As the only director to have helmed more than a single Predator film (previously the direct-to-streaming Prey and animated anthology Killer of Killers), Dan Trachtenberg has become the de facto shepherd of the franchise, and that’s a good thing. With Badlands, he takes audiences in a new direction, revealing some deep backstory to the “Yautja” culture and even creating sympathy for the story’s underdog protagonist.
We open on their homeworld where Dek, the runt of his clan, struggles to prove his worth, particularly in the eyes of his cold, fanatical father. Barely escaping execution, Dek blasts off to the “death planet” of Genna, desperate to kill the ultimate prey and earn his prized camouflage cloak once and for all. Immediately we discover how this place earned its nickname, and he only survives his first few moments with the help of a sassy robot, a “synthetic” named Thia (Elle Fanning). They form an unconventional bond and begin a shared quest, fraught with danger and more than a few twists big and small.
Predator: Badlands was shot digitally and yielded a native 4K master filled with extensive computer-generated visual effects that are photo-realistic and imperceptibly blended, such that the adventure plays out like we’re viewing it all through a 2.39:1 window. The use of color is occasionally quite clever, such as when a bleak, oppressive sky is streaked with vermilion. Emissive highlights stand out as well, particularly when the headlights of high-tech vehicles slice through the darkness.
Enemies approach and attack from all directions, and the hand-to-hand fights are some of the fiercest I’ve seen in a minute, bringing us some wonderfully hyperactive panning across the surrounds. Bass impact is outstanding, from rocket blasts to explosions to individual weapon hits, with the testosterone meter seldom dipping below 10. Among the more subtle flourishes, a distinctive inorganic effect is applied to the synthetics’ voices, at different levels as the mood commands. Worth noting, the Dolby Atmos track is exclusive to the 4K disc, as the included HD Blu-ray disc tops out at DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1.
Predator: Badlands – Limited Edition Steelbook
Trachtenberg anchors the commentary, joined by his producer, director of photography and stunt coordinator. The track also appears on the HD Blu-ray, where the assorted featurettes do a fantastic job of breaking down the unique challenges of such an original production. In addition, there are half a dozen deleted, alternate and extended scenes, some rendered as detailed pre-visualizations, totaling almost half an hour, with their own optional commentary. The two-disc (plus digital copy) set is also being offered as a SteelBook ($76.99 at Amazon)
Fans will be quick to note that this is not the first Predator movie that tips its cap to the long-running Alien franchise, although when the script isn’t giving us a nifty wink it can be a bit derivative of a variety of sources. Overall, Badlands is a fierce and revitalized entry in the franchise that absolutely dominates in a home theater setting.
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Movie Details
STUDIO: Fox/Disney
FORMAT: Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray (February 17, 2026)
THEATRICAL RELEASE YEAR: 2025
ASPECT RATIO: 2.39:1
HDR FORMATS: Dolby Vision, HDR10
AUDIO FORMAT: Dolby Atmos with TrueHD 7.1 core
LENGTH: 107 mins.
MPAA RATING: PG-13
DIRECTOR: Dan Trachtenberg
STARRING: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Rohinal Nayaran, Chris Terhune, Mike Homik, Stefan Grube
Leon S. Kennedy is hiding a huge secret about himself in Resident Evil Requiem
The secret can only be discovered after you beat the game
Concept art also seems to confirm player’s theories
This article contains spoilers for Resident Evil Requiem.
Capcom has hidden a pretty huge secret about Leon S. Kennedy in Resident Evil Requiem that can only discovered when players reach the end of the game.
The latest entry in the Resident Evil franchise launched last week, and already, players are beating the game with some even on their second or third playthroughs.
But there’s one specific moment in the final cutscene that has fans going wild with theories (as reported by IGN).
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At the end of the game, Leon can be seen walking away from Grace and slipping off his black gloves. Then, if you look closely, you can see him reaching into his back pocket and then putting something that looks like a ring on his finger.
It’s difficult to see because it’s quite dark, but fans have zoomed in on the scene, and there is a glint when he slides it on his left ring finger, suggesting that Leon S. Kennedy is a married man! Sorry, everyone, we were keeping it a secret.
In all seriousness though, after beating the game for the first time, players can also head to the main menu to check out extra features, including concept art. It’s there that players can unlock Leon’s character sheet, which shows his overall design, as well as his hands, the right with the black infection and the left showing the gold wedding band on his ring finger.
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It’s a secret held until the last moment in the game, as Leon seemingly heads back to his regular life after another near-death experience.
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So who is the mysterious spouse he’ll be returning home to? Someone fans already know, or a completely original character we haven’t been introduced to yet?
Many fans believe it to be Claire Redfield, his Resident Evil 2 co-star and Chris Redfield’s sister, the latter of whom has a namedrop in the endgame.
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Others think Leon could be married to Ada Wong, who shared the screen in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4, and Resident Evil 6. Ada is also playable in the Separate Ways, a downloadable content (DLC) for Resident Evil 4.
