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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.
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.
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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
Google Releases Veo 2 AI Video Tool To MENA Users
The state-of-the-art video generation model is now available in Gemini, offering realistic AI-generated videos with better physics, motion, and detail.
Starting today, users of Gemini Advanced in the MENA region — and globally — can tap into Veo 2, Google’s next-generation video model.
Originally unveiled in 2024, Veo 2 has now been fully integrated into Gemini, supporting multiple languages including Arabic and English. The rollout now brings Google’s most advanced video AI directly into the hands of everyday users.
Veo 2 builds on the foundations of its predecessor with a more sophisticated understanding of the physical world. It’s designed to produce high-fidelity video content with cinematic detail, realistic motion, and greater visual consistency across a wide range of subjects and styles. Whether recreating natural landscapes, human interactions, or stylized environments, the model is capable of interpreting and translating written prompts into eight-second 720p videos that feel almost handcrafted.
Users can generate content directly through the Gemini platform — either via the web or mobile apps. The experience is pretty straightforward: users enter a text-based prompt, and Veo 2 returns a video in 16:9 landscape format, delivered as an MP4 file. These aren’t just generic clips — they can reflect creative, abstract, or highly specific scenarios, making the tool especially useful for content creators, marketers, or anyone experimenting with visual storytelling.
Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide
To ensure transparency, each video is embedded with SynthID — a digital watermark developed by Google’s DeepMind. The watermark is invisible to the human eye but persists across editing, compression, and sharing. It identifies the video as AI-generated, addressing concerns around misinformation and media authenticity.
While Veo 2 is still in its early phases of public rollout, the technology is part of a broader push by Google to democratize advanced AI tools. With text-to-image, code generation, and now video creation integrated into Gemini, Google is positioning the platform as a full-spectrum creative assistant.
Access to Veo 2 starts today and will continue expanding in the coming weeks. Interested users can try it out at gemini.google.com or through the Gemini app on Android and iOS.
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