This week was another hectic week in the tech world. Samsung’s One UI 6.1 update – which was supposed to improve the technology – actually made Galaxy S23 phones worse (although there is a workaround), OpenAI released a strange AI-made music video, and Meta teased its first AR glasses.
To help you stay on top of the latest tech stories, we’ve summarized these and the others so you can stay up to date with the most important events from the past week. If you’d like to learn more, you’ll also find links to our full coverage of each story.
So scroll down for your firmware update, and we’ll see you next week for a new ICYMI.
7. PlayStation Portal has lost its PSP emulator
This week it became even clearer that the streaming-only PlayStation Portal remote will soon have no offline functionality. In February, a team of programmers claimed they had managed to get a number of PlayStation Portable (PSP) games to run natively on the handheld, which normally requires a PlayStation 5 console to play games over an internet connection.
Don’t get too excited though, as the same team has revealed that the exploits they used to get the games running have been patched after they “responsibly reported the issues to PlayStation”. The alleged change came as part of the wider software update version 2.0.6 and while the official release notes cryptically state that the update simply “improved the performance and stability of the system software”, it certainly seems likely that Sony would implement such would patch the exploit if it was found.
Whether we’ll see such games officially supported without an internet connection remains to be seen, but for now the handheld can only be played remotely.
6. Samsung’s One UI 6.1 update wreaked havoc
It’s been a whirlwind week for Samsung Galaxy S23 users who downloaded the big One UI 6.1 update, which finally brings Galaxy AI features to the latest generation of Samsung phones.
Just a few days after some Samsung fans blamed One UI 6.1 for slower charging speeds on older Galaxy phones, others reported that the company’s latest update had wreaked havoc on the touchscreen functionality of certain Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus and Galaxy S23 Ultra devices. Several users claimed their Galaxy S23 screens became “completely unresponsive” after downloading One UI 6.1, while others said their touchscreen functionality was limited to the S Pen. Yes!
Fortunately, Samsung quickly acknowledged the problem, identified the cause and released a workaround. The company blamed “compatibility issues with some Google app features,” specifically Google Discover, for the erratic touchscreen behavior caused by One UI 6.1, adding that removing the Google app data would be a should put an end to any touchscreen lag (at least for now).
5. Google agreed to delete data in incognito mode
Not to alarm you, but all that incognito browsing you’ve been doing in Chrome? It turns out that Google may have stored some of the data related to it.
No statements here, but it’s a revelation we first heard about a few years ago, when someone in California filed a class action lawsuit. Google said ‘No’, but now there is a settlement that Google has agreed to, which seems to indicate that even though Google still says ‘No’, there is something that needs to be removed (not locally but somewhere in the cloud from Google).
As part of the agreement, which will be signed in June, Google agreed to delete any incognito data it has stored, change incognito browser messages and let people proactively block third-party cookies in this mode.
The way we see it, it’s a reminder that you should never assume that no one else can see what you’re browsing, in any mode.
4. Disney has set a date for its crackdown on password sharing
It was announced that the crackdown on Disney Plus password sharing will begin in June according to Disney CEO Bob Iger. Fortunately, it won’t affect everyone right away, with Iger explaining: “In June we’ll be launching our first real attempt at password sharing in just a few markets, but after that it will grow significantly with a full rollout in September.”
What this means in practice is that by the end of September, you will no longer be able to share your Disney Plus account with people you don’t live with.
The move comes after years of Disney siphoning off money – although its financial situation has improved recently – and after Netflix’s hugely successful approach to password sharing. Despite users claiming they would leave the streaming service, Netflix’s subscriber numbers soared – so it’s clear Disney is hoping to replicate this with the shutdown of its own account sharing.
3. OpenAI has released Sora’s first (very strange) music video
Sora – OpenAI’s text-to-video tool – was used to create a music video for the song World weight by August Kamp this week, and the result is a trippy romp through forests, beaches, underwater habitats and various alien environments.
It’s an interesting watch just for the novelty of the project, although the unsettling atmosphere created by the classic blurry look of the AI image and the various hallucinations – where Sora makes mistakes – are another reminder that the tool is still has difficulty creating ‘normal’ images. looking at the content’.
For independent creators looking to embrace weirdness, Sora may be a popular tool, but despite Hollywood studios reportedly being interested in the technology, we’re still far from convinced we’ll ever see a Sora-made blockbuster.
2. Apple has reportedly started work on a robot
Apple’s car project may be permanently parked, but the company is apparently already working on its next pipe dream idea: a personal robot.
This week, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (who often shares credible Apple inside information) reported that Apple “has teams researching personal robotics.” One of the proposed designs would be a mobile assistant that follows you around and can perform some household tasks, and another design would essentially be a moving tablet.
As with all leaks, we have to take this with a grain of salt – especially since the project is apparently still in its early stages, so who knows when or even if Apple’s robot will ever see the light of day. But we still watch with interest.
Meta’s Reality Labs – the team behind VR technology – turned 10 this week and to celebrate, Meta has released a blog post highlighting key events in the team’s history. It’s certainly a delightful trip down memory lane, but what was more interesting was Meta’s first official teaser of the next big new hardware release: AR glasses.
According to the blog post, these AR specs would “deliver the best of both worlds” by combining Meta’s VR hardware (like the Meta Quest 3) with the form factor and AI capabilities of its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
There are rumors that Meta’s AR glasses could land in 2027 at the earliest – so we’ll have to wait a little longer – but if they deliver on what’s being teased, we can’t wait to test them out.
