Latest news with #techfeatures
The Sun
6 days ago
- The Sun
My clever new fridge saves me hundreds on food AND electricity bills – it even has a cool Ring doorbell perk
Jamie Harris Published: Invalid Date, FRIDGES and freezers are getting in on the smart stuff these days - and they can save you a heap of money in the long-run too. The latest flash model from Samsung has done just that for me, both on food and my electricity bill. 5 5 There are a number of mind-boggling techy features your everyday fridge can't do too. Some are better as party tricks to show off to friends but the majority of them have turned out to be super handy in my house. The exact Samsung model I'm trying is the 621L Bespoke AI Series 9 Side-by-Side Fridge Freezer with AI Home (RS90F64EDTEU). So what's so special about it? Read on in my review below to find out. Samsung Side-by-Side Fridge Freezer review The fridge door has a little display which is your portal to a number of apps. More and more fridge freezers are adopting these sorts of screens - and at one point they were quite big. This one is small and unimposing, allowing you to access things like Spotify and YouTube. It's touch screen and voice powered, so you can essentially do away with having an Alexa or similar digital assistant in your kitchen, especially as the speaker can go pretty loud. The voice assistant is Samsung's own, Bixby, so you'll have to say "Hey Bixby" to summon anything. Samsung reveals genius way to help you save money on food using AI in your FRIDGE For the most part, I just use the touch screen - but there's one special trick that's very much Bixby's. And that's the ability to open the doors for you. At first, I dismissed this as a bit of a gimmick (and was what I referred to as a "party trick" earlier). However, truth be told, there have been times when I've been cooking, I have my hands full with items and suddenly this feature has come in handy. The handles do have sensors on them too that automatically opens the door for you when you simply hover your hand over it - I also thought was just plain lazy initially but I've grown to make that the norm all the time now. A minor annoyance to mention, sometimes when I opened the fridge door my elbow passed the sensor for the freezer door causing it to open too. 5 Saving money on food and more What I really care about is saving money and I'm shamefully aware that my food waste could be a whole lot better. Sometimes you forget, other times you have no idea what to do with that one ingredient. Well, Samsung's SmartThings helps you cut food waste, thereby reducing how much I spend on shopping. You can log items via the app on your phone - which is available on both Android and iOS, not just Samsung's handsets - or tap them in on your fridge screen, along with their use-by dates. While it's very manual, I've resorted to treating it as my shopping list app as opposed to just using my phone's notes feature as I did before. The fridge will also suggest recipes based on the ingredients logged for some easy ideas, crafted by the likes of Jamie Oliver and more. There are other ways the fridge helps you save money too. For instance, it learns your usage patterns so that energy is optimised at the right times. You can even tell it when you're on holiday so it'll go into an energy saving mode. The screen will tell you exactly how much electricity the fridge has used too (last month it was just shy of £10). And as there is a water and ice dispenser, the tech tells you when it's time to change the filter too. Inside When it comes to the primary function, keeping your food chilled and frozen, the inside is perfectly ordinary. In the fridge there are five shelves, as well as two fruit and veg compartments at the bottom. And there are four shelves with two storage draws along the bottom of the freezer. Another thing to note is that it's pretty quiet as a fridge freezer goes, despite being a pretty big appliance. 5 Ring doorbell trick My favourite trick of all, arguably, is the simplest. And that's integration with Ring doorbell. SmartThings is compatible with hundreds of smart home brands, not just devices made by Samsung, which is a rare treat. Once you've linked your Ring doorbell into the SmartThings app it means the fridge screen will alert you when someone is at the front door. You can even answer the call there and then, so another reason not to have another smart hub sitting around your kitchen. Samsung Side-by-Side Fridge Freezer: conclusion At £2,239, the 621L Bespoke AI Series 9 Side-by-Side Fridge Freezer with AI Home doesn't come cheap. But it's worth noting you get five year warranty for parts and labour, as well as 20 year warranty on digital inverter compressor. You can also knock up to £100 off if you recycle an old appliance with Samsung when making the purchase. But for £2,239 you get a premium, slick and feature-packed appliance that should save you hundreds - if not thousands - in the long run with those food and energy management features.
Fast Company
07-07-2025
- Fast Company
5 lesser-known Google Pixel phone tricks to make your life a little easier
Journey with me back to the good old days, if you will. There was a time that, when you'd buy a gadget, it'd come with a sometimes verbose but often helpful 'instruction manual.' Not a quick start guide: an honest-to-goodness manual that you could pore through. Your patience and attention to detail would be rewarded, as you'd learn tons of helpful tips and tricks that you'd almost certainly never stumble upon on your own. Those days are gone. I'm not entirely sure when this became a thing but I do recall opening an Apple gadget many years ago and wondering if they'd forgotten to include the manual. Anyway. The point is that I've had my Pixel 9 for months and months, and I finally got around to digging into its many features and functionality. And, indeed, I found some stuff that was unexpected, and pretty great. Quick Tap Shortcuts We'll start with my favorite. Dive into Settings > System > Gestures > 'Quick tap to start actions' and prepare to be mildly surprised. You can set it to take a screenshot, summon the Google Assistant, pause or resume media, or even open a specific app. Once you've made your choice, thwap-thwap the back of your phone with your index finger while you're holding it and see what happens. I know, right?! Notification History Ever dismiss a notification in a fit of overwhelmed rage and then realize it was actually important? Your Pixel has a built-in safety net. The 'Notification History' feature keeps a log of all your recent notifications, even the ones you swiped away in a moment of haste. To find it, go to Settings > Notifications > Notification History and make sure it's turned on. You'll never miss a crucial alert again. Hold For Me OK, this one isn't entirely unknown, but if you haven't experienced its glorious potential, you're missing out. If you're on a call and you find yourself trapped in the endless purgatory of hold music, keep an eye out for the 'Hold for me' button. Tap it, and your Pixel will listen for a real human voice on the other end. When someone actually picks up, you'll get a notification to jump back onto the call. It's not foolproof, but when it works, it feels like a tiny miracle. Long Screenshots Taking a screenshot of a long web page or conversation used to be a multistep dance of multiple captures. But your Pixel has a hidden superpower: scrolling screenshots. Take a regular screenshot (power + volume down). Instead of just disappearing, a little 'Capture more' button—an icon with up and down arrows—will often appear at the bottom. Tap it, and you can drag the borders to capture the entire scrollable content. It's great for saving entire articles or those lengthy text message threads where you're trying to win an argument with someone by using their past words against them. So much drama. Adaptive Vibration Tucked away in Settings > Sound & vibration > 'Adaptive vibration,' you'll find a feature that subtly adjusts your phone's vibration intensity based on your surroundings. In a quiet room, your notifications might be softer. In a noisy environment or if your phone's in your pocket, they'll intelligently boost themselves so you don't miss crucial calls or messages. It's not a night-and-day difference, but it's one of those subtle Pixel touches that makes living with the phone just a little bit nicer.
