News

LG Preparing True Optical Zoom Lenses For Flagship Phones

LG Innotek, a subsidiary of the Korean electronics giant, has unveiled a new telephoto module with traditional camera optics.

Published

3 years ago

December 28, 2022

Nour Nasir

lg preparing true optical zoom lenses for flagship phones

LG may have thrown in the towel after the likes of Apple and Samsung began to dominate the smartphone market, however, the electronics powerhouse is still a major parts supplier to the entire tech industry.

One of the company’s subsidiary concerns, LG Innotek, supplies camera modules to well-known smartphone manufacturers, and has just announced a new telephoto zoom unit, which will be shown off at the upcoming CES 2023 event.

The company is teaming up with Qualcomm to fast-track the new optics alongside the roll-out of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip in upcoming Android flagship phones. While smartphones have typically employed digital zoom lenses that use software to reach beyond their default focal length, LG’s design uses moving arts — much like a DSLR— to preserve detail throughout the full range of the zoom.

The resulting lens covers a 4-9x zoom range, along with true optical image stabilization, and it’s hoped that manufacturers will eventually be able to manage with fewer lenses in their smartphones, replacing them with a single multi-use module.

Also Read: What You Need To Know About Windows Server 2022

Sony is the only major manufacturer already offering a smartphone with an optical zoom so far, though Oppo is working on one too. Sony’s Xperia 1 IV doesn’t offer anything like LG’s telephoto range, though, and reviewers have noted that image quality isn’t quite as good as revival offerings.

In the company’s press release, LG Innotek is making a big deal about the new tech, saying that the camera module will help them “solidify the global No. 1 position in the smartphone camera module market.” LG is already in a solid position as we approach 2023, which is largely down to its biggest customer, Apple. The iPhone 15 is rumored to include a folded-optic telephoto lens, and LG looks likely to fit its new tech into a wide range of 2023 android flagship phones.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

2 weeks ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.