We’re back at IFA 2026 in Berlin, checking out some of the coolest and most interesting tech on the show floor.

From smart home lighting and portable displays to projectors, power solutions, foldables, and more, these are some of the products and brands that caught our attention this year.

In this video, we take a look at: ‪

GOVEE‬

• AI Lighting https://bit.ly/4xmY342

ARZOPA

• Z3FC Portable Monitor https://bit.ly/4gRk7wD
• D14 Digital Photo Frame https://bit.ly/4qYlRJ6 ‪

CUKTECH‬

• 30 Ultra Desktop Charging Station https://s.whaee.com/tXBornw
• 10 Ultra Charger https://s.whaee.com/UsWT4U2

** Use code CUKTECH09, valid until September 30

XGIMI

• Aura 3 Max
• TITAN Noir Max

Xiaomi

• Human x Car x Home Ecosystem

ASUS‬ x NVIDIA RTX SPARK

• ProArt P16: https://asus.click/h7607_gm
• ProArt P14: https://asus.click/h7407_gm
• ProArt GR1X

Watch until the end for our favorite finds from IFA 2026!

The brazenness of scammers often goes through fits and starts. Within the last few weeks, I’ve had three separate people in my immediate circle fall for three separate scams. I’ve received similar emails myself. With the Christmas season approaching, we’re living in a particularly brazen period, and it’s time for a very important PSA. Here’s how to spot a scam email today:

Check the contents of the message

Most scam or phishing attempts today will ask you to submit sensitive information like your log-in details or bank information to a seemingly innocuous platform. Obviously, these platforms are fake, and you’re surrendering your information to a malicious party. Unfortunately, these scams are getting much better with disguising their deception. If you put them side by side with a real email or message, you might find it hard to spot crucial differences. So, how do you clock them before it’s too late?

Start with the actual message. Companies will not ask you to submit your details on an email or on a message. It doesn’t matter if the message is claiming an issue (someone allegedly using your card) or a reward (your points are about to expire). If it’s not your usual way of logging in or submitting this information, then it’s likely fake.

Some might even include a highly suspicious link that leads to a log-in page. If that link is from a link shortener (like bit.ly) or looks nothing like the company’s real site, don’t click it. If you do click, check the URL for anomalies. In the below example, “Maya” claims that someone else tried to change the email on my account. Besides how unofficial the alert looks, the button does not lead to Maya’s website.

Now, on rarer occasions, the message itself has telltale signs of deception: typographical errors, missing words, extra spaces. A normal message should have already filtered these errors out, so there’s a good chance that it’s a fake message if it has any of these errors.

Basically, if something feels off straight from the get-go, cast doubt immediately and be vigilant.

Check the sender

Ensuring a fake message is clean should be easy stuff for scammers. A simple spell checker can trick a simple user into doing whatever the scammer wants. One aspect that’s way harder to change is the sender.

An email might have the cleanest copy, but one look at the sender dismantles all deception. In three of the four scam emails I’ve seen in the past two weeks, the sender was the ultimate telltale sign.

In the example below (the same one as above), the sender presents itself as “MayaPH.” If you weren’t paying attention, you would have been fooled into thinking that this is actually Maya. But, if you open the sender information, you’ll see that it’s coming from an unknown email, rather than an official Maya email address.

On a PC, this is easy to check because the email address automatically pops up beside the sender’s name when you open the email. On mobile, you’ll have to press the drop-down button below the sender’s name.

Verify the information yourself

Let’s move to the next level. What if the message looks official and seemingly comes from an official sender?

Unfortunately, scammers today can also spoof senders. Meaning, they are able to send official-looking messages and mask themselves as official senders. In the below example, “BPI” sent me an alert saying that someone tried to spend PhP 19,250 from my account. Take note: this is the same thread where I got real messages from the bank, which the scammer managed to hijack.

The message looks real. I can’t spot a single typo. Now, if you spotted this and thought it was real, you’d enter a state of panic and click the link out of instinct. The scammer is depending on your instinct to do so. Here’s why you shouldn’t click it: That’s not BPI’s official website. It looks like it, but it’s not.

Of course, you can’t be faulted for not memorizing official company websites. In fact, I had to Google the URL just to confirm that it was fake.

