News and Updates from Gadget Hacks: Page 2

Roku's market position has a way of making the platform look more capable than it is. Across U.S. broadband households, Roku OS accounts for 28% of connected TV platform usage, ahead of Samsung Tizen at 23%, with Amazon Fire TV, LG webOS, and Vizio SmartCast trailing at a distance, according to Parks Associates research.

During a pre-briefing the night before Build 2026, a Microsoft developer instructed an AI agent to delete all the files on his desktop. The agent appeared to comply. The desktop looked clean. "That's a lie," the developer said the files were fine because, as he explained, "the container won't allow it," according to VentureBeat's coverage of the briefing. That demonstration captures the promise of Microsoft Execution Containers for AI agents in one clean image. It also raises the question worth...

Google Photos' floating bottom bar on Android is rolling out broadly this week as a server-side rollout for users on version 7.82, with no separate Play Store update required once the app is current. The docked navigation strip that sat clamped to the screen's lower edge is replaced by a pill-shaped bar hovering above the photo grid. 9to5Google confirmed the wide push this week, noting that availability had been limited until now.

Bigme announced the Hibreak Dual 2 in late June 2026, roughly two months after its predecessor failed to reach customers. The original HiBreak Dual was listed for preorder starting at $359, per The Verge, but available reporting shows no retail release followed. Bigme subsequently issued a public "reflection and apology" acknowledging the design's shortcomings, according to Heyup. The Bigme Hibreak Dual 2 is the company's answer to those criticisms and the core hardware change is significant...

The most reliable signal that Samsung is working on a new SmartTag isn't a leaked spec sheet it's a pattern. Before Samsung announced the SmartTag2, the device appeared first in the Bluetooth SIG database, then in an FCC filing, per The Verge's July 2023 coverage. Neither filing appeared for a successor in the sources reviewed for this article. When one does surface, the hardware specs will be the least interesting thing in it. The field that actually matters is the app requirement buried in...

Disney is internally discussing making some Disney+ content available without a subscription, according to two people familiar with the matter. Adam Smith, Disney's product and tech chief, raised the idea at a company streaming town hall this week, offering no timeline and no defined scope.

DuckDuckGo's browser now blocks most of pre-roll and mid-roll YouTube ads automatically, with no extension required and no setup needed on most platforms. The feature went live this week as default-on for Windows, Mac, and iOS users running the latest version.

Gemini for Home will no longer stop mid-conversation to ask who you are. This week's Google Home Gemini update, reported by Android Authority and Android Police, removes voice verification prompts during Continued Conversation sessions and makes chained commands more consistent. It lands eight days after Google Home devices were reported taking up to a minute to respond, or timing out entirely, with no confirmed fix deployed as of that report.

High-quality renders of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 leaked this week by Android Headlines offer the clearest look yet at a device that appears designed around a core problem no previous Galaxy Fold solved: making the phone usable when it's shut. The images show a wider, shorter body with a cover screen proportioned more like a normal smartphone than the cramped slabs on prior Fold models. According to Tom's Guide, the leaked images appear to line up with Samsung's own teaser imagery showing a...

Google launched Magic Cue as a headline feature of the Pixel 10 last August, describing it as "proactive support, tightly woven across your phone," per the launch announcement. Two months ago, the company introduced Gemini Intelligence as its new label for proactive AI across Android devices, using language that maps closely onto what Magic Cue already does. Google has not announced a rename. But taken together, the product descriptions, the rollout roadmap, and Google's track record with AI...

A new leak suggests the cheapest Pixel 11 in Europe will cost €100 more than last year's cheapest Pixel 10, and the Google Pixel 11 price increase story may have less to do with a new MSRP than with the quiet removal of the 128GB model.

Google this week launched Video Remix, an AI tool powered by Gemini Omni that transforms existing footage into polished clips within seconds, available exclusively to paying subscribers. The launch is the most visible sign yet of where Google Photos is headed.

Strings pulled from Android Canary build 2607 suggest Google is planning a toggle to turn off the Android Halo status bar icon, buried inside a new "Status bar" section in Android Settings, according to a teardown published by Android Authority this week. Neither the section nor the toggle is live. No working UI exists, and Google has not confirmed any of this.

