Author: Eternity Lab

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IT leaders raise concerns over IT security overspend

IT leaders say they are overspending on cyber security tools, a survey of 800 IT leaders from Flexera has found.

The poll reported that 31% of the IT decision-makers who took part in the survey ranked IT security tools as the top area of overspending. This represents a six-point increase from last year’s survey (25%).

Even though reducing IT security risks ranked second (28%) behind artificial intelligence (AI) in terms of priorities over the next 12 months, the findings suggest that the conversations around the inflation of security tools and difficulties in integrating separate tooling together are ongoing.

Last year, analyst IDC surveyed 503 IT decision-makers in North America looking at cloud-native application protection platforms; data security; endpoint detection and response; extended detection and response; network security; next-generation firewall; security information and event management; security service edge; and vulnerability and exposure management. The respondents had anywhere from 41 to 60 security tools in their environment, with 25% reporting 21 to 40 tools.

Beyond IT security tools, the Flexera survey found that 68% of IT leaders say business units are spending far more on cloud and software as a service (SaaS) than they are aware of.

According to those surveyed, the estimated average amount of overspending across cloud, software, SaaS and hardware is around 20-25%. When asked about their top IT spending challenges, 45% said it was controlling growth in IT spend; for 40%, the biggest challenge was tackling IT spending efficiency and avoiding waste; and 39% saw their biggest challenge as managing price hikes from their software providers. 

Flexera said the responses suggest that IT leaders desire more thorough visibility across their entire technology investment, yet are continually juggling unknowns as they seek to determine the best course of action to correct overspending and better balance their piece of the budget.

The survey results also suggest that AI is redefining IT leaders’ priorities. Almost half (48%) of the IT leaders polled put integrating AI as their top priority for the next 12 months.

“While IT leaders are facing a myriad of challenges and opportunities, artificial intelligence seems to pose the biggest potential gains in the short- and long-term,” said Conal Gallagher, chief information officer at Flexera.

“There’s an extraordinary expense required of AI projects, creating an even greater sense of urgency to not only understand the impact of the investment, but to quickly demonstrate returns that advance core business objectives,” he added.

“AI is not only disrupting and transforming IT – for example, creating more focus on compute resources and data quality – but planting the seeds to change the way we all work. It’s no surprise that IT is at the forefront of recognising and ushering in this disruption, helping to be a guiding force for their organisations.”

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ChatGPT might get ads

I’ve been a ChatGPT Plus subscriber for a while now, and I don’t plan on switching to the Free tier anytime soon. ChatGPT Plus gives me access to the newest models and features much sooner than the Free tier. Also, the limits with the chatbot are higher on the Plus plan, so you won’t run into interruptions.

Still, the ChatGPT Free option gives you quick access to OpenAI’s chatbot, letting you explore some of its best features to determine whether you’d even want to consider the Plus subscription in the first place.

Also, ChatGPT Free is truly free, as you don’t have to deal with any ads that would help OpenAI pay for your interactions with the AI. You don’t have to agree to have your chats train the AI, either. That’s why it has limits in place.

Unsurprisingly, OpenAI is considering a switch to an ad-based model in ChatGPT at some point in the future. It won’t happen anytime soon, but the company confirmed it’s looking at inserting ads in ChatGPT.

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OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told The Financial Times that the company is considering showing ads to non-paying ChatGPT users in the future. Ads could help cover the rising costs of AI servers and even increase profits. OpenAI is no longer a non-profit, after all, so it’ll be chasing revenues like any other tech giant.

We didn’t really need any confirmation from a company that launched a Google Search alternative and is considering a web browser of its own. It goes without saying that ads could be part of the ChatGPT Free experience.

Hopefully, however, OpenAI will not go the same route as Google. The latter made the web discoverable to the world with its Google Search product. But Google also made us hate online ads over the years, and Google Search along with it, because it tracked us everywhere on the web, creating profiles of user preferences for better ad-targeting.

The good news is that OpenAI will not start running ads on ChatGPT Free anytime soon. The company has many concerns about ads, and that’s great to hear. Friar told the Times that OpenAI needs to be “thoughtful about when and where” ads will be implemented.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is reportedly warming up to the idea of ads, though he has previously said he’s not a fan of them.

