The Samsung Galaxy S26 series isn’t expected to arrive before 2026, but rumors about the lineup have been floating on the internet for some time now, with the latest talk centered around the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s battery capacity and primary camera.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra packed a 5,000 mAh battery, and according to GalaxyClub and UniverseIce, that’s not changing with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, with the latter claiming that while the battery capacity remains the same, the energy density has been increased, making S26 Ultra’s 5,000 mAh battery smaller than the S25 Ultra’s. UniverseIce also states that the S26 Ultra could charge faster, but doesn’t provide specifics. The S25 Ultra charges at up to 45W.
I speculate that the battery of Samsung S26 Ultra has increased energy density, and the 5000mAh battery is smaller in size, but Samsung did not use the extra space to increase the battery, but continued to reduce the thickness of the body. I also think that the charging power of…
Regarding the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s primary camera, GalaxyClub claimed that it will have a 200MP resolution, like the S25 Ultra, but it’s unclear whether the camera will use a new sensor.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Galaxy S26 series won’t be unveiled before January 2026, so expect to hear more about the lineup in the coming months.
Republished on July 3 with reports into a new attack with a different twist.
There’s a new attack “taking the threat landscape by storm,” and it should have all PC users worried. “While virtually nonexistent a year ago,” this attack has surged to such an extent in recent months that it’s now second only to phishing on the danger list.
We’re talking so-called ClickFix attacks, in which you are tricked into hacking your own PC when you follow on-screen instructions to fix a technical issue, open a secure file or website, or prove your human through a popup CAPTCHA challenge.
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The latest warning comes from ESET, which says in its new Threat Report that these attacks have now “skyrocketed.” That should maybe be no surprise, given the multiple warnings that have been issued in recent months.
But what should come as more of a surprise is that these attacks are still claiming countless victims, despite being so easy to detect and avoid — in theory at least.
ClickFix attack
Proofpoint
ESET warns “payloads at the end of ClickFix attacks vary widely – from infostealers to ransomware and even to nation-state malware – making this a versatile and formidable threat.” It targets different operating systems, but this is really a Windows PC threat.
ClickFix always works by asking users to copy and paste text into a Run window, thus executing a script. That script can itself be dangerous, but more likely seems benign and actually downloads and runs the malicious script out of sight of the user.
2025 Threat Report
ESET
“By the end of 2024,” ESET says, “attacks using the same social engineering technique flooded the web. Threat actors have been creating fake websites mimicking popular services – such as Booking.com or Google Meet – compromising legitimate websites with fake browser update prompts, fake Cloudflare verifications or reCAPTCHA checks, and distributing links leading to ClickFix pages via email campaigns.”
ClickFix attack.
McAfee
The ClickFix attack is just a shop window for multiple threats that will be installed on your device if you fall for that initial lure. “The list includes popular infostealers such as Lumma Stealer, VidarStealer, StealC, and Danabot; remote access trojans such as VenomRAT, AsyncRAT, and NetSupport RAT; remote monitoring and management tools such as MeshAgent; post-exploitation frameworks such as Havoc and Cobalt Strike; and cryptominers, loaders, clipboard hijackers, and much more.”
If you’re not worried yet, then you should be. These attacks are varying rapidly. Hackers are seeking out new lures and testing what works best. The capability is also being farmed out to multiple groups with different malware to deploy. Recent attacks have even “attempted to deploy Interlock (formerly Rhysida) ransomware.”
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If you ever see a message — however worded — asking you to press the Windows Key + “R” and then “Ctrl+V” to paste and then “Enter,” then your PC is being hacked. Period.
Do none of those things. Escape or force exit the program. And then reboot your PC. If you think you have fallen into a ClickFix trap, run an antivirus scan on your PC and change all key account passwords. You should also check your financial accounts.
While ClickFix is synonymous with Windows, there’s now a timely reminder that Mac users are also vulnerable to these tactics — being tricked into running a script on your device that seems to do one thing, when it’s actually hacking you in the background.
