Google’s Circle to Search, initially available with the Samsung Galaxy S24 series, would likely be available across Android devices from later this year. In a press note highlighting the success of the Galaxy S24 series in the Netherlands, Samsung stated that the Google powered feature’s exclusivity for Galaxy and Pixel devices ends in September.
Samsung said that the Galaxy S24 series smartphones are among the first to feature Circle to Search by Google. The company added that the feature “will only be available on Samsung and Google devices until September of this year,” indicating the exclusivity of the feature to Samsung and Google devices until September. However, it could also be a hint that the feature could roll out for Android smartphones from other brands once the said period ends.
Google in its first feature drop of 2024 rolled out the Circle to Search feature for the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. The American software giant has not commented about the availability of this feature on other Android devices. However, it is expected that the feature would be available to more users by the end of this year. The feature will most likely come to older generations of Pixel devices and other smartphones from Samsung’s S-series and Z-series, before being available to smartphones from other brands.
For the uninitiated, the Circle to Search feature allows users to make a quick Google Lens search by using circle, highlight, or tap gesture on any visible item or object on the display. For activating the feature, users either need to long press the home button (button navigation) or swipe inwards from bottom corners (gesture navigation).
Samsung, the South Korean smartphone manufacturer, stands as one of the initial collaborators with Google in adopting the Android platform. A close partnership with the software giant has enabled both entities to bring advanced technological offerings to consumers. In their recent venture, the collaboration focuses on elevating the smartphone experience through the integration of artificial intelligence, exemplified by the Galaxy S24 series, particularly the flagship Galaxy S24 Ultra. This high-end smartphone not only showcases cutting-edge specifications but, crucially, a comprehensive suite of AI features operating both covertly and prominently. But to what end? Let us find out:
Design
The Galaxy S24 Ultra, while retaining the form factor of its predecessor, introduces a new titanium frame and a flat display. The titanium frame contributes to the device’s durability, while Samsung enhances overall ergonomics, making the phone more user-friendly. The flat top and bottom sides, coupled with subtle curvature on the left and right, improve the in-hand feel despite the device’s substantial size, weight, and bulk. The package is completed with industry-leading Gorilla Glass protection for both the display and rear panel, along with an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.
Display and Audio
A notable design evolution on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the display, maintaining a 6.8-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2x panel that is brighter and devoid of curvature on the left and right sides. The flat display, framed by thin, symmetrical bezels, receives added protection from Gorilla Glass Armor, boasting enhanced resistance to scratches and wear. The glass’s ability to reduce reflections by up to 75 per cent enhances visual clarity, ensuring sharpness and consistent colours and contrast across various usage environments. The responsive display is optimised for a seamless experience without compromising power efficiency, offering HDR and HDR10+ support for high dynamic range content.
Complementing the impressive display are the stereo speakers, characterised by their loud, clear, and balanced output. Notably, Samsung integrates Dolby Atmos for object-based spatial audio, enhancing the auditory experience, particularly when using supported wireless audio accessories like the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.
Camera
The Galaxy S24 Ultra features a quad-camera setup on the rear, comprising a 200-megapixel main sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide-angle sensor, a 10MP 3x telephoto with OIS, and a new 50MP 5x telephoto with OIS. On the front, a 12MP camera sensor is employed. The camera system upholds the S-series legacy, showcasing versatility in performance across different lighting conditions, modes, and focal lengths.
In various lighting conditions, the main camera consistently delivers detailed, high-contrast results with a broad dynamic range. The ultra-wide-angle sensor performs well, although its low-light capabilities are not as potent as the main sensor. Notably, both sensors exhibit colour symmetry. The ultra-wide-angle sensor, equipped with autofocus, also serves as a macro sensor for close-up shots. While competent, the macro photography capability is slightly limited compared to competitors that utilise telephoto sensors for close-up shots, eliminating the need for close proximity to the subject.
The telephoto lenses, operating at 3x and 5x optical zoom levels, prove advantageous for portraits. However, reducing the maximum optical zoom from 10x in the predecessor to 5x alters Samsung’s traditional focus on distant zooming capabilities. While the camera system can reach up to 100x, video quality at peak zoom suffers due to the shorter focal length of the secondary 5x optical zoom.
Video capabilities include recording up to 4K at 60fps from all available sensors, with smooth transitions between sensors during recording. The addition of 4K at 120fps in slow-motion recording is a welcome enhancement.
The user-friendly camera interface further enhances the imaging experience, facilitating easy navigation for both novice and experienced users.
Software
The Galaxy S24 Ultra introduces a new era of mobile AI, named Galaxy AI by Samsung, deeply integrated into the operating system to offer a unique user experience. AI-powered features span communication, imaging, and productivity aspects of the smartphone.
