C. Scott Brown / Android Authority TL;DR Google is testing new features in the Play Store, including support for third-party app stores. Along with this, we see a new option called Play Labs being tested here. We’ve also seen the two-row search bar being prepared for a rollout. Earlier this week, Google rolled out a massive Play Store update with an improved search experience and the ability to try out widgets while an app was being installed. But in addition to these changes, a few more could be in line, as we’ve spotted them being tested in the latest version of the Play Store. You’re reading an Authority Insights story. Authority Insights brings…

On a cattle station deep in the Northern Territory outback, roughly 683km south of Darwin, a Singapore-headquartered developer wants to build one of the largest data centres in the southern hemisphere. The plan leans on a resource the region has in abundance and the electricity grid does not reach out to supply: gas. Energy North lodged the proposal, called Project Ares, with Australia’s federal environment department in June, and it is now open for public comment. The off-grid campus would sit at Murranji Station in the gas-rich Barkly region, near the Beetaloo basin, and run on a mix of gas-fired power, solar, and batteries. It arrives as Australian…

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority It’s shocking to think that it’s been more than a decade since the first Android smartwatch launched, and yet, we still don’t have a universal charging system. Even within a single company’s smartwatch lineup, we often see new charging systems introduced every few years, and often the new system isn’t backward-compatible. This can be highly frustrating, as it effectively renders your older chargers and accessories redundant when it’s time to upgrade. Google, unfortunately, is not exactly helping this cause when you look at its own Pixel Watch series. In a span of just four generations, we’ve had three different…

Cherry blossom trees are in full bloom with N Seoul Tower in the background at Namsan Park in central Seoul in 2025. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul Foreign visitors are increasingly venturing beyond Seoul's iconic shopping districts and royal landmarks, embracing filming locations, traditional markets and mountain trails as the city's tourism landscape grows more diverse, according to a new data analysis released Wednesday. The Seoul AI Foundation said its analysis of foreign visitor movement and online reviews found tourism demand spreading across a wider range of destinations throughout the capital in 2025. The study examined 16 major…

Substack is giving readers a way to check whether the post they’re reading was written by a human or by a chatbot. The company has partnered with AI-detection firm Pangram to introduce new tools that will let users scan posts, notes, and replies for AI-generated text. CEO Chris Best introduced the features in a post titled “Against Claudefishing,” his term for content that leans on AI while presenting itself as human work. How the scanning tool works Scans run on any text longer than one hundred words that is published from July 21 onward, and the result is visible only to the person who requests it. Best says Pangram is not perfect, but points to…

Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are expected to feature a variable-aperture camera. The upgrade has been rumored repeatedly and would be a first for Apple's smartphone lineup, but what would it actually change for everyday users? An aperture is the opening inside a camera lens that lets in light. A natural comparison would be the pupils of your eyes, which open wider in the dark and become smaller in bright conditions. Current iPhone cameras have an opening that's fixed to the one size. To compensate for this, the iPhone adjusts other settings and uses software processing to brighten or darken the image. By contrast, a variable…

Samsung is reportedly weighing a bet on Europe’s best-funded AI startup. The South Korean conglomerate is in talks to invest in Mistral as part of a fundraising round that could value the Paris company at roughly €20bn, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the discussions. The size of Samsung’s cheque is where the reporting turns slippery. The FT put it at “hundreds of millions of euros,” while several summaries of the story have rounded that up to about €1bn. What is more firmly established is the shape of the round itself: Mistral is raising around €3bn, nearly doubling the €11.7bn valuation it commanded less than a…

Xteink has launched the X4 Pro, a new version of its pocket-sized e-reader that addresses several limitations of the original X4. The updated model keeps the same 4.3-inch display and magnetic design, but adds a front light, touchscreen, larger battery, and unlocked firmware. The original X4 stood out for its unusually compact form factor and stripped-down reading experience, though it lacked some basic conveniences available on larger e-readers. The X4 Pro appears designed to close those gaps while preserving the tiny footprint that made the first model distinctive. The missing conveniences are now here The biggest addition is an adjustable front…

