Week in Review: The top stories in phones, computing, AI and more

Shooting the eclipse, our podcast is back, and Prime Video's Fallout reviewed
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April 12, 2024
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Welcome to the Week in Review
Welcome
If there was a theme to this week, I think it was what brings people together and what pulls them apart. The solar eclipse (totality was visible across a wide swath of North America country) united us in a way nothing else has in recent years, and provided a great opportunity for us to put our favorite smartphones and cameras to the test. Yes, of course, I got in on the action – and I found out that people have a lot of opinions about my methods.

You know what else brings people together? Podcasts. And not just those who listen to them, but the teams that create them. Case in point, TechRadar’s all-new podcast, which took the combined efforts of a whole bunch of our experts and leaders to pull together. Listen, and subscribe if you can – it’s a deep dive on the season’s most fascinating and confounding tech.
 
A global apocalypse is something else that might bring people together, while also keeping them apart (or at odds). That’s the theme of the new Amazon Prime Video series based on the wildly popular Fallout game series, and our full review of the show is live, along with a whole heap of supporting content.
 
AI tends to unite people in holy terror about a future they can scarcely imagine. I know, not all AI is bad or scary, far from it, but when you hear that Meta is close to releasing an AI that can think like us, well, we unite in our shared interest and concern.
 
Finally, we’re getting very close to the season of developer conferences, which brings together app and content producers and other interested parties to learn about the new features coming to platforms from Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Google is up first, and is already teasing us with Android 15 updates – we’ll unite to learn more next month.
 
Okay, that’s enough unity for now – let’s stop staring at our eclipse pics and check out the biggest stories of the week.
 
Lance Ulanoff, Editor-at-Large
The week in phones
The TechRadar smartphone camera eclipse challenge
We've been busy snapping the eclipse (Future)
Monday's total solar eclipse was quite something, and TechRadar's Editor-at-large Lance Ulanoff tried snapping the spectacular celestial event using an iPhone 15 Pro Max, a Google Pixel 8 Pro, and a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – find out which phone did best.
Read the full story
The TechRadar Podcast
Tune in to the all-new TechRadar podcast
Catch up with the TechRadar team on Spotify and YouTube (Future)
TechRadar is back in the podcast game, with the imaginatively titled TechRadar Podcast. You can listen right now on Spotify or watch on YouTube, and in the first episode the team get eyes-on with the Apple Vision Pro, look back at the highlights from Mobile World Congress, and chat about AI, the Samsung Galaxy Ring and more.
Read the full story
The week in Apple
Are iPhones actually a rip-off?
How much should the iPhone 15 Pro Max be? (Future)
You'll pay a significant amount of money for one of the high-end, premium iPhones, but are those prices justified for the hardware and software you're getting in return? We take a detailed look at the question – and the answer really depends on which model you get.
Read the full story
The week in AI
Meta says 'human-level' AI cognition is almost here
AI is getting smarter than ever (Shutterstock)
It's getting hard to keep up with the pace of advances in AI, and it doesn't look like the momentum is going to slow anytime soon: with its Llama 3 model arriving soon Meta says it's hard at work getting AI to manage human-like thinking and reasoning.
Read the full story
This week's top deals picked by TechRadar's experts
The week in computing
The top 5 features in the big new Windows 11 update
Another big Windows update just dropped
Windows 11 Moment 5 is here, and there's quite a bit to explore in the latest major update courtesy of Microsoft. We'll walk you through the new AI-powered photo editing tools, improvements to accessibility, faster file sharing between devices, and more.
Read the full story
The week in entertainment
The best new movies and shows to stream this weekend
Fallout is now streaming on Prime Video (Prime Video)
Looking for something to watch this weekend? This week’s streaming picks include Fallout on Prime Video – a big-budget adaptation of the popular video game – while The Sympathizer and Franklin begin streaming on Max and Apple TV Plus, respectively.
Read the full story
More of this week's top stories
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