News and Updates from Gadget Hacks: Page 2

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...

Samsung is pitching the Galaxy S26 Ultra as more than a faster flagship. Its biggest selling point is Galaxy AI: tools that can suggest actions, summarize context, edit images, screen calls, and hand off limited tasks across apps. Some of those features are useful now. Others still need the right apps, accounts, permissions, and real-world reliability to be worth the Ultra price.

A Windows 11 bug has been quietly consuming storage on some machines for roughly a year, with a single system database log file capable of swelling from a few megabytes to as much as 500GB. Microsoft released KB5095093 as a preview optional update to address it last month, with the fix expected to roll into the next security update, likely the July 14, 2026 Patch Tuesday.

Microsoft's July 2026 Xbox reset has revived a question the company has not publicly answered: if Xbox no longer works as a traditional console business, could Microsoft sell it?

Amazon has been discounting the Galaxy S26 lineup in the week after Prime Day, keeping promotional pressure alive on Samsung's newest flagship series. Whether any given Amazon Galaxy S26 deal represents genuine savings depends on which Samsung product you're looking at and on a broader pricing pattern that has made discount labels across much of Samsung's catalog harder to trust.

Google's Pixel Recorder app has a bug that causes audio files to vanish after recording, with no error message and no warning that anything went wrong. The problem: Pixel Recorder is not saving recordings while appearing to function normally. As of July 7's reporting, Google hadn't addressed the issue publicly.

Some market watchers expect a sharp decline in sub-$400 shipments this year, according to Omdia data reported by Android Authority. The cause is a memory supply crunch driven by AI infrastructure demand, and the segment taking the worst of it is precisely the one with the least room to absorb it.

Something called "Memories Games" has surfaced in connection with Google Photos. The only information available in the supplied research is an unverified feature name. The research available here does not include a source attributing the teardown find to a specific outlet or app version, so treat the premise accordingly: this is a rumor.

Spotify is raising the pin limit in Your Library from four items to 20, with a global rollout underway for Free and Premium users.

Wear OS 7 began rolling out on June 16, 2026, starting with Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Watch 3, and Pixel Watch 4, The Verge reported. If you have one of those watches, the update brings practical changes first: Live Updates, better battery efficiency, easier audio-output switching, Wear Widgets support, and expanded safety features.

DuckDuckGo's browser now blocks most YouTube video ads on iPhone and Mac, with the feature switched on automatically for users running the latest version. No extensions, no configuration required. The catch: DuckDuckGo YouTube ad blocking on iPhone and Mac only applies when YouTube is open inside DuckDuckGo's browser, not through the standalone YouTube app, as Engadget noted this week.

Starting this month, a Teams meeting with the right license could include a Microsoft Teams AI teammate that nobody explicitly prompted to respond. Facilitator, a new Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) feature, monitors conversations in real time, detects when a factual question goes unanswered, runs a web search, and posts a response in meeting chat on its own initiative, according to M365 Admin.

Google pushed a significant Google Photos Android redesign this week: a floating pill-style bottom bar that makes the Create tab a top-level destination, plus a new Gemini-powered Video Remix tool that transforms library clips into stylized, shareable video in seconds. The redesign arrives on Android about five months after iOS users got it. The more interesting context, though, isn't the platform gap. It's what Google was apparently willing to do a year ago when it didn't yet have a native...

Google appears to be rolling out a Play Store redesign that changes the look and navigation of the Apps and Games tabs. The update adds pill-shaped sub-tabs, moves Top charts and Categories into separate pages, and makes personalized recommendations the default view when you open either section, Android Authority reported July 8.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Plus has surfaced in a new certification leak, and the more consequential detail isn't the device itself. It's what the broader pre-launch record suggests about Samsung's 2026 tablet strategy. Based on GSMA IMEI filings and follow-on reporting, Samsung appears set to launch just two models in the Tab S12 range: the Plus and the Ultra. No standard Tab S12 has appeared in any credible sourced material.

