Kris Guyer – Page 15

Google improves Gemini AI image editing with “nano banana” model

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Gemini, Google / Kris Guyer / August 26, 2025

Something unusual happened in the world of AI image editing recently. A new model, known as “nano banana,” started making the rounds with impressive abilities that landed it at the top of the LMArena leaderboard. Now, Google has revealed that nano banana is an innovation from Google DeepMind, and it’s being rolled out to the Gemini app today.

AI image editing allows you to modify images with a prompt rather than mucking around in Photoshop. Google first provided editing capabilities in Gemini earlier this year, and the model was more than competent out of the gate. But like all generative systems, the non-deterministic nature meant that elements of the image would often change in unpredictable ways. Google says nano banana (technically Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has unrivaled consistency across edits—it can actually remember the details instead of rolling the dice every time you make a change.

Google says subjects will retain their appearance as you edit.

This unlocks several interesting uses for AI image editing. Google suggests uploading a photo of a person and changing their style or attire. For example, you can reimagine someone as a matador or a ’90s sitcom character. Because the nano banana model can maintain consistency through edits, the results should still look like the person in the original source image. This is also the case when you make multiple edits in a row. Google says that even down the line, the results should look like the original source material.

Google improves Gemini AI image editing with “nano banana” model Read More »

Scientists unlock secret to thick, stable beer foams

beer, beer physics, fluid dynamics, foamy physics, Physics, Science / Kris Guyer / August 26, 2025

For many beer lovers, a nice thick head of foam is one of life’s pure pleasures, and the longer that foam lasts, the better the beer-drinking experience. A team of Swiss researchers spent seven years studying why some beer foams last longer than others and found that the degree of fermentation—i.e., whether a given beer has been singly, doubly, or triply fermented—is crucial, according to a new paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

As previously reported, foams are ubiquitous in everyday life, found in foods (whipped cream), beverages (beer, cappuccino), shaving cream and hair-styling mousse, packing peanuts, building insulation, flame-retardant materials, and so forth. All foams are the result of air being beaten into a liquid formula that contains some kind of surfactant (active surface agent), usually fats or proteins in edible foams, or chemical additives in non-edible products. That surfactant strengthens the liquid film walls of the bubbles to keep them from collapsing.

Individual bubbles typically form a sphere because that’s the shape with the minimum surface area for any volume and hence is the most energy-efficient. One reason for the minimizing principle when it comes to a bubble’s shape is that many bubbles can then tightly pack together to form a foam. But bubbles “coarsen” over time, the result of gravity pulling down on the liquid and thinning out the walls. Eventually, they start to look more like soccer balls (polyhedrons). In a coarsening foam, smaller bubbles are gradually absorbed by larger ones. There is less and less liquid to separate the individual bubbles, so they press together to fill the space.

This “jamming” is why foams are typically far more rigid than their gas (95 percent) and liquid (5 percent) components. The more tightly the bubbles jam together, the less they can move around and the greater the pressure inside them becomes, giving them properties of a solid.

Various factors can affect foam stability. For instance, in 2019, Japanese researchers investigated a phenomenon known as “collective bubble collapse,” or CBC, in which breaking one bubble at the edge of a foam results in a cascading effect as the breakage spreads to other bubbles in the foam. They identified two distinct mechanisms for the resulting CBCs: a so-called “propagating mode,” in which a broken bubble is absorbed into the liquid film, and a “penetrating mode,” in which the breakage of a bubble causes droplets to shoot off and hit other bubbles, causing them to break in turn.

Scientists unlock secret to thick, stable beer foams Read More »

Google’s AI model just nailed the forecast for the strongest Atlantic storm this year

AI forecasting, deepmind, Google, hurricanes, Science, science.weather / Kris Guyer / August 26, 2025

In early June, shortly after the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, Google unveiled a new model designed specifically to forecast the tracks and intensity of tropical cyclones.

Part of the Google DeepMind suite of AI-based weather research models, the “Weather Lab” model for cyclones was a bit of an unknown for meteorologists at its launch. In a blog post at the time, Google said its new model, trained on a vast dataset that reconstructed past weather and a specialized database containing key information about hurricanes tracks, intensity, and size, had performed well during pre-launch testing.

“Internal testing shows that our model’s predictions for cyclone track and intensity are as accurate as, and often more accurate than, current physics-based methods,” the company said.

