Subj : ICYMI: the 7 biggest tech stories of the week, from Samsung's tri To : All From : TechnologyDaily Date : Sat Nov 01 2025 10:15:07 ICYMI: the 7 biggest tech stories of the week, from Samsung's tri-fold to a robot for your household chores Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Description: The week's biggest stories from Fitbit, Samsung, OnePlus, Microsoft... and a strange humanoid robot called Neo. FULL STORY ====================================================================== The pace of tech news rarely lets up, which is why we put together this ICYMI In Case You Missed It recap every weekend, so you can get familiar with all of the biggest headlines over the past week, even if you didn't catch the stories first time around. This week, we've seen everything from household robots to flagship phones, with Microsoft outages, another Stranger Things season 5 trailer, Samsung's long-awaited tri-fold, and new Fitbits along the way, too. It's been busy, in a good way. There's lots to dig into, so make yourself comfortable and take a look at what's been happening across the pages of TechRadar. And we'll see you again this time next week with another round-up of the tech-related goings on... 7. We got the final trailer for Stranger Things season 5 A still from the new trailer (Image credit: Netflix) We're all heading back to Hawkins, Indiana for one last time: Stranger Things season 5 premieres on Wednesday, November 26, with episodes then dragged out until the finale on New Year's Eve, and we now have the final trailer for the fifth and final season. There's a lot going on here, and pretty much every major character in the Stranger Things universe good and bad gets some screen time. It's been a long wait for this fifth season, but this should be enough to keep Stranger Things fans going for the next four weeks. Read more: Stranger Things season 5 final trailer officially released hours after Netflix leak and fans think it includes a huge spoiler 6. Microsoft gave us another huge online outage It's not been a great week for Microsoft (Image credit: Future) It was only recently that an Amazon AWS outage left a swathe of websites, apps, and services unresponsive, and this week Microsoft's Azure platform joined in with a critical crash of its own. Millions of users were affected before the issues were finally fixed. Everything that relies on Microsoft digital infrastructure got hit, including Minecraft and the Xbox platform, and Microsoft 365 applications. Thankfully, Microsoft acted swiftly to get Azure patched up again, but these kinds of outages shouldn't be happening at all. Read more: Microsoft down? Services recover after major outage hits Azure, 365 and more and even Minecraft and Xbox were affected 5. Samsung rolled out ads on its smart fridges Ads are coming to Samsung smart fridges (Image credit: Samsung) Adverts aren't really appealing at the best of times, but one place you definitely don't want them is on your fridge, beaming sponsored content into your kitchen. It's strange then that Samsung has decided to start showing ads on the screens of its Family Hub smart fridges. That's $2,000 (or around 1,500 / AU$3,000) for the fridge itself, and then you have to put up with "curated advertisements" while you're trying to cook up a meal or just grabbing a drink. Understandably, the move has been met with a rather frosty response from users, although you can at least turn them off. Read more: Samsung launches ads on its smart fridges and I cant imagine wanting anything less 4. Google said new Fitbits are coming in 2026 The Fitbit Charge 6 (Image credit: Future) Google acquired Fitbit in 2021, and seems to have been prioritizing the Pixel Watch over any kind of Fitbit gadget since then. The last Fitbit-branded device to launch was the Fitbit Charge 6 , which made its debut in 2023 and we'd almost given up hope of new Fitbits. It's encouraging then that a Google executive has gone on the record to say we can expect new Fitbit devices during the course 2026. It's not clear exactly which gadgets might be updated, but the compact, lightweight fitness trackers are well overdue an upgrade now. Read more: Fitbit isn't dead after all Google just promised more fitness devices are on the way next year 3. The Samsung tri-fold made its public debut The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future) We're moving very slowly towards an official launch of the Samsung tri-fold we've been waiting for all year. Don't forget that this next-gen foldable was first teased by Samsung back in January, and we're still not sure when it's going to launch or what it'll cost. What we do have is the first public showing of the foldable, which made an appearance at the K-Tech Showcase in South Korea. It was put behind a glass case, so no one could touch it, but we're hopeful that the Samsung phone isn't too far away now from going on sale. Read more: The Samsung Galaxy tri-fold just got officially shown off 2. OnePlus revealed all about the OnePlus 15 The OnePlus 15 is official (Image credit: OnePlus / Future) One of many TechRadar exclusives on the site this week included some key information about the new OnePlus 15 flagship phone: when it's launching globally, the new camera features it's bringing with it, and the different colors you're going to be able to buy it in. All of these details came out in our chat with the CMO of OnePlus Europe, Celina Shi. We may be approaching the end of the year, but the OnePlus 15 is very much a contender for one of the best phones of 2025 find out everything you need to know about the handset. Read more: OnePlus 15 global launch date, new colors, and camera features revealed 1. The first humanoid robot for home chores arrived Would you let one of these into your home? (Image credit: Courtesy of 1X Technologies/Eli Russell Linnetz) Surely in the year 2025 we should be getting robots to do all of our regular, tedious, household chores? Well, maybe 2026 will be the year: 1X has now opened pre-orders for the Neo Home Robot, which can do tasks like doing the laundry and filling up the dishwasher. It doesn't come cheap, but you might consider it a price worth paying if it means you've got more free time. There are skills that remain beyond the robot's scope, however you need to allow a remote operator to control it for those, and it can't yet cook for you or mow the lawn. Perhaps we'll have to wait until 2027 for that. Read more: You can pre-order this charming Neo Home Robot today to do all your chores, but theres a big catch Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too. ====================================================================== Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/tech/icymi-the-7-biggest-tech-stories-of-the-week-fr om-samsungs-tri-fold-to-a-robot-for-your-household-chores --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 (Linux/64) * Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100) .