It’s been another busy week in the tech world, allowing us to test out new Android XR glasses and watch the new Supergirl trailer.
To keep up to date on these two topics and more, scroll down for our pick of the seven most important tech news stories of the week. You’ll find quick recaps of everything and links to the wider story if you want to know more about what happened.
7. IKEA gave us a very practical little smart lamp
IKEA recently went on a smart home journey – and this week it complemented its new colorful speaker lamps with a handy little motion-sensitive light.
The Gömpyssling – an LED lamp that turns on automatically when motion is detected – has not been officially announced, but has simply sneaked into European IKEA stores. It looks ideal for cupboards and a pack of two is just £3/€4, although we don’t yet know when (or if) it will arrive in other countries.
At this price, we obviously can’t expect smart Wi-Fi or phone connectivity, but it’s already at the top of our IKEA impulse buy list.
6. DC told us to “watch out” for Supergirl
Spoiler alert: There’s a moment at the end of last summer’s blockbuster Superman a James Gunn film that literally left you wanting more; is when a disheveled and possibly slightly drunk Supergirl (aka Kara Zor-El, aka Superman’s cousin) stumbles into the Fortress of Solitude. It was a brief, comical bit, but from that point on we all wanted to see and learn more about the DCU’s updated version of Krypton’s last surviving citizen.
We now have the first trailer for the Supergirl movie, which is due out this summer. From the looks of it, this brief appearance in Superman was just the beginning of Kara’s troubles and adventures. There’s nothing here that feels like a direct continuation of the Superman movie tale, except for Krypto, the super dog.
In fact, the settings, character, and tone all seem intentionally different. There was so much to take away from the trailer reveal; we suggest you reread our exhaustive liveblog.
5. Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid
Last week, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery announced their intention to acquire the second, but Paramount was not ready to walk away from negotiations and therefore announced a possible hostile takeover of WBD.
In many ways, its $108 billion offer trumps Netflix’s — not only is it paying more, but it’s also all cash rather than a mix of cash and stock, and it’s also buying the entirety of WBD, not just the production studios and catalog that Netflix is trying to acquire. It’s also hard to ignore US President Donald Trump’s personal ties to the Paramount deal.
Not only is he friends with the Ellison family — David Ellison runs Paramount, and his father Larry Ellison is a close Trump ally and is raising some of the money for the deal — but his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm is also investing money in Paramount’s bid.
However, Paramount’s offer also includes financial investments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which could worry regulators who may not want foreign powers to become so significantly involved in a major media empire.
4. We met another type of smart ring
Do you like your futuristic gadgets with touch buttons that work, instead of shouting a wake word at a screen half a dozen times? The same goes for Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, who invented a new type of smart ring.
Said to be “a button and a microphone, a bit of memory and a Bluetooth chip”, the Pebble Index 01 is a smart ring designed for taking notes and organizing, connected to an LLM on the Pebble app on your phone. With no assistant personality or subscription, you simply speak into the ring, and it will transcribe the recordings and interpret your commands. It doesn’t even need to be recharged: it’s said to last for years, and once that’s done, you send it back for recycling.
The first units are expected to ship in March 2026.
3. The House of Mouse adopted AI
This may have been one of the most surprising moments of the week, but The Walt Disney Company has reached a deal with OpenAI to allow more than 200 of its characters to appear in Sora and ChatGPT footage. That means that by early 2026, you’ll be able to ask Mickey, Stitch, Elsa, Yoda, and even some Avengers to sit with you or be animated in user-generated videos.
Additionally, some Sora-generated videos will be available on Disney+. As part of the deal, Disney is investing $1 billion in OpenAI and has a multi-year licensing agreement that will allow Disney characters to appear on the OpenAI platform. Still, for a company that has been so protective and intentional with its characters and stories, partnering with OpenAI and using them in Sora is a bold and important move.
2. ChatGPT 5.2 debuted
ChatGPT 5.2 is now available, and it comes at an interesting time for the AI world as OpenAI tries to catch up with the impressive Google Gemini 3.
The new AI model of the world’s most popular chatbot is a subtle improvement, bringing upgrades across the board, according to Sam Altman, who says it is “the most intelligent model generally available in the world.”
The overall improvement is the reasoning. OpenAI claims that GPT-5.2 is better at solving multi-step problems, maintaining context in longer discussions, and providing answers that seem more thoughtful than rushed. In practice, this means clearer plans, more structured explanations, and fewer moments where the model confidently goes in the wrong direction.
Initial reactions are quite mixed, with some users taking to Reddit to discuss how “boring” and “professional” the new model is. That said, it’s still early and we’ll need to properly test ChatGPT 5.2 over the next week to get a clear idea of how it compares to 5.1 and Gemini 3.
1. The Android XR mystery has been revealed
The shape, size, weight and experience of Android XR Glasses are no longer a mystery. We had to try out not one, but three different glasses running Android XR, including a lightweight pair with dual screens (for stereoscopic visuals) and a connection to your Pixel phone for all the processing power.
Overall, this seems like a promising start for the Android XR lightweight travel portable and perhaps a better step forward than the Samsung Galaxy
So get ready for video calls, step-by-step instructions, and instant access to an ever-vigilant Gemini (if you let it) in your future, all before your eyes.