Apple's free iCloud tier has sat at 5GB for years. As Macworld put it, that limit "felt stingy a decade ago and certainly isn't enough now." For most iPhone owners with any real photo library, hitting that ceiling isn't a surprise. It's a subscription prompt dressed up as a warning.

Netflix reaches 72% of American adults, making it the most widely used streaming platform in the country. Its share of total U.S. television viewing still fell to 7.8% in April, its lowest level since May 2025, per Nielsen data. Nearly everyone has it. Not everyone is watching.

The Strava Events tab went live yesterday, letting users search for nearby races, group runs, rides, and club meetups inside the app, then move toward a training plan through the app's Runna integration. Strava says the tab connects race discovery with Runna-powered training plans, per the company's press release, timed to what it calls peak running season.

Samsung has raised its Galaxy S26 production target for July from 1 million units to 1.5 million, a 50% mid-cycle increase, Android Authority reported today, citing ET News. The revision covers both domestic and global allocations, suggesting the demand signal is broader than any single market or promotion. Two things appear to be driving the Galaxy S26 sales surge: an aggressive promotional campaign that reportedly tripled sales during its active window, and growing consumer conviction that...

The Samsung Odyssey OLED G5 (G50SF) has dropped to roughly $340 in the US, a street price that simply didn't exist for QD-OLED gaming monitors until this year. That matters most for PC gamers running DisplayPort, who get the full spec sheet. Console users and anyone locked to HDMI run into a bandwidth ceiling the panel can't clear over that connection. The deal is real; it's just not for everyone.

Spotify is rolling out new listening filters for Release Radar, the weekly discovery playlist that reaches nearly 9 million listeners every Friday. The controls let users steer their recommendations by genre or toward unfamiliar artists, giving them a new way to influence a playlist that has largely been algorithm-controlled.

A new Google Pixel Watch 5 leak gives the clearest look yet at the smartwatch's four reported finishes, two sizes, and a pricing structure that would mark the first series-wide increase in Pixel Watch history. The renders, attributed to leaker OnLeaks via The Tide Chart and reported this week by multiple outlets, show four reported finishes across the lineup's 41mm and 45mm sizes.

Spotify recently launched "Talk to Spotify," a conversational AI feature that lets Premium subscribers find, control, and learn about music, podcasts, and audiobooks through back-and-forth chat. The Spotify Talk to Spotify AI chatbot sets itself apart from generic music assistants by drawing on each user's actual listening history, not just catalog knowledge, when generating responses, according to Spotify's announcement.

Samsung Health is warning users that withdrawing consent for AI training will cut off cloud sync and trigger deletion of previously synced health data, except data Samsung is legally required to retain. The toggle began reaching users this week, and the core question the Samsung Health AI training opt-out raises is one Samsung has not publicly answered: does "deleted" refer to your entire health history, or only the copy Samsung stores through account sync?

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

Google Pixel gaming performance issues reported after last month's Android 17 update remain unresolved across multiple device generations, with neither the July security patch nor a follow-up Google Play System update this week resolving the complaints for affected users, Android Authority reported. Pixel 8, Pixel 9, Pixel 10 Pro, and Pixel 10 Pro XL owners are all among those affected. Google has not publicly acknowledged the problem or explained its cause.

Five Pixel 11 devices cleared FCC certification this week, confirming MediaTek modem hardware across the lineup and ending a run of Exynos-based Samsung modems that has defined every Pixel generation to date. That documentation landed the same day Amazon listings operating under the Google Store banner surfaced pricing, storage specs, and colorways for the base model and several Pro variants. Separately, Pixel Glow, the ambient lighting feature referenced in Android 17 beta code, remains the...

Samsung is reportedly considering cutting its free double-storage pre-order benefit by half for the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold8, Z Fold8 Ultra, and Z Flip8, according to industry sources cited by Chosun. Buyers who would previously have received the 512GB model at no extra cost when ordering the 256GB variant will now pay roughly half the normal storage premium. If confirmed, it would mark a broader reduction than Samsung's recent region-specific changes to the promotion.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

Unicode 17.0 is finalized, and the eight new emoji coming in Unicode 17.0 are locked in. Samsung has already shipped all of them to millions of devices. Pixel users are still waiting, and when Google's update does arrive, it won't just add eight new characters it's expected to rebuild how every emoji on the device looks. That second part hasn't been confirmed as a single bundled update, and that distinction matters.

