The new controls apply to both individual and family accounts. | Image: Spotify Spotify is adding new toggles to stop any and all video from playing inside the app, for both music and podcasts. The controls are rolling out worldwide, work across all platforms and devices, and can be used by managers of Family Plans to limit video content for every member on the subscription.The new controls haven't arrived on my UK account or devices yet, but will appear under the "Content and display" settings on a phone, or the "Display" section on desktop. The existing toggle to disable Canvas clips - the short, looping, autoplay videos that Spotify added to the app in 2019 - is joined by a new toggle that disables access to music …Read the full story at The Verge.

Whenever I run into Wi-Fi issues, I follow a familiar, frustrating routine: staring at a spinning loading icon, resetting my router for the third time in an hour, and contacting my ISP’s customer support line. I was convinced I was being throttled, overcharged, or simply ignored.

Gradually switching to self-hosting helped me discover numerous useful tools. I now use a Paperless-ngx alongside a local LLM on one of my systems, while my old laptop, with merely 4GB DDR3 RAM, runs eight Docker containers. I also have a few Raspberry Pi and Radxa boards, running a few more tools. Recently, I've dedicated one of my Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, a $15 single-board computer, as a password manager hosting device. It's helpful because it made me ditch LastPass, offers features that are seldom found in paid tools, and works without any data sharing or online interaction.

YouTube Shorts is rolling out a new AI-powered feature giving creators an easy way to realistically clone themselves on camera. The launch, hinted at earlier this year, reflects the platform's fraught relationship with AI-generated content, adding more generative features while struggling to contain AI slop, deepfake scams, and impersonations. YouTube says the new tool will let users create a digital version of themselves, called an avatar, that can be inserted into existing Shorts videos or used to generate entirely new ones. The company said avatars will "look and sound like you," framing them as a safer and more secure way to use AI to …Read the full story at The Verge.

Canva used to be my go-to for presentations and slides. It’s super quick to navigate, it’s a good-looking app, and just easy enough that you don’t really have to think about it when you’re using it. But Canva’s been on a tear with its pricing these past few years and also paywalled more of the previously free features.

The last couple of years have not been great for Windows, both in its usability and in the court of public opinion. In enthusiast circles specifically, Windows has largely been framed as something to "escape" from, with the oasis being Linux, and its newfound ability to run the vast majority of games flawlessly is a large part of that. There are many people who only daily drive Windows 11 because it runs their favorite games, but as more of those titles become playable on Linux, there are fewer reasons than ever to stick around for gamers.

The Neo king of affordable laptops. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge When the MacBook Neo arrived last month, I knew Windows laptop makers were in trouble. For $599, the Neo offers fantastic build quality and solid performance in a sleek and ultra-portable package. Windows laptops in this price range tend to be ugly, cheap-feeling, and a little slow.Despite years of rumors, the MacBook Neo still seemed to take the Windows world by surprise. I expect proper competitors to pop up just as soon as the companies can manage, but I wanted to see what the competition in the PC space is like now. So I asked a bunch of laptop manufacturers to send me their best answers to the MacBook Neo.The MacBook Neo is a 13-i …Read the full story at The Verge.

There's a certain thrill to mounting a TV on the wall. After all, it feels clean, modern, and almost like you've leveled up your entire living space over the course of a single afternoon. The problem, however, is that where you mount your TV matters just as much as how you mount it. Getting this right means you'll have a comfortable and immersive viewing experience for years to come, but if you get it wrong, you might be in for a world of different problems.

When I first built my current PC with the Ryzen 9 5900X, I bought the Aorus 360mm AIO to keep the CPU temperatures in check, no matter what I threw at it. At the time, it seemed necessary for a 12-core CPU. When I later switched to the 8-core 5800X3D, I already had more than enough thermal headroom, so I didn't think twice about keeping it. Even though it ran a bit hotter than my old 5900X, it never crossed 80C while gaming, so I never felt the need to pay full price for another AIO.

During my early Proxmox days, I stuck with GUI virtual machines and neglected LXCs for my self-hosted projects. However, I realized my mistake fairly quickly and jumped into the LXC rabbit hole with a single TurnKey-based Debian tamplate. Now, I’ve got dozens of LXCs scattered across standalone and clustered Proxmox workstations, and each containerized app has its own utility.

There are two things in the PC building process you can't ever trust. First is the I/O shield fitting in on the first try, and the second is the BIOS settings your PC ships with. Luckily, you can fix both with a little bit of tweaking, tinkering and less than ten odd minutes of your time.