Friar’s remarks aren’t just answers to hypothetical scenarios. OpenAI hired former advertising talents from Meta and Google earlier this year. The only thing they could be working on at OpenAI is ad tech for ChatGPT.

I’ll also remind you of other reports detailing OpenAI’s plans for monetizing ChatGPT in the future that called for much more expensive subscription tiers. Placing ads in the free version of ChatGPT makes even more sense in that context, assuming those reports were accurate.

On the same note, it’ll be interesting to see what comes first: Ads in ChatGPT Free or a Plus subscription increase for premium users.

I will point out that OpenAI might get an influx of extra ChatGPT users in the near future as ChatGPT becomes available through Siri on the iPhone. In turn, iPhone users will be able to buy a Plus subscription from the iPhone’s settings app.

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Intel unleashes XeSS 2 for Arc GPUs with huge changes to speed up PC games, borrowing a few pages from Nvidia’s DLSS playbook

  • Intel has revealed XeSS 2 which follows in the footsteps of DLSS
  • It’s split into XeSS Frame Generation and XeSS Super Resolution
  • There’s also Xe Low Latency to combat input lag, much like Nvidia Reflex

Intel has just unveiled new Battlemage desktop GPUs, and alongside those graphics cards comes a fresh version of XeSS, its upscaling tech to rival Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR.

Yes, XeSS 2 is here, and Intel is making some big changes with the technology in this sequel. In fact, XeSS 2 is being split into two core components: XeSS Frame Generation and XeSS Super Resolution.

In other words, this is going the same route as Nvidia, when with DLSS 3, Team Green brought in frame generation – which means artificially inserting extra frames into the game, to make it smoother. It’s a separate technology to the actual upscaling component of DLSS 3, and so this is what Intel has done – split XeSS into Super Resolution (upscaling) and Frame Generation (extra frames generated to bolster the frame rate).

On top of that, Intel is introducing Xe Low Latency, which is essentially equivalent to Nvidia Reflex – a complementary tech to reduce input lag which helps to smooth over the lag wrinkles that are a side effect of frame generation.

In terms of support, only Intel’s Alchemist and Battlemage GPUs will get XeSS 2 – not any third-party GPUs – and on the games side, developers will need to code in support for all these new technologies (including frame generation, and low latency). However, we’ve also seen mentions of manually enabling low latency (at the driver level), so we’ll have to see how that shakes out.

On top of this, Intel has deployed a new control panel for its Arc GPUs which will simply be called ‘Intel Graphics Software’ (in much the same vein as Team Green’s new and renamed Nvidia App).

This is billed as an ‘all-in-one hub’ for all your Arc GPU needs, from updating drivers to game optimization, enabling Intel’s tech such as low latency mode, changing display options, monitoring performance (frame rates and GPU status), along with controls for overclocking.

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Hat tip to VideoCardz for picking up on both of these developments.

An Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition graphics card against a purple background

(Image credit: Intel)

Analysis: Keeping pace with upscaling – the future of gaming

There are some major changes here, as we noted at the outset, and aside from all the new tech – implemented very much along the lines of DLSS – there’s also that switch in support for GPUs. Previously XeSS allowed AMD and Nvidia GPUs (or some of them) to use and benefit from the tech, but that’s no longer the case due to frame generation requiring Intel’s own hardware (XMX AI Engines).

Team Blue might work around that in the future, but for now, XeSS 2 will be for Intel Arc graphics cards only.

It’s not really surprising to see Intel moving in the same direction as Nvidia – after all, DLSS is very much regarded as the killer solution for boosting frame rates. What’s good to see with Team Blue is that XeSS 2 also allows for frame generation with older Alchemist graphics cards, whereas with DLSS 3, only RTX 4000 – the very newest Nvidia GPUs – get the frame generation component. (RTX 3000 graphics cards support everything else in DLSS 3, to be fair, including ray reconstruction – but not frame generation).

If Intel is to stay competitive in the GPU space, it’s certainly important that it keeps XeSS up to speed, as upscaling is regarded as a core piece of the future of gaming. More and more games are relying on such technology to achieve smooth frame rates, particularly at the likes of 4K resolution (or its upscaled equivalent, we should say).

