3 min read Last Updated : Jul 15 2024 | 4:52 PM IST
Google is reportedly bringing support for Ultra HDR images to third-party applications. According to a report by the Android Authority, Google has started offering initial support for Ultra HDR capture to the Camera X application processing interface (API). It is this API that offers third-party apps access to the smartphones’ camera. But what is Ultra HDR capture and why was it not available for third-party apps despite Google integrating the functionality in Android 14? Let us find out:
HDR and SDR
HDR and SDR stands for High Dynamic Range and Standard Dynamic range, respectively. These are different imaging techniques for capturing, processing and reproducing media that includes images and videos.
In images, there are brighter and darker sections, both of which contain displayable details. Dynamic range is the range of information between the lightest and the darkest section in an image or video, sometimes even referred to as luminosity. This means that HDR content has more overall detail and a wider range of colours compared to SDR content.
What is Ultra HDR
Ultra HDR is an image format that has been developed by Google based on the commonly used JPEG image format. However, the difference is that Ultra HDR images contain HDR gainmap in metadata. Gainmaps are essentially a secondary image stored in the file. It is not a real image but rather contains data to convert each pixel of the base image into that of the other. Apps and software use these gainmaps to convert an SDR image into HDR.
As Ultra HDR images are based on JPEG file format, which is commonly used on devices, almost all devices can view the image in SDR. However, devices with HDR display have the capability to overlay the gainmap on top of the base image creating a more vibrant image.
Ultra HDR support for third-party apps
HDR gainmaps are required to be created and stored into images metadata, thus Google updated its Camera API in Android 14, making HDR enabled smartphone cameras capable of creating and storing these gainmaps. However, the update was part of the Camera 2 API, which is built for apps that want to offer advanced camera functionality on Android smartphones.
CameraX, which is Google’s secondary API intended for social media apps, only requires access to the smartphone camera but adds no other functionality. This limited apps and developers who used CameraX API from getting access to displaying Ultra HDR images.
What’s changing
Google at its annual developers conference, Google I/O, announced that they would update the CameraX library to support Ultra HDR. Now with media reports are stating that the American technology giant has started offering initial support for UltraHDR to CameraX API. It is likely that soon more third-party apps that are not dedicated camera apps will get the ability to capture and display Ultra HDR images.
Defense startups across Ukraine about 250 according to industry estimates are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops. (Photo: Shutterstock)
4 min read Last Updated : Jul 15 2024 | 3:54 PM IST
Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement.
An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.
Defense startups across Ukraine about 250 according to industry estimates are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops.
Employees at a startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unmanned ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: USD 35,000, or roughly 10 per cent of the cost of an imported model.
Denysenko asked that The Associated Press not publish details of the location to protect the infrastructure and the people working there.
The site is partitioned into small rooms for welding and body work. That includes making fiberglass cargo beds, spray-painting the vehicles gun-green and fitting basic electronics, battery-powered engines, off-the-shelf cameras and thermal sensors.
The military is assessing dozens of new unmanned air, ground and marine vehicles produced by the no-frills startup sector, whose production methods are far removed from giant Western defense companies’.
A fourth branch of Ukraine’s military the Unmanned Systems Forces joined the army, navy and air force in May.
Engineers take inspiration from articles in defense magazines or online videos to produce cut-price platforms. Weapons or smart components can be added later.
We are fighting a huge country, and they don’t have any resource limits. We understand that we cannot spend a lot of human lives, said Denysenko, who heads the defense startup UkrPrototyp. War is mathematics.
One of its drones, the car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and kicked up dust as it rumbled forward in a cornfield in the north of the country last month.
The 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype that looks like a small, turretless tank with its wheels on tracks can travel up to 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on one charge of a battery the size of a small beer cooler.
The prototype acts as a rescue-and-supply platform but can be modified to carry a remotely operated heavy machine gun or sling mine-clearing charges.
Squads of robots will become logistics devices, tow trucks, minelayers and deminers, as well as self-destructive robots, a government fundraising page said after the launch of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. The first robots are already proving their effectiveness on the battlefield.”
Mykhailo Fedorov, the deputy prime minister for digital transformation, is encouraging citizens to take free online courses and assemble aerial drones at home. He wants Ukrainians to make a million of flying machines a year.
There will be more of them soon, the fundraising page said. “Many more.
