Technology

First released in 1972, the general-purpose programming language C is one of the most important in the history of computing and underpins many of the modern systems that we use daily. Its creator, the late Dennis Ritchie, laid the foundations for much of the world's technical infrastructure in his early work, and C was a major element of his contribution.

Laying foundations

Ritchie summarized the history and impact of the programming language he pioneered while working at Bell Labs in a history paper that he presented in 1993.

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His comments describing C highlighted its strange syntax, confusing declarations, and minimal rules base as evidence of its quirkiness. The flaws, meanwhile, arose in the fact that there were no built-in bounds for checking memory, with bugs frequently leading to crashes, alongside some small errors that led compilers to act in unpredictable ways.

However, the success of C is unquestionable, with the language running fast and mapping well to chips, and the language finding itself at the heart of many widely used operating systems including Unix, Windows and Linux.

The evolution of language

Ritchie's C was also the precursor to a host of more modern languages including C++, Objective-C, Java, C#, PHP, JavaScript, and Go. Categorized as being under the 'C family', these languages inherit the basic syntax structures, but each will have its own use case and functionality in the modern world.

Despite C being firmly established in the programming hall of fame, it's no longer the world's most popular programming language.

A global index on the most used programming languages shows C in 11th position as of November 2025, with JavaScript taking top spot as the most used language among developers, followed by HTML/CSS, SQL, and Python.

Reports suggest the price of Windows 11 is going up for PC makers. Microsoft is staying mum on the situation.

From zombie survival to medieval RPGs, there’s a lot worth downloading this month.

• The Trump-class battleship program could cost the Navy $275 billion total
• First battleship alone carries a staggering $23.4 billion price tag
• Each ship weighs 35,000 tons and packs hypersonic missiles, nuclear missiles, lasers, and more

A new US Congressional Budget Office report has estimated that the Navy's proposed Trump-class battleship program could ultimately cost taxpayers $275 billion.

The first vessel alone is projected to cost $23.4 billion, roughly $6 billion more than the Navy's initial estimate initially offered in December 2025.

Officials describe the 35,000-ton nuclear-powered warship as the most heavily armed surface combatant the Navy has ever attempted to build.

Ambitious design, timeline, and escalating costs

The Trump administration announced its intention to build this new class of large surface combatants in December 2025, describing it as a guided missile battleship.

It plans to equip this battleship with rail guns, large lasers, hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles and anti-air, land-attack and anti-ship missiles.

“If built to those specifications, the ship would be the largest surface combatant in the world and larger than any surface combatant built for the Navy since World War II,” according to the report.

“It would be more than three and a half times the size of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and more than twice the size of the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer.”

The Navy will construct 15 Trump-class battleships between 2028 and 2056, with each of the following fourteen ships priced at $18 billion.

By comparison, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy's newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, cost approximately $13.3 billion to build.

According to the CBO report, shipyards would need to produce 12% greater tonnage by 2035 under the 2027 plan than under the 2025 version.

To meet this schedule, the Navy would need to construct roughly one new battleship every other year between 2028 and 2056.

During that same period, the service would also need to continue producing two DDG-51 destroyers every single year without interruption or delay.

By 2058, total tonnage for large surface combatants would need to grow by 60%, a pace the report calls a potential challenge for industry.

Shipbuilding struggles raise doubts

Concerns about the Navy's shipbuilding capacity are not new, and a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from last March outlined years of setbacks.

The GAO found that too few ships have been completed, that new vessels often fail to perform as expected, and that deliveries frequently run late.

Some ships have arrived up to three years behind schedule, according to the agency's assessment of nearly two decades of shipbuilding programs.

"We are effectively made to operate in a perpetual state of triage," said Shelby S. Oakley, director at the Government Accountability Office.

Oakley told the Senate Armed Services Committee that unrealistic assumptions about cost and schedule have repeatedly diverted resources and delayed shipbuilding programs.

The report further notes that switching to nuclear propulsion could lower the battleship's long-term operating costs by removing the need for fuel purchases.

However, the CBO did not provide a specific estimate of how much money nuclear power might save over the life of the program.

Via Defense News

• Volkswagen badges have been going missing in increasing numbers
• Crime spree targeted residents of southeast London
• Thieves reportedly used drones to locate vehicles

A growing number of Volkswagen owners in London are returning to their vehicles, only to find that the badge mounted to the front grille is missing.

The first reports of the criminal activity emerged earlier this month, when Volkswagen owners contacted police about missing badges, with victims claiming that an official replacement can cost between £1,500 and £3,000 from an official Volkswagen dealer (or around $2,000-$4,000 / AU$2,900 to $4,000).

According to an earlier investigation by The Guardian and Autocar, the badges have been targeted for the expensive radar sensors hidden behind them, which assist with radar-based cruise control functionality.

The Sunday Times found a number of similar parts being sold on auction websites for as little as £80, with cut wires clearly on display, according to Car Dealer Magazine.

However, the most recent spree, which reportedly involved drones in the planning phase, has seen around 70 Volkswagen car badges stolen across southeast London in a spree that lasted four days.

One victim told The Times that the theft took "sub-five seconds", and that they had done nearly £2,000 (about $2,700 / AU$3,800) of damage in that time.

Police Constable Olly Rutherford, who is leading the Metropolitan Police investigation, said: “We are aware of a number of incidents in southeast London over recent weeks in which car badges including the vehicle’s radar sensors have been stolen.

“At this stage, around 70 thefts are believed to have taken place.”

The police are asking anyone who believes they have been a victim of the crime to contact the police and share details as soon as possible.

We contacted Volkswagen UK for comment, and a spokesperson said that while the company cannot specifically comment on the crimes referenced, it does have access to data covering instances where Volkswagen UK has supported a retailer in offering customers a gesture of support, cases raised with its customer service center on the topic, and official parts sold through its network.

According to the latest check, Volkswagen says this remains a “localized issue.”

“This unfortunate criminal activity — and we must remember that this is what this is, rather than a vehicle fault — appears to be concentrated principally within a limited number of areas within London, with only isolated cases elsewhere in the UK,” the spokesperson said.

The Volkswagen spokesperson went on to explain that only six cases had occurred outside the London area where the sensor was missing and that it takes vehicle security "very seriously".

Analysis: Vehicle tech is still attractive to thieves

(Image credit: Porsche)

Volkswagen UK says it continues to assist its retailers in offering a "gesture of support" to affected customers and that, on recently launched Volkswagen models, the radar sensor is located separately from the badge in a different location in an attempt to avoid the issue.

But the growing amount of technology found on vehicles is making them increasingly attractive to criminals.

One VW owner in Birmingham said that his Golf GTI has been stripped for parts twice and that police were "powerless" to help.

Last year, Porsche owners in London also found that their high-tech headlights were being targeted by thieves, who caused thousands of pounds’ worth of damage by physically cutting the entire lighting unit out of the body of the vehicle.

According to MoneySuperMarket, this could have also contributed to a dramatic rise in insurance costs for Porsche owners in London, who now pay £900 more on average for their annual insurance compared with the rest of the UK.

The Solar Eclipse did not bless my region with the full Monty, with the moon only managing to take a small bite of the sun. That, though, was enough for me. As soon as I donned my protective glasses and saw the celestial show, I had to document it in pictures.

Cue the struggle montage.

As I learned in previous solar eclipse events and, honestly, through years of photography, you can not shoot the sun or an event like a full or even partial solar eclipse with just your camera or smartphone. I don't care about how many megapixels you have or the size of your lens. In fact, shooting without lens protection could destroy the sensor on your digital camera or smartphone.