A surefire way to make sure, though, is checking the supposed information yourself. When I got the message, I checked my BPI app immediately. There was no trace of the transaction, so I knew it was fake. You can also call them yourself using their official numbers.

This isn’t limited to banks, either. Another example I’ve seen is one claiming that your Spotify subscription failed to renew. In this case, you can manually check your Spotify app to see if your subscription hasn’t been renewed.

Scammers are hopeful that you panic and run to them, rather than the official channels.

Sometimes, friends cannot be trusted

Though we can avoid falling for traps ourselves, other people still can. After an account is hacked, the hacker’s usual play is to message the account’s contact list to get other people.

Because it’s seemingly coming from a loved one’s account, a user is more likely to follow whatever the hacker wants, including clicking suspicious links.

In my experience, this type of scam is rarer these days, but it’s not completely gone. I’ve had one experience wherein a contact from Discord messaged me and tried getting me to play a game with them. The game itself was non-existent. The goal was to have me click a suspicious link and install malware on my computer. The malware can then give the hacker complete access to my PC and every account it’s logged into.

It’s a very nasty malware, but it’s fairly easy to prevent. If you get a message from a friend that isn’t their typical behavior, contact them on a separate platform, preferably on one that doesn’t rely on the net like SMS. If that’s not possible, contact someone near to them.

Address a potential hack immediately

Even with all these precautions, sometimes we can’t prevent ourselves from falling into these scams. If you find yourself victimized by scammers, respond immediately.

First of all, secure the targeted platform first. If it’s an app or a service, change passwords immediately and add two-factor authentication. If it’s a bank, call and appraise them of the situation. You might have to spend some time with a frozen account or without a card, but it beats having all your money sucked dry.

Now, if you suspect that your entire device was compromised, disconnect from the internet immediately. A hacker is toothless if they can’t connect to their prey. Then, using another device, reset every account that the hacker might have access to. If you know how, manually disconnect your accounts from the affected device. Once clear, do a clean install/reset of the device to hopefully weed out the malware.

For years, the pitch for a foldable smartphone was remarkably simple: look, it folds.

That was enough when the category was new. Samsung had to prove that a smartphone could have a hinge, bend in half, and still work like a phone.

Eight years later, that is no longer the interesting part.

The question has shifted from can a smartphone fold? to what does folding actually let people do?

For Samsung, the answer increasingly seems to be about making the phone fit the person, rather than asking the person to adapt to the phone.

That shift is reflected in the latest Galaxy Z lineup. The Galaxy Z Fold8, Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip8 don’t simply offer different specifications or screen sizes. Samsung sees them as different expressions of how people use their phones — whether that means watching, working, creating, communicating, or simply carrying the device around.

Jun Guevara, Head of Corporate Marketing at Samsung Philippines, says this reflects a broader change in how people think about smartphones.

“Before, it’s always about the specs — what the camera is like, how big or heavy it is, what’s the process, etc. But now with AI in the picture and it becomes more personal, contextual and action-oriented, people will expect their devices to adapt more closely to what they are trying to do.”

That makes the foldable form factor particularly interesting.

A foldable can be compact when portability matters, then become larger when more space is useful. It can change how you interact with the same device depending on the task at hand.

In other words, the screen doesn’t have to stay the same just because the phone does.

Eight years of listening

Samsung’s foldable journey began with a much more fundamental problem: convincing people that the concept was viable in the first place.

The company says it has spent more than seven years making thousands of engineering decisions across materials, displays, hinges, software, and overall design. But some of its most important lessons didn’t come from the lab.

They came from people actually using foldables.

Durability, in particular, became a major area of focus. Samsung says real-world usage helped inform improvements to display durability, crease visibility, the opening experience, materials, and overall device thickness and weight.

That accumulated experience has also changed what people expect from a foldable.

Consumers now judge them against the same fundamentals they expect from any flagship: can it hold up, can I carry it comfortably, is it powerful enough, and will it remain useful over time?

For Samsung, that means the foldable experience can’t be reduced to the hinge or the display. It has to work as a whole.

That sounds obvious. But it is also a meaningful shift.

The novelty of folding can get someone to try a device once. Making it a daily driver requires everything around the fold to work naturally.

That may be the biggest lesson from Samsung’s years of listening: people don’t use their phones in exactly the same way. So why should every foldable be designed to serve them the same way?

