ICYMI: here’s the week’s 7 biggest tech news stories from the GTA 6 Extended Look to Meta’s social media trial settlement
This week, Nokia launched new retro phones, and we got an extended look at GTA 6.
To catch up on all of this and plenty more, scroll down for our recap of the week’s biggest tech news stories.
And if you want to test your memory of last week’s news, try our quiz and see if you can get full marks.
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7. Nokia debuted new retro phones
The original Nokia may be gone, but its spirit lives on under its new HDM Global owner — and this week we welcomed the new Nokia 300 Charge, a dumbphone that’s brimming with handy features.
There are no touchscreens or apps here, which potential buyers will consider a good thing. But the 300 Charge does have a handy power bank mode, which lets you charge up other gadgets via its USB-C port. If you want an emergency camping phone, it also has a “high-power” LED flashlight.
Sadly, there’s no international pricing for the 300 Charge yet, but it is showing on HMD’s global website — so we will hopefully see this practical, anti-doomscrolling phone get a worldwide launch.
This week we’ve been at Gamescom, and it was a treat.
There was the unusual batch of conferences like Gamescom Opening Night Live and the Future Games Show which showcased exciting new games and updates like our very first look at the highly anticipated The Witcher 3 Songs of the Past DLC.
We saw some incredible new hardware like a ridiculously fast 1100Hz OLED monitor, and the goofy IKEA x Xbox collection — plus so much more.
Meta has reached a settlement in a landmark social media trial that could have seen it pay out the company’s entire market cap had it lost. The case, which was brought by several states’ Attorneys General, alleged that Meta’s products were designed to addict teens and may have caused them mental harm.
Without admitting any wrongdoing or fault, Meta will instead pay a more modest $18 billion, and has agreed to several self-imposed restrictions such as hiding likes on teens’ profiles, an optional algorithm-free feed, and a two-hour daily time limit (cumulative across Instagram and Facebook) — though this limit would drop to one hour if TikTok, Snap and YouTube also agree to self-regulate.
Some aren’t convinced this is anything more than another slap on the wrist, but perhaps this effort will finally curtail our social media addiction epidemic.
4. The Garmin Fenix 9 Pro launched
Garmin’s Fenix 8 was already packed with features, but its successor brings some meaningful upgrades. One standout is ‘Garmin Epic’, which helpfully combines your stats across big trips like multi-day backpacking excursions. We also like the Fenix 9 Pro’s new green light for boosting our camping night vision. For an in-depth debrief, check out our hands-on review below.
3. We watched GTA 6’s Extended Look
Gamers, we ate good this week as, on top of Gamescom, we also got the Extended Look at Grand Theft Auto6, and any complaints about the Netflix debut washed (mostly) away as we saw the game in the fullest glory we’ve seen thus far.
Explosive action, intense car chases, character swapping, beautiful lighting, an expansive map, tense story moments, and the return of the six-star rating.
Not everyone was impressed, but there are always haters online. For most, GTA 6 looks like the best yet, and it can’t come soon enough.
2. Apple announced a new Mac Mini
Back in 2024, Apple revived the Mac mini with a sportier, more compact design and an M4 chip. And this week it came back for generation two.
Apple stuck with the same chassis that doesn’t skimp on ports, but upgraded the internals with either the M6, which is Apple’s first 2nm chip, or the M5 Pro for those who need an even more substantial setup.
The downside? The Mac mini with M6 starts at $899 / £899 / AU$1,449 for 256GB of storage and 16GB of RAM — that’s a $100 increase in the US over the current price of the M4 model — while the M5 Pro starts at $1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699 with 512GB of storage and 24GB of RAM.
1. Apple invited us to ‘Surprise and Shine’
The most eagerly anticipated Apple Event of the year — if not in recent years — finally has a day, September 9, and a time, 10AM PST. This is the moment when we will watch freshly minted CEO John Ternus run his first Apple keynote and, we think, finally meet the iPhone Ultra, a.k.a. the folding iPhone.
That’ll probably be the event’s “one more thing,” but there will be so many other things like new iPhone 18 Pro phones, a new HomePod mini, an updated Apple TV box, Apple Watch Series 12, and so much more. It’s set to be a jam-packed event. We’ll have a team on the ground and back at TechRadar home base covering it all on Wednesday. Buckle in!
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