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Google is bringing significant changes to installing Android applications from sources other than Google's official Play Store. According to the advertising giant, the goal is to improve user security and combat malware - but at the same time, the lives of technically savvy users will become more difficult.

The changes specifically concern situations where users install applications from alternative sources, and the applications are not available for download through official app stores. Previously, Android's openness allowed applications to be installed freely, but at the same time, it also exposed users to malware.

App developers will henceforth be required to verify their identity when registering as app distributors, which is expected to reduce the spread of scam and malware. The developer must provide Google with their name, address, email, and phone number, among other things, and pay a one-time fee of 25 dollars (approximately 20 euros).

Starting in September 2026, Google will gradually introduce a new so-called advanced flow practice, which specifically concerns more technically proficient users. If a user absolutely wants an application on their phone or tablet that has not been verified by Google, the installation must go through a new, rather complex-looking process. The process includes several steps designed to ensure that the user understands the risks - and is not, for example, acting on the instructions of a scammer.

A significant crack has appeared in the years-long, close collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI in recent weeks, as information about a potential legal dispute between the companies has emerged.

According to sources (paywall) from the financial newspaper Financial Times, Microsoft is considering suing OpenAI for breach of contract, stemming from OpenAI's recent collaboration agreement with Amazon's cloud service, AWS. The agreement with Amazon may violate the exclusivity agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI, which stipulates that certain AI models developed by OpenAI should only be available through Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.

The partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI has been exceptionally close since 2019. Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI over the years and, through the deal, acquired approximately a 27 percent ownership stake in the AI company. The agreement between the companies stipulates that OpenAI can collaborate with other cloud service providers, but this activity has strict limits. Specifically, the enterprise platform named Frontier, designed for developing and managing AI agents, has been agreed to operate exclusively on Azure.

Streaming service Spotify has released a new feature aimed at users particular about sound quality - so-called audiophiles. The new exclusive mode offers the ability to play music on a computer as purely and bit-perfectly as possible, without the computer's own audio processing altering the original sound. The feature is available for Windows and will also be coming to Macs later.

Exclusive Mode is enabled from the settings of the Spotify desktop application. When the mode is activated, Spotify takes control of the computer's audio output - for example, via an external DAC converter - and completely bypasses the operating system's own audio processing. By completely bypassing the computer's operating system audio processing, it is possible to avoid loss of sound quality and the mixing of the operating system's own sounds with the music. As a result, the user hears the music as close as possible to how it sounded in its original form.

Enabling the feature requires the user to have an external DAC or other audio interface - in practice, many computers' built-in headphone or speaker ports are also compatible with exclusive mode.

The world's most famous printed dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannica, and its subsidiary Merriam-Webster have sued AI company OpenAI, accusing the company of copyright and trademark infringement.

Encyclopedia Britannica alleges that OpenAI has used the content of its encyclopedia and dictionary to train its AI models without permission. According to the lawsuit, OpenAI allegedly copied nearly 100,000 articles from Encyclopedia Britannica - and due to this copying, OpenAI's ChatGPT is able to reproduce Encyclopedia Britannica's content almost verbatim.

According to the publisher, the AI-generated responses are not limited to the training phase; ChatGPT is sometimes able to produce partial or complete copies of protected articles. Britannica considers this a threat to its website traffic and business, as users can obtain information directly from the AI without needing to visit the original source.

Britannica also raises concerns related to trademark infringement. According to the company, ChatGPT may in some cases include references to Encyclopedia Britannica in its responses in a way that could give the impression that OpenAI is using their material with permission. Furthermore, the AI can produce incorrect or fabricated content that is erroneously attributed to Encyclopedia Britannica. The company states that AI-invented claims, combined with the Encyclopedia Britannica brand, damage its reputation and credibility built over more than two hundred years.

Garmin and Meta have started a new collaboration, making WhatsApp now available on Garmin smartwatches. Users can now read and reply to their WhatsApp messages directly from their wrist.

Previously, Garmin watch users could only receive notifications of incoming messages, but replying was not possible, especially with devices connected to an iPhone. With the new WhatsApp application, users can now read chat history, reply to messages using the built-in keyboard, and use emoji reactions. Additionally, the app allows users to see incoming calls via WhatsApp and reject them through the watch. Messages remain under WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption, so privacy is maintained even when used separately from a mobile device.