“He may not be married in the traditional sense with a dog and picket fence, but I think he’s symbolically off the market,” said user ‘UnusualShopping’ on Reddit.
“Romance has been a conflict in his life. Part of his particular arc moving forward, is his lover boy persona being moved on from. I expect him and Ada, some time off screen, have come to a more official understanding. He has other options that would all make good partners, but narratively, if it’s not Ada all of that build up was for… what?”
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Either way, the pair share a lot of history, but could their chemistry have finally culminated in a marriage?
Capcom traditionally releases new DLC after every Resident Evil game, so I’m hoping that the expansion may offer some more clues as to Leon’s mystery partner. Maybe we’ll even get to play as them.
The construction of a large language model (LLM) depends on many things: banks of GPUs, vast reams of training data, massive amounts of power, and matrix manipulation libraries like Numpy. For models with lower requirements though, it’s possible to do away with all of that, including the software dependencies. As someone who’d already built a full operating system as a C learning project, [Ethan Zhang] was no stranger to intimidating projects, and as an exercise in minimalism, he decided to build a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) model in the kernel space of his operating system.
As with a number of other small demonstration LLMs, this was inspired by [Andrej Karpathy]’s MicroGPT, specifically by its lack of external dependencies. The first step was to strip away every unnecessary element from MooseOS, the operating system [Ethan] had previously written, including the GUI, most drivers, and the filesystem. All that’s left is the kernel, and KernelGPT runs on this. To get around the lack of a filesystem, the training data was converted into a header to keep it in memory — at only 32,000 words, this was no problem. Like the original MicroGPT, this is trained on a list of names, and predicts new names. Due to some hardware issues, [Ethan] hasn’t yet been able to test this on a physical computer, but it does work in QEMU.
It’s quite impressive to see such a complex piece of software written solely in C, running directly on hardware; for a project which takes the same starting point and goes in the opposite direction, check out this browser-based implementation of MicroGPT. For more on the math behind GPTs, check out this visualization.
The Ford F-150 has been one of, if not the best-selling new car in the U.S. for almost five decades. According to Business Insider, more than 33 million F-Series trucks have been sold since 1977, the majority of which were F-150s. Throughout such a rich and encompassing history, there have been many great F-150 engines. Think the 300-cubic-inch Inline Six, 5.8L 351 Windsor, 3.5L EcoBoost V6, all some of the best engines ever put in a Ford truck.
Some of these have even been the backbone on which the U.S. infrastructure was built, while others brought the F-Series into the 21st century. However, not all of Ford’s engines share the same sentiment as some have been less reliable or more controversial than others. Ownership experience can vary, but certain units are widely associated with recurring issues and costly repairs. Therefore, here are Ford F-150 engines you should steer clear of.
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Ford 5.4L Triton V8
As Car Wizard put it bluntly, the engine is “my personal most hated engine on planet Earth.” He went further, calling the unit “absolute trash,” warning owners who defend it by saying their truck is still running to “just wait.” He also claimed, “I, personally, have replaced 14 of these… and it’s around six or seven grand a pop.” We also tried our best to find the worst engine Ford ever put in a truck, and you guessed it, it was the 5.4L Triton.
When it comes to Triton’s worst issues, spark plug-related problems of the early models are certainly up there. Besides them being incredibly difficult to remove without special tools (as acknowledged by Ford in TSB 08-7-6) the luckiest of drivers were even treated with plugs flying out the side of the cylinder heads due to bad cylinder head designs. Other common problems of the Triton include oil sludge buildup, timing system issues, fuel system module corrosion, and gasket and oil leaks.
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Although Ford never recalled a vehicle due to the Triton engine, there have been numerous bulletins published. Variable valve timing problems, often described by owners and technicians as the “death rattle,” have also been associated with the 5.4L Triton. These seem to be largely linked to oil pressure–dependent cam phaser operation and sludge buildup.
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Ford 3.5L EcoBoost V6 (earlier generations)
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As a disclaimer, not all of Ford’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost engines are deserving of being on a “worst F-150 engines” list, but an exception has to be made for some of the earlier iterations. Specifically, pre-2015 EcoBoost V6 engines are associated with expensive timing chain problems, thus making them some of the worst Ford 3.5-liter EcoBoost years you should avoid. Once again, no recalls were ever carried out, but Ford did issue TSB 18-2305, TSB 15-0131, and TSB 21-2119 programs, all of which were related to cold-start rattle, variable cam timing component wear, and timing chain or phaser-related noise conditions on early 3.5s.
Besides timing chain problems, 2017 to 2020 models were also prone to cam phaser problems. Ford did issue the Ford 21B10 Service Action, which directly addressed cam phaser noise complaints on 2017 to 2020 vehicles equipped with the Ford 3.5L EcoBoost GTDI V6. The program extended repair coverage and instructed dealers to reprogram the powertrain control module in order to mitigate + cam phaser noise. In addition, a separate Ford 21N03 Customer Satisfaction Program was issued, providing a cam phaser replacement for vehicles that continued to exhibit problems after the update.
