Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Google's cheapest 2026 phone landed in March at AUD $849 for 128GB, or $999 for 256GB. That's the exact same sticker as last year's Pixel 9a, and it runs the exact same Google Tensor G4 chip.

Almost every phone in every pocket can already run two SIMs. Put the spare on a different network, park $20 on a long-expiry plan, and the next time your carrier goes dark you stay contactable.

D-Link's Australia and New Zealand arm has rolled out a pair of new portable hotspots, and both are aimed at the growing crowd of us who expect a fast, private internet connection to follow us out the door.

Global smartphone shipments fell 4% year-on-year in 2Q26. Apple posted its best second quarter ever. Both of those things are true, and the gap between them is the story of the year.

Tens of thousands of merchants couldn't accept card payments last Wednesday, and customers were left with cash as the only option to pay for goods and services. Plenty of them didn't have any. The RBA calls physical cash an "all hazards" hedge. But are banks, the government and the card schemes all planning for the day it goes away?

WEX has been primarily known as a fuel card business in Australia since the 1980s but it was only ever the visible tip of this mammoth payments business. Its pitch for the next decade is virtual, mobility and open loop as it confronts Visa and Mastercard head-on at the bowser and EV charging station.

Every rate, fee and eligibility rule a non-bank lender charges will soon be machine-readable via open banking. That includes buy now pay later (BNPL) like Afterpay and Zip.

Clubs Australia, customer owned banks and the country's second-largest cash carrier have all now written to the ACCC. So have a growing queue of ordinary Australians, several of whom independently reached for the same barnyard metaphor. Almost everyone wants the same thing: a much shorter leash.

Samsung has told us how it plans to stiffen the next Galaxy fold without making it fatter: put titanium inside the screen. Two separate pieces of it.

AI Appreciation Day falls on 16 July, and my inbox says the mood has shifted. The day itself has been running since 2021, a fixed date each year to weigh up what the technology gives us and what it costs us.