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The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 iFixit teardown has produced a provisional 4/10 repairability score, with iFixit pointing to a fragile inner display, an intricate hinge, and dust protection that falls short in real-world conditions, according to Android Authority.

Google closed its Pixel 11 launch event in New York on August 12 the way it opened: with Trevor Noah on stage. Near the end, Rick Osterloh, Google's hardware chief, joined him, apparently to wrap things up, after a lineup expected to include Alex Cooper, Steph Curry, PinkPantheress and Ayami Nakajo, according to Engadget's live coverage of the show. It made for solid television. It made for a thinner night of proof.

Chrome Canary is testing a Gemini-powered option that would replace weak or reused passwords automatically instead of just flagging them. It does not work yet. In hands-on testing on Windows 11, clicking the new "Change it for me" button left Chrome's password manager stuck on "Attempting to sign-in..." before it threw an error saying the password could not be updated, Android Authority reported this week after confirming the feature in its own build.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 bend test that JerryRigEverything ran this week threw the toughest thing a durability channel can throw at a foldable: reverse-direction flex, the failure mode that has cracked hinges and popped screens loose on lesser phones. The Fold 8 didn't crack, and nothing popped loose (JerryRigEverything, this week).

Samsung's new Galaxy Z8 lineup set a preorder record in South Korea, and the standard Fold8, not the pricier Ultra, carried most of it. That's the story behind the Samsung Galaxy Z8 preorder record set this week: Samsung said the lineup drew more than 1.44 million preorders in South Korea during the seven-day window that ended Monday, Aug. 3, the highest preorder total for any Galaxy phone the company has ever released, foldable or not, according to The Korea Times.

Two days after Google's Pixel 11 launch event, buyers are discovering a second Google Play Store Pixel 11 discount tucked inside the Play Points program. 9to5Google describes it as a discount worth up to $175, "hidden just beneath the surface" of the Play Points perks menu (9to5Google, today). Reports describe this as a separate offer from the pre-order codes Google emailed to select buyers before the show, and it covers the entire Pixel 11 family plus the Pixel Watch 5.

On one Android phone, apps, texts, call history, and settings combined added up to less than 132MB, while photos and videos on the same device totaled 76GB (Android Police, 15 months ago). That's a striking example, not a universal rule, but it points toward the real question behind how to reduce Android backup storage in Google Drive: check what's actually filling the account before touching a single setting.

Google's Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL launched Wednesday at $1,099 and $1,299, prices Android Authority describes as higher than last year's models (Android Authority, this week). Pre-launch reporting had pegged that increase at $100 over the Pixel 10 Pro line (The Verge, nearly two weeks ago), and the confirmed launch prices match that figure exactly. The base RAM also dropped: 12GB on the entry Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL, down from 16GB across every Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL configuration last...

A December 2025 Chromium commit adds support for chrome.tabGroups.get(), an extension method that lets developers query tab-group data, on a surface the commit itself calls "desktop Android." That term doesn't appear defined anywhere else in the supplied commit, so every claim in this piece about where it applies stays tied to that exact phrase (Chromium commit). It's a narrow addition to the list of Chrome for Android features extension developers might want, and it's worth being precise about...

Samsung set August 7, 2026, as the general availability date for the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, but some customers have seen estimated arrival dates extend well beyond launch day.

Hands-on coverage of the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL from Android Authority has now shown off details of at least one launch color. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold hasn't gotten that treatment. Everything anyone knows about which Pixel 11 Pro Fold color to buy still traces back to retail listings that leaked last month, not anything Google has shown directly.

Four months ago, Google Messages for web began warning users that "QR code pairing is going away soon." The prompt urges people to sign in to Google Messages for web with a Google account "to avoid interruption," an early warning of a removal Google has since completed in the United States.

Google says its latest Gemini for Home update makes timers and alarms faster and more accurate. It's the third time since May the company has made close to that same claim, following updates on May 11, May 28, and June 23 (9to5Google, 3 months ago; Android Police, 2 months ago; 9to5Google, 6 weeks ago). The cited reports provide no performance figures for any of the three updates, and no independent review available for this article tested alarm accuracy after the June update shipped.

A teardown of the second Android 17 QPR2 beta has surfaced a hidden feature called Voicecast, according to Android Authority. The Google Pixel Voicecast feature would let Pixel phones broadcast a user's live voice over Bluetooth, a capability their phones currently lack: existing Pixel audio-sharing tools handle music and video, but not a microphone feed.

Some Pixel owners are reporting laggy, stuttering gameplay in lightweight titles like Clash Royale and Brawl Stars after installing Android 17, with the slowdowns seemingly tied to restricted GPU performance (9to5Google, last month). It's a small story on its own, and the report doesn't pin the blame on any specific Pixel generation. But it's a useful reminder that Pixel 10 GPU performance issues never fully went away, despite months of driver updates aimed at fixing them.

Google is testing a redesigned Android voice search button that turns the familiar mic icon into a swipeable toolbar with four modes: Search, AI Mode, Search Live, and Song Search, replacing what used to be a single-purpose transcription tool (9to5Google, reported this week; corroborated by Android Headlines).

New European pricing figures suggest the S26 FE could cost meaningfully more than its predecessor, while confirmed upgrades still fall short of justifying the gap

The Google Pixel 11 hasn't launched yet, and leaked details about it are already complicating the case for buying one. Google has confirmed that portions of the lineup will cost more, and says the increase comes from higher memory costs, not tariffs (TechRepublic, last week). At the same time, leaked battery figures suggest the Pro and Pro XL models may actually pack smaller batteries than the Pixel 10 phones they replace (PhoneArena, last week). That's the real tension behind the question of...

