Samsung’s first big tech event of 2023 unveiled three phones and three laptops. The showstoppers are, predictably, the company’s premium flagships, the Galaxy S series. The S23 Ultra ($1,199) has a huge 6.8-inch, an S-pen stylus and a 200-megapixel camera. That’s a lot of pixels.
It’s the company’s first Adaptive Pixel sensor, which means while you can still shoot at 200MP, by default, the system uses pixel-binning to deliver brighter, clearer pictures at 50MP or 12MP. Other upgrades include optical image stabilization that’s been effectively doubled for better-lit photos and less shaky video.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S23 (starting at $800) and S23+ ($1,000) are slightly more iterative but still premium smartphones. They pack reliable cameras and faster processors – the entire S23 series has a special overclocked version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. All the phones are available to pre-order now.
Samsung also revealed an ultra laptop. The 16-inch Galaxy Book 3 Ultra draws inspiration from the company’s best-selling Galaxy S phones, but combines it with heavy-hitting PC specs, like 13th-gen Intel Core i9 processors and NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4070 graphics.
– Mat Smith
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At least it’s inadvertently entertaining.
Nothing Forever
What if AI made never-ending Seinfeld? “Nothing, Forever” uses OpenAI’s GPT-3 natural language model to produce (occasionally coherent) dialog between pixelated characters Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. One creator posted to Reddit: “Aside from the artwork and the laugh track you’ll hear, everything else is generative, including dialogue, speech, direction (camera cuts, character focus, shot length, scene length, etc.), character movement, and music.” The stream has little human involvement and changes based on viewer feedback from the Twitch stream.
If you own a PS5, claim the games before then.
Since September 2020, Sony’s PlayStation Plus Collection has offered a bunch of PS4 greatest hits to PlayStation 5 owners with an active PS Plus membership. It included God of War, The Last of Us Remastered, Resident Evil 7 and more. Alas, come May 9th, Sony is shuttering the PlayStation Plus Collection, saying it plans to focus on bringing more games to its various tiers of PS Plus. Make sure you download any of the 19 titles now, while they’re still there.
The social network is still growing.
Almost 20 years in, Facebook is still growing. Meta reported alongside its fourth-quarter earnings it has now reached two billion daily users. While Facebook isn’t the first Meta-owned platform to reach that number – WhatsApp recently crossed two billion DAUs – it does show the company’s biggest source of ad revenue is still growing. During a call with analysts, Zuckerberg suggested Meta will continue to make cuts as it prioritizes efficiency. “We’re going to be more proactive about cutting projects that aren’t performing or may no longer be as crucial,” he said. The CEO also said generative AI would be a priority for Meta in the year ahead. He added: “One of my goals for Meta is to build on our research to become a leader in generative AI.”
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