For this task, I pulled out a couple of tripods and grabbed both the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. I also grabbed two pairs of protective Eclipse sunglasses I'd held onto since the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017.

Setting uop for the big eclipse show

First, I placed the phones in their respective tripods and smartphone holders. After aiming the cameras at the sun and figuring out which of the three lenses on each phone were the telephoto lenses, I took the eclipse sunglasses and positioned the filters over each telephoto lens.

On the iPhone 17 Pro Max, I immediately struggled to get the phone's camera system to stick with the right lens. I would uncover the lens array to find the sun and then flip the filter back on, which is so dark that the sun, when I could find it, would become an orange blur. Even when I held my finger on the screen to lock the exposure, as soon as I moved or made any kind of adjustment, I'd lose the lock. And, honestly, it was never in focus.

No matter what I did, I couldn't get the telephoto camera to match the necessary zoom, exposure, and focus. In fact, I soon realized that without a way to manually control the focus, this would never work.

A couple of digitally zoomed Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra eclipse photosLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

Meanwhile, on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, I had more luck getting the right focus and exposure, especially once I switched to Pro mode (under More in the camera app), but the images didn't really come together until I zoomed past optical and into digital zoom. The photos look good, but I'm not sure I can trust them as representing reality.

I switched back to the iPhone 17 Pro Max Eclipse photo project.

A few iPhone 17 Pro Max eclipse photos Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

For full control of the iPhone camera system, I downloaded the Halide app. It surfaces controls for everything from ISO to white balance and, more importantly, exposure and focus. Even better, Halide settings remain until you change them, just like a pro-level camera. Once I found the right combination of exposure, ISO, zoom (8x sensor crop), and focus, I just kept shooting.

In my haste, I neglected to switch to Apple's RAW shooting mode, and the filter slipped a bit, so it wasn't perfectly flat or positioned against the lens, which may account for the purplish hue of my photos and the slightly 3D effect. Even so, I like the results.

Obviously, these are still smartphone photos and don't compare to what I could capture with my Sony A6000 and the right filter, but they are pretty cool nonetheless.

The Pixel Tag is the Bluetooth tracker that Android’s Find Hub network has been missing. Like the AirTag, it has pinpoint precision finding powered by ultra-wideband.

AI agents will sometimes go to extreme lengths to accomplish the task you give them.

• Recall affects 20,349 vehicles in the United States

• Both Model 3 and Model Y could require new headlights

• NHTSA says low beams exceed maximum permitted light intensity

Tesla will physically recall more than 20,000 vehicles in the US because their headlights could reduce visibility for both the driver and fellow road users, potentially increasing the risk of accidents.

The NHTSA recall, officially codenamed 26V507, includes 2017-2023 Model 3 and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles fitted with specific headlamp assemblies supplied by Marelli Automotive Lighting.

While there is no hard ceiling for the maximum brightness of low- and high-beam headlights, the NHTSA measures brightness at designated test angles to prevent glare and the possible ‘blinding’ of fellow road users.

According to the NHTSA, Tesla’s lamps are being recalled because the low beams exceed the maximum permitted light intensity in the outer upper-left and upper-right portions of a federally defined testing zone.

Electrek reports that Tesla was aware of the problem back in 2023, proposing to recall a small set of vehicles and petitioning the NHTSA to avoid a full recall. The petition was denied, and now Tesla will likely have to replace thousands of non-compliant headlamp assemblies as a result.

According to InsideEVs, Tesla says that it has not yet determined a fix for the vehicles and that the remedy is “currently under development.” Owners of the affected vehicles will receive notifications of the next steps via mail by September 15.

Analysis: A silver lining for owners

(Image credit: Tesla)

While a major recall is never a good look for any automotive manufacturer, it is part and parcel of daily life, as safety administrations look to ensure vehicles are performing as they should throughout their lifecycle.

Tesla, like any other car company, isn’t immune to recalls and has recently had to contact thousands of owners over issues with rear cameras and fix Cybertruck wheels that could crack.

That said, the EV giant has also been able to fix many of the issues that have arisen via over-the-air software updates.

Compare this to some of the largest recalls in history, which have affected millions of vehicles over decades, and Tesla’s physical recall numbers are relatively small fry.

What’s more, Not a Tesla App points out that, should Tesla have to replace entire headlamp assemblies, owners of these older vehicles may receive a free upgrade to Tesla’s matrix headlights, which offer improved illumination when driving at night.

The laptop deals keep rolling in this week, with several new and returning offers that are great buys if you need a new device for work, school, college, or for home use.

I've picked out deals for both the US and the UK, including some super-cheap Chromebooks that will just get the job done, mid-range laptops that offer good levels of performance for the price, and high-end powerhouses for more demanding tasks. There should be something below that suits both your budget and needs.

For example, in the US, I think it will be hard to beat this Dell XPS 13 for $599 (was $899.99) when you apply the student discount. Even if you aren't eligible for the extra $100 off, it's still a tempting $699.99, which is a fantastic price for a fast, powerful and stylish machine.

That's just one option, so do have a browse through all of the best laptop deals I've found right now.

US laptop deals

Display: 14 inches
Processor: MediaTek Kompanio 540
RAM: 4GB
Storage: 64GB

This super-cheap Lenovo Chromebook is a very basic device that's best suited to light use and schoolwork, but it's a bargain at this low price from Best Buy. The lean ChromeOS operating system gets more from low-end components, but it relies on you using more web-based applications such as Google Docs. And while it will struggle with anything beyond basic tasks, this also ensures exceptional all-day battery life, making it a strong portable option at a very affordable price.View Deal

Display - 15.3 inches
Processor - Intel Core 3
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 128GB

This version of the Lenovo Chromebook Plus offers an impressive amount of power for the price. It includes 8GB of RAM and an Intel Core 3 processor, boosting performance, boot times and load times. Storage of 128GB is a bit miserly for the price, but battery life is solid at up to 10 hours on a single charge. That's more than enough to last a full working day. At a little under $400, it's a smart buy for school or college, or just as a home laptop for light use and everyday tasks.View Deal

Display: 14 inches
Processor: Intel Core Ultra 5
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 512GB

This Acer Aspire 14 is a little old, but it offers good value for money if you need a capable all-around laptop. An Intel Core Ultra 5, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD are about what you'd expect for this price, giving you enough power to multitask between work and general everyday use. At 14 inches, too, it's a good portable size to take with you to the office, classes, or a coffee shop.View Deal

Display - 15.6 inches
Processor - AMD Ryzen 7
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 1TB

If you have a good amount of cash to spend, I'd recommend picking up this older but still very capable Dell 15 Laptop. It offers significant improvements to key components by upgrading to an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a large 1TB SSD. That'll get you a lot more power and performance for your money, making this a solid all-around device for general use, work, video calls and multitasking, without the threat of significant slowdown.View Deal

Display: 13 inches
Processor: A18 Pro
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 256GB

The MacBook Neo just got a price bump, but students can get it cheaper again thanks to Apple's education discount. The latest MacBook packs a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an A18 Pro chip, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and up to 16 hours of battery life, all for under $600, which is fantastic value. Discounts have been better in the past, but I think these will be rarer to see over the coming months and this price likely won't be beaten over Black Friday.View Deal

Display - 13.4 inches
Processor - Intel Core 5
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 512GB

