Apple will reportedly focus its first round of generative AI enhancements on beefing up Siri’s conversational chops. Sources speaking withThe New York Times say company executives realized early last year that ChatGPT made Siri look antiquated. The company allegedly decided that the large language model (LLM) principles behind OpenAI’s chatbot could give the iPhone’s virtual assistant a much-needed shot in the arm. So Apple will reportedly roll out a new version of Siri powered by generative AI at its WWDC keynote on June 10.
Apple Senior Vice Presidents Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea reportedly tested ChatGPT for weeks before the company realized that Siri looked outdated. (I would argue that the epiphany came about a decade late.) What followed was what The NYT describes as Apple’s “most significant reorganization in more than a decade.”
The company sees generative AI as a once-in-a-decade tentpole area worth shifting heaps of resources to address. You may recall the company canceled its $10 billion “Apple Car” project earlier this year. Apple reportedly reassigned many of those engineers to work on generative AI.
Apple executives allegedly fear AI models could eventually replace established software like iOS, turning the iPhone into “a dumb brick” by comparison. The clunky, awkward and overall unconvincing first wave of dedicated AI gadgets we’ve reviewed, like the Human AI Pin and Rabbit R1, aren’t good enough to pose a threat. But that could change as software evolves, other smartphone makers incorporate more AI into their operating systems and other hardware makers have a chance to innovate.
So, at least for now, it appears Apple isn’t launching direct competitors to generative AI stalwarts like ChatGPT (words), Midjourney (images) or ElevenLabs (voices). Instead, it will start with a new Siri and updated iPhone models with expanded memory to better handle local processing. In addition, the company will reportedly add a text-summarizing feature to the Messages app.
Apple’s M4 chip (shown next to VP John Ternus) could help process local Siri requests. (Apple)
Apple’s first foray into generative AI, if The NYT’s sources are correct, sounds like less of an immediate threat to creators than some had imagined. At its May iPad event, the company ran a video plugging the new iPad Pro that showed various creative tools crushed by a hydraulic press. The clip accidentally served as the perfect metaphor for the (legitimate) fears of artists, musicians and other creators, whose work AI models have trained on — and who stand to be replaced by those same tools as they become more normalized for content creation.
Samsung and Google have already loaded their flagship phones with various generative AI features that go far beyond improving their virtual assistants. These include tools for editing photos, generating text and enhancing transcription (among other things). These features typically rely on cloud-based servers for processing, whereas Apple’s approach will allegedly prioritize privacy and handle requests locally. So Apple will apparently start with a more streamlined approach that sticks to improving what’s already there, as well as keeping most or all processing on-device.
The New York Times’ sources add that Apple’s culture of internal secrecy and privacy-focused marketing have stunted its AI progress. Former Siri engineer John Burkey told the paper that the company’s tendency to silo off the information various divisions share with each other has been another primary culprit in Siri’s inability to evolve far past where the assistant was when it launched a day before Steve Jobs died in 2011.
I very much enjoyed the Obi-Wan Kenobi, and stuck it out with Star Wars: Ahsoka, when this highly anticipated Star Wars TV duo landed on Disney Plus. But, by the time the credits had rolled on the latter in mid-2023, I think I’ve had my fill of Jedi-led stories in Lucasfilm’s iconic galaxy far, far away.
Sure, seeing these series’ Force-wielding protagonists clash with their Sith counterparts and other overtly villainous folks – amid the crackle and buzz of lightsabers – is always highly enjoyable. But the bits in between – channelling the Force and so on – have become rather stale in my eyes. Blah blah “concentrate”, blah blah “use your feelings”… you get the idea.
Even in Disney Plus shows that initially don’t revolve around the Jedi, such as The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, still tread old ground and eventually lead to the telekinetic hot-glow-stick wielders showing their faces. While I was entertained by the Kill Bill-style battle between Ahsoka and Morgan Elsbeth at the end of The Mandalorian, other appearances from the Jedi have either been a tad underwhelming or overbaked. Yes, I know ‘Baby Yoda’ is cute and all, but seeing Grogu train with a digitally recreated Luke Skywalker in season 2 of The Mandalorian (one of the best Disney Plus shows, in many people’s eyes) wasn’t the dose of nostalgia and role-reversal I think Disney hoped it would be.
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s self-titled Disney Plus series wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. (Image credit: Lucasfilm/Disney Plus)
Andor, though, showed me and many other Star Wars fans that you can make a great Star Wars show without a single Jedi appearance. In fact, I’d argue that Andor is the most interesting piece of Star Wars content that Disney has done to date – something that TechRadar’s senior entertainment reporter Tom Power also claimed in his Andor season 1 review.
Yes, I know it was a slow-burn to begin with, but the series’ determination to explore how planets and societies operate under the yolk of the Empire is fascinating, as is peeking behind the curtain of how the Imperials maintained galactic control (beyond their legions of Stormtroopers) across the cosmos post-Star Wars Episode III. Andor’s morally gray characters with a strange mix of selfless and selfish motivations, including its so-called heroes in the titular renegade, Luther Rael, and even Galactic Senator Mon Mothma, made for far more interesting viewing than the stereotypical good and bad guys that we’ve come to expect from those on the Light and Dark, and the Republic and Empire, sides of the divide.
Andor gave me all of that, as well as a planet-hopping yarn, complete with tense action, cool ships, great costume design, and even discussions over the foundations of society and rebellion to fuel one’s mind with discourse. Throw in its multi-genre appeal – Andor is filled with sci-fi drama, political thriller, and espionage-based action – and here is one of the more recent new Star Wars shows and movies that feels creatively unique among its peers.
Andor‘s story isn’t over yet – we’re getting a second season, which is likely to air in 2025. (Image credit: Lucasfilm/Disney)
So I want to see Lucasfilm lean more into other parts of the lived-in Star Wars universe, especially projects that ask audiences to question what we know of it. Okay, Star Wars: The Acolyte (out on June 4), is yet another tale based around the Jedi, which contradicts the points I’ve made. But, considering it’s set during the High Republic era – the first time we’ll see this period in a live-action production – and it’ll be similarly amoral to Andor with how it positions the too-comfortable Jedi and their Sith underdogs, it should deliver something befitting the kind of show that I want to see from the Disney subsidiary.
But that’s all I’d like to see. Not only do I want more Andor (thankfully, Andor season 2 is on the way), but how about a series that goes deeper into exploring what life is like from an Imperial point of view – the Star Wars: Tie Fighter videogame did this, as did other recent gaming titles like Star Wars: Battlefront II and Star Wars: Squadrons. Disney has a vein to tap into there.
Star Wars: Ahsoka tried to give us something different from other Jedi-centric TV series, but didn’t quite stick the landing. (Image credit: Lucasfilm/Disney Plus)
Equally, I’d like to see a series that looks at Han Solo and Lando Calrissian. Okay, Solo: A Star Wars story already did this to some extent, but I feel there’s more to dig into there. Could something of this ilk happen in the apparently still-in-development Lando project, which may see Donald Glover play the roguish schemer once more? I live in hope.