Denysenko’s company is working on projects including a motorized exoskeleton that would boost a soldier’s strength and carrier vehicles to transport a soldier’s equipment and even help them up an incline. We will do everything to make unmanned technologies develop even faster. (Russia’s) murderers use their soldiers as cannon fodder, while we lose our best people, Fedorov wrote in an online post.
Ukraine has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI and the combination of low-cost weapons and artificial intelligence tools is worrying many experts who say low-cost drones will enable their proliferation.
Technology leaders to the United Nations and the Vatican worry that the use of drones and AI in weapons could reduce the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts.
Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups are calling for a ban on weapons that exclude human decision making, a concern echoed by the UN General Assembly, Elon Musk and the founders of the Google-owned, London-based startup DeepMind.
Cheaper drones will enable their proliferation,” said Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “Their autonomy is also only likely to increase.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
2 min read Last Updated : Jul 15 2024 | 3:17 PM IST
China’s iQOO on July 15 launched in India the Z9 Lite budget 5G smartphone. Priced at Rs 10,499 onwards, the iQOO Z9 Lite 5G smartphone is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chip. It boasts a display of 90Hz refresh rate and a 50-megapixel main camera sensor by Sony. The iQOO Z9 Lite 5G smartphone will be available for purchase with introductory offers starting July 20 on iQOO e-store and e-commerce platform Amazon.
iQOO Z9 Lite 5G: Price and variants
4GB RAM + 128GB storage: Rs 10,499
6GB RAM + 128GB storage: Rs 11,499
Colours: Aqua Flow, Mocha Brown
iQOO Z9 Lite 5G: Introductory offers
iQOO is offering the smartphone at an effective price of Rs 9,999 for the 4GB RAM variant and at Rs 10,999 for the 6GB RAM variant. These prices are inclusive of all offers, including bank discounts that will be confirmed on the day of sale.
iQOO Z9 Lite 5G: Details
The iQOO Z9 Lite 5G smartphone is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 6300, which is a 64-bot chip based on the 6nm architecture. The smartphone is offered in up to 6GB RAM, with support for 6GB virtual RAM based on the iQOO’s extended RAM feature. The smartphone sports a 6.56-inch LCD display of 90Hz refresh rate that the company said is the brightest in its price segment with a peak brightness level of 840 nits. According to iQOO, the display has been certified by TUV for low blue light emission. Powered by a 5,000mAh battery, the smartphone supports 15W wired charging and comes with a charger in the box.
The smartphone sports a 50MP primary camera sensor from Sony and a 2MP depth sensor. iQOO said the smartphone has some artificial intelligence-powered photography features such as the AI Image Enhancement that the company said clears out blurry images.
iQOO said that the Z9 Lite 5G phone has been put through rigorous testing to ensure its durability. The smartphone also comes with an IP64 rating for resistance against dust and water ingress.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI is working on a novel approach to its artificial intelligence models in a project code-named ‘Strawberry’.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI is working on a novel approach to its artificial intelligence models in a project code-named ‘Strawberry’, according to a person familiar with the matter and internal documentation reviewed by Reuters.
The project, details of which have not been previously reported, comes as the Microsoft-backed startup races to show that the types of models it offers are capable of delivering advanced reasoning capabilities.
Teams inside OpenAI are working on Strawberry, according to a copy of a recent internal OpenAI document seen by Reuters in May. Reuters could not ascertain the precise date of the document, which details a plan for how OpenAI intends to use Strawberry to perform research. The source described the plan to Reuters as a work in progress. The news agency could not establish how close Strawberry is to being publicly available.
How Strawberry works is a tightly kept secret even within OpenAI, the person said.
The document describes a project that uses Strawberry models with the aim of enabling the company’ s AI to not just generate answers to queries but to plan ahead enough to navigate the internet autonomously and reliably to perform what OpenAI terms deep research,according to the source.
This is something that has eluded AI models to date, according to interviews with more than a dozen AI researchers.
Asked about Strawberry and the details reported in this story, an OpenAI company spokesperson said in a statement: We want our AI models to see and understand the world more like we do. Continuous research into new AI capabilities is a common practice in the industry, with a shared belief that these systems will improve in reasoning over time. The spokesperson did not directly address questions about Strawberry.
The Strawberry project was formerly known as Q*, which Reuters reported last year was already seen inside the company as a breakthrough.
Two sources described viewing earlier this year what OpenAI staffers told them were Q* demos, capable of answering tricky science and math questions out of reach of today’s commercially-available models.
