News and Updates from Gadget Hacks: Page 5

Some Fitbit Air pre-orders began arriving recently, a full day ahead of the official May 26 launch. For iPhone owners, that was a welcome surprise. For Android buyers, it meant unpacking a $99.99 tracker they couldn't use.

Android 17 QPR1 beta 3 contains a setting that would let users hide Gboard's globe icon, the keyboard switch key that sits in the bottom-right corner. The toggle removes the globe key entirely, even when multiple languages or other keyboard apps are active. That appeals to users who want a cleaner layout, but the same report found a meaningful catch: switching back from at least one third-party keyboard becomes significantly harder once the globe key is gone.

Samsung's Bespoke AI WindFree Premium Pro air conditioner includes a mode that detects when you fall asleep and shifts its cooling profile in real time. The feature is called Wearable Good Sleep, and it requires a compatible Samsung wearable on your wrist or finger. Without one, the AC operates like any other air conditioner. That hardware dependency determines everything about how the feature works.

Oppo just launched the Reno 16 series alongside its "Bubble," a touch-capable magnetic rear screen phone accessory that snaps to the back of a compatible phone and delivers something close to the secondary display Xiaomi built directly into the 17 Pro.

Reviewed by Julianne Ngirngir

Samsung Galaxy Connect Now Works on Any Windows 11 PC

Pixel Watch Fall Detection and Google Account Sign-In Requirements Explained

Samsung Galaxy Glasses Launch: Battery Cert Points to 2026 Release

Kansas City Public Schools is moving toward an "all-Apple district," with KCPS saying in a May 19 update that it has procured more than 4,500 MacBook Neos for students in 8th grade and up. The district says the broader plan is to replace more than 30,000 Windows PCs and Chromebooks over time, while younger grades continue using existing iPads and MacBook Airs.

The Trump administration has directed agency chief information officers across the executive branch to install its official app on all government-furnished mobile phones, with the FAA already notifying employees that the installation will happen automatically on all FAA-issued iPhones and iPads, according to internal communications obtained by Government Executive earlier this month. Current and former federal officials called the move highly unusual. Sonny Hashmi, a former senior government IT...

In March 2025, second-generation Chromecast and Chromecast Audio units stopped working. Owners woke up to an "Untrusted Device" error and a reasonable assumption: Google had simply let discontinued hardware die. Within a week, Google deployed a Chromecast fix, emailed affected users directly, and brought decade-old hardware back online. This week, Google clarified what that intervention actually was.

Nearly 700 ad-free titles are now streamable across 135 countries, but eligibility, scope, and what stays Audible-only are worth understanding before you assume full access.

Samsung's One UI 8.5 quietly dropped a camera feature that users have had for years: native video filters in the stock camera app are gone from Video mode. The update, which brings Samsung's latest Galaxy AI and creative tools to more Galaxy devices, carried no public explanation for the removal, and no changelog entry mentions it. Samsung began the official One UI 8.5 rollout on May 6, 2026, starting in Korea, with additional regions and models following afterward.

Microsoft has made two distinct bets on how Office work should start and progress. The first: users should generate documents, spreadsheets, and presentations from a chat interface before they ever open an app. The second: once inside Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, Copilot should edit files directly rather than queue up suggestions for a person to apply. Both are now live, moving Copilot from a sidebar assistant toward both file creation in chat and direct editing inside apps. Access is broad, but...

Google briefly appeared to mark several older Chromecast models as no longer receiving critical security updates, but the company now says that was a mistake. Google told 9to5Google that the page had incorrectly indicated legacy Chromecast devices were being deprecated, and Google's current Nest security page again lists those models as still receiving critical security updates.

The Trump Mobile T1 is shipping. That is the least interesting thing about it. After eleven months of missed deadlines and three separate redesigns, according to Times of India, what customers are receiving is a $499 gold-colored Android phone that experts say closely resembles a Chinese-manufactured mid-range handset T-Mobile originally sold for $249, per Salon. Eric Trump announced the T1 last June, promising it would "change" mobile calling, Salon reported. That phone, domestically built and...

