The price hikes this year aren’t that much in the grand scheme, but Samsung’s foldables were already very expensive. The Ultra and Flip are only $100 more than their 2025 counterparts, but foldables were already seeing price bumps even before the RAMpocalypse. A $1,200 price tag will make the Flip 8 a tough sell when Motorola has Razr phones for hundreds less, even if they aren’t as fast.

At $2,100, the Z Fold 8 Ultra will be the most spendy foldable in most markets, but anyone who’s going to spend $2,000 on one can probably justify another $100. Preorders are live today, and Samsung has enhanced trade-in values to help take the sting out of the prices. The phones ship on August 7.

Plus some new wearables

Samsung also has some new wearables to pair with its foldable trio. Like the phones, Samsung’s new watches have substantial feature sets and price tags. The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 will cost a whopping $700, and the Galaxy Watch 9 will start at $380. Both are running on the Snapdragon Wear Elite platform.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2.

Credit: Samsung

The Ultra 2 is, naturally, Samsung’s updated take on the Apple Watch Ultra. The device is larger than the Watch 9 at 47 mm, and it has a more rugged look. It has a titanium case, more battery capacity, and a brighter display, and it’s rated IP69K for water and dust. That equates to 10ATM water protection versus just 5ATM (IP68) for the Watch 9. Samsung says it expects to release a diving app for the Ultra 2 later this year.

The Galaxy Watch 9 comes in 40 mm and 44 mm case sizes. This watch is aluminum, featuring the squircle case design Samsung first debuted on the first Ultra watch. There will be LTE and Bluetooth versions of the watch—the version with mobile data starts at $430.

Like the new phones, Samsung’s watches are available for preorder today and will ship on August 7.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/samsung-unveils-new-galaxy-z8-foldables-and-galaxy-watches-available-august-7/

In the latest twist on battlefield innovations, Ukraine has used both flying drone carriers and drone boats to send ground robots armed with weapons or explosives into battle.

The drone-assisted deployments have enabled slower wheeled robots to bypass tough terrain and Russian defenses, and to carry out an unusual robotic amphibious assault on a contested position. Such tactics also showcase the Ukrainian military’s ongoing experimentation with using drones and robots to offset a Russian military advantage in manpower while also sparing Ukrainian soldiers from making dangerous assaults.

On July 19, a Russian military Telegram channel posted a video showing a Ukrainian hexacopter drone carrying a ground robot suspended below by a cable, according to the Ukrainian government-run news platform United24. The Russian Telegram channel described the Ukrainian heavy bomber drone as deploying a four-wheeled ARK-1 robot armed with explosive anti-tank mines on the ground where it continued toward Russian military positions—and apparently generated plenty of outraged comments from pro-Kremlin social media users.

It’s unclear how successful that particular mission was. But the tactic could improve the survivability of ground robots by helping them evade Russian aerial surveillance and drone strikes while closing with their targets more quickly. The ARK-1 robot can roll along at a top speed of nearly 28 miles per hour, although some robots are considerably slower.

Ukrainian ground robots also joined a Ukrainian military operation on June 25 that targeted the Kinburn Spit, a sandy and narrow peninsula that extends westward into the Black Sea and is connected to the Russian-occupied left bank of the Kherson Oblast.

Russian military forces captured the Kinburn Spit in June 2022 and set up positions there to help control southern Ukraine’s port access to the Black Sea, although they began withdrawing from the peninsula in early June as Ukraine’s mid- and long-range drone strike campaigns strained Russian supply lines.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/ukrainian-drones-deliver-robots-directly-into-battle-by-sea-and-air/

Drones capable of spraying water and fire retardants have been practicing how to snuff out wildfires early in California and Alaska this summer—demonstrating a possible rapid-response tool for firefighting as climate change transforms wildfire season into a nearly year-round risk for much of the United States.

Most drones are significantly smaller than crewed aircraft and have shorter flight ranges, meaning they cannot replace large airtankers in delivering massive payloads of water or other fire-suppressing payloads to remote wildfires. But companies and fire agencies—along with organizers of the $11 million XPRIZE competition—are testing whether drones can help firefighting crews respond more quickly to small fires and put them out before they become more destructive.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as CAL FIRE, ran its own field test involving five autonomous drones that worked together to deploy between 500 and 1,000 gallons of foam combined for suppressing fires on July 15, according to the TV station KPMH. The demonstration was organized with the help of the nonprofit FireWERX and the California-based company Seneca, which is making the drones commercially available starting in 2026.