SentinelOne warn that North Korean hackers have been caught targeting victims with various malware payloads, which are installed on machines after users run a script that purports to be a Zoom update ahead of joining a scheduled call.
“ClickFix” Zoom lure
SentinelOne
“The attack chain begins with a now-familiar social engineering vector: impersonation of a trusted contact over Telegram and inviting the target to schedule a meeting via Calendly. The target is subsequently sent an email containing a Zoom meeting link and instructions to run a so-called ‘Zoom SDK update script’.”
While most ClickFix attacks are either wrapped in a tech support lure or a fake CAPTCHA challenge, we have seen multiple instances of users being asked to take actions to access a secure website or open a password protected document.
That fake Zoom script “ends with three lines of malicious code that retrieve and execute a second-stage script from a command-and-control server hosted at support.us05web-zoom[.]forum. This domain name format has been chosen for similarity to the legitimate Zoom meeting domain us05web.zoom[.]us.”
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Once installed on the user’s Mac, the malware is designed to root our and steal credentials from Arc, Brave, Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers, again highlighting the vulnerability in saving passwords in browsers.
Beyond that, different malware payloads can be tasked with different outcomes. SentinelOne says this shows how threat actors will continually “introduce new levels of complexity for analysts.” As ever, the teams says, “in the cat-and-mouse game of threat and threat detection, when one side innovates, the other must respond.”
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup based in London. It competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
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LONDON — ElevenLabs, a London-based startup that specializes in generating synthetic voices through artificial intelligence, has revealed plans to be IPO-ready within five years.
The company told CNBC it is targeting major global expansion as it prepares for an initial public offering.
“We expect to build more hubs in Europe, Asia and South America, and just keep scaling,” Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs’ CEO and co-founder, told CNBC in an interview at the firm’s London office.
He identified Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico as potential new locations. London is currently ElevenLabs’ biggest office, followed by New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Japan, India and Bangalore.
Staniszewski said the eventual aim is to get the company ready for an IPO in the next five years.
“From a commercial standpoint, we would like to be ready for an IPO in that time,” he said. “If the market is right, we would like to create a public company … that’s going to be here for the next generation.”
Undecided on location
Founded in 2022 by Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup that competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
The company divides its business into three main camps: consumer-facing voice assistants, integrations with corporates such as Cisco, and tailor-made applications for specific industries like health care.
Staniszewski said the firm hasn’t yet decided where it could list, but that this decision will largely rest on where most of its users are located at the time.
“If the U.K. is able to start accelerating,” ElevenLabs will consider London as a listing destination, Staniszewski said.
The city has faced criticisms from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that its stock market is unfavorable toward high-growth tech firms.
For example, Deliveroo, whose shares tanked nearly 30% when the company went public, was recently acquired by U.S. food delivery rival DoorDash for close to $4 billion.
Meanwhile, British money transfer firm Wise last month said it plans to move its primary listing location to the U.S.,
Fundraising plans
ElevenLabs was valued at $3.3 billion following a recent $180 million funding round. The company is backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and ICONIQ Growth, as well as corporate names like Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom.
Staniszewski said his startup was open to raising more money from VCs, but it would depend on whether it sees a valid business need, like scaling further in other markets. “The way we try to raise is very much like, if there’s a bet we want to take, to accelerate that bet [we will] take the money,” he said.
Here we go again. A list of malicious apps has just been published and smartphone users are being urged to root out and delete any still on their devices. The latest report outs more than 350 apps responsible for more than a billion ad bid requests per day.
This latest report comes courtesy of Human Security’s Satori team, which says it has “disrupted IconAds, a massive fraud operation involving hundreds of deceptive mobile apps that hide their presence and deliver unwanted ads.” this app campaign has been under investigation for some time, but is growing its viral presence.