Failing that: how about focusing on the adventures of explorers or traders adapting to the new Imperial rule, or ignoring it completely and pushing into the worlds on the far edges of the Outer Rim? We could bounce forward into the era of the recent Star Wars movies and examine how Benicio Del Toro’s DJ, the oddball slicer first and last seen in 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, came to be. Speaking of those movies, Finn was basically side lined after Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so I’d love for that wrong to be righted, and for us to get a look at how Finn became a Stormtrooper under the First Order. John Boyega, who played Finn in the sequel films, exclusively told TechRadar (in a chat with Tom Power) that he’s “open” to appearing in another Star Wars movie, so give him the tale that he deserves.
In summary: there’s a rich tapestry of untapped potential in the Star Wars franchise that Disney could explore without looking all doe-eyed at the Jedi – and I, for one, want them to actively lean into this more. Make it so, please.
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose”
Star Wars: The Acolyte is another Disney Plus series that’ll star the Jedi and the Sith. (Image credit: Lucasfilm/Disney Plus)
In a chat with fellow Managing Editor Matt Bolton, we brainstormed a few er… creative… Star Wars show ideas. Read on for our machinations:
How about Pod Racing: Drive to Survive, where we follow pod racers in their efforts to gain renown while staying alive.
Jawa Storage Wars could follow plucky Jawas in the bowels of a Sandcrawler as they try to trade all manner of items scraped and scrounged across Tatooine.
One Man and His Droid: a touching tale of a moisture farmer bonding with an errant astromech.
Keeping up with the Kashyyykians, a semi fly-on-the-wall docuseries following socialite Wookiees as they go about the high life on their homeworld of Kashyyyk, compete with jewel-encrusted bowcasters.
Similarly, The Real Housewives of Coruscant could explore the glitz and glamour of the spouses of high-ranking senators in the capital of the Republic/Empire, complete with high-drama and high-fashion inspiration from Padmé Amidala.
Below Deck: A Star Wars Documentary would be a reality show-meets-documentary following the life of select crew members of a Super Star Destroyer, where we see junior officer Bendak Willough-tee get in a steamy relationship with TIE pilot Courtnita Skipponch.
Deal or No Deal: Tatooine Edition sees new contestants try and get a good deal out of Jabba the Hutt – only those that fail to strike said deal get fed to a Rancor.
Cantina Nightmares where galactic chef Goron Rancorsey tries to save falling cantinas around the Outer Rim, all the while yelling “you’re serving f***king blue milk!”
Frozen Planet could feature Droidvid Clatteborough, renowned nature documentary presenter and protocol droid with dulcet tones, exploring life on Hoth while dodging predatory wampas.
There are some ideas for you there, Disney. Matt and I are happy to consult – just please cut the amount of Jedi shows and realize that not everything has to happen on Tatooine and/or feature those crowd-pleasing but overused Jedi, you hear?
Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang shows off the new Blackwell GPU chip (left) at an 18 March event in San Jose, California.Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty
The rapid advance of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked a global technological race to produce computer chips that power the models. A US ban on selling high-quality computer chips to China is stifling the country’s progress in key technologies, according to researchers both inside and outside the country.
The chips have become increasingly crucial to power the latest advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI). “Generative AI could change society,” says Yiran Chen, an electrical and computer engineer at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “If China is isolated, it’s not able to catch up.”
In the past few years, interest in AI has exploded as a result of progress in generative AI tools — large language models that can produce original text, video or audio content based on human-generated input. Such models underlie technology including OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT and Microsoft’s digital assistant Copilot.
The AI boom has also sparked a global race to produce increasingly powerful computer chips that can cope with the large data sets needed to train and execute models. Nvidia, one of the leading developers of such chips, based in Santa Clara, California, has seen its market value shoot past US$2 trillion for the first time last March. “The US is ahead of almost every single country because of companies like Nvidia and AMD,” says Ahmed Banafa, an engineer at San Jose State University in California.
Export controls imposed by the US Department of Commerce in October 2022, and subsequently tightened a year later, prohibited the sale of certain technologies to China, including chips that can operate above speeds of 300 teraflops, or 300 trillion operations per second. It also limited the sale of state-of-the art manufacturing equipment that could be used to produce such chips. The United States was acting because China “has poured resources into developing supercomputing capabilities and seeks to become a world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030. It is using these capabilities to monitor, track, and surveil their own citizens, and fuel its military modernization,” said a statement from the US government accompanying the export controls.
The ban has “dramatically limited” China’s progress with training AI models, says Chen.
“We cannot get high-end Nvidia chips in China and we cannot fabricate high-end chips,” says Yu Wang, an electronic engineer at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Supply stagnation
Many suppliers outside the Chinese mainland, such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in Hsinchu, which produces chips for Nvidia and other US developers, will not sell its most advanced chips to China to avoid falling foul of US sanctions. “For China, TSMC can only fabricate chips below the bar of the regulations”, meaning the 300-teraflop limit set by the Biden administration, says Wang. “So China can only do their own high computing-power chips inside China.”
China’s leading competitor to Nvidia, Huawei, has sought to develop its own AI chips, but Banafa says China is still “at least five to ten years” behind the United States, partly because it cannot get access to the most advanced equipment needed to produce such chips.
Generations of chip design are labelled according to nanometre ratings, with smaller numbers denoting more advanced chips. Nvidia’s latest chip — the GB200 Blackwell, intended to sell at $30,000–$40,000 per chip according to chief executive Jensen Huang — has gaps of just four nanometres, approaching the width of a strand of human DNA.
Nvidia and other US companies, such as Intel, along with Samsung in South Korea, are now transitioning to 3 nm technology and even pushing down towards 2 nm. “When you go down, you can add more transistors and more power,” says Banafa.
China’s best efforts, from Huawei, are still at around 7 nm, meaning that Chinese companies have to use more chips to achieve the same computing power as one advanced chip. “Until they have a technology breakthrough that will take them lower, they’re [playing] catch-up to the US,” says Banafa.
Other avenues
Jenny Xiao, a partner at the research-focused AI investment fund Leonis Capital in San Francisco, California, says a “black market” for high-end chips has developed in China. “If you say ‘I want to buy 5,000 chips,’ it’s hard not to get noticed,” she says. “But if you’re a smaller start-up, it doesn’t really affect you.”
There has been some good news for Chinese chip development — using AI itself to design computer chips. Yunji Chen, a computer scientist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computing Technology in Beijing, and his colleagues said in the past year that they have developed the first chip to be designed by AI without human input1, called Enlightenment-1. “I believe that in five or ten years, AI can design chips as good as human beings,” says Chen. “If you want to design an AI chip, traditionally you need three years and 1,000 people. But if you use AI, you just need several hours. If this cycle becomes real, how AI evolves will be much faster.”
But for the time being, China is finding itself increasingly isolated as AI chip development continues apace elsewhere. “Who’s going to use a chip fabricated by China?” says Yiran Chen. “It’s a commercial war.”
A lack of competitiveness in AI could exacerbate what some describe as a brain drain in the country. “The broader issue is the economy,” says Xiao. “Most ambitious Chinese students want to go abroad and stay. They’re not thinking about being in China.”
