Gadget Hacks: Page 7

Google AI Edge Eloquent Dictation App: Offline AI That Edits Your Speech

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide Leak: What the Code Reveals

Samsung and LG arrived at SID Display Week 2026 this week with the same "AI era" booth branding and sharply different ideas about what that means in practice. LG unveiled a third-generation automotive tandem OLED with a mass production date attached: before the end of this year. Samsung showed brighter, sensor-equipped mobile panels and a stretchable automotive cluster with no equivalent shipping commitment. The three-day event wraps up today at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Spotify just launched Personal Podcasts, a feature that lets third-party AI agents generate private audio episodes and save them directly to a user's Spotify library for cross-device playback. The episodes appear in Your Library alongside music and public podcasts, but aren't available to other Spotify users.

Samsung Call Screening for Galaxy S25: Features and Release Details

Walmart Onn 4K Google TV Streaming Stick Leak: What We Know

Switch 2 owners searching for how to watch YouTube on Switch 2 have one documented option right now, and it runs through a free battle royale game. A Reddit user discovered that Super Animal Royale surfaces YouTube clips in a scrolling news feed on its main menu. Select a clip, choose "watch on YouTube," and the console opens an external browser with full YouTube search. Video tops out at 360p, account sign-in isn't available, and the YouTube web interface frequently fails to render correctly.

Here's what actually happens when you buy the wrong charger: the phone charges, nothing explodes, and you never realize you're getting half the speed you paid for. The number on the box looked right. The cable fit. The problem was invisible.

Samsung Messages is shutting down for US users on Android 12 or later this July. Devices running Android 11 or earlier are explicitly excluded from the end-of-service notice. Samsung has not confirmed whether the phase-out will apply outside the United States.

Google hasn't launched the Pixel 11 yet, but the chip destined for the Pixel 12 already has an internal name. A Pixel 12 Tensor G7 leak published today identified the processor's codename months before its predecessor reaches consumers, and while that single data point reveals nothing about performance, it suggests Google is tracking future Tensor work well ahead of any public launch. That's the useful signal here.

Apple Foldable iPhone Production: Samsung and Rivals Already Adapting

App Store New Apps Surge: AI Coding Tools Behind 60% Spike

Apple App Store Takedown Lawsuit Explained: Guideline 2.5.2 and AI Dev Apps

Mac Studio 512GB RAM Removed: Why Apple Pulled Its Top Config

Galaxy S26 Ultra Blurry Photos Fix: No Hardware Swap Needed

Galaxy S26 Exynos 2600 vs Snapdragon 8 Elite: What the Data Shows

Samsung Electronics crossed the $1 trillion market cap threshold today, becoming only the second East Asian company ever to reach that level alongside TSMC. Its stock surged 12% in a single session. But the Samsung $1 trillion valuation rests on something more specific than AI leadership and more precarious.

Apple's emergency bid to pause the Ninth Circuit's mandate in its dispute with Epic Games has failed. The Supreme Court denied the Apple Epic Games Supreme Court stay request without explanation, the mandate issued Tuesday, and the case now returns to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California, per Apple's May 4 filing under docket 25A1213.

Chrome has been quietly downloading a file called weights.bin onto eligible computers, with no prompt, no notification, and no indication the transfer is happening, The Verge and Android Authority both reported today. The file ranges from 3GB to 4GB. Users are discovering it only after noticing unexplained drops in available disk space.

Google hasn't officially announced the Fitbit Air yet. The subscription built around it is already live across three storefronts.

Google updated AI Overviews in late January 2026, adding a follow-up prompt that routes users directly into a full back-and-forth exchange in AI Mode, with the original query context preserved. The change converts what was a one-shot summary into a handoff point for longer research sessions. AI Overviews are used by more than a billion people and have required no sign-in since March 2025, putting this new conversational entry point in front of a mass-market audience with no login barrier, per...

Energizer has released a CR2032 coin cell battery that combines child-safety features with verified AirTag compatibility, closing a gap that has existed since Apple first pushed for safer batteries in 2022 but couldn't fully resolve at the product level. The battery matters not because it's a new SKU, but because it's the first widely available option that makes Apple's child-safety intent actually workable in households where AirTags and small children share the same space.

Alleged CAD files surfaced this week showing the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max with a top cutout described as "much smaller" than the pill-shaped opening Apple has used since the iPhone 14 Pro, GSMArena reported. A tipster on X claims to have received the files, which, if genuine, most likely passed through a case manufacturer that received them from Apple, per GSMArena. The leak doesn't confirm anything on its own.

Apple's iOS 26.5 beta, seeded to developers and public beta testers earlier this month, enables end-to-end encryption for one-on-one RCS conversations between iPhones and Android devices. The encryption appears on by default. No settings change required. But the protection only applies when the Android side is running a messaging client that supports the GSMA's cross-platform encryption standard, and the Messages app will show whether any given conversation qualifies.