PERSONAL TECH Raspberry Pi goes large with 10.1-inch Touch Display 2 More screen, more pixels, and a Pi 5 required to drive the lot Raspberry Pi has supersized its Touch Display 2 with a new 10.1-inch model aimed at dashboards, entertainment systems, and other projects that need more room for prodding. The panel is designed for use cases such as touch-enabled information displays. This is the big brother to the 5-inch and 7-inch variants, with a resolution to match – 1,200 x 1,920 pixels are available on the native portrait display. The 10.1-inch panel supports 24-bit RGB color and ten simultaneous touch points, up from five on the smaller models. The…

Today’s the day! Samsung is just hours from the launch of its Galaxy Z Fold 8 series, Galaxy Watch 9, and more, and you can tune in live to see the event. Starting at 9am EDT / 6am PDT, Samsung is livestreaming Galaxy Unpacked with the launch of its new foldables and smartwatches in store. Expected announcements include: Galaxy Z Fold 8 (wide) Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Galaxy Z Flip 8 Galaxy Watch 9 Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 We’ve seen these devices rather extensively in leaks over the past few weeks. You can tune in live to Samsung’s event in just a few hours, with the whole thing available on YouTube. Advertisement - scroll for more content As per usual,…

TL;DR: The Pokémon TCG Mega Evolution Perfect Order Booster Bundle is available at $47.45 at Amazon, down from its $59.99 list price. Credit: The Pokémon Company $47.45 at Amazon $59.99 Save $12.54 Perfect Order has spent much of the summer around the $50 mark at Amazon, but another marketplace price drop has made its six-pack Booster Bundle comfortably one of the most affordable options in the modern Pokémon TCG. As of July 22, the Pokémon TCG’s Perfect Order Booster Bundle is available at Amazon for $47.45. That's a $12.54 cut from its $59.99 list price. The cheapest listing is sold by third-party seller IOTSide and shipped by Amazon, with free…

Garmin Cirqa smart band has finally dropped The screen-free smart band costs $199.99 / £179.99 / AU$299.99 I tested its accuracy and found it to be very good It’s here! After months of leaks, the Garmin Cirqa smart band (styled ‘CIRQA’ by Garmin) has finally arrived. I got a chance to check it out — and wear it for a workout — at the official launch event. A sleek-looking fabric smart band in four colors (French Grey, Black, Captain Blue and Mauve) wrapped around a plastic puck, there’s no denying it looks a lot like a Whoop, Polar Loop or a thicker version of the Google Fitbit Air. The puck packs an Elevate V4 heart rate sensor, the same one used on…

The next big Galaxy Unpacked launch event is upon us, and we're expecting big news for Android users — and Android-curious users. Samsung's big event is scheduled for July 22 at 9 a.m. ET, and this year the action takes place in London. Mashable will be attending the London launch event, and we'll be posting live updates before, during, and after the event in this live blog. Keep checking back to see all of the biggest announcements, product launches, and, hopefully, a couple of surprises as well. The Korean tech giant is expected to launch at least five new devices today, including three new foldable phones: Galaxy Z Flip 8 Galaxy Z Fold 8 Galaxy Z…

Pankil Shah / Android Authority My home screen has had the same Google widgets for as long as I can remember — Search, Weather, Calendar, Keep, and Discover. It’s easy to overlook, but every one of these widgets does two jobs — one for me, one for Google. The weather widget knows where I am. The search widget knows what I’m curious about. Discover knows what keeps me scrolling. You get the idea. None of this is accidental, of course. So I decided to find out what would actually happen if I swapped all of them for privacy-focused alternatives. Spoiler: a few switches were painless, but a couple didn’t stick. Which Google widget would you find hardest…

Table of Contents Table of Contents Table of Contents Backlight explained: LED vs. QLED vs. OLED vs. RGB Resolution explained: FHD vs. 4K vs. 8K HDR explained Refresh rate explained Final thoughts: How to choose a TV Frequently Asked Questions Recommendations for the best TVs to buy in 2026 are at the bottom of this guide, thanks to intel from CNET's Ty Pendlebury and PCMag's Will Greenwald. (CNET, PCMag, and Mashable are all owned by publisher Ziff Davis.) Use the table of contents to skip down to a specific category. Buying a new television can break your brain more than it breaks your budget. If you're not a picky cinephile or longtime hardcore…