The Dell XPS 13 has regularly been one of our favorite laptops here at TechRadar, and this brand-new version continues that trend. With an Intel Core 5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, it has everything you need for solid all-around performance at work or college. Students can also save an extra $100, bringing the price down to a ridiculously low $599.View Deal

Display - 16 inches
Processor - Intel Core Ultra 7
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512GB

One of Samsung's latest premium laptops just got its biggest discount yet at Best Buy. While similarly powered devices can be picked up for less, you do get a gorgeous 16-inch IPS LED screen with smooth and responsive 120Hz support with this Galaxy Book6. It's powerful elsewhere, too, with an excellent battery life of up to 24 hours, making it a great pick for college, work, and productivity needs.View Deal

UK laptop deals

Display: 14 inches
Processor: MediaTek Kompanio 520
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 128GB

This version of the Lenovo Chromebook offers a solid amount of power for the price. It includes a very basic MediaTek Kompanio 520 processor, but you do get 8GB of RAM to boost performance, boot times, and load times. There's also 128GB of storage and battery life is good at around 13 hours on a single charge. That's more than enough to last a full day. At under £200, it's a bargain for school or college, or as a home laptop for light use and everyday tasks.View Deal

Display - 11 inches
Processor - MediaTek Kompanio 838
RAM - 4GB
Storage - 128GB

The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a flexible 11-inch laptop and it's now available for a great price following this discount. In our very positive Lenovo Chromebook Duet review, we thought it offered an excellent balance between tablet portability and Chromebook flexibility. This version is a basic model with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, so it's best for light use or school. However, the day-long battery life is a huge boost for those who are always on the go. View Deal

Display - 15.3 inches
Processor - Intel Core i3
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 256GB

If you want a good value Windows laptop, then this configuration of the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 is a strong buy. It features an Intel i3 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD to ensure good performance for general use and an average amount of speedy storage for the price. It's a top buy right now if you're on a budget and need a basic laptop for everyday use, college, admin tasks and light work.View Deal

Display - 15.3 inches
Processor - Snapdragon X
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512GB

This is a great price for a relatively modern laptop that comes with a well-performing and efficient Snapdragon X CPU. On top of that, you get 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and excellent battery life that will easily last a full workday, and more, on a single charge. I think it represents good value for money overall if you need a capable, all-around, everyday machine.View Deal

Display - 15.6 inches
Processor - Intel Core i5
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512GB

Here's a solid and affordable Windows laptop available at Currys. It's an older machine, but there's no denying it's a solid entry-level choice for the price, including an Intel Core i5 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD for storage. It's a great buy if you want a good laptop with decent battery life for everyday use, work, or school.View Deal

Display: 14 inch OLED
Processor: Intel Core Ultra 5
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 512GB

If display quality is just as important to you as power, then strongly consider this Lenovo Yoga deal at Currys. It comes with a top-end OLED screen that offers a clear and sharp image – whether you're working on documents or streaming your favourite TV shows. Specs are solid elsewhere, too, including a capable Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU and 16GB of RAM that ensure good overall performance.View Deal

Display: 13 inches
Processor: A18 Pro
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 512GB

The MacBook Neo just got a price bump, but Amazon has just brought it back down again. The latest MacBook packs a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an A18 Pro chip, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and up to 16 hours of battery life, all for under £700, which is fantastic value. Discounts have been better in the past, but I think these will be rarer to see over the coming months and this price won't be beaten until Black Friday.View Deal

Display - 16 inches
Processor - Snapdragon X Elite
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512TB

It's an older model now, but this Samsung Galaxy Book4 is great value for money following a £1,000 discount at EE. Even though it's a little dated, it's still powered by an impressive and efficient Snapdragon X Elite processor and 16GB of RAM. A 512GB SSD feels a little stingy at this price, but it's still enough for all of your essential files and applications. You also get the benefit of a 2-in-1 display that you can flip around to use in tablet mode.View Deal

Display - 13.4 inches
Processor - Intel Core 5
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 512GB

The Dell XPS 13 has regularly been one of our favorite laptops here at TechRadar, and this brand-new version continues that trend. With an Intel Core 5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, it has everything you need for solid all-around performance at work or college. Students can also save an extra £200, bringing the price down to a ridiculously low £699.View Deal

Many organizations believe they are successfully leveraging AI tools to strengthen their security posture.

Investment is rising, AI is being embedded across multiple workloads and workflows, and governance frameworks continue to expand, giving the impression on the surface that progress is being made.

But beneath this AI adoption lies an unseen problem: a growing gap between what organizations believe about their infrastructure security, and what they can actually evidence.

Confidence is rising, but so are breaches

According to a global 2026 Hybrid Cloud Security Survey, which gathered the views of more than 1,000 Security and IT leaders, 93 percent have invested in new security technologies, yet despite this, breach rates have hit their highest point. Sixty-five per cent of organizations experienced a data breach in the past 12 months, an 18 percent rise year on year, and a near 40 percent rise over three years.

These worrying statistics are starting to ring alarm bells, highlighting that within organizations we are starting to see an ‘illusion of security’ creeping in. Organizations are investing heavily in security tools, yet still seem to lack clear visibility into the outcomes of their investments. In other words, leaving security to be measured by what has been implemented, rather than what can actually be verified.

A perfect storm of conditions has brought us to this point: AI adoption has scaled faster than governance and security teams can keep pace with, and hybrid cloud has added another dimension of complexity that few organizations have fully reckoned with.

AI is now embedded across enterprise environments, accelerating not just how organizations operate, but how risk moves through them. As adoption has outpaced oversight, the consequences are starting to surface, with nearly half of organizations surveyed reporting a rise in AI-related insider threats, including data leaks, and unsanctioned use (shadow AI). Perhaps surprisingly confidence hasn't reduced. Many organizations continue to classify their AI security posture as "defined" or "integrated," despite evidence portraying a radically different story.

That confidence often rests on assumptions, and the scale of the disconnect is striking; AI is now involved in 83 percent of security incidents, spanning external attacks, internal exposures, and direct targeting of AI systems. As threats move faster across increasingly fragmented and distributed environments, assumptions about what’s secure quickly fall apart and without clear visibility into how data moves and systems behave, organizations cannot reliably manage risk.

The warning signs

No single indicator reveals a false sense of AI security, but several recurring patterns make it obvious.

The first is investment without impact. Many organizations are expanding their security stacks, yet detection and response times are still moving in the wrong direction. More than 40 percent report that it now takes longer to detect and investigate breaches than it did previously, and that's not a coincidence.

When signals are spread across systems that don't connect, teams spend longer piecing together what happened rather than acting on it. Adding tools without improving visibility doesn't create more clarity. It creates more data, and more data without context is just more noise to wade through not to mention more false positives and perhaps even worse more false negatives.

The second is an inability to trace incidents back to their source. More than one in four organizations cannot determine the root cause of a breach, which means incidents are being closed out without fully understanding how they happened. The consequences are predictable: nearly one-third of organizations report multiple incidents within the same year. Without traceability, there is no learning, and without learning, the same gaps simply get exploited again.

The third is the visibility gap opening in AI-driven environments. With nearly three-quarters of organizations reporting limited visibility into AI-driven data flows, which span APIs, models, cloud services, and distributed infrastructure that is dynamic by design and doesn't map cleanly onto traditional monitoring approaches. Security teams can often see that something happened, but simply can’t get to the how or the why. That gap between knowing an incident occurred and understanding it, is exactly where the illusion lives.