WhatsApp is the first instant messaging application released for Garmin watches, and its availability is currently limited to certain models. These include Garmin Forerunner 970, Fenix 8, Venu 4, and Forerunner 570. Older models and slightly more specialized models, such as the Instinct series or golf-oriented Approach models, are currently not supported. The application also requires the user's phone to be connected to the watch and WhatsApp to be installed on the phone as well.

A German court has ordered Chinese television manufacturer TCL to stop marketing its QLED televisions as QLED TVs.

According to tests commissioned by the court, televisions marketed by TCL as QLED TVs do not meet the technical definition of QLED and did not match the level of color reproduction expected from QLED televisions.

According to Korea Times report, the German court banned TCL from marketing its televisions as QLED TVs and also prohibited the company from selling certain television models in Germany altogether.

The lawsuit against TCL was filed by Korean electronics giant Samsung, which accused TCL of misleading consumers in its advertising and marketing. The company has filed similar lawsuits against TCL in several other countries as well, including the United States, where court decisions are still pending.

In fact, this is not even the first time TCL has been accused of selling televisions as QLED models without actually using QLED technology. Already a couple of years ago TCL televisions were tested (in Korean), and the panels did not contain any of the materials used to create quantum dots in QLED displays.

In the world of modern smart - and less smart - home appliances, interoperability between devices is often on fairly shaky ground, whether we're talking about robot vacuum cleaners or robotic lawn mowers.

Over the years, the most important tool for deep-end home automation enthusiasts has become the open source application Home Assistant, which offers integration possibilities for almost every imaginable smart home device.

However, a major problem with using Home Assistant has always been that the community typically has to hack together support for different smart devices on its own (so-called reverse engineering). And quite often, making something like a robot vacuum work with Home Assistant requires so much work that the project remains out of reach for most ordinary users.

But every now and then, a manufacturer manages to surprise in a positive way. This time was one of those moments.

Chinese company Navimow (also known as Segway Navimow) quietly released official Home Assistant support for its robotic lawn mowers earlier this week.

The company didn't stop at Home Assistant support when catering to home automation enthusiasts - Navimow also released official Python SDK developer tools for its robotic lawn mowers at the same time.

Rumors about the demise of Xbox appear to have been premature.

Microsoft this week revealed the first cautious details about its next-generation Xbox gaming console, which currently carries the codename Project Helix.

One major change is coming - and it may fundamentally reshape the dynamics of the gaming console market: the next Xbox will be capable of running PC games as they are.

Naturally, the console will also run Xbox's own games, but the boundary between these two worlds will become far blurrier than before. Even until now, Xbox has been extremely close to PC gaming computers in terms of its underlying technology and programming interfaces.

Google is changing the release timetable of the world's most popular web browser, Chrome.

Until now, new so-called stable versions of Chrome – and of the open-source browser engine behind it, Chromium – intended for regular users have been released every four weeks. But starting on September 8, 2026, the pace will accelerate and a new stable version of Chrome will be released every two weeks.

According to Google, the faster release cycle will allow new features to reach developers and end users more quickly. Security updates for Chrome will continue to be released weekly, as they are now.

The accelerating release cycle is of course somewhat problematic particularly from the perspective of enterprise users, where software updates are often restricted in order to ensure their real stability. For Chrome enterprise users, the so-called extended stable release channel will continue to follow an eight-week cycle.

The new release schedule applies to both desktop versions of Chrome and to the browser's iOS and Android versions. Beta versions of the browser will always be released three weeks before the corresponding stable version.

Economic worries and nostalgia for previous generations' eras sometimes give rise to surprising trends.

But now it seems, at least based on US sales figures, that so-called Gen Z - those born between 1997 and 2012, often called zoomers - have discovered a historical relic: DVD movies.

According to the Los Angeles Times report, young people's renewed interest in that ancient optical video format dug out from the corners of history is quite significant.

The surge in interest is not large enough to put DVD movie sales back on a growth trajectory. But we are now seeing the first signs that the nearly completely collapsed DVD market has at least slowed its downward spiral.

