on its Prime Video platform.
Those discussions follow the streaming giant’s first-ever newscast Election Night Live with Brian Williams, which streamed globally on Nov. 5, 2024. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on Variety’s reporting when reached by TVNewser. The election special marked the first time Williams had appeared behind an anchor desk since 2021, when the former face of the NBC Nightly News signed off from his post-broadcast perch at MSNBC.
And he brought a number of other former legacy media correspondents along with him into the streaming realm, including ex-CNN talent like Jessica Yellin and Candy Crowley and former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. According to Variety, Election Night Live reached an estimated four million viewers as the evening unfolded. GloRilla Invests $25K In Tech Hub At Hometown High School. Memphis rapper GloRilla, born Gloria Hallelujah Woods, has funded a new tech-enabled media center at her alma mater, Melrose High School. On December 18, 2024, the Memphis native donated $25,000 to fund the creation of a modern, tech-enabled media center.
This space, which will serve students and the surrounding Orange Mound community, will be named the Gloria H. Woods Media Center in her honor. “The fact that I have the ability to do it now warms my heart,” GloRilla said during her visit. A Media Hub for Literacy and Learning The new media center will offer students access to technology-enhanced learning tools, a safe and flexible study environment, and resources to promote literacy. School officials shared that the space aims to provide opportunities for academic growth and engagement for the 800 students of Melrose High and the broader Orange Mound area. This donation follows GloRilla’s history of supporting educational programs in Memphis. A Rising Star Committed to Giving Back. Quantum stocks plunge after Nvidia’s CEO says the tech is decades from being useful - Sherwood News. Quantum bits of anxiety… High-flying quantum-computing stocks nosedived yesterday after Nvidia boss Jensen Huang said the tech is decades away from being useful.
He said it’s believable that “very useful” quantum computers will arrive in 20 years, a timeline investors seem repulsed by. Shares of Rigetti Computing plunged 45% yesterday, while rivals like D-Wave Quantum, Quantum Computing, and IonQ plunged about 40%. Meanwhile: Huang said his company will play a “very significant part” in quantum computers, adding that “just about every quantum-computing company in the world” is working with Nvidia (they’re probably not very happy right now).
Move over, AI… Quantum computing has gotten a lot of buzz. Quantum stocks were on a tear late last year after Google introduced a quantum chip (Willow) that it said could solve problems in under 5 minutes that today’s top computers would take 10 septillion years to work out.