FOX Business reporter Madison Alworth discusses China's rapid progress in artificial intelligence, revealing a new AI model outperforming U.S. counterparts at a lower cost. NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Washington rarely discovers an economic policy that promotes investment, strengthens national security, improves services for consumers and raises billions of dollars for the Treasury without imposing a new tax. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s newly announced "super band" spectrum auction manages to do all four. Spectrum may be invisible, but it is among the most valuable resources in the modern economy. It…

The Hisense UR9 is the sweet spot for experiencing the vibrancy of RGB technology at home for a practical price. It'd be the perfect chameleon screen for households that do an even amount of watching or gaming during the day and at night. The UR9's exceptional brightness would particularly shine when watching sports or watching movies in HDR. Speaking of gaming, DisplayPort makes a rare appearance on the ultra-thin side of the UR9. This is easily the most premium TV that can hit a 180Hz refresh rate, speaking directly to PC gamers who are strict about their graphics. RGB TVs were the talk of CES 2026, considering nearly every big TV brand unveiled at…

ऐपल हर साल न्यू iPhone सीरीज को लॉन्च करता है, जिनके डिजाइन में बहुत ज्यादा बदलाव नहीं दिखाई देता है. कंपनी बैक पैनल पर दिए जाने वाले कैमरा प्लेसमेंट को बदल देती है. न्यू रिपोर्ट्स में दावा किया है कि ऐपल आईफोन के लिए 6.95 इंच के डिस्प्ले पर टेस्टिंग कर रही है. और पढ़ें इंडियाटुडे ने एक टिप्स्टर के हवाले से जानकारी दी है कि ऐपल ने इंटर्नल लेवल पर लार्ज डिस्प्ले पर टेस्टिंग शुरू की है. इससे पता चलता है कि आने वाले साल में एकदम न्यू आईफोन को लॉन्च किया जाएगा. अभी मार्केट में iPhone 17 और iPhone 17 Pro सीरीज मौजूद हैं. न्यू डिस्प्ले पर टेस्टिंग चल रही है और एकदम न्यू लुक वाला iPhone 20 को लॉन्च किया जा सकता है, जिसका दावा रिपोर्ट्स में किया है. अगले साल…

TL;DR: Give an old PC a nice upgrade with this Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license, now for only $9.97 (reg. $199) through July 26. Your computer should help you get things done, not slow you down and make life harder. If you’re in the market to give your device a serious productivity boost, it may be time to upgrade to Windows 11 Pro. A new operating system can make an old computer feel brand new again, and right now you can grab this one for $9.97 until July 26. If you’re in the market for a new laptop, don’t totally count your old one out. This Windows 11 Pro license can help bring older PCs up to speed by offering new tools, features, and enhanced…

TL;DR Light’s latest minimalist device is a flip phone that’s available in six bold colors. It has a 2.8-inch OLED screen, an octa-core MediaTek chipset, a 1,800mAh battery, and a 12MP camera. It’s priced at $299 and will start shipping from April 2027. Light, the company behind minimalist phones such as the Light Phone 3, has decided to take its minimal-phone formula and apply it to flip phones. The company’s new Light Flip is its answer to customers asking for a flip phone that isn’t poorly built or packed with addictive (or useless) apps. The Light Flip will be available in six colors: Black, Navy, Red, Pink, Yellow, and Gray. What’s more, the…

The best HBO Max deals and bundles in July 2026: Looking for some exciting new films or shows to watch this summer? HBO Max is the place to find them. With a brand new season of House of the Dragon dropping and major movies like Backrooms streaming sometime soon, there's plenty to watch. If these have caught your eye, the good news is that HBO Max has a few different bundles available at the moment that are worth checking out, including a popular bundle with Disney+ and Hulu. We've broken down that offer and other bundles below, so you can find the best option for you. With streaming prices on the rise, offers like these are a great way to save some…

Wistron, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer that builds server hardware for Nvidia, has opened its first factory on American soil, a $700 million plant in Fort Worth, Texas, that is already assembling Nvidia’s GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra superchips. The site held its grand opening on 21 July, and Nvidia says it is the first place the GB300 has been built and mass-produced in the United States. The chip is the current flagship of Nvidia’s data centre line, and Fort Worth will eventually turn out its successor too: the Vera Rubin superchips due to follow Blackwell. It is a notable vote of confidence in US-made chips, a category that a year ago barely…

