Welcome to Rheinisches Rewie, Germany's most exciting investment hub, where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Rheinisches Rewie is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at bepartofit.nrw. For every entrepreneur, the business risks are different. That's why the Univee is the Univee. It's determined to be your activities and always be prepared as you want. Find out how you can be prepared your risks at univee.nl. Univee. There you are. May 14, 2026, we tell you what you need to know, give you the important context, and help each other understand. Today, everyone is talking about Motorola's new Razor Fold. They're like, hey, have you heard about the Motorola Razor Fold? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I heard about it. What did you hear? Yeah, everybody's talking about it. I'm Jason Howell. I'm Wintwet now. And we're going to start talking about it with a big story. Which I know, the Razor Fold has been on the show before. I actually saw it at Consumer Electronics Show back in January. But now here we are, mid-May, and it's finally releasing. And, you know, it's notable because it's Motorola's first book-style foldable. They've had the little clamshell thing, and now they're doing the book-style thing. And apparently it's on everyone's minds today because that reviews embargo, that magic embargo, apparently lifted. So it has a 6.6-inch cover screen, 8.1-inch inner display. Many reviewers that I read are calling that a big, big plus, especially the interior display. Very bright, hits over 6,000 nits of brightness. Sam Rutherford at Engadget says that the 50-megapixel main camera sensor actually produced more detailed and punchier shots than the 200-megapixel camera on the Samsung Z Fold 7. So that's notable. Good job, Motorola, on that one. He does also say, though, that the Pixel 10 Pro Fold beats it in low-light performance, which Pixel devices in general are just so good at low-light performance with their post-processing and pairing that to the lenses and everything. This is also, by the way, and I think this is really notable, One of the first, if not the first, mainstream U.S. carrier devices to be using silicon carbon battery tech inside. And unsurprisingly, that gives the cell, which is a 6,000 milliamp hour cell inside, excellent lasting power, while also at the same time kind of keeping the device thinnish. Profiles pretty thin. Although when compared to others of the top tier competitors, it's still a tiny bit thicker. But some reviews are pitching it as more stuck in the middle sort of thing. Solid, but somewhat difficult to recommend when you consider the price tag. It's $1,900 for this device. That's actually $100 less than the Z Fold 7 entry point. Although I think the Z Fold 7 is often on sale, so you can get that for like $300 less right now. But the MSRP anyways is right at $2,000. It has an integrated AI suite as they all do. Many reviewers saying that leaves a lot to be desired, something that I can definitely attest to from some of the more recent Motorola devices that I've reviewed in the past year. Overall, it does, though, sound like a worthy competitor to the top-end book-style foldables. You're just going to be paying a lot for it. And at a time like now when we don't really want to be paying a lot for anything, maybe it's the right device for Motorola, possibly wrong time, But I'm happy to see a worthy competitor in the book-style foldable market here in the U.S. Yeah, absolutely. We don't really get too many good competitors to Samsung in the U.S. because most of them are in China. But that's pretty cool. I like that it kind of tries to find its own place with certain specs. Like, wow, the 6,000 milliamp battery with silicon carbide is really cool. we keep waiting we've kept waiting for a phone to have silicon carbon here just so that we can like you know actually start talking about like you know the you know these phones with these ridiculous sized batteries um it really does make a huge difference i mean and especially because like a bookshelf foldable has literally two screens and one of them's big so it it does it is it is something that requires the juice success yeah and i mean you know and when you think about silicon carbon you know there there's like two benefits to it right yeah there is the like it can go in two different directions, I guess is what I'm saying. It can be same size, you just get more out of it, like more capacity or same capacity that you're used to, but in smaller size. And when you're talking about foldables, they're constantly trying to get these things thinner and thinner. So that's kind of the best of both worlds when you think about it. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, like, I guess just to put like my own personal history with foldables, I have been daily driving a foldable for three, four, five, I don't even know how long Z Fold 3. And book style, right? And book style, yeah. Not the clamshell. So I think the one thing is that I had been using the Pixel Folds because I just liked the Pixel experience and I liked having all the Pixel software. And as a developer, I like having the betas early for Android. But I switched back to Samsung Z Fold 7 this year because of how dang thing it is. What a dang thing it is it's a thing um how thin it is but that comes at a cost as you said because the battery on that one i think i just looked it up is 4400 milliamps so like what like a quarter like a 75 of that capacity so that actually is really that that is that is true that is really exciting um to maybe get possibly longer than part