It ’s the weekend , meaning it ’s once again clock time for us to name our winner and failure of the workweek .
This week saw Samsungall but reassert the existence of the Galaxy S24 FEwith a springy support Sir Frederick Handley Page appear on its prescribed Gallic website , while Sonos announced that it would bedelaying the launching of two new mathematical product to prioritise fixing its broken app .
Google , meanwhile , found itself in hot water when a US courtruled Google Search an anti - competitive monopolyin a major anti - trust opinion – a conclusion Google reportedly plans to invoke .
Keep read to study who we named our winner and loser this hebdomad .
Winner: Google
Despite the royal court ruling regarding Google Search , Google stay our winner this workweek after the troupe herald a major refresh to its Chromecast line of streaming devices .
In fact , a refresh might be an understatement as Google is drop the “ Chromecast ” name entirely , beginning with the launch of the newGoogle TV Streamer 4K.
Compared to the outgoingChromecast with Google TV , the TV Streamer 4 K packs a 22 % faster mainframe , twice the storage and twice the storage . The gadget conduct reward of Google ’s Gemini GenAI tools baked through , allowing you to make complex requests and receive summaries and recommendations from the AI help .
The Streamer 4 K also feature an all - new design , articulation remote and it supports the Matter smart home standard with a Thread border router , enabling smart home devices to work together faster and more reliably . Meanwhile , the Google Home gore lets drug user check tv camera , conform light and tweak the temperature from the remote without close what they ’re watching .
While this is exciting news for new users , it might go forth current Chromecast owners worried about lose support for their equipment in the near future . Thankfully , Google has guarantee those user thatnothing will change in regard to their Chromecast devicesand that they will continue to receive software and protection updates .
Loser: Disney Plus
This week ’s loser is Disney Plus , as the cyclosis service announcedyet another price hike in the US .
This will be Disney ’s fifth annual Mary Leontyne Price hike since the service launched in 2019 , with the ad - free plan originally costing just $ 6.99 / month at launch . This means that the cost of using Disney Plus has more than doubled since the service launched less than five years ago .
While this cost tramp has only been announced in the US so far , we do n’t expect it to be long before Disney confirms the change in other markets . Typically , the UK and Europe receive the same discussion from Disney Plus a little further down the dividing line .
As if this was n’t bad enough , Disney CEO Bob Iger latterly call investor thatthe company ’s crackdown on password sharing would hit full speed in September .
“ We begin our password sharing opening move in June ” , say Iger in an earnings call on Tuesday ( via seek Alpha ) . “ That sound off in , in devout in September . By the room , we ’ve had no recoil at all to the notifications that have gone out and to the workplace that we ’ve already been doing ” .
This means that anyone apportion an account can expect an even more square price addition if Disney get on and forces them to pay up their own subscription fee to keep streaming .