{"id":444321,"date":"2026-02-25T06:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/444321\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T06:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T06:28:11","slug":"samsungs-galaxy-s26-unpacked-might-bring-on-the-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/444321\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung\u2019s Galaxy S26 Unpacked might bring on the slop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Unpacked is nearly upon us<\/a>. On February 25th, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy S26 series of flagship phones \u2014 potentially including the S26, S26 Plus<\/a>, and S26 Ultra<\/a> \u2014 with another round of AI-based features. That will come as a surprise to nobody. But as more AI creeps in on Samsung\u2019s AI phones<\/a>, there\u2019s one important consideration: the slop factor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking, of course, about AI slop. Last week, Samsung put out a blog post<\/a> promoting a new \u201cseamless Galaxy camera experience\u201d on its newest phones. Based on the examples in the article, that experience includes turning a picture of a puppy into cute little stickers, filling in the part of a cupcake you took a bite out of, brightening video in low light to make it more lively, and editing a picture of a cow in a field to make it look like it\u2019s being abducted by aliens.<\/p>\n

Harmless, right? You can do most of that with Samsung\u2019s AI editing tools already, and the blog post implies that you\u2019ll be able to make these kinds of edits with natural language \u201csimply by asking in your own words.\u201d But here\u2019s the line that has me worried we\u2019re not just in for an easier path to cute puppy stickers: \u201cMobile cameras are moving beyond capture,\u201d it says. Let\u2019s \u2014 I\u2019m so sorry to say this \u2014 unpack that just a bit.<\/p>\n

Smartphone cameras have long employed algorithms to squeeze every bit of image quality possible from their tiny sensors. They\u2019ve been doing that for the better part of a decade. Most recently, the AI features have been creeping into the camera app itself \u2014 particularly in Google\u2019s latest phones. The Pixel phone\u2019s Add Me<\/a> feature will help you fake an image in which everyone is posing together, even though it\u2019s really two photos merged into one. And on the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL, you can use gen AI to fill in missing details at high digital zoom magnifications. These things are problematic as hell<\/a>, but they\u2019re ostensibly in service of creating an image that resembles one you saw, or one that could have happened if you had a tripod on hand. But if the cameras themselves are \u201cmoving beyond capture,\u201d then that raises the \u201cwhat is a photo-pocalypse\u201d threat level to code red.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to get too caught up by one line in one blog post, but then there are the (partially? totally?) AI-generated ads Samsung also recently posted on its social channels. Two of them seem to show low-light video being brightened, presumably with an AI tool, and one simulates a phone camera zooming in on a distant car to reveal a dog wearing sunglasses<\/a> inside it. But at least one of those low-light videos seems to have much more AI going on<\/a> than just some lighting tweaks.<\/p>\n

Take that skateboarding video<\/a>: The onscreen transition between lighter and darker treatments suggests this is a real clip that\u2019s being brightened with AI. So why do parts of it look completely AI-generated? Was the real video merely a starting point for AI to extend the clip? That seems weird!<\/p>\n

And what the heck is going on with that glasses-wearing dog<\/a>? According to the fine print, that image contains \u201can AI-generated background image with edits.\u201d What edits? Which part is AI? Which part is the camera responsible for? Is there even a dog there? I guess it doesn\u2019t really matter if we\u2019re moving \u201cbeyond capture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond capture\u201d could be a very weird destination: one where AI is no longer a tool in service of recording reality or even \u201cmemories.\u201d It could very well be Slopsville USA, where you just point your camera at a sunset, press the shutter, and tell it how you\u2019d like to embellish the scene. Or maybe just describe the video you want it to create of your friend on his skateboard and let the camera app do the rest. After all, people like Sam Altman seem to think we\u2019re headed for a future where the line between real and AI content is so blurry that we no longer care about the distinction<\/a>. So what\u2019s the harm if the slop happens to come from your phone camera and not Sora? And is a camera that has moved \u201cbeyond capture\u201d even a camera? I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that Samsung is just adding natural-language photo and video edits to its gallery app and this isn\u2019t an extinction-level \u201cwhat is a photo\u201d event. We might even see some genuinely cool non-camera uses of AI on the S26, like a privacy screen<\/a> that can intelligently obscure certain kinds of notifications<\/a> from onlookers based on viewing angle. I\u2019m all for that! But if not, then I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to like whatever lies \u201cbeyond capture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another Unpacked is nearly upon us. On February 25th, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy S26 series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,2596,733,4308,786,844,6994,1560,227,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-444321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-android","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-gadgets","13":"tag-google","14":"tag-phones","15":"tag-samsung","16":"tag-tech","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}