Available on Pixel devices for nearly a decade, the Now Playing tool that automatically identifies songs playing nearby has finally received an upgrade users have long wanted: the ability to browse song history directly in a dedicated app interface. Google has turned the Now Playing feature into a standalone app that displays songs previously identified by Now Playing. The feature does more than track nearby music; it also lets you quickly find the songs it has recently identified for you on your favorite music streaming service. That catchy summer song you heard while visiting Europe will be available in…
Author: Alexander Price
Modern Android phones are packed with features to streamline your experience, including the Always-On Display (AOD), introduced in 2016. It displays important information such as the date, time, notifications, music controls, and widgets on the lock screen, eliminating the need to pick up the phone or tap the screen. As the name suggests, the display is always on, but not on the entire screen. Naturally, this impacts your phone’s battery life, which is why many prefer the Tap-to-Wake feature. In this mode, the screen remains off until you tap it once or twice to turn it on. Between Always-On Display…
Have you glanced at your Android phone screen and been horrified by a mysterious red line that appeared everywhere? While this could happen due to a software glitch (maybe your phone just needs the latest updates), it’s also possible that the screen is on its deathbed. Unfortunately, in the latter scenario, you may need to replace the screen itself. The red line on an Android phone screen is usually due to hardware. If you dropped your device, the display ribbon connector may be loose. In this case, the red line appears because the LCD circuit loses contact with the flexible…
An Android smartphone is a handy tool, until its battery dies and you’re left to figure out what’s wrong. Left dead for too long, your Android phone’s battery can come back to life, but this depends on its condition. Smartphones use lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged, but only a certain number of times — anywhere from several hundred to 1,000 depending on the device — before they wear out. And when these lithium-ion batteries go flat for too long without being charged, they can swell. Damage may also occur if the device remains on charge after the cycle is…
With Android 17 arriving this summer, many smartphone owners can’t wait to see what the next iteration of the operating system has to offer, especially on non-Google devices like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and OnePlus 15. Several Google Pixel phones are already set to receive Android 17 when it launches, but Google isn’t the only company offering Android 17 to its users. OnePlus also plans to bring the updated operating system to its devices, and while the company says it won’t match Samsung and Google’s seven years of software updates, more than a dozen OnePlus devices are expected to…
Samsung took the top spot in our ranking of the best big smartphone brands, with its Galaxy line standing tall against Apple and Google. However, like any tech giant, it doesn’t have products without problems. Although Samsung has a reputation for making reliable phones that customers love – even to the point of being considered the best Android phone brand for customer satisfaction – a few odd software glitches and hardware constraints can still cause issues. For example, Samsung phones have become infamous for their dead batteries after major updates. Some of these issues require the manufacturer to apply…
Anthropic today announced the launch of its latest AI model, Claude Opus 4.8. Anthropic claims the model is a “more effective collaborator” with improvements in agent coding, multidisciplinary reasoning, agent computer use, knowledge work, and agent financial analysis. Testers found Opus 4.8 to be “more reliable and accurate in its judgment” when performing agentic tasks, and the model also gained in honesty. Early testers report that Opus 4.8 is more likely to report uncertainties about its work and less likely to make unsupported claims. This is confirmed by our evaluations, which show that Opus 4.8 is about four times less…
Samsung devices are often praised for their excellent camera hardware – the Galaxy S26 and S26+ feature a triple-camera setup with a 50 MP wide-angle lens as prime examples – and higher-end devices benefit from a feature that can improve their photos. Now, the company is expanding this feature to more devices with the rollout of One UI 8.5. As Samsung expands its latest firmware update to more smartphones (see the full list of all Samsung phones getting the One UI 8.5 update for more model-specific details), the company is also giving low-end and mid-range models access to the Camera…
Bad actors are everywhere on the internet, even if you usually wouldn’t expect them from your smartphone developer. We’re used to questionable Chrome extensions that steal your data, but a recent incident with Motorola has left users perplexed. Although it had already been fixed, there was a strange issue with Motorola devices (including the Razr Fold) in which users were sent to an even stranger link before opening a certain app. As spotted by 9to5Google, Motorola released an app update that injected affiliate code into the Amazon app through the Motorola Smart Feed app. Typically, the Smart Feed app shows…
After nearly two years of delays and a $250 million settlement along the way, Apple is preparing to reintroduce the new Siri at WWDC 2026. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has released a first look at the update with illustrations that provide insight into how Apple has redesigned the iPhone interface to bring the Gemini-powered AI agent to the forefront. “The company often tests several models of features internally, and the final version that will be presented to the public in June could differ,” warns Gurman, before indicating that Apple could launch the new Siri as early as September. As you can…