Neuromorphic computing is about mimicking the human brain’s structure to deliver more efficient data processing, including faster speeds and higher accuracy, and it’s a hot topic right now. A lot of universities and tech firms are working on it, including scientists at Intel who have built the world’s largest “brain-based” computing system for Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
Intel’s creation, called Hala Point, is only the size of a microwave, but boasts 1.15 billion artificial neurons. That’s a massive step up from the 50 million neuron capacity of its predecessor, Pohoiki Springs, which debuted four years ago. There’s a theme with Intel’s naming in case you were wondering – they’re locations in Hawaii.
Hala Point is ten times faster than its predecessor, 15 times denser, and with one million circuits on a single chip. Pohoiki Springs only had 128,000.
Making full use of it
Equipped with 1,152 Loihi 2 research processors (Loihi is a volcano in Hawaii), the Hala Point system will be tasked with harnessing the power of vast neuromorphic computation. “Our colleagues at Sandia have consistently applied our Loihi hardware in ways we never imagined, and we look forward to their research with Hala Point leading to breakthroughs in the scale, speed and efficiency of many impactful computing problems,” said Mike Davies, director of the Neuromorphic Computing Lab at Intel Labs.
Since a Neuromorphic system of this scale hasn’t existed before, Sandia has been developing special algorithms to ultimately make use of the computer’s full capabilities.
“We believe this new level of experimentation – the start, we hope, of large-scale neuromorphic computing – will help create a brain-based system with unrivaled ability to process, respond to and learn from real-life data,” Sandia lead researcher Craig Vineyard said.
His colleague, fellow researcher Brad Aimone added, “One of the main differences between brain-like computing and regular computers we use today – in both our brains and in neuromorphic computing – is that the computation is spread over many neurons in parallel, rather than long processes in series that are an inescapable part of conventional computing. As a result, the more neurons we have in a neuromorphic system, the more complex a calculation we can perform. We see this in real brains. Even the smallest mammal brains have tens of millions of neurons; our brains have around 80 billion. We see it in today’s AI algorithms. Bigger is far better.”
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It might surprise you to know that becoming a sustainability warrior doesn’t necessarily take a calling. Sometimes, it just needs to start as a hobby that you can share with someone you love. That’s how Retrospekt, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based technology refurbishment firm got its start – and how, somewhat improbably, I’m now playing with what is essentially a 35-year-old Game Boy that looks as if it was made yesterday.
“It’s actually quite fun being able to stay in the midwest and bring something unique to the midwest,” Retrospekt co-owner and CEO Adam Fuerst told me during a lengthy conversation, adding that partner and licensee companies are often surprised at their location.
Sustainability Week 2024
This article is part of a series of sustainability-themed content we’re running to observe Earth Day and promote more sustainable practices. Check out all of our Sustainability Week 2024 content.
Dressed in an open plaid shirt and white T-shirt, Fuerst, 37, described the unassuming nearly decade-old beginnings of a company that would go on to recover, refurbish, and resell everything from aging Game Boys and 4th-gen iPods to Polaroid cameras and Sony Walkman cassette players.
Fuerst didn’t really plan the business. While attending grad school with his then-girlfriend, now wife and company co-owner Kori Fuerst in Wisconsin, they started refurbishing old and discarded tech as a hobby. They kept doing it until opportunity came knocking in the form of the Impossible Film brand (since rebranded Impossible Polaroid), which was desperately looking for more Polaroid cameras to support its burgeoning retro-instant film business.
Retrospekt co-owner and CEO Adam Fuerst (Image credit: Retrospekt)
“We were broke college students and we figured, you know, you can’t get much more broke than we already are. So why not give it a try?” said Fuerst.
What’s arisen, without much of a plan, is not so much a reclamation factory but a workshop of 40 or so people, who reclaim hundreds of products a month across a handful of selected core categories (the company also produces a small selection of new, retro-style products). That selection process, by the way, is fairly specific.
“For us, we’re looking at products that were mass-produced, repairable, and have a cultural significance,” explained Fuerst.
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Naturally, the Game Boy, which by some estimates sold 120 million units, remains beloved to this day, and is celebrating its 35th anniversary on April 21, fulfills that criterion, as does the Polaroid Cameras (300 million units sold), and Sony Walkman (400 million).
Each of these products requires technical expertise, attention to detail, and often, a specific approach to bringing them back to life.
(Image credit: Future)
Whereas Polaroid cameras use film cassettes that include the batteries, Game Boys use a few AA batteries that, when they arrive at Retrospekt, have often leaked and corroded the Game Boy’s interiors.
Refurbishing consumer electronics is about as difficult as you might expect. In addition to cleaning out the corrosion, Retrospekt might replace the housing. Fuerst told me that the company has what he calls ‘New Old’ sources, places that keep stocks of original product components, like Game Boy chassis and buttons, and those are often things the company does replace.
“But the brains of the units, we keep original. So we’re not like remaking the dot matrix screen for [the Gameboy],” he said.
The refurb team dissembles the products, bench-tests everything, and repairs them at a component level. They can, when necessary, even create replacement components, often by scavenging other refurbishment stock.
“Most of the parts that we produce are from taking 10 units and making six units from them, and then you get donor parts from the other four, for example,” Fuerst added. It’s a”nothing goes to waste” mentality that fits with Retrospekt’s larger purpose.
“What our value is to the community is not just to go and source working units and resell them, but it’s really to get the stuff that’s destined for landfill and that no one wants and is just quite frankly garbage without someone doing this labor of love on each unit,” Fuerst explains.
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A lot of work goes into every gadget reclamation project.(Image credit: Retrospekt)
(Image credit: Retrospekt)
(Image credit: Retrospekt)
Retrospket applies the same care to other product categories. For a recent Polaroid 600 Barbie-themed camera, the company used all original internals and created new pink outer shells.
It puts considerable effort into restoring the Sony Walkman cassette players, something that’s made doubly hard by the fact that the original belts that drive the tape spools are all 30 years old and deteriorating. “Our team has worked really hard to source replacement motors for a lot of these units, and really dials these in at such a precise level of function,” said Fuerst. “It’s something I’m really proud of, and something we do in the hundreds of each month.”
Other refurb products in high demand include those iPods. I asked about the original iPod, but the company can’t find enough replacement parts. And without source parts, Retrospekt might be building something that diverges from the original product experience.
“We want whatever leaves here to just look like a million bucks and to look as closely as it did to the original,” Fuerst explained. “If we can’t get replacement screens or replacement housings for some of these things that we’re trying to do in a large volume, it’s really hard to scale, especially something that is used and abused so much, like an iPod.”
He told me the company is fulfilling a desire to “experience retro stuff. They [customers] don’t want a pale imitation of the 80s. They want the 80s or they want the 90s. They don’t want a replica of it. They want the real thing.”
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This 35-year-old Nintendo Game Boy looks like new, but its refurbished.(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Anecdotally, the pair of Game Boys Retrospekt sent me, one from 1989 and the other a Game Boy Color from 1998, are indistinguishable from the originals, right down to the pair of Tetris games the company included. Those too, it turns out, are reclamations.
