Silicon Roundabout

X is changing how it handles links to try and keep you in the app

X is testing a change to the way it handles links on iOS so that the buttons to like, reply, and repost will always be visible. Normally, when you click a link on X the page opens up and completely covers the original post. Apparently, this leads to fewer people clicking like or otherwise engaging with the content. A good chunk of people probably just don’t return to Twitter at all after following an external link. So the company is collapsing the original post to the bottom, instead

X is launching a marketplace for inactive handles

Premium Plus and Premium Business users will soon be able to browse and request inactive usernames on the X Handle Marketplace. Handles are going to be broken up into two broad categories. Priority handles will be free and “often include full names, multi-word phrases, or alphanumeric combinations.” Rare handles, on the other hand, will be a paid option, and “may be priced anywhere from $2,500 to over seven figures, depending on demand and uniqueness.”X is treating this not as a one-time p

You need to read the epic Argentinian horror novel Our Share of Night

I've read a lot of horror books over the last two years. But my absolute favorite is easily Mariana Enriquez' Our Share of Night. The book was originally published in 2019 in Argentina, but it only got an English translation in 2023. While it doesn't quite reach Stephen King lengths, at nearly 600 pages, I'd say it still counts as an epic.There are certainly scary and gruesome moments in the story involving ancient gods, a powerful cult, and brutal ritual violence. But as is usually the ca

March of the frogs

By the time I arrived, the waterfront park in downtown Portland, Oregon was already awash with people as far as the eye could see. The No Kings protest in June had turned out around 10,000 people across the city; this one saw several times that number just downtown, with thousands more choosing to join localized protests in their neighborhoods or in the suburbs.Unable to get a precise crowd estimate, I tried instead to count inflatable frog costumes. I gave up on this about twenty minutes

I found a cheap Windows laptop that I'd actually use for work travel - and it's on sale

Acer's Aspire Go 15 is well-optimized for everyday workloads, and its price point seals the deal for me.

I tested a $2,000 medical tablet for research, and it turned out to be a Windows beast

DT Research's 323MD rugged tablet has an anti-microbial keyboard and IP65 water and dust resistance.

Fire TV acting slow? 10 settings I changed on mine to instantly improve the performance

If your Fire TV or Fire TV Stick is running slower than usual, don't rush to replace it. These quick tips could give it a major speed boost.

I tried the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, and this unreleased feature changes everything

The style, fit, and features made me a believer.

Own an Apple TV? Changing these 12 settings should give it an instant speed boost

A few quick Apple TV settings tweaks can greatly enhance your viewing experience - here's what to adjust.

Organizers say over 7 million showed up to No Kings protests

No Kings protest in Chicago. Saturday marked the biggest day of protest since the start of Donald Trumps’ second term. Organizers of the No Kings protests estimated that over seven million people took to the streets to declare their opposition to the president, his policies, and his tactics. Indivisible, the group behind the protests, claims that there were over 2,700 events in all 50 states. That’s a sizable increase from the roughly five million protesters at 2,000 events it claimed for

The new iPad Pro's biggest upgrade isn't the M5 chip - I'd buy it for this reason instead

The M5 chip delivers up to 5.6 times faster performance than the M1 processor. Here's what else is new.

This weekend is your last chance to get a month of Disney Plus starting at $9.99

From Apple TV Plus to Peacock, a number of streaming services have recently increased their pricing — and Disney Plus is no exception. Starting on Tuesday, October 21st, the standalone plan with ads will jump from $9.99 to $11.99 a month, while the ad-free Premium tier will increase by $3 to $18.99 a month. The ad-free annual plan is also going up by $30, at which point it will cost $189.99 a year. Ouch.Disney PlusWhere to Buy: $9.99 at Disney Plus (with ads, monthly) $15.99 at Disney Plus

The Sony Watchman was must-see TV

To understand the Sony Watchman, you have to go back. Way back. Back to when "TV" wasn't just a way to refer to any piece of content between 20 and 89 minutes, available on every screen everywhere for a few bucks a month. In 1982, when Sony first started selling its new device, "TV" was a piece of furniture. It was probably humungous, and often made largely of wood. Sony helped change all that.For this episode of Version History, we take on the whole story of the Watchman. David Pierce, Al

How you're charging your tablet is slowly killing it - 3 ways to avoid (and the right method)

Please stop charging your tablet like this.

Windows 11 AI agents will act on your behalf - how much can you trust them?

Should you trust this Copilot agent to poke around your files and interact with apps? The last time Microsoft rolled out a major AI feature, it didn't go well.

Opera’s Neon shows just how confusing AI browsers still are

The trick to understanding Opera's Neon browser is recognizing that it's not just a browser with an AI bot added to it, but a browser with three AI bots all living side by side. This is both a strength and a weakness, because while you don't have to leave to do all the AI things you want, knowing where to go for which AI tasks can be really confusing. Opera began taking people off the waitlist for its AI browser, Neon, last month. It's entering an increasingly crowded market of AI-powered

Updated to Android 16? You should enable these 2 critical security features ASAP - here's why

I strongly suggest using both of these Android 16 security features if you want maximum protection.

The AI sexting era has arrived

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI and the industry's power dynamics and societal implications, follow Hayden Field. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepbackhere.How it startedSince ChatGPT became a household name, people have been trying to get sexy with it. Even before that, there was the chatbot Replika in 2017, which a lot of people started treating as a romantic part

Time to catch ‘em all again

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 102, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy spooky season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about personal chefs and TikTok's algorithm and deep sea divers, tearing through Cory Doctorow's fabulous Enshittificationbook, helping curate the wonderful Sunday Long Readnewsletter, becoming surprising emotional during the final WTF episod

I compared Sony's XM6 headphones with the Bose QuietComfort Ultra - this pair wins

After a three-year hiatus and much anticipation, Sony's latest model impresses on almost all fronts.