A different source briefed on the matter said OpenAI has tested AI internally that scored over 90 per cent on a MATH dataset, a benchmark of championship math problems. Reuters could not determine if this was the “Strawberry” project.
On Tuesday at an internal all-hands meeting, OpenAI showed a demo of a research project that it claimed had new human-like reasoning skills, according to Bloomberg. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the meeting but declined to give details of the contents. Reuters could not determine if the project demonstrated was Strawberry.
OpenAI hopes the innovation will improve its AI models reasoning capabilities dramatically, the person familiar with it said, adding that Strawberry involves a specialized way of processing an AI model after it has been pre-trained on very large datasets.
Researchers Reuters interviewed say that reasoning is key to AI achieving human or super-human-level intelligence.
While large language models can already summarize dense texts and compose elegant prose far more quickly than any human, the technology often falls short on common sense problems whose solutions seem intuitive to people, like recognizing logical fallacies and playing tic-tac-toe. When the model encounters these kinds of problems, it often “hallucinates†bogus information.
AI researchers interviewed by Reuters generally agree that reasoning, in the context of AI, involves the formation of a model that enables AI to plan ahead, reflect how the physical world functions, and work through challenging multi-step problems reliably.
Improving reasoning in AI models is seen as the key to unlocking the ability for the models to do everything from making major scientific discoveries to planning and building new software applications.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this year that in AI “the most important areas of progress will be around reasoning ability.
Other companies like Google, Meta and Microsoft are likewise experimenting with different techniques to improve reasoning in AI models, as are most academic labs that perform AI research.
Researchers differ, however, on whether large language models (LLMs) are capable of incorporating ideas and long-term planning into how they do prediction. For instance, one of the pioneers of modern AI, Yann LeCun, who works at Meta, has frequently said that LLMs are not capable of humanlike reasoning.
AI challenges
Strawberry is a key component of OpenAI’s plan to overcome those challenges, the source familiar with the matter said. The document seen by Reuters described what Strawberry aims to enable, but not how.
In recent months, the company has privately been signaling to developers and other outside parties that it is on the cusp of releasing technology with significantly more advanced reasoning capabilities, according to four people who have heard the company’s pitches. They declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak about private matters.
Strawberry includes a specialized way of what is known as post-training OpenAI’s generative AI models, or adapting the base models to hone their performance in specific ways after they have already been trained on reams of generalized data, one of the sources said.
The post-training phase of developing a model involves methods like fine-tuning, a process used on nearly all language models today that comes in many flavors, such as having humans give feedback to the model based on its responses and feeding it examples of good and bad answers.
Strawberry has similarities to a method developed at Stanford in 2022 called “Self-Taught Reasoner or STaR, one of the sources with knowledge of the matter said. STaR enables AI models to bootstrape hemselves into higher intelligence levels via iteratively creating their own training data, and in theory could be used to get language models to transcend human-level intelligence, one of its creators, Stanford professor Noah Goodman, told Reuters
I think that is both exciting and terrifying things keep going in that direction we have some serious things to think about as humans, Goodman said. Goodman is not affiliated with OpenAI and is not familiar with Strawberry.
Among the capabilities OpenAI is aiming Strawberry at is performing long-horizon tasks (LHT), the document says, referring to complex tasks that require a model to plan ahead and perform a series of actions over an extended period of time, the first source explained.
To do so, OpenAI is creating, training and evaluating the models on what the company calls a deep-research dataset, according to the OpenAI internal documentation. Reuters was unable to determine what is in that dataset or how long an extended period would mean.
OpenAI specifically wants its models to use these capabilities to conduct research by browsing the web autonomously with the assistance of a CUA,or a computer-using agent, that can take actions based on its findings, according to the document and one of the sources. OpenAI also plans to test its capabilities on doing the work of software and machine learning engineers.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nothing has focused on design philosophy as it strides to add zing to the otherwise boring or similar looking product categories, including smartphones. From semi-transparent design on smartphones to judicious use of colour accents to highlight design elements on earbuds, the young consumer technology brand has come a long way since its inception in 2022. The legacy continues with its next wave of products under the CMF sub-brand. Case in point is the CMF Phone 1.
The CMF Phone 1 offers extensive customisation options on the design front. With interchangeable back panels and attachable accessories, the smartphone provides users with the flexibility to choose their preferred fit and finish. But is the style matched with substance? Let us find out:
Design and customisation
Like every Nothing device I have reviewed, design is a key component for the CMF Phone 1. This time, with an opaque back panel, the smartphone presents a more subtle look compared to Nothing-branded smartphones like the Phone 2a. The CMF Phone 1 stands out with a unique mechanical design, featuring four exposed screws around the edges of the back panel, a rotatable and removable dial/wheel, and a dual-camera setup on a pill-shaped elevated bump in the top left corner.
