☀️ Good morning, Daily Authoritarians. We’re rushing towards some major smartphone launches in the coming month. From the global OnePlus 11 reveal to the Galaxy S23 series and then on to MWC 2023, smartphone news is going to be pretty packed for a while. Here’s what’s brewing right now before the flagship heavy hitters hit the market.

A BIG price hike for the Galaxy S23 series?

For two years, Samsung has consistently priced its S series flagships. The vanilla model costs $799, the Plus model $999, and the Ultra goes to $1,199. However, a new rumor now suggests Samsung could seriously up these prices. If you are hoping to pick up a new Galaxy, you might want to pay attention. If you already have a Galaxy S22 series device, here’s how we feel about upgrading to a Galaxy S23.

• The rumor stems from alleged pricing in Australia, which could be as follows.
• AUD $1,350 (~$943) — Galaxy S23 with 128GB of storage.
• AUD $1,450 (~$1,013) — Galaxy S23 with 256GB of storage
• AUD $1,650 (~$1,153) — Galaxy S23 Plus
• AUD $1,950 (~$1,363) — Galaxy S23 Ultra
• When you compare these leaked Australian prices to those of the Galaxy S22 series, you see jumps of about AUD $100. That’s about $70 USD!

But let’s not rush to conclusions

• You might think these increased Australian prices, if accurate, mean higher US prices too.
• However, there are a few problems with that assumption.
• The first is that leaked pricing from other countries sometimes doesn’t pan out.
• We’ve seen this happen in the past, with a memorable example being leaked Galaxy Z Fold 3 pricing not panning out.
• Another reason you should take this rumor with a grain of salt is that foreign price increases don’t necessarily mean price increases outside of that country.
• However, if Samsung does increase pricing for the phones, it would probably be a big mistake.
• The phones do not appear to be sizeable upgrades over the last two generations, and the global economy isn’t great at the moment.
• We’ll have to wait to see what happens. Meanwhile, here’s what we expect from Samsung as far as the Galaxy S23 pricing is concerned.

Two Ultra devices at this year’s Galaxy Unpacked

If you don’t already know, we’re only two weeks away from Samsung’s Unpacked event. Samsung’s teasers are on in full swing, and a Samsung executive has given us a juicy little detail as to what to expect from the show.

• The Head of MX Business at Samsung, Dr. TM Roh, released a blog post on the company’s press site.
• The post mostly focuses on mobile innovation and the Ultra brand’s meaning within the Galaxy portfolio.
• He also discusses how the company merged the Note experience with the Ultra since the S20.
• However, among all the business talk, Roh sneaked in an interesting tidbit.
• Near the blog’s end, Roh mentions that Samsung will be showing off two premium devices.
• We know one of them is likely the Galaxy S23 Ultra. The second one, however, is a bit of a mystery.
• Roh also talks about the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra in the post. So the second premium device might be a new Android tablet.
• There’s also a chance it could be a Galaxy Book with an Ultra in its name and possibly stylus integration.

Roundup

🍏 Apple announces new MacBook Pro and Mac mini with M2 Pro and M2 Max processors (Android Authority).

⚒️ Samsung opens up its self-repair program to the Galaxy S22 series and PCs (Android Authority).

💻 The company also unveiled a 5G-connected Galaxy Book2 Go with Snapdragon 7c+ Gen 3 (Samsung).

🥶 The Pixel 7 is freezing when closing YouTube or YouTube TV from fullscreen mode (Android Authority).

🎮 Speaking of more Google devices: You can now switch your Stadia controller to Bluetooth, but only until December (Android Authority).

🕹️ And if you are a Stadia user, here’s how you can get your affairs in order since the service is going down today (Android Authority).

📽️ Looks like Netflix’s ad plan has tanked. The streaming service is set to report its slowest quarterly revenue (Reuters).

🪓 It’s not looking good for some Microsoft employees, either. The company could axe 11,000 of them this week (Bloomberg).

☠️ Beware! Hackers are using ads in Google Search to steal your information (BleepingComputer).

Wondrous Wednesdays

Does your household generate a lot of food waste — leftovers that go straight in the bin or vegetable peelings that are mostly thrown away? Well, this startup wants to sell you a device and charge you $33 a month to convert all of this wasted food into chicken feed (via CNBC). Yup, you heard that right. Your food scraps can be actual food for chickens that will, in turn, become your food again! The circle of life!

• The tech is the brainchild of Matt Rogers, the co-founder of Nest Labs, the smart home thermostat that Google ultimately acquired.
• With more than one-third of food in the United States being wasted, Rogers felt there had to be a better way to prevent so much food from being thrown away.
• That’s how Rogers and Harry Tannenbaum, who Rogers worked with at Nest, came up with the idea for Mill.
• Mill users put their food waste — including meat and dairy, items that aren’t ordinarily able to be composted — into a new kitchen bin that dehydrates the food overnight.
• It turns into odorless, coffee-ground-like material the company calls food grounds.
• An optional app also lets users monitor their food waste from their phones and see how much they put into their bins.
• Once the bin fills up, which Rogers says takes about three weeks on average, its contents can be packaged and sent back to Mill via mail.
• The company then repurposes the grounds into an ingredient for chicken feed and sends it to farms.
• The startup charges users a $33 monthly subscription fee to recycle their food scraps.

What a wonderful venture for the greater good of the planet, right?

Have a nice day,

Adamya Sharma, Editor.