The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 14

Google says Gemini for Home can now handle combined voice commands that pack a media action and a smart-home action into one sentence, including requests such as 'turn off the lights and stop the music.

Microsoft will begin switching on Memory Integrity, along with Virtualization-based Security where it isn't already running, on eligible Windows 11 machines through next month's Patch Tuesday update. That's according to Peter Waxman, a group program manager at Microsoft, whose comments on the rollout were reported by The Verge yesterday, with the October timing confirmed by OC3D yesterday.

Two reviews of the same phone landed within a day of each other this week, and they read like they're describing different products. MakeUseOf calls the Pixel 11 Pro Fold "the Google foldable I've always wanted", while The Verge says it "feels like the end of an era." Both verdicts hold up. They're just answering different questions, and untangling why is the point of this Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold review.

Xbox Insiders testing the platform's new disc-to-digital feature have reported that it also issues digital licences for games long removed from the Xbox Store. Testers cite successful claims for Deadpool, delisted in 2017, and Minecraft: Story Mode, delisted in 2019, within days of the feature going live. The supplied reporting does not identify an official Microsoft compatibility list, so the Xbox disc-to-digital compatible games list circulating among fans right now is built entirely from...

Mozilla added three new features to Firefox Smart Window on Tuesday, its AI-powered browsing mode, aimed at cutting down the friction of juggling tabs, searches and browsing history. The update brings live web answers with cited sources through a new partnership with Exa, smarter tab organization that groups related tabs and kills duplicates, and visual previews of browsing history, according to Mozilla's launch post.

The Pixel 11 Tensor G6 TPU upgrade matters most in the moments when a feature can run locally instead of waiting on Google's servers. Google says the chip delivers 50% more compute power and runs up to 3.5x faster in certain workloads, a figure that's easy to overlook next to the phone's 120x zoom lens and its Gemini-powered camera tricks (Android Authority, published today). The TPU is one of the factors behind both of those flashier features, working alongside a new image processor and...

Google Messages RCS issues have repeatedly shown up in two well-documented shapes: a "Setting up" screen that never finishes verifying a phone number, or a "carrier not supported" label that replaces RCS chat features outright.

iOS 27's Shared Albums update fixes a problem baked into the feature for years: shared photos and videos will no longer get compressed the moment they leave a personal library. The tradeoff is that new Shared Albums now count against the owner's iCloud storage, according to MacRumors and Trusted Reviews, reversing a setup that let people share thousands of images without touching their plan. The change is rolling out now, with iOS 27 in public beta ahead of a full release expected alongside new...

Netflix's July shareholder letter contained a number that cuts against a decade of streaming-industry assumptions: revenue grew 13% year over year to $12.6 billion, while member viewing hours for the first half of 2026 grew just 2%. The two figures don't cover identical periods, but the gap is wide enough to raise a real question at the heart of any credible Netflix monetization strategy: if people aren't watching dramatically more, what's actually driving the revenue?

A Samsung Galaxy S27 charging speed leak suggests Samsung's next standard flagships won't charge any faster than the ones sold today. Two unannounced Samsung model numbers have appeared in China's 3C certification database with charging profiles that top out at approximately 25W and 45W.

Samsung has already confirmed that its next flagship tablet generation is coming in 2026. What it has not confirmed is the date now appearing across Galaxy Tab S12 leaks: October 7.

Google calls the Tensor G6 its "fastest, most powerful chip yet" (Google Blog, last week). A leaked Geekbench listing for the Pixel 11 Pro XL tells a less flattering story, showing the chip trailing Samsung's Snapdragon-powered Galaxy S26 Ultra on the same test (Notebookcheck, today). Neither claim is wrong. The benchmark doesn't validate or refute Google's broader pitch; it measures one narrow slice of what the chip does.

Disney sues FCC over ABC broadcast licenses in a fight that boils down to one contested question: is an early license review ordinary oversight, or retaliation wearing a bureaucrat's hat?