The Google Store is now selling a Samsung smartwatch. Yesterday, a "Devices from the Google Store" carousel surfaced in the US Play Store app, offering the Galaxy Watch 8 through the standard Google Store checkout flow, financing included, according to 9to5Google. The device sits alongside Google's own Pixel Watch 4 and Fitbit Air all three processed through the same checkout infrastructure Google uses for its Pixel lineup.

The conventional wisdom used to be that Android users were a restless bunch. More willing to chase a better deal, less attached to any particular brand, generally more open to switching than their iPhone counterparts. A large Android user loyalty survey published earlier this year suggests that picture is increasingly out of date.

Samsung's Bixby assistant has reportedly been speaking in voices users never selected since a recent update, and the company's response so far stops well short of confirming a bug or offering a fix. The reports, first surfacing in the Samsung Members community forum four months ago, drew wider attention this week when Android Authority covered Samsung's reply to affected users.

A growing number of Google Home Speaker owners are hitting a wall before the device ever plays a single note. The Google Home Speaker setup issue surfaced in reports Thursday, with buyers across multiple countries finding that the speaker fails to complete first-time onboarding and then loops through the same error when they try to fix it. Google has confirmed its engineering team is investigating but has no root cause, no working fix, and no timeline for resolution, Android Authority reported...

A certification image has provided an early look at Samsung's unannounced Galaxy Tab S12 Plus. The photo shows a familiar Galaxy Tab design, while separate software findings suggest Samsung is preparing support for MediaTek's flagship Dimensity 9500 processor and several AI-powered image tools.

WordPress released a native Apple TV app today that brings its long-running community video archive to the living room. The WordPress TV Apple TV app is free, requires no account, and opens immediately to thousands of talks, tutorials, and WordCamp session recordings from events held around the world. Reporting so far points to the app listing rather than a separate WordPress announcement, with 9to5Mac covering the launch today.

Code surfaced inside the Google Home iOS app this week suggests the upcoming Home Display may be less a Nest Hub successor than a Google smart display with camera features borrowed directly from Nest Cam. The latest Google Home Display Nest Hub Max camera findings, analyzed by Android Authority, describe recording tiers that mirror existing Nest Cam subscriptions exactly: a free event-history window, with longer event history and continuous recording tied to Google Home Premium tiers.

Chrome for Android is getting a dedicated back button in its three-dot overflow menu, closing a gap that Chrome on iPhone has filled for years. The catch surfaced immediately in device testing: a phone running Chrome 149 showed the redesigned menu, while a separate phone on the newer Chrome 150 still displayed the old layout. Updating to Chrome 150 is not a guarantee of anything.

The Google Store currently advertises "up to $1,040 back in total" on the Pixel 10 Pro, with a note that reads: "Offer applied. See final price at checkout." That gap between the headline and the checkout screen is what this piece maps. The actual Pixel 10 Pro discount any given buyer receives depends on which of three mechanisms applies: a direct sticker cut, a trade-in credit, or carrier bill credits distributed over two years. Each works differently, and the numbers don't combine the same...

MOFT now offers three MagSafe-compatible wallets with Apple Find My support: a slim two-card wallet and stand, a two-card model with a taller tripod and camera remote, and a larger Field Wallet that holds up to eight cards.

The pitch for Matter was simple enough to print on a box: buy any device with the logo, scan the QR code, and it works in your smart home. No compatibility research, no ecosystem anxiety, no app drawer colonized by proprietary software. Three years in, Apple Home's Matter problems run deeper than the marketing ever suggested. The logo is not a promise. It's a prompt to start asking questions.

Six Pixel 11-series model numbers have appeared in FCC certification records recently, a sign Google is nearing launch ahead of its August 12 event in New York City, 9to5Google reported. The filings arrived after what 9to5Google describes as "a pretty big retail leak," with regulatory certification now adding to a cluster of pre-launch signals. Buried in the band tables is the filing's most durable detail: Google has swapped its modem supplier, replacing Samsung's Exynos parts with a MediaTek...

Google is adding volume sliders directly inside the ringtone, alarm, and notification sound pickers on Pixel phones, eliminating the current need to bounce between two separate settings screens to audition a sound at the right level. Android Authority recently found the feature in an unreleased build of the Sounds app included in an unreleased Sounds app build found within Pixel 11 firmware.