Google said it would partner with the National Hurricane Center, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Service that has provided credible forecasts for decades, to assess the performance of its Weather Lab model in the Atlantic and East Pacific basins.

All eyes on Erin

It had been a relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season until a few weeks ago, with overall activity running below normal levels. So there were no high-profile tests of the new model. But about 10 days ago, Hurricane Erin rapidly intensified in the open Atlantic Ocean, becoming a Category 5 hurricane as it tracked westward.

From a forecast standpoint, it was pretty clear that Erin was not going to directly strike the United States, but meteorologists sweat the details. And because Erin was such a large storm, we had concerns about how close Erin would get to the East Coast of the United States (close enough, it turns out, to cause some serious beach erosion) and its impacts on the small island of Bermuda in the Atlantic.

Google’s AI model just nailed the forecast for the strongest Atlantic storm this year Read More »

Ars Live: Consumer tech firms stuck scrambling ahead of looming chip tariffs

ars live, consumer tech, Donald Trump, game console prices, laptop prices, Policy, smartphone prices, tariffs, us-china trade war / Kris Guyer / August 26, 2025

And perhaps the biggest confounding factor for businesses attempting to align supply chain choices with predictable tariff costs is looming chip tariffs. Trump has suggested those could come in August, but nearing the end of the month, there’s still no clarity there.

As tech firms brace for chip tariffs, Brzytwa will share CTA’s forecast based on a survey of industry experts, revealing the unique sourcing challenges chip tariffs will likely pose. It’s a particular pain point that Trump seems likely to impose taxes not just on imports of semiconductors but of any downstream product that includes a chip.

Because different electronics parts are typically assembled in different countries, supply chains for popular products have suddenly become a winding path, with potential tariff obstacles cropping up at any turn.

To Trump, complicating supply chains seems to be the point, intending to divert entire supply chains into the country to make the US a tech manufacturing hub, supposedly at the expense of his prime trade war target, China—which today is considered a world manufacturing “superpower.”

However, The New York Times this week suggested that Trump’s bullying tactics aren’t working on China, and experts suggest that now his chip tariffs risk not just spiking prices but throttling AI innovation in the US—just as China’s open source AI models shake up markets globally.

Brzytwa will share CTA research showing how the trade war has rattled, and will likely continue to rattle, tech firms into the foreseeable future. He’ll explain why tech firms can’t quickly or cheaply divert chip supply chains—and why policy that neglects to understand tech firms’ positions could be a lose-lose, putting Americans in danger of losing affordable access to popular tech without achieving Trump’s goal of altering China’s trade behavior.

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Senator castigates federal judiciary for ignoring “basic cybersecurity”

Biz & IT, CM/ECF, federal courts, hacking, PACER, Policy, Security / Kris Guyer / August 26, 2025

US Senator Ron Wyden accused the federal judiciary of “negligence and incompetence” following a recent hack, reportedly by hackers with ties to the Russian government, that exposed confidential court documents.

The breach of the judiciary’s electronic case filing system first came to light in a report by Politico three weeks ago, which went on to say that the vulnerabilities exploited in the hack were known since 2020. The New York Times, citing people familiar with the intrusion, said that Russia was “at least partly responsible” for the hack.

A “severe threat” to national security

Two overlapping filing platforms—one known as the CM/ECF (Case Management/Electronic Case Files) and the other PACER—were breached in 2020 in an attack that closely resembled the most recently reported one. The second compromise was first detected around July 5, Politico reported, citing two unnamed sources who weren’t authorized to speak to reporters. Discovery of the hack came a month after Michael Scudder, a judge chairing the Committee on Information Technology for the federal courts’ national policymaking body, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that the federal court system is under constant attack by increasingly sophisticated hackers.

The CM/ECF allows parties in a federal case to file pleadings and other court documents electronically. In many cases, those documents are public. In some circumstances, the documents are filed under seal, usually when they concern ongoing criminal investigations, classified intelligence, or proprietary information at issue in civil cases. Wyden, a US senator from Oregon, said in a letter to Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts—who oversees the federal judiciary—that the intrusions are exposing sensitive information that puts national security at risk. He went on to criticize the judiciary for failing to follow security practices that are standard in most federal agencies and private industry.

“The federal judiciary’s current approach to information technology is a severe threat to our national security,” Wyden wrote. “The courts have been entrusted with some of our nation’s most confidential and sensitive information, including national security documents that could reveal sources and methods to our adversaries, and sealed criminal charging and investigative documents that could enable suspects to flee from justice or target witnesses.”

Senator castigates federal judiciary for ignoring “basic cybersecurity” Read More »

Blade Runner makes its live-action return next year

culture / Kris Guyer / August 26, 2025

Blade Runner’s third live-action entry will be a streaming miniseries on Amazon Prime Video, and Deadline reports that it is now slated for release in 2026.

“The update was provided by Laura Lancaster, Head of US SVOD TV Development and Series – Co-Productions at Amazon MGM Studios, in an internal memo announcing promotions for two executives, Kara Smith and Tom Lieber,” Deadline explained.

We previously reported that the series, titled Blade Runner 2099, had been greenlit under original film director Ridley Scott back in 2022.

There have been a few new developments since then, mainly in casting news. Blade Runner 2099 will star Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and will also feature Hunter Schafer (Euphoria, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Tom Burke (Black Bag, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), and Dimitri Abold (Warrior Nun, also The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), among others.

Very little else is known about the show beyond the fact that it will take place 50 years after the 2017 film Blade Runner 2049, that it will be a live action miniseries, and that it will run for six episodes.

The showrunner will be Silka Luisa, a writer best known for her work on the TV series Shining Girls. (She also wrote one episode of Paramount+’s Halo TV series.) Ridley Scott is involved as an executive producer and is rumored to direct one or more episodes.

Neither Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve nor prior big-screen franchise stars Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, or Ana de Armas are known to be involved.

The series will come as part of a wave of revivals of classic Hollywood sci-fi franchises on streaming—for example, recently premiered FX series Alien: Earth (which is streaming on Disney+) has achieved huge viewership numbers and widespread critical acclaim.

On the other hand, Amazon’s own The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV series has found relatively lukewarm reception given its massive budget.

Blade Runner makes its live-action return next year Read More »

Google says it dropped the energy cost of AI queries by 33x in one year

AI, carbon emissions, energy efficiency, environmental impact, Google, processor, Science / Kris Guyer / August 23, 2025

To come up with typical numbers, the team that did the analysis tracked requests and the hardware that served them for a 24 hour period, as well as the idle time for that hardware. This gives them an energy per request estimate, which differs based on the model being used. For each day, they identify the median prompt and use that to calculate the environmental impact.

Going down

Using those estimates, they find that the impact of an individual text request is pretty small. “We estimate the median Gemini Apps text prompt uses 0.24 watt-hours of energy, emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (gCO2e), and consumes 0.26 milliliters (or about five drops) of water,” they conclude. To put that in context, they estimate that the energy use is similar to about nine seconds of TV viewing.

The bad news is that the volume of requests is undoubtedly very high. The company has chosen to execute an AI operation with every single search request, a compute demand that simply didn’t exist a couple of years ago. So, while the individual impact is small, the cumulative cost is likely to be considerable.

The good news? Just a year ago, it would have been far, far worse.

Some of this is just down to circumstances. With the boom in solar power in the US and elsewhere, it has gotten easier for Google to arrange for renewable power. As a result, the carbon emissions per unit of energy consumed saw a 1.4x reduction over the past year. But the biggest wins have been on the software side, where different approaches have led to a 33x reduction in energy consumed per prompt.

A color bar showing the percentage of energy used by different hardware. AI accelerators are the largest use, followed by CPU and RAM. Idle machines and overhead account for about 10 percent each. — Most of the energy use in serving AI requests comes from time spent in the custom accelerator chips. Credit: Elsworth, et. al.

The Google team describes a number of optimizations the company has made that contribute to this. One is an approach termed Mixture-of-Experts, which involves figuring out how to only activate the portion of an AI model needed to handle specific requests, which can drop computational needs by a factor of 10 to 100. They’ve developed a number of compact versions of their main model, which also reduce the computational load. Data center management also plays a role, as the company can make sure that any active hardware is fully utilized, while allowing the rest to stay in a low-power state.

Google says it dropped the energy cost of AI queries by 33x in one year Read More »

Samsung’s “Micro RGB” TV proves the value of RGB backlights for premium displays

Micro LED, oled, samsung, Tech, TVs / Kris Guyer / August 22, 2025

The $30,000 TV brings a new, colorful conversation to home theaters.

Samsung’s 115-inch “Micro RGB” TV. Credit: Scharon Harding

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, New Jersey—Micro LED is still years away, but the next best thing is taking shape right now. A $30,000 price tag and 114.5-inch diagonal size makes the Samsung “Micro RGB” TV that I demoed this week unattainable for most. But the unique RGB backlight and Micro LED-sized diodes it employs represent a groundbreaking middle ground between high-end Mini LED and true Micro LED, expanding the possibilities for future premium displays beyond the acronyms we know today.

Micro RGB isn’t the same as Micro LED

To be clear, Samsung’s Micro RGB TV is not a Micro LED display. During Samsung’s presentation, a representative described the TV as sitting “squarely in between” Mini LED and Micro LED.

Unlike true Micro LED TVs, Samsung’s Micro RGB TV uses a backlight. The backlight is unique in that it can produce red, green, and/or blue light via tiny RGB LEDs. Most LCD-LED backlights create just blue or white backlighting, which is applied to color filters to create the different hues displayed on the screen.

And differing from a true Micro LED display, the pixels in the Samsung TV I demoed aren’t self-emissive and can’t be shut off individually for virtually limitless contrast. Like some of the best Mini LED TVs, this TV delivers enhanced contrast through the use of thousands of local dimming zones. Without getting specific, Samsung said the Micro RGB TV has roughly four times the number of dimming zones as its 115-inch QN90F TV, a $27,000 Mini LED TV that uses quantum dots. Samsung hasn’t confirmed how many dimming zones the 115-inch QN90F has, but the 75-inch version has 900 dimming zones, according to RTINGs.

The Micro RGB TV loses to Micro LED and OLED when it comes to light bleed and contrast. The new TV’s biggest draw is its large color gamut. The backlight’s “architecture enables precision control over each red, green, and blue LED,” according to Samsung’s announcement of the TV earlier this month. Samsung claims that the backlight tech enables the TV to cover 100 percent of the BT.2020 color space (also known as Rec.2020), which is a wider color space than DCI-P3. As is typical for Samsung, the company hasn’t disclosed any Delta E measurements but claims high color accuracy.

I’m still concerned about the Micro RGB name, which carries the risk of being confused with true Micro LED. In the past, Samsung has contributed to display-market confusion with terms like QLED (an acronym that looks awfully similar to OLED). The new display technology is impressive enough; its marketing doesn’t need to evoke associations with a markedly different display type.

Hands-on with Samsung’s Micro RGB TV

Seeing the Micro RGB TV in person confirmed the great potential RGB backlight tech represents. The image quality didn’t quite match what you’d see with a similar OLED or Micro LED display, but what I saw in my short time with the TV surpassed what I’d expect from the best LCD-LED TVs.

I demoed the TV in a mildly lit room, where the screen’s lively colors quickly leaped out at me. I mostly watched pre-selected, polychromatic videos on the TV, making it hard to discern color accuracy. But during the brief demo, I saw colors that are rare to see on even the most expensive TVs.

For example, part of the demo reel (shown below) featured a building in a shade of teal that I can’t recall ever seeing on a TV. It was a greener-leaning teal that had just the right amount of blue to distinguish it from true green. Many displays would fail to capture that subtle distinction.

The demo video also showed a particular shade of pinkish-red. Again, this was the first time I had seen this video, making me wonder if a purer red would be more accurate. But I also saw strong, bright, bloody reds during my demo, suggesting that this unfamiliar pinkish-red was the result of the Micro RGB TV’s broad color gamut.

Samsung's Micro RGB TV — Unsurprisingly, the TV packs in AI, including a feature that’s supposed to automatically recognize scenes with dull lighting and make them look more lively. Credit: Scharon Harding

Another top standout from my demo was the smooth gradient effects that the TV showed. I could detect no banding in a sunset-like background, for instance, as deep oranges effortlessly transitioned to paler shades before seamlessly evolving into white. Nuanced shades also appeared to enable unique textures on the TV. When the TV was set to display a painting, the screen seemed to mimic the rough texture of canvas or the subtle strokes of paintbrushes. Of course, the TV’s massive size helped emphasize these details, too.

Because it lacks self-emissive pixels, the Micro RGB should have poorer contrast than a good Micro LED (or OLED) TV. The differing prices between Samsung’s 115-inch Micro RGB TV and 114-inch Micro LED TV ($30,000 versus $150,000) hint at the expected performance discrepancy between the display technologies. You won’t get pure blacks with an RGB LED TV, but Samsung’s TV makes a strong effort; some may not notice the difference.

Unlike OLED TVs, the Samsung TV also has potential for the halo effect (also known as blooming). In instances when the TV was showing bright, near-white colors near dark colors, it was hard to notice any halos or gradation. But I didn’t see enough of the right type of content on Samsung’s TV to determine how much of a potential blooming problem it has. Light bleed did seem to be kept to a minimum, though.

The TV also appeared to handle the details of darker images well. A representative from Sony, which is working on a somewhat different RGB LED backlight technology, told Wired that the use of RGB LED backlights could enable displays to show an “expression of colors with moderate brightness and saturation” better than today’s OLED screens can, meaning that RGB LED TVs could be more color-accurate, including in dark scenes. Generally speaking, anything that helps LCD-LED remain competitive against OLED is good news for further development of LED-based displays, like Micro LED.

Samsung specs the Micro RGB TV with a 120 Hz standard rate. The company didn’t disclose how bright the TV can get. Bright highlights enable improved contrast and a better experience for people whose TVs reside in rooms that get bright (yes, these people exist). Display experts also associate properly managed brightness levels with improved color accuracy. And advanced mastering monitors can enable content with brightness levels of up to 4,000 nits, making ultra-bright TVs worth long-term consideration for display enthusiasts.

More RGB LED to come

Samsung is ahead of the curve with RGB backlights and is expected to be one of the first companies to sell a TV like this one. A Samsung spokesperson outside of the event told Ars Technica, “Samsung created an entirely new technology to control and drive each LED, which has different characteristics, to provide more accurate and uniform picture quality. We also worked to precisely mount these ultra-small LEDs in the tens of microns on a board.”

As mentioned above, other companies are working on similar designs. Sony showed off a prototype in February that Wired tested; it should be released in 2026. And Hisense in January teased the 116-inch “TriChrome LED TV” with an RGB LED backlight. It’s releasing in South Korea for KRW 44.9 million (approximately $32,325), SamMobile reported.

Notably, Hisense and Sony both refer to their TVs as Mini LED displays, but the LEDs used in the Hisense and Sony designs are larger than the LEDs in Samsung’s RGB-backlit TV.

Good news for display enthusiasts

Samsung’s TV isn’t the Micro LED TV that display enthusiasts have long hoped for, but it does mark an interesting development. During the event, a third Samsung representative told me it’s “likely” that there’s overlap between the manufacturing equipment used for Micro LED and RGB-backlit displays. But again, the company wouldn’t get into specifics.

Still, the development is good news for the LED-LCD industry and people who are interested in premium sets that don’t use OLED displays, which are expensive and susceptible to burn-in and brightness limitations (these issues are improving, though). It’s likely that RGB-backlit TVs will eventually become a better value than pricier types of premium displays, as most people won’t notice the downsides.

The Samsung rep I spoke with outside of the event told me the company believes there’s room in the market for RGB Micro TVs, QLEDs, OLEDs, Mini LEDs, and Micro LEDs.

According to the press release of the Micro RGB TV, Samsung has “future plans for a global rollout featuring a variety of sizes.” For now, though, the company has successfully employed a new type of display technology, creating the possibility of more options for display enthusiasts.

Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She’s been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Tom’s Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK.

Samsung’s “Micro RGB” TV proves the value of RGB backlights for premium displays Read More »

After successes like Severance and The Studio, Apple TV+ gets a price hike

Apple, Apple TV, culture, streaming video, Tech, TV / Kris Guyer / August 22, 2025

To confront all that, streamers have to turn any knobs they can to balance costs with revenue to satisfy the market. Some have turned to ads as an additional source of revenue, others crack down on password sharing or offer different subscription tiers. But virtually all of them have hiked subscription prices, because the previous price ensured short-term losses for long-term growth.

Apple TV+ does not have ads in any plan, and it hasn’t broken its offering into multiple tiers. (For example, some other streaming services charge more for 4K content.) Because of that, the monthly cost is the only knob it can turn to confront these realities, passing new costs to consumers.

Despite all this, it’s still very possible that even with successes like Ted Lasso, The Studio, and Severance, Apple TV+ is losing some amount of money every year. When reporting to investors each quarter, Apple bundles TV+ into a larger “services” category that includes Apple Music, the App Store, iCloud, AppleCare, and more, making it difficult for outsiders to estimate how well Apple TV+ is doing specifically.

Certainly, its shows have been critically well-received. Both Severance and The Studio in particular have gotten the streaming service positive attention. But the landscape is brutal for a relatively new entry like Apple, so expect Apple’s approach to continue to evolve.