Moving from illusion to evidence

In response to growing complexity, organizations are collecting more telemetry than ever; metrics, events, logs and traces (MELT data), but more data does not necessarily equate to better understanding. These signals each offer only a partial view: one measures performance, another records activity, other flags issues after the fact.

None of them, on their own, are able to explain how systems behave as a whole. What’s missing is the connective tissue, the context that shows how these signals relate, how one event triggers another, and how issues propagate across the environment. Without that, organizations aren’t gaining insight; they’re just accumulating noise.

Shattering the AI ‘security illusion’ requires a shift from reactive security to proactive monitoring and real-time observation of how systems behave. Security leaders agree, with more than 90 percent of organizations reporting that complete visibility across data in motion is critical to their successful security outcomes.

This is where network-derived telemetry becomes essential. Unlike logs, which show what systems say they’re doing, network telemetry proves what is happening: how data moves, how systems interact, and how threats develop. It's the shift from assumption to evidence and then proof, and it's the only foundation solid enough to build real security on. The network is the source of truth for today’s security teams.

AI security must be measured, not assumed

AI is reshaping the threat landscape, enabling faster, more adaptive attacks while increasing the complexity of enterprise environments. But defenders are not without their own advantages.

The same technologies fueling attacks are already supporting security teams, automating detection, accelerating response, and investment in these capabilities continues to grow.

But let there be no mistake: investment is not proof. Security must be measured by the ability to observe, understand, and validate what is actually happening across the environment.

In the age of AI, the real risk is not organizations underinvesting in security, but the belief that they are secure without the evidence to prove it.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• Google Health’s AI chatbot is leaving users frustrated
• Reports say it regularly hallucinates workouts that never happened
• Social media has been flooded with complaints in recent days

The timing couldn’t be worse for Google; just as its slew of new devices launches, including the Google Pixel Watch 5, complaints about the Google Health app and its premium AI Health Coach are reaching fever pitch.

One Fitbit user who posted to Reddit saying that their device’s Google Health app had created a workout summary that seemed to be completely made up, stating “I have a Fitbit Inspire, it just does not have the capability to do form analysis. All of these stats are made up.” .

They’re far from the only person to complain about the app. The problem seems to lie with Google Health’s AI assistant. It's designed to summarize your health metrics and give you tips on how to improve — from early bedtimes to workout and diet suggestions — but users are noticing that it seems to be prone to hallucinating workouts that simply did not happen.

People have reported Google Health giving them “wildly incorrect” exercise numbers, mistaking walking or even folding laundry for swimming workouts, imagining 5am runs and house moves that never occurred, and more.

One person was even able to get Google Health to list all the false statements it had made regarding the user’s workouts, dubbing them “Nonstop lies from the AI.” As a commenter put it, “Imagine if a personal trainer lied to your face and then said: ‘Oopsie Daisy! I made those up.’”

And it’s not just limited to physical activity. Fitbit customers have taken to social media to protest that Google Health keeps asking how their cruise is going even though they’ve told the AI that it’s yet to occur. Another user took their Fitbit off for a couple of hours — with no heartbeat being recorded during that time — only to see that Google Health believed they’d been sleeping in that time.

“Fun fact: If someone is sleeping and their heartrate is 0, it’s called being dead,” the user dryly remarked.

‘A bit of a mess’

(Image credit: Future)

These users certainly aren’t alone in their annoyance. When we reviewed the Fitbit Air, we lamented that the design of its Google Health app was “a bit of a mess, and not intuitive to use, with features dotted all over the place.” While we found its AI integration to be useful, we noted that “its constant chirpy summaries and insistence on hiding my data inside walls of text became annoying.”

We reached out to Google with a list of questions about whether its Google Health app is hallucinating user workouts. We haven’t heard back yet, but will update this story when we do.

The situation has become so bad that some users have begun speculating that Google Health might be entirely coded by AI agents, such is its tendency to dream up data and produce anomalous behavior. While we have no way of knowing if that’s actually the case, it aptly demonstrates the level of user frustration with Google’s app.

Whatever the truth, it’s clear that something is going wrong with Google Health for a lot of users, and it’s leaving them exasperated and ending their AI subscriptions. It should serve as a warning to any company that wants to integrate AI and health data: with sensitive information like this, mistakes are rarely tolerated.

Hands-on: I tried the Pixel 11 and appreciate all of Google’s refinements, despite the higher cost of entry.

Despite the heatwaves, the back-to-school season is fast approaching. Thankfully, ExpressVPN's latest price drop gives you the security you need for longer — and for less — in time for the fall semester.

ExpressVPN's two-year plans now start at only $2.99/month (previously $3.49), equivalent to $83.72 in total. It also now comes with 4 months extra included, saving you $14 over the 28 months.

ExpressVPN ranks as the most secure VPN we've tested, perfect if you're looking to keep yourself safe while diving into research for your latest project.

With a more expensive plan, you can also access secure AI, identity defense tools, password management, and email spoofing capabilities.

ExpressVPN: from $2.99 per month + 4 months extra
ExpressVPN is simple enough to use for beginners but has all the tools experienced users need. What's more, it's the most secure VPN I've tested this year and, thanks to its recent updates, gives you much more than just a secure connection.

$2.99 per month isn't the lowest price it's ever been, but it makes it cheaper than many of the alternatives without sacrificing any performance. View Deal

The deal means ExpressVPN is currently cheaper than NordVPN and on par with ProtonVPN, both of which are normally cheaper.

That said, this isn't ExpressVPN's best-ever deal. In the past, its price has dropped as low as $2.49/month. However, there's no guarantee these deals will return. The current sale is available until September 9.

I've tested VPNs for years and think ExpressVPN is one of the best options for your studies. Here are a few features you should make sure to check out:

• ExpressKeys: Password management, password health checks, and secure notes storage. Perfect if you need to remember logins for research sites, internal systems, and more.
• ExpressMailGuard: Alias email domain creator. Ideal if you need to sign up for websites for research purposes and don't want to worry about the spam emails once you leave college.
• VPN protection: A secure, encrypted tunnel to the internet. Access servers in 113 countries, stay protected from malicious sites, and protect all your devices, no matter if its for working, gaming, or streaming.

Ahead of its official debut in today's Made By Google event, preorders for the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold are now open. The manufacturer is the latest to launch a new foldable following Samsung's Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra, so competition is seriously heating up in the space. I've rounded up all of the best preorder deals if Google's offering has tempted you to lock in an order before launch on August 20.

We've already spent a few hours with the device for our Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold hands-on, and while it may not be a revolutionary upgrade over the previous model, it does make some tweaks that improve upon the already solid foldable.

Most notably, the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is thinner and lighter, with a larger 6.5-inch Super Actua display, slimmer bezels, the efficient Tensor G6 chip, and a new HiLight feature — a set of LEDs on the back that work as a Gemini interface and notification option for important callers. Expect the same impressive camera array and emphasis on AI features.

Priced at $1,899 / £1,799, it's $100 / £50 more expensive than the previous model, mostly due to increases in the cost of components rather than any significant hardware upgrades — outside of the G6 chip. That's why I'm here to help you find the best deal on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold, as it's important to really make back that difference.

I'll keep an eye on all of the major retailers and networks right here for the rest of the week to bring you more of the best Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold preorder deals as and when they go live. If you think you're more interested in the traditional devices, we've gathered up all the best Google Pixel 11 preorder deals as well.

