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The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. The device looks a lot similar to Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra. The main difference this time round is what’s inside: Samsung is going big on artificial intelligence.

Samsung

Samsung announced its new flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone range Wednesday, earlier than expected, touting new artificial intelligence features as the company looks to kick off 2024 with a bang.

As is standard with Samsung’s flagship range now, the S24 range comes in three versions: the S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra. The S24 Ultra starts at a price of $1,300, the S24+ will cost $1,000, and the S24 will retail at $800.

The South Korean electronics giant showed off the new gadgets at its Kings Cross offices in London earlier this week, prior to the announcement. At a briefing with reporters, Samsung talked up the phone’s AI capabilities and showed how it’s able to edit pictures and search for items by using AI.

For Samsung’s top-tier S24 Ultra, which is the company’s biggest of the three devices and comes with punchier specs and features, Samsung is using a version of Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3 optimized for Galaxy. The company is using a mix of Qualcomm systems-on-chips (SoCs) and its own Exynos chipset for its S24 and S24+ models.

“The Galaxy S24 series devices, together with Google’s Pixel range, mark the dawn of the consumerisation of AI in smartphones,” Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC. “This is a trend that will be echoed by all smartphone makers, including Apple, as they increasingly add a growing number of AI-powered capabilities to their new devices.”

“This launch sees Samsung betting on features powered by artificial intelligence to reignite consumers’ interest in smartphones at a time when incremental hardware updates have seen sales slow. Google has been the trailblazer with its Pixel devices and there is little question this is going to be a recurring theme going forward, not just for smartphones but across all consumer electronics.”

AI is the name of the game

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is the main event for most tech gadget enthusiasts — and, for the most part, it isn’t a whole lot different to the Galaxy S23 Ultra looks-wise.

That’s because Samsung isn’t changing an awful lot with the hardware. It still comes in the same size as its predecessor — the display is 6.8 inches, measured diagonally, though the phone is flatter this time round. The S23 Ultra had more curvature to it.

The big upgrade to the external hardware with this model is that it’s cased in titanium, so it’s a lot sturdier than the S23 Ultra.

The main difference this time round is what’s inside: Samsung is going big on artificial intelligence. A key focus for Samsung, like other smartphone makers, now is on “on-demand” AI — or, the ability to carry out AI workloads directly on a device, rather than over the cloud.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has a bright display that can reach 2,600 nits at peak brightness — making it gthe brightest on a Samsung phone to date, according to the company.

Samsung

Samsung said its new Galaxy S24 Ultra will come with a bunch of new AI features, a lot of which is being powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset for mobile, which is tailored for AI devices.

It signals something that a lot of smartphone makers have been focusing on recently. Consumers aren’t getting as excited by new smartphone upgrades as they used to. So phone makers have had to come with ideas to get people’s attention again and rev up excitement in the market.

One feature Samsung’s loading into the Galaxy S24 range is the ability to circle locations or items a user is directing their camera at, or on a picture they’ve taken, and then look up results on what those things are.

So, for instance, if you see a landmark or a shoe you want to buy, you can make a circle around that object and then the AI shows you appropriate results on Google.

Another feature Samsung touted is the ability to use AI to edit photos. So users can edit reflections out of pictures they’ve taken, for instance if you took a picture of yourself in front of a window. Or you can move a person from one side of the room to another by dragging them from left to right.

Samsung also showcased live transcription features with its latest smartphones.

When calling someone who’s speaking in French, for instance, a user can pull up a transcription that’s being fed through to them in real time. You can also record a conversation between two people and get it transcribed, while the AI assigns a label to each person speaking, similar to transcription products like Otter AI.

'Huge miss': Samsung's operating profit expected to drop 35% in fourth quarter, missing earnings consensus

Paolo Pescatore, PP Foresight, told CNBC that Samsung “must focus its efforts on retaining its core loyal premium base.”

 “Arguably [Samsung] has done more than enough with the new features powered by its own AI platform,” Pescatoer said. “This potentially could be the start of a new era for smartphone representing a key super cycle for Samsung.”

“With this in mind, Samsung will have to entice users with a range of competitor offers to suit everyone; this includes older Samsung owners who will inevitably be looking for a much needed upgrade.”

AI watermarking

Another thing Samsung’s had to think about is what its AI features mean for things like privacy and copyright infringement.

The past year has seen countless examples of people using AI to create images and other creative media and pass it off as their own work — even when, in some cases, it’s derivative from or even looks identical to artists’ work.

So when a Galaxy S24 user uses AI to modify a photo, Samsung will keep a log of what was changed with AI and store it in the metadata. It’ll also have an icon in the bottom left corner to show that teh image has been edited using AI, kind of like a watermark.

At the Samsung briefing in King’s Cross, some analysts and reporters were able to crop this icon out just by using Samsung’s in-app cropping feature — though the icon is still kept in the metadata.

“AI-powered image and video manipulation raises some ethical questions, particularly given the recent media attention around deep fake content,” Wood told CNBC. “The addition of a watermark and updated metadata for altered content is a constructive step by Samsung and I’m sure others will follow.”

“The success of Samsung’s AI-based features will largely depend on Samsung’s ability to raise consumer awareness and engagement via its marketing for the Galaxy S24 portfolio,” he added. “Success will require crisp communication of the benefits and continued expansion of the use cases.”

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Nvidia CEO Huang says bringing Blackwell AI chip to China ‘is a real possibility’

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Nvidia CEO Huang says bringing Blackwell AI chip to China 'is a real possibility'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang waves to a crowd as he leaves the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing on July 17, 2025.

Jade Gao | Afp | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said there’s a “real possibility” the company brings its advanced Blackwell processor to China as he urges the U.S. government to open up access for American chipmakers.

He also predicted the artificial intelligence market in the world’s second-biggest economy will grow 50% next year.

“The opportunity for us to bring Blackwell to the China market is a real possibility,” Huang said on Wednesday in a call for Nvidia’s latest quarterly results. “We just have to keep advocating the importance of American tech companies to be able to lead and win the AI race, and help make the American tech stack the global standard.”

Huang personally visited the White House in July and August to secure export licenses for Nvidia’s current-generation chip for Chinese AI, called the H20. In August, the White House announced that President Donald Trump and Huang had struck a deal in which Nvidia would receive export licenses in exchange for 15% of China sales of the H20 going to the U.S. government.

After the meeting, Trump said he was open to making a deal for Blackwell chips, which is Nvidia’s latest AI technology that currently comprises the majority of its data center revenue.

Huang has said that it is better for Chinese AI developers to use Nvidia’s chips rather than force them to use homegrown Chinese options by preventing exports, which could incentivize the Chinese tech industry to catch up.

If Nvidia were to release a Blackwell chip in China, it could spur a large amount of sales as Chinese AI developers opt for the most powerful chips available. Nvidia would have to modify its Blackwell chips for the U.S. market to make them slower in certain aspects in order to comply with U.S. export regulations.

“The Blackwell is super-duper advanced. I wouldn’t make a deal with that,” Trump said in August, before adding that it was possible to make a deal for a “somewhat enhanced in a negative way” version of Blackwell.

Huang’s bullish comments on Wednesday come after the company reported second-quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 56% to $54 billion, despite not selling a single H20 chip to China during the quarter. Nvidia said it released $180 million in H20 inventory to a customer outside of China, which accounted for $650 million in sales.

Nvidia said it is not counting on any H20 sales in the October quarter as part of its forecast for $54 billion in revenue, but that the company could sell between $2 billion and $5 billion in H20 chips, depending on the geopolitical environment.

“If we had more orders, we can build more,” Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress said on the call with analysts.

Nvidia said that while it had received some licenses after the meeting with Trump, the U.S. government has yet to publish official regulations outlining how its cut of sales will work.

“USG officials have expressed an expectation that the USG will receive 15% of the revenue generated from licensed H20 sales, but to date, the USG has not published a regulation codifying such requirement,” Kress said.

Huang told analysts that China is the second-largest AI market in the world.

“The China market I’ve estimated to be about $50 billion of opportunity for us this year, if we were able to address it with competitive products,” Huang said. “And if it’s $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow, say, 50% per year.”

Recent reports have indicated that the Chinese government is encouraging AI developers to use homegrown chips over those from Nvidia.

“We’re still waiting on several of the geopolitical issues going back and forth between the governments and the companies trying to determine their purchases and what they want to do,” Kress said.