We’re seeing upscaling become a key part of consoles – witness the PlayStation Pro 5 with PSSR – and on PCs, what’ll make it even more prevalent is Microsoft’s move with DirectSR, an effort to make it much easier for game developers to use XeSS, DLSS and FSR in their games.

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This is the closest we’ve come to Tim Cook confirming Apple Glasses

While I haven’t bought the Apple Vision Pro, I’m still a fan of what Apple is doing here because I think the spatial computer debuted key technologies that will lead to the actual head-worn wearable I want: A pair of AR Apple Glasses that might eventually replace the iPhone.

Rumors say that we have a long wait ahead of us before true Apple Glasses become a reality. Apple needs tons of progress with the tech involved before it can create the product it wants. Meta recently showcased the bulky Orion concept of AR glasses that cost $10,000 to make. That’s another clear hint that Apple Glasses will take a while to get here. We need a pair of AR glasses that look much more like regular glasses before consumers will actually adopt them.

Other rumors say that Apple is studying the possibility of developing smart glasses that look like Meta’s Ray-Ban. Those aren’t AR glasses, however. Intead, they just have a camera and Meta AI support. Samsung is expected to unveil a similar gadget in the coming months.

Apple will never confirm work on future products, though it might tease that’s where we’re heading. That’s what Tim Cook did in a recent interview when asked whether Apple Glasses are coming after the Vision Pro.

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Here’s the actual exchange between Tim Cook and Wired’s Steven Levy:

Wired: Meta and Snap are leading us to mixed-reality glasses that we’d wear continually. Is the bigger, heavier Vision Pro ultimately headed that way?

Tim Cook: Yes, it’s a progression over time in terms of what happens with form factors. AR is a huge deal. With Vision Pro, we’ve progressed to what is clearly the most advanced technology we’ve ever done, and I think, the most advanced technology in the world in terms of electronics problems. We’ll see where it goes.

Tim Cook did not confirm that the tech inside its Vision Pro will eventually shrink down to fit inside Apple Glasses. He offered the obvious answer any CEO would have given, considering the question. Yes, the Vision Pro is a stepping stone towards something better. His “we’ll see where it goes” is the hedge you’d expect from an exec dealing with this question.

Meta Rayban SunglassesRay-Ban Meta smart glasses. Image source: Jonathan S. Geller

I’ve included the question in full because of how it’s framed. Levy asks Cook whether smart glasses like the ones Meta and Snap sell are leading us to mixed-reality glasses that we’d wear continuously. But neither Meta nor Snap have such products. Instead, the two social networks sell smart glasses that are significantly less sophisticated than the Vision Pro. They’re not mixed-reality devices.

Put differently, Apple has developed the tech it needs for Apple Glasses with the Vision Pro. Apple now has to shrink it down to fit inside a pair of normal glasses.

Apple developing a smart glasses product that would support genAI, like Meta’s glasses, would allow Apple to work on the glasses chassis that might one day feature more advanced capabilities that would trickle down from the Vision Pro. There’s no telling how long it’ll take for Apple to come out with Apple Intelligence-ready Apple Glasses.

Cook also addressed questions about lower-than-expected Vision Pro sales in the same interview saying the device is a success.

“It’s an early adopter product, for people who want tomorrow’s technology today,” Cook said. “Those people are buying it, and the ecosystem is flourishing. The ultimate test for us is the ecosystem. I don’t know if you’re using it very much, but I’m on there all the time. I see new apps all the time.”

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Tim Cook says Apple Intelligence was always going to be free

If you own an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, or any of the four iPhone 16 models, you can use Apple Intelligence for free. The same goes for iPads and Macs that feature Apple M-series chips. Apple Intelligence is available for free as part of the respective iOS, iPadOS, and macOS updates.

At the same time, Apple Intelligence, in its current state, is incomplete compared to what Apple showed at WWDC 2024. It’ll take several more months to get that full Apple Intelligence functionality on the iPhone. And even then, work on Apple Intelligence will not stop as the company should add new capabilities year after year.

In its current state, Apple Intelligence can only be free. Will Apple ever charge for it? Tim Cook addressed the question in an interview, saying that the tech is as similar and pivotal as the iPhone’s multitouch feature, which you also get for free with your iPhone purchase.