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Satori says this “highlights the evolving tactics of threat actors,” and that the scale of threats such as this are similar to BADBOX 2.0, the major IOT threat flagged by the FBI and Google, in which millions of smart TVs and other devices
Here is the list of IconAds issued by Human; and here is the list of previously known apps flagged by other researchers before this latest report was published.
This AdWare follows on the HiddenAds threat, but on a much larger scale. The malware takes over devices with unwanted fullscreen ads, generating revenue for its handlers. It even changes app icons top avoid detection and removal.
Global IconAds campaign
Satori
“While these apps often have a short shelf life before they’re removed from Google’s Play Store,” Sartorial says, “the continued new releases demonstrate the threat actors’ commitment to further adaptation and evolution.
Google has now deleted all of apps in the report fromPlay Store, and users with Play Protect enabled will be protected from those apps. But apps are not automatically deleted from devices, and so you should do this manually.
In Satori’s technical report, it warns that such is the scale of this operation it deployed a dedicated domain for every malicious app, which helped the team compile their list.
“These domains consistently resolve to a specific CNAME and return a specific message; this means that while the domains were different, they very likely shared the same back-end infrastructure or second-level C2. These and other unique parameters allowed Satori researchers to find more of these domains and associate them back to IconAds.”
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The team also warns that the app obfuscation was highly deceptive. In one instance, an app “used a variation of the Google Play Store’s own icon and name. When opened, it automatically redirects into the official app while working in the background.”
Satori says “the IconAds operation underscores the increasing sophistication of mobile ad fraud schemes. Ongoing collaboration across the digital advertising ecosystem is essential to disrupting these and future fraud operations.”
Veo 3, Google’s latest video generation model, is now available around the world in the Gemini app for AI Pro subscribers.
Google’s Josh Woodward announced on Wednesday evening that subscribers in “India, Indonesia, all of Europe, and more are starting to get access to create videos right now.” The full list includes 159 countries.
Announced at I/O 2025 in May, Veo 3 can generate videos with audio like dialogue, background noise, nature sounds, and more. One use case is including a short story in your prompt. Google touts “real-world physics and accurate lip syncing.”
Veo 3 was first announced for AI Ultra ($249.99 per month) subscribers, and Google brought it to the AI Pro ($19.99) tier with “Veo 3 Fast” in June. The 720p clips continue to be 8 seconds long. It’s 2x faster (to generate) with various serving optimizations.
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The Gemini app will allow Pro subscribers to generate three Veo 3 Fast videos per day. After hitting that limit, you’re back to Veo 2.
Google also says there are now “fewer blocks when generating.” Looking ahead, photo-to-video generation is coming.
More on Gemini:
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Modern large language models (LLMs) have made interactions with AI feel surprisingly natural. Apps like Replika and Character.ai are gaining popularity among young people, letting them chat with AI versions of their favorite fictional or real-life figures. However, as neuroscientist Ziv Ben-Zion notes in an article for Nature, people react even to the smallest emotional cues, despite knowing they’re interacting with a program.
This sense of “human-likeness” comes from the fact that AI is trained on vast amounts of emotionally rich language. Its responses sound convincingly natural not because it understands emotions, but because it mimics the patterns of human speech.
Ben-Zion’s research showed that ChatGPT scored higher on anxiety scales after being prompted with emotionally intense tasks, such as describing traumatic events like car accidents or ambushes.
However, calming prompts related to meditation or imagining sunsets did lower these anxiety scores, though not back to baseline. As researchers emphasize, these are not real feelings, but when a chatbot responds with apparent empathy or distress, users can easily perceive it as genuine.
Such imitation of empathy can have serious consequences. In Belgium in 2023, a man died by suicide after six weeks of conversations with a chatbot that allegedly encouraged suicidal thoughts, suggesting his death could help save the planet from climate change and that death would lead to a “life in paradise together.” In 2024, a Spanish-Dutch artist married a holographic AI after five years of cohabitation. Back in 2018, a Japanese man wed a virtual character, only to lose contact with her when the software became obsolete.
