With Samsung’s Unpacked event set to take place on July 10, we’re eagerly awaiting news from the South Korean tech giant here at XDA. However, that doesn’t mean the world has stopped while we’ve been waiting with bated breath. There’s been a lot of interesting stuff happening this week, and if you missed it, here are our top five picks.
Better late than never
If you’re a fan of WSL on Windows, you may have noticed that the Linux kernel it uses is a bit outdated. In fact, it hasn’t been updated in two and a half years. Microsoft has finally fixed this problem with a new update that brings the kernel a bit closer to the current era. So now is a good time to update it.
Related
How to Backup and Restore a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Distribution
Backing up your WSL distributions is a good idea and can also help you move instances between machines. Here’s how to do it.
Foldable phones are all the rage
Vivo X Fold 3 Pro (left); Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 (right)
Are you excited for Unpacked? It turns out that a leaker has gotten his hands on some information regarding the Samsung Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, and they’re good upgrades over their predecessors. We’ve seen new processors, more RAM, and even a new addition to Interpreter mode that lets you use the phone as an intermediary between you and someone speaking another language. If the leaks are true, we can’t wait to see these devices announced at Unpacked.
Related
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6: Rumors, leaks and things we’d like to see
Samsung’s next flip phone is expected to launch in the coming weeks, and here’s everything we know about it so far.
Microphone not included
Got a spare Game Boy camera lying around? It turns out the folks behind GB Operator are working on a way to turn it into a webcam. Simply slot the Game Boy camera into the GB Operator and you can show up to your next remote meeting in all your black-and-white, low-res, 3 FPS glory. GB Operator does a lot more than just play with your Game Boy camera, and it’s worth checking out if you’ve got any Game Boy games lying around; but still, it’s an impressive, if impractical, feat.
Related
Here’s How to Turn Your Android Phone into a Wireless Webcam for PC and Laptop
Turn your Android phone into a fully functional webcam for your desktop or laptop.
Better late than… wait, what?
Japan is known for being a tech powerhouse, but it also loves its retro hardware. In fact, until recently, the Japanese government used floppy disks in its systems. To help bring all of this up to date, Japan created the Digital Agency to review and find modern alternatives to the government’s aging hardware. Now you can rest assured that Japan is no longer using storage devices that some 20-year-olds have never seen before in their entire lives.
Related
I Turned My Old PC Into an AI-Powered Machine, and Here’s How You Can Too
Newer devices with NPUs are great, but you can always reuse old hardware to generate AI text and images
And yes, it’s Linux
Finally, we have this absolutely insane achievement: someone has managed to run Arch Linux off of Google Drive. He managed to run the operating system on a laptop without any storage, leveraging the cloud-based service to do all the heavy lifting. As you can imagine, this didn’t work out very well; the man behind the project, Ersei, noted that doing anything on the operating system was slow. However, it’s still a truly incredible feat, and it shows just how much resourceful people can do with their PCs.
Related
How to Boot Linux from a USB Drive on a Windows PC
Want to try Linux or boot Linux from a USB stick? You can set it up that way using Rufus or other tools