US military branches confirmed to Senator Ron Wyden and Reuters that they have turned off advertising identifiers on service members' phones and computers. The Air Force disabled them two months ago, Special Operations Command did so recently, and the Army says mobile ad IDs have been off since earlier this year, with Windows devices blocked since before 2021.
Leaked images shared by tipster Fixed Focus Digital reveal the design of OPPO's upcoming Find X10 Pro Max, featuring a large rectangular camera plateau with a raised square module housing three lenses, plus separate flash and sensor cutouts. Reports claim the device will pack 200MP main, ultrawide, and telephoto cameras, which would make it the first phone with three 200MP sensors. Other rumored specs include a Dimensity 9600 Pro chip, roughly 8,000mAh battery, an LTPO OLED display, ColorOS 17, and IP69 protection.
A reviewer tested Google's $1,099 Pixel 11 Pro against Apple's iPhone 17 Pro across various lighting conditions in Delhi, including well-lit and shadowy scenes at Lodhi Garden. Both phones were tested with default camera processing, with Google's camera brightening shadows more while Apple's rendered more natural tones.
TECNO unveiled a concept Android smartphone at IFA 2026 featuring a 6.7-inch, 144Hz display with virtually no visible bezel, achieved by inserting the screen from the rear and using a dual-layer cover glass that extends beneath the frame. The device isn't production-ready, but the demo reportedly makes the border between screen and frame nearly imperceptible except at extreme angles.
Leaker Digital Chat Station claims the upcoming HONOR Magic 9 series will offer an external 500mm teleconverter lens, delivering roughly 20.8x optical zoom. That would surpass the vivo X300 Ultra's 400mm teleconverter, which offers about 16.6x zoom. The leak also points to dual 200MP ARRI-branded cameras, a camera grip, a cooling fan and an ~8,000mAh battery.
Lexar marked its 30th anniversary by launching the Muse, an external SSD measuring just 3.8mm thick, which the company calls the world's thinnest portable drive. To achieve that slimness, it uses a proprietary magnetic SnapLink cable with pogo pins instead of a built-in port, plus an optional sleeve that lets the drive attach magnetically to a phone. The drive offers USB 10 Gbps speeds, with claimed reads up to 1,050 MB/s and writes up to 1,000 MB/s.
RugOne unveiled the Xsnap 7 Pro, a rugged smartphone with IP68/IP69K ratings whose rear camera module detaches to work as a standalone action cam shooting 2.7K video at 30fps. The device launches on Kickstarter September 7 for €799 in limited quantities before a global release in October priced at $999.
At IFA 2026, Flowtica introduced the Verso, a $299 AI companion device that magnetically attaches to phones and other surfaces via MagSafe. It features a 259ppi e-paper touchscreen showing meeting summaries, calendars, and action items directly on the device, along with four MEMS microphones plus a bone-conduction mic for capturing voice up to 5 meters away. The device offers 64GB storage, up to 72 hours of battery life, and ships in Q4 2026.
TCL unveiled its P80 lineup—Pro, Ultra, and a base model—all sporting 6.83-inch 1.5K OLED screens at 120Hz. The Pro and Ultra combine this with NXTPAPER glare-reducing tech and a Max Ink monochrome reading mode claimed to last up to seven days, while the base P80 skips NXTPAPER. The Ultra adds a 50MP main camera plus a 50MP 3x periscope lens and IP68 water resistance, whereas the Pro drops the telephoto camera.
Tecno, sister brand to Itel and Infinix, revealed a concept device called the Bezelless featuring a 6.78-inch, 144Hz, 1.5K OLED display with no visible bezel at all. The company achieved this by using two layers of cover glass, hiding the display's inactive edge beneath a slightly thicker surrounding frame rather than eliminating it. The device was shown to press ahead of its formal unveiling at the IFA trade show in Berlin and is not intended for commercial sale.
A new analysis argues that Google's Pixel phones have plateaued, with yearly hardware and software updates offering little meaningful improvement over previous generations. The piece contends that fragmented AI features, scattered branding, and incremental design changes are making Pixels feel unexciting compared to rivals.
New research examining phone-free classroom policies, now adopted by a growing number of states, finds essentially no measurable improvement in student test scores and only marginal shifts in other outcomes like behavior. Cell phone restrictions in schools aren't a new phenomenon either—Maryland first banned phones and pagers in classrooms back in 1989 to curb communication tied to illegal activity.