Communication-related AI features include a live translate feature for voice calls, supporting Hindi language in real-time. Part of the Call Assist, this feature provides instant voice translation for both participants, complemented by a Text Call option for typed text narration during calls. An interpreter feature facilitates real-time translation for in-person conversations, displayed in a split-screen view for individuals facing each other.
While promising, these communication-related AI features exhibit imperfections, notably in the translation accuracy of live translate, causing disruptions for callers on both ends. The real-time, two-way nature of translation also challenges contextual comprehension.
Text translation within the Chat Assist feature, integrated into the Samsung keyboard, is more effective. Chat Assist not only translates text across apps but also includes a built-in tool for spelling and grammar checks, along with options to modify the tone of text using various writing styles.
AI extends to the imaging experience with generative AI incorporated into the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The photos app introduces a new editor featuring generative edit capabilities, allowing users to adjust image angles, fill empty spaces, move and resize objects, and change backgrounds using GenAI. Generative edits, while neat, may not always appear entirely natural. In videos, AI interpolates frames to create slow-motion effects, even if the video is not originally recorded in slow-motion.
Additional imaging features include Remaster, enhancing image quality through improved colors, contrast, and dynamic range; Background Blur, offering various bokeh effects; and Reflections Eraser, allowing removal of reflections from images.
The Circle to Search feature, powered by Google, enables users to initiate searches through circular, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping gestures on the display, eliminating the need for screenshots.
Productivity apps, such as Samsung Notes, Voice Recorder, and Samsung Internet, benefit from AI integration. In the Notes app, AI automates formatting, summarisation, and translation of notes, along with spelling checks. Voice Recorder incorporates AI for text transcripts, summaries, and translation options. The Samsung Internet browser utilises AI to generate summaries based on webpage text.
Beyond AI features, the Galaxy S24 Ultra introduces numerous enhancements with the Android 14-based OneUI 6 interface. The redesigned Quick Setting, expanded Quick Share compatibility with devices outside the Samsung ecosystem, and updated lock screen with AI wallpapers, widgets, and customisable colour schemes contribute to an enriched user experience. It is worth mentioning, Samsung has promised seven years of OS and security update for the Galaxy S24 series.
Performance
Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 system-on-chip, paired with 12GB of RAM, the Galaxy S24 Ultra stands as a performance powerhouse. Consistent performance is maintained even under prolonged use, with the device exhibiting resilience to graphic and power-intensive workloads without slowdowns or discomfort due to overheating. While the phone may warm up, it avoids reaching temperatures that impede performance or user comfort.
Battery
The Galaxy S24 Ultra delivers over a day of on-battery time on a full charge, placing it among the top performers in its category. Charging with the supported 45W wired charger is rapid, although not the fastest available in the smartphone market.
Verdict
Priced from Rs 129,999 onwards, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra emerges as a comprehensive premium flagship smartphone, distinguished by an array of AI features that redefine the user experience. Notably, it stands as the sole smartphone in its segment to feature a digital stylus (SPen) and a built-in computing platform (DeX). On that note, the Galaxy S24 Ultra surpasses its predecessors in the Android category, establishing itself as a category leader and outshining the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max on several key parameters.
Satya Nadella marks his tenth year as Microsoft CEO on Sunday, capping a decade of stunning growth as he pivoted the slow-moving software giant into a laser focus on cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
Microsoft’s stock has soared by more than 1,000% since Nadella took the helm in 2014, compared to the more gradual 185% growth of the broader S&P 500. Microsoft now has a market value of $3 trillion more than any U.S. publicly traded company, including its longtime rival Apple.
“Nadella’s had the biggest transformation of a tech company potentially ever,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. The only one that would rival it was (Steve) Jobs coming back to Apple and turning it around with the iPhone.
Microsoft has created $2.8 trillion in shareholder wealth in the past decade, meaning an investor who bought a $10,000 stake in Microsoft at the time Nadella took over and did nothing with those shares, would have a stake worth about $113,000 now.
Our industry does not respect tradition it only respects innovation, Nadella told employees in an inaugural memo 10 years ago, an opening salvo that hinted at bigger shifts to come. Microsoft declined requests for an interview.
Now a hero to Wall Street, some were at first skeptical that such transformation could come from an insider who’d already spent 22 years at the Redmond, Washington company. He’s only the third Microsoft CEO, following Steve Ballmer, who lasted for 14 years, and Bill Gates, who co-founded the company in 1975 and took it public in 1986.