Each of Seneca’s Argo-1 drones can carry about 100 pounds of water or fire retardant while working together in swarms of four to six drones. Once a human operator uploads a GPS waypoint, the autonomous drones fly toward their target and use onboard sensors to spot the heat signature of a fire, HeliOps Magazine reported. The drones then find the best hovering altitude before each lining up to spray the fire, one after the other.

The fully loaded drones are limited to a round trip of 10 miles while flying at about 30 miles per hour on average, which means they would ideally need to be prepositioned in fire-prone areas or first transported by ground vehicle. But each drone can fit in the back of a pickup truck with the tailgate down, and two people can even manually carry the empty drones.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/firefighting-drones-in-the-works-as-wildfires-plague-us-nearly-year-round/

The agency also fined 21 HP resellers 35.2 million rupees (about $365,335).

In a separate order, the CCI said that WhatsApp records showed that HP and 16 of its Tier-2 reseller partners operated “in a collusive arrangement” and that the messages show the companies engaging in “bid rigging, including cover bidding, price fixation, and customer allocation during 2017–2020.” HP India played a central role, the regulator said.

Per the order, HP India said that high printing supply prices led some resellers to threaten to “shift to low-cost counterfeit products to compete on price.”

“HP India was commercially forced into a position where it had to support the collusive arrangement adopted by the Tier-2 resellers,” the order reads.

For its part, the order said that HP India “humbly objects to HP India’s role being characterized as a ‘kingpin’ of the entire collusive arrangement.”

Still, the revelation that some HP resellers are struggling with the exorbitant price of printer ink and toner underscores a problem many printer users face. The economic challenge is exacerbated by HP’s tendency to block third-party ink in already-purchased printers through firmware updates. At the same time, with even its own partners threatening to take their ink business elsewhere, HP is pressured to get more HP printer users to only use HP-brand ink and toner.

The CCI also ordered HP India and its channel partners to “cease and desist from anti-competitive conduct” and to hold competition compliance training programs within 60 days.

HP hasn’t publicly commented on the fines.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/hp-fined-1-4-billion-rupees-for-cartelization-of-ink-cartridges-toner-pcs/

The EU’s mandates for Google Search could have more wide-ranging implications. Google will be forced to share search data with competing search providers, giving them a better chance of gaining market share and loosening Google’s iron grip on web search. The Commission alleges this action was necessary because Google’s past sharing offers have not gone far enough.

Under the new rules, Google will have to provide data to other search firms transparently and for a reasonable fee. Google will also have to treat AI chatbots as search services for the purposes of data sharing. The goal is for other companies to get access to search metrics similar to what Google itself sees, which EU regulators claim is essential for a smaller player to challenge Google’s dominance.

Google calls for “balance”

Google was vocally opposed to the EU’s new rules before they were finalized, and the company is not mincing words now that they’re final. Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, claims Google offered more measured solutions that it believed could satisfy the DMA’s goals, but the path chosen by the European Commission goes too far and will harm users.

“Today’s decisions risk undermining vital privacy and security guardrails for millions of Europeans,” said Walker.

Walker objects to the Commission’s position that AI assistants need greater access to Android. He claims that AI tools are widely supported, with phone makers playing a key role in vetting them. Granting non-Gemini AI platforms deeper integration with Android could circumvent safeguards, he said.

Similarly, Google contends that sharing search data as the EU now demands will risk user privacy. The DMA action calls on Google to anonymize data using a multilayered approach, and the Commission is open to amending its decision to ensure identifiable data is appropriately handled. Google acknowledges that regulators are open to adjusting the rules, but Walker still characterizes this ruling as a threat to privacy, business trade secrets, and even national security.

Google will have some time to hash out the specifics with EU regulators. The company must be ready to start sharing search data with other companies in January 2027. The Android platform must be updated for deeper integration with AI apps by July 2027.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/its-official-eu-will-force-google-to-share-search-data-and-open-up-ai-on-android/

For the first time in its history, the US military sent explosive-laden drone boats into combat by attacking an Iranian midget submarine and naval port. The unprecedented use of such kamikaze sea drones by the United States comes nearly a decade after Iranian and Houthi forces first demonstrated such weapons.

The US military shared a video showing three “one-way attack surface drones” exploding after approaching an Iranian midget submarine and ship maintenance facility at Iran’s Bandar Abbas Naval Base on the night of July 12. US Central Command, the US military combat command responsible for Middle East operations, described the strikes in a social media post as the “first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations.”

