News

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra Will Feature 200-Megapixel Camera

The company’s latest ISOCELL HP2 sensor is identical to the rumored camera specs of the upcoming flagship smartphone.

Published

4 years ago

January 17, 2023

samsung's galaxy s23 ultra will feature 200-megapixel camera

Samsung’s ISOCELL HP2 is a new 200-megapixel sensor with a specification that precisely matches the circulating rumors about the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s primary camera. The chip is sized at f 1/1.3” and sports 0.6-micrometer (μm) pixels. The Korean tech giant announced the new sensor as it prepares to launch its latest flagship device — the Galaxy S23 Ultra — on February 1st.

High-megapixel sensors are nothing new for Samsung, but the company hasn’t yet crammed anything so pixel-dense into a smartphone chassis, so the news is an exciting development for tech enthusiasts. Last year’s Galaxy S22 Ultra featured a 108-megapixel sensor in its main camera module, meaning the new device will ship with almost twice the resolution.

Larger, high-pixel-count sensors bring tangible image quality improvements if executed correctly, allowing the camera to use “pixel binning” to combine multiple pixels into one, gathering more light and detail. The ISOCELL HP2 will be able to drop every four or sixteen pixels, producing 50 or 12.5-megapixel images, respectively. When it comes to video, the new camera will record 8K clips at 30fps and support 4K HDR at 60fps.

Also Read: Twitter Will Default To A For You Page, Just Like TikTok

Aside from the raw specs, the ISOCELL HP2 sensor uses a new technology called “Dual Vertical Transfer Gate,” which Samsung claims will help reduce overexposure and improve color replication in bright conditions. Meanwhile, low-light shots will benefit from “Super QPD,” enabling faster auto-focusing.

Samsung says the new 200-megapixel camera sensor has already gone into mass production, and we can’t wait to see sample photos from the flagship smartphone after its February 1st unveiling.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.