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Best Bluetooth speakers 2021: portable speakers for every budget

Home Best-buys Best Bluetooth speakers Buying Guide: Welcome to What Hi-Fi?’s round-up of the best Bluetooth speakers you can buy in 2021. Finding the best Bluetooth speaker for your particular needs isn’t the cake walk it might at first seem. It’s nothing to do with shortage of options – every online manufacturer from Apple to… Read more

Google’s Phone app can now announce who’s calling when the phone rings

Google is rolling out a new feature for the Google Phone app that announces who’s calling when the phone rings, according to 9to5Google. If it’s rolled out to you, you can set whether you want the app to announce caller ID every time the phone rings, only when you’re wearing a headset, or never, 9to5Google… Read more

Parler returns to Apple App Store with some content excluded

The iOS app for conservative-leaning social media platform Parler is back in the Apple App Store today, after what the company says were “months of productive dialogue with Apple.” “The entire Parler team has worked hard to address Apple’s concerns without compromising our core mission,” Parler interim CEO Mark Meckler said in a statement emailed… Read more

AirPods 3 and Apple Music HiFi could arrive this week

Home News (Image credit: Apple) Rumours have been building over the past few weeks around the launch of a new Apple Music HiFi tier alongside the third generation of Apple AirPods, and we’ve now had a potential launch-date leak as well. According to rumours site AppleTrack, we can expect the announcement to land on May… Read more

Google Pixel smartphone with under-screen camera

Google patent describes in detail how the search engine giant wants to implement an under-screen camera in future Google Pixel smartphones. Smartphone manufacturers have invested heavily in reducing the bezels in recent years, in order to create a beautiful edge-to-edge display. However, this poses some challenges, in particular because there is too little space left… Read more

New leak ahead of Google I/O claims Android 12 may include changes for widgets and notifications

Just ahead of Google I/O, which gets underway on Tuesday, a new leak purporting to be a preview of what’s coming during the annual developers’ conference gives some insight into what Android 12 might look like. A new video from Jon Prosser shows what appear to be slides from a presentation of Android 12. The… Read more

Twitter politely asks you to protect its targeted ad dollars in new iOS 14.5 prompt

As part of iOS 14.5, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency forces developers to ask permission for something they used to be able to do for free: track iOS users. Today, Twitter is joining the ranks of other developers and adding a prompt that asks users to enable tracking on iOS (via MacRumors). Twitter’s main justification for… Read more

Google and Seagate Are Using AI to Predict Hard Drive Failures

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) Google Cloud and Seagate offered a peek at their efforts to use machine learning, a type of AI, to predict when data center hard disk drives (HDDs), which are responsible for storing many terabytes of data, might start to fail so they can plan around those disruptions to their systems…. Read more

New Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro renders reveal radical new design

Google’s upcoming flagship phones – the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro – could be set for a striking revamp. Leaked renders – revealed by tech tipster Jon Prosser via his YouTube channel – show the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro with impressively thin bezels and a new ‘horizontal bar’ to the rear that appears to… Read more

What to expect from Google I/O 2021

Google I/O, the company’s big developer conference, is back after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The keynote kicks off on Tuesday, May 18th, at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, and it will likely be packed with news about Google products. In the keynote’s official description, Google is unsurprisingly coy about what… Read more

Volvo XC40 Recharge review: Electrified elegance

(Pocket-lint) – One of our very favourite electric cars ever is the Polestar 2. You might be wondering why on earth we’re mentioning that as a prelude to this Volvo XC40 Recharge review. Well, it’s simple really: they’re like long lost cousins (Polestar was once an arm of Volvo, which separated back in 2017). Anyway,… Read more

PSA: You can probably try Gmail’s new integrated Chat now

Google is rolling out the ability to access Chat messages right from Gmail to more iOS and Android users, after introducing it as a feature for Google Workspace users last July (via 9to5Google). It’s still a test feature, so getting access to it can take a bit of work, and it may not be available… Read more

Epic fights Apple in court by playing Candy Crush

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Expert testimony continues Sometimes I reflect on my life and wonder where I went wrong, such that I am sitting on a wooden pew in federal court, watching a Google search for Candy Crush Saga on the display monitor. This is a huge trial with major stakes for… Read more

Actor says TikTok used her voice without permission for viral text-to-speech feature

TikTok is being sued by a voice actor who claims to be behind its viral text-to-speech feature, but says she never authorized TikTok — or just about anyone, really — to use her voice this way. The lawsuit, filed last week, says Bev Standing’s voice has been used to repeat “foul and offensive language” and… Read more

Italian authorities fine Google $120 million for an Android Auto issue that’s already solved

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) handed Google an approximately $120 million (€100 million) fine today for not letting a third-party charging app on Android Auto in 2019 (via 9to5Google). The case started with a probe into the search giant’s automotive software business, which until October 2020 had limitations around what kinds of apps were allowed… Read more