Other problems on earlier 3.5-liter EcoBoost engines include turbo coolant fittings leaking coolant, broken exhaust manifolds, and leaking vacuum pumps. Overall, the Ford 3.5-liter is far from being the worst engine Ford ever made, but given how earlier iterations of the engine had serious issues that can cost thousands of dollars to fix, it had to be included.
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Ford 4.2L Essex V6
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The Ford Essex V6 engine family earned its notoriety by replacing well-established V8 engines with comparably smaller yet similarly powerful V6 engines. However, when Flying Wrenches ranked Ford F-150 engines from best to worst, they placed the 1997 to 2008 Ford 4.2L Essex V6 in D (the lowest) tier, saying, “You know it’s going to let you down one day.” One of the main pain points of the 4.2L Essex V6 has to do with its intake manifold gasket failures.
If you are unlucky, you can experience coolant leaking into the cylinders which can hydrolock it and even bend the connecting rods. Ford did issue the TSB 99-20-7, addressing internal coolant leaks on 1995 to 1998 4.2-liter Essex engines caused by failing lower intake manifold or front cover gaskets. The bulletin outlines revised gasket designs and installation torque specifications in order to cope with the problem.
However, this did not stop the 4.2-liter V6 from suffering from similar issues found in Ford’s V8s. Besides the intake gasket problem, the 4.2 experienced problems with the timing cover gasket leaking and ignition problems. Timing cover problems were recognized by Ford with the 99B29 service program which required gasket replacements to combat the issue.
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Ford Powerstroke 3.0L V6
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The Ford Powerstroke 3-liter V6 was offered for F-150 models from 2018 and later, but it never really caught on. This Ford diesel pickup engine was discontinued in 2021 because it was caught in the midst of a semiconductor shortage crisis, while also because it was outsold by its own gasoline counterparts. Part of the reason why people choose diesels over gasoline trucks is towing, but the 3-liter Powerstroke was not really any better in this regard compared to available gas engines.
Additionally, it was a very difficult engine to work on since it was intended for Range Rovers, not F150s. Regardless, the main problems of the 3-liter Powerstroke include crankshaft bearing failures that could lead to engine failures. The truck also experienced problems with the EGR system, which could cause subpar performance and overheating issues. Besides these, owners have also complained about DPF problems and EGT system problems.
When Getty’s Garage did a deep-dive on why the 3-liter Powerstroke was discontinued, he mentioned that “It costs more to get, you know, relatively the same exact performance, so why would you get the diesel?” This was also reflected in the availability of aftermarket supports, meaning that it never truly caught on for the 3-liter. Even though this was a fairly economical engine, it was not strong enough for towing. Plus, it was not the most reliable, and it certainly wasn’t the one people wanted.
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Ford 6.2L Boss
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The Ford 6.2-liter Boss engine was introduced by Ford in 2010 and was reserved for the amazing V8 F150 Raptor until it was replaced by the new EcoBoost in 2019. Overall, it must be said that the 6.2 is not an engine you should steer clear of by itself since it has proven itself as a fairly durable platform. However, it is not perfect. This is especially the case when buying a used Ford F150 Raptor with the 6.2 that has not been properly taken care of. Things can turn south really quick.
The three most common problems with Ford’s 6.2L Boss engine include faulty spark plugs, broken valve springs, and oil leaks. In terms of spark plugs, this engine has 16 of them. They are not easy or quick to replace. When Chris from I Do Cars did a teardown of a Ford 6.2L Boss V8, he mentioned that “some of the early 62s have been notoriously bad for broken valve springs,” He later confirmed it by saying he tore one down and found “a mess inside.”
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Oil leaks have typically been associated with internally leaking valve cover baffles on the right side of the valve cover. Ford issued the TSB 15-0161 which instructed dealers to replace affected cover assemblies to solve it. Overall, when maintained properly, the 6.2 is not likely to be one of the F150 engines to avoid, but given the problems some examples experienced and how much it costs to fix them, we decided to include it.
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How we made our list
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The Ford F-150 is a staple of American car culture. It is a truck that supports much of American daily life. It has been one of the best-selling vehicles for decades for good reason. It offers a strong balance of capability, practicality, and driving comfort, appealing both to people who need a work truck and those who simply want a reliable daily vehicle.
However, given the size of the F-150 community, a wide range of issues has also been documented, and some engines have developed stronger reputations for problems. It is important to emphasize that all engines discussed here can still be reliable. We are not claiming that every 5.4-liter Triton engine will fail. Rather, according to tons of online data, these are engines that appear more likely to experience problems.
We reviewed numerous F-150 forum posts, mechanic expert reviews, teardowns, technical deep-dive videos, information from NHTSA databases, Ford service bulletins, service programs, and warranty extension notices. We also built upon the previous research conducted by our team on similar topics to make sure our list is credible and can easily be verified.
The Honor Robot Phone is officially out of the teaser phase and on full display at MWC 2026 in Barcelona, and what a show it put on. A functioning prototype was on display, demonstrating a smartphone with a camera attached on a small robotic arm, rather than just an afterthought to make the phone look flashier.