of a day out of a foldable like a bookshelf would be kind of incredible i do get the stuck in the middle though i'm in the middle with you um that it's it's good it's it is a weird time and i mean even now i feel kind of i just as a person i feel a little guilty wanting to to now switch the z-fold um eight wide that is going to be coming out because i really like that form factor like the original pixel and it seems like it it's a great device we've been hearing a lot of good buzz about it but to to kind of come i mean there's a lot of good stuff about it but to not be like a total not to really not to have something that like like completely differentiates it like say a form factor or just some other thing and to have some things that are a little bit like meh or okay it does feel like i don't know how they're going to justify drive like it's just so hard because like entropy of people and the brands and devices they like is pretty high, especially when, you know, money isn't like when high amounts of money are involved in procuring that thing. So I think I'm with you. I'm not, I don't know if that's enough to like, I don't know. I hope it's enough. I hope it's enough for them to like get a foothold and for people to really love this and like pick it up in lieu of something else. Yeah. I mean, is it going to prove to be enough? That's it. That remains to be seen. At the same time, When I think about two things about smartphones that people are constantly pretty consistently saying they want better of Cameras because people are always taking pictures and battery life because battery anxiety sucks And so apparently this book style approach tackles both of those really well. It does, by the way, I didn't mention stylus support. It has native stylus support. There is an additional cost to that. It's called the Pen Ultra, and it works with this. It doesn't embed into the device like the Z Fold series does. But that's an additional $100 if that's something to woo you over. But like I said, I did get to play around with this a little bit while I was at CES. Granted, it was very early and it was just kind of pawing at it and poking around a little bit and very design focused. But I was pretty impressed when I was there. I was like, OK, cool. And I think on the other side of that, or to extend on that, I'm also just happy to see Motorola recommitting again to the premium tier because they spent so much time saying, we don't do premium phones anymore. We're low to mid. And I think they have something to say in the premium tier. This is a device that kind of proves that. Does it get everything right? No, probably not. But it's a solid first entry for a book style, it seems anyways. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll definitely be checking it out when I figure out my next foldable move. So, yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, you know what else is awesome? Y'all, because DTS, this show right here is made possible by y'all, the listener. Let's take a little bit of time to thank Andy Toy, Jeffrey Zilks, Alo, Adam L., and Philip Less. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to Rheinisches Revia, Germany's most exciting investment hub, where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Rheinisches Revia is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at bepartofit.nrw. There's more we need to know today. Let's get to the briefs. Well, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are forming a joint venture to work towards eliminating dead zones in the U.S. by pooling spectrum and leaning on satellite connectivity, particularly in rural and underserved areas. The carriers say that they will share limited spectrum to boost capacity, improve satellite integration for rural operators, and create a unified platform, which would make it easier for satellite providers to reach customers with consistent coverage. The plan is not finalized and is still in the planning stages, but wow. Yeah, you know, it's not very often you see the big three carriers palling up. Yeah. Hey, you know what's a good idea, guys? Why don't we band together and tackle this together? There's probably no other business reason for them to want to do this, right? There's probably nothing like, I don't know, competition maybe coming from, I don't know, just throwing it out there. SpaceX or Starlink or something. Just a couple of random ideas. No, nothing. They just want to create a Voltron-like, you know, super, super, super giant robot of connectivity bringing, you know, bringing justice and connectivity. to the masses. Totally it. That's it. Only thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they've been doing what they've been doing for so long and now here comes the shiny new whatever you want to call them, tech companies walking through the door and they're like, hey, you don't belong here. We're the ones that yeah, so you know, it's all about competition. Competition is good. It forces change in many ways. What I keep wondering is at what point does satellite connectivity And maybe I'll wonder this forever because it'll never happen. But at what point does satellite connectivity just become something that's part of your plan and not something that you have to think in advance that you might need when you somewhere down the line find yourself in a situation of need and realize, oh, I don't have that as part of my plan. I guess I'm screwed. So that's what I hope for. I don't necessarily think that's a far-flung future or a fictional one. I hope it happens. I do too. It just seems to make sense. and maybe especially the