Apple Intelligence was one of the main topics in Wired’s wide-ranging interview with Tim Cook. That’s when the question about Apple Intelligence’s potential price came up:

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Wired: Some companies charge for AI-enhanced services. Did you consider that?

Tim Cook: We never talked about charging for it. We view it sort of like multitouch, which enabled the smartphone revolution and the modern tablet.

That’s a great way to frame the answer. Cook is practically saying that Apple Intelligence will be a key tech for Apple products, including the iPhone, just like multitouch is. The latter is a key innovation that made touchscreen devices like the iPhone and iPad possible.

We hardly talk about multitouch support in iPhone or Android products because that’s a feature we take for granted. They’re all touch-first devices. That’s how we interact with them.

Cook’s answer is somewhat misleading because the comparison is valid up to a point. While I’m sure multitouch gets innovations that go under the radar, Apple Intelligence and genAI, in general, will see tremendous progress in the coming years that will not go under the radar.

Apple’s Apple Intelligence innovations will take the spotlight year after year. Some of those features might require extra costs, which might be passed on to the buyer.

As a user, I’ll want to pay for a secure, private, ad-free AI experience, whether Apple’s or someone else’s.

That said, Cook’s take on Apple Intelligence being free is in line with what I’m expecting for Apple’s AI in the near future. I explained earlier this year why Apple Intelligence should always be free. Well, make that “free,” because iPhone users will always be paying for it by paying a premium price for the iPhone.

I still think that’s going to be true for several years, even after Apple catches up with its rivals. Cook’s remark above further reinforces my line of thinking.

Then again, even if Apple is developing premium Apple Intelligence plans, don’t expect Cook to confirm anything years in advance. Some rumors say paid Apple Intelligence features will come in 2027 at the earliest.

As for the more distant future, if Apple can ship a multi-device Apple-Intelligence-first operating system similar to the movie Her, that operating system might be worth paying a subscription.

Speaking of a more distant future of AI, Cook also addressed AGI questions. That’s the advanced general intelligence holy grail that OpenAI and others are trying to achieve. AGI will be able to reason and approach any problem as a human would, though it’ll have a far vaster knowledge database.

The CEO suggested AGI isn’t necessarily a priority for Apple, but the company is certainly looking at where the future might lead. For now, AI is “good enough where we can deliver it to people and change their lives, and that’s what we’re focused on.”

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iPhone 17 Air may ditch these 5 Pro features to achieve its ultra-thin design

Following the report of a redesigned iPhone 17 Pro, The Information‘s Wayne Ma details Apple’s efforts to release the ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air next year. According to the journalist, Cupertino will remove several features to make this innovative iPhone that thin.

Ma reports that iPhone 17 Air prototypes are between 5 and 6 millimeters thick, which could possibly make it thinner than the iPhone 6, released a decade ago. While the iPhone 16 is 7.8mm thick, this could make the iPhone 17 Air as thin as the new M4 iPad Pro.

Unfortunately, not everything is good news. Apple will have to sacrifice several crucial features to achieve this ultra-thin design. For example, The Information says Apple engineers are “finding it hard to fit the battery and thermal materials into the device,” which means Cupertino will likely have to add a smaller battery to this iPhone.

Besides, a major compromise on the iPhone 17 Air might be a single earpiece speaker. According to Ma, “the iPhone will only have a single speaker in its earpiece because there’s no room for a second speaker at the bottom, which is standard in other models.”

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The journalist also confirms another rumored change: the iPhone 17 Air will have a “large, centered camera bump.” That said, forget about one of the iPhone’s most widely-used camera features, the optical zoom.

While Apple’s in-house 5G modem is expected to be available with this iPhone, the chip doesn’t perform as well as Qualcomm’s. The report says it’s more efficient, but it won’t be as fast, and it will lack a feature some US users benefit a lot, the mmWave 5G technology, which Apple’s future processor won’t have.

Finally, Apple engineers couldn’t figure out how to add a physical SIM tray to the iPhone 17 Air. While iPhone users in the US are used to that, Apple will have issues, at least in China, which requires phones to be sold with a SIM card. Without this market, sales of this upcoming iPhone might not be as enticing as they could.