Google's Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL launched Wednesday at $1,099 and $1,299, prices Android Authority describes as higher than last year's models (Android Authority, this week). Pre-launch reporting had pegged that increase at $100 over the Pixel 10 Pro line (The Verge, nearly two weeks ago), and the confirmed launch prices match that figure exactly. The base RAM also dropped: 12GB on the entry Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL, down from 16GB across every Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL configuration last...

Google raised the price of its standard Pixel by $100 this year, and Engadget still recommends it without hesitation. In its Google Pixel 11 review, Engadget called the phone "a lot of phone for a little more money" and handed it a 9.2 out of 10, noting it "didn't change a ton, but is still one of the best smartphones on the market."

Samsung has reportedly started development on two wide-format foldables targeting the Galaxy Z9 generation, reportedly planned for 2027, a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 successor story that's already getting oversimplified in the retelling. The claim traces to South Korean outlet ETNews, relayed by Android Central and Android Authority. "Fold8" is Samsung's own shorthand for the phone most reviewers call the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Of the two devices described, only one carries a specific defining trait: an...

Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 reached store shelves on Friday, September 18, but the feature drawing the most scrutiny didn't arrive with them. Siri Recap, the new opt-in conversation summarizer, arrives in beta later this year with no confirmed date attached, The Next Web reported. Once enabled, it's designed to listen to conversations throughout the day and quietly summarize them, and Apple says the raw audio behind those summaries is inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user,...

Microsoft announced its new Xbox disc-to-digital program on August 26, with testing opening to Xbox Insiders on August 31. The feature lets owners of "most" Xbox One and Xbox Series X discs unlock a digital copy of a game simply by inserting the disc and launching it.

Titanium sounds like the obvious upgrade when a phone maker puts it on a spec sheet, but the metal running around your phone's edge does less than the marketing implies. In the titanium vs aluminum phone frame debate, titanium generally gives the frame more resistance to bending and permanent denting, though the finish still decides how scratches show up day to day. Aluminum tends to win on heat, manufacturing cost, and repair pricing. Neither metal by itself decides whether your phone survives...

Samsung's new Galaxy Z8 lineup set a preorder record in South Korea, and the standard Fold8, not the pricier Ultra, carried most of it. That's the story behind the Samsung Galaxy Z8 preorder record set this week: Samsung said the lineup drew more than 1.44 million preorders in South Korea during the seven-day window that ended Monday, Aug. 3, the highest preorder total for any Galaxy phone the company has ever released, foldable or not, according to The Korea Times.

Press a thumb against the back of a Galaxy Watch 8 for five seconds, and the watch hands back a number between 0 and 100. Samsung calls it the Antioxidant Index, and knowing how Galaxy Watch 8 measures antioxidant levels changes how you should read that score (Engadget reported this week).

Search "how to get Duolingo hearts back and remove ads" and you'll find posts promising a hidden switch or workaround. There isn't one documented in Duolingo's own materials. Duolingo has been phasing out Hearts in favor of a resource system called Energy, and ad-free access shows up in the company's public consumer materials as a subscription benefit.

Samsung has completed multiyear supply agreements with five major data-center customers, including Amazon and Meta, and is nearing deals with five more, according to the Seoul Economic Daily and the Korea Herald.

A red dotted line on Google Maps combines two separate visual characteristics that may have different explanations, and none of the sources reviewed for this piece document what happens when both appear together on the same stretch of road. If red shows up while Google Maps traffic information is active, it usually means heavy traffic. The dotted pattern is less certain: the evidence here documents dashed styling on at least one hiking and biking path, but it doesn't add up to a universal...

Galaxy S26 owners testing One UI 9 finally have a new build to install after nearly a month without a major beta release. Reports of One UI 9 Beta 5 began appearing on August 12, with the update reaching Galaxy S26-series testers in India.

Google has expanded its Gemini Pixel football club partnerships to five of Europe's biggest teams at once, naming Gemini and Pixel the "Official Consumer AI" and "Official Smartphone" partner of Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona, FC Bayern München, Liverpool FC and Paris Saint-Germain, according to Google's announcement today. Google describes the arrangements as long-term partnerships built around "personal intelligence" and smartphone technology, aimed at putting fans "right at the heart of the...

