The Latest from Gadget Hacks: Page 6

HONOR detailed the full camera system for its Robot Phone at a camera technology event in China today, confirming HONOR Robot Phone dual 200MP cameras, three-axis mechanical stabilization, and a partnership with professional cinema brand ARRI for LOGC3 encoding. The main sensor mounts on a four-degree-of-freedom titanium-alloy robotic arm that, according to Honor, enables 360-degree subject tracking a physical mechanism rather than a software compensation layer. The China launch is set for...

iOS 27 adds something Wallet has never had in fourteen years: the ability to build your own pass. Tap the "+" button you use to add credit cards or pass emails, and a new "Create a Pass" option appears alongside the existing options. It lets you digitize a paper ticket, membership card, or loyalty pass directly from your iPhone, with no developer account, no Pass Type ID, and no certificate signing required (Michael Tsai, May 2026). This guide walks you through how to use Create a Pass in Apple...

If you only want the key to open something else, PowerToys is enough. If you need it to act like Right Ctrl, skip straight to AutoHotkey. That's the whole decision, and getting it wrong means spending an hour on a remap that half-works.

This guide tells you exactly how to watch the 2026 MLS All-Star Game live online and whether you qualify for the free trial. The game streams exclusively through MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. No cable broadcast, no over-the-air channel, no alternative platform. "Free" applies only in two specific situations. Figure out which one describes you, then follow the steps below to have a working stream before tomorrow's 8 p.m. ET kickoff.

The hard part of working in Google Docs has never been writing the first sentence. It's everything that follows: reformatting a draft to match a template someone else built, fixing the voice after four contributors have left their fingerprints on it, finding an image that doesn't require a trip to another tool. Google has been shipping Gemini in Google Docs updates since March 2026 to handle most of that cleanup automatically, inside Docs, without changing the interface most users already know.

Samsung may be considering one of its most notable Galaxy S camera changes in years. Early Galaxy S27 leaks suggest the standard models are being tested with Sony main sensors, while the rumored Pro and Ultra phones could receive higher-resolution ultrawide, telephoto, and selfie cameras.

An Amazon listing surfaced the Pixel Buds Pro 2 in an unnamed dark green colorway this week before being pulled, and Android Authority reported today that Google also appears to have been showing the same shade on its Play Store rewards page. The Pixel 11 event is confirmed for August 12, two weeks away. The leak points to no hardware changes, only a new colorway.

Google's support page now states plainly that QR code pairing for Messages on the web is "no longer available in the US." On the same day that notice appeared, reporters at Android Authority pulled up the QR option in both the Android app and the browser without any trouble. That gap between what Google's documentation says and what users are actually seeing is where this story starts.

Microsoft is gradually updating some of Windows 11's oldest interface elements with replacements built using WinUI 3, its current native user-interface framework. The latest preview-build discovery suggests that the familiar File Properties window may be next, although the redesign remains hidden and cannot be enabled through normal Windows settings.

Windows maintains a persistent device identifier on many installations that survives OS updates, cuts through VPN obfuscation, and allows Microsoft to reconnect the same machine across different services, sessions, and IP addresses, according to court filings and PCMag's reporting. Most users have never heard of it. The FBI used it to help build a cybercrime case against an alleged Scattered Spider member, and VPN provider Windscribe's attempt to remove it this week showed just how deeply the...

Samsung posted record companywide results for the second quarter of 2026, but its smartphone business struggled to turn strong Galaxy sales into profit. The company reported KRW 171.5 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 89.5 trillion in operating profit, while higher component costs weighed on its mobile division.

The Galaxy Z Fold7 became Samsung's first book-style foldable to outsell its companion Flip model during a South Korean preorder period. Its share rose from roughly 40% in the previous generation to 60%, giving Samsung fresh evidence that buyers would choose the more expensive Fold when its design addressed the format's biggest usability problems.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra and Flip8 last week, marking the eighth generation of its foldable lineup. The most prominent display claim in Samsung's announcement is Samsung's pitch for the Fold8's new display proportions: the same unfolded panel reads as 4:3 in one orientation and 3:4 when turned 90 degrees. Samsung positions the 4:3 landscape view as suited to movies and games, and the 3:4 portrait view as suited to e-books and web browsing, according to the same...

On July 30, Google marked a months-old bug "Fixed" in its public Issue Tracker. The ticket covers a specific idle-drain bug that Google says it fixed on selected Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 models, and the closure didn't sit well with everyone: more than 50 comments piled up underneath, largely from users saying their phones still drain overnight.

By the end of this guide, your Mac will be running macOS Tahoe. What you recover beyond the operating system depends on one thing: whether you have a Time Machine backup made before the Golden Gate beta was installed. This guide covers all three realistic scenarios for getting back to stable ground.

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...

A federal judge dismissed rapper RBX's Spotify streaming-fraud lawsuit last month, finding that the complaint did not plausibly support its negligence and unfair-competition claims. The case can be refiled within 21 days, so it isn't over. But the dismissal laid bare a structural problem that no ruling can fix: the same enforcement systems Spotify built to fight bot streams are removing legitimate artists from the platform, and those artists have almost no recourse when it happens.

Starting today, Google is counting all Android backup data toward your Google Account storage limit, but the rollout isn't instant for everyone, and the actual impact for most users is smaller than the policy change might suggest.

Samsung Messages shut down on July 6, 2026. If you're a US Galaxy user on Android 12 or newer, the app can no longer send or receive messages except to emergency numbers, per Samsung's discontinuation notice. The text field is greyed out, and that's a permanent state.

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...