This week, Samsung not only presented its new smartphones of the Galaxy S25 series (including a surprise revelation of the Galaxy S25 Edge), but we saw a large number of important technological news that you might have lost.
Openai made fun of his operating agent, Netflix raised his prices (again) and Tiktok was prohibited and devoured, but his destiny is still in play as his rivals approach. You can catch up with all this and more moving down.
Once this week’s Icymi is finished, see our selections from the 7 new television movies and programs that will be broadcast this weekend (January 24).
7. Samsung Galaxy Unpacked showed the S25 series …
Another year, another Samsung Galaxy Unpacked to decompress (I’m sorry!). In this latest edition, the Korean giant launched the Samsung Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Ultra. At the same time, a fourth device, the Galaxy S25 EDGE, was announced at the end of the presentation as “soon.”
So what’s up? The three new smartphones have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite, 12 GB of RAM and a series of new Galaxy AI functions, including Now Brief and Eraser audio. The Ultra has enjoyed a redesign similar to that of an iPhone and Samsung has added galaxy z fold 6 -style rings to each model of the line. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S25 EDGE will be a super thin version of (we believe) the 6.2 -inch S25 Galaxy S25, but Samsung has not yet shared any official detail about that phone (apart from its name).
We were on the ground in Galaxy Unpacked and we already handle the three new S25 devices, so see our practical review of the Samsung Galaxy S25, practical review of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus and practical review of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra for our first impressions.
6. … and play with the new novelties of Galaxy AI
The launch of the S25 range really had to do with Galaxy AI, Samsung’s general name for all artificial intelligence functions included in these new, thin and futuristic phones. By detailing all the abilities of AI before the phones, Samsung seems to think that the functions of AI are more important than the real specifications of the phone, so why is the Korean company so excited?
Now Brief and Now Bar are the two outstanding characteristics of Galaxy AI and are essentially as super -powered notifications. Because they are linked to all other applications of your phone, not to mention all your other Samsung devices, you will find that you can begin to suggest things you should do before it is necessary to do it or things that you might take into account. at most traffic on the way home.
Obviously, security is a big problem with AI and Samsung wishes to emphasize the new personal data engine. This maintains all your personal data on your device when IA does its magic with it, so you don’t need to worry about filtering in the cloud.
5. Fitbit issued a warning about his batteries
A difficult 2024 for Fitbit has raided the way for a 2025 beginning even more besieged. While you would have hoped that your best Fitbit could help you fulfill your New Year’s purposes to begin January, the company is actually fighting a serious problem overheating problem. .
The company warned users that Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 are at risk and could represent a potential risk for users. The update is already being implemented, but not everything is good news. Customers are encouraged to check the eligibility of their device and will receive a notification indicating to update their firmware.
The update will reduce the risk of overheating the affected batteries, but has the cost of a reduced capacity, which means that your device should be loaded more frequently.
It is not ideal and Fitbit offers 50 dollars to affected customers as compensation. Now that Google is eliminating Fitbit in favor of the Pixel Watch line, maybe they should spend that money on a new smart watch.
4. Tiktok and other applications went out and returned
Tiktok was offline for a day before he was allowed to return to the US. In addition, it was not the only service that stopped working.
Marvel Snap and Capcut disappeared, along with other companies owned by Bytedonce, despite the fact that some (such as Marvel Snap developers) believed that their software would be exempt from prohibition. This caused a wave of reactions by applications and their rivals: Marvel Snap is looking for a new editor and Instagram announced Edits (his own Capcut rival).
There is still a question about what Tiktok’s fate will be, but it seems that many are preparing to be prohibited again in the US. If the sale is not asked, so it is possible that you want to prepare for that too.
3. Netflix got a price increase, again
Here we go again: Netflix will receive an increase in prices in the USA. With immediate effect – Yippee …
The standard plan with ads will increase $ 1 from $ 6.99 to $ 7.99 per month, the standard plan (without ads) will increase to $ 17.99 from $ 15.49 and the Premium plan will cost $ 24.99 per month in place of $ 22, 99.
Netflix said that “occasionally it will ask our members to pay a little more so that we can reinvest and improve even more Netflix” as a way of removing criticism. While the increase is not massive (and it has not yet reached the United Kingdom or Australia), these slow and constant increases have made the service considerably more expensive over time, and leads us to ask ourselves if we should get rid of the service. streaming service once and for all.
2. The first agent of OpenAi arrived
The AI agents will be a great trend in 2025, and Openai will officially send their first, called ‘operator’ as of January 23, 2025, as a preview of the investigation for Chatgpt Pro Subscribes. The essence here is that it is an agent who uses a computer, basically an AI that can complete web tasks for you while residing inside a browser. Use the image of GPT-4O with advanced reasoning to allow you to navigate the web and understand several elements.
Basically, as seen in a shared demonstration, you can complete forms by you, find a restaurant and then reserve it in an operable. Openai even says that it can self -rise, although we will have to see how it looks in practice. It is still early, but operator is exciting and Openai is also working on other AI agents.
1. Oscar nominations received negative reactions from AI
The Brutalist (nominated for 10 Oscars) and Emilia Pérez de Netflix (candidate for a record of 13 Oscar awards, the greatest amount for a foreign film in history) were criticized this week for the use of Respect, an artificial intelligence tool To change the voice.
It was used to make the Brutalist actors such as Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones sound more genuinely Hungarian and to increase the Karla Sophìa Sofa Song range, the protagonist of Emilia Pérez, combining her voice with the French pop star Camille.
The creative equipment of the films have argued that AI simply increases the incredible actions of these actors in the same way that the traditional edition does and that although AI was used to help accelerate the editing process, care still required and the attention of human editors. . However, he has left a bitter taste in the mouth of many people, especially after the great Hollywood strike of 2023, who rebelled against the use of AI in the movies, and some asked that these films be disqualified because they used ia .