“We take them apart. We replace the battery cells inside if they have a battery cell so that you can save them,” Fuerst said. “We reset them, we clean all the contacts inside as well, so you have a great contact when you go to use it.”
For the amount of work and detail Retrospket puts into everything it does, the prices for these refurbed gadgets are not as high as you might expect. The Game Boys sell for around $150 a piece, and the games are $29 a piece.
Affordability, like everything else Retrospekt does, is no accident. “I mean they’re not cheap, but for the amount of time and attention to detail that goes into each one of these units, it’s fairly affordable. That can only happen when you can get the units at a real low-low price,” Fuerst explained.
As for where Retrospekt sources its gadgets, the purchasing team has what Fuerst called a variety of traditional online sources but added that “there’s people that come directly to us and they’ll say, ‘I run an e-waste facility, and I see these come in.’ We have people that just know about us, and they reach us and say, ‘Hey, I have one of these, it’s corroded, do you want it?’ or ‘will you give me anything for it?’”
Thanks to the popularity of gadgets like the Game Boy and micro-cassette players there’s a steady supply of unused, disused, and discarded gadgetry out there.
It’s also worth noting that Retrospekt doesn’t try to use refurbishment or reclaimed technology as an excuse for not standing behind the products, Each one has a 14-day money-back guarantee and a three-month warranty, though even there Retrospekt can be flexible.
“We have people that, unfortunately, they forget that everything’s not built like a cell phone anymore. So you get a lot of people that just throw their Walkman onto their bed and then it falls off their bed out to their floor and breaks.” In those cases, if the product is out of warranty, Retrospekt may offer a healthy discount on a replacement unit.
“Ultimately, want to make sure that these are continuing to exist in the world and that people are using them, and they’re not just storing them in a cupboard somewhere,” said Fuerst.
I was curious to know if Retrospket had considered reclaiming the original iPhone, but Fuerst dismissed the idea because he isn’t sure what people would do with it. There’s no updated iOS to run on it, and most of the apps will no longer work; Retrospekt is refurbishing for use, not polishing up museum pieces. One phone that Fuerst would like to see rise up from the trash heap, though, is the original Motorola Razr, which he described as “the best phone ever produced.”
“I’m just waiting for Gen Alpha to discover Razr phones and just take it to the next level and just unplug. I can’t wait, I just, I think for everything there’s a counterbalance, and I think it’s coming for us and I can’t wait for it.”
In some ways Rertospekt is a counterbalance to our decades of unbridled consumerism. We bought, used, loved, and then discarded millions of gadgets, and now Retrospekt is here to, in its way, tip the balance back just a bit, and keep some of those products out of landfills, at least for now.
Samsung has shifted to “emergency mode” and is now asking executives to work six days per week.
The news, revealed in a report by The Korea Economic Daily, comes as the company battles ongoing business challenges. The company-wide policy affects executives and top managers across Samsung’s various divisions.
Recent disappointing financial results in 2023 saw Samsung record revenue of around $51 billion in last year’s final quarter, down 3.8% year-on-year and down 2.2% compared with initial analyst predictions.
Samsung enters “emergency mode”
Even worse was the company’s operating profit, which dropped a staggering 34.6% year-on-year to near $2 billion, bringing the company’s entire balance sheet for the year into the negatives – around 14.88 trillion Korean won worth of deficit, or $10.8 billion.
A company executive told the Korean publication: “Considering that performance of our major units, including Samsung Electronics Co., fell short of expectations in 2023, we are introducing the six-day work week for executives to inject a sense of crisis and make all-out efforts to overcome it.”
The policy shift is likely part of the South Korean company’s effort to tackle increased competition in the chip market, where it faces stiff rivalry from the likes of SK Hynix. Other major chipmakers, like Intel and AMD, have also emphasized AI-capable components in recent months.
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Executives from the company’s various businesses, such as Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI, and Samsung SD, will all be asked to work an extra day each week, but those below executive level will continue with five-day routines.
On the whole, Samsung has been pretty resilient, only laying off 30 workers in March 2023. Many of its rivals have laid off thousands, but things could be about to change for the company if the current outlook is as troubling as it seems.
In a bid to simplify its product range for customers, IBM has announced changes to the names of some of its popular storage solutions.
The tech giant’s latest product rebrand is designed to better communicate their functions and capabilities, and do away with some of the confusion that came about following the previous renaming round.
Back in 2015, Big Blue introduced the Spectrum prefix for its storage products. However, in February 2023, the Spectrum prefix was changed to Storage. This move was intended to make it clearer to customers what each product does. So, for example, the “Spectrum Fusion” product set became “Storage Fusion” instead.
Not ‘Storage Discover’
Now, Blocks and Files reports that IBM is renaming its Storage Fusion HCI product to Fusion HCI. This change was reportedly made to better reflect the product’s function as a hyperconverged system for running Red Hat OpenShift and its applications, rather than a storage product.
Additionally, the Spectrum Discover product, which provides data cataloging and metadata management for file and object data, has been given an alternative name. Blocks and Files says Big Blue’s customers can now refer to it as either Data Cataloging or Spectrum Discover, but not, as you might think given the previous prefix change, Storage Discover. Clear?
IBM’s Data Cataloging/Spectrum Discover product is designed to automatically catalog unstructured data by capturing metadata as it is created. It can connect to exabyte-scale heterogeneous file, object, backup, and archive storage on premises and in the cloud, making it a valuable tool for data management.
While the new names may take some getting used to, the underlying functionality of IBM’s revamped storage portfolio remains the same, and the changes are sensible ones that better define the products’ purposes.
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• Original review date: October, 2023 • Google adds circle to search and Gemini to Pixel 8 Pro • Launch price: $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 • Lowest price on Amazon: $749 / £670 / AU$1,699
Update: April 2024. We’re only in the first of Google’s seven years of promised updates for the Pixel 8 Pro, but the phone has already seen considerable new features. When the Samsung Galaxy S24 was launched in January, 2024, Google added circle to search and other new AI features to the Pixel 8 Pro, and eventually the Pixel 8. Since then, we’ve seen Google’s Gemini LLM with the Gemini Nano model, capable of producing written text using only the phone’s onboard resources. Google has also launched its Find My Mobile network, and the Pixel 8 Pro has the hardware to find Google’s new Nest location tags.
Philip Berne
Google Pixel 8 Pro: Two-minute review
The Pixel 8 Pro is a sleek update to Google’s venerable Pixel lineup, and while I’ll be ready for a new look and feel this year, I’m happy to report that this is Google’s best-looking Pixel yet.
This is also Google’s most ambitious Pixel yet, with some serious camera upgrades that will satisfy even pro photogs, and a Tensor G3 chipset custom built to run Google’s machine learning features. Google is so confident in this phone’s performance that it is promising an unprecedented seven years of major updates, longer than any other phone maker supports its phones, currently.
That said, this is a very, very odd device. If Google had simply released a generic smartphone with the Pixel 8 Pro’s cameras, display and design, it would have had a simple winner, capable of making an argument against not-quite-flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus or the Apple iPhone 15 Pro. Instead, Google is pushing deep into machine learning territory with generative AI features that will offer new experiences on your phone.