Microsoft says its agentic capabilities for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint reached general availability on April 22, 2026, after a scheduled PowerPoint rollout that began on the web in mid-March and was expected to finish across Windows and Mac by the end of April. For PowerPoint specifically, the update replaces a static suggestion panel with a conversational editing mode that rewrites, restructures, and translates slides directly through chat.

More than 3 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp, according to Meta in September 2025. That scale makes it the default messaging app for much of the world. It also makes it worth understanding not just what WhatsApp is and how to use it, but what "encrypted" actually means for your privacy and where that protection stops.

Apple is closing three retail stores in June. At two of them, workers are getting transfer rights to nearby locations. At the third the Towson, Maryland store that became Apple's first unionized U.S. retail location in 2022 roughly 90 employees were told to reapply through the same open process as outside candidates. As of late April, not one of them had landed a job at another Apple store, Bloomberg Law reported last month. That is the Apple Towson store closure protest in a sentence: the only...

A camera app built by Los Angeles wildlife creator Derrick Downey Jr. hit No. 1 on Apple's top paid apps chart within 12 hours of release, The Verge reported. The DualShot Recorder iPhone app records portrait and landscape video simultaneously in a single take, producing two synced files that save directly to the Photos library. No export step. No account.

Tipster Debayan Roy has ruled out a June or July launch for the CMF Phone 3 Pro, pushing the expected window to August or September. GSMArena reported the tip yesterday; Gadgets360 followed today. That puts the CMF Phone 3 Pro launch date roughly three to four months later than the April cadence CMF set when the Phone 2 Pro debuted last year.

If you searched "Motorola Razr Fold charging speed" and got contradictory answers, the naming is why. "Razr Fold" isn't an official product name it's shorthand for Motorola's clamshell foldable lineup, which currently spans three distinct devices with three very different charging systems. The Motorola Razr Fold wired charging wattage ranges from 30W on the base model to 68W on the Ultra, and that spread has real consequences: in lab-tested conditions, it's the difference between a 43-minute...

On Saturday, every camera pointed at the pitch for LA Galaxy vs. Houston Dynamo FC will be an iPhone 17 Pro. Apple calls the Apple TV MLS game shot on iPhone 17 Pro a first: "the first time iPhone will be used to capture the entirety of a major professional live sporting event broadcast," according to Apple Newsroom today. That phrasing is specific, and it's the only accurate way to describe what's actually being tested.

The Motorola Razr 2026 costs $800. That's $100 more than last year's model, a jump that CNET called "hard to stomach" this week. The friction is real. Based on what reviewers have found, though, the Razr 2026 still makes the strongest case among sub-$1,000 flip phones for buyers who prioritize cover-screen flexibility and battery life over raw processing muscle. It concedes clear ground on chip performance and software longevity. Buyers who understand that trade-off going in will be satisfied;...

Google announced this week that Gemini is now broadly available in Android Auto, covering more than 250 million compatible vehicles already on the road. That number is the headline. The more important detail is what it obscures: the version most drivers will get is meaningfully different from the one that enables genuinely new capabilities.

A claim has been circulating that WhatsApp now makes messages vanish the moment someone reads them. It doesn't. WhatsApp's disappearing messages run on timers 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days triggered by a clock, not a read receipt. No official WhatsApp announcement in the sources reviewed here introduces read-triggered deletion.

Apple Music introduced a mandatory AI disclosure system in early March, requiring labels and distributors to tag content whenever artificial intelligence played a "material portion" of its creation. The Apple Music AI-generated music policy covers four categories: sound recordings, artwork, lyrics and compositions, and music videos. Here is the tension at the center of it: Apple says the tags are required, but its own technical specification describes them as optional, defaults to assuming none...

The European Commission is moving to compel Google to hand over the ranking signals, query logs, and click data powering its search results, making that information available to rival platforms and, according to proposed measures summarized by ITIF, potentially to AI chatbot services as well. The proceeding opened in January and has since grown into a dispute about whether the data regulators want to open up still describes the thing worth competing for.

A code teardown of Android 17's QPR1 Beta 3 reveals something more interesting than a status dashboard: a four-step verification process that routes trust through an independent second device and a browser, ending with a side-by-side comparison the user resolves themselves. The Android 17 OS verification system is not yet functional end-to-end, but the UI strings extracted from the current beta are detailed enough to map the workflow, and the checks Android already has in place give the design...

