Technology

While Google's official Pixel 11 unveiling is next month, several key features of the next Android phone may have been revealed early.

• Samsung Messages has been killed off to make room for Google Messages
• Right now it's just affecting US users, but a wider shutdown is likely to happen
• We recommend making Google Messages your default SMS service

After months of waiting, the dreaded day for Android users arrived: Samsung Messages has finally been shut down for good as of July 6.

The Korean tech company announced its decision to axe its messaging service for Galaxy Phones and tablets in April, with Google Messages taking over as the new default communication platform for devices released in 2022 and onwards.

Samsung stopped installing its flagship messaging platform on devices in 2024, so if you’re using the Galaxy S26 Ultra, for example, Google Messages will already be installed.

So what happens now?

At the moment, Samsung Messages’ demise is only impacting users in the US, according to recent reports. According to SamMobile, it may still work outside the US on devices the app was pre-installed on, but it’s likely that a wider shutdown will follow suit in other countries later — it’s been removed from the Galaxy Store and Google Play Store, and UK users on Reddit are reporting its replacement with Google Messages.

That said, if your device is running Android 11 or lower, the shutdown won’t affect you, according to Forbes. However, the outlet notes that those on a more recent version should switch to Google Messages.

Samsung Messages’ shutdown has been a long process, and though users have been anticipating the move for some time, it doesn’t mean that they’re ready to bid farewell to the app just yet.

Comment from r/S24Ultra

Across the board of reactions on Reddit, the general consensus is that Samsung Messages will be missed. “If I wanted to use Google’s POS services I would’ve bought a pixel,” one user explains, but from Samsung’s perspective, it’s all about giving users a messaging experience enriched with handy features.

The company says that the switch to Google Messages will help bring features to Samsung Galaxy devices to align with modern messaging tools used in third-party apps such as WhatsApp. This includes end-to-end encryption, AI tools, and RCS messages, which Google Messages now allows to be sent between iOS and Android devices.

Still haven’t made the switch to Google Messages? We’d recommend doing this sooner rather than later, and it’s quite a straightforward process.

Once you’ve uninstalled Samsung Messages and downloaded the Google Messages app, launch it and a pop-up reading ‘Set default SMS app’ will appear on your device. Tap this, select Google Messages from the options, then tap ‘Set as default’. You can add Google Messages to your Home screen by tapping and holding the app and selecting ‘Add to Home’.

Pixel 6 may miss Google’s next Android kernel upgrade, but security patches and Android 17 are still expected through October 2026.

The post Pixel 6 Android Kernel Upgrade Exclusion Explained for Owners appeared first on TechRepublic.

CNET, Lifehacker, Mashable, PCMag and ZDNET are holding prediction contests to see which readers can best guess what Apple will do this year.

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• A striking design for a potential Nothing book has emerged
• The design appears inspired by notable design elements from Apple and Nintendo
• While attractive, it is unlikely we will see a Nothing book any time soon

A striking concept design for a potential Nothing laptop (commonly referred to as the “Nothing book”) has emerged,

Conceived by designer Nikita Bukoros (@bukoros.design), the notebook form factor computer would sport both a secondary, low-fidelity display and a partially translucent chassis, which evokes memories of a great laptop from the past, but the approach is very different.

The design has been met with wide support among Nothing aficionados, many of whom have been waiting for a laptop from the UK-based smartphone and audio company since the possibility of a laptop was floated in 2024.

The Nothing book concept is giving iBook G3 Clamshell

A glance at the underside of Bukoros’ Nothing book render demonstrates a key callback to one of the most notable laptop designs of all time. Apple’s low-priced iBook series initially ran from 1999 to 2001 (succeeded by the G3 Snow), with Blueberry, Tangerine, Graphite, Indigo, and Key Lime options, the colors decorating both the outside of the Clamshell.

Portions of the iBook G3 Clamshell computers were translucent, offering a hint of the internals, but the Nothing book concept also resembles a translucent game console variant like the Game Boy Color “Atomic Purple” edition, and a modern gaming PC.

However, it is arguably the low-fidelity secondary display that makes this concept really stand out. While the Nothing phones initially launched with a collection of differently-shaped lights on the reverse – provided to relay various information, such as alerts, or charging status, to avoid you unlocking your device – this Glyph Interface has more recently been evolved into the Glyph Matrix.

