The Morning After: Instagram boss says ‘more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media’

Instagram’s top exec Adam Mosseri expects AI content to overtake non-AI imagery and discussed the implications for the platform and users.

Mosseri shared his thoughts on broader trends he expects to shape Instagram in 2026. “Everything that made creators matter — the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn’t be faked — is now suddenly accessible to anyone with the right tools,” he wrote. “The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything.” He added: “There is already a growing number of people who believe, as I do, that it will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media.”

Mosseri doesn’t address the risk that this will alienate many photographers and other creators who have already grown frustrated with the app — it looks like Instagram is leaning into the AI firehose. And hey: whatever keeps its users using it.

Mosseri suggests many complaints stem from an outdated vision of what Instagram even is. The feed of “polished” square images, he says, “is dead.” Instead of trying to “make everyone look like a professional photographer,” Mosseri says that more “raw” and “unflattering” images will be how creators can prove they are real — not AI.

Or you could leave Instagram?

— Mat Smith


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LG

CES kicks off this weekend. We’ve got a full preview that we’ll update in the run-up to the full show, but the major tech announcements will likely center on chips (ah, AI) and new TV tech (ah, CES). Intel is finally taking the wraps off its Panther Lake (Core Ultra Series 3) chips — the first to debut on the company’s 18A process. With a promised 50 percent performance boost, Intel needs to prove it can still compete with NVIDIA and AMD. Meanwhile, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote at the Las Vegas show, while AMD’s Lisa Su teases Ryzen 9000-series refreshes and more.

This year’s TV obsession is Micro RGB. Samsung is going big — literally — with a Micro RGB lineup spanning 55 to 115 inches. LG, meanwhile, has its own Micro RGB Evo panels, boasting over a thousand dimming zones for that elusive “perfect” contrast. We’ll be on the ground in Vegas to separate the legitimate, exciting new tech from the marketing fluff and AI assistant tchotchkes. And remember me mentioning the celebrity CES parade? Well, will.i.am is back at CES, this time curiously involved with LG’s portable speakers. Check it off your CES bingo card.

Continue reading.


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OneXSugar

OneXPlayer is quickly establishing itself as a company unafraid to get weird as hell. (Take, for example, its pseudo-foldable dual-screen console). This time, while it initially appears to be another standard dual-screen model, the Android-powered OneXSugar Wallet instead uses a single foldable screen. The OneXSugar Wallet was teased in a 54-second video on the Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili. Retro Handhelds reports the Wallet uses an 8.01-inch OLED with a 2,480 x 1,860 resolution. That’s a 4:3 aspect ratio when unfolded, making it very retro-gaming friendly.

Given the foldable screen tech, the price might not be. OneXSugar hasn’t shared that detail yet.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121544371.html?src=rss

The 2026 M5 MacBook Air Just Leaked

The 2026 M5 MacBook Air Just Leaked

A recent leak stemming from an early iOS 26 build has revealed critical information about Apple’s highly anticipated M5 MacBook Air, expected to debut in early 2026. While the external design of the device remains consistent with its predecessor, the internal upgrades represent a significant leap forward in both performance and efficiency. This approach aligns […]

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Samsung Freestyle+ Turns a Friendly Cylinder into an AI-Assisted Portable Screen

The first Freestyle tried to make projection feel as casual as dropping a speaker on a table, but still needed some fiddling with focus, keystone, and room darkness. Portable projectors are great in theory, but often fall apart on setup friction, tweaking corners, hunting for the right brightness mode, and dealing with off-color walls. Samsung’s Freestyle+ keeps the same friendly cylinder while letting AI quietly handle the annoying parts, betting that most people would rather point and watch than spend 10 minutes adjusting settings.

The Samsung Freestyle+ is an AI-powered portable projector that builds on the original’s cylindrical, 180-degree tilting design. The headline change is not a wild new form factor; it is a smarter brain. Freestyle+ is pitched as something you can point at a wall, ceiling, or floor, then trust to optimize the picture for whatever surface you happen to be aiming at, turning “point and play” from a slogan into something closer to reality.

Designer: Samsung

AI OptiScreen is the bundle of features that makes that possible. 3D Auto Keystone straightens the image even on angled or uneven surfaces like curtains or room corners. Real-time Focus keeps things sharp as you nudge or rotate the projector. Screen Fit sizes the picture to a compatible screen if you use one. Finally, Wall Calibration analyzes wall color or patterns to keep content legible instead of tinted or washed out.

Freestyle+ pushes out 430 ISO lumens, nearly twice the previous generation, which matters in real living rooms that are not pitch black. The 180-degree rotating stand still lets you throw an image onto a wall, ceiling, or floor without extra mounts. The idea is that you stop worrying about whether a space is right for projection and just drop the cylinder where it makes sense in the moment, whether that is a coffee table, a kitchen counter, or a nightstand.

Freestyle+ behaves like a mini Samsung TV, with Samsung TV Plus, major streaming apps, and Samsung Gaming Hub built in. You can stream shows, watch live channels, or fire up cloud games directly from the projector without plugging in a stick or console. For small apartments or casual setups, that means one object can handle movie night and a bit of gaming without a permanent media cabinet cluttering the wall.

Audio comes from a built-in 360-degree speaker tuned for room-filling sound in a compact body. For people already in the Samsung ecosystem, Q-Symphony support lets Freestyle+ sync with compatible Samsung soundbars, layering its own speaker with the bar instead of muting one or the other. That gives you a more cohesive soundstage when you want to treat the projector like a main screen rather than a sidekick.

Freestyle+ makes the most sense as a roaming screen that follows you from bedroom to living room to kitchen, rather than a projector that lives in a dedicated theater. By combining a familiar, speaker-like form with AI setup, brighter output, built-in streaming, and decent sound, it nudges projection closer to the casual, everyday screen Samsung keeps hinting at, instead of something you only use on special occasions when the room is dark enough and the mood feels right for a movie night.

The post Samsung Freestyle+ Turns a Friendly Cylinder into an AI-Assisted Portable Screen first appeared on Yanko Design.

Google Gemini 3 Computer Use : Free AI Browser Lets You Automate Anything

Google Gemini 3 Computer Use : Free AI Browser Lets You Automate Anything

What if you could automate nearly every repetitive task in your digital workflow without spending a dime? Google Gemini 3.0, the latest evolution in AI-powered automation, promises to do just that, and it’s already making waves across industries. In this walkthrough, World of AI shows how this new system uses advanced multimodal understanding and real-time […]

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Minimal phone pioneer Punkt is back with a new privacy-focused model at CES

The Swiss minimal phone pioneer Punkt is back with another model, the MC03. The new handset continues Punkt's focus on privacy, security and digital minimalism.

If you've never seen Punkt's MP01 and MP02, the company's gorgeously minimal dumb phone line, they're something to behold. (The MP01 is quite literally a museum piece, in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.) Meanwhile, this new MC03 is the company's second stab at a more practical touchscreen smartphone, following 2023’s MC02. What you lose in physical beauty and tactile buttons, you gain in flexibility.

As before, the smartphone runs the privacy- and security-focused AphyOS, based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The fork on the MC03 appears to borrow a page from the Light Phone line. Its UI includes a Light Phone-adjacent row of text for the most common shortcuts, like mail, contacts and calendar.

Marketing image of the Punkt MC03 phone. A dark UI shows text shortcuts for common apps and tasks.
Punkt MC03
Punkt

The MC03 splits data into two sections. There's The Vault, a secure enclave for apps Punkt has vetted for privacy and security. The second, Wild Web, gives you the freedom to install any Android app. To protect you while using that section, there's Ledger, which Punkt describes as "strict, visible safeguards that allow easy privacy controls." Much like Android's Permission Manager, Ledger lets you define which data, sensors and background resources each app can access. In exchange for the tediousness of approving and denying permissions, you get more gradual control over your data.

All the apps from another Swiss company, Proton, are available in The Vault. (That includes Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton VPN, and Proton Pass.) Proton founder and CEO Andy Yen said he hopes the collaboration can "inject a little more choice into the marketplace, giving users more ways to take control of their data and regain their privacy."

Folks buying the MC03 aren't doing so to get cutting-edge hardware. The phone has an OLED display with a high (120Hz) frame rate, great for showing off that clean, black UI. The MC03 has a removable 5,200mAh battery and a 64MP camera. The device is rated IP68 for water and dust resistance.