Big changes came quickly under Nadella. He marshaled resources to build up the Azure cloud computing platform, a shift in priorities from the company’s longtime reliance on its flagship Windows operating system and the royalties it gets for each PC sold with it. And he largely put the brakes on Microsoft’s ill-fated attempts to play catch-up in the smartphone market, marked by his predecessor Ballmer’s $7.3 billion acquisition of Nokia’s phone business.
But some of the biggest changes were in the company’s culture, a shift away from Microsoft’s brash external reputation and internal bickering to a more collaborative approach that Nadella has modeled in his own collegial personality and engineer’s mindset.
Microsoft is known for rallying the troops with competitive fire,” Nadella said in his 2017 autobiography. “The press loves that, but it’s not me.
Much of Nadella’s strength is how he stands out from the typical very strong ego CEO,” said Raimo Lenschow, a stock analyst at Barclays who covers 36 tech companies. Instead of making bold pronouncements, Lenschow said Nadella takes a more measured approach to explaining where he thinks the future is going.”
And “whether it’s the person making food in the cafeteria, an engineer, finance executive, a customer, he treats everyone in the same way, with respect, said Ives. It’s not just Wall Street analysts who think so.
A tiny startup from Zeeland, Michigan, running a booth at January’s CES gadget show in Las Vegas caught a glimpse of Nadella’s curiosity when he showed up, shook founder Tim Murphy’s hand and asked for a demo. The product, Audio Radar, visualizes the sounds in video games for deaf and hard of hearing players.
He’s very down to earth, said Murphy, who was there with a small crew including his teen son. I gave him the pitch, played some games, and he was like, It’s wonderful what you’re doing.’ Honestly, I can’t really remember too much of what he said because I was just kind of shocked.
Nadella has long made the accessibility of technology a priority, informed in part by his experience raising a son who was visually impaired, quadriplegic and had cerebral palsy. Zain Nadella died in 2022.
What’s brought Microsoft to its latest heights is its emergence as an artificial intelligence leader, setting the agenda on how AI tools could get used in work and society. While Nadella has been emphasizing AI for most of his tenure, its role was not guaranteed and happened after years of careful planning that led to a close partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. (OpenAI pays The Associated Press an undisclosed fee to license its archive of news stories).
Historically, if you’re a cool startup that was doing something amazing, Microsoft wasn’t really your first choice, Lenschow said. So the fact that he got OpenAI to commit to Azure was an amazing masterstroke … it gives him a massive, competitive advantage over Google and Amazon.”
That position was put in jeopardy late last year when OpenAI’s board of directors suddenly fired CEO Sam Altman. A weekend of behind-the-scenes maneuvers and a threatened mass exodus of employees championed by Nadella helped bring back Altman and stabilize the startup, assuaging clients and shareholders. He handled that like he was in the World Series of Poker playing against little kids, Ives said.
Nadella’s tenure hasn’t been without hiccups, especially given how much of the world relies so heavily on Microsoft products sometimes to the frustration of people using them.
Cybersecurity experts say its tendency is to sacrifice security for convenience, including in its gung-ho rollout of AI large language models. The company’s trademark suite of work tools, Microsoft Office 365, has also been penetrated successfully in recent years in embarrassing high-profile compromises that have seen elite Russian and Chinese cyber operators access the email accounts of senior U.S. officials and members of Microsoft’s senior leadership team.
It stepped in to provide cloud hosting to Ukraine just ahead of Russia’s 2022 invasion, but the networks serving NATO allies are constantly peppered by intrusion attempts. That, and the worsening ransomware scourge, have led Nadella to call for a cyber Geneva Convention with Russia and China.
And despite Nadella’s stated aversion to competitive fire, Microsoft is once again drawing the kind of antitrust scrutiny that dogged Gates and Ballmer in earlier years. Nadella’s confident testimony at a federal court hearing last summer helped persuade a judge not to block Microsoft’s purchase of video game giant Activision Blizzard, but the company is now facing another round of questions on its partnership with OpenAI.
None of those challenges are likely to push Nadella, 56, who made $48.5 million in total compensation last year and has also chaired Microsoft’s board since 2021, out of his leadership roles anytime soon.
From everything I can gather, he’s really enjoying himself, Lenschow said. We’re in very, very, very interesting times. I would expect him to stay for a while.
A new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to turn old assumptions about technology on their head.
For years, people working in warehouses or fast food restaurants worried that automation could eliminate their jobs. But new research suggests that generative AI — the kind used in chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT — will have its biggest impact on white-collar workers with high-paying jobs in industries like banking and tech.