Suno is marketing a workflow it calls the Suno iMessage song generator: screenshot a conversation, extract the text with your phone's built-in OCR, paste it into Suno, and get back a full song with vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation in about 60 seconds. The pitch leans hard on iMessage branding. The actual mechanic involves no Messages extension or official Apple integration of any kind.

Gmail's Help me write now accepts custom follow-up instructions for revising an AI-generated email. Instead of choosing only broad controls such as Formalize, Friendly or Shorten, users can tell Gemini to make a specific change, such as adding a deadline or adjusting the tone.

A Dealabs leak reported this week by both Android Authority and 9to5Google has put what appear to be final retail names on the Pixel 11 color lineup. The standard model gets Light Sterling, Midnight Haze, Fuchsia, and Moss. The Pro and Pro XL share Light Fog, Midnight Haze, Dune, and Pine. The Pro Fold gets just two options: Midnight Haze and Pine. With the Pixel 11 colors leak now surfacing polished retail-ready names rather than placeholder descriptors, the picture is coming into focus and...

A Xiaomi 18 Pro Max camera leak reported by Notebookcheck last week has been widely interpreted online as describing a phone with three 200MP cameras. The source doesn't say that. Tipster Digital Chat Station describes a 200MP main sensor and a 200MP telephoto. The third lens, the ultra-wide, may use a 50MP sensor based on a separate, earlier leak. Two high-resolution cameras, not three.

TV Time's original founder is rebuilding the app from scratch under the name Bingers, days after the show-tracking service was removed from app stores on July 15, ending 15 years of operation. TechCrunch and Engadget both reported on July 15 that Bingers is targeting an App Store and Google Play launch by July 31.

That small green leaf sitting next to one of your route options is doing something specific. It marks the route Google has calculated to be the most fuel- or energy-efficient option for your trip not a scenic detour, not an environmental badge, and not the result of a setting you accidentally changed. The confusion comes from Google presenting a genuinely complex routing calculation as a single unexplained icon, switched on by default, with nothing in the app explaining what it actually does.

A widespread Plex outage on July 14, 2026, disrupted the company's streaming services and reportedly prevented some users from reaching media stored on their own Plex servers. The underlying computers and files were not necessarily offline; Plex apps were struggling to find or connect to them.

Netflix's decision to license short-form clips from Condé Nast, Hearst, and BuzzFeed Studios is one of the clearest strategic tells the company has offered in years. Not because the content matters three-to-twenty-minute clips from Bon Appétit and Cosmopolitan are table stakes, not programming strategy but because of who Netflix chose not to sign. The deals are with publishers, not creators. In the Netflix vs YouTube short-form video battle shaping up this year, that distinction is the whole...

The Onn Full HD streaming stick, a $15 Google TV dongle that turns any HDMI-equipped television into a capable smart TV, has become harder to find and more expensive to buy. Its publicly displayed price has climbed to $30 for some shoppers, double its 2023 launch price, with in-store stock running thin at many locations, according to Cord Cutters News and Android Police. For cord-cutters who relied on the Onn Full HD streaming stick as the cheapest entry point into Google TV, the question is...

Microsoft began testing a less cluttered Windows 11 Search experience on July 13, 2026. The redesigned home panel puts recent searches at the center while removing distractions such as trending searches, quizzes, game recommendations, and Microsoft's image of the day.

If you're trying to find out whether the Google Health app is down, the short answer is: not broadly. What's actually happening is narrower and, for affected users, more frustrating. A Fitbit-branded permissions screen is looping on Pixel Watch devices, blocking access to health apps and, in some cases, stopping data from syncing entirely. Google has not issued a public statement, and no user-side fix has been confirmed.

Every foldable phone complaint worth reading traces back to the same two design facts: the screen has to bend, and something mechanical has to make that happen. Those two requirements create engineering tensions that no manufacturer has resolved. The common foldable phone problems owners report most consistently screen failure, hinge contamination, steep repair bills, and contested warranty claims aren't random. They're downstream consequences of the same underlying tradeoff.