Author: Press Room

If you own an Apple Watch you might have put it on recently and noticed something missing. Didn’t there used to be a Shazam app on it? I have an original Apple Watch SE and when I strapped it on earlier this week the Shazam shortcut (or ‘complication’ to use the haughty horological term) I had installed in the corner of my favoured aviation-inspired watch face was gone. Upon further investigation I discovered it had also been removed from the list of customisation options, and when I fired up the Watch app on my iPhone Shazam was nowhere to be…

The smartwatch market has spent years adding bigger displays, more apps and ever more features. But the latest wearable trend appears to be heading in the opposite direction. Whoop, Google’s Fitbit Air and Garmin’s newly announced Cirqa all ditch the screen in favour of a lightweight health tracker designed to be worn around the clock . And while Apple hasn’t been credibly linked with a rival device, that hasn’t stopped rumours of a so-called Apple Watch Neo fitness tracker from making the rounds Price and release date Okay, so at the time of writing, there are no credible reports that…

It’s amazing how our perception of quality changes as we enjoy higher-resolution formats. Back in the day, I thought movies on DVD played great on my old-school TV. That was until I saw what Blu-ray looked like on modern flatscreens, and I had a similar epiphany when trying 4K UHD Blu-ray discs for the first time. Quality is relative, and in the era of high-resolution physical media and 4K streaming, we’re spoiled. That doesn’t mean we have to let the availability of higher-quality formats ruin our enjoyment of lower-quality formats. I spent a small fortune building a home theater centered…

Action movies come in waves. In the 1980s, brawny action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone held down the genre with their considerable charisma. In the late ’90s, The Matrix helped usher in an era of high-flying wirework. And in the 2010s, the John Wick franchise brought things back down to earth with its kinetic, close-quarters fight sequences. Keanu Reeves headlines both The Matrix and the John Wick movies, so he may have more influence on modern action films than any other person alive. But John Wick didn’t come out of nowhere. A few years before the first John…

The foldable phone faucet has just been well and truly opened. Samsung just unleashed three new models at its London Unpacked event: two familiar faces and one all-new arrival. The Z Fold8 Ultra, Z Fold8 and Z Flip8 are three distinct takes on the foldable formula. Now that I’ve fondled all three, there’s a clear front runner that I’m genuinely excited to live with. While it’s great to see Samsung finally letting the Z Flip8 run apps on its outer screen and the Z Fold8 Ultra’s bigger battery is a bonus, it was the pocket-friendly Galaxy Z Fold8 that I…

Samsung has a been a giant of the modern flip phone resurgence pretty much from day one, but has stayed there by playing it safe. The Galaxy Z Flip8 might be the firm’s most restrained (some might say boring) effort yet, but this year’s effort does refine the formula in a few key places. I got an early look at the Flip8 ahead of Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked reveal event. While it doesn’t have the freshness factor of the short’n’wide Galaxy Z Fold8 or the high-end hardware of the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, I still walked away impressed by how Samsung…

Garmin’s take on the no-screen fitness tracker is finally official. The Cirqa puts automatic activity detection and 24/7 health monitoring in a distraction-free device which – unlike class king Whoop – doesn’t require an ongoing subscription. I got the chance to try the compact and lightweight tracker at a London gym space ahead of the July 24 public release. It’s still early days – especially as a sluggish Play Store update meant I wasn’t able to pair to my Android phone – but it already looks like the Cirqa gets a lot right. How does the Cirqa stand out from…

Getting fit is easy to talk about and much harder to actually do, especially once the initial motivation wears off. That’s where a good fitness app comes in handy. Cheaper than any gym membership, fitness apps make for one of the easiest ways to get sweaty. Using the tool already in your pocket, your smartphone, you’ve access to thousands upon thousands of workouts, tutorials, and logs to track them all in. I’ve tried as many as I could get my hands on, and picked out the eight best you can use to get moving. Fill up that water bottle, lace…

In an astonishingly brief period, AI has woven itself into the fabric of everyday life, whether for professional purposes, studying, or just getting life advice. Some even use it as a therapist or to fill the loneliness gap, treating it as a friend or a romantic partner. This got me thinking: If people trusted AI to handle their real-life decisions, how well would they fare in scenarios involving ethical dilemmas for which no one has the right answer? To put that to the test, I placed several AI models in Joel’s position from The Last of Us and asked whether…

Analyst Adobe Digital Insights has predicted spending on TVs will be up 45% across this summer with streaming devices up 65% and projectors by 60%. Now’s the time to buy! But buying a new TV can be a daunting task, with a jungle of options and technical jargon to navigate, often leading to all manner of TV-buying mistakes. To help you make a more informed decision and spend your hard-earned cash in the wisest way possible, we’ve identified a few common mistakes that people often make when purchasing a new television. Here’s what to watch out for when you’re in…