Reports of first-gen Chromecast devices disappearing as a cast target in major apps have accelerated this week, and the pattern is unusual enough that observers are calling it something more than normal hardware aging. The first-gen Chromecast not working reports have clustered in a Reddit thread where multiple owners described the same breakage occurring at roughly the same time. Google has not publicly commented. According to 9to5Google, any response from the company would likely point back...

Airbnb released its 2026 summer update for iOS and Android today, adding three app-level features that shift what the platform can actually do: AI tools that surface what matters about a listing before you book, a collaborative itinerary builder designed to replace the group text thread, and a globally expanded support assistant that loads your trip details before the conversation starts. Airbnb is positioning the app as a broader trip-planning and support hub, not just a booking tool.

Samsung has begun pushing the stable One UI 8.5 update to its flagship tablets, starting in South Korea. The Galaxy Tab S11 and Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra are the first Samsung tablets to receive a confirmed stable build in this One UI 8.5 tablet rollout, according to SamMobile. Firmware X736NKOU5BZE3 is now live for the base Tab S11; the Ultra is getting X936NKOU5BZE3. Both builds close out the month-old beta program, per SamMobile.

Google's biggest Android Auto overhaul in years landed without much ceremony. Gemini is now widely available across more than 250 million compatible vehicles, bringing genuine back-and-forth conversation to replace the old rigid command syntax for eligible users, according to Google. The Android Auto Gemini update 2026 covers messages, navigation stops, email, music, and calendar tasks, all in natural language, hands-free. For most drivers, this is the practical story.

Google is sending enforcement emails to holders of G Suite legacy free edition accounts, telling them their accounts have been flagged for commercial use and that Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Meet will be suspended within 45 days unless they upgrade to a paid Workspace plan or win an appeal. Users claim personal family domains are being swept up alongside actual commercial accounts, according to The Register, which broke the story this week. Google says it does not use private customer data to...

Google announced at Google I/O yesterday that Wear OS 7 will bring Live Updates to smartwatches, letting status information like package deliveries, navigation, and sports scores surface on your wrist automatically. The update also introduces Wear Widgets, Android 17 design carryover, Gemini developer APIs, and a claimed 10 percent battery life improvement, according to The Verge and Engadget, both reporting yesterday.

Many iPhone users have quietly developed a workaround for Siri's limitations: they open a different app. ChatGPT for questions requiring actual reasoning, Google for search, Claude for anything needing sustained back-and-forth. Apple's reported design choices for the iOS 27 Siri redesign suggest the company is trying to close that gap, not by making one big bet, but by targeting three specific problems at once.

UGREEN on Wednesday announced the Nexode and MagFlow Air Editions, a five-product lineup of pocket-sized chargers for Apple devices priced from $39.99. Two products are confirmed available now in the US: the Nexode Air 65W Charger and the MagFlow Air Magnetic Power Bank 10000mAh 15W, sold through the UGREEN Official Store and Amazon, according to the company's launch release.

The big story in the latest Galaxy Z Fold 8 leak is the list of missing features on a phone expected to cost around $2,000. Leaks published this week suggest the device may ship without S Pen support, without the display material Samsung already put in the S26 Ultra, and without the privacy screen technology that debuted on that phone. Leaks suggest the Galaxy Z Fold 8 may miss features already available on the cheaper Galaxy S26 Ultra, and the gap is hard to ignore at this price point.

Talks between Samsung Electronics management and its largest union collapsed Wednesday after marathon negotiations that drew South Korea's labor minister into the room for the first time. With no deal reached, an 18-day Samsung Electronics strike is now underway, the second in the company's history. Union chair Choi Seung-ho confirmed the walkout as he left the mediation session at the National Labor Relations Commission office in Sejong: "The union will proceed as planned and lawfully launch a...

Spotify just launched verified badges for podcasts, bringing its "Verified by Spotify" program to show pages and search results across the platform. The light green checkmark identifies a show as the official presence of the creator, publisher, or brand it claims to be. The rollout pairs with a reinforced takedown policy that explicitly covers AI-assisted impersonation but the badge itself says nothing about whether a show's content was made by a human.