The European Commission issued a €890 million EU Google antitrust fine last Wednesday, but the payment is the least of Google's problems. The twin rulings under the Digital Markets Act demand something far harder to write a check for: a structural redesign of how Google decides which results appear at the top of its search pages, and how Android's app economy distributes money between Google and the developers who build on it.

Google Photos has added a floating camera button inside its AI editing tools, letting people snap a fresh photo without leaving the app and feed it straight into an edit. The new Google Photos AI camera button shows up inside Photo Remix and Photo to Video, part of a wider push to add camera access to tools in the app's Create tab.

For months, the Galaxy S26 FE existed only in leaks and certification filings. That changed this week, when Samsung put the phone on record for the first time, and an executive's own hedge suggested the reveal isn't far off, sharpening the question at the center of the Samsung Galaxy S26 FE release date into something closer to an answer (Android Authority, today).

A Samsung device with model number SM-X848U appeared in the FCC database today, with Notebookcheck reporting that the identifier reportedly corresponds to the US 5G variant of the Galaxy Tab S12+, citing 91mobiles. That mapping comes from third-party leak reporting, not from the FCC filing itself. The listing arrived eighteen days after two related variants cleared Safety Korea certification, and together the three filings across two regulatory bodies point toward a fall 2026 release that...

Some Pixel owners are still waiting for the Google Wallet fix that should have landed automatically. If your phone is showing a "Device doesn't meet security requirements" warning every time you open Google Wallet, it hasn't been compromised and your cards are fine. A stalled update rollout left a specific group of beta opt-outs stranded on a software build that Wallet's security checks no longer recognize as certified.

Android apps that ship with home screen widgets do not always make that feature easy to discover. No signal on the Play Store listing page, no prompt after install. For apps that do not promote widgets elsewhere, the launcher's widget picker may be the only obvious confirmation, and that requires you to already own the app and know to check.

Samsung's Memory Manufacturing Technology Center stood up a task force this month to build a commodity DRAM end-fab at its Hwaseong Campus Complex 1. An industry official says the move will lift Samsung DRAM production capacity roughly 15% by December relative to the start of 2026, according to Seoul Economic Daily. The cause is a market running critically short: commodity DRAM prices climbed more than 80% in the first half of this year, a move that makes a capacity investment easy to justify...

Google's Pixel 11 series is set to be unveiled on August 12, continuing a design that looks a lot like last year's Pixel 10, according to a 9to5Google leak from three months ago. What's changing, if that leak holds up, is what's inside: a Tensor G6 chip built around a modem swap aimed at Pixel's most persistent weak spot. Pixel 11 battery life is the question hanging over this launch, and the leaked battery figures suggest Google isn't trying to answer it by simply making the cell bigger.

As of this week, a Samsung Messages alternative app called Messages by OzarksMade is undergoing closed testing through Google Play, with a public launch set for 14 days after its testing Google Group hits 12 members and a post-launch price of $0.99. Treat that as a snapshot, not a finished product. Betas shift, thresholds get hit or missed, and pricing plans change before launch.

Google has locked in the Pixel 11 launch event for Wednesday, August 12, in New York City, with an unusually late keynote start at 6 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. PT. That's six days from now. The details come from invitations sent to The Verge and 9to5Google about a month ago.

A full set of press renders for the Lenovo Googlebook 15 surfaced this week, giving the clearest look yet at Google's new Android-based laptop category before either company has said a word about it. The images, first shared by Digital Citizen, show a 15-inch laptop built for Google's Gemini-first computing push, complete with a new Google 'G' key that leak reports identify as a Gemini shortcut.

A trial-production leak claims the OnePlus 16 packs a dual-cell battery described as having roughly 9,000mAh-equivalent capacity alongside a 200MP camera, but the picture is messier than the headline numbers suggest. Android Authority and My Mobile India both published details on the OnePlus 16 200MP camera and 9000mAh battery leak within a day of each other. The two reports describe the same trial-production claims, so treat them as one leak chain repeated twice, not independent confirmation.

A developer known as busung has released an open-source tool called the Root My Galaxy app, which claims to grant temporary root access to select Snapdragon-powered Galaxy flagships without unlocking the bootloader or tripping Samsung's Knox e-fuse, according to an Android Authority report published today. The developer describes the process as one-click and says it leaves user data untouched, per the same report. The conventional route to persistent Samsung root involves bootloader changes,...

Google hasn't shipped the Pixel 11 yet, and a leaker has already surfaced the internal codename for the chip that comes after it. The Google Pixel 12 Tensor G7 leak traces back to a single Telegram post: the chip is reportedly called "LaJolla" (Android Authority, earlier this year). That's it. That's the leak.

Google's Pixel 11 lineup is now available for preorder, and some buyers have an extra way to cut the launch price: a promotional code tied to their Google account.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is now on sale across 106 markets at $2,099.99. Within Samsung's lineup, the Ultra name is supposed to mean the company's highest performance tier, and Samsung frames this phone as bringing that standard to foldables for the first time. In its review, PCMag called it Samsung's most capable foldable yet, citing faster performance, a longer-lasting battery and sharper cameras than any other Z Fold.

Google is rolling out a redesigned icon for Pixel Recorder, the first change to the app's icon in the seven years since it launched on the Pixel 4 in 2019, according to 9to5Google. The Pixel Recorder new icon update swaps the familiar white waveform on a red square for a red waveform on a white background.

Samsung confirmed Modern Warfare 4 32:9 support yesterday, announcing that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will officially support the 32:9 super-ultrawide aspect ratio at launch (Samsung Global Newsroom, yesterday). The confirmation arrived as part of a broader partnership naming Samsung the official TV, monitor, soundbar and Wi-Fi speaker partner for the game, which also brings Samsung's HDR10+ Gaming format into the title (Samsung Global Newsroom, yesterday; Digital Trends, yesterday).