2026 hasn’t been the year we all hoped it would be. Thanks to our beloved AI companions, smartphone prices are just insane, meaning value-for-money phones have almost disappeared. To help fix this mess, somewhat, Redmi has just launched the Turbo 5 in India to much fanfare. That’s because it runs on the latest MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Ultra processor and is paired with a massive 7,540mAh battery. All this for ₹35,999 (including all discounts) could make the Turbo 5 a serious contender for performance enthusiasts in the country. Here’s what you need to know about it.

Power Packed Performance

With the Dimensity 8500 Ultra, the Turbo 5 includes LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage, promising faster app launches, smoother multitasking, and quicker loading times. The company is also pushing gaming as a major selling point. According to Xiaomi, the phone can support 120 fps gameplay on over 20 popular titles. To keep temperatures under control, the device uses a 3D IceLoop cooling system alongside Game Turbo Wild Boost optimizations.

Battery life has become one of the biggest battlegrounds in the smartphone market, and Xiaomi is going all-in here. The REDMI Turbo 5 features a 7,540mAh silicon-carbon battery, which is significantly larger than the 5,000mAh batteries commonly found in this segment. Xiaomi claims the phone can comfortably handle multiple days of usage depending on your workload. When it’s time to recharge, the included 100W HyperCharge adapter can reportedly take the battery to 51% in just 30 minutes. Interestingly, the phone also supports 27W reverse wired charging, allowing it to act as a power bank for accessories and even other smartphones.

What About the Rest?

On the camera front, Xiaomi has equipped the REDMI Turbo 5 with a 50MP Sony IMX882 primary sensor featuring both OIS and EIS stabilization. The camera supports 4K 60 fps video recording and includes Xiaomi’s Turbo Snap mode, which captures up to 100 consecutive photos in 4.4 seconds. Xiaomi is also bundling several AI-powered editing tools designed to simplify post-processing. While the camera setup isn’t trying to compete with dedicated camera phones, it appears capable enough for everyday photography and content creation.

The REDMI Turbo 5 features a 6.59-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and a claimed peak brightness of 3,500 nits. The panel also supports Dolby Vision, 12-bit color, and 3,840Hz PWM dimming. Xiaomi says it’s the brightest display ever used on a REDMI smartphone. As for durability, the phone comes with Gorilla Glass 7i protection, a metal frame, and premium glass on both sides. Xiaomi is also including IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings, making this one of the most durable phones in its class on paper.

The phone will go on sale in India starting June 19 via Amazon, Mi.com, and Xiaomi retail stores.

• 12GB + 256GB: ₹40,999 (₹38,999 with launch offers)
• 8GB + 256GB: ₹37,999 (₹35,999 with launch offers)

In a nutshell: Noctua has introduced its first ever all-in-one, closed-loop liquid CPU cooling solution. The NL-LC1 is based on Asetek’s Emma V2 platform and features a custom-engineered pump noise absorber to keep sound to a minimum without sacrificing performance.

Noctua has built a three-layer acoustic soundproofing structure into its pump, which it claims reduces both air-borne noise and structure-borne vibrations. There’s also a switch to toggle between three different pump speed profiles. The unit ships with the pump in quiet mode; balance mode is said to provide additional performance headroom, and manual mode gives enthusiasts complete control over the pump’s full RPM range for maximum cooling performance.

An optional auxiliary cooling fan can be attached to the pump should you need extra airflow around near-socket components like VRMs, memory modules, or M.2 SSDs. Otherwise, a magnetic faceplate attaches to the pump.

The AIO kit is offered in three radiator sizes: 240mm, 360mm, and 420mm. The 240mm unit (model NL-LC1-24) includes a pair of NF-A12x25 G2 cooling while the 360mm variant (model NL-LC1-36) comes with three. The bigger 420mm version (model NL-LC1-42) trades in the 120mm fans for a trio of NF-A14x25 G2 fans.

The kit utilizes Noctua’s SecuFirm2+ mounting system for easy installation and broad socket support. Aesthetics stay true to Noctua’s signature love-it-or-hate-it brown color scheme.

Noctua CEO Roland Mossig said the performance headroom of liquid cooling has always been tempting, but they had to first ensure that acoustics and reliability met the strict standards that customers have come to expect from them. With this kit, they’ve achieved those goals, Mossig said.

Noctua’s AIO cooler is available from today over on Amazon and as you might have guessed, it doesn’t come cheap. Pricing starts at $219.90 for the 240mm kit, scaling up to $249.90 for the 360mm variant and $279.90 for the 420mm model. The optional NL-ACF1 auxiliary fan for the pump will set you back an additional $19.90. All kits come backed by a six-year warranty and include Noctua’s NT-H2 thermal paste.

