Samsung Galaxy Unpacked- S23 Phones Bow; ChatGPT ‘Detection Tool’; Apple Ultra iPhone Gets Periscope Cam Exclusively 

As usual, numerous leaks revealed a lot about the new Galaxy S23 line from Samsung, but at Unpacked today, the picture got filled out. 9to5google.com reports that for the first time in a long time, Samsung is using one chip for all its flagship phones. It’s the ‘Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy’ from Qualcomm. Is that enough of a mouthful? It’s good, though…the last few years, Samsung has used different chips in different markets, which was really a confusing mess. The phones, though. The base S23 starts at $799, and has a 6.1 inch screen…it’s much brighter than last year’s model. The S23 Plus has a 6.6 inch display, plus a much larger 4700 mAh battery, and 45W wired charging. It will remain at $999 as predicted. the top line Galaxy S23 Ultra has a monster 6.8 inch screen, and stows away an S Pen stylus like the Note series has had. Rumors have the beloved note going away, so this will perhaps fill the bill. The screen is just barely curved…Samsung seems to be moving away from the curved screens of the last few years. It sports a 200 MP main cam on the back, and has a 12MP ultra wide lens and 2 10MP sensors with 3X and 10X telephotos lenses. This bad boy will set you back $1199 and up. 

A little tidbit that dropped at Unpacked today…Samsung is working on an extended reality device running a version of Android and using a Qualcomm chip. Samsung’s TM Roh said that the XR headset is ‘not far away!’

With the big flap about ChatGPT, and particularly its use for writing college themes using the artificial intelligence, the makers of the AI program released a new classifier tool yesterday that can allegedly do an admittedly imperfect job of spotting possible cheating using ChatGPT. Well, about that imperfect part…Venturebeat.com notes that an AI and machine learning researcher ran the tool on the first page of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth. He got this result: “The classifier considers the text to be likely AI-generated.” I suspect the tool needs a lot more work, and the makers may join those who might move the Bard’s bones in being cursed by him at this point!

In a rumor sure to irritate those who don’t like bigger smartphones…especially folks with smaller hands, noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the Apple periscope telephoto camera will be exclusive to the iPhone 15 Ultra…AND to 2024’s Ultra as well. According to appleinsider.com, the reason the more powerful telephoto zoom might be restricted to the biggest iPhone could be space. The folded lens might just not fit into the 6.1 inch phone’s chassis. Apple may have to go to a different folded lens with less zoom capability. Of course, it’s all just conjecture on 2024…we’re pretty sure such a lens will be in the iPhone 15 Ultra but with the 16 a year and a half away…let’s just say a lot can change in that amount of time.

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.