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold - US preorders

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: up to $1,000 off with a trade-in, plus a free Google Pixel Watch 5
Unsurprisingly, the official Google Store is offering one of the better preorder deals for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. As well as a saving of up to $1,000 when you trade in, you can also get the brand-new Google Pixel Watch 5 for free with the handset, or $350 in store credit. Six months of Google AI Pro is also included.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: get a $250 trade-in bonus + a $350 Amazon gift card
If you trade in when buying the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at Amazon, you'll get an extra $250 bonus. On top of that, the retailer is throwing in a free $350 Amazon gift card to spend on anything else across the store. Alternatively, you can choose to bundle the phone with the new Pixel Watch 5 for the same price.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: up to $1,000 off with a trade-in + get a $350 Best Buy gift card
There's a strong trade-in rebate of up to $1,000 available on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at Best Buy. You can also get a free $350 Best Buy gift card with your order, which is enough to cover most of the cost of the new Pixel Watch 5, score yourself some earbuds, or other accessories.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: from $52.77 a month
Verizon doesn't appear to have a specific deal listed for the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold just yet, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one to see if something is added soon.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: from $52.78 a month
T-Mobile is just as exciting as Verizon when it comes to a preorder deal on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold. I can only see savings of up to $500 advertised with a trade-in. Much better deals can be found on the other devices, including the opportunity to get them for free with a new line.View Deal

AT&T: offer goes hereView Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold - UK preorders

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: up to £850 off with a trade-in and £80 off the Pixel Watch 5
The headline preorder deal on the Pixel 11 Pro Fold at the Google Store includes savings of up to £850 with a trade-in, plus a £80 discount on the new Pixel Watch 5. You can also score six months of Google AI Pro and three months of YouTube Premium for free if you're a new user.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: get a £400 trade-in bonus and £100 credit towards other Google products
If you have a device ready to hand over, you can find another strong unlocked deal at Amazon. The retailer is offering a trade-in bonus of £400 on the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, plus you get £100 in credit to put towards other Google products, such as watches, earbuds, and other accessories.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: save up to £1,525 with an eligible trade-in + a free Fitbit Air
The introductory preorder deal for the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at O2 offers savings of up to £1,525 when you trade in an eligible device. What separates the network from others, though, is the fact that you can get a free Fitbit Air alongside the latest foldable until September 2.

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: save up to £1,248 with a trade-in and get Pixel Buds Pro 2 for £1
That huge figure of total potential savings on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at EE is made up of a trade-in discount of up to £528, a saving of £22 per month on the 128GB Essentials plan, and the opportunity to claim a pair of Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 for just £1. All of this is available when you sign up for a 48-month contract.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: save up to £1,948 with a trade-in
This savings figure on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at Vodafone is from a combination of the handset and plan when you trade in. You can also make use of the Vodafone Xchange service to swap to a new Google Pixel phone every year when you're on a 24-month plan with no early upgrade fee.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: from £44 per month + £24 upfront, with up to £300 off with a trade-in
Sky Mobile is offering savings of up to £937 when you preorder the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold. Prices for the handset start at £44 per month on a 48-month contract, plus a £24 upfront fee. SIM plans then start at £12 per month. You can also get a bonus saving of up to £300 when you trade in, and save £180 on the new Google Pixel Watch 5 if you bundle it with the new foldable.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: trade in and save up to £1,778
The total savings on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at Three come from a combination of discounts on the device, airtime plan, and trade-in rebate. Upfront costs start at £60, and £30.11 per month for unlimited calls, texts, and data. Lastly, three months of YouTube Premium and six months of Google AI Pro are included for free.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: from £66.99 a month
The best deals on the new Pixel 11 range at Tesco Mobile are available on the standard Pixel 11 and the Pixel 11 Pro XL, so the offers of the Fold are fairly quiet. The handset is available from £66.99 per month with 3GB of data, with three months of YouTube Premium and six months of Google AI Pro included for free.View Deal

• Google cut seven billion daily Android Chrome notifications using layered defenses
• Chrome now limits abusive sites, revokes permissions, and blocks high‑volume spam
• Android improvements simplify managing alerts and reduce scam and malware exposure

Google says it has cut the number of notifications Chrome users get on their Android devices by seven billion a day.

In a new report, the company outlined how it has built a multi-layered defense system to shield its users from unwanted notifications, protecting them from spam and malware, and helping their devices’ battery last longer.

Most importantly, Google says the achievement significantly improved the overall user experience on Android.

Notification bombardment

For the longest time, individual websites were allowed to send push notifications directly to their users’ phones, even when they were not actively browsing them.

When a user visits a certain website, they get prompted to “show notifications”, and if they tap “allow”, the website starts sending the alerts. Sometimes, users do it without fully realizing what they’re agreeing to.

Once granted, the notifications (sent through Chrome) get shown next to other alerts (such as the ones coming from WhatsApp, Gmail, or other apps).

Unlike other notifications - which usually alert users to unread messages, calendar events, or similar - these mostly promote new content, deals, or other updates. They can also alert users of breaking news, which is arguably the most useful type among the ones mentioned here.

Legitimate websites use the feature responsibly and generally don’t flood their users with unwanted pings. However, some sites abuse the privilege, bombarding users with unwanted advertising, misleading alerts, clickbait articles, and other formats, just to get them to open the page (where they’re often served ads). More worryingly, malicious or compromised websites can use notifications to push scam messages, fake virus warnings, phishing links or other potentially dangerous content.

Because these alerts are served through Chrome and resemble ordinary system notifications, users may not immediately realize the risk.

But because they are served through Chrome, Google can do something about it, and the company has now “pulled back the curtain” on the toolkit that made these improvements possible.

(Image credit: Shutterstock.com)Swiss cheese

Described as a “swiss cheese” model, Google says it created overlapping protections that cover the entire notification lifecycle. Chrome now automatically revokes notification permissions for sites users haven’t engaged with in a little while.

So, if a site keeps flooding the visitor with notifications that they’re not responding to, Chrome will eventually shut them off. Same goes for sites that have “repeatedly received suspicious notification warnings”. Google did not say how many is considered “repeatedly” and in what timeframe.

The second layer is analyzing signals such as service worker activity. By looking for coordinated behaviors, Google claims it can now pinpoint networks that serve malicious content, and block them.

On the Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) server side, the company introduced message rate limits that disallow high-volume notification abuse. Google now evaluates sites based on factors such as message volume relative to time spent on site, the frequency of permission prompts, and general engagement levels.

In other words, if a user spends 10 minutes on a website but then receives 50 notifications, it will raise quite a few red flags. Same goes for users that don’t really interact with the website a lot. “Disruptive domains” are now limited to 1,000 messages per minute and will receive HTTP 429 responses if they exceed this threshold, Google explained.

Finally, the company updated how notifications are handled on Android phones. Users can update their preferences directly from the notification bar, simplifying the process for users who can’t be bothered to dig deep into system settings.

“These integrated efforts effectively shield users from sophisticated scams that leverage notifications to distribute malware, harvest personal information, or solicit fraudulent payments,” Google said.

“Beyond security enhancements, this strategy has substantially decreased unnecessary background activity, reduced user device battery consumption, and transformed the notification lifecycle so users receive only the content they find truly valuable.”

Google Pixel fans, take note. Preorders for the latest Google Pixel 11 series are now live at the official Google Store and other retailers, with three (four, if you count the Fold) new devices now up for grabs.