After successes like Severance and The Studio, Apple TV+ gets a price hike Read More »

America’s fragile drug supply chain is extremely vulnerable to climate change

health, hurricane helene, medical supply chain, natural disaster, supply chain shortages, supply chains / Kris Guyer / August 21, 2025

Vulnerabilities

Using data from the Food and Drug Administration, the researchers identified 10,861 drug facilities that were active for at least one year between 2019 and 2024. These facilities represent the array of manufacturing stages of a drug, from analyzing raw drug materials, to manufacturing active ingredients, to packaging drug products. The researchers then looked at the county location of each of these facilities and whether any federally declared weather emergencies occurred in those counties during the period. Weather-related emergencies included those from fires, hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, and floods.

During the six-year span, 6,819 facilities (63 percent) faced at least one weather-related emergency. Per year, an average of 2,146 facilities (33 percent) experienced such an emergency.

The researchers noted that there was no statistically significant difference in the likelihood that counties with or without a drug facility would experience a weather-related emergency. That is, it’s not the case that drug facilities have been built in areas uniquely vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Still, with a third of US facilities at risk of weather disasters each year, the study clearly shows how fraught it is to have flimsy supply chains—like having a single plant produce 60 percent of the country’s supply of an essential drug product.

“These findings underscore the importance of recognizing climate-related vulnerabilities and the urgent need for supply chain transparency, for strategic allocation of production, and for disaster risk management strategies to prevent health care disruptions in the US,” the authors conclude.

America’s fragile drug supply chain is extremely vulnerable to climate change Read More »

Having recovery and/or SSD problems after recent Windows updates? You’re not alone.

microsoft, Tech, Windows 10, windows 10 22h2, Windows 11, windows 11 22h2, windows 11 23h2, windows 11 24h2 / Kris Guyer / August 21, 2025

The other issue some users have been experiencing is potentially more serious, but also harder to track down. Tom’s Hardware has a summary of the problem: At some point after installing update KB5063878 on Windows 11 24H2, some users began noticing issues with large file transfers on some SSDs. When installing a large update for Cyberpunk 2077, a large game that requires dozens of gigabytes of storage, Windows abruptly stopped seeing the SSD that the game was installed on.

The issues are apparently more pronounced on disks that are more than 60 percent full, when transferring at least 50GB of data. Most of the SSDs were visible again after a system reboot, though one—a 2TB Western Digital SA510 drive—didn’t come back after a reboot.

These issues could be specific to this user’s configuration, and the culprit may not be the Windows update. Microsoft has yet to add the SSD problem to its list of known issues with Windows, but the company confirmed to Ars that it was studying the complaints.

“We’re aware of these reports and are investigating with our partners,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars.

SSD controller manufacturer Phison told Tom’s Hardware that it was also looking into the problem.

Having recovery and/or SSD problems after recent Windows updates? You’re not alone. Read More »

Google unveils Pixel 10 series with improved Tensor G5 chip and a boatload of AI

Google, pixel 10, smartphones, Tech / Kris Guyer / August 20, 2025

The Pixel 10 series arrives with a power upgrade but no SIM card slot.

Google has shifted its product timeline in 2025. Android 16 dropped in May, an earlier release aimed at better lining up with smartphone launches. Google’s annual hardware refresh is also happening a bit ahead of the traditional October window. The company has unveiled its thoroughly leaked 2025 Pixel phones and watches, and you can preorder most of them today.

The new Pixel 10 phones don’t look much different from last year, but there’s an assortment of notable internal changes, and you might not like all of them. They have a new, more powerful Tensor chip (good), a lot more AI features (debatable), and no SIM card slot (bad). But at least the new Pixel Watch 4 won’t become e-waste if you break it.

Same on the outside, new on the inside

If you liked Google’s big Pixel redesign last year, there’s good news: Nothing has changed in 2025. The Pixel 10 series looks the same, right down to the almost identical physical dimensions. Aside from the new colors, the only substantial design change is the larger camera window on the Pixel 10 to accommodate the addition of a third sensor.

From left to right: Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Credit: Google

You won’t find a titanium frame or ceramic coatings present in Samsung and Apple lineups. The Pixel 10 phones have a 100 percent recycled aluminum frame, featuring a matte finish on the Pixel 10 and glossy finishes on the Pro phones. All models have Gorilla Glass Victus 2 panels on the front and back, and they’re IP68 rated for water- and dust-resistance.

The design remains consistent across all three flat phones. The base model and 10 Pro have 6.3-inch OLED screens, but the Pro gets a higher-resolution LTPO panel, which supports lower refresh rates to save power. The 10 Pro XL is LTPO, too, but jumps to 6.8 inches. These phones will be among the first Android phones with full support for the Qi 2 wireless charging standard, which is branded as “Pixelsnap” for the Pixel 10. They’ll work with Qi 2 magnetic accessories, as well as Google’s Pixelsnap chargers. They can charge the Pixel 10 and 10 Pro at 15W, but only the 10 Pro XL supports 25W.

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 10 series
	Pixel 10 ($799)	Pixel 10 Pro ($999)	Pixel 10 Pro XL ($1,199)	Pixel 10 Pro Fold ($1,799)
SoC	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5
Memory	12GB	16GB	16GB	16GB
Storage	128GB / 256GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB	256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Display	6.3-inch 1080×2424 OLED, 60-120Hz, 3,000 nits	6.3-inch 1280×2856 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,300 nits	6.3-inch 1344×2992 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,300 nits	External: 6.8-inch 1080×2364 OLED, 60-120Hz, 2000 nits; Internal: 8-inch 2076×2152 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,000 nits
Cameras	48 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 1/3.1-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP wide, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP ultrawide with Macro Focus, f/2.2, 1/3.4-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2 (outer and inner)
Software	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16
Battery	4,970mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	4,870 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,200 mAh, up to 45 W wired charging, 25 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,015 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, USB-C 2.0	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 2.0	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 2.0	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 2.0
Measurements	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 204g	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 207g	162.8 height×76.6 width×8.5 depth (mm), 232g	Folded: 154.9 height×76.2 width×10.1 depth (mm); Unfolded: 154.9 height×149.8 width×5.1 depth (mm); 258g
Colors	Indigo Frost Lemongrass Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade

You may notice some minor changes to the bottom edge of the phones, which now feature large grilles for the speaker and microphone—and no SIM card slot. Is it on the side? The top? Nope and nope. There is no physical SIM slot on Google’s new phones in the US, adopting the eSIM-only approach Apple “pioneered” on the iPhone 14. It has become standard practice that as soon as Apple removes something from its phones, like the headphone jack or the top bit of screen, everyone else will follow suit in a year or two.

Google has refused to offer a clear rationale for this change, saying only that the new SIM-less design is its “cleanest yet.” So RIP to the physical SIM card. While eSIM can be convenient in some cases, it’s not as reliable as moving a physical piece of plastic between phones and may force you to interact with your carrier’s support agents more often. Google has a SIM transfer tool built into Android these days, so most of those headaches are over.

The Pixel 10, 10 Pro, and 10 Pro XL all have the pronounced camera bar running the full width of the back, giving the phones perfect stability when placed on a table. The base model Pixel 9 had the same wide and ultrawide sensors as the Pro phones, but the Pixel 10 steps down to a lesser 48 MP primary and 13 MP ultrawide. You get the new 10.8 MP 5x telephoto this year. However, that won’t be as capable as the 48 MP telephoto camera on the Pro phones.

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold also keeps the same design as last year’s phone, featuring an offset camera bump. However, when you drill down, you’ll find a few hardware changes. Google says the hinge has been redesigned to be “gearless,” allowing for the display to get a bit closer to that edge. The result is a small 0.1-inch boost in external display size (6.4 inches). The inner screen is still 8 inches, making it the largest screen on a foldable. Google also claims the hinge is more durable and notes this is the first foldable with IP68 water and dust resistance.

Strangely, this phone still has a physical SIM card slot, even in the US. It has moved from the bottom to the top edge, which Google says helped to optimize the internal components. As a result, the third-gen Google foldable will see a significant battery life boost to 5,000 mAh versus 4,650 mAh in the 9 Pro Fold.

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold gets a camera array most similar to the base model Pixel 10, with a 48 MP primary, a 10.5 MP ultrawide, and a 10.8 MP 5x telephoto. The camera sensors are also relegated to an off-center block in the corner of the back panel, so you lose the tabletop stability from the flat models.