The US drone boats were able to “make a low-speed, uncontested approach” to their targets before exploding, according to USNI News, a news service from the nonprofit US Naval Institute. USNI News also identified one of the targets as an Iranian Ghadir-class midget submarine that was out of the water while being suspended from a gantry.

The technology behind the strikes involved Saronic Corsair autonomous surface vessels developed by Saronic Technologies, a defense company based in Austin, Texas. The company’s website describes the drone boat as being 24 feet in length and capable of carrying up to 1,000 pounds over 1,000 nautical miles at a top speed surpassing 34 knots.

Such Corsair drone boats supposedly have the capability to operate autonomously without direct human control, including long-range navigation and patrol missions along with regulating power consumption and engine use to loiter at a specific position, according to a Saronic blog post. They are designed to perform a wide variety of missions and were likely equipped with explosives for this specific strike.

This marks the second notable US military use of drone boats during the war, which began with the United States and Israel attacking Iran on February 28, 2026. The US military already used a Corsair sea drone to rescue two US Army helicopter pilots in the waters off the coast of Oman on June 8, after their US Army AH-64 Apache helicopter was taken down by a cheap Iranian Shahed drone.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/us-military-sent-explosive-drone-boats-into-combat-for-the-first-time/

Last week, thousands of SamKnows routers were bricked after a government program ran its course.

In 2020, as part of a program conducted by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian government’s chief competition regulator, thousands of volunteers received routers to help test and report on the typical speed and performance of broadband plans in Australia. (More specifically, the Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) program targeted fixed-line broadband services provided over the NBN, Australia’s government-owned wholesale open-access broadband network, as well as services delivered over other access networks.)

According to the final report that the ACCC distributed, the routers are whiteboxes that were “supplied by SamKnows” and that “perform tests to measure internet performance using test servers maintained by SamKnows and hosted in Australia.”

Last month, the program concluded, and the ACCC released its final performance report (PDF). Subsequently, the routers used for the program were bricked after June 30.

Ars Technica reviewed a copy of an email that an MBA volunteer received in mid-June informing them that the program would end on June 30, 2026 and further stating:

Service Termination: Your whitebox will be disabled, and your SamKnows One account will be closed.

The email, signed by “The SamKnows Team (part of Cisco),” noted that after June 30, the devices would stop collecting data and that users’ “measurement and registration data will be deleted in accordance with our retention obligations under our end-user license agreement.”

However, as one MBA volunteer pointed out to Ars via email, the routers are still working, making the decision to disable the devices an avoidable e-waste risk.

When asked by Ars, the ACCC didn’t specify the number of SamKnows routers disabled last month. However, in a report about the MBA program released in December 2020 (PDF), the ACCC said it initially expected to release about 4,000 whiteboxes throughout the program’s duration and had distributed “over 2,600″ by December 2020. The report noted that the ACCC retained an “adequate pool of whiteboxes to allow for the expansion of our reporting to cover, for example, emerging [retail service providers] and new speed tier plans.”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/thousands-of-routers-bricked-after-government-program-concludes-in-australia/

“We basically work from the assumption that if we want data, then we need to obtain it ourselves,” Sapiezynski said of their account cloning approach. “Even if we did, for example, want to use the official TikTok researcher API, none of the user agency is covered there. You can see what content is available, but you cannot see individual timelines that will tell you how the algorithm reacts to a particular user watching or not watching a particular video. Similarly, with the European Union’s researcher data access, all of this data can only be accessed aggregated and not from a perspective of a single user. So when you want to really study personalization, this research cannot be done on the aggregated data.”

Mind the gap

The team ran their experiments multiple times on the 90 cloned accounts and made side-by-side comparisons, using both implicit and explicit signals, to see how TikTok’s algorithm responded in terms of recommended content on the FYPs. They focused on three popular topics: cooking videos, fitness videos, and sports betting.

The “not interested” button proved most effective, reducing unwanted content by around 84 percent, compared to just a 48 percent reduction from merely skipping videos. “So if you don’t want to see something, you should be hitting that button,” said Kaplan. But the authors note that the “not interested” option seems to be deliberately hidden from users. And it was very easy for the algorithm to “relapse” into once again flooding an FYP with previously unwanted content; even a brief re-engagement by a user is sufficient.

“It turns out that it works in the beginning,” said Sapiezynski. “When you start saying, ‘I don’t want to see this particular topic,’ the platform might actually show you fewer of such pieces of content. But then the platform will slowly start putting it back in your feed. And if you don’t continue saying, ‘I really don’t want to see it,’ this may balloon back to the place where it was in the beginning. So the platform does react to your negative feedback, but then it also very much reacts to your express behavior. So if you are presented with this content again and you start watching it, the platform will again feed it to you more and more.”

