Android

The Glowbar, the light strip built into the lid of Googlebook laptops, normally shows information such as battery status and Gemini activity. A hidden system app called Glowbar Disco turns that same strip into a customizable, music-reactive light show, and figuring out how to find Glowbar Disco on Googlebook means digging past the regular app launcher into the system settings menu.

Google now confirms that blood-pressure and insulin-resistance trend tracking are free on Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, while the same two tools require a Google Health Premium subscription on Fitbit Air and the newly announced Fitbit Edge. This Google Health features Pixel Watch Fitbit comparison lays out exactly what Google has confirmed, what its own announcements leave unexplained, and what Fitbit Edge buyers should check before preordering.

Leaked footage and a string of regulatory filings have given the clearest look yet at Samsung's next budget fitness tracker, and the picture is almost identical to the device it replaces. The Samsung Galaxy Fit 4 leaks published this week show a band that looks nearly indistinguishable from the Galaxy Fit 3, with Bluetooth 5.4 standing out as the only confirmed specification change reported so far (SammyGuru, three weeks ago).

Samsung has started rolling out the stable, Android 17-based One UI 9 update to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5. The rollout began in South Korea and has since expanded to parts of Europe, although availability still varies by country, carrier, and device variant.

Samsung's internal testing reportedly found the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 overheating and throttling in Galaxy S27 Ultra prototypes, fueling talk of a switch to Samsung's Exynos 2700 chip.

Google began rolling out Gemini Personal Intelligence on Android Auto on October 20, letting the assistant use information from connected Google services, including Gmail and Photos, to personalize responses and assist with tasks such as navigation. The feature is rolling out to eligible personal Google accounts, though Google has built in enough restrictions on region and account type that not everyone with Android Auto will see it right away.

Google AI Plus is losing Pro model selection. Google has begun emailing subscribers to say the option will disappear from the $4.99-a-month plan starting November 13, 2026, according to 9to5Google.

Learning how to use AI Network Guard on Samsung One UI 9 won't turn your phone into a systemwide ad blocker, but it can prevent new ads from loading inside certain offline-capable apps.

Apple spent this week shipping something Google has only sketched out in app code. On October 13, Apple announced HomeView, a $299 smart display built for shared households, with facial recognition for up to six family members, Siri AI, and controls that adapt as someone walks closer. Pre-orders are open now, and the device starts shipping November 13.

Google is testing a new Google Nest speaker firmware update, version 3.79.550760, but for now the rollout is limited to people enrolled in Google's speaker Preview Program. The build currently covers four older speakers, the original Google Home, Home Mini, Nest Mini, and Nest Audio, according to 9to5Google. The supplied reporting does not include a Google announcement describing the update.

A Pixel 10a owner reported low audio recording volume during video capture, describing it as "extremely low and faint" in a complaint posted on the Google Pixel Community three weeks ago. A day earlier, a separate Pixel 11 Pro owner said recordings in any app sounded roughly half as loud as recordings made on an iPhone 17 Pro, according to a post on the Google Pixel Community.

Google began rolling out Universal Cart across Search and the Gemini app in the U.S. yesterday, giving shoppers a way to save products from different retailers in one running list instead of juggling browser tabs and screenshots. The feature also sends alerts when saved items drop in price or come back in stock, built on top of Google's Shopping Graph of more than 60 billion product listings.

Android users have been seeing the "number is now verified" system notification more often since last year, and a report from Kaspersky published three months ago explains why. Google's phone number verification check, which confirms that the SIM tied to a number is physically in the device, became widely visible to most users after a Google system update in September 2025, and now runs by default during setup and periodically afterward.

There's no universal best time to charge a Samsung Galaxy Watch. Generally, an optimal charging schedule is something you have to monitor yourself, and that premise holds up here: the right window depends on whether you track sleep, how much battery you're carrying into the evening, how fast your specific model refills, and when you're reliably inactive during the day. The four-question framework below turns that idea into something you can actually use.

Samsung announced a new SmartThings platform update on October 5, 2026, built around a feature called SmartThings Now that moves automation suggestions to the top of the Home tab instead of leaving them buried in menus and submenus. The Samsung SmartThings Now update also redesigns the Home tab layout, adds a Floating Bar for one-handed use, and expands local hub-to-phone control.

A new Wear OS app called Now On Wrist takes Pixel's ambient song-recognition feature and puts the result on your wrist instead of your lock screen. The Now On Wrist Wear OS app is live now on Google Play and works with any Wear OS 3.0 or newer smartwatch, not just the Pixel Watch.

A small shield sitting next to your battery percentage looks exactly like the kind of alert you shouldn't ignore. It isn't one. If you're wondering what the shield icon means on Samsung Galaxy phones, the answer is simple: Battery Protection is active. Samsung says a Battery Protection indicator may appear in the status bar while the feature is limiting charging.

Google now documents Gemini Call for Me as a feature that can place and handle certain calls to businesses on a user's behalf. What remains undocumented as a released feature is the reported expansion to personal contacts, including scenarios where Gemini could call a friend or family member to pass along a message or ask a question. Google has published setup, eligibility, disclosure, monitoring, and data-handling details for the existing business-focused Call for Me feature, but not for that...

Samsung just introduced the Galaxy Tab S12 series, a new tablet lineup built around Galaxy AI, a bundled S Pen, and a new MediaTek chip. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra and Galaxy Tab S12+ go on sale October 7 in select and major markets.

On the same day Google's new Googlebook laptops went on sale, the company admitted that Intel-based models may stumble on certain Android apps (The Verge). In a statement to Android Authority, Google described the affected group as a "small handful of complex apps or games" that need developer tuning to run their best on Intel platforms (Engadget).