In the last week, both Samsung and Xiaomi have taken the wraps off their latest superphones, but only one of them has properly impressed me. I’ve spent weeks testing the Leica Leitzphone by Xiaomi ahead of its launch at MWC 2026 and I concluded that it’s the best camera phone I’ve ever used. I even gave it a CNET Editors’ Choice award because it has been so damn impressive — and I think Samsung should be worried. 

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra is a jack-of-all-trades phone, packing a supercharged processor, a funky privacy screen and that all-important S Pen stylus. But its cameras only saw small improvements, with a slightly larger aperture on the main and telephoto cameras being the most notable upgrades. Beyond that, it really comes down to Samsung’s various software AI tricks, like the ability to change the style of hat you’re wearing in a photo. 

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This has become a trend for Samsung, with the last few Ultra phones only slightly iterating on previous camera setups, adding a few extra megapixels here and there but largely leaning into software updates to make up for a lack of hardware innovation. While Samsung’s top-tier phones have been among the best camera phones around, Xiaomi and Leica’s Leitzphone has shown what true photography innovation looks like. 

This camera beast packs a number of firsts. We’ll start with the LOFIC image sensor, which stands for Lateral Overflow Integration Capacitor and is basically a new type of sensor technology that improves dynamic range in a single image. It’s capable of taking gorgeous images in all conditions, including at night. Samsung was rumored to be considering LOFIC sensors for its phones (as is Apple) but evidently opted not to go down this route just yet. 

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The Leitzphone is also among the first phones ever to use real moving lens elements in its telephoto zoom, allowing true lossless zooming rather than jumping only between specific zoom levels. It works well and a similar setup has been rumored to appear on the last few generations of Ultra, but it’s never actually happened. 

Then there’s the physical control ring around the Leitzphone’s camera, the stunning Leica colour profiles built right into the camera experience and the pristine quality of the Leica Summilux optics used in the lenses. 

By partnering with such a photography icon, Xiaomi has truly innovated its photography, delivering multiple firsts that genuinely improve the image-taking experience. As both a professional photographer and a genuine enthusiast myself, I’ve been blown away by the photos I’ve been able to shoot with the phone. 

But Samsung hasn’t excited me this time round. Its new generative AI tools might be fun gimmicks, but they’re not appealing to an actual photographer like myself. The S26 Ultra needs to be more than a cameraphone, of course — it needs to be “ultra” in every sense of the word. But Samsung’s latest model shows that proper photography isn’t a priority for the company. 

As such Samsung risks losing out on the huge number of photographers and content creators (both professional and amateur alike) who are instead going to be looking at rivals like Xiaomi for products that can live up to their imaging demands. 

By Ricardo Amper, Founder & CEO, Incode

Deepfakes are evolving and are no longer confined to misinformation campaigns or viral media manipulation. Most security teams already understand the deepfake problem; however, the more urgent shift is how synthetic media is being operationalized.

This fraud vector is being leveraged inside the identity moments that power the internet and economy – such as customer onboarding at a bank, driver onboarding for gig and delivery platforms, marketplace seller verification, account recovery, remote hiring, partner access, and privileged access workflows.

As more work and business is done remotely, identity has become a primary control point – and a primary target. Bad actors don’t only want to fool a selfie check; they want to impersonate a real person, establish durable access, and reuse that foothold across consumer and enterprise environments.

Cybersecurity and fraud teams are now dealing with a convergence of tactics that all aim at the same decision – the moment a system concludes “this is a real person”:

• High-fidelity synthetic faces and voices that can pass quick checks
• Replayed real footage from stolen or harvested sessions
• Automation that probes verification flows at scale
• Injection attacks that compromise the capture pipeline and substitute the input stream upstream

This is why “deepfake detection” alone is no longer enough. Enterprises need full-session validation: including perception, device integrity, and behavioral signals… all in a single, real-time control.

That is the model behind Incode Deepsight: an approach built to validate identity sessions end-to-end, not just evaluate the media in isolation.

The right question is not only “Does this face look real?” It is “Can we trust this entire session end-to-end?”