As an overview, the new range starts with the standard Google Pixel 11 for $899 / £879. Then, you have the mid-range Pixel 11 Pro for $1,099 / £1,079, the up-sized Pixel 11 Pro XL for $1,299 / £1,279, and the high-end Pixel 11 Pro Fold for $1,899 / £1,799. Just down below, you can see where to preorder the three non-foldable devices in both the US and UK - for the Fold, check out our separate page here.

As expected, there are quite a few excellent preorder deals to entice potential upgraders. Over in the US, trade-in rebates are reaching up to $1,100 off, which is enough to cover the entire cost of the Pixel 11 Pro. Meanwhile, UK readers can get up to £970 off with a trade-in and new contract, which is one of the bigger discounts I've seen in recent months.

To read more about these devices, scroll down to see a short overview of the new range. Alternatively, head on over to our Pixel 11 hands-on or Pixel 11 Pro Fold hands-on pages to see our initial thoughts, plus

Google Pixel 11 preorders in the US

• AT&T: up to $1,100 off with a trade-in
• Google: up to $600 off with a trade-in
• Verizon: up to $1,100 off with a trade-in
• T-Mobile: Pixel 11 Pro XL included with switch

Google Pixel 11 series: get a device included with an eligible plan at T-Mobile
As expected, T-Mobile has a flexible array of deals for its opening promotion on the Pixel 11 series. Depending on the plan, it's entirely possible to get a device included with a new line or upgrade right now. According to the T&Cs, you can get a Pixel 11 included without a trade-in with a new line on the Essentials plan, which is a good option for those on a tighter budget. Alternatively, you can get up to $1,100 off with a trade-in and new line on the mid-tier Experience More plan, or up to $1,300 off with a trade-in on the Experience Beyond plan. That's enough to cover the cost of a Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL, respectively.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 series: up to $1,100 off with a trade-in, or plan and phone for $45/mo at Verizon
Verizon's opening Google Pixel 11 deals lean heavily on the carrier's new 'Simplicity Plus' plan, which lets you bundle a Pixel 11 Pro with an unlimited data plan for just $45/mo without a trade-in. Alternatively, you can trade in for an excellent discount of up to $1,100 with a new line on one of the carrier's older myPlan unlimited plans. On top of that, Verizon is also offering a new Google Pixel Watch 5 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE as bonus gifts if you take out a service line for these accessories.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro: get a device for $0 with any trade-in and a new line at AT&T
My favorite opening Pixel 11 deal at AT&T has to be the carrier's preorder promo on the Pixel 11 Pro. Right now, you can trade-in any Google Pixel phone in any condition to be eligible for a discount of up to $1,100. That's essentially a Pixel 11 Pro for $0 - although, you will obviously still need a new unlimited data plan to be eligible for a discount. View Deal

Google Pixel 11 series: up to $600 off with a trade-in, or up to $1,339 back with a plan at Google
Google has a few decent options if you're looking for a new device today. First up, you can trade-in for a rebate of up to $600 - which isn't bad for unlocked devices. Alternatively, you could consider a new line on Google's Fi prepaid carrier, which will entitle you to a massive $1,339 rebate if you stick with a line for the duration of 24 months. As a side bonus, you can also get 250 off the new Google Pixel Watch 5 or $200 in Google Store credit with the Pixel 11 Pro or Pixel 11 Pro XL. View Deal

Google Pixel Watch 5: $300 off with a new line
While you're here, you could also consider T-Mobile's excellent opening promotion on the brand new Google Pixel Watch 5. Right now, the carrier is offering a healthy $300 discount when you pair up a cellular device with a new line on the Watch Plus plan. That's a discount that's big enough to get the Pixel Watch 5 for as little as $5.55/mo over the duration of 36 months.View Deal

Google Pixel 11 preorders in the UK

• EE: Pixel 11 Pro with plan for £38/mo
• Carphone Warehouse: get £300 extra with a trade-in
• Google: up to £850 off with an eligible trade-in
• Mobiles.co.uk: Pixel 11 Pro w/ 100GB plan for £29/mo
• Sky: up to £937 off with a trade and plan
• Three: save up to £1,634 with a trade and plan
• Vodafone: up to £1,574 off with a trade and plan

Google Pixel 11 series: up to £850 off with an eligible trade-in at Google UK
I'm pretty fond of Google's opening trade-in rebate on the Pixel 11 series as it's a strong offer for an unlocked device specifically. The maximum rebate is £850 right now, which is boosted massively by a £400 preorder bonus. Nothing fancy, but a good discount nonetheless if you're looking for a cheaper unlocked device right out of the gates. View Deal

Google Pixel 11 Pro XL: save up to £1,634 with a trade and plan at Three
The biggest discount I've seen so far in the UK for Pixel 11 preorders is this deal at Three on the Pixel 11 Pro XL. The carrier is currently offering a bonus trade-in rebate of up to £950, a £144 discount on your device, and a £540 discount on your plan itself. That combines to just over £1,634 in savings, but you'll have to pay £50 upfront and just over £30 per month over the duration of 36 months.View Deal

What's new with the Pixel 11?

The Pixel 11's new 'Hibiscus' color option (Image credit: Future/Lance Ulanoff)

• Tensor G6 chipset with 12GB of RAM
• Upgraded 48MP camera on the Pixel 11
• New 'HiLight' LED notifications on the Pro

Google’s Pixel 11 lineup is more of a refinement than a reinvention, polishing up a familiar formula rather than completely switching it up. All three models get the new Tensor G6 chip, built on a 2nm process, with a faster processor and more efficient AI-focused TPU designed to improve responsiveness and reduce battery drain during AI tasks. They also all start with 12GB of RAM. The standard Pixel 11 gets a larger 48MP main camera sensor, a 40% thinner camera bar, and new colours including the striking Hibiscus, while retaining its compact 6.3-inch size.

The Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL bring the more substantial upgrades, with brighter, higher-resolution displays, more premium finishes, improved camera hardware and a new main sensor aimed at better low-light photography. Their camera systems include 50MP main, 48MP ultrawide and 48MP telephoto cameras, with zoom extending to an ambitious 120x, assisted by AI processing. The Pro XL is essentially the same experience as the Pro but with a larger 6.8-inch display and bigger battery. The Pro models' standout new feature is HiLight, an LED array around the flash that can glow in different colours - for example, indicating when Gemini is listening or identifying calls from specific contacts even when the phone is face-down.

Overall, the Pixel 11 range seems to be about polishing Google's existing formula rather than changing it: better efficiency and AI performance, refined cameras and displays, slimmer hardware and more interesting colours. Of the three, the Pixel 11 Pro looks like the sweet spot, combining the best features in a relatively compact 6.3-inch phone. HiLight is arguably the most genuinely new idea, although its usefulness will depend on whether Google expands what it can do.

• A new 8-in-1 smart display dock is now on Kickstarter
• Cabletime's ScreenDock features a 5.5-inch screen which can be used as a secondary display
• The device could prove an interesting alternative to Corsair's Xeneon Edge thanks to its extra docking capabilities

Multi-tasking on a PC is made easier using Corsair's Xeneon Edge touchscreen LCD as a secondary display — but now this solution seemingly has some strong competition.

As reported by Notebookcheck, the Cabletime ScreenDock is a new 8-in-1 smart dock with a 5.5-inch built-in display, and it could be ideal as a secondary display alongside a desktop PC or laptop. This device is a Kickstarter project with an early-bird price of $119.

