OPINION: September is usually a busy month in the tech world, and 2023 was no different.

Meta made headlines with the release of Meta Quest 3 and Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, which offer a new vision of the future for virtual and augmented reality. Meanwhile, Jim Ryan resigned from PlayStation, Panos Panay left Microsoft and preferred Amazon, and Xiaomi released a new smartphone with the Xiaomi 13T Pro.

Trusted Reviews 2023 Awards also took place this week; Our team of experts has selected the absolute best products across various categories.

But for this article, we have chosen the biggest winners and losers of the week in the tech world. Find our picks below:

Winner: Fitbit/Google

We have a joint winner this week, and that’s because Fitbit and Google have finally combined their best qualities to launch an extremely promising wearable device. Google completed its acquisition of Fitbit in 2021, but it understandably took time for the two companies to start singing from the same hymn sheet.

The new Fitbit Charge 6 is Fitbit’s first wearable to take full advantage of Google connectivity and includes a number of useful Google apps such as YouTube Music, Google Maps and Google Wallet.

Fitbit has already made excellent heart rate readers, but it looks like the Pixel Watch has been further improved for the Charge 6 with 60% more accuracy thanks to its machine learning algorithm. You also get all of Fitbit’s great fitness features, including 20 new exercise modes.

Moreover, Fitbit is reducing the launch price compared to the previous model. While the Fitbit Charge 5 was originally priced at $179.95 / £169.99, the new Fitbit Charge 6 is available for just $159.95 / £139.95.

We’ll have to wait until we test the Fitbit Charge 6 to determine whether it lives up to its promising feature set, but it’s at least great to see Google and Fitbit finally collaborating to deliver a fitness tracker that has lofty ambitions for both. software and hardware.

Loser: Disney+

TV shows are now spread across so many different streaming services that it’s hard to watch the latest and greatest without paying an outrageous amount of money. That’s why many people have resorted to sharing their accounts with friends and family.

However, Disney Plus has confirmed that it will begin restricting password sharing in Canada starting November 1, 2024, and this restriction is likely to expand to other countries in the coming months. This means Disney Plus subscribers won’t be able to share their subscription with anyone outside their household. You’ll still be able to watch Disney Plus on portable devices outside your home, but they must be registered to your primary personal residence.

This won’t be a rule that can be easily bypassed either, as Disney can determine if your IP address matches the primary address. So if it detects that someone is accessing the account from another household, it will block the login and be asked to sign up for their own account instead.

Netflix implemented its own password cracking method earlier this year, and so far it seems to have been a huge success. Antenna reports He said Netflix benefited from 2.6 million new accounts in July 2023. There’s no doubt that Disney was inspired by this success story.

But this is bad news for TV broadcasters. Not only are subscription services becoming more expensive, the industry is also becoming more fragmented. Services like Netflix and Disney Plus are now removing the password sharing feature; This is likely to have long-term consequences for streaming. It’s not possible for everyone to sign up for every single subscription service, so sacrifices will have to be made in the future.