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Vurt wants you to look at vertical videos as a genre of their own

An image displaying Vurt’s mobile interface.

From Disney Plus to HBO Max, almost every major established streaming service is experimenting with ways to get into vertical content. It's clear that these companies see video-focused social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram as existential threats. In this arms race for viewers' attention, it has often felt like everyone is trying to find new ways to exist on people's phones. But a new startup thinks that the next step in vertical series' evolution is going to take place on our wide-screen televisions.

Unlike most vertical microdrama / series streaming platforms on the market that have focused on mobile viewing experiences, Vurt ha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Learning to use local AI is exciting, overwhelming, and frustrating

An Asus TUF A14 laptop running Hermes Agent local AI and sitting on a child’s table full of toys.
Baby’s first local AI agent. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

I'm embarking on a journey I've so far been hesitant to go on: actually using AI on the regular. Giving my most personal data to cloud services has been a major hold up for me, but it's increasingly possible to run powerful models locally to see what they're capable of. Is this tech so useful that it's worth throwing gobs of money at a computer or a laptop with lots of overpriced RAM? I'll try to help you find out. I'm not an AI expert, it's going to be a journey for me, but maybe I can help you see if that journey is worth taking - and I'll be posting my way through it.

A big part of Apple's pitch for its new Mac desktops is how good they …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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