Eric Zeman / Android Authority
Welcome to The Weekly Authority, the Android Authority newsletter with the week’s best Android and tech news. The 199th edition is here, with a possible farewell to Samsung’s Fan Edition, Pixel 6a unboxing, more Nothing Phone 1 news, and… a sentient AI?! I’ve already finished The Quarry, but I still have to return for all the different endings and some couch co-op. And yes, I confess, I let Emma die.
Popular news this week
Eric Zeman / Android Authority
Samsung:
Samsung could end the Fan Edition phone line – meaning there’s no S22 FE, but it’s a shaky rumor. And Samsung could have a new, cheaper version of the Galaxy S21 FE, which could come with a downgraded processor. Meanwhile, Samsung was once again caught cheating on benchmarks. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 appears in the real world before launch: less visible folds, fewer bezels, a bigger battery, and faster charging. Is that enough? And Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 reaches more than 418,000 fold in a marathon test. Samsung will fix your cracked screen for just $50 for a limited time. Plus, Samsung has launched Samsung Wallet, a one-stop shop to manage your digital identity, essentially with Samsung Pay, Samsung Pass, and Samsung SmartThings all in one, but not replacing them. And Samsung’s latest foldable devices are finally getting eSIM support in the US. This year, Samsung has lofty goals for foldable devices and is turning to China-made parts to help meet its manufacturing goals. Finally: Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro has a launch date, coming soon with rugged tablet tags.
Google:
OnePlus:
Nothing:
A video of the Nothing Phone 1 showed its back lit up and that it might be a StockX exclusive, and later Nothing and Flipkart posted an image showing the transparent back of the phone. Later in the week, we saw a first-look clip of the Phone 1. It’s glowing.
Xiaomi
Motorola:
poco:
Apple:
Room:
Elsewhere:
Amazon Prime Day 2022 dates and early deals announced: slightly earlier than expected this year. The last LG phone available through a major US carrier is heading to the pasture. The UK won’t copy the EU’s demand for a common charging cable, but it probably won’t affect how manufacturers adhere to the ruling. However, US senators want a law forcing companies to ditch proprietary chargers. Qualcomm’s $1,500 Snapdragon Insiders phone has missed six months of updates and there is no mention of an Android 12 upgrade yet. Tesla is raising prices across the entire lineup, with Model X up to $6,000. Spotify’s acquisition of AI voice platform Sonantic, used in Top Gun: Maverick, although not yet clear why.
Amazon’s troubling drone delivery project is finally set to kick off in Lockeford, California, later this year. And Sonos accidentally sent a man a truckload of speakers worth thousands of dollars, and he wasn’t alone — but customers get to keep the items as free products. The web version of Adobe Photoshop may be free for everyone, with basic tools and core functionality. You can now transfer WhatsApp data from your Android phone to your iPhone. And you can now also control who can and cannot see your WhatsApp profile. TikTok says it is storing US data domestically due to renewed security concerns. Plus: the robots are coming to save the bees – Startup Beewise’s automated hives are pretty radical.
Movies/TV:
Red light, green light: Netflix misses the point and announces a real Squid Game competition. Jurassic World Dominion passed Top Gun: Maverick to open as the best American movie last weekend, with $143.4 million in North American ticket sales, although critics weren’t kind. And the Squid Game Season 2 teaser promises old faces and a new game. He creative team behind Cobra Kai is making a Duke Nukem movie. And Sony is making a Gran Turismo movie for some reason.
Meanwhile, Lightyear hits theaters on June 17, and Mashable has a review. Check out the best new streaming movies on Netflix, Apple TV Plus, and more this week. We can’t wait for part two of Stranger Things season four, but when will it come, and will there be a season 5? Do you love Studio Ghibli? You can watch his wonderful animated films, from Spirited Away to My Neighbor Totoro. We wrap up this week’s movie and TV news with the first look at Ryan Gosling as Barbie’s Ken…
Gaming:
Last Sunday was the Xbox and Bethesda Gaming Showcase: we saw LOTS, and The Verge has an excellent recap, but highlights included Diablo IV (coming next year), an in-depth look at the upcoming space exploration RPG Starfield (build your ship!), gameplay for Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn and Hideo Kojima confirms his next game is coming to Xbox, which his fans are not happy about. The PC Gamer showcase was also on Sunday: The Alters (from the producers of Children of Morta) was a highlight; we saw Arma 4 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 got a look – far too many games to list here, but GamesHub has a good roundup.