These design elements aren’t just for aesthetics—they offer a range of customisation options, including attachable back panels in various colours and textures, accessories like an attachable pouch, phone stand, and lanyard cable. The review model came in black with a matte texture that looked and felt durable. However, I quickly swapped it for the dark blue back panel with a vegan leather texture, which came with colour-coordinated SIM tray, screws, and wheel. Despite this, I opted to use the black screws and wheel to attach the new back plate, giving the phone a distinctive and contrasting look. This level of customisation and personalisation is what makes the CMF Phone 1 unique. The accessories and back panels, which you purchase separately, come with a unique miniature screwdriver, making the entire process more engaging.
Among the accessories, I found the stand, which connects to the smartphone using the wheel, to be the most useful. The pouch, on the other hand, makes the smartphone too thick to carry in pockets and does not feel very secure due to its flimsy lid. The build quality of the lanyard cable and the metal connector, which attaches to the smartphone using a colour-coordinated wheel, is impressive. However, carrying the smartphone with a lanyard is a matter of personal preference.
A few points worth mentioning: the accessories are only available in the orange colour associated with the CMF brand. Additionally, I noticed that the plastic section around the screw holders on the back cover can get easily dented when using the screwdriver while swapping the back panel.
Overall, the CMF Phone 1 feels durable and solid despite its all-plastic outer shell. The textured back panel and matte plastic frame design add extra grip for extended use, even with wet hands. However, the smartphone is on the heavier side, and the thick bezels surrounding the display slightly detract from its aesthetics.
CMF Phone 1 (front and back)
Display
The CMF Phone 1 sports a flat display atop a thin plastic enclosure that connects it to the side frame. The 6.67-inch AMOLED display is sufficiently large and offers decent picture quality overall. The panel produces clear and crisp visuals but lacks vibrancy, likely due to the slightly warmer tone of the display, which affects overall colour richness. Nonetheless, the display is adequate for regular tasks, social media, and watching movies. It is also bright enough for outdoor use, offering clear visuals even in midday sunlight from all angles. The 120Hz refresh rate capability enhances the experience, making it smoother and more fluid.
For media consumption, Nothing has added support for HDR10+, making it easier to differentiate between colours. Additionally, the company has included an HDR display mode that increases peak brightness for HDR content. This feature works well with third-party apps like YouTube as well.
Camera
The CMF Phone 1 sports a 50-megapixel primary sensor aided by a 2MP depth sensor. The rear camera performance is decent for its price point. Daylight shots are clear – the sensor captures details in the foreground as effectively as the subject. At night or in low light, the sensor maintains colour accuracy but compromises on detail, resulting in some softened areas in the images.
In portrait shots, the edge detection is impressive for a budget smartphone. However, under artificial lighting, it increases brightness and softens facial details to compensate for the sensor’s limitations. Additionally, portrait shots exhibit a slightly warmer tone compared to standard images.
The front-facing 16MP camera offers decent selfies in daylight but struggles to maintain consistency in low light, resulting in grainy and lacklustre pictures.
The smartphone impresses with its videography capabilities. The smartphone allows recording 4K videos at 30 frames per second and at 1080p quality at up to 60fps. It also gets the HDR recording option but is limited to 1080p resolution recording at 30fps. The front camera can record up to 60fps at 1080p and also gets the HDR recording option. The overall picture quality is similar to the camera’s imaging capability, however, I noticed that the microphone picked up a lot of noise while recording.
Performance and software
Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G chipset, which is not typically found in smartphones under the Rs 20,000 mark, the CMF Phone 1 offers solid performance for its price. Web surfing, casual gaming, and social media scrolling are all a breeze on this smartphone. It also performs well during multitasking and while playing graphic-intensive games like Real Racing 3. The smartphone comes with up to 8GB RAM, and Nothing has included its RAM Booster technology, which provides an additional 8GB RAM, improving performance during intensive tasks. Additionally, Nothing has effectively managed the thermals, ensuring the smartphone never gets uncomfortably hot.