There isn’t one way to fold

Samsung isn’t trying to establish a single “best” foldable. Instead, its latest Galaxy Z lineup is built around different ways people want to use their phones.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is positioned as the most capable option of the three. Samsung describes it as a device for people who need to do more, combining expansive multitasking and pro-level creation with its most advanced foldable design.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 takes a slightly different approach. Samsung sees it as the next evolution of the traditional Fold, balancing flagship performance with greater everyday usability and an immersive viewing experience.

Then there’s the Galaxy Z Flip8, which goes in the opposite direction. It is about portability, quick interactions, personal expression, and bringing AI experiences closer to the moments when you actually need them.

The distinction is important because Samsung isn’t arguing that everyone needs the biggest screen or the most powerful foldable.

Instead, it is arguing that there should be a foldable that makes sense for you. Your foldable match, if you will.

“We do not believe a single foldable form factor can meet the needs of every user,” Guevara says.

That idea runs through Samsung’s broader approach to the category. When evaluating new form factors, the company says it starts with real-world user value — whether a design meaningfully improves portability, productivity, content consumption, multitasking, or AI experiences.

The hardware, in that sense, is becoming a means to an end.

The right screen for the right moment

This is where Samsung’s vision for foldables starts to extend beyond simply having more screen.

Guevara describes a future where the mobile experience becomes less about having one fixed screen and more about having the right screen for the right moment.

Need something pocketable? Keep it compact.

Need more room to work? Open it up.

Want a more immersive viewing experience? Give yourself a larger canvas.

Want a quick interaction? Use the screen that’s already available.

The physical flexibility of a foldable gives AI more ways to respond to those situations, too. Samsung sees larger displays enabling deeper multitasking and content experiences, while cover screens can make interactions more glanceable and immediate.

“The mobile experience will become less about one fixed screen and more about giving users the right screen for the right moment.”

That also explains why Samsung isn’t predicting that foldables will replace traditional smartphones altogether.

Bar-type phones will remain important because they’re familiar, powerful, and portable. The point isn’t necessarily to eliminate one form factor in favor of another.

It’s to give people more choice.

And, perhaps more importantly, to make that choice feel right.

Technology in action

Samsung’s partnership with Spider-Man fits into that idea in an interesting way.

Rather than treating the devices purely as technology products, Samsung describes its cultural collaborations as “Technology in Action.” The goal is to place its products inside stories and narratives where their different capabilities can be demonstrated in context.

In the Spider-Man partnership, that means seeing a Galaxy Z Flip used for portability, a Galaxy Z Fold used for seeing the Spider-tracker map bigger, and a Galaxy Watch notifying Ned Leeds that Spider-Man is in the vicinity.

It’s a very literal demonstration of Samsung’s argument: the form factor matters because of what it lets people do.

A Flip can disappear into a pocket. A Fold can give you more room to work. A Watch can help you stay connected without reaching for your phone.

In that sense, Spider-Man becomes more than a backdrop for the latest Galaxy Z devices. It’s a way for Samsung to show its technology in action, inside a story about connection, community, and self-expression.

Making the foldable fit

There is still a perception that foldables are niche products.

Samsung doesn’t see it that way anymore.

Guevara points to repurchase rates for the previous generation — 32 percent for Fold7 and 37 percent for Flip7 — as evidence that once people adopt foldables, many choose to stay with the category. He also points to Fold7 attracting more former Ultra users, suggesting the category is expanding beyond its traditional early adopters.

Whether foldables eventually become the default smartphone remains to be seen.

Samsung isn’t betting on that, either.

Instead, it is betting on something more flexible: that people will choose devices that match how they actually live.

That’s a different proposition from the one Samsung made when the first Galaxy Fold arrived.

Back then, the company had to prove that a smartphone could fold.

Now it has to prove that a foldable can belong in everyday life.

And after eight years of engineering refinement and listening to how people actually use these devices, Samsung believes the next step isn’t making people adapt to the foldable.

“Our goal is not to make users adapt to foldables. It’s to make foldables fit more naturally into how people work, watch, create and communicate.”

It’s making the foldable match them.

Perhaps that’s where the Galaxy foldable story is heading next.

Not toward a phone that can do everything.

But toward a phone that knows when to become what you need.