Month: January 2018

Enlarge / The Samsung Galaxy S8+. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

The latest in the never-ending line of Samsung Galaxy S9 leaks has to do with the box. Reddit user minhvn shared an image of what appears to be a Galaxy S9 box, and it looks pretty legit to us. With the expectation that the Galaxy S9 will look a lot like the Galaxy S8, the box shows all the specs you would expect: a 5.8-inch 1440p OLED display, an iris scanner, 64GB of memory, 4GB of RAM, and wireless charging.

The main new addition in the spec list is a 12MP rear camera that lists two camera apertures: f/1.5 and f/2.4. This sounds like the Galaxy S9 will ship with the same variable aperture camera that Samsung has already shipped in the W2018 flip phone. In non-ideal lighting conditions, the W2018 uses the f/1.5 aperture to collect as much light as possible, but in brighter lighting, it switches to f/2.4 for a wider depth of field. Samsung's $1,500 ($1,500? $1,500!) flip phone doesn't have a wide distribution, but the gif of this camera working is pretty incredible—just like a DSLR, a set of miniaturized aperture blades open and close with the changing light levels.

Another feature revealed by the spec list is a set of stereo speakers. Again, with the understanding that the Galaxy S9 will look a lot like the Galaxy S8, this most likely means that the earpiece now doubles as a second speaker, and will play along with the usual bottom-firing speaker.

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto/Getty Images)

After punishing one of its fastest-growing creators this week, Google is reportedly planning on scrutinizing YouTube videos that are part of its most lucrative advertising program. According to a Bloomberg report, Google will begin vetting YouTube videos in the Google Preferred ad program, which Google uses to sell advertisements on the most popular YouTube channels at higher rates. In turn, creators with channels in Google Preferred get a better cut of the advertising revenue than those on Google's lower-tier advertising programs.

Google's plan isn't much different from previous plans for policing the majority of videos on YouTube. The company will use the combined forces of its 10,000 human moderators and artificial intelligence software to identify videos posted by the biggest channels that violate YouTube's guidelines and are not suitable for advertisements.

Videos that are part of Google Preferred have always been governed by YouTube's general Community Guidelines and posting rules that define offensive and unacceptable content. But a number of videos posted by popular accounts have fallen through the cracks recently, including Logan Paul's "suicide forest" video.

Enlarge / LG 32UK950. (credit: Samuel Axon)

LAS VEGAS—Each year, electronics companies big and small use the CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas to introduce their upcoming slate of products. The majority of products are niche products for a specific audience or tweaks to previous models. But a select few are exciting.

The following are the gadgets, computing devices, and wearables announced or shown at CES that most impressed the Ars team. Some were selected because they promise to bring fresh ideas to users, while others were selected because they appear at first glance to be impressively engineered and designed for quality.

Unfortunately, some of the world's most innovative tech companies don't make a big showing at CES. Instead, they choose to announce or show their products elsewhere—or they don't make an appearance at all. For that reason, Ars can't claim that this is a comprehensive list of the most promising devices of the year.