For better or worse, nothing defines iOS 26 quite so much as Liquid Glass. Apple’s distinct new design language has been met with praise and criticism, with some users enjoying the refreshed look, and others bemoaning the UI’s issues with visibility and consistency.

It seems Apple was similarly of two minds on the update, having toyed around with the exact look of Liquid Glass throughout the iOS 26 beta testing period. The company seemed to be having trouble settling on a specific balance between the design’s glassy effect, which can look really cool, and its overall readability. If buttons are too clear, for example, they’ll let in more of the background elements, which can make it more difficult to see them. But by reducing the glass effect too much by adding a tint to the icon and menu backgrounds, Apple risks loses the charm of the design entirely. (Some critics have dubbed it “Frosted Glass” by comparison.)

While Apple is seemingly still continuing to tweak Liquid Glass, it appears the company has decided that part of the problem is down to user preference. So rather than stick with one look for the design, Apple is now working on a setting that lets you choose whether Liquid Glass looks more clear, or more tinted.

To be clear, or not to be clear

This new setting first appeared in the fourth beta for iOS 26.1, as well as iPadOS 26.1 and macOS 26.1, which Apple released on Monday, Oct. 20. The toggle, which beta testers can find in Settings > Display and Brightness (iOS and iPadOS) or System Settings > Appearance on the Mac (macOS), gives users a simple choice in how Liquid Glass looks across their particular system: “Clear,” which is more transparent, and is in-line with Liquid Glass’ original intent; or “Tinted,” which increases the opacity of menus and windows. You’ll likely be able to read these elements better, but you won’t see as much of the background shining through.

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Giving tester what they asked for (sort of)

During the pre-release beta testing period, some users called on Apple to add a Liquid Glass “slider” to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The idea was to allow users to fine-tune how Liquid Glass looks. Apple seems to have taken a different approach, offering only two levels of transparency with the new control. While a slider (or more transparency options, at least) would be great, what we’re getting is better than nothing for users who prefer a more opaque Liquid Glass appearance.

iOS 26.1 is still in beta testing, so it isn’t clear (no pun intended) whether this feature will in fact make it to the official update, and if it does, whether it’ll still work the same way.

How to fix Liquid Glass right now

But even without this dedicated settings page, there is something you can do to “undo” Liquid Glass: By kicking on the “Reduce Transparency” feature in Accessibility settings, you can achieve a similar look to choosing the new “Tinted” option. My guess, however, is that “Tinted” will achieve a more visually pleasing look, as it is something Apple deliberately implemented to work with the design of Liquid Glass, while reduce Transparency is simply a blanket effect that turns down transparency effects across iOS, iPadOS, or macOS.

It took awhile, but Google’s Pixel line of smartphones has established itself as a mainstay of Android after 10 generations. The company has long operated a “Superfans” group to help promote Pixels, but now members have a slim chance to get their hands on Google’s next phones ahead of time. Google is reportedly looking for some lucky Superfans to test and provide feedback on unreleased devices, but they’ll have to promise not to leak anything.

It’s not unheard of for companies to have loyal customers help test new products, but it’s not usually big companies like Google with well-established products like Pixel. Google usually keeps its circle of hardware testers small and limited to employees. According to Bloomberg, Google is running a contest among Superfans to find 15 non-employees suited to test in-development hardware. An official document reviewed by Bloomberg describes the program as a chance to “provide feedback and help shape a Pixel phone currently in development.”

To apply, interested Superfans have to prove they are more super than the rest. They must demonstrate deep knowledge of the Pixel product family and suggest ways the phones can be improved. However, Google is asking this of its biggest supporters—people who still care enough about their smartphones to seek out a group specifically to talk about how much they care about their phones. Is Google going to get gushing praise or constructive criticism?

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The holiday season sales are around the corner, and Best Buy is the first of the major retailers to formally announce their plans. Much like their other big sales, Best Buy is having multiple events. This year, Best Buy is having six sales that you can take advantage of starting on Halloween and leading up to Christmas. Here are the details.

What are Best Buy’s holiday sale events?

You can think of the holiday Sale Events as multiple sales spanning Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas. All six events take place in store, in app, and online. Each one will be slightly different.

What sales is Best Buy having this Holiday season?

Best Buy has announced the following evetns:

• Doorbusters: On Oct. 31, the “DoorBOOsters” event will take place with tech deals.

• New doorbusters every Friday: Then, every Friday of the holiday season (leading up to Dec. 24) will have new deals on select tech.

• Early Black Friday sale: The early Black Friday sale will start on Oct. 31 and run until Nov. 19. This will lead up to their best sale.

• Black Friday sale: Best Buy says this will be their main sale, starting on Thursday, Nov. 20 and running until Nov. 29 with deals on “computing, gaming, home theater, wearables, and more.”

• Cyber Sunday and Monday: Best Buy is extending Cyber Monday to two days and says you can find deals going up to 50% off select tech.

• Last-minute savings: Their Christmas sale will run from Dec. 15 until Dec. 24.

What deals can you expect during the Holiday Sale Events?