one thing that might come out of this, I don't know, I wouldn't call it a tennis match, but whatever it is that these good old carriers are doing possibly versus the new upstarts, it may be, again, the high tide lifts all boats. I don't know if we call it the high tide, but I mean, yeah, kind of. It's a tide. It's a tide. It'll lift people. It'll definitely lift up a consistent connectivity. with our powers combined we are captain connectivity um i i just i can't help but think of like team tv team tv shows in the 90s right now yes thank you very much uh yeah i guess we'll see i i i'd like to see it i'd like to see it and definitely them taking this on maybe shows that they're definitely feeling the the competition from other folks just feeling the burn i mean and also just as a as a reminder on this as a clarification this is still just kind of like in the proposal and defining stages subject to final agreements. Who the heck knows what those final agreements are going to take shape as. But as a user, I welcome any move that's going to improve dead zones. I think it's a good direction to go in, so I'm happy to see it. Insta360 launched the Go 3S Retro Bundle. It's a special edition of its compact 4K action camera that I'm kind of in love with, though I don't have one yet. Maybe I'll get this. This one swaps the standard boxy design with a longer, slimmer design that's meant to give some serious Polaroid nostalgia. It does. It's kind of like that long, slender Polaroid kind of approach. It swaps the flip-out LCD display with a waist-level optical kind of display that appears, and it's very retro-looking. The viewfinder can show the scene from most angles. It doubles also as a selfie mirror, so you got that. And it's a whole bundle, right? So it includes that tiny standalone camera that you can dismount from the kind of mounting area there and stick in places and everything. It's a cool system. a viewfinder battery pack nfc custom skin for instant app launch strap magnet pendant lens guard and usbc cable because that last part is rarely assumed or assured these days what you will not get though is a touch screen on the viewfinder it is retro after all and insta 360 is softening the blow by calling that quote a tactile experience of classic cameras so marketing but you still get the same 4k 30 frames per second recording you still get flow state stabilization waterproofing to 33 feet it's also less expensive than the original go 3s launch price 250 for 64 gigs 270 for 128 gigs both cases that's 150 less than the launch price for the model that came before it so not bad $150 cheaper I think it's a pretty cool mix I mean it looks really cool by the way I did not know what a waste level viewfinder the term was at first I was like how's that gonna work is it is it like I just to your waist I know it very confused I was like oh that what they call the look not quite that old just yet it what yeah the one where you look down at your waist Okay Yeah so you can kind of hold the camera down low and that display is kind of facing up right It's a little more versatile than just like a pop out or something. And it's kind of embedded into the device. So it's kind of sleek. I mean, the overall goal of this thing is to really just kind of keep this very compact, but high quality video capability and image capability as well. But yeah, and it's got the Polaroid look and feel. It really does. It's an optical viewfinder. I never thought those were coming back bundled or paired with 4K. I love it. I honestly, I really kind of want one. And I wonder, again, as the person with the super retro camera and just watching other ways in which retro-ness is bringing its way into our digital cameras again, maybe in response to, I don't know, things we're all feeling about digital well-being and our very connected lives. I really like this a lot. I would love to see more things like this that maybe kind of, I don't know, change the very specific ways that we interact with our phones and cameras these days. I'm into it. I actually really, really want one now. I don't know something about it is just hitting a spot which I guess is what insta 360 intended I mean that's nostalgia right there nostalgia is like the easy little trigger to be like see I got you anything that comes out Commodore 64 I'm immediately like homina homina I need to have it I mean and and I should also say as a parent of two daughters you know who are you know teenage teenage girls at this point there is a total trendy thing right now with throwback nostalgia digital cameras. I pulled out of storage, I don't know how many, actually it's this camera right here, this like old Samsung digital camera. And my older daughter was like, what is that? I want it. Whenever she goes to like a big event or something, she brings this because it's like her special capturing machine, you know what I mean? And part of it is just because it's not, everything's not all HDR processed and pristine and AI infused and whatever. it's kind of raw it you know she almost looks at it as a filter even though it's not a filter it's just the technology yeah right and uh so you know nostalgia is a big a big deal and especially in in digital imagery and so here we are i love it i might i might get one you got you got me it's a 360 that that nostalgia hits too much yeah um all right well i sort of it sort of not Sort of in a retro theme, not quite the same kind of retro, but Microsoft introduced an automatic rollback system for problematic drivers called Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery, or CIDR. It will enable Windows Update