Sales of physical movies overall - including Blu-ray titles - have plummeted by 93 percent since their peak year in 2005. The year 2024 was the first time in the United States that physical movie sales fell below one billion dollars.

There are several explanations for the renewed interest in DVD films. First, movies now disappear from streaming services quite easily, and sometimes you run into situations where a specific film is not available on any streaming platform at any price.

Google has released the first official preview - or beta - version of its upcoming Android 17 operating system.

The beta was originally scheduled to become available on February 11th, but for unexplained reasons Google delayed the rollout - and the release only went live on February 13th.

Android 17 will likely be a largely invisible update for most everyday users, as Google has in recent years shifted to a development approach where major Android releases mainly improve under-the-hood system functions. Visual changes, meanwhile, are now distributed as separate updates, typically at very different speeds depending on the manufacturer.

One major change arriving with Android 17 will still affect regular users: it forces app developers to properly support large screens.

With Android 17, apps will no longer be allowed to lock themselves to a specific aspect ratio or, for example, run on tablets only in portrait orientation. Apps must also function on devices that support windowed modes.

In other words, Google is requiring developers to better account for tablet and foldable-phone users. Poor tablet app support in particular has long been one of Android's weak points compared to Apple's ecosystem.

The last major optical media format still standing, Blu-ray, is once again taking another step toward the sunset.

One of the format's original creators, Japan's Sony, has announced that it will end production of recordable Blu-ray players.

Recordable Blu-ray devices never became especially popular in Western markets, but in Sony's home country of Japan they have been fairly common - effectively "modern VCRs" used to record television broadcasts into a more permanent format on physical discs.

The final batches of Sony's recordable Blu-ray players will be shipped to retailers by the end of February 2026.

The decision does not come as a huge surprise. A year ago, Sony decided to stop manufacturing blank Blu-ray discs.

The format has faced other setbacks in recent years as well. Korean electronics giant LG ended production of all Blu-ray players at the end of 2024. And another Korean giant, Samsung, had already announced back in 2019 that it would no longer release new 4K Blu-ray players.

The European Union's Ecodesign regulation, formally known as Ecodesign, has been phased in over the past couple of years.

The directive is known, among other things, for enabling smartphones to be sold without bundled chargers, provided they can be charged with a standard charger (and in most cases, with any manufacturer's fast charger).

The Ecodesign regulation came into force with considerable impact in the summer of 2025.

At the time, one encouraging detail drew attention: the new regulation would force smartphone manufacturers to provide software updates for new phones for at least five years.

That is what everyone thought. We thought so, and many other media outlets thought so too.

Pioneer of the television industry and Japanese quality brand Sony is ending the manufacturing of its own televisions.

In a press release, the company says it has reached an agreement with Chinese manufacturer TCL to establish a new joint venture.

The new joint venture will be responsible for designing and manufacturing all televisions sold under the Sony brand and Sony's Bravia brand. TCL will hold a slim majority stake in the joint venture (51%), while Sony retains the remaining ownership.

Going forward, all televisions sold under the Sony brand will be based on TCL's technology. The joint venture is expected to begin operations in March 2027, pending approval from competition authorities.

Sony has been one of the last Japanese manufacturers to remain relatively competitive in the increasingly tough television market. Chinese (TCL, HiSense) and Korean (Samsung, LG) brands have year after year squeezed Japanese manufacturers into an ever tighter corner.

Many long-established TV makers have, of course, ended up with similar or even more radical arrangements. For example, Philips has for years been a brand licensed from the Dutch "original" Philips to Hong Kong-based TPV Technology, and is used on televisions manufactured by TPV.

The signs had already been there earlier, when Taiwanese electronics giant Asus revealed that it would not be launching any new smartphones at all in 2026.

Now, however, the company's chairman has confirmed (in Chinese) that Asus is withdrawing completely from smartphone manufacturing.

According to Asus' Jonney Shih, the company will continue to provide software updates, servicing, and support for its existing smartphones. However, no new phones will be released by Asus going forward.

Asus was the last major Android manufacturer still producing compact smartphones. The company's final small handset was the Asus Zenfone 10, launched in 2023. After that, the company shifted its focus to gaming phones under the ROG Phone series.