Technology

One of the new features in Android 12 is the ability to automatically fit your phone’s color palette to that of your wallpaper. If you’ve been able to upgrade to Android 12, you may want to give it a try, especially if you’re into styling and colors. I tried it out on a Pixel 3 using Android 12 beta, and the results were interesting. When I used the sample wallpapers supplied by Google and enabled the “themed icons” feature (which is supposed to let your icons match the style of your wallpaper), I was treated to a new background color which appeared on the search field at the bottom of the screen, the Quick Tiles (the buttons you get when you swipe down from the top), and other elements. I was not all that impressed by the “themed icons” feature — it basically changed some, but not all, of...

Today, let’s talk about the latest project from a co-founder of Vine and what it tells us about how the tech industry is evolving. This is a rare tech story where basically every fact of it has surprised me on some level. And while some of the ideas here are way out there — to the point that I’m imagining many of you slamming your laptops closed to avoid hearing any more — the far frontier they represent appears to be inching closer to the mainstream every day. The road to Loot When I wrote in March about non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, I tried to dazzle you by rattling off some of the more impressive sales numbers from the time: $600,000 for the Nyan Cat meme, $5.8 million for artwork by Grimes, $230 million in lifetime sales for NBA Top Shot. What has happened since then has been enough to...

Bose is updating its QuietComfort series with the QC45 headphones, maintaining the series’ signature performance with the introduction of subtle design updates and new features. Bose decided to keep the classic design found on the QC35 and QC35 II, closing gaps and removing earpad pleats for a slightly cleaner aesthetic. The big changes are hidden within, featuring improved noise cancellation, an addition of a fourth external microphone that improves voice pickup, and a new Aware Mode —similar to the transparency mode on the Apple Airpods Pro— which picks up external sounds and broadcasts them naturally through the headphones. Battery life is extended to 24 hours of listening time on a full charge. four more hours compared to the QC35 II, and quick charge gives three extra hours of listeni...

Many of us have written a tweet once in our life that we wish didn’t exist, and now Twitter is looking into helping out its users with an updated range of social privacy updates. The new privacy settings offer more control over your Twitter account and who gets to interact with it, and also how they interact with it too. This is much more than just setting your profile to private, as the new tools will allow users to edit your follower list, as opposed to the tactic that Twitter employees have noticed happening that involves blocking and unblocking people to remove them. Additionally, the new features will include an “Archive Tweet” function that will hide your tweets after or from a certain period. According to Bloomberg, posts may be hidden after “30, 60, and 90 days, or hiding tweets af...

Roblox is taking its first steps to introduce voice chat by opening up a feature it’s calling “Spatial Voice” to select developers in an invitation-only beta, the company announced Thursday. “With Spatial Voice, Roblox creators will begin to test developing experiences where conversations can happen in a realistic way, mirroring how we listen and respond to the world around us each day,” Roblox’s chief product officer Manuel Bronstein said in a blog post. Based on this limited description, it sounds like Spatial Voice will attempt to reflect the way voices carry in the real world and require you to be close proximity to another player to speak to them. Adding voice chat raises concerns about moderation Adding voice chat of any kind into Roblox immediately raises concerns about how the comp...

Apple’s rumored AR/VR headset is designed to rely on another device, and may have to offload more processor-heavy tasks to a connected iPhone or Mac, according to a report from The Information. Apple is reportedly working on a custom chip for the headset, an SoC that’s intentionally missing capabilities found in Apple’s other processors. While the new chip reportedly doesn’t have Apple’s neural engine, which handles AI and machine learning, it’s reportedly designed to be better at wirelessly sending and receiving data, and compressing/decompressing video than traditional chips, which makes sense if the headset is designed to stream data from another device rather than doing the heavy processing itself. A stripped-down SoC for augmented battery The Information’s sources say it’s designed to...

Streamers took a day off Twitch on September 1st to bring attention to the persistent hate raids that have plagued the platform in the past weeks. While skeptics panned the idea, suggesting that the walkout participants weren’t influential enough to effect significant traffic changes, according to data compiled by Gamesight, a gaming analytics company, Twitch did see a drop in viewership. Gamesight.io In this graph shared with The Verge, Gamesight measured the number of active channels (meaning the number of live channels) and hours watched every day for the last nine days at noon Pacific Time. According to Gamesight’s data, the number of active channels and viewer hours at 12PM PT on September 1st was at its lowest compared to the prior eight days. Here’s a breakdown of those numbers. Dai...

The launch of Super Follows marked the beginning of the end for truly free content on Twitter, and the start of whatever Patreon-infused future lays ahead for the microblogging app. Supporting creators directly with monthly payments isn’t a bad thing, but as app researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted on Thursday, the way they currently work on iOS is a little weird — each Super Follow subscription is an individual App Store in-app purchase (via MacRumors). You can see for yourself by pulling up the App Store on an Apple device or the web. Twitter currently only lists 10 in-app subscriptions of various prices, each associated with Super Following an individual creator. Wong speculates only 10 are shown because the App Store isn’t designed to show as many in-app purchases as Twitter is current...

This story is part of a group of stories called Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you’re looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. Labor Day deals are finally getting into full swing, with a slew of notable discounts going live on some major hardware and accessories across the tech spectrum. Whether you’re picking up some last-minute gear for school or preparing to hunker down for the fall TV season with your favorite streaming device, this weekend might be the last real opportunity for you to save some serious money on TVs, headphones, and other gadgets until Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around. To make sorting through th...

Amazon is set to release Amazon-branded TVs as soon as October in the US, according to Insider. The TVs will have Alexa, screen sizes “in the range of 55 to 75 inches,” and will be designed and manufactured by third parties such as TCL, Insider reports. The company is also developing a TV designed in-house, Insider says, but it’s unclear when that might be released. Amazon already has many irons in the fire with TVs — it partners with Best Buy to sell Toshiba and Insignia TVs that run Amazon’s Fire TV software, offers an AmazonBasics-branded TV in India, and has the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Amazon Fire TV Cube, which you can hook up to your TV. But this rumored new Amazon-branded TV could indicate that the company is stepping up its television efforts to take on TV stalwarts like LG and Sa...

Twitter might soon start allowing its users to tip its favorite content creators in Bitcoin. The social network’s head of consumer product, Kayvon Beykpour, responded to a tweet by researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who first spotted the new feature, with emojis suggesting that the feature would be arriving soon. ⚡️? https://t.co/EumSmM9caR — Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) September 1, 2021 According to Paluzzi’s tweet, the cryptocurrency tips would be handled through Lightening, a decentralized network using smart contracts to enable instant payments. Twitter first announced its Tip Jar feature in May, which allows users to list payment services or platforms that the account is connected to. Currently, the services available in this function include Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal...