In many ways, Samsung’s new phones are fairly simple upgrades. The S26 lines come with some useful new things – notably the privacy display on the S26 Ultra, which looks like an extremely cool piece of technology and a really useful new feature – and a lot of iterative changes from year to year. The new camera features, on the other hand, are none of these things. They are somewhat worse. Something more scary.
But This episode of The VergecastNilay and David discuss the new phone, then discuss the ways in which the S26’s AI camera features are apparently designed to change the whole idea of what happens when you try to take a photo. In that case, it’s not even clear that what you’re taking is a “picture”. We answer the question “What is a photo?” Talking about. Apocalypse at times, and the S26 feels like crossing a line. All in the service of cupcakes.
After that, the hosts turn to the big changes inside the Xbox team. With Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond out and Asha Sharma coming in, it’s time to wonder what happened to Xbox, and whether Sharma or anyone else can fix it. Microsoft’s gaming problems have existed for years and are the result of bad bets and bad decisions. What does it take to get back on track, and is getting “back on track” still possible?
If you want to learn more about everything discussed in this episode, here are some links to help you be the first to know about the new Samsung devices:
And in the era of electricity:
