News written by Petteri Pyyny (February, 2026)

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.