YouTube

About a month before the famed driver and DC Shoes co-founder Ken Block died in a snowmobile accident earlier this year, he filmed another installment of the popular series in Mexico City that you can watch right here.

After racking up over 650 million views on YouTube for the Gymkhana series, this final video combines his trademark precision driving with Audi’s purpose-built EV and some new modifications: simulated gears that program multiple levels of wheel speed controlled by the paddle shifter, opposite-driven wheels for a standing AWD burnout, the ability to go into reverse at any speed, and instant switching from AWD to RWD.

Despite Rockstar releasing the GTA VI trailer early following a leak, it still managed to rake in 72 million views and counting. PC Gamer points out this makes it the most-viewed non-music video on YouTube in the 24 hours following its release — a record previously held by MrBeast.

It’s also getting close to dethroning BTS’s “Dynamite” music video, which currently holds the record for getting the most views on all of YouTube in 24 hours.

YouTuber Charles Cornell recently broke down the unassailable soundtrack of Streets of Rage 2, and his glee mirrors the feelings I’ve had about that song collection for the last cough years.

While you’re watching, check out The Verge’s interview with Yuzo Koshiro, the game’s composer.

Spotify and Apple Music have both released their end-of-year roundups, and now it’s YouTube Music’s turn. This year, YouTube Music will create a custom album art based on what you’ve listened to in 2023, as well as match your top songs to different moods.

You can also access your Recap from the regular YouTube app for the first time, but it might not have any stats if you aren’t a YouTube Music listener.

Verge pal Taylor Lorenz shared this Game Theory video about over-optimized content on YouTube leading to what MatPat calls the “era of excess” on the platform. Her prediction? A new creator will break out by becoming the “anti-MrBeast” and defying this trend. You can argue it’s already happening on TikTok — and the video itself is a fascinating deep dive into creators gaming a platform’s algorithmic incentives.

This noise is the price you’ll pay for the uncropped 4K 120fps shots of the Sony A9 III’s global shutter that’s supposed to fix the distortion caused by the usual rolling shutter. (Well, really the price is $5,999)

Okay, so you don’t actually have to hear the sound of an early PC crashing — there’s no mechanical shutter. But this is an awful noise, and I love that it’s there.

Fast Company’s latest cover story is on tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee. There’s the main feature itself and a highlights reel of his most significant videos, but perhaps the best quotes in the package come from this interview with Brownlee’s mom, Jeaniene Brownlee:

People sometimes wonder if Marques grew up in a house with lots of technology, and he was just tapping into that. And the truth of the matter is, it was the exact opposite. We had one television. It was in the family room. We’d rent a movie from Blockbuster on weekends. There were no video games—I wouldn’t allow them.

Why shouldn’t I speaker it?

(Sorry for the puns. Please enjoy this Penguin DIY video of a walnut shell being turned into a tiny Bluetooth speaker.)

Earlier this week, YouTube confirmed “a global effort” to crack down on ad blockers — and it’s already affecting the ad blocker business. A new report from Wired suggests that the crackdown is causing users to uninstall and install ad blockers at a record pace as they search for one that actually works:

Previously unreported figures from ad blocking companies indicate that YouTube’s crackdown is working, with hundreds of thousands of people uninstalling ad blockers in October. The available data suggests last month saw a record number of adblockers uninstalled—and also a record for new ad blocker installs as people sought alternatives that wouldn’t trigger YouTube’s dreaded popup.

The owner of James Channel on YouTube has perfected the art of the home portable console conversion, using hot glue, duct tape, and (feigned) carelessness.

The race is on to find out: TechCrunch reports that TikTok is testing 15-minute video uploads, an increase of 5 minutes from the current max time. YouTube, meanwhile, is all in with Shorts as its answer to TikTok’s vertical, mobile-first format.

Michigan State is “deeply sorry” for the 40-foot-tall (my quick estimate) picture of a certain WWII-era genocidal dictator on the gigantic digital scoreboard at Spartan Stadium during Saturday night’s football game against Michigan University.

The picture showed up during a pre-game pop quiz the school may have been streaming from a YouTube channel. The channel’s owner commented today that they weren’t aware the school was using their content, calling it “unsolicited and unauthorized use.”

According to The Washington Post, associate athletic director Matt Larson said it was “inappropriate content by a third-party source,” and the school promises to better vet content for the screen going forward.

Update October 22nd, 3:12PM ET: Added comment from TheQuizChannel owner.

YouTube’s been cracking down on ad blocker usage this year. I’m fine coughing up $14 a month for YouTube Premium, but I can’t help but be amused at the user agent workaround Enderman posted yesterday (spotted by Windows Central).

Using a Google-made Chrome extension, you can put a digital name tag on your browser that basically says, “Hello! My Name is Windows Phone,” and YouTube won’t show you ads.

YouTube hasn’t specifically said that turning your browser into three Windows Phones in a trenchcoat is against its terms of service, but all the same: Proceed at your own risk.

The DOJ was granted (PDF) a stay of an injunction barring DHS, CISA, FBI, and other federal officials from contact with social media platforms about content moderation. The judge who wrote the injunction this summer claimed their requests about posts containing covid misinformation amounted to a violation of the First Amendment.

An appeals court limited the terms of the ban last month but paused the process to see if the Supreme Court would weigh in. Now it will hear the DOJ’s appeal, over dissent from three justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch).