Samsung held their Unpacked event this morning. With all the leaks, we weren’t really surprised by a lot. We do have pricing though…Mashable.com reports that the Galaxy S25 will be $799, the S25 Plus is $999, and the S25 Ultra runs $1299. The base model has a 6.2 inch AMOLED screen, 12 gigs of ram, either 128 or 256 gigs of storage, and 3 rear cams…50 MP wide, 12 MP ultra-wide, and 10 MP telephoto. It has a 4,000 mAh battery. The extra 4 gigs of RAM will help it run Samsung’s AI. The S25 plus has a 6.7 inch screen, with the same RAM and processor, and same cameras…but a 4,900 mAh battery…and you can opt for 512 gigs of storage. For the S25 Ultra, you will get the biggest 6.9 inch display, 12 gigs of RAM, either 256, 512, or 1 TB or storage, and better cameras…200 MP wide, 50 MP ultra-wide, and 10MP/50MP telephoto. The Ultra also has a fat 5,000 mAh battery. Look for AI in the photos and videos, improved generative editing, and Audio Eraser like on the Pixel phones. As we had heard, no price hike..that’s maybe the best thing of all.

Netflix is hiking prices again…this time on all three of its plans. According to 9to5mac.com, the cheapie plan will go to $7.99 a month, while the top-line, gold-plated Premium plan with 4K streaming will whack your pocketbook for a princely $24.99 a month. The Standard plan without Ads is now going to be $17.99 a month. These price boosts will be for the US, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina. 

Microsoft has inked a new deal with OpenAI giving Redmond the ‘right of first refusal’ on any new OpenAI cloud computing capacity. That means that if Microsoft can’t meet OpenAI’s needs, it is free to use a rival cloud provider. Techcrunch.com notes that OpenAI has made a larger new Azure commitment with Microsoft, so it’s not like they are completely splitting the sheets. OpenAI has griped about a lack of available compute space that delayed its products, and that has been a source of tension with the company and Microsoft. Last June, in fact, Microsoft let them sign a deal with Oracle for additional capacity. The new Microsoft OpenAI agreement runs through 2030.

A report out by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Meta is working on at least 3 new smart glasses models and is on the road to making their first true augmented reality glasses. Of course, Meta presently has the Ray-Ban smart glasses, and it is expected that there will be a newer model of those with a display. One new model may have a cam in the middle of the frames, with the target users being cyclists and other athletes. Those will be produced in partnership with Oakley. Another model called Hypernova internally will run simple software apps, let the user view notifications, and display photos taken. The price target is $1000. The true AR glasses may hit the market as soon as 2027.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Samsung will stop pre-installing Samsung Messages on Galaxy phones, and just go with Google Messages. 9to5google.com reports that…starting with the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, you will just get Googles Messages. RCS will be enabled by default on the phones in the Google Messages app. The Samsung app will still be available for download at the Galaxy Store, but with a note that ’some features will be excluded.’

Although it’s been since Thursday, some users are still dealing with the aftermath of the corrupt CrowdStrike download that screwed up what Microsoft claims was a little over 8 million computers. Microsoft says that is about 1% of the installed base. That noted, according to engadget.com, Delta has had to cancel over 1,000 more flights…it’s a total of about 5,000 flights cancelled now, and around 1,700 delayed. That amounts to around a third of Delta’s scheduled flights. Delta was the worst hit US airline, with United a distant second…at 266 flights cancelled on Sunday. At first, United and Delta told stranded travelers that they wouldn’t cover bills since the CrowdStrike crash was out of their control. However, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg later stepped in and said that he considered the situation self-inflicted, so carriers would need to cover food, transportation and lodging costs for any delays longer than three hours as required by law. Secretary Pete also said don’t let them talk you into a credit…you can get the cash back…that’s the law!

In an interesting application of one tech to another, astronomers and researchers at the University of Hull have shown a novel way to detect AI Deepfakes. Arstechnica.com says it involves analyzing the reflections in human eyes. The technique was shown at the Royal Astronomical Society meeting last week. It utilizes tools used by astronomers. A pair of eyes being illuminated by the same set of light sources will normally have similarly shaped light reflections in each eyeball. Most AI deepfakes so far don’t account for eyeball reflections, so they show up inconsistently between the eyes. Some differences can be detected with the naked eye…like when one eye has white lights and the other red, but the astronomical tools can detect automatically and much faster…and with detail that a person can’t match. One down side…the technique requires a clear, up-close view of the eyeballs to work. It isn’t 100% yet…there are a few false negatives and false positives…but it’s a new tool in the battle against deepfakes.

A Swedish firm, using research from Chalmers University of Technology, has developed carbon fiber-based structural batteries that not only store energy but also become an integral part of a product’s structure. Their possible span of energy density is said to be around 25-50% of a conventional lithium-ion battery at current technology level. Bgr.com notes that by integrating the batteries into the actual structure of the car (or aircraft), these batteries could lighten the weight of the vehicle by up to 50%! This tech is the first that has given good mechanical strength plus good electrical properties. Previous tries have had one or the other, but not both.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.