The most frustrating thing a smart camera can do isn't miss a motion event. It's sending you an alert, then showing you a dead screen when you tap it.

Chinese outlets ZOL and Sina Tech reported in mid-April that Xiaomi had begun offering a Xiaomi battery upgrade service through Xiaomi Mall for select devices in China. This isn't a standard Xiaomi battery replacement service that restores a worn cell to its original capacity. It installs a higher-capacity unit than the phone ever shipped with. For Xiaomi 13 Ultra owners, that means swapping the stock 5,000mAh cell for a 5,500mAh replacement through official channels.

Scott Forstall Returns to Apple Park After 13-Year Absence

AI Porn Startup Sues Apple Over App Store Rules Enforcement Gap

Bose is reportedly developing a new line of AirPlay-enabled speakers under a revived Lifestyle brand targeting buyers who want premium home audio with iPhone compatibility but without a full smart-home commitment. No official announcement, product page, or spec sheet has been released. If the reports prove accurate, the move would put Bose in direct competition with Apple's $299 HomePod, in the same segment Apple recommitted to in early 2023 after a two-year absence from the full-size market.

Seven years of software support is the number both Samsung and Google lead with now. It's on the spec sheets, in the press releases, woven into the sales pitch for devices like the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the latest Pixel phones. The implication is straightforward enough: buy this phone, and we'll keep it running well for most of a decade.

Google this week added approximate location sharing to Chrome on Android, giving users a third option when websites request their location: a general area instead of precise coordinates. For use cases that need only regional context, that removes a friction point that has pushed users toward over-sharing for years.

Google Keep is showing internal signs of lock screen note-taking support for the second time in two years. Android Authority uncovered hidden settings in Keep version 5.26.181.01.90 this week that reference the feature directly but enabling them produces only a "Coming soon." screen. Nothing works yet. An official release timeline remains unknown.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Tuesday that Microsoft is ending Xbox Copilot AI on mobile and halting all console development of the assistant, confirmed the same day by an Xbox spokesperson to PC Gamer. The mobile version is being wound down; console development has stopped entirely. No replacement product has been announced.

Firmware tied to model number SM-L345U, which earlier reporting linked to the Galaxy Watch 9, appeared on a Samsung-hosted US test server in late March. Tipster Mohammed Khatri first flagged the listing, and Android Authority, Android Police, and SamMobile each reported it the same day. Samsung has not publicly announced the Galaxy Watch 9, making this Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 test server leak the strongest public sign yet that the device is in active testing.

Apple is adding Pride Luminance to watchOS 26.5, a new analog watch face that, for the first time in the annual Pride series, lets users pull background colors directly from specific Pride flags. Release candidates shipped yesterday, with the public update expected in the second week of May, per MacRumors.

Bloomberg's reporting this week on Apple Intel Samsung chip talks confirms what supply chain watchers have suspected for months: Apple is in early-stage discussions with both Intel and Samsung about producing some of its M-series chips, marking the first concrete move toward ending its decade-long exclusivity with TSMC. No orders have been placed. No products are affected. But Apple's posture has shifted, and that shift matters.

Apple's April compliance deadline with Brazil's antitrust authority CADE has arrived, and iOS 26.5 RC is the software release that fits the window. Brazilian iPhone users are set to gain access to alternative app marketplaces and external payment options. What they are not getting is the ability to download apps directly from a developer's website and that distinction matters more than most coverage of iOS 26.5 RC app sideloading in Brazil has acknowledged.

T-Mobile has extended its Starlink-powered satellite service beyond US borders for the first time, enabling T-Satellite dead-zone coverage in Canada and New Zealand. The expansion, confirmed last week by PCMag and reflected in an updated T-Mobile coverage page, works through Rogers in Canada and One NZ in New Zealand, both existing SpaceX partners. T-Mobile didn't need to build new infrastructure; it layered roaming agreements on top of satellite coverage those carriers already had.

For years, buying a NXTPAPER phone meant accepting a deal: a display that was softer, less glary, and lower in blue-light output than a standard OLED screen, in exchange for the contrast, color richness, and brightness that make OLED worth having. That trade-off kept NXTPAPER as a niche product with a loyal but limited audience. This piece breaks down the TCL NXTPAPER vs OLED question directly: what the old LCD-based version couldn't solve, what the new AMOLED version changes, and where the...

Spotify launched lossless streaming in September 2025, four years after first promising it. For subscribers who stream at home over Wi-Fi, the upgrade was seamless. For anyone who depends on downloaded tracks, the rollout left a quiet problem in place: enabling lossless does nothing to audio files already stored on a device. Older downloads stay at whatever compressed quality they were originally saved, and Spotify has not announced a fix. Streaming sounds one way; the phone plays another.