Author: News Room
A couple of days ago, I wrote a news story about how smartphone prices could soar across segments, and now, we’re seeing the theory in action, starting with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra. The handset’s base variant costs more than its predecessor, and neither Samsung nor Apple is entirely immune either. Here me out and pay attention. Last year, the Chinese manufacturer launched the Xiaomi 15 Ultra at CNY 6,499 for the baseline variant with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The variant with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage was priced at CNY 6,999. Xiaomi’s pricing tells an…
A smartwatch is one of the most meaningful devices you can add to your daily routine, and they make for a fantastic gift option for the Holiday season, as well. And in the realm of wearables, there’s hardly a product that is as refined as the Apple Watch. Apple’s smartwatch is loaded to the brim with advanced health-centric and communication features, and stories about how it saved a person’s life regularly appear on the internet. But there’s a lot that these smartwatches can pull off than just keeping an eye on your heart rate, sleep tracking, and interacting with notifications. …
If you’re shopping for a lightweight “daily driver” laptop and you don’t want to spend midrange money, Best Buy has the ASUS Vivobook 14 (Copilot+ PC) down to $349.99. That’s $400 off (about 53%) for a modern Windows laptop with Snapdragon X, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD, which is a lot of hardware for this price tier. What you’re getting This model pairs a 14-inch display with a taller 1920 x 1200 (WUXGA) resolution in an IPS panel with 300 nits brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate. On the portability side, the product specs call out 3.28 lb weight…
If you’ve been holding out for a truly affordable big-screen upgrade, this is the kind of TV deal that actually moves the needle. The Westinghouse 58-inch Smart 4K Xumo TV is down to $199.99, which means you’re saving $100 on a screen size that normally pushes you closer to the mid-$300 range. For a living room, guest room, basement, or first apartment setup, 58 inches hits a sweet spot: it feels noticeably larger than a 50-inch TV, but it doesn’t demand premium pricing. What you’re getting You’re getting a 58-inch 4K (2160p) LED TV with an “edgeless” flat-panel design that…
Zack Nelson’s Christmas gift to his 9.7 million YouTube subscribers was a durability test of Samsung’s TriFold smartphone. “Every so often there’s a piece of technology that lands on my desk that almost makes me feel bad for what’s about to happen … almost,” the guy behind JerryRigEverything says at the start of the test, leaving you with a strong feeling that it will not end well for Samsung’s first-ever phone with not one but two hinges. Anyone who’s already witnessed one of Nelson’s durability tests knows that it involves lots of scratching and plenty of scraping. Phones will also…
So you’ve got an iPhone for Christmas? Welcome! Having bounced between Android handsets for a decade, I returned to iOS with the iPhone 14 Pro in 2022, after my Samsung Galaxy S10e was an accidental passenger when I dived into a pool on holiday. I haven’t looked back since, other than to be more vigilant about checking pockets of swimming shorts. I’ve picked up some useful iPhone knowledge along the way. Here are some helpful pointers to get your started. 1. Bring your digital life with you When you upgrade from an iPhone to another iPhone, Apple makes it all…
For a while, it looked like Apple’s iPhone Air 2 was headed for a long delay. Earlier reports suggested the second-generation model had fallen off Apple’s near-term roadmap entirely. Whereas some sources claimed it would not arrive until 2027. Those reports painted the iPhone Air as a struggling experiment, citing poor sales of the first model and Apple’s decision to rethink both the design and the timing before committing to a follow up. That uncertainty is now being challenged by a fresh leak that suggests Apple may be sticking closer to its original plans (via 9to5Mac). According to leak by…
A new research suggests that the way artificial intelligence thinks about us might be a little too optimistic. Researchers have found that popular AI models, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, tend to assume people are more rational and logical than they really are, especially in strategic thinking situations. That gap between how AI expects humans to behave and what people actually do could have implications for how these systems predict human decisions in economics and beyond. Testing AI against human thinking Researchers tested AI models including ChatGPT-4o and Claude-Sonnet-4 in a classic game theory setup called the Keynesian beauty…
Google is finally testing a new feature that lets users change the username of their Gmail address. As mentioned in the recently updated support documentation, Google has begun rolling out an experimental feature that allows users to modify the first part of their email address, i.e., the one that comes before “@gmail.com.” The rollout has started quietly (there’s no official blog post or update), with India as the company’s first test market. Early sightings suggest that the feature is based on the Google account settings rather than Gmail. Finally, a fix for your embarrassing Gmail address While the experimental feature…
Samsung is betting that even your calendar deserves a dose of artificial intelligence. With One UI 8.5, Samsung is making the Calendar app (version 12.7.05.36) feel more dynamic and context-aware. The most eye-catching change is the addition of AI-generated visuals to the Calendar widget, a move that suggests the company thinks visual context matters even for everyday scheduling. The idea is simple but a little unusual. Samsung is introducing AI-generated background images for the Countdown widget in Calendar, where the visuals are created based on the title of an upcoming event. Instead of a plain card counting down the days,…