Samsung's latest foldable lineup has broken a Galaxy preorder record in South Korea that had stood since 2019. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8, and Galaxy Z Flip8 drew more than 1.44 million preorders during a seven-day reservation period, surpassing the roughly 1.38 million recorded by the Galaxy Note10 series seven years earlier.

Every Android owner who opens the Google One app this year runs into the same fork in the road: keep paying a few dollars for extra storage, or step up to one of Google's One AI subscription plans that fold in Gemini, smart-home perks, and a health app for $20 a month or more. That jump isn't accidental. It's the result of eight years of Google quietly turning a storage-rental service into the billing system for its entire AI push.

Parallels recently announced Parallels Desktop 27, adding a Metal-based graphics driver that brings hardware-accelerated OpenGL 4.3 to Windows virtual machines on Apple silicon Macs. The company describes the capability as unique among Mac virtualization tools, though that comparison comes from Parallels itself rather than independent testing.

Two days after Google's Pixel 11 launch event, buyers are discovering a second Google Play Store Pixel 11 discount tucked inside the Play Points program. 9to5Google describes it as a discount worth up to $175, "hidden just beneath the surface" of the Play Points perks menu (9to5Google, today). Reports describe this as a separate offer from the pre-order codes Google emailed to select buyers before the show, and it covers the entire Pixel 11 family plus the Pixel Watch 5.

Apple's rumored smart home display, unofficially called the Apple Home Hub, is reportedly being tested inside employees' homes right now, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says an unveiling could come as soon as next month, according to MacRumors.

If your Apple Watch is a Series 6, 7, or 8, an Ultra 1, or an SE 2, there's a compatibility issue to check before anything else about watchOS 27 features. Apple's official compatibility list shows those models won't run it. MacStories, testing the public beta two months ago, found watchOS 27 limited to Series 9 and later, Ultra 2 and later, and the newly added SE 3. That leaves Series 6, 7, 8, Ultra 1, and SE 2 without the update, even though all of those models currently run watchOS 26.

Reviewed by: Y. Garcia

Google has officially launched Motion Assist, an Android 17 feature that displays motion-synced dots onscreen to help reduce nausea from using a phone in a moving vehicle. In its own materials, Google calls it Motion Assist and describes it as a way to bridge the gap between what a passenger's eyes see and the movement of the ride.

New Apple TV and HomePod mini hardware is reportedly "nearly ready to launch," with September or October the likely window for both devices, according to MacRumors citing Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. That report puts a firmer shape on the HomePod mini 2 release date and features that have been circulating for months, but the hardware itself isn't really the story here.

Pixel owners describing connectivity trouble often lump three different problems into one complaint. Wi-Fi that won't hold a connection, mobile data that switches on without being asked, and weak cellular reception in marginal spots are separate issues with separate causes, and treating them as one blurs what's actually going on with Google Pixel Wi-Fi connectivity issues this year.

Google spent this week's Pixel 11 launch talking up zoom range and sensor size, but the most interesting camera news wasn't a spec at all. It was Google Pixel Camera Looks, a system that lets photographers choose "the exact aesthetic" they want before pressing the shutter, rather than accepting whatever the phone's processing pipeline decides afterward (Google).

Apple expanded support for its Apple Account Card in Wallet last week, adding Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Malta to the list of countries where the feature works (MacRumors). It's a small update to a feature that's been rolling out gradually since 2022 (MacRumors), but it's a good excuse to answer a question a lot of iPhone owners have been quietly Googling: what is an Apple Account Card, and is it something you need?

Ahead of its September 23 China launch, Xiaomi confirmed the Xiaomi 18 Pro privacy screen will work as a hardware feature built into the display panel itself, and the teaser details the company released this week suggest it does a few things Samsung hasn't publicly demonstrated in the same way on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, according to Android Central.

A newer iPhone can text emergency services from a trailhead with zero bars, but that capability isn't something you switch on in advance. It becomes available when you're off-grid and a normal call or text to emergency services can't connect, as long as you're outdoors with a clear view of the sky and using an iPhone 14 or later.