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Founder of IRL social media app charged with defrauding investors

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Founder of IRL social media app charged with defrauding investors

Boonchai Wedmakawand | Moment | Getty Images

The founder of the company behind the IRL social media app was charged with defrauding investors of $170 million in the company’s 2021 funding round, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

A federal grand jury in Oakland federal court indicted Abraham Shafi, 38 of Hawaii, with wire fraud, securities fraud and obstruction in connection with the scheme, the DOJ said.

Shafi was the CEO of Get Together, the parent company of IRL. The company was valued at $1 billion after its 2021 Series C funding round. IRL, which shuttered in June 2023, was a platform for users to organize events and offline activities. It found some traction in 2018, ranking among Apple’s top social apps.

Shafi allegedly spent millions on incentive advertising to boost installs of the app leading up to the Series C while maintaining to investors that the company spent “very little” on getting new users, the DOJ said.

He then concealed the expense by invoicing it to another firm, the DOJ said.

The indictment also alleges that the CEO and his fiancée used investor funds for “luxury hotel stays, luxury clothing, purchases from home furnishing retailers, thousands of dollars for art classes, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for SHAFI’s wedding, including payments for wedding guests’ airfare and luxury hotels.”

Read more CNBC tech news

Shafi told CNBC in February 2018 that investors backed the company on its potential to compete with Facebook and Snapchat. Investors in IRL included Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and the venture firm Floodgate.

Shafi’s co-founders at IRL included Scott Banister, the first board member of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, among others.

Only Shafi was named in the DOJ indictment. He faces a max of 20 years in prison on each count, the DOJ said.

Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Shafi for the same alleged scheme.

“Shafi took advantage of investors’ appetite for investments in the pre-IPO technology space and fraudulently raised approximately $170 million by lying about IRL’s business practices,” Monique Winkler, director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office, said in a release at the time.

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YouTube-Fox standoff has high stakes as college football, NFL seasons kick off

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YouTube-Fox standoff has high stakes as college football, NFL seasons kick off

A news ticker outside Fox News headquarters reads: Grand jury votes to indict former President Donald Trump, at the News Corporation building in New York City, U.S., March 31, 2023. 

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

In less than three days, college football will be showcasing one of its most-highly anticipated week one matchups ever, with top-ranked Texas heading on the road to play reigning national champion and third-ranked Ohio State.

Fox is airing the much-hyped game. YouTube TV subscribers may be out of luck.

Google‘s YouTube said on Monday it may remove channels like Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News and Fox Sports if the company is unable to reach a new agreement with Fox Corp. by 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The two sides are still in a standoff, putting YouTube TV customers at risk of missing out on major sporting events and hefty ad dollars in limbo.

For Google, the issue is how much Fox is charging for its content.

“Fox is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive,” YouTube wrote in its Monday blog post.

YouTube TV has roughly 9.4 million subscribers. Most notably for sports fans, Fox is the home for many upcoming football games, both college and pro. The NFL season begins next week, with Fox set to air games starting on Sunday, Sept. 7

YouTube pays broadcasters like Fox to carry their channels.

In addition to football, Fox shows Major League Baseball games, and the MLB regular season is entering its final stretch. Fox will be airing some playoff games that follow, as well as the World Series, which is scheduled to start in late October.

Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, weighed in on Tuesday.

“Google removing Fox channels from YouTube TV would be a terrible outcome,” he said on X. “Millions of Americans are relying on YouTube to resolve this dispute so they can keep watching the news and sports they want — including this week’s Big Game:  Texas @ Ohio State. Get a deal done Google!”

The Texas – Ohio State game has added intrigue as its Arch Manning’s first marquee start as quarterback for the top-ranked Longhorns.

The hefty roster of Fox programs may be enough for sports fans to turn off YouTube TV in favor of other options. One place subscribers could turn to is Fox One, Fox’s standalone streaming service, which just launched last week, ahead of the NFL season. Fox One costs $19.99 per month or $199.99 annually.

The base plan for YouTube TV costs $82.99 per month and includes over 100 live channels and unlimited cloud DVR. If Fox does go offline for an extended period of time, YouTube will give members a $10 credit, the Google company said.

YouTube recently overtook Netflix, which has a market cap of $518 billion, as the top streaming platform in terms of audience engagement.

While YouTube and Fox have set a deadline of Wednesday to reach a deal, it’s common for carriage disputes to result in a deadline extension that would give the parties more time to negotiate.

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