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Google’s changelog for the March Pixel Feature Drop has leaked out
The March security patches and system update is ominously still missing
Against our expectations, the Pixel March Feature Drop didn’t drop yesterday. Google usually publishes its security patches and quarterly feature drops on the first Monday of every month, gracing all the latest phones including the Google Pixel 7 Pro, but this doesn’t seem to be the case this time around. We don't know the reason for the delay, but it’s clear that the company already has marketing ready to go for its latest Pixel Feature Drop. A changelog detailing some of the highlights has leaked out.
The Nothing Ear 2 are official, with a launch event coming this month
Nothing is inviting everyone aboard the hype train
About two years after the Nothing Ear 1 launch, Carl Pei’s company has officially announced the existence of its predecessor: The Nothing Ear 2. True to its hype-focused marketing strategy, the company hasn’t shared any details beyond a teaser image that shows the very edge of the case, plus a date for its proper launch event.
The Xiaomi Band 8 might feel more premium than its predecessors
A leak indicates that the bands will be individually detachable
The Xiaomi Band series has always been one of our top picks for fitness trackers, especially when you don’t want to spend triple-digit prices. With the Xiaomi Band 7 being released in May in China, the next generation should be right around the corner. According to a report, this seems to be the case, with the next band appearing to run through its certification process in Korea. If leaked images are to be believed, the Xiaomi Band 8 might offer the most significant redesign in a while.
This light-based Wi-Fi alternative wants to supercharge your next phone's connection
The Li-Fi standard uses infrared light to speed up your internet connection while making your Wi-Fi less congested
Wi-Fi networks are great at keeping all your devices connected to high-speed internet, but they have their downsides. The more great smart home devices you add and the more neighbors you have with similar setups, the more congested radio frequencies inevitably get. Despite encryption, Wi-Fi also isn't entirely private, allowing prying eyes to see which devices are connected and active. So, how do we get around all of these issues? Perhaps by seeing the light.
Honor Magic 5 Pro hands-on: Promising upgrades
The Magic 5 Pro stays true to Honor's flagship design all while refining it
Honor finally launched its foldable Magic Vs for international markets at MWC 2023 after it’s been available in China since November. But the company also brought its regular flagship series overseas, presenting it at the Barcelona trade show even before making it official in its domestic Chinese market. We’ve had the opportunity to go hands-on with a pre-release version of the Magic 5 Pro flagship, slated to hit European and international markets in April.
The Tecno Phantom V Fold undercuts the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 by hundreds
It's not coming to the US, sadly
Honor may have dominated the folding phone sector at MWC 2023 with its Magic Vs foldable, but it's not the only company releasing a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 style device at the show. Another unlikely competitor comes in the form of the Tecno Phantom V Fold, which opts for a MediaTek processor rather than the Snapdragon chipsets we've seen in international Fold-style phones so far.
Honor Magic Vs review: You win some, you lose some
Honor’s first international foldable surpasses Samsung in key areas, but falls short in others
Honor first revealed that it would bring a folding phone to international markets in September 2022. It then gave us a preview and hands-on experience of what we can expect in November 2022, and now, at MWC 2023, the company has finally revealed the Honor Magic Vs for its international audience — though the US is still left out in the cold.
Honor pulls flagship Magic 5 Pro and foldable Magic Vs out of its MWC hat
Seeing stars and a whole lot more
Honor is pulling a heck of a follow-through move at MWC 2023. You may still perceive this Chinese brand being overshadowed by its former parent company, Huawei, but ever since its divestiture, Honor has been working on itself. Late last year, it hit out at the foldable market in China with the Magic Vs phablet. Today, the company is not only bringing it over to Europe, but is also launching new flagship-class slabs for its Magic 5 series.
Xiaomi 13 Pro hands-on: Xiaomi is growing up
Waterproofing, 5 years of security patches, and more quality of life features on top of a great camera
The Xiaomi 13 Pro may have been announced in China already as one of the first phones to come with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Sony’s big 1-inch IMX989 sensor, but it's only now finally official for international markets. Even if today's MWC 2023 reveal doesn’t mean the Xiaomi 13 series will come to the US, this gives us a chance to take a look at what the US market is missing out on. And based on our first hands-on impressions, the Xiaomi 13 Pro might just be one of the best smartphones in 2023 you can’t get.
Mozilla: Google Play Store's fancy data safety labels are essentially worthless
Mozilla study reveals that there are often big discrepancies between Google’s labels and apps’ actual privacy policies
Read update
Last year, Google made a big change to the Play Store, forcing all app developers to add data safety labels to their Play Store listings. This is supposed to help users understand which private data is accessed by the app and which of it, if any, is shared with third parties. Like with Apple’s Privacy Nutrition Labels, the goal is to make the most important bits of an app’s privacy policy easily understandable at a glance. A new study from Mozilla reveals that many top apps in the Play Store had at least some discrepancies between their privacy policies and the Play Store labels.
Google paid hackers over $12 million in bounties to keep its products secure in 2022
Security researchers are keeping Android and Chrome safe with their vulnerability disclosures
As Google detailed earlier this week, it’s constantly trying to improve security on Android and other products. While the company has a talented team of developers working towards this goal, bugs and vulnerabilities inevitably slip through the cracks. That’s where the company’s Vulnerability Rewards Programs (VRPs) come in, with the company paying out bounties to security researchers who responsibly disclose issues in Google products. 2022 has been the programs’ most successful year yet, with Google paying out over $12 million across Android, Chrome, and more.
Google is making your Android phone safer with hardened firmware
Android has become so safe security researchers and hackers are increasingly focusing on chip firmware
Mobile operating systems are significantly safer than their desktop counterparts were in the past, thanks to an increasing focus on security and a more restrictive approach to what apps can do. In fact, Android has become so hard to crack that security researchers are often not even trying to attack the OS itself anymore. Google says that they’re instead focusing on a phone’s firmware — the software that runs on the “bare metal” within individual chips and controllers on an SoC. That’s where some new efforts come in that the company announced this week.
The Google Pixel Fold could be one of the heaviest foldables yet
On the upside, this could mean a bigger than average battery
The foldable phone market has been dominated by Samsung for four generations now with its excellent phones, but that’s about to change this year. Many Chinese manufacturers, who previously only released folding devices in their domestic market, are bringing their handsets to international waters. Google is also slated to release a foldable of its own, with ‘Google Pixel Fold’ being the most likely name. The latest leak about it tells us that it might be one of the heaviest foldables yet, though this could mean a bigger-than-usual battery.
OnePlus’s foldable might be a proper surprise
There are still many unknowns when it comes to the ‘OnePlus V Fold’
OnePlus just teased the launch of its Nothing Phone-like OnePlus 11 Concept for MWC 2023, but the company has more to offer than this. The business behind many excellent phones out there already hinted that it’s going to release a foldable phone in the third quarter of 2023, and now, a trusted leaker is adding more corroboration to the company’s teaser.
Leak details how Google will drastically change Android in India
The company has to adhere to new rules to keep bringing Android to the country
Like the EU before it, India ruled that Google’s practice of forcing manufacturers to bundle a certain set of Google apps by default was anti-competitive. Google has to make big changes to the way it distributes Android in India, and while we already know the set of rules the company has to adhere to, we’re still in the dark about how exactly Google plans to implement them. That’s where prolific Google leaker Kuba Wojciechowski comes in, giving us a look at how much different Android phones might soon feel in India.
iQOO 11 review: A performance showcase, but not much more
The iQOO 11 may not go in for a ton of pizzazz, but with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 under the hood, it doesn't need to
Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 late last year, promising to deliver the power that the best Android phones need to succeed. Since then, a lot of companies have already announced products featuring the Qualcomm flagship. One of the first to brace the global markets was the iQOO 11, beating the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and many other flagship phones to the punch. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is certainly the highlight of the iQOO 11, by far the most important part of this phone.
Tile will impose a $1 million fine on stalkers misusing its trackers
The new anti-theft mode hides trackers from Scan and Secure, but only for owners with verified IDs
Apple popularized cheap Bluetooth location trackers with its AirTags, allowing owners to find misplaced keys or stolen bags, bikes, and more. Unfortunately, the trackers powered by Apple's Find My network can also serve as a tool for stalkers who sneak the discreet trackers into victims’ bags, jackets, or cars. With a few highly publicized cases like this, Apple's trackers were quickly met with backlash, something that Tile, the company that originally popularized the Bluetooth tracking concept, is also experiencing.
Free your Tensor-powered Pixel phone from Google with LineageOS 20
The first LineageOS release is here for the Google Pixel 7 and other Tensor-powered phones
Google’s latest Pixel phones come with their very own Tensor chipset, a custom-made processor that’s available in the second generation already for the Google Pixel 7 series. This custom chipset certainly posed a challenge for both Google developers and custom ROM makers alike, as Google initially struggled to keep up with its own security update schedule and there was no official LineageOS release for the Pixel handsets for a long time. This is now changing, as LineageOS 20 has been made available for all Pixel phones powered by Tensor processors.
Google may be gearing up to launch its own chatbot called Bard to the public, but the star of the AI show right now is undoubtedly ChatGPT. The OpenAI general purpose dialog chatbot recently saw its version 4.0 release with a ton of new capabilities, and it has kicked off the race to create the best general purpose language AI just yet — despite many shortcomings.
Material You and new Android version could be about to hit your Chromebook
Google is preparing its laptop OS for dynamic theming
Google may push monthly ChromeOS updates to all of our favorite Chromebooks, but that isn’t the case for all components within the operating system. New Android releases are much slower to come to ChromeOS, and Google usually only provides full system updates every two years. With ChromeOS currently offering 2021's Android 11, it’s high time for an update. Evidence has surfaced that an Android 13 release could be imminent.