To fit the mechanism without making the phone a behemoth, Honor created an extremely compact bespoke micro motor that is 70% smaller than what is typically seen in a phone. When the phone is not in use, the arm pops out of a small compartment on the back, slides open a panel to expose the entire thing, and then tucks itself back in.
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This camera serves as the phone’s expressive little face, with a 200-megapixel sensor and a four-degrees-of-freedom gimbal technology that happens to be the smallest of its kind, according to Honor. The gimbal has three-axis stabilization, so even when the arm moves about, the footage remains smooth as silk. The gimbal can perform a variety of precise movements, including tilting, panning, and rotating a full 360 degrees. In demos, it appears that the phone is attempting to converse with you, nodding in agreement, shaking its head no, tilting its head in curiosity, and bobbing along to the beat when music is playing. Honor customized a few melodies for these small rhythmic reactions, transforming the phone into a dance partner rather than a brick on a table.
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However, AI drives the majority of the phone’s behaviour. Object tracking allows the camera to latch onto and smoothly follow someone during video conversations and recordings, eliminating the need for human corrections. They also have Super Steady Video mode, which compensates for arm shaking, and SpinShot, which allows for one-handed 90- or 180-degree spin shots, giving your videos a dramatic sense. They collaborated with ARRI Image Science to perfect the colors, highlights, and depth rendering, resulting in footage that looks professionally shot.
The prototype appears to be ready to go, as they used materials from their foldable phone experience to make the moving parts nice and robust. You’d have to be concerned about durability, of course; previous attempts with mechanical cameras have been questionable, but they say they’ve taken the phone through its paces in testing, so hopefully it’ll hold up well. The phone’s rear is slightly thicker due to the compartment and gimbal housing, but it still feels comfortable in the hand.
Honor is focused on what it calls “embodied AI,” meaning intelligence that shows up through movement rather than just voice responses or something confined to a screen. There is no information yet on the exact specs, such as the processor, battery, and display, or how much it will cost. It will be released in the second half of 2026, beginning in China, but that is all they are saying about global availability for the time being.
We’ve talked a lot about the resurgence of measles in America over the past 14 or so months, and for good reason. It’s a horrible disease of historic significance. Equally historic was America achieving elimination status of the measles 26 years ago, only to see that almost certainly fall away thanks to the incompetence and inaction by Secretary of HHS, RFK Jr. This is all connected with a surge of anti-vaxxer nonsense that has proliferated across several decades, but which is now peaking thanks to the clowns this administration has put in charge of American health.
But as bad as the measles is, and it is really bad, it would be nothing to the visible horror show that any real return of polio in America would be. It was only weeks ago that the chair of ACIP, the CDC’s committee for recommendations on vaccine policies, wondered aloud if we should be vaccinating for polio any longer. Perhaps in part because of those comments, healthcare professionals throughout the country are ringing the alarm bells, warning that the country is in no way prepared for a return of polio.
Part of the problem, ironically enough, is that vaccines have done such a wonderful job of eliminating polio that healthcare professionals are no longer proficient in treating it.
“We don’t have a healthcare infrastructure to take care of a polio outbreak,” said Grace Rossow, an operating-room communications coordinator in Illinois, who has long-term health issues following a case of polio as an infant.
“They don’t know how to treat it. It is a massive problem if we have a resurgence of polio.”
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Polio has no cure. Those who get it merely get their symptoms treated as best they can. Up to half of those who get the disease will suffer from long-term effects for the rest of their lives. Symptoms of post-polio syndrome include such fun things as increasing weakness in the muscles, fatigue, pain and muscle atrophy, problems breathing and swallowing, and an inability to be mobile without mechanical assistance. And that’s what you can deal with once you get past the acute symptoms, like paralysis in the lower extremities and the inability to breath without the help of an iron lung.
And if Polio does indeed return, it will be because selfish or misguided people, typically clinging to religious excuses that are simply unserious, have refused to be good members of their communities by getting them and their children vaccinated.
Art Caplan is a polio survivor, who has suffered from post-polio syndrome and now currently teaches medical ethics at NYU.
When Kirk Milhoan, the chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said the vaccine advisers were reconsidering routine childhood vaccines because the risks of illnesses such as polio had dropped, “that makes me furious”, Caplan said.
“If you could gather up the kids I saw die or become really severely disabled from 50 years ago, they would want you arrested … It’s horrifying, and the height of irresponsibility to leave the door open even a crack,” he continued.
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As more families choose not to vaccinate, particularly after the US stopped fully recommending several key vaccines, Caplan said: “You are begging to have a recurrence of the disease.”
Betting on the return of a disease as infectious as polio while witnessing falling vaccination rates is an easy bet. That’s how these diseases work. And if the angry rash and a few dead children haven’t gotten through to the masses on the measles, I dare say that children with deformed and mangled joints, bones, and bodies, either stuffed into iron lungs or getting by with the help of dual walking canes, would likely clarify the minds of Americans on this matter.
But, and I cannot stress this enough, there is no reason we should have to sacrifice so many people, so many children, to re-convince ourselves to do the right thing.
Trouble began when users discovered that Discord messages containing the word “Microslop,” a mocking nickname for the company’s AI-heavy direction, were automatically blocked. Those attempting to post the word received a notice saying their message included a “prohibited phrase.”Screenshots spread quickly across social media, pushing what might have been a… Read Entire Article Source link
Samsung is not playing it safe in 2026. With the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 and Buds4 Pro, the company is taking a direct shot at the top of the premium wireless earbud market and squarely targeting both Apple and Sony.
The new Galaxy Buds4 series combines improved sound performance with a more refined industrial design built around Samsung’s signature blade form. That shape was developed using hundreds of millions of global ear data points and more than 10,000 simulations to create a fit that feels more natural and secure. This is not a cosmetic tweak. Samsung is leaning into computational modeling and ergonomic data to improve comfort, stability, and long term wear.
The earbuds now feature smaller heads for a tighter seal, a stabilized blade with a premium metal finish, and an engraved pinch control area that makes it easier to find and adjust settings without guesswork. It is a focused evolution designed to elevate both usability and perceived quality.
Samsung Galaxy Buds4
Samsung is clearly aiming higher. The question is whether better fit, smarter processing, and upgraded audio features are enough to disrupt the two companies that currently define this space. The Galaxy Buds4 and Buds4 Pro look ready for the fight. But do they deliver enough to change the outcome?
“Samsung understands that a truly premium audio experience combines technical sound quality with how that sound feels throughout a user’s day,” said Ikhyun Cho, Corporate Vice President of the Mobile Enhancement R&D Team within the Mobile eXperience Business at Samsung Electronics. “With the Galaxy Buds4 series, our design philosophy was uncompromising. We focused on delivering all day comfort without sacrificing audio performance because those are what consumers value most. We engineered our most powerful hi-fi audio and our most secure ergonomic fit to enhance one another, delivering the best listening experience we have ever created.”
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Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro
Ear Wearing Style Engineered by Data
Galaxy Buds4 Pro and Buds4 offer two distinct design approaches to suit different listening preferences.
The Galaxy Buds4 Pro features a traditional in ear design built to maximize sound isolation, performance, and advanced functionality.
The Galaxy Buds4 adopts an open ear design focused on everyday comfort and a more natural, user friendly listening experience. Both models are available in multiple color options, giving customers the flexibility to match their personal style.
Transparent Clamshell Case Puts the Design on Display
The Buds4 series introduces a new transparent clamshell style case that simplifies storage and charging while showcasing the refined blade design for a more distinctive look on the go. The Galaxy Buds4 Pro case features a 530 mAh battery and measures 51 x 28.3 x 51 mm, with a total case weight of 44.3 grams.
The Galaxy Buds4 case includes a 515 mAh battery in the same 51 x 28.3 x 51 mm footprint, weighing slightly more at 45.1 grams.
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Galaxy Buds4 Pro
Buds4 Pro Enhancements
The Galaxy Buds4 Pro features a wider woofer paired with enhanced Active Noise Cancellation and an upgraded Adaptive Equalizer. Together, these technologies are designed to deliver more accurate sound while intelligently responding to real world listening conditions.
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The enhanced ANC system reduces everything from heavy transit noise to everyday background distractions, helping create a more immersive listening experience that adjusts as your environment changes.
Targeted design updates, including intuitive hands free controls and deeper AI integration, reinforce Samsung’s focus on earbuds built for how people actually listen throughout the day.
The Galaxy Buds4 Pro uses a two-way driver system positioned along the upper portion of the metal housing to optimize Active Noise Cancellation performance while reducing interference from wind and other external factors.
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It also introduces a newly engineered wider woofer that makes more efficient use of internal space. By expanding the vibration area and minimizing the speaker edge, Samsung increases the effective speaker surface by nearly 20 percent compared to the previous generation without compromising comfort or wearability.
Combined with the dedicated tweeter, the Galaxy Buds4 Pro delivers immersive audio with cleaner bass and more refined treble response. The system supports 24-bit/96kHz playback, bringing listeners closer to the original recording with higher resolution detail and greater dynamic range.
These hardware upgrades allow the earbuds to reproduce everything from the soaring resonance of violins to the deep, textured weight of double bass notes, resolving nuances that were more difficult to capture in earlier generations.
Clearer Calls Without the Tunnel Effect
For phone calls, the Super Clear Call feature on both the Galaxy Buds4 Pro and Buds4 uses super wideband call technology along with machine learning based noise reduction and voice enhancement. This system delivers up to twice the bandwidth of conventional Bluetooth calls, improving clarity and vocal presence.
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Whether at a packed baseball game, in a busy restaurant, or at a noisy playground, the technology is designed to keep voices sounding natural and intelligible, closer to a face-to-face conversation.