There are some marked differences in comparison to Corsair's Xeneon Edge. The ScreenDock has a much smaller 5.5-inch display (with a 1080 x 720 resolution) instead of 14.5-inches, and it lacks any touchscreen capability. The latter is what gives the Xeneon Edge its Stream Deck-style functionality (Elgato's shortcut command center with programmable keys), especially with the official virtual Stream Deck widget.

However, the ScreenDock serves the same broad purpose as Corsair's handy display, allowing PC owners to use it for overlays, third-party applications, or simply as an extended screen on Windows 11.

And the ScreenDock has two major advantages itself. Unlike the Xeneon Edge, Cabletime's device is also a dock, with multiple USB-C, USB-A, and Ethernet ports, as well as an HDMI port (4K 60Hz). The ScreenDock has a foldable design too, helping users preserve desk space, with brightness and power on/off buttons which aren't present on Corsair's display.

So small it looks like a mobile phone... (Image credit: Cabletime)Caution first

If you're liking the look of Cabletime's ScreenDock, bear in mind that it's still at a relatively early stage. A lot could go wrong with a crowdfunded device as we've seen in the past, between potential manufacturing issues or shipping delays, so be suitably cautious about committing your cash.

If this crowdfunding effort is successful, it could serve as a strong competitor to Corsair's device, which has been considered overpriced (starting at $249.99 / £219.99 / AU$389).

The ScreenDock is only at early-bird pricing right now, so naturally it will be more expensive at its full price. With its 8-in-1 smart dock capabilities, it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against Corsair's premium device.

I’ve always liked the Google Pixel Fold. It was, for a time, one of the thinner and more interesting folding phones on the market, but it’s since been nudged aside by ultra-slim Samsung Galaxy Z Fold devices, and now the still-fresh and oddly shaped Galaxy Z Fold 8. The new Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is, however, an exciting new entrant in the growing foldable field.

It's not just thinner (slightly) and a lot lighter than its predecessor. Google has cleaned up the design, shrinking bezels, enlarging a screen, reducing the size of the hinges, vastly reducing the size of the camera array island, and even adding an unusual hardware notification feature.

In my brief hands-on time with this new foldable, I found the Pixel 11 Pro Fold surprisingly intriguing.

Unfolding more price hikes

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Like so many other consumer electronics gadgets this year, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold is more expensive than the last model ($1,899 versus $1,799 in the US). One might assume that this is due to design and feature enhancements, but I think it’s all down to the rising cost of memory and storage, which we can mostly blame on the demands of AI — which I guess we can also blame in part on Google itself. After all, Gemini is now at the heart of almost everything the company makes and does, including the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. It’s packed with Gemini-related features, most of which I did not have the chance to try out during our jam-packed hands-on session.

At a high level, Google has obviously taken notes on all the ways the Pixel 10 Pro Fold didn’t quite hit the mark, and refined in this new foldable to seriously compete with the likes of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Fold 8.

Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

On the cover screen, the black bezel around the display has shrunk significantly to accommodate the now 6.5-inch Super Actual display. The main, flexible screen is still eight inches, but the bezels around it also look thinner.

Folded, the phone’s hinge looks even more well-hidden, now sitting essentially flat against the two folded halves. Google tells me the internal panels under the folding display feature a Titanium plate and flexible hinge panel under layers of polymer, slightly thicker and stronger Ultra-Thin glass, and the OLED panel. The hinge mechanism itself is wider on the inside to further reduce deformation. When unfolded, the phone looks virtually flat, and the crease is harder to detect than on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is on the left, and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is on the rightLance Ulanoff / FutureThe Pixel 11 Pro Fold is on the left, and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is on the rightLance Ulanoff / Future

While not as thin as the 4.1mm-thick Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold has slimmed and trimmed a bit compared to its predecessor. It’s now just 5mm thick, as opposed to the roughly 5.1mm of the 10 Pro Fold. More notable is the 239g chassis weight; that’s almost 20 grams lighter than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and I can tell you that in my hand the weight loss is noticeable. This is now a relatively lightweight and quite attractive device that also still happens to be IP68-rated, something no other foldable can claim to be at the moment.

As with virtually every other smartphone on the planet, the thinner profile is broken by a camera island that juts out of the back to accommodate, among other things, the three lenses. I was, though, pleased to discover that Google has shrunk this island considerably, so that it no longer looks like a giant block slapped onto the back of an otherwise attractively smooth and flat surface.

Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

The other big and noteworthy design and hardware addition — and one that lives in that island — is HiLight.

HiLight is a collection of multi-colored LEDs that sit on the back of the phone, inside the space typically devoted to the LED flashlight. It’s designed to be used when the phone is face down on a table; HiLight won’t even work when you're holding the phone in your hand (we tried).

For now, HiLight has just two jobs. One is to be an animated Gemini interface. It glows and flows in shades of blue, like the standard Gemini interface, to let you know it’s listening and working with you. The effect is quite nice, and indicative of more than just the work of a handful of LEDs.

This is how HiLight looks in action on a Pixel 11 Pro when responding to a Gemini query (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

HiLight’s other job is to let you know when someone who matters to you is calling. You can assign different colors (there are maybe five options) to various family members and even groups. When they call, your HiLight, which is also found on other Pixel 11 phones, pulses in that color. Again, it’s a compelling effect, though I’m not sure how many people will use it; after all, most of us, for better or worse, live with our phones in our hands.

Camera snapshot

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Google hasn't upgraded the headline camera specs, leaving us with the 48MP wide, 10.5MP ultra-wide, and 10.8MP telephoto, but the main camera now has a new sensor that offers, according to Google, 50% better low-light performance, a potential boon for night photography.

Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

There are also a pair of 10MP cameras for selfie shots on the main and cover screens.

I do wish Google had upped the megapixels of the cameras to better compete with the likes of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra (its main camera is 200MP), but at least we have that 5x optical zoom camera with optical (and electronic) image stabilization.

I took a few photos with the cameras, but not enough to draw any conclusions, though I would say the ultra-wide seems pretty good for macro photography.

Lance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / FutureLance Ulanoff / Future

There are some new camera features of note (AI-powered and otherwise) that, as is usually the case, will set the Pixel line apart until Google gifts them to partners like Samsung. One is called Magic Capture, which lets you photograph the peak moment without really thinking about how to capture the moment. Google says it analyzes 500 frames to find the right shot, and then crops and even unblurs it to turn it into a usable photo. I did not get to try this feature out.

Camera Looks applies aesthetic filters during capture, which is something I’m not sure I’d ever use. I prefer to see the unvarnished image, and then decide if it needs some adjustment to give it more drama or punch.

I am excited to try the Creators Suite, which is adding, among other things, an on-screen teleprompter. That would be a huge help for me when I film video reviews and need to read off a script.

Good looks and smaller battery

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Everything from websites to maps and photos looked great on both screens. Neither display is significantly different to those on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, but both do enjoy a nice peak brightness bump, up to 3,600 nits from 3,000. I pushed the screens to peak brightness, although being indoors I could not tell if they were sunlight beaters.

I was a little surprised to learn that the battery size has dropped from 5015mAh to 4750mAh, a fact that may account for the Fold’s lighter weight — this change might have made more sense if Google had switched to the denser silicon carbon battery technology (same charge in less space) now found in the entire Galaxy Z8 line. While I’m worried that the smaller battery might result in shorter battery life, Google is still promising 24 hours of use on a full charge.

