Lead Hacker

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge You spend a lot of time looking at your lock screen, so it’s worth making sure that it’s tailored to your tastes — and with the right information on display, it can save you several dozen phone unlocks a day as well. While Google’s new Android 14 OS is hardly packed full of headline-grabbing new features — most of the upgrades are subtle and incremental — one area that has seen a noticeable revamp is the options for customizing the lock screen. These extra customization options follow what Apple did with iOS 16 : you’ve now got more control over the way the clock and the widgets look on your lock screen, alongside all the settings that were already in place, which I’ll recap. Here’s how lock screen customization works now, as tested on a... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23915662/android-14-lock-screen-customize-how-to

The discontinued Nest Secure hub (left) and the new ADT security system hub (right) show some indications of Google’s influence on the design. | Images: Google / ADT It appears security company ADT is about to launch a more fitting successor to Nest Secure than the half-baked ADT Self Setup system it rolled out last year . The new system, called ADT Smart Home Security, features more polished sensor hardware, a sleeker base station with a backlit keypad (like the Nest Guard), and door window sensors that can be disarmed using an on-device button (like the Nest Detects). This was a handy feature of Nest’s system for easily disarming it when your dog needed to pee at 2AM. The company hasn’t announced this system, so there are no pricing details or a release date, but The Verge received a tip linking to hidden support pages on its website containing all the hardware details. Based on these, we can glean... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23915644/ad...

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Google’s Tensor 3 and AI-touting new Pixel 8 phones are now available. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/12/23914177/google-pixel-8-everything-need-know-news-announcment-review

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching a new Xbox Series S bundle later this month that includes three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The Xbox Series S “Starter Bundle” will be available worldwide on October 31st for $299.99. It’s unusual to see Microsoft bundle three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with its consoles, as the company usually offers one month’s access as part of promotions, bundled with accessories, and elsewhere. It’s an ideal offer for anyone curious about Xbox Game Pass and the hundreds of games available on the service. As Microsoft is bundling the Ultimate version of Xbox Game Pass, you’ll also be able to stream Xbox games to a mobile device for three months with this bundle. The Xbox Series S itself is the regular white 512GB... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/12/23914550/microsoft-xbox-series-x-bundle-game-pass

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge In the past, Apple’s ecosystem has been a little “one size fits all” without a lot of room for personalization — however, now we’re getting a lot more ringtones in iOS 17 . Customizing your iPhone’s alert sounds can make your device feel a little more personal and fun. And maybe — I’m just spitballing here — you can even make a funny reference to a ’90s comedy starring Bill Murray in the process. Just an idea. In any case, here’s how to change the sounds for your ringtone, mail, texts, and calendar alerts. For reference, this was tested out on an iPhone 11 running iOS 17. Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics . Tap the task with the alert tone you want to change. Scroll down to choose from a list of sound clips. The clips will be... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23160418/iphone-ios-change-alarm-notification-alert-sounds-how-to

Google’s addressed a lot of what annoyed me about the first Pixel Watch, but repairability and continued Fitbit integration are still question marks. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23910570/google-pixel-watch-2-review-fitbit-safety-check-battery-stress-tracking

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is set to officially launch the ability to play cloud-streamed PS5 games on your PS5 in Japan, Europe, and North America beginning later in October, the company announced in a PlayStation Blog post on Wednesday . Streaming PS5 games will be a perk for people who subscribe to PlayStation Plus Premium, the most expensive tier of Sony’s PlayStation Plus offerings (which recently got a price hike ). Sony plans to roll out the feature in phases, with the below target release dates for each region: Japan: October 17th Europe: October 23rd North America: October 30th To start, Sony is promising that you’ll be able to stream “select” PS5 games, but it plans to have “hundreds” of PS5 games available for streaming down the line. The cloud... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/11/23912931/sony-playstation-ps5-cloud-streaming-games-launch