For Samsung Galaxy Phone Users
For Galaxy Phone users, the Buds4 series provides features that enhance the Galaxy Phone/Earbud ecosystem experience.
Users can activate AI agents including Bixby, Google Gemini, and Perplexity using hands free voice controls, allowing them to stay aware of their surroundings while managing their audio experience.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra with Buds4 Pro
The Galaxy Buds4 Pro enables direct access to supported AI features without reaching for a phone, making AI assistance easier to incorporate into everyday routines.
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Galaxy AI Live Translate and Interpreter are supported in up to 22 languages on compatible Samsung Galaxy devices, including the Galaxy S26 series, when signed in with a Samsung account. Some languages require additional downloads.
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For Galaxy ecosystem users, setup is streamlined. Opening the charging case prompts a quick connection option through the Buds shortcut menu or Quick Panel, eliminating the need to install the Galaxy Wearable app. From there, users can adjust volume, manage EQ settings, and customize controls directly from their device.
Galaxy ecosystem users benefit from a more streamlined setup process. Opening the charging case triggers a quick connection prompt on compatible Galaxy phones or tablets, eliminating the need to install the Galaxy Wearable app. Through the Buds shortcut menu or Quick Panel, users can immediately adjust volume, customize EQ settings, and manage controls for a more personalized listening experience.
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The Galaxy Buds4 Pro also introduces Head Gesture controls for managing calls and interacting with Bixby, enabling additional hands free functionality. Combined with voice commands, these gesture based controls allow users to handle everyday tasks without reaching for their device, helping keep daily routines fluid and uninterrupted.
Galaxy Buds4 Pro vs Galaxy Buds4 Key Differences
Galaxy Buds4 Pro (top) and Galaxy Buds4 (bottom)
Earbud Design: The Galaxy Buds4 uses an open type design without silicone tips, while the Galaxy Buds4 Pro features a sealed in ear design with silicone ear tips for improved noise isolation and a more secure fit.
Speaker Drivers: The Buds4 Pro employs a two way driver system with an 11 mm woofer and 5.5 mm tweeter for deeper bass and more detailed highs. The Buds4 uses a single 11 mm driver in a one way configuration.
Active Noise Cancellation: The Pro model includes Adaptive ANC 2.0 with more precise, multi level, and responsive noise cancellation compared to the standard Buds4.
Battery Life: The Buds4 Pro delivers approximately six hours of playback with ANC enabled, about one hour longer than the Buds4, which offers up to five hours with ANC on.
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Water and Dust Resistance: The Buds4 Pro carries an IP57 rating for greater resistance to water and dust, while the Buds4 is rated IP54.
Microphones and AI Features: Both models support voice commands and AI functionality, but the Buds4 Pro includes upgraded microphones designed to improve call clarity in louder environments.
Only the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro comes in Pink Gold
The Bottom Line
The Samsung Galaxy Buds4 and Buds4 Pro are clearly designed to tighten Samsung’s grip on its own ecosystem while taking aim at premium rivals from Apple and Sony. What makes them stand out is the combination of data driven ergonomic design, a refined blade aesthetic, upgraded driver architecture on the Pro model, and deeper AI integration that goes well beyond simple voice commands.
Features like Adaptive EQ, enhanced ANC, 24-bit/96kHz support on the Pro, head gesture controls, and Galaxy AI powered Live Translate and Interpreter give Samsung users a tightly integrated, forward looking experience.
These earbuds are best suited for Galaxy phone owners who want seamless setup, native control through the Quick Panel, automatic device switching, and full access to Samsung’s AI and audio processing features. If you own a newer Galaxy device such as the S26 series, the experience is cohesive and clearly optimized.
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The limitation is obvious. While both models will pair with an iPhone over Bluetooth, key Samsung specific features including Adaptive EQ, 360 Audio, automatic switching, and high resolution playback are not available, and audio is capped at 16-bit/44.1kHz.
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There is also no Samsung Wearable app for iPhone. In other words, these are built first and foremost for the Galaxy ecosystem. Outside of it, they are still solid wireless earbuds. Inside it, they are operating at full strength.
Price & Availability
General availability and shipping are expected to begin on March 11, 2026.
“There are Chinese components as well—we are totally open about it—but the key is that, as we compile the software ourselves and install it in Finland, we protect the integrity of the product,” Pienimäki says.
What makes Sailfish OS unique over competitors like GrapheneOS and e/OS is that it’s not based on the Android Open Source Project, but Linux. That means it has no ties to Google—no need for the company to “deGoogle” the software; meaning there’s a greater sense of sovereignty over the software (and now the hardware). Still, it’s able to run Android apps, though the implementation isn’t perfect. Another common criticism is that it’s not as secure as options like GrapheneOS, where every app is sandboxed.
There’s a good chance some Android apps on Sailfish OS will run into issues, which is why in the startup wizard the phone will ask if you want to install services like MicroG—open source software that can run Google services on devices that don’t have the Google Play Store, making it an easier on-ramp for folks coming from traditional smartphones without a technical background. You don’t even need to create a Sailfish OS account to use the Jolla Phone.
Jolla’s effort is hardly the first to push the anti–Big Tech narrative. A wave of other hardware and software companies offer a deGoogled experience, whether that’s Murena from France and its e/OS privacy-friendly operating system or the Canadian GrapheneOS, which just announced a partnership with Motorola. At CES earlier this year, the Swiss company Punkt also teamed up with ApostrophyOS to deploy its software on the new MC03 smartphone. Jolla is following a broader European trend of reducing reliance on US companies, like how French officials ditched Zoom for French-made video conference software earlier this year.
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The Phone
A common problem with these niche smartphones is that they inevitably end up costing a lot of money for the specs. Take the Light Phone III, for example, a fairly low-tech anti-smartphone that doesn’t enjoy the benefits of economies of scale, resulting in an outlandish $699 price. The Jolla Phone is in a similar boat, though the specs-to-value ratio is a little more respectable.
It’s powered by a midrange MediaTek Dimensity 7100 5G chip with 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot and dual-SIM tray. There’s a 6.36-inch 1080p AMOLED screen, the two main cameras, and a 32-megapixel selfie shooter. The 5,500-mAh battery cell is fairly large considering the phone’s size, though the phone’s connectivity is a little dated, stuck with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4.
Uniquely, the Jolla Phone brings back “The Other Half” functional rear covers from the original. These swappable back covers have pogo pins that interface with the phone, allowing people to create unique accessories like a second display on the back of the phone or even a keyboard attachment. There’s an Innovation Program where the community can cocreate functional covers together and 3D-print them. And yes, a removable rear cover means the Jolla Phone’s battery is user-replaceable.
Google has released security updates to patch 129 Android security vulnerabilities, including an actively exploited zero-day flaw in a Qualcomm display component.
“There are indications that CVE-2026-21385 may be under limited, targeted exploitation,” the company said on Monday in its March 2025 Android Security Bulletin.
While Google didn’t provide any further information on the attacks currently targeting this vulnerability, Qualcomm revealed in a separate security advisory issued on February 3 that the flaw is an integer overflow or wraparound in the Graphics subcomponent that local attackers can exploit to trigger memory corruption.
Qualcomm says it was alerted to this high-severity vulnerability on December 18, and it notified customers on February 2. According to its February advisory, which has yet to flag CVE-2026-21385 as exploited in attacks, the security flaw affects 235 Qualcomm chipsets.
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With this month’s Android security updates, Google fixed 10 critical security vulnerabilities in the System, Framework, and Kernel components that attackers exploit to gain remote code execution, elevate privileges, or trigger denial-of-service conditions.
“The most severe of these issues is a critical security vulnerability in the System component that could lead to remote code execution with no additional execution privileges needed. User interaction is not needed for exploitation,” Google said.
Google issued two sets of patches: the 2026-03-01 and 2026-03-05 security patch levels. The latter bundles all fixes from the first batch, as well as patches for closed-source third-party and kernel subcomponents, which may not apply to all Android devices.
While Google Pixel devices receive security updates immediately, other vendors often take longer to test and tweak them for specific hardware configurations.
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Google and Qualcomm spokespersons were not immediately available for comment when contacted by BleepingComputer earlier today regarding the CVE-2026-21385 attacks and their targets.
Google released patches for two other high-severity zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-48633 and CVE-2025-48572) in December, both of which were also tagged as “under limited, targeted exploitation.”
Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.
Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.
When Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska received a Fields Medal—widely regarded as the Nobel Prize for mathematics—in July 2022, it was big news. Not only was she the second woman to accept the honor in the award’s 86-year history, but she collected the medal just months after her country had been invaded by Russia. Nearly four years later, Viazovska is making waves again. Today, in a collaboration between humans and AI, Viazovska’s proofs have been formerly verified, signaling rapid progress in AI’s abilities to assist with mathematical research.
“These new results seem very, very impressive, and definitely signal some rapid progress in this direction,” says AI-reasoning expert and Princeton University postdoc Liam Fowl, who was not involved in the work.
In her Fields Medal–winning research, Viazovska had tackled two versions of the sphere-packing problem, which asks: How densely can identical circles, spheres, et cetera, be packed in n-dimensional space? In two dimensions, the honeycomb is the best solution. In three dimensions, spheres stacked in a pyramid are optimal. But after that, it becomes exceedingly difficult to find the best solution, and to prove that it is in fact the best.
In 2016, Viazovska solved the problem in two cases. By using powerful mathematical functions known as (quasi-)modular forms, she proved that a symmetric arrangement known as E8 is the best 8-dimensional packing, and soon after proved with collaborators that another sphere packing called the Leech lattice is best in 24 dimensions. Though seemingly abstract, this result has potential to help solve everyday problems related to dense sphere packing, including error-correcting codes used by smartphones and space probes.
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The proofs were verified by the mathematical community and deemed correct, leading to the Fields Medal recognition. But formal verification—the ability of a proof to be verified by a computer—is another beast altogether. Since 2022, much progress has been made in AI-assisted formal proof verification.