Appearing on the Nothing Phone (3) is a disc-shaped matrix of 489 mini LEDs, while the Nothing Phone (4) is planned to sport a Glyph Bar of nine LEDs in a row. Reflecting these “instant information” displays, Nikita Bukoros has added an LED display on the top of his Nothing book concept, and envisages it as a configurable display for alerts and custom messages alike.

The Nothing Book concepts lean into the striking pastel colors of the Nothing Phone 4 series. (Image credit: Nothing)Will this encourage development of a genuine Nothing book?

While the idea of a Nothing book has been around for a while – with wish lists demanding everything from mechanical keyboards and minimal ports (which are included in Bukoros’ concept) – it appears to be wishful thinking.

Nothing appears to be fully focused on smartphones and the Nothing Ear and Nothing Headphone audio devices, and in 2025 spun its budget phone brand, CMF, into a standalone company. This does not suggest the business is considering expanding beyond its core market any time soon.

But if it does, Nikita Bukoros’ design is an excellent starting point.

A compact workstation from one of our favorite mini PC makers is currently on sale at Newegg for a limited time. The barebone version of the Minisforum MS-01, which delivers desktop-class performance, is currently available to buy for just $655 (was $1199).

Designed for developers, engineers, content creators, and IT professionals, it packs high-end hardware into a surprisingly small chassis while offering top notch expandability.

The MS-01 combines an Intel Core i9-13900H processor with a highly flexible design, allowing you to add your own memory and storage to suit your workload. Featuring 14 cores, 20 threads, and boost speeds of up to 5.4GHz, the chip provides more than enough performance for virtualization, software development, AI workloads, media production, and demanding productivity tasks.

Today's top Minisforum MS-01 deal

Powered by an Intel Core i9-13900H processor, this compact workstation supports triple-display output, ultra-fast 10Gb networking, expandable DDR5 memory and storage, plus optional RTX graphics, making it ideal for demanding professional workloads and virtualization.View Deal

The MS-01 features two USB4 ports capable of driving displays at up to 8K resolution, alongside an HDMI output that drive up to three displays.

Dual 10Gb SFP+ ports support blazing-fast wired transfers and link aggregation, making the system particularly attractive for professional networking, NAS deployments, and enterprise environments.

Two additional 2.5Gb Ethernet ports provide even more flexibility for advanced networking configurations.

The system supports DDR5-5200 memory alongside PCIe 4.0 M.2 storage, with compatibility for larger U.2 enterprise SSDs that can provide enormous storage capacities.

RAID 0 and RAID 1 support also gives you the choice between maximum performance or additional data protection.

The MS-01 also offers future upgrade potential, including support for RTX 3050 graphics cards, allowing you to add dedicated GPU acceleration for creative applications or AI workloads if your requirements grow over time.

With its powerful Intel Core i9 processor, enterprise-grade networking, extensive storage options, and exceptional expandability, the Minisforum MS-01 is a fantastic choice for professionals.

In our review, we said the MS-01 “offers unprecedented flexibility and expansion options. Perfect for a development or media server, ready for 10GbE out of the box and easy to enhance with extra internal storage and a PCIe slot. A small form factor dream solution.”

For more top-performing picks, check out our round up of the best mini PCs we've tested, as well as the best mobile workstations.

Also consider: More mini PC deals at Newegg

Powered by an Intel N150 processor with 16GB LPDDR5 memory, this compact mini PC doubles as a NAS, offering up to 24TB of expandable storage, dual 2.5Gb Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and efficient cooling for home or office use.View Deal

Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 H 255 processor with Radeon 780M graphics, this compact mini PC includes 32GB DDR5 memory, a 512GB SSD, triple M.2 expansion, Oculink eGPU support, and quad-display connectivity for demanding creative workloads.View Deal

Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS processor with Radeon 780M graphics, this compact mini PC features 32GB DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, triple-display support, and extensive expansion for demanding productivity and creative workloads.View Deal

Powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics, this compact desktop features 32GB DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, Wi-Fi 7, and support for up to four displays.View Deal

• See all mini PCs at Newegg

• The Blood of Dawnwalker director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, wants the game to feel like a "pen-and-paper RPG"
• He says the game's big choices and consequences will deepen players' immersion
• He adds, "My biggest goal is to create a game that you will still remember in the next 10 or 20 years"

The Blood of Dawnwalker game director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, thinks the game's big choices and consequences will offer players a more immersive experience that he hopes will be remembered for years to come.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at an event where we went hands-on with the upcoming dark fantasy role-playing game (RPG), Tomaszkiewicz discussed its narrative choices and explained why he believes player freedom within the sandbox world Rebel Wolves has created will provide a deeper, immersive experience.

