Welcome back, TechRadar friends. If I seem distracted it’s because I’m trying to cram two weeks’ worth of work into one before I head off for a little R’n’R. The question is, can I really disconnect from social media and, especially, Slack? The amount of work I get done through that chat platform is incredible.
Given the huge leaps that are being made in AI development seemingly every week, I wonder if I should set up ChatGPT to handle all my incoming Slack messages. I asked it to craft a response telling someone on Slack that I’ll have a project done in two weeks, but also to leave no room for that person to question my assertion. ChatGPT did not disappoint:
"I understand the urgency and have been working diligently on the project. Based on my current progress and the scope of the work that needs to be done, I can confidently commit to completing the project within two weeks. I have taken into account all necessary tasks and have a solid plan in place to ensure successful completion on schedule. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding my assessment."
The response reminded me of our News Editor Mark Wilson’s report on all the ways ChatGPT might change one of our most popular productivity tools: Microsoft Office. After Microsoft invested billions into the fast-growing AI platform, Mark outlined five key things that ChatGPT could transform, including fixing emails and, my favorite, summarizing meetings. Put it this way: if you get an oddly worded response from me over the next week or so, you may assume it came from an AI and not from me; and that may be the case, but I’ll never tell.
We're looking forward to seeing the successor to the Samsung Galaxy S22, above (Samsung)
Last week, Matt Hanson gave you the lowdown on the upcoming Samsung Unpacked event (it’s this coming Wednesday, February 1 in San Francisco), and we’ve had more news, and more leaks since then.
On tap, according to rumors and massive leaks, are the Galaxy S23 lineup (including the Ultra model) and new Galaxy Book 3 laptops, also including an Ultra model.
We’ve got a comprehensive Samsung Unpacked hub that breaks it all down for you, and I suggest that you keep an eye on TechRadar on Wednesday to get every last bit of news, as it happens. Whatever phones and other devices Samsung launches, we’ll be bringing you our first impressions of them – and, trust me, you do not want to be making pre-order decisions about expensive pieces of hardware before knowing what we think.
Personally, I’m excited. Last year I had tremendous fun with the whole Galaxy S22 line, especially the S22 Ultra and its wild Space Zoom capabilities. I wonder what’s possible with this year’s rumored 200MP sensor…
The best mini PC you can buy? We think so (Future)
When Mr Hanson isn’t trading spaces with me every other week, he’s grinding through massive Apple product reviews, and this week he produced reviews of both the new 16-inch MacBook Pro and new Mac mini, both of which are based on Apple’s newest chips, the M2 Pro and M2 Max.
The new mini is so good it earned a rare 5-star rating and our Editor’s Choice award. Matt says the compact desktop Mac is more powerful and more affordable than ever, and adds that there may be no better choice for a mini PC, even recommending it over competing mini Windows PCs.
Matt was only slightly less effusive in his praise of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. It’s essentially the same as models based on the last generation of Apple Silicon, but he praises this workhorse laptop for its astounding battery life and excellent screen. It’s just the price that gives him pause (oh, Apple…).
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Hit shows like Wednesday have help Netflix turn around its fortunes (Netflix)
It’s probably time to take stock of your Netflix account status. If you’re sharing your account with family, friends, distant relatives and other hangers-on, you might want to clean that all up.
One way to do that is use Netflix’s new device management feature, which will let you see who’s logged in, and even remotely log them out.
Netflix’s move to get a handle on the millions of people who aren’t currently paying for access to content like the quite-excellent Wednesday began when the company was suffering through a downturn. It was losing subscribers, and cutting shows to manage expenses. Now, its subscriber numbers are surging again, and it has a number of hits on its hand (and maybe a better content pipeline).
No matter what Netflix does in the first half of this year, I’m certain that no one will be quitting the platform – a recent Nielsen study just crowned Netflix as the biggest streamer of them all (in the US at least). And what did we consume like Vecna eating young souls? Stranger Things, of course.
Google has integrated Fitbit features into its Pixel Watch (Future)
Why do we always kill what we love? We don’t? Oh, right – it’s just Google. The search giant keeps buying brands, and then diminishing them until they no longer exist.
I point to Dropcam, Nest, and now Fitbit. A while back Google bought the popular fitness brand, and had done a so-so job of integrating it with its new products. When I tested the lovely Google Pixel Watch, the Fitbit experience was a big part of it, but it didn’t feel entirely native. And now it looks like Google is looking to break some of the Fitbit ties as it works to subsume and, probably, kill the brand name while holding onto most, but clearly not all, of its key features.
Our Heath and Fitness Editor Matt Evans details how, in March, Google plans to remove the facility to download Pandora stations or add Deezer playlists to your Fitbit device.
We should not be shocked. As Matt notes in his article: “It comes as no surprise, really: anyone who’s been paying attention knows that Google was always going to begin assimilating Fitbit into its ecosystem.”
That’s basically it. Google is a company that buys square pegs, and hammers them into its round holes until they fit.
As Matt makes clear, though, this is a symptom of a bigger tech problem, one that sees companies casually removing features from products after we bought them for those very features. And that’s just not cool.
Retro cameras are making a comeback (Pio3 via Shutterstock))
Decades ago, I sealed off my bedroom in an effort to cut out every last ray of light so that I could setup my own home photography darkroom. Yes, younger readers, it was called that because it was dark, and as you developed your film and made your prints, the only safe light to use was a red light that would not reexpose the film or alter the development of the photo paper.
I completed the switch to digital camera almost 20 years ago, but now I’m watching as some young people turn back the clock and re-embrace film photography, even if they’re mostly not going so far as to construct their own dark rooms. One of them is our Computing Staff Writer Muskaan Saxena, who recounts her experiences with a new point-and-shoot film camera.
Muskaan makes some salient points about the desire to return to old analog pleasure: “Real, tangible photos are memories that scream I was here, I took this picture, this sunset happened.” I get that, and sometimes it can seem like my massive digital photo library is illusory at best; I can’t touch the photos, and I mostly view them constrained to my small iPhone screen. I do, though, have a huge collection of print photos that I took during the years before digital photography, and I cherish them in a very different way.
Let's hope the clock is wrong on this one (Corbis via Getty Images)
Not to be a downer, but it’s now 90 seconds to midnight.
What does that mean? As our sister site Live Science reports, in 1947 scientists concerned about mankind’s newly discovered ability to destroy itself with atomic weapons started the Doomsday Clock, a theoretical measure of how many minutes away humanity is from ‘midnight’, that midnight being the end of the world, or a catastrophe close to it. These days the clock takes into account other threats, such as the war in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic, and the climate crisis.
And, for a variety of reasons, 90 seconds to midnight is the closest we’ve ever been to doom, according to the clock, at least.
As Rachel Bronson of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which maintains the clock, explained at a news conference: "We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality. 90 seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it's a decision our experts do not take lightly."
What are you supposed to do with this information? Well, I share it so that I can make sure I’m not the only one freaking out. Also, maybe this news will spur people to action, on for instance, the climate-change front; what can we do, collectively, to heal and protect our planet? It’s worth thinking about, because none of us wants to get any closer to doomsday.
The Sign-off
That’s all for this Week in Review. I hope I've given you some food for thought, and didn't alarm you too much, and that we take heed of the alarming news above and strive to be happier, healthier, and more supportive of each other this year.
If you have any comments about or suggestions for this newsletter, or if you want me to never mention that clock again, just drop me a line.
Have a wonderful weekend!
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