to revert bad driver's server-side with no action needed from users or hardware manufacturers. Yay. When Microsoft's internal ship room detects a problematic driver during evaluation, it can trigger a recovery from the hardware dev center that pushes PCs back to the last known good driver version through the Windows Update pipeline. This is an effort to address long-standing issues like GPU driver failures and other hardware-related crashes. CIDR will begin rolling out in September. By the way, in addition, Microsoft announced a driver quality initiative at WinHEC. Is it WinHEC or WinHEC? Do people say WinHEC? Oh, yeah. You know, I don't know. WinHEC, sure. Ah, heck, it's WinHEC. All heck, it's WinHEC. Why not? All right. Whether it's WinHEC or WinHEC, at the 2026 version of that, Microsoft announced the driver quality initiative to stop bad drivers before they ever reach your PC. The company says it will invest more in making kernel drivers safer and more resilient. vet partner drivers more strictly and manage driver updates more carefully over their full life cycle so yeah you know kind of like a retro thing you know that the thing is not working so we push back to a happier time you know see i was thinking retro nostalgia to on a personal level from when i used to have a windows machine and i would encounter these driver issues all the time i'd be like i hate this um yes that's my my type of nostalgia yes as someone who has not used a windows device and i still have a piece gaming pc but i haven't used it in a few years um yes why yes that is correct and you know anyone who's who's run on on windows knows uh what it's like to encounter an issue like this almost certainly anyone who has run on windows long enough knows what this is like it sucks uh so hey you know i can get behind this clean it some some people out there though are saying like this isn't like a goodwill thing this isn't like microsoft being like we got your back this is microsoft cleaning up its own mess yes that's what some people are saying but no i'm not really a windows uh user these days i'm not gonna throw stones but i think this is a good um this is a good direction to go regardless of the reason why yes uh more of this because encountering those issues always sucks compared to my memory of it anyways yeah and especially the part where it automatically triggers. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've definitely helped my parents with these kind of issues where they have no idea what's going on and I got to come home. I do wonder about that, though. Any of the will automatically revert or automatically update or whatever, that's going to make some people happy and make some people very nervous. Agreed. It's a double-edged sword for sure. So I could definitely see some good cases. But, yes, that does, especially as someone who works in software. you know sometimes automatic rollouts or rollbacks sometimes you know you know gotta be careful all right well we'll see how it goes um but hopefully um may all you may all your microsoft uh computers have better driver quality from here on out let's let's just look for that all right well if you have feedback on anything that gets brought up on the show get in touch with us on the socials we are at dts show on x instagram threads blue sky mastodon if you're on tiktok and youtube you can find us at Daily Tech News show. That's it. and ready for you. Find out more at bepartofit.nrw. All right. Now some quick headlines that are good to know might make you look smarter in the future. Although you're already smart. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, but smarter. All right. Well, Microsoft is retiring the Copilot mode brand in Edge, folding it into the browser directly, bringing those enhanced features to desktop and mobile with settings that let you pick which co-features you want to keep in play. Okay. Choice. I suppose it's good. Anthropic has reopened Claude subscriptions to OpenClaw and other third agents by adding a separate agent SDK credit bucket that caps programmatic usage and closes a compute arbitrage loophole that many power users were actually exploiting They were like, oh, just get in here. The water's warm. Nerd screams were heard echoing throughout the night. Oh, man. Well, Counterpoint Research reports that Apple grew U.S. iPhone 17 sales 1.3% in the first quarter of 2026 and captured 75% of big three carrier smartphone sales, even while the overall market fell 5.7%. Apple, doing all right. Google is reportedly planning to unveil a new Gemini model at next week's Google I.O. conference, where I will be. You will not be there. You'll be at a different conference, but I will be on the scene, maybe even calling into DTNS next Tuesday. Anyways, so I might hear about this there. This new reported model is reportedly on par with ChatGPT 5.5, but still behind Anthropics Mythos. That's according to Alex Heath's sources. You might see me a little bit on Tuesday, too, while I'm covering from the other conference, you covering that conference. Anyway. Interesting. All right. Well, Alienware is launching the Alienware 15, its first budget-focused gaming laptop. Man, that's not a hyphenate word that I associate with Alienware, but there you go. Its first budget-focused gaming laptop starting at $1,300 with RTX 450 graphics, 16 gigabytes of RAM, a 165 hertz, a 15.3-inch display, and toned down, also very odd for Alienware, gamer-y design notes. Okay. All right. So it's not as splashy. It's not as like, yeah, I'm a gamer. Check out my laptop design. A new Gallup and Washington Post survey shows 70% of