Google has opened a limited Pixel Care+ enrollment window for U.S. owners of eligible Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 series phones who missed the standard 60-day signup period, Google announced on its blog this week. The window closes August 2. Android Police called it a rare second chance for owners who never enrolled and the word "rare" is doing real work there, since Google has not offered a comparable reopening on any announced schedule.

Airline apps will tell you when your flight is delayed. They won't tell you whether that delay means you'll miss your connection. The Flighty Connection Assistant is built to close that gap, tracking both legs of a connecting itinerary simultaneously and pushing an alert while travelers still have time to act, according to Flighty's help documentation.

Razer Axon Wallpaper Engine Mobile is scheduled to hit Google Play on July 15, 2026, and Razer has built a two-phase hardware giveaway around the release that runs from July 3 through July 29. Nine prizes total, split across pre-registration and social entry windows, with the first draw already open, PR TIMES reported this week. What the app actually does remains largely undescribed in pre-launch materials but the campaign mechanics are concrete, and that's what most readers need to act on...

Two phones. A steep price gap. A decision that comes down to one honest question: do you actually need a tablet in your pocket, or do you just want one?

A leak posted today on X claims Samsung will open pre-reservations for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 as soon as July 8. The tip comes from a single source, Abhishek Yadav, and Samsung has not announced it. But a separate report noted that this year's pre-registration window is reportedly compressed to just a few days before the expected July 22 Unpacked event, 9to5Google reported two weeks ago, so the compressed timing fits. What matters before acting on that is understanding which device the reservation...

id Software layoffs landed today on the same day the studio shipped a major Doom expansion. Reports emerged within hours that roughly half the staff had been cut, making the release date one of the more jarring juxtapositions the gaming industry has produced in some time. A studio publicly delivering product was simultaneously, and quietly, being reduced by half.

Google Wallet appears to be rolling out expanded transaction history for Android that includes payments made on paired Wear OS devices. For watch users, it closes a straightforward problem: the Android app previously showed only the 10 most recent tap-to-pay transactions from that specific phone, with Wear OS payments excluded entirely. Verifying a watch payment meant opening a browser, not the Wallet app.

The iOS 27 Siri developer beta can sometimes summarize a webpage you're reading in Safari or a video you're watching in YouTube. Paste either URL directly into Siri, and it will refuse. That contrast, documented by 9to5Mac two weeks ago, points to something more specific than a half-finished feature. Apple is drawing a deliberate line between fetching content from the web and reading content already on screen, and the Siri third-party apps developer beta makes that line visible for the first...

Google Maps cannot place a restaurant order. That distinction matters, because the conversational discovery experience Google has built over the past eight months makes the question feel closer than it did before. A sequence of Gemini-powered feature launches hands-free navigation, AI-synthesized venue tips, multi-step voice queries has moved Maps from a directions app into something that finds restaurants, answers follow-up questions about them, and routes you there by voice. Whether ordering...

In late October 2025, Niagara Launcher published a support note that was, in its quiet way, a small admission of defeat. Google Play services had started blocking the launcher from opening certain Unity-made games a Niagara Launcher Google Play services issue the team could do nothing about. Not because of a Niagara bug. There was nothing to patch, nothing to push. According to the team's help page, it appeared that Google had rolled out new firewall rules in response to a Unity engine...

Leaked renders published two weeks ago show more than a Samsung Health facelift. Buried in the imagery is what appears to be a reworked watchface picker, a component that lives inside the Galaxy Wearable app, not Samsung Health, suggesting the Samsung Wearable app redesign may extend beyond the fitness tracking side of Samsung's software stack. Samsung has not confirmed any changes to the Wearable app.

Microsoft is spinning off four Xbox game studios today and cutting roughly 3,200 jobs across its gaming division. Buried inside that restructuring is something worth separating out: Double Fine and Compulsion Games are leaving with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games, according to the Xbox Wire memo. That deal structure is unusual enough in games industry M&A to warrant a closer look at what it actually means and what the reporting hasn't confirmed yet.