The next Samsung Galaxy Unpacked is finally here. The launch event will be held in London on Wednesday, July 22 at 9 a.m. ET, and Samsung will almost certainly unveil a slew of new products. Samsung has already confirmed that new details on its next generation of foldable smartphones will be announced. The tagline for this year's event is "A new shape unfolds," which isn't exactly subtle, and we're fully expecting to see the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 take center stage. Will Samsung's new Fold and Flip smartphones cost more, as the leaks have pointed to? Is the highly anticipated Galaxy Z Fold Ultra going to be worth the premium price tag?…

SAVE $90: As of July 22, the DJI Flip (RC-N3) is on sale for $349 at Amazon. That's a 21% discount on the list price. $349 at Amazon $439 Save $90 DJI is one of the best-known names in drones, with a reputation for making reliable and easy-to-use models. And despite recent restrictions impacting future DJI imports in the U.S., shoppers can still buy models already available on Amazon, including the DJI Flip (RC-N3). Normally priced at $439, this popular drone is on sale for $349. That's a $90 saving and the lowest-ever price for this model. Mashable Deals By signing up, you agree to receive recurring automated SMS marketing messages from Mashable…

SAVE $200: As of July 22, the 75-inch Samsung Frame TV is on sale for $1,797.99 at Amazon. That's a 10% discount on the list price. $1,797.99 at Amazon $1,997.99 Save $200 Samsung Unpacked is taking place on July 22, but you don’t need to wait for the latest launches to score a Samsung upgrade. The Samsung The Frame TV is currently on sale on Amazon, with a $200 discount on the 75-inch model. Normally priced at $1,997.99, right now it is down to $1,797.99. According to camelcamelcamel, this is the best-ever price for this TV. Mashable Deals By signing up, you agree to receive recurring automated SMS marketing messages from Mashable Deals at the number…

SAVE $270: As of July 22, the Samsung 870 EVO SATA III is on sale for $249.99 at Amazon. That's a 52% discount on the list price. $249.99 at Amazon $519.99 Save $270 While Samsung Unpacked is introducing the brand's newest tech today, there are also savings on some of its existing products. The Samsung 870 EVO SATA III is currently on sale, giving you an affordable way to add extra storage and improve your computer's performance. As of July 22, this device is down from $519.99 to $249.99, saving you $270. This price is for the 1TB storage option, but if you need more space, there are deals on all storage capacities, even up to a whopping 8TB. Mashable…

Apple is likely to join the foldable market this year — but Samsung is gearing up to have a competitor in place before the iPhone Ultra even launches. Samsung is set to show off its latest wares at a Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22, and it's widely expected that the company will announce a third foldable to add onto the Fold and Flip form factors it has already been selling for years now. This new foldable will reportedly be a shorter, wider device, similar in shape to the still-unannounced iPhone Ultra. Here's everything you need to know about the wide Samsung foldable before its likely launch later this month. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8…

Samsung's next clamshell foldable is close enough to touch. Samsung has released a new Galaxy Z Flip phone every year since debuting the line in 2020, and the pattern looks set to continue. The company has scheduled an Unpacked event for July 22, 2026, where the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is expected to launch alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Galaxy Watch 9, and Galaxy Watch Ultra 2. With the announcement just weeks away, leaks covering the phone's design, colors, and internals have been piling up. Here's a roundup of the most notable ones. Z Flip 8 Release Date Samsung has already confirmed the timing: its Unpacked event lands on July 22,…

Last year, I said the ultra-thin Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 was the best foldable we've ever tested. That means the rumored successor device has big shoes to fill. After months of speculation, Samsung finally confirmed that it will hold a Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22, where it will presumably announce its newest batch of foldable devices, among other things. While this means we haven't yet seen the follow-up to the Z Fold 7 in an official capacity, there's been enough reporting online to build a decent profile of the phone before its unveiling. Here's everything we know about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra so far. Latest Samsung Galaxy Z…

Samsung is set to capture the tech world's attention next week when it hosts its next big mobile launch event. The Korean tech giant is hosting a Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22, and Mashable will be there, reporting live on all of the big announcements. We're fully expecting to see at least five new devices from Samsung, including the latest batch of flagship foldable phones. As per usual with Samsung, these devices haven't been leaking so much as flooding. So, as we prepare for the big show, here's everything we know (and everything we think we know) about the Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event. When is the next Galaxy Unpacked? The next Galaxy…