On the software front, it is impressive that Nothing has not used a stripped-down version of NothingOS on the CMF Phone 1. Instead, the smartphone features the same clean and bloatware-free user interface as higher-end Nothing smartphones. Like the Phone 2a, the CMF Phone 1 offers users a choice between the standard Android interface and Nothing’s custom UI, NothingOS 2.5, both free of unnecessary bloatware and distractions.
What stands out about NothingOS is its innovative approach to home screen organisation. It allows users to place quick setting widgets on the home screen for managing specific settings. Furthermore, the UI enables users to group similar apps into customizable drawers on the home screen, each with its own distinct icon for easy identification.
Battery
The CMF Phone 1 is powered by a 5,000mAh battery that offers impressive battery life. You can confidently rely on the CMF Phone 1 to last throughout the day with enough charge remaining for another half day. The smartphone supports 33W fast charging but does not include a charger in the box. I tested it with the 33W CMF by Nothing charger, sold separately, and it managed to charge up to 55 per cent in 15 minutes.
Verdict
The CMF Phone 1 is a unique smartphone offering extensive design customisation options, allowing users to mix and match for a personalised look. Nothing has achieved this without compromising on the basics. The smartphone delivers adequate performance, solid battery life, and social media-friendly imaging capabilities, all bundled into a value-for-money package.
Priced at Rs 15,999 onwards, the CMF Phone 1 is an excellent choice for those seeking a budget smartphone with a clean UI and solid performance. While the display could have been better, the smartphone remains a very capable budget option.
4 min read Last Updated : Jul 15 2024 | 2:28 PM IST
Google is set to unveil the Pixel 9 series smartphones at the “Made by Google” event scheduled for August 13. While the company has not revealed any details of the smartphones, prices of the upcoming Pixel 9 devices have reportedly surfaced on the web. According to a report by GSMArena, the series will consist of four models: Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, with the standard model priced at 899 euros for the 128GB storage variant in Europe.
Pixel 9 Series: What to expect
Unlike the past few years, Google might introduce more than two smartphones in the Pixel 9 series this year. Alongside the standard Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro, the series could be joined by the Pixel 9 Pro XL and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold phone. According to news reports, the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro are likely to have displays of the same size, but the XL model will feature a larger screen. Google is also expected to incorporate the Pixel Fold book-style foldable smartphone into the flagship number series, rebranding it as the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
The Pixel 9 series smartphones are anticipated to bring a major design overhaul. Suggested by the preview shown by Google in a teaser video, the Pixel 9 will likely feature a flat frame design and a floating island-style camera module, which will be disconnected from the frame, unlike the camera visor design on the Pixel 8 series.
The Google Pixel 9 series is also expected to introduce three new Pixel smartphone exclusive AI features, including an “Add Me” feature, which is likely a more polished version of the Best Take feature. The smartphones will also receive a new “Studio” app or service, which could be an all-in-one AI image generator and editor, similar to Apple’s recently announced Image Playground. However, the highlight feature is expected to be the new “Pixel Screenshots” feature. This feature is said to offer Microsoft’s Recall-like concise timeline but will include only the screenshots the user takes and permits the feature to use.
The standard Pixel 9 smartphone will reportedly be available in four colours: Obsidian (Black), Porcelain (White), Cosmo (Pink), and Mojito (Green). According to the report, the 128GB storage variant will be priced at 899 euros, while the 256GB variant will be priced at 999 euros in the European market.
Pixel 9 Pro
The Pro model of the Pixel 9 smartphone, which is expected to be of the same size as the standard model, will likely be priced at 1,099 euros for 128GB storage, 1,199 euros for 256GB storage, and 1,329 euros for the 512GB on-board storage variant. However, the smartphone is expected to be offered in two colours only: Obsidian (Black) and Hazel.
Pixel 9 Pro XL
The Pixel 9 Pro XL, which is expected to be the larger screen-sized model of the Pixel 9 Pro, will likely be priced at 1,199 euros for 128GB storage, 1,299 euros for 256GB, 1,429 euros for 512GB, and 1,689 euros for 1TB.
The 1TB version of the Pixel 9 Pro XL is expected to be available in Obsidian colour only. The 128GB and 512GB storage variants are expected to include Porcelain and Hazel colour options along with Obsidian. The 256GB storage variant is expected to add the pink Cosmo colour option as well.
Pixel 9 Pro Fold
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which is said to be the successor of the Pixel Fold book-style foldable smartphone, is expected to come in two storage variants only: 256GB and 512GB, priced at 1,899 euros and 2,029 euros respectively. Additionally, the smartphone is expected to be available in Obsidian and Porcelain colours.