On the bright side, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold still has Pixel Snap, a MagSafe-style magnetic charge ring that lets the phone magnetically snap onto Qi charge stands and phone grips. I tried it on the new device, and it's just as satisfying to use as ever.

In my brief time with the phone, I enjoyed smooth performance (helped in part by a 1-120Hz display), which is mostly due to some impressive specs. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold arrives with 16GB of RAM (even more than you get with the base Pixel 10 Pro), and starts with 256GB of storage, going up to 1TB.

More exciting, though, is the Google Tensor G6, the first 2nm-process mobile CPU. I don’t expect the processor to be wildly faster than the best Apple and Qualcomm have to offer, but that 2nm might make it far more efficient. In fact, it could be the reason why Google felt comfortable reducing the size of the battery.

Overall, I’m encouraged by what I see. This is easily the best-looking Pixel Fold to date. It’s lighter, thinner, possibly faster and more efficient, and, of course, should be a fantastic showcase for Gemini. My one Gemini experience, by the way, was taking a macro photo of a floral array and then giving Gemini screen access so I could ask it to identify the flower. It did so quickly and effortlessly.

(Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

As for how the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold competes with the new Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and the unusually shaped Z Fold 8, well, it stands nearly toe-to-toe with the Ultra model, though I think the Ultra has it beat on photo capabilities. The Z Fold 8 Ultra is also considerably lighter, making it feel like a no-compromises flagship with a secret 8-inch display. It’s harder to compare the Pixel 11 Pro Fold to the Galaxy Z Fold 8. The aspect ratios are so different, and the camera capabilities are quite far apart (favoring the Pixel). Ultimately, I think the two foldables are for completely different customers.

If you’re thinking about a pure Google and Gemini experience on the biggest screen you can fit in your pocket, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold is a pretty good bet, and may make you happier than the pricier Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, which might overwhelm you by packing no fewer than three on-board AI systems.

Google has had a big day of launches — not only did we get our first official look at the Pixel 11 series, which have leaked extensively over the past few weeks, we also got a new Pixel Watch, and even an AirTag rival.

Those leaks and rumors meant we already had a good idea of what to expect, but that doesn’t mean there weren't any surprises.

This year's Made by Google 2026 event takes place later today, at 3pm PT / 6pm ET / 11pm BST on August 12 ( that's 8am AEST on August 13) — here's how to watch it. But we've already had some hands-on time with the new devices, and below we’ve picked out the seven biggest things we learned about the Pixel 11 series, Pixel Watch 5 and Pixel Tag...

1. The Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL should be the best models yet — and even have lights on the back

The Google Pixel 11 Pro (Image credit: Future/Lance Ulanoff)

Google’s non-foldable flagships for 2026 are the Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL, and they have numerous upgrades over their predecessors. But the most interesting element is arguably ‘HiLight’.

@techradar

♬ original sound - TechRadar

This is an array of LED lights built into the camera’s flash module, which can alert you to calls from favorite contacts via customized color glows when your phone is face down and silenced. And these lights will also pulse when Gemini is listening, thinking, or responding.

Beyond that, the Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL also boast some camera and chipset improvements that we’ve detailed below, plus brighter screens that can reach 3,600 nits.

Not everything has been upgraded though — in fact these phones have a starting RAM capacity of 12GB, while their predecessors came with 16GB as standard. You can still get 16GB here, but you’ll have to pay for the privilege.

Read more: I tried the new Pixel 11 range, and Google's made loads of improvements, with a surprising 'HiLight'

Check out the best Google Pixel 11 and Pixel 11 Pro preorder deals

2. The cameras have received numerous upgrades, including a new Magic Capture mode

The Google Pixel 11 Pro XL (Image credit: Future/Lance Ulanoff)

At first glance the cameras on this year’s Pixels might look much the same as their predecessors, given that the megapixel counts haven’t changed. But look closer and there are plenty of upgrades.

For example, the Pixel 11’s 48MP main camera now has a larger sensor for 56% more light sensitivity. The Pro models also gain some new sensors, plus a 120x digital zoom — up from 100x on the Pixel 10 Pro series.

And there are new modes, like Magic Capture, which with a single tap will capture both a video and multiple images of a scene — complete with automatic cropping and unblurring.

There’s also a new Camera Looks feature, which allows you to create a set of personalized film styles and photo aesthetics.

3. The new Tensor G6 chipset is faster and more efficient

The Google Pixel 11 Pro (Image credit: Future/Lance Ulanoff)

It’s no surprise that the Pixel 11 series sports a new chipset, but the Tensor G6 sounds like quite an upgrade in some areas, with up to 20% better power efficiency, 25% faster browsing, and 15% faster app loading, as well as boosting image processing and Gemini performance.

So these phones should be noticeably faster and more fluid than their predecessors, across a range of tasks.

4. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is brighter and thinner than its predecessor

The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Google’s priciest new phone is the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and this of course benefits from the Tensor G6 chipset and some of the camera upgrades detailed above, along with the new HiLight feature.

But it also has a peak brightness on its foldable screen of 3,600 nits — up from 3,000 nits on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and it’s slimmer and lighter too, coming in at 10.1mm thick when folded, 5.0mm thick when unfolded, and 239g.

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For comparison, the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is 10.8mm thick when folded, 5.2mm thick when unfolded, and 258g.

Read more: I spent a couple of hours with the new Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold — it’s not a reinvention, but a nudge toward perfection

These are the best Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold preorder deals

5. The Pixel 11 got a storage boost

The Google Pixel 11 (Image credit: Future/Lance Ulanoff)

The Pixel 11 also has a Tensor G6 chipset, plus the camera upgrades highlighted further up, and on top of that it’s received a storage boost, now starting at 256GB rather than the 128GB of its predecessor.

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That said, the starting price has actually increased too, so you’re paying the same as you would have for a 256GB model last year, there’s just now no option of a cheaper 128GB version.

Many of the specs — camera and chipset aside — are also very similar to the Google Pixel 10’s, and you don’t get Google’s new HiLight feature with the Pixel 11, so it will be interesting to see whether this tempts many buyers.

6. The Pixel Watch 5 is Google’s most advanced health and fitness wearable yet

The Google Pixel Watch 5 (Image credit: Google)

This event wasn’t just about phones — we also saw the Pixel Watch 5, and this is very much focused on health and fitness upgrades.

On the health side, that includes being able to track blood pressure patterns before they can put strain on your heart, and track insulin resistance over time. For fitness, Google claims this offers its most accurate GPS yet, and it also sports a new Key Metrics view, which helps you analyze your performance after a workout.

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And when you’re sleeping, the Google Pixel Watch 5 has a Sleep Breathing Quality feature that analyzes minute-by-minute variations in your blood oxygen levels. And of course all the core Pixel Watch 4 features have made a return too.

Read more: I test smartwatches for a living, and the Google Pixel Watch 5 beats Apple and Samsung in 5 key ways

7. The Pixel Tag has landed as an AirTag rival

(Image credit: Future)

Google has also launched its first tracker, called simply the Pixel Tag. There’s not too much to say about this yet — if you’ve used an AirTag, Samsung Galaxy Smart Tag, or anything along those lines you know basically what to expect.

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But it comes in a ‘Fog’ shade, has a built-in speaker, includes ultra-wideband for precision finding, has an IP67 rating (so it’s moderately water resistant), and is powered by a replaceable coin cell battery that should last over a year. It’s also light, at just 11.8g.

Read more: The Pixel Tag is here — but it won't be an AirTag for Android until Google fixes these Find Hub issues