Shipments for the Punkt MC03 begin this month in the European market. The phone costs €699 / CHF699 / £610. As with its previous models, the MC03 requires a subscription. (Punkt frames this as paying to retain your data, rather than paying with your data.) One year of the subscription is included with your purchase. After that, you'll have to pay €9.99 / CHF9.99 / £8.99 monthly. However, paying ahead for a long-term subscription lets you save up to 60 percent. You can learn more on the company’s website.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/minimal-phone-pioneer-punkt-is-back-with-a-new-privacy-focused-model-at-ces-110000705.html?src=rss

The best rice cooker for 2026

A great rice cooker can change the way you handle weeknight meals. Instead of watching the pot or dealing with uneven results, you get fluffy, consistent rice with almost no effort. Modern rice cookers can do a lot more than white rice, too. Many handle brown rice, oatmeal and grains, and some function like mini multi-cookers for soups or stews.

With so many options available, the best rice cooker for you depends on how often you cook, how much counter space you have and which features matter most. We tested a range of models to find the best rice cookers for everything from small kitchens to big family dinners.

Since rice is a foundation for so many different cuisines, I placed a high value on a machine’s ability to cook different types of rice well. I started testing each electric rice cooker by making a Japanese style, sushi-grade white rice. The appliances that delivered tasty results moved on to the brown rice round, then the top performers made long-grain white basmati as a final challenge. Some models I tested included a steamer basket, but I didn't try all of them out. This is a rice-only party. Multi-cookers and steaming functions are merely a nice bonus in these, although if that's a feature you want, an instant pot might be more your jam.

While I weighed rice tastiness and texture as the most important criteria, I also assessed how easy the machines were to use and to clean. That includes things like how intuitive the cooking functions are, whether the inner pot is nonstick and how well the keep warm setting performs. I also took note of helpful kitchen tools that came included like a measuring cup, which is essential when getting the amount of water just right for each cup of rice. Because a cool piece of gear that sits in your cabinet gathering dust is a cool, but ultimately useless piece of gear. I limited my testing to models retailing for less than $300, which felt like the most I could recommend investing in a specialized appliance, and value for cost wound up being the distinguishing point for a good rice cooker.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/best-rice-cooker-120015478.html?src=rss

Why the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Could Crush Apple’s Foldable Ambitions

Why the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Could Crush Apple’s Foldable Ambitions

Samsung is preparing to make a significant impact on the foldable device market with the highly anticipated Galaxy Z Fold 8. This next-generation device is rumored to break away from the tall, narrow design of its predecessors, instead adopting a wider, tablet-like form factor. By focusing on versatility and productivity, Samsung aims to establish a […]

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How AI Will Reshape 2026 : From Robots to a Skilled-Trades Boom

How AI Will Reshape 2026 : From Robots to a Skilled-Trades Boom

What if 2026 becomes the year artificial intelligence doesn’t just evolve but fundamentally reshapes how we live, work, and connect? AI Grid takes a closer look at how AI is poised to disrupt industries, challenge societal norms, and spark heated debates about ethics and accountability. From breakthroughs in continual learning to the rising backlash against […]

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Why Apple’s iPhone Fold is a Nightmare for Samsung and Google

Why Apple’s iPhone Fold is a Nightmare for Samsung and Google

Apple is reportedly preparing to launch its first foldable iPhone, the iPhone Fold, in 2026. This highly anticipated device is expected to address persistent challenges in the foldable smartphone market, such as display creases and bulkiness, while introducing innovative features and a refined design. If successful, the iPhone Fold could establish a new standard for […]

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Gemini 3 Tips & Tricks : Clickable Diagrams, Chrome Access, Smart Sheets & More

Gemini 3 Tips & Tricks : Clickable Diagrams, Chrome Access, Smart Sheets & More

Have you ever felt like you’re only scratching the surface of a platform’s capabilities, knowing there’s so much more it can do? That’s the story with Gemini 3. While its headline features often grab attention, some of its most impactful functions fly under the radar. Below, Phillip Im breaks down four underrated features within Gemini […]

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