Serendipity leads to formalization project
A few years later, a chance meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, between third-year undergraduate Sidharth Hariharan and Viazovska would reignite her interest in sphere-packing proofs. Though still very early in his career, Hariharan was already becoming adept at formalizing proofs.
“Formal verification of a proof is like a rubber stamp,” Fowl says. “It’s a kind of bona fide certification that you know your statements of reasoning are correct.”
Hariharan told Viazovska how he had been using the process of formalizing proofs to learn and really understand mathematical concepts. In response, Viazovska expressed an interest in formalizing her proofs, largely out of curiosity. From this, in March 2024 the Formalising Sphere Packing in Lean project was born. Lean is a popular programming language and “proof assistant” that allows mathematicians to write proofs that are then verified for absolute correctness by a computer.
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A collaboration bringing in experts Bhavik Mehta (Imperial College London), Christopher Birkbeck (University of East Anglia, England), Seewoo Lee (University of California, Berkeley), and others, the project involved writing a human-readable “blueprint” that could be used to map the 8-dimensional proof’s various constituents and which of them had and had not been formalized and/or proven, and then proving and formalizing those missing elements in Lean.
“We had been building the project’s repository for about 15 months when we enabled public access in June 2025,” recalls Hariharan, now a first-year Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University. “Then, in late October we heard from Math, Inc. for the first time.”
The AI speedup
Math, Inc. is a startup developing Gauss, an AI specifically designed to automatically formalize proofs. “It’s a particular kind of language model called a reasoning agent that’s meant to interleave both traditional natural-language reasoning and fully formalized reasoning,” explains Jesse Han, Math, Inc. CEO and cofounder. “So it’s able to conduct literature searches, call up tools, and use a computer to write down Lean code, take notes, spin up verification tooling, run the Lean compiler, et cetera.”
Math, Inc. first hit the headlines when it announced that Gauss had completed a Lean formalization of the strong prime number theorem (PNT) in three weeks last summer, a task that Fields Medalist Terence Tao and Alex Kontorovich had been working on. Similarly, Math, Inc. contacted Hariharan and colleagues to say that Gauss had proven several facts related to their sphere-packing project.
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“They told us that they had finished 30 “sorrys,” which meant that they proved 30 intermediate facts that we wanted proved,” explains Hariharan. A proportion of these sorrys were shared with the project team and merged with their own work. “One of them helped us identify a typo in our project, which we then fixed,” adds Hariharan. “So it was a pretty fruitful collaboration.”
From 8 to 24 dimensions
But then, radio silence followed. Math, Inc. appeared to lose interest. However, while Hariharan and colleagues continued their labor of love, Math, Inc. was building a new and improved version of Gauss. “We made a research breakthrough sometime mid-January that produced a much stronger version of Gauss,” says Han. “This new version reproduced our three-week PNT result in two to three days.”
Days later, the new Gauss was steered back to the sphere-packing formalization. Working from the invaluable preexisting blueprint and work that Hariharan and collaborators had shared, Gauss not only autoformalized the 8-dimensional case, but also found and fixed a typo in the published paper, all in the space of five days.
“When they reached out to us in late January saying that they finished it, to put it very mildly, we were very surprised,” says Hariharan. “But at the end of the day, this is technology that we’re very excited about, because it has the capability to do great things and to assist mathematicians in remarkable ways.”
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Hariharan was working on sphere-packing proof verification as the sun was setting behind Carnegie Mellon’s Hamerschlag Hall.Sidharth Hariharan
The 8-dimensional sphere-packing proof formalization alone, announced on February 23, represents a watershed moment for autoformalization and AI–human collaboration. But today, Math, Inc. revealedan even more impressive accomplishment: Gauss has autoformalized Viazovska’s 24-dimensional sphere-packing proof—all 200,000+ lines of code of it—in just two weeks.
There are commonalities between the 8- and 24-dimensional cases in terms of the foundational theory and overall architecture of the proof, meaning some of the code from the 8-dimensional case could be refactored and reused. However, Gauss had no preexisting blueprint to work from this time. “And it was actually significantly more involved than the 8-dimensional case, because there was a lot of missing background material that had to be brought on line surrounding many of the properties of the Leech lattice, in particular its uniqueness,” explains Han.
Though the 24-dimensional case was an automated effort, both Han and Hariharan acknowledge the many contributions from humans that laid the foundations for this achievement, regarding it as a collaborative endeavor overall between humans and AI.
But for Han, it represents even more: the beginning of a revolutionary transformation in mathematics, where extremely large-scale formalizations are commonplace. “A programmer used to be someone who punched holes into cards, but then the act of programming became separated from whatever material substrate was used for recording programs,” he concludes. “I think the end result of technology like this will be to free mathematicians to do what they do best, which is to dream of new mathematical worlds.”
Hariharan was working on sphere-packing proof verification as the sun was setting behind Carnegie Mellon’s Hamerschlag Hall.Sidharth Hariharan