Google Pixel phones and watches start receiving Android 17 today through the regular system update process. The release focuses on several practical additions that address everyday friction rather than delivering a complete visual overhaul. Owners of Pixel 6 series devices and newer can install it now through the settings menu, while phones from other manufacturers will follow over the coming months.

Long-pressing any app icon on the home screen now displays an option in the upper corner to turn the app into a floating bubble. Once everything is open, the bubble may be dragged about or enlarged while remaining on top of everything else. You can close it by simply sliding it to the bottom edge. Larger screens, such as the Pixel Fold or tablets, get a tiny bubble bar down the bottom that allows you to keep an eye on multiple floating windows at the same time. This makes it quite useful to keep your notes or a web browser open right next to whatever you’re viewing, allowing you to check a live score or a message thread without leaving the primary screen.

Sale

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold – Unlocked Android Smartphone – Gemini AI Assistant – Advanced Triple Rear…

• Unfold extraordinary with Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold; with Pixel’s largest screen and Gemini, Google’s most advanced AI, it’s made for…
• Unlocked Android phone gives you the flexibility to change carriers and choose your own data plan[2]; it works with Google Fi, Verizon, T-Mobile…
• The gearless, high-strength hinge makes it durable enough to handle about 10 years of folding[3]; plus, Pixel 10 Pro Fold is built with Corning…

Screen recording now uses a revised flow that begins in the quick settings panel and allows you to control the recording with a little floating pill. Once you’ve started recording, you may flick a switch to record your own short video at the same time, and when it’s finished, you’ll be taken to a preview screen where you can clip, delete, review, or share it without using any additional editing software. Background apps cannot consume excessive memory under the new rules, and any app that becomes overly greedy will be automatically terminated by the system. This improves the performance of your phone while also reducing battery consumption.

If you register your smartphone as missing on Find My Device, you must now use your biometric data to authenticate it, in addition to providing your password. This makes it far more difficult for anyone who has your passcode to disable tracking or gain access. App requests for location permission now provide explicit alternatives for granting permission to use your location exactly or approximately, as well as a one-time precise option for apps that want it for a fast job. Also, when you share your contacts, the app just receives the ones you select, not your whole address book.

Pixel phones also gain expanded Quick Share support on more models in the current lineup. Voice translation during phone calls is now available on even more devices. Photo editing in Google Photos allows you to discuss which modifications to make, and this feature is now available in a number of new countries. Generative capabilities in the Gemini app, such as converting text into a short film or creating music from a prompt, are now available on Pixels running Android 17. A few more AIy features, which were previously mentioned, will be available to qualified devices later this summer.

TL;DR: Microsoft is working on a new “location check-in” feature for its AI-powered collaboration platform. Organizations will be able to gain clearer visibility into what their employees are doing, while tenants can better organize team collaboration. The privacy concerns? Largely overblown.

Microsoft first introduced its location detection feature in December 2025. Now, the company has detailed how the capability will actually work and how users can control it. Employees concerned about a new “surveillance” layer in the corporate world can take a step back: in most cases, organizations already know a great deal about what their workers are doing during office hours and beyond.

The location detection feature is officially known as workplace check-in via Wi-Fi. Microsoft says the option will become part of the Teams collaboration platform, further enhancing AI-powered capabilities in Microsoft Places. Workplace check-in is designed to improve employee coordination, Microsoft said, by providing a more accurate way to keep a worker’s location “current” when they are in the office.

Location check-in uses several presence signals from Microsoft 365, including calendar availability and Teams status. The feature can automatically update an employee’s location based on their wireless connection, but only when the device is connected to a properly configured, company-managed network.

Microsoft highlights how location check-in eliminates the need to manually change status in Teams. The new “experience” essentially expands existing workplace check-in options – from physical peripherals or desk terminals to wireless connectivity. Workers can get a clearer picture of where their colleagues are and what they are doing, helping them organize meetings and streamline collaboration.

The company also notes that the new location feature is built on the principle that employees remain in control. While it must be properly configured by an organization’s IT team, location check-in must also be enabled on the end user’s device. The feature does not retain location information over time, cannot store historical data, and does not function outside the corporate network infrastructure.

“Sharing workplace presence and using workplace check-in are separate decisions, so employees can choose whether their workplace presence is visible to others when working from the office,” Microsoft explained.

When it was first introduced, location check-in raised concerns among some users about its potential privacy implications. Now, many more users are arguing that privacy is largely a non-issue here. Enterprise organizations already have access to a wide range of tools and methods to monitor employee activity during office hours. The location check-in feature simply integrates this type of existing functionality into Teams and Places and is expected to arrive later this year.

Slow-scan CRTs were never exactly common compared to their faster cousins, but given the popularity of Slow Scan TV (SSTV) amongst hams and NASA broadcasts, many of you are probably familiar with them. The slow scan rate of SSTV meant it required much less bandwidth, but in the early days you needed a CRT with a long-persistence phosphor to hold onto the image. [AJRussell]’s Glow Engine works much the same, with one key difference — instead of cathode rays, he’s using a frikkin laser beam.

In this case, the phosphor is Strontium Aluminate, the same stuff that gives most glow-in-the-dark toys and filament its kick. Energized by a 405 nm laser of questionable wattage, the phosphor will glow for several seconds, allowing the creation of an image. So while this is a laser projector, it works more like a CRT than most galvo projectors, which rely on Persistence of Vision to create an image. Here it’s persistence of fluorescence.

Because the phosphor is so slow, you don’t need the rapid scan rate you would with a laser projector, so [AJRussel] can skip the mirror drum and just mount the mirror on a gimbal motor. Field Oriented Control makes the precise sweeping of the gimbal possible, via a hall-effect sensor and the SimpleFOC library that we featured last year. The other axis just moves the laser and gimbal assembly on a big stepper. The whole thing is driven via an ESP32. The biggest downside is that the short focus range of the repurposed engraving laser means it’s smack dab in front of the screen.

This is a work in progress and still changing, so it’s not clear which — if any — of the various SSTV modes the Glow Engine can handle. Given the number of scanlines in the photos it looks like a good use case, and without trying it the timing might work, too:  [AJ] reports scanning left-to-right to generate a frame takes about eight seconds, depending on the resolution, and depending on the PWM power setting on the laser the image can last up to a minute.

Given the one-minute decay time with this particular phosphor, perhaps he can make a clock. If you have a longer-lasting glow powder, we’ve seen  uses for such a persistent display as well.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said Tuesday that the company is working on over 40 different AI wearable devices — including jewelry, earbuds with cameras, pins, and watches — a sign of how aggressively the chipmaker is betting that the next major computing platform won’t be a phone.

To power that vision, Qualcomm is announcing two new offerings: a platform called Snapdragon Reality Elite for mixed-reality glasses, designed to run more powerful on-device AI, and the Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (START), a combination of hardware modules and a software stack for AI devices, starting with smart glasses.

Compared to its previous XR platform, the new Snapdragon Reality Elite delivers improvements of up to 60% in GPU performance, up to 30% in CPU performance, and up to 160% in NPU performance, according to the company. Percentage gains in chip specs can be hard to contextualize, but Qualcomm offers one concrete data point, saying the platform can run a 3-billion-parameter language model at 45 tokens per second — fast enough for quick, responsive AI interactions. Qualcomm says the chip will also enable better head and hand tracking, along with improved see-through capabilities.

The Snapdragon Reality Elite supports 4.4K per-eye resolution at 90 fps, a modest bump from the XR2+ Gen 2’s 4.3K per-eye resolution. (The higher the per-eye resolution and frame rate, the sharper and smoother the visual experience, which matters most for reducing the motion sickness and eye strain that’ve historically made extended headset use uncomfortable.)

Qualcomm says the platform is designed to power two types of devices: stand-alone video-see-through (VST) headsets, which layer digital content over a camera feed of the real world, and lightweight, tethered optical-see-through (OST) glasses, which blend digital imagery directly into your field of view. Among the first devices to use it: XREAL Project Aura, shown at Google I/O earlier this year, and an upcoming device from Play for Dream.

START, meanwhile, consists of an AR chip, a software platform, companion apps, and a white-label program aimed at helping hardware makers get to market faster. Through the white label program, the company is offering three reference designs: an audio + camera setup similar to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, a monocular display, and a binocular display.

Eyewear manufacturers Inspecs and O’Neill — owned by TitanFlex — will be among the first partners in the white label program. Qualcomm said START will expand beyond smart glasses to support other form factors in the future.

Amon’s comments, made to CNBC, flesh out the strategic logic behind both announcements. He argued that as companies seek to gather more real-world data from users to power their AI agents, a new wave of hardware startups building novel form factors will emerge, with major implications for established smartphone players like Apple and Samsung.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of experimentation with different form factors,” Amon said. “Right now, we have over 40 designs of those devices, and I’m telling you, the types of form factors are very, very broad.” He added, “The principle is something that you wear, something [that] is with you all the time, something that can see the world around you, so you have context and have the ability for you to access an agent and talk to the agent.”

To that end, Qualcomm is explicitly positioning itself as the foundational silicon layer for whatever comes after the smartphone. START’s white-label program, in particular, is designed to lower the barrier for new entrants.