Some of these, like the amazing new call-screening assistant, work wonderfully, and are set to become an enduring part of our smartphone experience. Others, like the new photo editing features, border on frightening. Most, like AI wallpaper, seem like simple distractions and additions that could have been an app you download, but instead are now part of the Android-on-Pixel experience.
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
This is a decidedly Android phone, for better but mostly, these days, for worse. It’s a confusing mess. You’re faced with setup screens that never seem to end, notifications that never seem to disappear, and Settings menus that are layered deep enough to strike magma.
The good news is that Google has plenty of time to fix Android, and if it does, Pixel 8 Pro owners will benefit from those improvements for seven years, if Google lives up to its promise.
This is very good news indeed. In fact, it’s some of the best news I’ve heard from the Android camp in quite some time. If Google really delivers on seven years of major OS upgrades, Pixel feature drops, and Security updates, the Pixel 8 Pro will be the first Android phone to beat Apple in terms of longevity.
Will the Pixel 8 Pro be worth owning in seven years? Decidedly not, not if you’re buying one today. But, when it comes time to sell your Pixel 8 Pro in a year or two, the person you sell it to will know they aren’t buying an unsupported lemon. They’re buying a phone that could last them, and possibly someone else after them, for years.
If you’re firmly encamped with Google on Android territory, the Pixel 8 Pro is a great choice for your next phone. Software-wise, Google has a lot of catching up to do against iOS 17 before I’d recommend buying it over the iPhone 15 Pro, but Google’s phone is fun and unique enough that I’d consider this phone if you can’t spring for a truly fancy foldable or the mighty Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Of course, the real fun begins when Google starts slashing prices, and it can be liberal with discounts, especially around the sales season. More than with any other brand, I recommend waiting for a deal when you’re considering a Pixel phone, because as good as the phone is now, it feels like an even better buy for a few hundred dollars or pounds less.
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Price and availability
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 for 128GB storage
Available with up to 1TB of storage in the US, 512GB globally
Costs $100 / £150 / AU$400 more than the 128GB Pixel 7 Pro
The Pixel 8 Pro costs a bit more than the Pixel 7 Pro, when I was expecting that Google would drop the price. That’s because, frankly, the Pixel 7 Pro didn’t age very well in terms of performance and value, and rumors suggested that the Pixel 8 Pro wouldn’t offer much benefit over its predecessor. However, as it turns out there’s much more value to be found in the Pixel 8 Pro, and it holds up nicely against competitors in its price range.
The most promising way Google has added value to the Pixel 8 Pro is with its promise to support the phone for seven years of major software upgrades, security updates, and Pixel feature drops. Android phones have traditionally been lacking in terms of longevity and long-term value, and no Android phone maker has ever offered this level of long-term support. Even Apple stops supporting iPhones with new OS upgrades after about five years.
The Pixel 8 Pro doesn’t have the best performance, so its prospects as a long-term device are questionable, but at least we know Google won’t ignore it and let it rot on the vine.
Of course, you probably won’t keep your phone for seven years, but when it comes time to trade or sell it, it should hold its value better because of Google’s support commitment. Time will tell; and there are other reasons why this phone is worth more than last year’s model.
The Pixel 8 Pro has a fantastic display, brighter and sharper than those on the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Plus. The phone also has the largest battery of the bunch, and battery life lived up to Google’s promises during my review period.
The cameras are better in many ways, but the specs can get a bit esoteric and hard to explain. Needless to say, they take much better photos than before, and the new AI editing tools are incredibly impressive. Scary, impressive, and I mean that sincerely.
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Google Pixel 8 Pro prices
Storage
US price
UK price
AU price
128GB
$999
£999
AU$1,699
256GB
$1,059
£1,059
AU$1,799
512GB
$1,179
£1,179
AU$1,999
1TB
$1,399
N/A
N/A
If you have this much to spend, I’d still recommend the iPhone 15 Pro; not for the cameras or the hardware, but because iOS 17 is leaps and bounds ahead of Android 14. Apple’s software experience isn’t just simplified, it’s elegant and polished. Android has gotten unwieldy again, and it’s hard to recommend even the best Android phone over a comparable iPhone.
That said, the Pixel 8 Pro offers great value against the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus, although if you can spend more (or get a great contract deal), both Samsung and Apple have even fancier phones with more cameras to sell you, while Google hits its ceiling with the 8 Pro.
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Specs
Check out the Google Pixel 8 Pro’s full specs below:
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Google Pixel 8 Pro specs
Header Cell – Column 1
Dimensions:
162.6 x 76.5 x 8.8mm
Weight:
213g
OS:
Android 14
Screen size:
6.7 inches
Resolution:
1344 x 2992 pixels
Chipset:
Google Tensor G3
RAM
12GB
Storage:
128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB
Rear Cameras:
50MP main; 48MP 5x tele; 48MP ultrawide (macro)
Front Camera:
10.5MP
Battery:
5,050 mAh
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Design
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Yup, it still looks like the Pixel 6
Matte finish and nice color choices add some class
Is this how every Pixel is going to look in the future?
What is there to say about a phone design that has barely changed in three years? Like this year’s iPhone 15 series, the Pixel 8 Pro is a bit more curvy than last year, with new colors and a matte finish. It is decidedly nicer than the Pixel 7 Pro if you care about the fine details, which I do.
The Pixel 8 Pro is more rounded on the corners, and more flat on the display. This makes the phone easier to hold, while also giving you a better view of your content. The finish is lovely, and the colors are more classy and inviting than unusual and modern. Most folks love the Bay blue best, but I’m into these cream-colored phones that dominated 2023, so I asked for a Porcelain sample from Google for my review.
This is the nicest Pixel phone Google has made so far, which is good because it has largely made the same phone three times now, with two more A-series models in between. I feel like these refinements could have come last year, and this year we could be looking at something even more evolved.
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
I don’t mind the Google Pixel camera bump. It adds a distinct touch of flair, and on my Porcelain model it has the slightest golden hue that gives it a nice glint in the sun. It’s a very pretty phone, especially if you’ve never held a Pixel before.
If you are a Pixel owner, especially if you own an older Pixel, you’re probably eyeing this phone for an upgrade. It’s too bad that Pixel 6 owners, ready to upgrade now, have only this slightly refreshed-looking version of their older phone to buy. I’d like to see something more novel next year, especially if the Pixel remains at this higher price level, on par with the titanium iPhone 15.
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Display
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
The standout feature – it’s brighter and sharper than before
Even brighter and sharper than the iPhone 15 Pro Max
Slightly thicker bezel than the iPhone
The Pixel 8 Pro display is a standout feature this year, and Google has even endowed it with its own branding: Super Actua. The Pixel 8 is plain old Actua, you see. In practical terms, it seems this refers to the display’s brightness, because it is incredibly bright. The Pixel 8 Pro can reach 2,400 nits at peak brightness, and still pumps out 1,600 nits when you aren’t in direct sunlight.