Best Buy says they’ll have deals and in-store demos on Meta Ray-Ban Display; XXL TVs; Copilot+ PCs; small appliance sales from Shark, Ninja, Dyson, Breville; and more. Best Buy says they will also have their usual price-match guarantee, so if the price of something you bought from Best Buy goes down to a lower price during the holiday season, they’ll match it. They’re also extending store hours, which will vary by location.

Do you need to be a member to shop Best Buy’s holiday sales?

While you don’t need a Best Buy membership to shop deals, members can get better savings. It is free to sign up for a My Best Buy membership, which will give you free shipping, but if you join one of its paid subscriptions (My Best Buy Plus for $49.99 per year or My Best Buy Total for $179.99 per year), you’ll get faster free shipping, exclusive prices and deals, an extended 60-day return window on most products, and access to select sales. Paid members will also earn extra rewards.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says his company has lost all access to China’s market after U.S. export restrictions eliminated what was once a 95% share. Speaking in an interview with Citadel Securities, Huang questioned the wisdom of policies that cost America one of the world’s largest markets.

The Biden Administration imposed rules in 2022 to restrict exports of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to China. The Trump Administration blocked additional chip sales in April and later granted export licenses for certain Nvidia and AMD chips in exchange for 15% of revenues. Chinese regulators responded by telling domestic tech companies to avoid Nvidia chips designed to meet U.S. export requirements. Beijing also placed strict limits on exports of rare earths. Huang noted that about half the world’s AI researchers are in China and called it a mistake not to have them build AI on American technology.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

All the world’s discarded phones, bricked laptops, and other trashed electronics are collectively a treasure trove of rare earth elements (REEs). But separating out and recovering these increasingly sought-after materials is no easy task.

However, a team of researchers says it has developed a way of separating REEs from waste—magnets, in this case—that is relatively easy, uses less energy, and isn’t nearly as emissions and pollution intensive as current methods. The team published a paper describing this method in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In short, this process involves using an electric current to heat waste magnets to very high temperatures very fast, and using chlorine gas to react with the non-REEs in the mix, keeping them in the vapor phase. James Tour, one of the authors and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University, says that the research can help the United States meet its growing need for these elements.

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Bed bugs: the nightmare of any city dweller, frequent traveller, and now Google employee. The team at the company’s Chelsea campus were notified on Sunday that a possible bed bug infestation had been discovered in the building and were told to remain at home so the location could be treated. As if working over the weekend wasn’t enough of a bummer. Fortunately, exterminators collected their bug bounty, and employees were allowed to return to the building on Monday morning.

Google told employees to file a report if they had symptoms of bed bug bites or saw evidence of bed bugs on site, according to an email sent by the company and obtained by Wired. They were also told to contact professional exterminators if they accidentally brought bed bugs home; hopefully Google foots the bill for those unlucky people.

According to Wired‘s sources, the infestation may have been caused by “a number of large stuffed animals” in the Google office, but the publication wasn’t able to confirm that. It’s always the ones you least suspect.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/one-of-googles-new-york-offices-needs-literal-debugging-194029103.html?src=rss

If you use the X app on iPhone, there’s a good chance any links you open today will look different than they did yesterday. That’s because the platform is trying to up engagement on posts with links in them, by keeping the like, comment, repost, favorite, and share buttons active in a new footer even when you click through to an outside article.

When you click on a link in X, it doesn’t actually navigate away from the app, but instead uses a special version of either Chrome (on Android) or Safari (on iPhone) to open the article within X. That hasn’t changed. But what has is that, on iPhone, you’ll now continue to see interactable elements at the bottom of the page, with buttons you can press to engage directly with X while reading. Also, when you first access a link or scroll up, you’ll even see part of the original social media post that drove you there above those buttons. These elements will remain even if you click another link in the article you’re reading.

It’s a small change despite maybe looking a little busy, but it points to a potential fix for a major problem. According to X head of product Nikita Bier, the idea is to try to increase traffic for posts with links in them, by making it easier for users to engage with them even after clicking through.

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A lot of controversy has been made about X posts that include links getting less traffic than those that don’t, especially after the platform was acquired by current owner Elon Musk. While the site hasn’t admitted to it directly, SEO experts have recently started warning users to avoid putting links in their traffic, claiming that X now deprioritizes posts with links on them, as they keep people away from their timelines. Musk has also made comments that some have accused of implying this to be the case.

Bier, however, refuted this while debuting the new interface for opening links on iOS, instead saying “links are not deboosted,” and implying that the lack of interactable timeline elements on them simply leads to less engagement naturally, something the new change is trying to fix.

For instance, the old method of opening links could potentially draw you away from the site and interrupt any intention you had to reply to the original social media post or share it to your own audience. Bier said this is what led to posts getting lower reach, and that the new footer should help them “get better signal.”

But at the same time, it’s clear that the new approach has benefits for X as well, since it gives users easier avenues to navigate away from external articles and back to their timelines, where they can drive engagement on other posts and see ads.