Tribeca Games Festival kicked off on Saturday and ran through June 19, featuring timed playable demos of nine games, including A Plague Tale: Requiem, As Dusk Falls, and Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals, but tickets are required. (Oxenfree 2 was awesome!) And Steam Next Fest is on through June 20: here are the best VR demos, horror highlights, and Rock Paper Shotgun’s favorite demos. And is there going to be a big Nintendo Direct? Rumors are circulating that it could be June 29: We’d love to have updates on Breath of the Wild 2 and Metroid Prime 4, among others. Video games get a Grammy: from The Washington Post: “The Recording Academy has a new award introduced for the best soundtrack for video games and other interactive media to be awarded in early 2023.” The Last Of Us fans debates the PS5 remake’s graphics. According to three people familiar with the game’s development, God of War: Ragnarok is rumored to be released in November. Also: Frost Giant Studios’ debut combines Starcraft with Diablo.
Reviews
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
After Vice’s post a few months ago about the environmental impact of NFTs and the ongoing discussion surrounding it, we wondered about the carbon footprint of websites and the Internet, which most of us use daily. Have you ever wondered what a website’s carbon footprint is? Website Carbon shows you exactly what a website’s environmental impact is. We thought we’d test it on Android Authority’s and a few other popular sites and dive into the details. But first, what’s all this about carbon footprint websites? The Internet consumes much power, no less than 16.2 TWh per year, more than the whole of the United Kingdom.
Gizmodo published an interesting piece about the fact that the Internet is also unsustainable. And a 2019 report from The Shift Project revealed that digital technologies are responsible for 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, with their energy consumption increasing by 9% annually. According to Website Carbon: “The average webpage tested produces about 0.5 grams of CO2 per page view. For a website with 10,000 page views per month, that is 60 kg of CO2 per year.” There are many ways to make websites more sustainable, from SEO optimization to reducing video and keeping images to a minimum or switching to a green web host. Simple: the more complex a website is, the more energy it takes to load and the larger the ecological footprint.
How has our site fared?
Hurrah! Our website was cleaner than 76% of the tested web pages. Don’t go bad.
According to the results, our site produces in a year with 10,000 page views per month in the following:
44.52 kg CO2 equivalent: the same weight as 0.3 sumo wrestlers and as much CO2 as boiling water for 6,033 cups of tea. 48 billion bubbles. Three trees: Our site emits the amount of carbon three trees absorb yearly. 103 kWh of energy: Enough electricity to drive an electric car 662 km.
Much more information about sustainable skateboards, e-bikes, scooters, solar panels, and more can be found at Green Authority.
What about some other big sites?
The wired UK had a great piece last year about websites’ impact on the planet.
“According to figures from the HTTP archive, websites have become less efficient over the years: Today, the average web page weighs about 2 MB, compared to less than 500 KB in 2010. “A simple, stripped-down website like Low Tech Magazine produces only 0.24 g CO2 per page view; on the other hand, a site with video autoplay features, such as 11 Coffee & Co, generates a big 10.08g of CO2 per pageview. (The Elon and Kimbal Musk Foundation’s website—consisting of seven lines of text on a white background—is among the cleanest on the web, producing just 0.39kg of CO2 annually.).”
We took a quick look at some other sites, and the results are quite interesting:
Facebook is cleaner than 90% of the sites tested, producing just 0.10g of CO2 for each visit and 11.86kg of CO2 equivalent (over a year with 10,000 page views per month). Perhaps shockingly (although we’re sure all those shiny vehicle images have something to do with it), Tesla’s site was dirtier than 84% of the web pages tested, producing 2.71g of CO2 for each visit and over a year with 10,000 viewed monthly, produces 324.75 kg of CO2 equivalent – the same weight as 2.17 sumo wrestlers and as much CO2 as boiling water for 44,004 cups of tea. I like tea, but that’s a lot. Samsung and Apple were both disappointed; Samsung came in as dirtier than 54% of web pages tested, producing 0.52 g of CO2 per visit (62.81 kg of CO2 equivalent per year), and Apple as more diluted than 50% of the web pages tested, producing 0.47 g of CO2 per visit or 56.76 kg of CO2 equivalent per year (and neither uses green hosting).
Technical calendar
June 13-20: Steam Next Fest June 20-23: Collision (Toronto) June 23: Poco F4 launch @ 8 am ET June 26-3 July: Summer Games Done Quick June 28: HTC Log In To The Future launch event (Metaverse phone July 5: Asus ROG Phone 6 launch @ 8 am ET July 12: Nothing Phone 1 launch @ 4 pm BST (11 am ET) July 13: Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro and Galaxy Tab Active 4 Pro launch July 19: Stray lands on PS5, PS4, PC July 28: Pixel 6a launch August 10 (TBC): Samsung unpacked? (new Galaxy foldable, Galaxy Watch 5 series?)