In almost every way, the Pixel 8 Pro display beats that of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. In terms of brightness, total resolution, and sharpness (pixel density), the Pixel has the better screen. Side by side, it was much harder to see a difference, though the Pixel was definitely brighter in some cases, especially when viewing a purely white subject.
That’s when I had the Pixel display set to the more vivid ‘Adaptive’ mode, which the iPhone lacks. When I set the Pixel display settings to the ‘Natural’ screen color mode, I got colors and brightness levels that looked much more like I’m used to seeing on an iPhone.
The bezel on the Pixel 8 Pro is just a hair thicker compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max bezel, but the smaller punch-hole camera is much less intrusive than Apple’s Dynamic Island, no matter how much Apple makes it dance and sing.
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Software
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Great call screening feature is useful and natural
Many features are missing at launch
Some important features are hard to find
There are a few bright spots in the Pixel 8 Pro’s software improvements, couched in the machine learning and AI direction that Google is taking. The new call screening feature works impeccably well. I tried calling my Pixel 8 Pro from another number and the voice sounded natural, if a bit too casual, but that’s a good problem. Better a casual robot screening my calls than a stilted digital voice.
The new AI wallpaper is surprisingly interesting. It seems limited at first, since it isn’t actually a free-for-all generative AI creating images. Instead, it gives you a MadLibs-like selection of categories and prompts. You might choose an ‘Imaginary’ scene of ‘A surreal bicycle made of flowers in shades of pink and purple.’ The bicycle, flowers, and color options are all part of a multiple choice menu. Instead of a bicycle, I might have chosen a boat, a lamp, a lighthouse, or a UFO.
There are 12 options for objects; 30 different material choices, including flowers, fleece, and rhodochrosite (a crystalline mineral); and seven different color combinations. The AI offered me three different fleece lighthouses in coral and tan. By my math, that means the Imaginary category alone can create around 7,500 wallpapers. There are 12 categories, including Imaginary, X-ray, and Volcanic.
Is it a gimmick? No, but it feels like something a really good third-party app could pull off just as well, maybe with even more options. It is generative AI, after all, so the sky’s the limit, and then whatever the computer decides comes after sky. The bottom line is that the wallpapers were pretty, and cool, and unique, and fun to play with. So that’s a win.
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
On the Pixel 8 Pro web page, Google says you can “personalize your experience with AI wallpaper,” and that is the heart of the problem that I have with much of Google’s software on the Pixel 8 Pro. I’ve used AI to create a wallpaper, but is it personalized? I chose some options, and swiped through the results. Who is this person?
Google describes its machine language features as if they are created by a real human being disturbingly often. When the machine does the creation, there is no person involved, and there is no experience for a human. When I use Google’s software to write a whole email, or create a group photo that never existed, am I personalizing that email? Have I personalized that photo?
No, I’m using a machine as a tool to help me create or complete a task. And that’s great! That’s useful! But that is not how Google is positioning the Pixel 8 Pro and all of its new AI features. Google is not saying ‘you can create an image,’; it’s saying you can ‘combine’ photos, or ‘reimagine’ photos. There is something missing in that explanation, and it feels like what’s missing is honesty.
The photo-faking tools aren’t the only AI issues I have. Google is pushing the Pixel 8 Pro’s ability to read and summarize web pages for you. That feature will soon come to its Recorder app, so its AI will summarize your past conversations, or lectures you couldn’t attend, perhaps.
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
I tried the summarization feature on a story I wrote about taking a family photo at home. Google’s summary got very basic facts wrong. It said that my family visited a photo studio, even though I never mentioned a photo studio, and in fact I explicitly say that my dad hired a professional photographer to come to our house. If I can’t trust a summarization feature the first time I use it, I will never trust it again.
Many of the other new features are simply hard to find. Google’s new call screening feature is great, but it’s hidden under a submenu that you can only find if you open the Phone app; it’s nowhere to be found under the Settings menu.
Even worse, Google has had a Safety Check In feature on its Pixel phones for years, similar to the new Check In feature that I love on iOS 17. Google’s own site gives instructions for the ‘Personal Safety’ app, but my phone doesn’t have an app called Personal Safety. It’s just called Safety, which sounds like it could be a software security suite, or a health and readiness app. It could be an app for the Boy Scouts, for all it stands out.
I’ll stop complaining, because I’ve run out of features to complain about. See, Google is launching the Pixel 8 Pro without a number of key features ready to go. The camera will get Zoom Enhance, Video Boost, and Night Sight video features, after images have been uploaded to Google’s cloud services for Google to work its magic off-device. Recorder summaries are also coming, as well as the smart reply feature, though I’m skeptical of those AI features, as I’ve made clear.
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Cameras
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Great photos with improved macro quality
Upgrades on every camera, especially telephoto
Not as good at night shots as the iPhone 15 Pro
The main camera on the Pixel 8 Pro is considerably better than the camera on the Pixel 7 Pro, but the improvements can be hard to explain.
The lens on the camera has a f/1.65 aperture, which is wider than the f/1.9 aperture in last year’s lens, and while the number is lower, a wider aperture is better because it lets in more light, and the improvement is exponential and not linear.
The f/1.65 lens on the Pixel 8 Pro is an amazIng feat, while the f/1.9 aperture on last year’s Pixel 7 Pro was a thoroughly unimpressive spec. See, the numbers are confusing, and it’s just not an easy spec to boast about. The iPhone 15 Pro uses an f/1.8 lens on its main camera, which won’t let as much light through, but of course there are plenty of other factors to consider.
Compared to my iPhone 15 Pro Max, some photos looked better when shot with the Pixel 8 Pro, but others, especially night pics and low-light images, looked better taken with the iPhone. That’s surprising, but there are still some reasons for Google to brag.
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(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
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Macro photography is better on the Pixel 8 Pro than on the iPhone, and even if you aren’t going for a macro look you can still get closer to your subject with the Pixel. The Pixel 8 Pro also handled food photos much better than the iPhone. That natural look the iPhone tends towards can make dishes look unappetizing in bad lighting. It’s better to have a camera that can do some enhancements.
Speaking of enhancements, not all of the enhancements coming to the Pixel 8 Pro are ready yet. The Night Sight video enhancement will eventually upload and improve your night-time videos, but it’s not here yet. Neither is the zoom enhancement for the telephoto and main cameras. Those features will presumably come in a feature drop, hopefully before the end of the year.
Once you’ve taken your photos, it’s off to Google Photos to edit them, and Google Photos on the Pixel 8 family is a special app. It has features you won’t find on other Pixel phones, Android phones, iPhones, or even on the desktop.
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
We’ve seen Magic Eraser before, but Google is taking this functionality to a new level with Magic Editor. When you launch Magic Editor by tapping the enticing, colorful button, Google opens a new suite of generative AI tools to help you fake your shots like a pro. You can still erase, and here Google does a much better job of creating a background to replace what’s now missing.
You can also easily manipulate objects in your photo. You can move things around, make things larger or smaller, and generally make the image look completely different. If you stop talking to somebody, you can cut them out of the group photo. If you want to say you caught a bigger fish, you can just grab the fish in the photo and spread your fingers to make it grow. Reality doesn’t matter, as long as you have the right tools.