Deepfakes and injection are enterprise security issues

In enterprise systems, a successful bypass is not a reputation event; it’s an access event. When verification accepts a manipulated or compromised session as real, attackers can:

• Create fraudulent accounts using synthetic identities
• Take over existing user accounts
• Bypass HR verification in remote hiring
• Gain unauthorized access to sensitive internal systems

Unlike social media deception, these attacks can enable persistent access inside trusted environments. The downstream impact is durable: account persistence, privilege-escalation pathways, and lateral movement opportunities that start with a single false verification decision.

Where identity checks fail: assuming the sensor is trustworthy

Most identity checks are built around two signals: facial similarity and “liveness.” Both are useful,  and both can be undermined if the system assumes the input stream is authentic.

Attackers break that assumption in two complementary ways.

First, they mimic real media. Deepfakes and voice clones are improving under real operating conditions – short clips, mobile capture, compression, and imperfect lighting. A workflow that depends on a narrow visual surface area is increasingly exposed to false acceptance.

Second, they bypass the sensor entirely. Injection attacks substitute the input stream before it reaches analysis. Instead of presenting a face to a camera, attackers can:

• Use virtual camera software to feed synthetic or pre-recorded video
• Run verification sessions inside emulators designed to mimic legitimate mobile devices
• Operate from rooted or jailbroken devices that bypass integrity checks
• Substitute live capture with manipulated streams upstream

In these scenarios, the media can look perfect because it never had to survive a real capture path. That is why perception-only defenses (even strong ones) are necessary but not sufficient.

What the Purdue Political Deepfakes Incident Database benchmark shows

One practical problem for deepfake defense is generalization: detectors that test well in controlled settings often degrade in “in-the-wild” conditions.

Researchers at Purdue University evaluated deepfake detection systems using their real-world benchmark based on the Political Deepfakes Incident Database (PDID).

PDID contains real incident media distributed on platforms such as X, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, meaning the inputs are compressed, re-encoded, and post-processed in the same ways defenders often see in production.

Key factors include:

• Heavy compression and re-encoding
• Sub-720p resolution
• Short, mobile-first clips
• Heterogeneous generation pipelines

Detectors were evaluated end-to-end using metrics such as accuracy, AUC, and false-acceptance rate (FAR). In identity workflows, FAR is often the more consequential metric, because even a small false-acceptance rate can allow persistent unauthorized access.

Purdue’s results also highlight a practical reality for defenders: performance varies dramatically across detectors once inputs look like production.

Among the commercial systems evaluated in Purdue’s PDID benchmark, Incode’s Deepsight delivered the strongest results when the task is purely visual deepfake detection – evaluating video content itself under real incident conditions.

But that is only the first layer of the problem.

It’s important to be precise: PDID measures robustness of media detection on real incident content. It does not model injection, device compromise, or full-session attacks.

In real identity workflows, attackers do not choose one technique at a time; they stack them. A high-quality deepfake can be replayed. A replay can be injected. An injected stream can be automated at scale.

The best media detectors still can be bypassed if the capture path is untrusted. That’s why Deepsight goes even deeper than asking “Is this video a deepfake?”

Deepsight closes that gap by validating the full session across three layers: perception, integrity, and behavior, so that the system can stop attacks whether they arrive as a convincing deepfake, a replay, or an injected stream.

Manual review doesn’t close the gap

Human review can reduce some classes of fraud, but it is not a scalable security control against synthetic media.

Even trained reviewers struggle to determine real from fake as generative models improve.

Today’s injection attacks invalidate the premise and undermine human judgment entirely: a session can appear legitimate while the input stream is substituted upstream. Even consensus reviews among several experts cannot establish that the capture path was authentic.

The security model that holds up: trust the session, not just the pixels.

If attackers can win either by improving the media or by bypassing the sensor, defenses have to validate the session across multiple layers in real time:

• Perception: Is the media itself manipulated?
• Integrity: Is the device, camera, and session authentic?
• Behavior: Does the interaction reflect a real human and a normal verification flow?

This model creates resilience. If a high-quality deepfake evades perception, integrity and behavioral signals can still prevent a successful bypass. If media is injected, integrity checks can fail the session regardless of how realistic the pixels look.

How Incode Deepsight blocks deepfakes and injection attacks in real time

Attackers are scaling. They can iterate against verification flows quickly, probe edge cases, and operationalize what works. Deepfakes raise the baseline risk of false acceptance, injection removes the camera as a reliable sensor and automation increases the volume of attempts.

Enterprises that treat identity verification as a one-time check rather than a real-time security process will struggle to keep pace.

Incode Deepsight is designed around a simple premise: if identity workflows are being attacked at both the media layer and session layer, defenses must validate the entire verification session end-to-end.

During live verification, Deepsight combines three layers in real time:

• Perception analysis: Multi-modal AI that evaluates video, motion, and depth signals across multiple frames to detect synthetic media and physical spoofs. Deepsight also protects ID capture by detecting AI-generated identity documents.
• Integrity validation: Camera and device authenticity checks to identify and block injected media sources, such as virtual cameras, emulators, and compromised environments.
• Behavioral risk signals: Detection of automation indicators and bot-like interaction patterns that frequently accompany scaled attacks.

This layered model is what makes Deepsight resilient in practice. If a high-quality deepfake evades perception, integrity and behavioral signals can still prevent a successful bypass. If media is injected, integrity checks can fail the session regardless of how realistic the pixels look.

The goal is straightforward: determine whether the entire verification session can be trusted – not only whether a face looks real, but whether a real human is present on a trusted device in a live, untampered interaction.

Closing the gap between detection and deployment

Defending identity workflows now requires controls that assume adversarial AI and untrusted capture environments.

Deepfake defense must evolve from spotting manipulated pixels to validating the authenticity of entire verification sessions. Layered defenses across media authenticity, device integrity, and behavioral signals are the most reliable way to reduce false acceptance without adding unnecessary friction for legitimate users.

Learn how Deepsight blocks deepfakes and injection attacks in real time. incode.com/deepsight

Sponsored and written by Incode.

To mark Holi 2026, OPPO India has introduced festive offers on its Reno Series and Find X9 models. Customers will be able to take advantage of interest-free EMI options, zero-down-payment options, and other cashback benefits. These offers will be available for a brief period of time from March 1st to March 8th.

Festive Holi Offers

1. Zero Down Payment & Interest-Free EMI

2. Bank Card Cashback Benefits

To make upgrades more attractive, OPPO is offering customers up to 10% cashback on bank card transactions. These offers will be available for EMI and non-EMI transactions. The cards issued by SBI, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Federal Bank, DBS, IDFC First Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Yes Bank are eligible for these offers.

3. 10% Cashback on UPI Transactions

OPPO is offering up to 10% cashback on UPI transactions during the Holi sale. This benefit helps reduce the overall purchase cost. At the same time, it encourages customers to use digital payment methods.

OPPO Reno15 Series

The OPPO Reno15 Series is built for those who love capturing colourful moments. The Pro Mini model features a 200MP camera, while the Reno15 comes with a 50MP main camera.

Both devices offer 3.5x telephoto zoom, PureTone Technology, and 4K HDR video recording. The Pop-Out feature makes photos look more dynamic. The Reno15 starts at Rs 41,399, and the Reno15 Pro Mini starts at Rs 53,999.

OPPO Find X9

The OPPO Find X9 combines premium imaging with festive offers, starting at Rs 69,499. It includes a Hasselblad-tuned triple camera system led by a 50MP Sony LYT808 sensor with OIS, supported by a 50MP ultra-wide and a 50MP Sony LYT600 3X periscope telephoto lens.

The phone sports a 6.59-inch 120Hz AMOLED display protected by Gorilla Glass 7i and carries an IP69 rating. With the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset, a 7025mAh battery, 80W wired and 50W wireless charging, plus AI tools like AI MindSpace, AI Editor, and O+ Connect, it delivers a complete flagship experience.

OPPO’s special Holi deals are valid between March 1 and March 8, 2026. Since the campaign runs for a short time, buyers should plan their purchase accordingly.

Apple on Monday unveiled the latest version of its budget-friendly iPhone line. The iPhone 17e retails for $599 and will be available on March 11.

The smartphone comes with the A19 chip that’s found in the base iPhone 17, and will support Apple Intelligence. The base model comes with 256 GB of storage, which Apple says is twice the entry storage from the previous generation.

One of the most notable changes from the previous budget iPhone is the addition of MagSafe and Qi2, which supports wireless charging up to 15W.

The smartphone is available in black, white, and a new soft pink color.

Additionally, the iPhone 17e comes with C1X, Apple’s latest-generation cellular modem, which, the company says, is up to twice as fast as the C1 modem in the iPhone 16e, and uses 30% less energy.

As for the camera, the iPhone 17e features that same 48-megapixel camera as the iPhone 16e.

The iPhone 17e is rated IP68 for dust and water resistance, and its 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display is protected by Ceramic Shield 2, which is said to offer trice the scratch resistance than the previous generation.

The iPhone 17e supports Emergency SOS via satellite, Roadside Assistance, and Find My.

• Best Buy Canada leaked a listing page for the ‘Sonos Play’ speaker, but it has since been deleted
• It’s set to arrive March 31, and costs $399.99
• The new Bluetooth speaker could be Sonos’ mid-range option alongside the Roam 2 and Move 2

Apple isn’t the only one with new devices on the way, as leaks of a new Sonos portable Bluetooth speaker hint that the audio giant could be dropping the device imminently — and people already like what they see.

Dubbed ‘Sonos Play’, the speaker was leaked on Best Buy Canada’s site with a full gallery of images and a thorough list of specs, but has since been taken down. Luckily, a user on Reddit managed to snap some images before the listing was removed from Best Buy’s online store (see below).

sonos from r/sonos/comments/1ri2yqr/upcoming_sonos_portable_speaker

Tai Neilson, a senior lecturer at Macquarie University explores how data has become a ‘hot commodity’ for companies training AI systems.

When the World Wide Web went live in the early 1990s, its founders hoped it would be a space for anyone to share information and collaborate. But today, the free and open web is shrinking.

The Internet Archive has been recording the history of the internet and making it available to the public through its Wayback Machine since 1996. Now, some of the world’s biggest news outlets are blocking the archive’s access to their pages.

Major publishers – including The Guardian, The New York Times, the Financial Times, and USA Today – have confirmed they’re ending the Internet Archive’s access to their content.

While publishers say they support the archive’s preservation mission, they argue unrestricted access creates unintended consequences, exposing journalism to AI crawlers and members of the public trying to skirt their paywalls.

Yet, publishers don’t simply want to lock out AI crawlers. Rather, they want to sell their content to data-hungry tech companies. Their back catalogues of news, books and other media have become a hot commodity as data to train AI systems.

Robot readers

Generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini require access to large archives of content (such as media content, books, art and academic research) for training and to answer user prompts.

Publishers claim technology companies have accessed a lot of this content for free and without the consent of copyright owners. Some began taking tech companies to court, claiming they had stolen their intellectual property. High-profile examples include The New York Times’ case against ChatGPT’s parent company OpenAI and News Corp’s lawsuit against Perplexity AI.

Old news, new money

In response, some tech companies have struck deals to pay for access to publishers’ content. NewsCorp’s contract with OpenAI is reportedly worth more than $250m over five years.

Similar deals have been struck between academic publishers and tech companies. Publishing houses such as Taylor & Francis and Elsevier have come under scrutiny in the past for locking publicly funded research behind commercial paywalls.

Now, Taylor & Francis has signed a $10m nonexclusive deal with Microsoft granting the company access to over 3,000 journals.

Publishers are also using technology to stop unwanted AI bots accessing their content, including the crawlers used by the Internet Archive to record internet history. News publishers have referred to the Internet Archive as a “back door” to their catalogues, allowing unscrupulous tech companies to continue scraping their content.

The cost of making news free

The Wayback Machine has also been used by members of the public to avoid newspaper paywalls. Understandably, media outlets want readers to pay for news.

News is a business, and its advertising revenue model has come under increasing pressure from the same tech companies using news content for AI training and retrieval. But this comes at the expense of public access to credible information.

When newspapers first started moving their content online and making it free to the public in the late 1990s, they contributed to the ethos of sharing and collaboration on the early web.

