Amid the 3000 flashing lights, rockstar introductions and anticipation of new tech, Samsung packed a lot into the Note9 launch at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn. Here are five things you may have missed.

With great versatile hardware, powerful sound and the full resources of Google's AI and Assistant software, the Google Home Max is more than just a better version of the original Google Home. This is an excellent quality, relatively compact speaker system that will likely be able to handle all your music, and can also act as a voice-activated hub for all your smart home needs.

It will benefit some, sure. But the privacy risks far outweigh the benefits for most.

Panasonic’s newest range of televisions are here to challenge LG’s stranglehold on the OLED market. Panasonic has two solid OLED choices, and an LCD screen that punches above its weight in the category.

Do you ever feel that the web is breaking? When shopping online for a toaster, you can expect an ad for that thing to stalk you from site to site. If you have just a few web browser tabs open, your laptop battery drains rapidly. And don't get me started on those videos that automatically play when you're scrolling through a webpage.

The European Union has slapped Google with a $6.8 billion fine, alleging that the tech giant has acted in an uncompetitive manner by pre-loading apps and its services, such as Google search and the Chrome browser, onto Android phones. But as the specifics of the complaint are being pored over, it’s not clear how this will affect the more than 2 billion people across the globe who use Google’s Android operating system every month.

The mobile device dubbed the "Jesus Phone" is about to have its second coming.

Broadcast television isn't dead, at least not yet, but the way we watch it is certainly changing. These days Australia's free-to-air broadcasters all offer online simulcasts, but they're not available on every device.

Worse yet, you'll often find that live sport like footy and cricket — perhaps the only things you want to watch on free-to-air — is blocked due to streaming rights deals. As we've seen with Optus' World Cup streaming disaster, sometimes free-to-air broadcasts can save the day.

Over the past few months our home has been a mini Fort Knox, with review cameras covering the perimeter of our ground floor, and one strange tubular camera keeping an eye over everything in the kitchen. The cameras used for testing included a Netgear Arlo Pro 2, Reolink Argus 2, a Swann Smart Security Camera and the D-Link Omna.

If you've ever had to deal with trying to get a faulty product repaired or replaced, you've probably at least once experienced the struggle of dealing with an unhelpful customer service representative who seems unwilling to assist. Now, a Federal Court decision has unwittingly handed companies a "cheat sheet" on how to get out of repairing faulty goods.

As Aussie football fans fume over Optus Sport's unreliable FIFA World Cup streaming from Russia, Optus admits it underestimated the challenges of playing on the world stage. Optus insists it didn't skimp on the backend infrastructure required to stream World Cup matches to the nation. So what went wrong?

New standards will force telcos to reconnect Australians to their old broadband service or mobile broadband within days if an NBN installation fails, but the rules still don't apply to the majority of Aussie homes.

Taking effect on September 21, the new NBN Service Continuity Standard is designed to break the broadband deadlock which has left some Australian homes without home phone and broadband services for months after a failed NBN installation.

Over the past year, countless children and adults have tuned into the game Fortnite, a free-to-play battle royale game that allows players to compete with others around the world. The game is fun and features some cartoonish violence, which has led many to worry about whether such games are problematic.

Inevitable anecdotes have popped up of some children behaving badly in relation to the game such as the British girl who is said to have wet herself rather than stop playing. Do these anecdotes hint towards a coming epidemic of violent or addicted children? Simply put: no.

Huawei is receiving rave reviews for its latest handset, the P20 Pro. Even in the United States, where the phone isn't on sale, reviewers are importing the device to declare it the phone of the year. The praise is understandable - it pushes the camera past its nearest competitors and is arguably the prettiest phone ever built.

And yet... I find it difficult to wholeheartedly recommend this phone in the current climate.

It's everything you need to dive into Google's world of smart devices, but be warned that the Android Things Starter Kit drops novices in the deep end.

Apple showed off a raft of new features for the Mac, Apple Watch and iPhone at Tuesday's WWDC keynote. So many that the company breezed through most announcements and still talked for over two hours. I've had a chance to dive deeper into some of the announcements and pull out my favourite features, coming soon to a device near you.

Tackling black spots around your home, Telstra's Smart Wi-Fi Booster ensures your wireless gadgets are never caught offline.

Dolby Atmos is the latest evolution in surround sound technology that puts audio from movies and games not just around you but above you too, allowing you to hear sound from every direction. It also assigns individual on-screen elements their own audio track that the system can position in the listening space beyond the limitations of traditional 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound channels.

Is there an 8K television in your future? What about an OLED? IHS Markit seems to think both are strong possibilities at your place. IHS is an international research company that tracks manufacturing information rather than market trends, and given that most manufacturers place their parts orders well ahead, its predictions are always interesting and frequently reliable.