While the results can be somewhat creepy and uncanny, they aren’t flawless. I erased tourists from a shot of the Statue of Liberty, as an example, and it’s clear where the guardrails were drawn incorrectly to compensate. I erased a shadow from my photo of some ice cream at night and a portion of a sign went missing, replaced with a blank, white wall.
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(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Gee, I wish this guy would move his head
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
With Magic Editor, the problem is solved
There’s reason to be cautious and reason to be disturbed by the ease and capriciousness with which Google launches these powerful machine learning features, but for now the quality doesn’t quite justify the fear. It’s possible that some day my phone will be able to make a believable fake that could stand up to scrutiny. For now, though, I’d say Google is just focused on trying to get its promised features out the door.
Google Pixel 8 Pro camera samples
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Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Performance
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
No problem running my favorite apps and games
Still lags behind older competitor phones
Machine learning features run slowly with delays
Performance is tough to measure on a Pixel phone. In terms of raw performance, pushing games and graphics to new heights, the Pixel 8 Pro does just fine, but it won’t win any competitions. It handled all of my favorite games and ran high-resolution videos smoothly, but everything looked better on phones like the iPhone 15 Pro or even older Android phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra (which can be found for around the same price as the Pixel 8 Pro, now that it’s eight months old).
On the other hand, the Pixel 8 Pro is an all-around solid device, especially compared to other phones in this price range. Battery life is excellent, thanks to a larger battery and better power management, courtesy of Google’s Tensor G3 chipset. The display is snappy and smooth, and it makes Google’s interface design pop when you want, or mimic the subdued and natural iPhone tones if you prefer.
There is a temperature sensor on the Pixel 8 Pro, and I cannot figure out why. It is only accurate up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (around 150 Celsius), so it isn’t actually useful for checking the temperature of pans while cooking, as Google suggests. I need my frying oil to be around 350 degrees, and I want to check my oven up to 500 degrees or more. Try again, Google.
(Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)
When the Pixel 8 Pro is running Google’s special machine learning features, it stumbles quite a bit. When you edit photos with the new Magic Editor it takes a while to open the app, then longer to create the edits, and it frequently crashes while saving a copy. The AI wallpaper feature is cool, but it took several seconds to create a single set of wallpapers.
I hope to see these features improve over the next seven years as Google upgrades this phone with software improvements, which begs the question: this phone won’t possibly be capable of handling Android 21. Will this phone really be a viable phone in seven years? Google has promised this will be a seven-year phone, the first ever. How will the Google Tensor G3 stack up in seven years, compared to every phone that comes after it?
It’s far too early to say, but I have serious reservations about Google’s promise. First of all, the Tensor chipset already feels like it’s behind the curve compared to Qualcomm’s best Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chips, and no phone maker using Qualcomm is offering more than five years of major software updates. And the Tensor doesn’t even begin to compare to Apple’s A17 Pro chipset, which actually feels like it could last seven years, though Apple has never made that explicit promise.
(Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)
Second, Google has a terrible track record when it comes to supporting its own products and keeping promises. Google offered a Pixel Pass upgrade program with the Pixel 6, promising an upgrade after 24 months if you subscribed to the program. It killed the program within two years, and nobody got an upgrade. The Pixel 8 should have been the phone subscribers received.
Maybe Google will support this phone for seven years, for real, giving it every software upgrade and every new feature that it invents between now and 2030. Or maybe this phone will only get a portion of those upgrades, and new features every now and then. Or maybe Google will invent an entirely new class of Android for old phones like this one; some disappointing, stripped-down version that will work with the oldest devices.
We just don’t know – and Google hasn’t established a record of trust when it comes to longevity and long-term support.
Performance score: 3 / 5
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Battery life
(Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Improved battery life lasts all day, no sweat
Aggressive power management and adaptive display
Faster charging would have been nice
Battery life on Pixel phones gets better every year (as long as you avoid the A-series), and I’m happy to report that the Pixel 8 Pro had no trouble lasting through a full day of use. That should come as no surprise, since it has a larger battery than either the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus or the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. Google really packed in the biggest cell it could fit, and you’ll need to buy a gaming phone to find bigger.
The power management can be quite aggressive. That screen is bright, but Google keeps it dialed down to a healthy brightness that won’t strain your eyes or drain the battery too much. There are plenty of baked-in power management features, as well.
You can choose the Standard battery saver or the Extreme battery saver, which limits more apps and background processes. There’s also an enigmatic adaptive battery feature that’s turned on by default. All the better, because that battery really lasts.
The Pixel 8 Pro charges at a respectable 30W, which meant I had a full battery within an hour, and 50% in 30 minutes. Still, there’s some room for improvement, especially if the battery is going to keep getting bigger.
Google includes a USB-C cable in the box and, oddly, a USB-A to USB-C adapter, but no wall charger. You need to buy a compatible Power Delivery charger or wireless stand. I used an Anker Nano charger, which can handle the fastest charging the Pixel can accept.
Should you buy the Google Pixel 8 Pro?
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Google Pixel 8 Pro score card
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Value
More expensive than last year, but still competitive compared to other Android phones, especially with longer software support.
4 / 5
Design
The same old look, now refined with a matte finish and nicer colors. It’s the nicest Pixel yet, but the Pixel look is getting stale.
4 / 5
Display
The standout feature on the Pixel 8 Pro, this bright and sharp display is just as good as the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and maybe better.
5 / 5
Software
The good stuff is useful, but some AI features cross the line, when they actually work, and other features are too hard to find.
3 / 5
Camera
Great all-around camera features, with some unique AI editing tools that are more like Photoshop creation than photography. Still, undeniably good pics.
4 / 5
Performance
Good enough performance for now, but it’s unclear if this phone will live up to Google’s seven-year promise, or if Android will cut corners to fit into the Pixel 8 Pro in the future.
3 / 5
Battery
Excellent battery life thanks to a very large cell inside and solid power management keeping that bright display under control.
4 / 5
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Google Pixel 8 Pro review: Also consider
The Google Pixel 8 Pro is a fun and unique phone offering features only Google can give you, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best phone for everyone. Here are the best alternatives in the same price range.
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Google Pixel 8 Pro
Apple iPhone 15 Pro
Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus
Price:
$999 / £999 / AU $1699 for 128GB
$999 / £999 / AU $1849 for 128GB
$999 / £899 / AU $1399 for 256GB
Display:
6.7-inch, 120Hz, 2,400 nits peak
6.1-inch, 120Hz, 2,000 nits peak
6.6-inch, 120Hz, 1,750 nits peak
Cameras:
50MP main (1.2µm pixels); 48MP tele; 48MP ultrawide/macro
48MP main (1.22µm pixels); 12MP tele; 12MP ultrawide/macro
50MP main (1.0µm pixels); 10MP tele; 12MP ultrawide
Battery:
5,050 mAh
3,274 mAh
4,700 mAh
How I tested the Google Pixel 8 Pro
I took the Pixel 8 Pro to homecoming, but my kid wouldn’t let me use any of the photos I took for my international website. I used the Pixel 8 Pro for a week leading up to this review, using the phone as my only device with an active SIM card during this time. I used it for all of my personal and professional needs.