In hindsight, however, one commentator called free access the “original sin” of online news. The public became accustomed to getting their digital editions for free, and as online business models shifted, many mid- and small-sized news companies struggled to fund their operations.

The opposite approach – placing all commercial news behind paywalls – has its own problems. As news publishers move to subscription-only models, people have to juggle multiple expensive subscriptions or limit their news appetite. Otherwise, they’re left with whatever news remains online for free or is served up by social media algorithms. The result is a more closed, commercial internet.

This isn’t the first time that the Internet Archive has been in the crosshairs of publishers, as the organisation was previously sued and found to be in breach of copyright through its Open Library project.

The past and future of the internet

The Wayback Machine has served as a public record of the web for more than three decades, used by researchers, educators, journalists and amateur internet historians.

Blocking its access to international newspapers of note will leave significant holes in the public record of the internet.

Today, you can use the Wayback Machine to see The New York Times’ front page from June 1997: the first time the Internet Archive crawled the newspaper’s website. In another 30 years, internet researchers and curious members of the public won’t have access to today’s front page, even if the Internet Archive is still around.

Today’s websites become tomorrow’s historical records. Without the preservation efforts of not-for-profit organisations like The Internet Archive, we risk losing vital records.

Despite the actions of commercial publishers and emerging challenges of AI, not-for-profit organisations such as the Internet Archive and Wikipedia aim to keep the dream of an open, collaborative and transparent internet alive.

By Tai Neilson

Tai Neilson is a senior lecturer in media at Macquarie University. His areas of expertise include the political economy of digital media and critical cultural theory. He is the author of Journalism and Digital Labor and a co-editor of the book Research Methods for the Digital Humanities.Tai has published work on journalism and digital media in Digital Journalism, Journalism, Media International Australia, Journalism and Media, Triple-C, Fast Capitalism, and the Global Media Journal.

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Claude appears to be having a major outage right now, with elevated errors reported across all platforms.

The incident was flagged on March 2, 2026, and it’s impacting users broadly rather than being limited to one app or region.

According to the latest status update, the team is still investigating the issue.

The first “Investigating” notice went out at 11:49 UTC, and a follow-up update at 12:06 UTC said the investigation is ongoing.

For now, that likely means you may see failed requests, timeouts, or inconsistent responses when trying to use Claude on web, mobile, or API.

There’s no ETA mentioned yet, but the status suggests it’s actively being worked on

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.

Download The Report

Thinking of opening a gym? Don’t expect quick money.

Running a gym in Singapore is not cheap.

When Vulcan Post spoke to Ryan Cheal, Group Chief Operating Officer of Inspire Brands Asia—the exclusive regional master franchisee of Anytime Fitness (AF)—in Jan 2026, he shared that it takes up to US$450,000 to become a franchisee of an AF gym here.

Despite the high startup costs, more gyms have been popping up across the island. As of Oct 15, 2025, Singapore had 505 gyms—a 3.05% increase since 2023. With rising fitness trends like HYROX, it’s no surprise that both individuals and operators are trying to ride the wave.

But hopping on trends doesn’t always guarantee success. The industry has also seen its share of closures, including Ritual, which abruptly shut all four of its Singapore outlets in 2024, and high-profile names like UFC Gym.

These examples show that even well-known brands can struggle to sustain operations in a competitive market. Even with sufficient startup capital, keeping a gym running—attracting members, covering monthly expenses, and managing unexpected costs—requires careful planning and a strong financial runway.

So what does it really cost to open and operate a gym in Singapore?

To find out, we dug into industry data and spoke with two operators: Unstoppable Fitness, a homegrown bodybuilding gym, and Snap Fitness, a US-born fitness chain with 10 outlets in Singapore (and one more at West Mall slated to open in Apr).

Opening doors is just step one

Based on industry estimates online, the startup capital required to open a gym can range between S$150,000 and over S$800,000, depending on size, location, equipment needs, and franchise fees.

Broadly speaking, here’s how it breaks down:

When we spoke to operators at Unstoppable Fitness and Snap Fitness, their startup costs largely lined up with these estimates.