A Tensor from TSMC

Google released its first custom Arm chip in the Pixel 6 and has made iterative improvements in each subsequent generation. The Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10 line is the biggest upgrade yet, according to Google. As rumored, this chip is manufactured by TSMC instead of Samsung, using the latest 3 nm process node. It’s an 8-core chip with support for UFS 4 storage and LPDDR5x memory. Google has shied away from detailing the specific CPU cores. All we know right now is that there are eight cores, one of which is a “prime” core, five are mid-level, and two are efficiency cores. Similarly, the GPU performance is unclear. This is one place that Google’s Tensor chips have noticeably trailed the competition, and the company only says its internal testing shows games running “very well” on the Tensor G5.

Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10 will reportedly deliver a 34 percent boost in CPU performance, which is significant. However, even giving Google the benefit of the doubt, a 34 percent improvement would still leave the Tensor G5 trailing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite in raw speed. Google is much more interested in the new TPU, which is 60 percent faster for AI workloads than last year’s. Tensor will also power new AI-enhanced image processing, which means some photos straight out of the camera will have C2PA labeling indicating they are AI-edited. That’s an interesting change that will require hands-on testing to understand the implications.

The more powerful TPU runs the largest version of Gemini Nano yet, clocking in at 4 billion parameters. This model, designed in partnership with the team at DeepMind, is twice as efficient and 2.6 times faster than Gemini Nano models running on the Tensor G4. The context window (a measure of how much data you can put into the model) now sits at 32,000 tokens, almost three times more than last year.

Every new smartphone is loaded with AI features these days, but they can often feel cobbled together. Google is laser-focused on using the Tensor chip for on-device AI experiences, which it says number more than 20 on the Pixel 10 series. For instance, the new Magic Cue feature will surface contextual information in phone calls and messages when you need it, and the Journal is a place where you can use AI to explore your thoughts and personal notes. Tensor G5 also enables real-time Voice Translation on calls, which transforms the speaker’s own voice instead of inserting a robot voice. All these features run entirely on the phone without sending any data to the cloud.

Finally, a repairable Pixel Watch

Since Google finally released its own in-house smartwatch, there has been one glaring issue: zero repairability. The Pixel Watch line has been comfortable enough to wear all day and night, but that just makes it easier to damage. So much as a scratch, and you’re out of luck, with no parts or service available.

Google says the fourth-generation watch addresses this shortcoming. The Pixel Watch 4 comes in the same 41 mm and 45 mm sizes as last year’s watch, but the design has been tweaked to make it repairable at last. The company says the watch’s internals are laid out in a way that makes it easier to disassemble, and there’s a new charging system that won’t interfere with repairs. However, that means another new watch charging standard, Google’s third in four generations.

The new charger is a small dock that attaches to the side, holding the watch up so it’s visible on your desk. It can show upcoming alarms, battery percentage, or the time (duh, it’s a watch). It’s about 25 percent faster to charge compared to last year’s model, too. The smaller watch has a 325 mAh battery, and the larger one is 455 mAh. In both cases, these are marginally larger than the Pixel Watch 3. Google says the 41 mm will run 30 hours on a charge, and the 45 mm manages 40 hours.

The OLED panel under the glass now conforms to the Pixel Watch 4’s curvy aesthetic. Rather than being a flat panel under curved glass, the OLED now follows the domed shape. Google says the “Actua 360” display features 3,000 nits of brightness, a 50 percent improvement over last year’s wearable. The bezel around the screen is also 16 percent slimmer than last year. It runs a Snapdragon W5 Gen 2, which is apparently 25 percent faster and uses half the power of the Gen 1 chip used in the Watch 3.

Naturally, Google has also integrated Gemini into its new watch. It has “raise-to-talk” functionality, so you can just lift your wrist to begin talking to the AI (if you want that). The Pixel Watch 4 also boasts an improved speaker and haptics, which come into play when interacting with Gemini.

Pricing and availability

If you have a Pixel 9, there isn’t much reason to run out and buy a Pixel 10. That said, you can preorder Google’s new flat phones today. Pricing remains the same as last year, starting at $799 for the Pixel 10. The Pixel 10 Pro keeps the same size, adding a better camera setup and screen for $999. The largest Pixel 10 Pro XL retails for $1,199. The phones will ship on August 28.

If foldables are more your speed, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold won’t arrive until October 9, but it won’t see a price hike, either. The $1,799 price tag is still quite steep, even if Samsung’s new foldable is $200 more.

The Pixel Watch 4 is also available for preorder today, with availability on August 28 as well. The 41 mm will stay at $349, and the 45 mm is $399. If you want the LTE versions, you’ll add $100 to those prices.

Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he’s written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards.

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Author name: Kris Guyer