"We believe that as much freedom and different choices will add to the game and different playthroughs, so that we deliver for the players," he said. "It will be better because it will boost immersion, and it will show people that our goal is creating a narrative sandbox. We want an experience that is close to a pen-and-paper RPG, where the game master adjusts for what you are doing. That was our goal to show it from the very beginning in the prologue."

Tomaszkiewicz recalls playing Warhammer as a game master when he was 12-years-old and how, after hours of play, he couldn't remember the details of the room around him because the experience was so "intense." This is the feeling the director wants to mimic with The Blood of the Dawnwalker and believes the RPG's freedom can achieve.

"This is my holy grail: to create a video game with this kind of immersion," he said. "One that allows you to forget where you are sitting, gives you the feeling that you just lived through an adventure in a different world, with different skills, different people, and with real emotions.

"First of all, it's to give you freedom, because I believe that the freedom in the game is one of the big parts of the immersion. If we give you the freedom in your choices in the story, in your choices in the combat, because you can shape the combat as you want, and in different places, the immersion will be bigger and you will remember the game for a long time.

"My biggest goal is to create a game that you will still remember in the next 10 or 20 years."

The Blood of Dawnwalker arrives on September 3 for PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and PC.

Star Wars: The Experience premiers in 2027 and shows fans what it takes to bring the Skywalker saga to life.

• Fairphone has poked fun at the Nothing Phone (4b)'s visible screws
• The company highlighted in an Instagram story that they're just 'for show' rather than being accessible
• The Fairphone 6, on the other hand, has visible screws that users can access

The Nothing Phone (4b) was unveiled earlier today, and it sounds like a reasonable budget handset, with a 6.77-inch 120Hz screen, a 5,200mAh battery with 33W charging, a 50MP wide camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset paired with 8GB of RAM. But despite having visible screws on the back, it might not be very easy to repair or to replace its components.

We won’t know for sure until someone has done a teardown of the (4b), but Fairphone has shared an Instagram story pointing out that while quite a few screws are visible on the rear of the device, you can’t actually get to them without breaking into the glued-on cover.

The Instagram story — an image of which can be seen below — shows the Fairphone 6, complete with its own visible screws, overlaid with text reading “every screw is functional on Fairphones. Nothing is for show.” Then, at the bottom, directed at the Nothing Phone (4b), it says, “next time, maybe the screws can be… outside?”

A fair criticism

(Image credit: Fairphone)

And it’s a fair point. The Fairphone 6 is a reasonably stylish handset itself, with the visible screws helping it stand out, much like on the Nothing Phone (4b).

But the difference is that the Fairphone’s screws are accessible, making for a modular design where you can easily swap out components, rather than having to replace the whole phone.

So, if you want a handset that’s designed to last, you might want to consider a Fairphone instead of the Nothing Phone (4b) — though Fairphone’s CEO recently teased that two new products are on the way, so you might want to wait for those first, since one of them is likely to be the Fairphone 7.

And, of course, we'll be testing the Nothing Phone (4b) for ourselves in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for our real, experience-backed verdict on that device.

• Website maps open source accident data onto an interactive map
• Users can see the most dangerous roads around them
• Collisions are graded in severity

Cyclists, pedestrians and careful drivers could find the data offered by interactive online mapping service RoadRisk invaluable when attempting to plan the safest routes for getting from A to B.

The online tool, which uses OpenStreetMap at its core and STATS19 accident reports from police forces in England, Scotland or Wales, handily plots all collision data from the year 2000 to 2025 onto an easy-to-navigate map.

Simply punch in a post code and the website will reveal all accident data from some 350 local authorities over the past 25 years, colour-coding each based on the severity of the collision: slight, serious and fatal.

Not only can you see the most dangerous routes in your area, or in a proposed location, you can also delve into the data to see date, time, location, road and junction details, weather and surface conditions, as well as full records for each vehicle and casualty involved.

The STATS19 data does not contain names, addresses, phone numbers or vehicle registration details, with only age, sex and an area-level deprivation score given.

Interestingly, the site’s homepage also lists the worst roads for fatal crashes (that will be the A38) and the worst local authorities for collisions, which is Birmingham.