A report published on Thursday by the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit research center, and SHRM, formerly the Society for Human Resource Management, stops short of saying the technology will do away with large numbers of jobs. But it makes clear that workers need to better prepare for a future in which AI could play a significant role in many workplaces that until now have been largely untouched by technological disruption. For people in tech, it means they may be building their AI replacements. “There’s no question the workers who will be impacted most are those with college degrees, and those are the people who always thought they were safe,” said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute.
For hundreds of corporations, the researchers estimated the share of payroll spending that goes to workers employed in the 200 occupations most likely to be affected by generative AI Many of those jobs are held by affluent college graduates, including business analysts, marketing managers, software developers, database administrators, project managers and lawyers.
Companies in finance, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, have some of the highest percentages of their payrolls likely to be disrupted by generative AI. Not far behind are tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta.
Getting AI to do human work could result in big savings for those companies. The research estimates that banks and some tech companies spend 60 to 80 percent of their payrolls, or more, on workers in occupations most likely to be affected by the new technology.
The retail, restaurant and transportation industries are least likely to be affected by generative AI, the report found. Companies like Walmart, McDonald’s and Delta Air Lines mostly employ workers without college degrees who perform roles like helping customers, stocking shelves, cooking food and handling baggage. They spend less than 20 percent of their payrolls on employees in occupations most likely to be affected by generative AI.
The report doesn’t predict potential job losses related to generative AI. That will be up to employers, the report said, and whether they want to bank the savings from AI automation or use that money to invest and grow, adding more workers. Most experts expect that AI will mostly change jobs for the next few years rather than eliminate them — though that could change if the technology improves sharply.
The report highlights the need for increased training to prepare workers to adapt to a fast-arriving technology, said Johnny C Taylor Jr, chief executive of SHRM. “Corporations and governments are going to have to seriously invest to get ahead of this,” he said.
The report is the latest entry in a growing field of work trying to predict the effect of generative AI on the economy and the workplace. Other studies have forecast a surge in economic growth and productivity, automating activities that add up to the equivalent of millions of jobs, and time savings of up to 50 percent for routine office and coding tasks.
Finnish mobile phone maker and Nokia’s official brand licensee HMD Global on February 2 announced that it will move forward with a new multi-brand strategy where it would produce devices under a new HMD Originals brand name alongside Nokia.
HMD Global in a press note said that they will continue producing new Nokia phones alongside the new line of devices, rejecting the reports that suggested that the company is discontinuing the Nokia brand after HMD started updating their channels from “Nokia Mobile” to “HMD”.
“True to our values, HMD will continue to design more sustainable and affordable phones – our repairability, sustainability and digital detox products are landing incredibly well amongst consumer and business audiences alike and we are excited to build on that momentum with the new HMD brand,” HMD Global said in a press note.
Regarding this new development, Vice President, HMD Global India and APAC, Ravi Kunwar said, “Today is a big day for HMD as we move from being a brand licensee to a brand owner, a big step in our journey! This means you will get to see unique HMD originals, the Nokia phones that you’ve always loved, and some super exciting partnerships that we can’t wait to reveal. We’re excited about the opportunities this presents, and I invite you all to stay tuned for the unfolding chapters.”
HMD Global has not provided any information regarding upcoming products under the HMD Originals brand name, however it is likely that Foxconn, on whom HMD Global has relied for making smartphones under Nokia brand name will continue manufacturing devices for the company under the new brand as well.
London-based consumer technology start-up Nothing has confirmed Phone (2a) name for its upcoming smartphone. The company announced the name at its quarterly community update round. Besides, the brand announced that it is launching Glyph Developer Kit, which would allow Android developers to give their apps the ability to control the Glyph Interface. Alongside, the brand confirmed the launch of Buds and Neckband Pro wireless audio accessories under its affordable CMF branding.
“Phone (2a) has been engineered with a focus on providing the optimal daily smartphone experience, doubling down on core user needs, with all of Nothing’s expertise and craftsmanship. Phone (2a), codenamed Aerodactyl, leverages some of the most loved Phone (2) features, while ensuring a clear upgrade compared to Phone (1) on every front,” said Nothing in a press note.
The company has not announced the launch date or revealed specifications about the upcoming smartphone. However, according to media reports, Nothing is planning to unveil the Phone (2a) at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, US, in February 2024.
Earlier, a report by mobile comparison website Smartprix claimed that the upcoming Nothing Phone (2a) would feature a dual-camera set up on the back in a horizontal orientation. The smartphone would likely feature a 50MP Samsung S5KGN9 1/1.5-inch main sensor alongside a 50MP Samsung S5KJN1 1/2.76-inch ultra-wide-angle sensor. Both these sensors have previously featured on the Nothing Phone (1) and the Nothing Phone (2). On the front camera, the Nothing Phone(2a) is expected to get a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor.