Digital Trends
26-06-2025
- Digital Trends
These are the iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 updates you'll actually use
With the dust settled from the hype around Apple's WWDC 2025 event, I took a step back to really look at what could be some of the most useful updates coming to their different operating systems, mainly because, quite often, there are updates or added features that we just don't use. Today, I want to highlight a few things that, as a heavy iPhone, Mac, and iPad user, have me excited for the full iOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe and iPadOS 26 releases in the fall. And yes, Android users, I'm aware that there are plenty of features you've had on your phones for quite a while that are just now making it to iPhones. But rarely, on either side of the argument, does a new smartphone offer enough for someone to completely switch ecosystems. So, congratulations, you win something, I guess. Screening Tools in Messages The first feature addresses something that plagues us all these days: unwanted texts that often turn out to be scams. Apple is addressing this in iOS 26 with Screening Tools in Messages. With on-device spam detection, texts from unrecognized numbers that are likely spam will be filtered from your inbox and sent to a separate page. Even better, Apple says you'll still get important messages you need, like a restaurant system texting that your table is ready or a pin number to log in to an account because you forgot your password again. Hold Assist Within the refreshed Phone app of iOS 26, Hold Assist immediately generated buzz. In theory, it's one of the biggest announcements of the event in terms of convenience. I don't know about you, but I go out of my way to avoid anything that involves sitting on hold waiting for customer service. With Hold Assist, you can keep your place in line on the phone and take care of other things in the meantime. When there's a live voice on the other end, your phone will notify you to return to the call and let the person on the other end know you'll be there shortly. Fingers crossed that it works well because it sounds like a dream. Order Tracking in Wallet Sticking with convenience, one app we use a lot but probably overlook is Wallet, especially now that most places allow tap to pay. With digital IDs and virtual car keys, you almost don't need a physical wallet when you leave the house. When you think about it like that, we're overdue for added functionality in the Wallet app. For frequent travelers, with your flight boarding passes in Wallet, you'll now be able to access airport maps within the app, which is a huge help, especially during quick layovers. For online shopping, Apple Intelligence can now scan your inbox for emails from retailers or delivery services and track those orders. If you're like me, there's always a privacy concern. I certainly never registered for any third-party apps that do inbox scanning, but Apple has a solid reputation for prioritizing user privacy. iPadOS File Organization Past the iPhone, the iPad and iPadOS 26 probably deserve the most attention. The headliner is finally getting a more Mac-like experience with a new windowing system and customizable layout. But what caught my eye just as much is file organization. As a photographer who does a lot of editing on the iPad, I need to be able to save different photos to different folders and move photos between devices in a clean, organized way. It seems minor, but having a list view where you can easily identify file types goes a long way. So does being able to add folders to the dock. If there's a set of files that frequently need to be accessed, it's just that much easier to find. It makes sense considering that for several years now, iPads have had much of the same processing power as Macs with the Apple silicon M-chips. We can run really powerful apps on the iPad. Now it's a bit more functional. It's still not a full laptop replacement, in my opinion, if you're a power user who does a lot of video editing or advanced work. But for travel, I can take an iPad now and know I can do about everything I would if I were traveling with a Mac instead. Local Video and Audio Capture Also in the long overdue but super useful department: local capture for audio and video. This is big for creators or anyone who needs higher quality recordings of meetings. Sure, you can record your Zoom or Teams meetings through their software, but it's often low quality. Now with the Local Capture feature on the iPad, you can record just your own video and audio, with echo cancellation blocking out other participants. If needed, you can share the higher quality clips with anyone after the meeting or interview. Live Translation Finally, and I know this was available elsewhere before, Live Translation. Remember when I said there's usually not a feature that would make me jump ship from one smartphone ecosystem to another? Well, this one came close when I saw it on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra at the start of 2024. In typical Apple fashion, they're spreading Live Translation across multiple operating systems. Through Apple Intelligence, it's available in FaceTime and phone calls, through Messages on multiple devices including the Apple Watch, and even within Apple Music, with Lyric Translation and Pronunciation. Whether it's ordering food, communicating with friends and family from another country, or working across borders, this is incredibly useful. If nothing else, it helps Apple Intelligence catch up with other AI features already offered by competitors. There, I said it.