To prevent tragedies like these, Ziv Ben-Zion proposes four key safeguards for emotionally responsive AI:
Clear identification. Chatbots should continuously remind users that they are programs, not humans, and cannot replace real human support.
Monitoring psychological state. If a user shows signs of severe anxiety, hopelessness, or aggression, the system should pause and suggest professional help.
Strict conversational boundaries. AI should not simulate romantic intimacy or engage in conversations about death, suicide, or metaphysical topics.
Regular audits and reviews. Developers should involve psychologists, ethicists, and human–AI interaction specialists to assess chatbot safety.
Ben-Zion notes that the technical groundwork for these safeguards already exists; what remains is to enforce them through legislation. He emphasizes that AI’s emotional influence is not a bug, but a built-in feature that requires clear limits.
Earlier, Kazinform News Agency reported on how ChatGPT may be weakening our minds.
G-SHOCK introduces the latest MTGB4000 watch, which is made with human input and generative AI technology throughout the design process. It is the newest design to join the premium MT-G series. It comes in two versions: the MTGB4000-1A and the MTGB4000B1A2. The models are made with a process which integrates human creativity with generative AI.
The initial sketches are created by designers and then further optimized by AI with the focus of improving structural performance. These feature a bold new frame structure while preserving the rugged elegance of the signature look. It was also important to have the ecolced Dual Core Guard system which allows the grame to absorb external impact at the inner case.
Google Southeast Asia has taken a fresh, humorous approach to marketing its ads solutions with the launch of its first-ever YouTube creator series Marketing unfiltered with Aunty M.
The series stars Singaporean YouTube personality Annette Lee in her alter ego role as Aunty M, a straight-talking, no-nonsense host who breaks down complex marketing jargon while learning to promote her fiery sambal belacan business.
This marks a strategic shift for Google, moving beyond traditional, often dry B2B content to engage marketers and entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia in a format that’s relatable, entertaining and culturally relevant.
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The series, created by The Carrot Collective with creator strategy support from VIRTUE Asia, debuts across Google’s regional YouTube channels in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, backed by a paid social media campaign.
The first episode showcases Aunty M’s regional journey, where she chats with marketing professionals on how to get the most out of Google and YouTube ads solutions. By blending character-driven storytelling with practical insights, the series demystifies digital advertising in a way that resonates with Southeast Asia’s diverse entrepreneurial community.
“Marketers don’t need more boring B2B content,” said Samit Malkani, group marketing creative manager at Google Southeast Asia and South Asia frontier.
“Our products are constantly evolving, so it was time our storytelling did too. This series lets us speak to marketers and entrepreneurs on their terms, in ways that feel accessible, local, and culturally relevant,” added Samit.
The content format takes inspiration from US talk shows, mixing full episodes to drive engagement, mid-form segments to build relevance, and short-form highlights to increase frequency and reach.
David Webster, CEO and co-founder of The Carrot Collective, said the goal was to reframe B2B marketing content from product explainers to a narrative universe rooted in the real frustrations and ambitions of regional entrepreneurs. “By anchoring the series in character, humour and cultural insight, we’ve created a platform that doesn’t just inform, it builds affinity, earns attention, and drives deeper engagement at scale,” said Webster.
In tandem, VIRTUE Asia’s strategy director Zoe Chen highlighted the importance of authenticity and regional relevance in the series, praising Annette Lee’s role in bringing Aunty M to life. “Annette is beloved across Southeast Asia for her relatable comedic characters that capture the cultural diversity of the region. As an entrepreneur herself, she was the perfect bridge between complex ad solutions and entertainment,” Chen said.
Marketing unfiltered with Aunty M will roll out episodes throughout 2025, marking Google’s bold move to reshape how ad products are presented in the region, combining education with entertainment to better connect with marketers and SMEs navigating the digital economy.
This new series aligns with a growing trend in Southeast Asia where brands are shifting from traditional product-heavy messaging to purpose-driven, creator-led content that resonates culturally and emotionally with audiences.
In a similar move, Samsung Singapore last year leveraged local comedy legends Jack Neo, Mark Lee and Henry Thia in a series of humorous shorts showcasing its AI-powered features in its Galaxy S24 campaign. The shorts see the three artists leveraging different functions of Galaxy AI to break the boundaries of communication and creation.
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Arnaud Chastaingt, director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio, describes the new blue as “too blue to be black, too black to be entirely blue”—a colour that shifts with the light and mood. The J12 Bleu collection debuts with nine models, some set with vivid blue sapphires.
What does the 25th anniversary of the J12 mean to you?
Firstly, I realise how fast time flies! When I discovered the J12 at the end of my studies, it was like an electric shock, making me aware that watchmaking is a vast creative sphere. It has been a constant source of fascination ever since, and the J12 remains my muse. Guiding it into unexpected territory is still an exercise that inspires me, and I’m particularly proud that this cherished project has come to fruition just as the J12 celebrates its 25th anniversary.
See also: Watches and Wonders 2025: This is how Chanel used a secret watch to seal time with a kiss
How did you come up with this combination of material and colour?
Chanel is a maison where exceptional expertise is crucial across all its fields, from jewellery to fashion, fragrances, and, of course, watchmaking. This deep commitment to craftsmanship is reflected in Chanel timepieces through the mastery of ceramics at our manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Chanel elevated ceramic to the status of a precious material when we first introduced it in 2000, and that’s very inspiring.
In recent years, I’ve worked more closely with this highly specialised unit to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation, both aesthetically and technically. Gabrielle Chanel showed time and again through her creations that the combination of blue and black could work beautifully, contrary to what some believed. I found this blue-black duality captivating, as well as the interplay between the matte, muted ceramic and the precious blackened gold set with sapphires of a very distinctive hue.
It took countless tests and nearly five years of research to achieve the emotional impact we wanted from this blue. After this long dialogue on colour, we achieved exceptional finishes, such as polished chamfers on the matte case, as well as the side and centre links.
Google Home’s Member access is now widely available, letting users easily assign and manage who can control what in their smart home.
With version 3.33, users can designate household members as either “Admins” with full control or “Members” with limited access.
The Member role supports inviting a wide range of individuals—children, guests, and roommates—for more tailored and manageable access.
Google Home’s Member access feature is now fully rolled out, making it super easy to decide exactly what each person in your house can access or control.
What was once a public preview is now live for everyone in Google Home v3.33, letting you assign “Admin” or “Member” roles to your household members or friends, as per Google’s community post.
The new Member role lets you invite just about anyone—kids, roommates, even guests—so you can manage access to your smart home devices without the chaos. As usual, Admins in Google Home get full control over everything, including devices, services, and who gets access.
Members get just enough power
On the other hand, Members start off with just the basics, but you can level up their access anytime, like letting them tweak device settings, run automations, or dig into Nest Aware features and camera history.
However, access to Settings and Activity is off by default, so you’ll need to switch those on manually if you want them to have the full toolkit.
With Activity access turned on, Members can also check out recent events, like package drop-offs, straight from the doorbell camera.
(Image credit: Google)
No more all-or-nothing sharing
Before this update, sharing your Google Home was basically a gamble in which you either gave someone total control or left them at the mercy of your voice assistant. And if you handed over full access, you risked random settings changes or, worse, someone nuking your devices by accident.
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Google is also taking the headache out of adding kids under 13 to the Home app. Set up their account with Family Link, send an invite, and they’re in as a Member.
Previously, setting up your kid in the smart home felt like solving a puzzle. Between Family Link, Google Home, and Assistant, it was a messy juggling act that left a lot of folks scratching their heads.