Wrap up

Considering all that, I wonder if these trade-offs are worth it for an all-new iPhone design. I still think Pro users will keep buying Pro phones, while regular iPhone users won’t be enticed to pay extra for this new design. So, who might be this new iPhone for?

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First-of-its-kind EV battery adds 186 miles of range with a 5-minute charge

What if charging your electric car was as quick as grabbing a coffee? Thanks to an incredible breakthrough by ProLogium, that vision is becoming a reality. The company revealed a first-of-its-kind, cutting-edge EV battery that can deliver up to 186 miles of driving range after just five minutes of charging.

This innovation is more than just a fast charge, though. ProLogium’s new EV battery is a leap forward in energy density. Traditional lithium-ion batteries, the kind in most EVs today, top out at about 300 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg). However, ProLogium’s battery reaches an impressive 321 Wh/kg—and that’s just the start.

The company claims it plans to further boost the performance of its cutting-edge EV battery up to 77 percent by the end of 2024. This could lead to lighter, more efficient batteries that don’t sacrifice range for a fast charging speed. Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen EV batteries pushing the current boundaries of fast charging.

What’s especially exciting about ProLogium’s development, though, is the battery’s modular design. If part of the battery breaks, you don’t have to replace the whole thing—just the damaged section. This could cut repair costs significantly and make EV ownership even more appealing, something EV manufacturers have been struggling to do.

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Sure, the Cybertruck might be appealing to some because of how off-the-wall it looks on the road. There’s no doubt that Tesla has made quite an imprint on the EV market. However, the widespread adoption of EVs is still far from what many would like to see it become. ProLogium’s new cutting-edge EV battery could help with that.

This breakthrough is a big step toward making electric cars not just an eco-friendly option but also the most convenient one. With faster charging, longer range, and smarter designs, the future of electric vehicles has even more room to grow with batteries like this.

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Nvidia RTX 4050 could be the ‘Terminator GPU’ of this laptop generation that refuses to die when the RTX 5050 arrives

  • Nvidia may keep the RTX 4050 mobile when RTX 5000 laptop GPUs launch
  • It will sit at the bottom tier, below the Blackwell mobile graphics cards
  • What isn’t clear is if it’ll drop in price to help with cheaper gaming laptops

Nvidia will apparently keep its RTX 4050 GPU for laptops when new RTX 5000 mobile graphics cards arrive, though the rest of the Lovelace notebook range will be canned.

Wccftech grabbed the scoop on this rumor, which comes from a leaker on Weibo who we’re not familiar with, so we’d advise doubling down on the skepticism with this info.

The RTX 5000 laptop range could arrive as soon as CES 2025 in January (alongside Blackwell desktop GPUs), according to previous buzz on the grapevine, and when Nvidia does launch these new mobile GPUs, we can expect the RTX 4060 laptop graphics card and above – running through to the RTX 4090 – to be discontinued.

Does Nvidia keeping the RTX 4050 mean there won’t be an RTX 5050 graphics card for gaming laptops? Actually, that’s not the case because the leaker claims Team Green will indeed launch an RTX 5050, but what will happen is the RTX 4050 will be kept alive to serve as the tier below that offering.

So, in theory, we’ll have an RTX 5090 running all the way down to the RTX 5050 mobile, with the RTX 4050 underneath that – but again, we should underline the speculative nature of this chatter.

MSI GF63 Thin gaming laptop with Nvidia GPU on a wooden desk, with a plant next to it.

(Image credit: Future)

Analysis: Fresh hope for cheaper budget laptops? Or not…

What we hope will happen (if the rumor is true) is that the RTX 4050 remains as a (cheaper) budget option for more affordable gaming laptops, away from the new Blackwell mobile GPUs. However, the Weibo leaker seems to hint that the price of the RTX 5050 will not be kept the same as the RTX 4050 when it was launched, and it might increase by a ‘step’ – but we should caution the wording (and translation) is confusing and unclear here.

However, we take it as a suggestion Nvidia might maintain RTX 4050 pricing as it is, and increase the (launch) asking price of the RTX 5050 (what’s charged to laptop makers, that is – and naturally that’s reflected in the final price of the notebook to the consumer). But, as we say, this is far from clear – though if Team Green wants to go the moneymaking route, obviously this would be the thing to do.

