Fujitsu has launched the FMV Zero notebook, which at only 634g (1.4 lbs), looks to claim the title of the world’s lightest 14-inch laptop.
This ultra-light device is part of FCCL’s FMV LIFEBOOK UH series and features Intel’s latest Core Ultra processors with integrated AI Boost NPUs for hardware acceleration of AI services such as Copilot on Windows 11.
The WU5/J3 is powered by Intel Core Ultra 5 125U or Core Ultra 7 155U processors and weighs between 634g and 639g, depending on the configuration. For comparison, the non-touch screen version of the Dell XPS 13 weighs 1.22 kg (2.69 lbs), approximately 92.43% heavier than the FMV Zero.
Short battery life
The FMV Zero is currently only available to buy in Japan through Fujitsu’s shopping site Web Mart, and comes in two models: WU5/J3 and WU4/J3. The WU5/J3 will be available in mid-November 2024 for 197,900 yen (approximately $1,320 USD), and the WU4/J3 will be released in late October 2024 for 193,300 yen (around $1,290 USD). Both models offer a range of configurations, with memory options ranging from 8GB to 64GB and SSD storage capacities from 256GB to 2TB.
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Fujitsu says it achieved this lightweight design by optimizing the LCD panel, battery, and palm rest materials, as well as redesigning the internal components to reduce their weight by a few grams here and there. While the end result is a super-light laptop, the quest to trim as much weight as possible has massively impacted battery life. If you’re watching video or performing intensive tasks, you’ll run out juice in under six hours, although it can manage up to 15 hours in idle mode.
The WU4/J3, slightly heavier at 888g, offers a longer battery life of up to 11.5 hours of video playback or 30 hours of idle time. It is powered by Intel Core Ultra 5 125H or Core Ultra 7 155H processors.
The FMV Zero is equipped with AI-powered tools like noise cancellation, Umore makeup, and Quick Capture, with enhanced speaker recognition features.
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I felt like I opened a can of worms when I asked Samsung about its stance on AI photo editing at Galaxy Unpacked back in January. “There is no such thing as a real picture,” Patrick Chomet, Samsung’s Head of Customer Experience, told me at the time – a nihilism-tinged soundbite that, in fairness, came as part of a nuanced and perfectly valid philosophical commentary on the nature of photography (in the same interview, Chomet rightly talked up the importance of validating authenticity).
Marques Brownlee recently included Chomet’s quote in an X post highlighting the differing opinions of Samsung, Apple, and Google on this very subject. Still, ultimately, all of the major phone manufacturers are offering similar editing features (Magic Eraser, Clean Up, AI Eraser, and so on).
Qualcomm, for its part, acknowledges that AI photo editing is an exciting new frontier but also one fraught with awkward ethical implications. During a roundtable interview at Snapdragon Summit, the company’s Mobile Handset SVP, Chris Patrick, explained why he believes that AI photo editing “is not as simple as a real image and fake image.”
LOL “What is a photo?”Samsung: “Actually, there is no such thing as a real picture”Google: “authentic to your memory and to the greater context, but maybe isn’t authentic to a particular millisecond”Apple: “a personal celebration of something that really, actually happened” https://t.co/mwy3Yb9KaYSeptember 23, 2024
“It’s an interesting question, because the human brain is not digital,” the former engineer explained. “When you perceive the sunset outside, you don’t perceive the sunset absent of context. You know where you are. You know what you’re smelling. You know what you’re hearing, You know what you’re feeling. You know what a sunset looks like, right? All of that is part of how you perceive the space.”
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“So then, when we capture an image, should it just be the raw response from the sensor? Or is it right to include context in how that picture is created? I’m not an expert. I don’t have a PhD in this topic, but I do think it’s not as simple as a real image and fake image. I think context matters, and extracting the very best we can from the whole situation is an accurate reflection of what the eye and the brain do as well.”
“[However],” Patrick continued, “if there’s a picture of Rui [Guo, Honor CMO, also in attendance at the roundtable] and I on the moon, it should be very clear that that is not, in fact, a picture of Rui and I on the moon. That’s not correct – that’s manipulated.
“So, for us, it’s very clear that there has to be some mechanism to distinguish the other extreme – those manipulated images – for people. We’re building incredible technology together but we want to make sure that, in the end, it does not have a destructive impact, where people can no longer tell the difference between truth and fiction.”
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More AI is on the way
Honor CMO Rui Guo also attended the Snapdragon Summit roundtable, having just announced that the Honor Magic 7 Pro – slated for release in Europe next year – will launch with the industry’s first on-device generative AI portrait enhancement. So, is the company using AI to make portraits appear better than they actually are? Or is the aim to mimic real-life details that Honor’s hardware can’t capture on its own?
“On the one hand,” Guo explained, “we have to make sure that the photo itself is good by modern consumer standards. Everyone knows what [constitutes] a good and bad photo. But on the other hand, we definitely want to retain the authenticity of the photo. We’re not trying to Photoshop the photo for the consumer, right? We should give the authority to the users at end of the day.”
And that, I think, is the crux of the matter. Tools like Magic Eraser and Clean Up become ethically dubious when users – or, more worryingly, politicians – attempt to pass tampered images off as real, but as a means of occasionally removing strangers from family vacation photos, AI photo editing is, for many people, undeniably useful.
Neither Qualcomm nor Honor is forcing these tools onto their consumers – if you want to take a photo in the same way as you always have done, you still can. Rather, companies are giving users the freedom to choose how to capture moments that matter to them. Sure, it’s a can of worms, but as Qualcomm’s Chris Patrick noted, “it’s not as simple as real image and fake image.”
GenAI is plain vanilla, if you ask the folks at Google India. As the tech behemoth rolled out its ambitious ‘Google for India’ repertoire for their biggest and fastest growing market, there was one familar focus area where further announcements predictably came – Google’s onboarding of Indian languages as a digital tool. And, of course, artificial intelligence (AI) and lots of it.
Well in verse with the parent company’s efforts to take the pole position in AI advancements and grab the thunder back from that petulant upstart called OpenAI is evidently a dream up there on Mountain View (where Google’s global HQ is), and the trickle down effect was well evident in many of the announcements in India on Thursday – Google’s Gemini AI can now go ‘Live’, with real time conversation by adapting to the user. The ‘Gemini Live’ feature is available in 8 Indian languages, besides English.
Google’s next-generation AI project called Astra is at the core of it, and while it is awaited, the slow rollout of its features, the company hopes, will be transformational. For now, there is already AI Overviews expected in Telugu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi in the coming days, while ‘ask with video’ feature in Search also debuted, starting with English.
With image-based search on Maps, Gemini summarising Google reviews to save time, real-time weather and traffic updates on Maps, Google’s attempt is to make AI work for daily chores, beside the focus on Indian languages to take its tech evangelism to the hinterland.
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Another path-breaking endeavour has been in the field of healthcare. Not only is the company tying up with the government’s Ayushman Bharat project to roll out the issuance of the ABHA health ID through Google wallets soon, its iCALL feature whereby a user can call and speak to a health professional live has been expanded to more vernacular languages. And perhaps incredibly, its AI tools are now evolved enough to detect eye issues, TB and even cancer. For instance, TB could apparently be detected through just an audio sample analysis of a person’s sound!
Google also announced a spate of partnerships, right from Adani and CleanMax (for clean energy projects) to Muthoot (for online loan-against-gold) to Glance (skilling).
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are some of the best periods to snag yourself a new smartwatch, especially if you’ve been waiting a while before upgrading. While the actual sales day might be a little while off, there are already a lot of great early Black Friday deals that you can take advantage of, including on some of the best smartwatches on the market. To that end, we’ve collected some of our favorite early deals for you below, although it’s also worth keeping an eye on our larger smartwatch deals roundup as well.
While most smartwatches focus on the smartwatch part, the Garmin Forerunner 55 is made for runners who want to keep track of their overall fitness and their runs. It comes with GPS tracking in the three major systems, has a whole suite of sensors such as heart rate and Vo2 Max, and comes with a very solid $30 discount off the $200 price tag.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic is easily one of the best Android phones on the market. In fact, when our senior mobile writer Andy Boxall got his hands on it, he felt that “the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic has superb styling, all-day comfort, comprehensive health tracking, and more. It’s the smartwatch to buy for your Android phone.” Even better, this deal lets you snag it for a substantial 33% discount.
For those who are in the Apple ecosystem, the Apple Watch Series 9 is probably one of the best and most affordable options, even more so with this impressive $100 discount. The conclusion our senior mobile writer came to when reviewing it was “The Apple Watch Series 9’s 24/7 comfort, extensive features, fast performance, and seamless integration with the iPhone make it a must-buy.”
If you’re just as interested in tracking your fitness as having a smartwatch, the Garmin Venu 3S GPS does a great job of balancing both, and since it comes from Garmin, you know that fitness tracking is top notch. Between the GPS coverage, Sleep Coach and Body Battery, you’ll have all the stats you need to refine your fitness journey, plus the $50 discount isn’t too bad either!
If you’re in the Apple ecosystem and truly want the best experience money can buy, then you’ll want this Apple Watch Ultra 2 GPS deal that knocks $119 off the price tag. Our senior mobile reviewer feels that it has “an outstanding design, great software, and some very welcome upgrades, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is tough to beat.”
There are a lot of options out there for smartwatches, but for the most part, there are generally three big players on the market: Apple, Samsung, and Garmin. Apple Watches are made specifically for the Apple ecosystem, and if you’re in it, then you’ll want to go with one of those, with your main options being the Watch Series 9 for a good budget-friendly option, the Ultra Watch 2 for the best, and the Series 10 for something in the middle. We actually have a great breakdown of the Apple Watch Series 9 vs. Ultra 2, so be sure to check that out before taking the plunge.
On the other hand, Samsung is the go-to smartwatch maker for Android, and it generally has two options every generation: a standard model and a pro or classic model with a bezel that you can turn to control the watch. Samsung does have a high-end option in the form of the Galaxy Watch Ultra, but it borrows, almost to a comical extent, from the Apple Watch Ultra.
Finally, Garmin is the brand you go for if you want something more about fitness tracking than a smartwatch. It has a wide range of products, but the Forerunner lineup is great for runners, while the Venu is a great option for those who want a good balance between smartwatch and fitness tracker.
With many decades of combined experience as reviewers and deal hunters, we have a very good sense of what watches offer the best offers and prices. Of course, we don’t just rely on our own instincts, but we also put in a lot of legwork to make sure you’re getting the best deals you can for any single smartwatch we put up here. We also have our own set of tools that we can fall back on to look at things such as historical pricing. When you put all that together, you get suggestions that offer you the best bang for your buck so that you can buy with confidence.
Circle to Search is one of the most potentially useful AI-powered tools Google has developed for mobile devices. Currently, the feature is available on select smartphone models from some manufacturers. However, the expansion of Circle to Search continues, now reaching the Motorola Razr 2024 lineup.
This year, Motorola introduced the Razr Plus 2024 and Razr 2024, a pair of clamshell-designed and competitively priced foldable smartphones, with the aim of reaching the mass market. Perhaps these devices are among the reasons why sales of Galaxy foldable smartphones were below Samsung’s expectations this year. In any case, Motorola’s latest foldable phones are now equipped with Circle to Search, enhancing their functionality.
Motorola’s 2024 Razr foldable phones now support Circle to Search
Interestingly, it seems that Motorola is enabling Circle to Search via a security update for the Razr 2024 series. According to Android Central, the update’s changelog doesn’t mention anything beyond the usual bug fixes and performance optimizations. However, after installing the update, Circle to Search is available on both devices. The firmware is 1.05GB in size on the Razr Plus but just under 1GB on the Razr 2024.
Circle to Search is a quick way to trigger searches related to anything you see on your screen. After invoking it, you just need to circle or draw on an item on the screen. Then, you’ll immediately receive results related to the item. For instance, if you spot a pair of shoes that pique your interest, you can utilize Circle to Search to get the shoe’s model, price, and availability, among other details.
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Circle to Search is actually a way to significantly speed up Google Lens searches. For instance, without this feature, a user on a phone would have to take a screenshot, share it with Lens, and then crop the image around the shoes. However, you can access all of Lens’s features from Circle to Search.
The feature is expanding at a slow pace
Initially, the option was only available on select Pixel and Galaxy phones. Later, brands like Xiaomi and Honor announced its availability on some models. Now Motorola is jumping on the bandwagon by rolling out Circle to Search practically by surprise. Although the brand had already announced that it would bring it to its devices, it has not even mentioned it in the changelog of the update that includes it.
Roblox has adopted several new policies designed to give parents control over how their children use the sprawling online game platform. reported that the company has created a new type of parental account so that a guardian can oversee their kids’ online activities and friends. Roblox is also now requiring parent permission for users under age 13 to access certain features. Users age 9 and younger will also need permission in order to access game modes with moderate violence or crude humor. The publication said these changes are slated to go into effect next month.
Concerns about safety for young players have been a recurring issue for Roblox. The platform faced a claiming exploitation of a minor in 2022. was reluctant to host the game on its hardware over questions of whether Roblox exposed children to inappropriate sexual content, and the same justification led to a earlier this year. Hindenburg Research recently released an about predatory behavior as well as misleading financial activity at Roblox (although that source has a shaky reputation of its own). An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek found that at least two dozen people have been arrested by US law enforcement since 2018 for abusing or abducting child victims they met on Roblox.
Humane on Wednesday announced a $200 price cut to its flagship product, the Ai Pin. The Bay Area startup, founded by two former Apple executives, has reportedly struggled to sell the product, which launched in April for $700.
In a message sent to its email list, Humane highlights its return policy in the new pitch. “Ai Pin starts at $499 and includes your first month of Humane Plan on us,” the company writes. “Along with a 90-day return window, it’s completely risk-free to try.”
The device was poorly received by reviewers. By August, returns of the Ai Pin had reportedly begun to outpace sales, leaving some 7,000 to 8,000 devices in the hands of users.
The company reportedly began exploring a sale in May, amid poor reviews and poorer sales.
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