I used the Pixel 8 Pro to take photos, to navigate with maps, and to play games. I used it for phone calls and messaging of all sorts, including RCS messages and various messaging services, including Slack and WhatsApp. I also used Google Assistant to send messages using voice commands, especially while I was driving and using Android Auto.
I played games extensively with the Pixel 8 Pro, and I tested it with a number of streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu, and Max.
Normally, I would benchmark a phone using benchmark apps, but these apps are not whitelisted for download on the Pixel 8 Pro before launch. It should be noted that Google makes the final decision about whitelisting apps on the Play Store, so Google is keeping pre-launch reviewers from benchmarking this phone.
I tested the Pixel 8 Pro with various accessories, including the new Pixel Watch 2 and the Fitbit Charge 6. I also used it with Pixel Buds Pro, my MX Master 2 mouse, and an SD card reader. For battery testing, I recorded my usage during the day and noted the times the phone died. I timed the phone during the charging process to verify charging claims.
In the last few decades, technology has created a modern digital workforce that is technically skilled and adept at finding innovative solutions that would help them succeed at work. However, with 95% of employees struggling with digital friction in the workplace – including a lack of access to the right tools – ambitious employees who are hungry for results have often needed to explore fixes outside the scope of existing systems provided by their employers.
On top of that, the popularity of cloud-based apps has resulted in business processes often ending up fragmented across various systems, requiring workers to devote time to manual maintenance. This has accelerated the spread of (the unnecessarily ominous sounding) ‘shadow IT’, or applications that savvy workers use without official authorization to help them bypass limitations and get work done. In a perfect world, a balance can be struck between giving these technically skilled workers freedom to integrate and optimize processes while ensuring IT remains in charge of technology at the architectural level.
The traditional approach of tightly controlled IT landscapes within organizations doesn’t work as well as it once did given the proliferation of systems for just about every task, which has made it unsustainable for IT to do it all in many cases. Shadow IT is a natural evolution born from workers growing more comfortable with digital tools and looks like it’s here to stay, with Gartner finding it makes up 30-40% of all IT spending across large enterprises even though research shows nearly seven in ten organizations have been compromised as a result of it.
That said, there is ample opportunity to take advantage of and nurture a new generation of strategic business technologists. Organizations that can master this shift will benefit in a bevvy of ways en route to better business outcomes and positive impact on customer and employee experience.
Gert-Jan Wijman
Flipping the narrative
For tech and business leaders, shadow IT is not only a risk, but also an opportunity to take off the strain of IT departments. The possibility of adept workers identifying and resolving application issues relieves IT of the need to develop solutions and integrate them on an organizational level. Rather than bearing the burden of finding or building new solutions on their own, tech leaders can instead take a more strategic, supervisory role by overseeing how applications recommended by workers are integrated with existing enterprise architectures.
This is especially critical to take into account the generational differences emerging within the modern workforce, given that digital natives (those who have grown up in a tech-led world) are starting to play a larger role. Business leaders can empower these younger workers to be part of decisions about the technology business uses and help upskill less technically adept colleagues. This also helps in addressing skills gaps that the IT industry is facing.
A transparent approach, where employees aren’t secretly leaning on unauthorized applications out of sight, will help shore up cybersecurity vulnerabilities while also providing these de facto business technologists (those who sit outside IT but have the skills to ensure their organization gets the most value from its technology investments), the freedom to find and implement solutions that truly work.
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Creating an integration-first culture
As a next step, business leaders need to focus on uncovering the underlying motivations behind the use of shadow IT. Often, it’s about effectively finding workarounds to common data integration problems, like systems not being updated in real-time and needing manual inputs. Companies should work on developing a cohesive plan for recommending, testing, and finally adopting IT applications that align with their strategy, goals and existing application portfolio.
The repercussions of imprecise and mismatched data can be significant, with The Alan Turing Institute estimating that poor data quality costs the UK economy £10-20 billion annually. Organizations will increasingly rely on data to inform decision-making, particularly as they scale, however, data silos create barriers that hinder collaboration, creativity, and progress. Once, as a result of great transparency, IT teams become aware of applications being used and their purposes, they can work on integrating them more efficiently.
This enhances the speed and precision with which business decisions can be made, owing to better availability and timeliness of data.
Emerging from the shadows
Taming shadow IT will increase in importance as it becomes more widespread: Gartner predicts 75% of all employees will use some form of it by 2027.
Leveraging business technologists is an essential way for companies looking to stay ahead of the curve. With many already adept at automating workflows, they have the potential to fill the tech skill gaps so many businesses are struggling to address. While they may not possess all the necessary abilities, considering a lack of options on the market an effective middle-ground would be to pair these technically proficient employees with low- or no-code platforms, easing the burden on stretched IT teams. IT teams will stay at the helm of wider tech strategy, but as business technologists will ultimately have the most hands-on experience and will know where gaps in technology lie within the business, they will be invaluable in finding solutions if their skills are nurtured correctly.
As businesses adopt more and more cloud-based applications, the biggest winners will be those that can stay ahead of the curve and look at shadow IT as a fast-track to a more innovative and integrated approach to business technology
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Samsung has a pretty good lineup of Wear OS smartwatches. The Galaxy Watch 6 and the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic are among the best-equipped smartwatches for Android phones. However, they’re quite costly, and not everyone would be able to buy them. So, Samsung could be making a cheaper Galaxy Watch.
Galaxy Watch FE could be Samsung’s cheapest Wear OS smartwatch
While the Galaxy Fit 3 is extremely affordable, it doesn’t run Wear OS. For those who want a Wear OS-based Galaxy Watch but don’t want to spend more than $150 on a wearable, Samsung is developing the Galaxy Watch FE. According to a report from Android Headlines, the Galaxy Watch FE has model number SM-R866. It reportedly has at least three variants: SM-R866F (International), SM-R866U (USA LTE), and SM-R866N (Korea).
When you notice the Galaxy Watch FE’s model number, it looks like it could be a slightly modified version of the Galaxy Watch 4 (SM-R860). So, Samsung could be repackaging the Galaxy Watch 4 with possibly a newer processor. The remaining features could remain similar to those of the original Galaxy Watch 4.
Since the Galaxy Watch 4 is already selling for as low as $150 on Amazon, it would be great if Samsung can launch the Galaxy Watch FE for the similar or even lower price.
Watch our hands-on experience with the Galaxy Watch 4 in the video below.
Author’s Note:The Galaxy Watch 4 already has many of the features found on most Wear OS smartwatches. It has an accelerometer, barometer, GPS, gyro, and a heart rate sensor. It can track heart rate, sleep, stress levels, and workouts. It has an IP68 rating and features a microphone and a loudspeaker.
It has NFC for mobile payments via Samsung Pay and also features wireless charging. On a single charge, it usually lasts a day. The only things that Samsung needs to improve on the Galaxy Watch FE compared to the Galaxy Watch 4 would be its processor and battery life. A newer processor and a slightly bigger battery would help a long way in achieving that.