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We can still hope the RTX 4050 is being maintained as a wallet-friendly option going forward, and its price could drop, with the new RTX 5050 coming in at the 4050’s old level. There’s precedence for this already, too: Nvidia kept the RTX 2050 sticking around as a budget laptop alternative after the 3000 series was released.

Nvidia keeping the RTX 4050 suggests it has proved a popular mobile option for laptop gamers, although it can’t hold a candle to the RTX 4060. At least not going by Valve’s Steam hardware survey, where the RTX 4060 mobile is the second favorite mobile GPU of all, with 4.3% of market share, compared to the RTX 4050 mobile with around 1.1%.

That’s still pretty popular, though, and obviously, the RTX 4050 can have a place in Nvidia’s new Blackwell mobile GPU regime, where it neatly slots in at the bottom tier, whereas that isn’t true with the RTX 4060 (assuming Nvidia really is making an RTX 5050, of course – presumably as a laptop-only GPU, again).

We’ve just got to hope Nvidia prices these next-gen mobile GPUs reasonably and gives us more options in the way of cheap gaming laptops – though if you’re after one of these, Black Friday could see some killer offers, as ever. Notebook price cuts are always plentiful, and sometimes we see some very deep discounts, with those Black Friday gaming laptop deals having started already.

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I ran a marathon with the Apple Watch Series 10, and the battery blew my mind

Early last year, I got back into long-distance running, aiming to start running half-marathon races. I used ChatGPT to get back into shape, and the experience has been amazing. I now run a half-marathon almost every week. It’s just another day at the park.

I also decided to move on to marathons last year, something I had never done before and never thought I’d be able to do. I employed the services of ChatGPT once again, and I’ve now completed two official races. If all goes well, more will follow.

I ran my first marathon using an Apple Watch SE 2 model that was about 18 months old at the time of the race. The battery health was at 83%, and the Apple Watch SE barely made it through the marathon.

Six months later, I used an Apple Watch Series 10 to run my second marathon. I’ve been wearing it since late September, and the battery health is still at 100% after about two months. The Apple Watch Series 10 would have easily lasted the entire marathon race even if the battery health were slightly lower. Even if I were slower, it would have made it.

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I knew the Apple Watch Series 10 battery life was amazing before the race. I never had any doubts. As I explained more than once, the Apple Watch Series 10 can last up to 36 hours with mild activity. It routinely lasts for 30 hours, even on harder training days. And I always use the Watch to track my sleep.

But knowing all of that, the Apple Watch Series 10 battery still blew my mind, and it’s not just because of the stellar longevity.

I’ve never run professionally, so I’m not one of those runners who can pull off sub-3-hour marathons. Yet.

I’m also unable to run a marathon under 4 hours, though that was my intention this time. I’m telling you this because the longer a wearable has to track activity, the more battery it will consume.

The 40mm Apple Watch SE 2 depleted almost its entire battery to track my first marathon. I finished the race in around four hours and 30 minutes. The Watch died about an hour after I crossed the finish.

The 42mm Apple Watch 10 had about 27% battery life when I finished the run. That was at around four hours and 16 minutes. I was faster, yes, even though I didn’t achieve my goal. But the point I’m trying to make here is that the Apple Watch Series 10 battery life was simply amazing.

I’m sure it would have lasted a six-hour marathon race, assuming I’d have been much slower. Or if I had to walk a lot following an injury.

It’s not just the battery life that’s amazing, but also the battery charging time. The Apple Watch Series 10 charges much faster than any previous model.

Charging the Apple Watch Series 10 before and after a marathon race.Charging the Apple Watch Series 10 before and after a marathon race. Image source: Chris Smith, BGR

I put the Apple Watch 10 on its charger for about an hour at around 10:00 PM the night before the race (image above). It still had over 50% charge, but I couldn’t risk it.

I removed it with a 98% charge, which dropped to 90% by the morning of the race. Again, I’m always sleeping with the Apple Watch Series 10 on, looking to track my vitals as long as possible. Comparatively, I topped up my Apple Watch SE 2 the morning of my first marathon, knowing I’d need every bit of juice for a race that could have lasted up to six hours.