Americans oppose data centers in their communities. They are citing noise pollution, water use, rising electricity prices, and local building moratoriums. There's just a few reasons why. Well, Spotify will adopt Apple Podcasts' HLS Video Tech, so creators who upload video shows to Spotify for creators, Megaphone, or new partners like Libsyn, Podigy, Audioboom, Audio Means, and Podspace can distribute and monetize that content across both Spotify and Apple Podcasts without changing their existing setup. Yay. This goes into effect later this year. Still don't know how I feel about this whole HLS thing. I think part of me is still trying to understand it on a deeper level. But yeah, yeah, jury's out for me. The U.S. Commerce Department has reportedly cleared 10 major Chinese firms to buy up to 75,000 of NVIDIA's H200 AI chips each. This is according to Reuters. I'm sure we'll hear more about it if that actually happened in the coming days. Well, Dell's new 14S and 16S mid-range laptops will replace the old Plus line starting at $1,270 in the U.S. later this month. They will have Intel Core Ultra or AMD Ryzen AI chips inside and upgraded FHD+, QHD+, and OLED display and battery life up to 26 hours. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That's a lot of letters. Shake it out. Shake it out. Shake it out. All right. We end every episode of DT&S with some shared perspectives. Today, Matt has a question. Yes, and a question for you, in particular, Jason. Matt writes, hi, Jason. Do you know of a good website or YouTube channel that focuses specifically on the latest things to learn how to do in Gemini? I have a Gemini Pro subscription, and I'm looking to maximize what I can do with the tool. As has been mentioned in the show, the field changes every month. So I'm really looking for a resource that highlights new features as they roll out and provide suggestions on how to make the most out of most of them. Thanks for everything you do on DTNest. Matt. Yay. Thanks for writing, Matt. Do I have someone like a recommendation of someone that focuses just on Gemini stuff? No, not necessarily. Not anyone that I'm following specific to that. But I have a few YouTubers who I've been following who do coverage of Gemini and also cover a lot of other stuff, you know, as far as like new models rolling out, a lot of clod coverage happening right now. It's very hot on YouTube. But Futurepedia is one that you can search out on YouTube, has some really solid deep dives and tutorials on how to use these things. Jeff Su is a recent creator on YouTube that I came across that I just really like. He's got this nice, soft kind of presence to him, kind of funny at times. And he's really, really knowledgeable on kind of building integrations inside of Gemini, inside of Claude, and kind of putting it into terms that are understandable. And then I just came across a show on YouTube called, and it's at How I AI Podcast. So I think there's also an at How I AI Pod. That's not the one that I saw. It's a podcast. has some incredible interviews from a workflow standpoint. So people breaking down their entire workflow, how they manage their business, how they run their lives using these models. And there's definitely a lot of Gemini stuff that happens there. So there's three suggestions. Legitimately, I'm watching and listening to these. Like when I take my dogs for a walk is usually when I do that. And I'm making notes the entire time. I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. Ooh, that's cool. I got to come back to that. So there you go. I hope that's helpful. I definitely got recommended Jeff Sue in my feed, and I totally get and agree with what you mean in terms of his style. It's very easy to listen to. I guess some people, especially in the AI content space and on YouTube in general, it always feels like people are trying to, I don't know, make good content, but also kind of really, I don't know, attack the algorithm where it's at, especially with AI. um but jeff is this really i don't know it doesn't like yeah i watched a couple of his videos and yeah it just seems as you said like a good like kind of soft approach to it which is not intimidating and doesn't feel like i don't know not that i don't know like the opposite end would be like a mr b thing like all up in my face uh no it's really nice now there's a lot of this content on youtube right now it is a hot trend uh as you can imagine so well thank you jason for giving us a little bit of a filter into the enormity of content on YouTube. What do you guys have for us to do? You have more questions for Jason. I'm sure he would love to answer more specific questions or just have some insight into anything else. Share it with us. Feedback at daily tech news show.com. You can also send an email and ask Gwen a question. I'm just saying, yeah, she's got lots of answers to share as well. So do that. Thank you, Matt, for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along. Everyone who's watching and listening for daily tech news show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron at patreon.com slash DTNS. We'll see you next time. The DTNS family of podcasts, helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program. Welcome to Rheinisches Revie, Germany's most exciting investment hub, where global leaders like Microsoft are investing billions. Home to Europe's fastest supercomputer, the region offers strong R&D partnerships. So let its outstanding digital infrastructure connect you to key markets in real time. Rheinisches Revie is ready for growth and ready for you. Find out more at bepartofit.nrw.