Luke Yeo, 33, founder of Unstoppable Fitness, spent nearly S$400,000 to launch his 3,875 sqft. facility. On the other hand, Snap Fitness master franchisee Noah Oberman shared that it costs around S$600,000 to open a 4,000 sqft gym franchise. “Most gyms we’ve opened are anywhere between S$600,000 and over S$1 million,” he added.

Gym equipment is one of the highest upfront costs for the two businesses, with Unstoppable Fitness spending more than half of its startup capital on machines and weights, while Snap Fitness’ equipment expenses can roughly match the rental deposit.

On top of that, miscellaneous inventory—from water dispensers to towels—can add thousands more, quickly increasing the total initial outlay before a single member walks through the door.

These figures only cover the cost of opening a gym. To sustain and keep it running, owners needs to have additional capital—to market the business, grow membership, and maintain a buffer for unexpected expenses or changing client needs.

For Snap Fitness, monthly operating costs can reach at least S$55,000. Luke, on the other hand, shared that his monthly expenses hit around S$25,300, meaning he would need roughly another S$300,000 in reserves to stay adequately funded for a year.

However, startup costs are higher for gyms, and the figures we found are based on established franchises such as Anytime Fitness, which benefit from brand recognition and pre-existing systems. Some even claim that AF gyms can break even within six months or even before they open. 

That said, these are outliers. Here’s a closer look at what it takes for different gym models to reach break-even:

Based on its S$24,828 monthly costs and its lowest-tier annual plan (S$119/month), Unstoppable Fitness would need at least 277 members to break even each month.

Snap Fitness will need over 561 members to cover their monthly operating costs. It’s worth noting that more funds are needed to run a franchise gym than an independent gym, hence the difference in the number of members needed to break even. 

No one “owes you a chance”

As newer and smaller players, both Unstoppable Fitness and Snap Fitness have to find a way to stand out in a crowded market against established brands, as they face a higher risk of failure. 

“The real problem? Opening your doors and having no customers at all,” Luke candidly shared. “No one owes you a chance. If you’re new, unknown, and lack social proof, people simply won’t walk in.” 

As such, both operators not only have to spend more on marketing, but also focus their efforts on building strong communities within the brand that can tide them through the high and low seasons, through activities such as supporting members at competitions or celebrating physical transformations. 

Independent gyms like Unstoppable Fitness often reinvest earnings into upgrades in their equipment and amenities. These might sound simple, but they help customers feel more comfortable in the space as they work out. 

“People can leave for cheaper gyms, but they rarely leave a place that feels like home,” added Luke. 

Hard-selling packages no longer work, and long-term, no-refund memberships can leave customers burnt when gyms shut down. Noah also emphasised that gyms need to maintain transparency with their customers, as they are also effective in increasing referrals. 

He added that many health and fitness businesses make the mistake of building around a single trend, so when the hype dies down, the brand goes with it. Building evergreen offerings beyond trends is key to long-term survival, and adjusting them to meet demand adds to their versatility. 

“There’s a fine balance between hopping on trends and diluting the brand by changing too much, versus staying to the core of what the brand is supposed to do and service. But generally, we try to keep an open mind and see what the market really wants and try our best to accommodate that.” 

Only those with strong foundations are likely to survive

Overall, opening a gym remains viable in Singapore, given the strong demand for health and fitness in the country. However, as the market becomes more saturated and competition for the lifestyle dollar intensifies, gyms can’t be seen as a way to get a quick buck. 

Aspiring owners must carefully assess whether they have the financial runway to sustain at least two years, offer competitive prices, and ensure that their services provide enough value for their members to increase loyalty. 

As Singapore’s fitness scene matures, newer players can’t win in scale: they have to differentiate themselves through other means to attract members and at least break even. Nevertheless, Noah and Luke remain optimistic.  

“I would agree that the first mover advantage is definitely real, and some of the longstanding gyms will be very hard to displace. But I do think there’s still plenty of opportunity in the market,” Noah encouraged. 

“We can’t compete with big box gyms on size. We win on service, elite equipment, and culture,” added Luke. 

• Read more about the gyms featured below:
• Read more stories we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Unstoppable Fitness/ Snap Fitness