In other words, be consistently very active with your feedback—constant vigilance!—when it comes to curating TikTok’s FYP. The researchers hope to test this hypothesis on real user data in the future. That said, “We can teach users how to use the platform better, but ultimately the way that you’re interfacing with the platform is going to be dictated by the design decisions that are fundamental to the platform,” said Kaplan.

Proceedings of the Twentieth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 2026. DOI: 10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42688 (About DOIs).

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/07/how-much-control-do-tiktok-users-really-have-over-fyps/

Unleashing the drones of war comes at a cost

A heavy reliance on Reapers avoids putting more US pilots at risk, but it has also led to Iranian air defenses shooting down dozens of the hunter-killer drones. The US military had lost nearly 30 Reaper drones as of May 2026, including some destroyed on the ground by Iranian counterstrikes, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. The Air Force acknowledged such combat losses as reducing its Reaper fleet to about 135 drones.

The total US taxpayer bill for the destroyed Reapers comes to about $1 billion, according to Bloomberg. A typical Reaper may cost $30 million per aircraft, but the Air Force has said a Reaper equipped with a full sensor package can cost up to $50 million.

That number of Reapers lost in combat has almost certainly increased since May, as the United States and Iran have continued to trade airstrikes and drones despite so-called ceasefire periods and attempted negotiations. On July 8, as hostilities ramped up again recently with new Iranian strikes on commercial shipping triggering more US military airstrikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed to have shot down yet another Reaper drone.

The defense company General Atomics stopped manufacturing Reaper drones for the US military in 2025. But a General Atomics executive told Breaking Defense that the company is interested in pursuing the newest drone contract offering from the US military, and seemed to suggest it would provide a cheaper successor to the Reaper.

The Defense Innovation Unit notice called for drones capable of carrying many different sensor and weapons payloads up to 2,800 pounds and flying with a combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles—or 8,000 nautical miles on a one-way strike mission—while executing the same missions that the MQ-9A Reaper drone currently performs for the US military. It envisions delivery of “20 mission-ready aircraft” by 2031.

Whether the US military and companies can deliver on that vision of deploying cheaper yet capable strike drones remains to be seen. The Pentagon is asking for about $54 billion in its fiscal year 2027 budget to spend on drones and autonomous warfare technologies—an amount that rivals wartime Ukraine’s entire military budget.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/us-seeks-cheaper-hunter-killer-drones-after-iran-destroys-1b-worth-of-reapers/

On September 28, 2025, French naval commandos made additional discoveries after boarding the Boracay off the French coast—possibly because of the ship’s suspected link to the drone incidents over Denmark. The French commandos found that the ship had a Chinese captain but also happened to be carrying two Russians employed by the Moran Security Group, a Russian private military company founded by former Federal Security Service officers. One of the Russians also previously worked for Russia’s Wagner Group private military company.

Interviews revealed that the Russians were charged with “gathering intelligence, protecting the vessel and ensuring the captain strictly adhered to Russian interests.” That provided “direct evidence of a shadow-fleet vessel linked to Russian intelligence structures,” according to the IISS report.

On March 30, 2026, a French court sentenced the Chinese captain in absentia to one year in prison and issued an arrest warrant after convicting him of failing to comply with orders to stop his ship. The court also ordered the captain to pay a $172,000 fine.

The European response

The full report goes into much more detail about the movements of individual shadow fleet vessels during various drone incidents. But the overall picture of the possible Russian drone campaign suggests that the European response has been fragmented and uncoordinated for the most part so far.

The European Union is working to develop a European Drone Defence Initiative (EDDI) that would enable member countries to deploy interoperable counter-drone technologies for detecting, tracking, and shooting down or otherwise neutralizing drones. But the system is not expected to be fully functional until the end of 2027.

The IISS report also warns that “no amount of hardware will compensate for the absence of political authority to use it,” and suggests that European governments need to better coordinate to establish legal clarity around rules of engagement for drone incursions.

Then there is the “hardest” problem of maritime accountability, according to the IISS report. That will require European governments to be more willing to investigate and stop Russian-linked ships and shadow fleet vessels from loitering near European coasts while launching drones with “effective impunity.”

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/kremlin-suspected-of-flying-drones-over-europe-using-russian-shadow-fleet/