But regardless of whether X manually deprioritizes posts with links, or if the motivations for the change are selfish, the fact that changes like this are even being made means the platform might finally start trying to make linking in posts more viable. That could be a huge boon for users like myself, who have historically used X (and Twitter before it) to help drive traffic to our posts. Whatever the reason this stopped working, it would be helpful for those who rely on it if it were fixed.

That said, there’s a chance you might not be seeing the new interface at all, or that if you are, you might not like it. Luckily, if that sounds like you, you’re not out of options.

X Links only look different on iPhone, for now

In the post announcing the change, Bier mentioned that the “new link experience” is only in testing, and that it’s only on iOS at the moment. That means that, while I do currently see it on posts I’m opening with my iPhone 15 Pro, you might not. On my Pixel 10, I’m still getting the old interface, and even on iPhone, it doesn’t seem to be affecting all users. My husband, for instance, is not seeing the footer on his iPhone 17 Pro. 

That’s great news if you don’t like the look of the new footer, although if you would like to try it out, I unfortunately don’t have much advice at the moment. It seems only some users have access to it right now.

However, if you are seeing the new footer but you would prefer not to, there are two steps you can take to get rid of it.

How to open X links without the new footer

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

The change to how X links work is server-side, so downgrading your app or avoiding an update won’t save you here. Instead, to get rid of the footer from links you open in X, you’ll need to first open the link, then hit the three-dots button just above the footer on the right-hand side.

From there, you’ve got two options. First, to open the page with its formatting intact but no footer, tap “Open in browser.” This will open the link in your default browser, but also take you to that browser’s app instead, meaning you’ll have to find your way back to the X app if you want to keep scrolling once you’re done reading.

To stay in the X app, you can take advantage of Safari’s reader mode, which will still be available to you even if Chrome or another app is your default browser. In the same three-dot menu, simply tap “Show Reader” instead, and you’ll see a plain version of the link with all website formatting stripped out, including the X app’s new footer, all without having to move to a new app. To return to the normal view, just tap the X button in the top left corner. Then, to go back to your X timeline, either grab the footer and scroll up, or tap the X button just above the footer on the left-hand side.

Google plans to let Pixel smartphone enthusiasts test out the company’s next handset ahead of its public introduction. From a report: Google has invited members of its “Superfans” group to apply to test future Pixel hardware, asking entrants to profess their knowledge and passion for the brand in hopes of being able to beta test forthcoming products.

Consumer tech companies often let small groups of customers try out unreleased products under strict secrecy to gather feedback during development. But it’s incredibly rare for a company of Google’s size to do it with something as high-profile as the Pixel lineup.

The search giant will select 15 people from the pool of entrants, and winners must all sign a non-disclosure agreement to receive devices, according to official rules for the contest reviewed by Bloomberg News. “The Trusted Tester program is an opportunity to provide feedback and help shape a Pixel phone currently in development,” the document reads.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chances are you’ve encountered some version of the “Ebbinghaus illusion,” in which a central circle appears to be smaller when encircled by larger circles and seems larger when surrounded by smaller circles. It’s an example of context-dependent size perception. But is this unique to humans or are some animals susceptible as well? According to a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, it might depend on the specific sensory environment, since the illusion relies on contextual clues to be effective.

Prior research has produced mixed results on the question of animals and their susceptibility to optical illusions, per the authors. Dolphins, chicks, and redtail splitfins seem to be susceptible, for example, while pigeons, baboons, and gray bamboo snakes are not.

Perhaps the best-known example is cats’ undeniable love of boxes and squares—the “if it fits, I sits” phenomenon documented all over the Internet. This behavior is generally attributed to the fact that cats feel safer when squeezed into small spaces, but it also tells us something about feline visual perception. Both a 1988 study and a 2021 study concluded that cats are susceptible to the Kanizsa square illusion, suggesting that they perceive subjective contours much like humans.

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Samsung is set to officially reveal its long-anticipated Android extended reality (XR) headset, which has been codenamed Project Moohan. The company has scheduled a livestream event for October 21 at 10PM ET.

The event will be streamed live via the company’s YouTube page and on the official Samsung Newsroom site. We don’t know how long the stream will be, but Samsung promises that Project Moohan will open up the “true potential” of mixed-reality devices.

This isn’t just a reveal for a mixed-reality headset. Moohan is the very first device that uses Google’s new Android XR operating system, which has been specifically designed for XR, VR and AR devices like glasses and headsets. We’ll finally get to see what all the fuss is about and what kind of new tools the OS brings to the table.

Samsung says that this technology “seamlessly blends everyday utility with immersive new experiences.” Hopefully we’ll get a look at both everyday utility and immersive new experiences during the livestream.

We don’t have official specs about the headset itself, but there have been plenty of leaks and rumors that will be confirmed or refuted during the stream. Leaks have suggested it includes a high-end display, advanced tracking and Gemini integration. These same leaks indicate a potential price tag of $1,800 to $2,800, making it more of a rival to the Apple Vision Pro than Meta’s new Ray-Ban Display glasses.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/how-to-watch-samsung-unveil-its-android-xr-headset-184820772.html?src=rss