The Apple Watch used up to 63% of its battery life for the marathon race. I say “up to” as I walked about 2km to the venue and then forgot to check the battery capacity at the start of the race. Obviously, I had to walk the same distance back home, which took what felt like forever. Human feet don’t work similarly after a marathon.

I put the Apple Watch Series 10 on its charger at around 2:00 PM, when it dropped to around 24%. After about an hour, it reached 96%, and I removed it to wear it.

Again, I want to keep the Apple Watch Series 10 on a charger as little as possible, especially on days when I have races scheduled. I want the wearable to collect as much data as possible, which might come in handy at some point in the future.

The Watch battery lasted 16 hours, including the entire night and the full marathon race. Given the intensity of the effort, I couldn’t be happier.

I know some runners prefer to use wearables from Garmin and other companies. I’m happy with the Apple Watch because I use it to track all my health data. I figure it’ll offer similar performance during training and at rest. That’s even if some runners say the Apple Watch isn’t as good for running as other wearables. I’d have no way of knowing.

Also, the Apple Watch Series 10 I wear had issues recording my heart rate correctly during the first weeks of use, which appear to have been mostly resolved by now. I’m also on the latest watchOS 11 beta.

I’m telling you all that so you have the complete picture. The bottom line is that the Apple Watch Series 10 is so efficient that you’ll have no problem using it for longer activities that require tracking. Whether it’s a marathon race or a hike that lasts several hours, the Apple Watch Series 10 will be ready to record your parameters. And it’ll only need about an hour of charging to go from about 25% to over 95%.

Put differently, you don’t need an Apple Watch Ultra to get you through a marathon. If Apple gives a future Watch SE the same chip and battery tech as the Watch 10, you could just get that and be on your way.

How will the Apple Watch Series 10 perform once the battery health drops? That’s a story for a different marathon. Then again, I’m trying to get faster myself, so hopefully, I’ll finish future races well before the wearable dies.

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Leaked Galaxy S25 Ultra video spoils the phone’s big design changes

A few days ago, after showing you a series of Galaxy S25 Ultra photos, I told you I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Galaxy S25 images leaked ahead of Samsung’s mid-January Unpacked event. Those images featured purported Galaxy S25 Ultra prototypes with a new design compared to the current Galaxy S24 Ultra.

It turns out we didn’t even have to wait that long. There’s a leaked video floating around that gives us a closer look at the Galaxy S25 Ultra. This time, we have what appears to be a functional unit. Unsurprisingly, the phone in the clip features the same design as the prototypes from last week’s photos.

A Redditor posted a 10-second Galaxy S25 Ultra video that doesn’t show the entire unit. But those 10 seconds are enough to confirm the Galaxy S25 Ultra that so many fans must have wanted.

The phone in the clip at the end of the post has slightly rounded corners at the top, which means it also has rounded corners at the bottom. This was my biggest gripe with the boxy Galaxy S24 Ultra earlier this year. The phone’s rectangular corners made it uncomfortable to hold for long periods.

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The rounded corners are a welcome design change, but they’re not the only thing Samsung has modified to improve usability. The Galaxy S25 Ultra will have flat sides, with the frame bending towards the back. Comparatively, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has curved edges.

The new design should shrink the phone’s width by a few millimeters, which might be enough to make it easier to hold. Slightly curving the edges towards the back should further improve usability.

The video also shows us the rear camera module, which features standalone cameras protruding through the back rather than a single camera module. The cameras seem to take inspiration from the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

The clip doesn’t show the bottom of this purported Galaxy S25 Ultra. We don’t get to see the S Pen stylus placement. It’ll be interesting to see whether Samsung tweaked the design of the stylus to account for the curved corners. That is, the top side of the S Pen might be slightly curved, matching the phone’s corner curvature.

As for the screen, it might be turned on, but we don’t get to see how thin the bezels are on account of the black background of what appears to be Reddit running on the phone.

We are probably looking at a leaked Galaxy S25 Ultra device in this clip. It must be the phone’s final design, as Samsung must be getting ready to manufacture it. The leaks are only going to get better at this point, and we’ll probably learn everything about the Galaxy S25 phones well ahead of Unpacked.

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