RoadRisk says the UK’s Department for Transport typically publishes each year's accident data around September of the following year, with the maps updated shortly after each release.

Analysis: A handy tool for parents and cyclists

(Image credit: RoadRisk)

RoadRisk is an interesting proposition and, while you can’t plan a route using the software and navigate via the ‘safest’ roads, it is a great tool for scoping out accident hotpsots in the local area.

As a parent with children old enough to walk to school alone, it was interesting to explore the roads near me with the highest accident rates. More interestingly, many of those involved individuals aged between 11 and 15.

Those shocking results backed up my decision to walk them across some of the most perilous routes before waving them off in the mornings.

Similarly, there are a number of roads in my local area that appear to be hotspots for collisions involving cyclists, which could well inform the next route I take into town.

What’s more, RoadRisk says anyone can use the data to quote statistics, take screenshots, and use the information for any purpose — a boon for anyone lobbying the local authority for safer roads.

The Neuron Academy launched on July 7 with self-paced AI courses for professionals who want to use ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini more confidently.

The post The Neuron Launches AI Training Platform for Everyday Professionals appeared first on TechRepublic.

• New Zealand's Education Minister denies any plans to restrict or ban VPNs
• Reports previously alleged it was part of the teen social media ban package
• Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also confirmed "no plan to ban VPNs"

The New Zealand government has officially denied any plans to restrict or ban VPN apps as part of its upcoming under-16 social media ban, putting an end to intense speculation and a rapid backlash from digital privacy advocates.

The saga began following a report from The Post that Education Minister Erica Stanford said the government was considering any restrictions on VPNs as part of the country's under-16 social media ban.

Because a Virtual Private Network (VPN) can easily spoof a user's location and bypass local network blocks, the technology was viewed by some officials as a potential roadblock to enforcing age verification mandates.

New Zealand VPN ban's privacy backlash

The notion of banning vital encryption software sparked immediate political and public pushback. Coalition partners quickly distanced themselves from the idea, with the ACT party reportedly marking any anti-encryption measures as a strict red line — The Post reported.

The Free Speech Union also lambasted the concept. Critics warned that a VPN ban would undermine digital free speech and put New Zealand in the same category as oppressive regimes that strictly control internet access.

“The Government wants the power to prohibit technologies New Zealanders use every day, because those technologies make it harder for the state to control what we see and say online. That is not child protection, it is censorship infrastructure," the organisation said in a statement.

Following the uproar, the government changed its tune.

In a recent media stand-up, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon put the rumors firmly to rest. "I can reject that outright. There's no plan to ban VPNs at all," Luxon said. "I don't know where that reporting or where that story came from, but I can reassure you that's not the case".

Shortly after the Prime Minister's remarks, Stanford’s office officially clarified its position, stating that the Government is "not looking at restricting or banning VPNs". For anyone relying on the best VPN to secure their personal data, the rapid reversal is a significant victory.

Circumvention tool or essential security?

(Image credit: BlackJack3D/via Getty Images)

The brief controversy in New Zealand highlights a growing global debate surrounding age verification laws and privacy tools. As governments worldwide attempt to regulate how minors interact with the internet, VPNs have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs of lawmakers seeking foolproof ways to enforce their legislation.

Because a VPN encrypts your internet connection and masks your IP address, it is commonly used to bypass geo-blocks and content filters. This makes it an obvious workaround for teenagers looking to dodge age gates.

However, treating VPNs purely as circumvention software fundamentally misrepresents what they do. They are essential security tools used by millions of businesses, journalists, and everyday citizens to protect sensitive data from hackers, intrusive ISPs, and mass surveillance.

New Zealand’s flirtation with anti-VPN measures mirrors the shifting role of VPNs in the UK. This friction is also visible in Europe. The EU recently signaled that VPNs could be targeted next to prevent users from bypassing local rules.

The reality is that age verification has changed the internet, and authorities are desperately searching for ways to enforce digital borders. Yet, as Australia's social media ban shows, heavy-handed child safety measures are incredibly difficult to implement — with or without a VPN.

Ultimately, lawmakers must strike a delicate balance. Enforcing a social media ban should never come at the cost of weakening the cybersecurity infrastructure that protects the wider population.

The question remains: could the UK’s social media ban, or New Zealand's, lead to real VPN restrictions? For now, at least in New Zealand, the answer is a resounding no.