Technology

• LG reveals schedule for webOS update rollout
• The update program is called LG Re:New
• Certain LG TVs will receive five years of webOS updates

LG has revealed the schedule for its webOS 24 and webOS 25 rollout to older models from 2024 and before, as reported by FlatpanelsHD.

The rollout is part of LG's Re:New program, where certain older LG TVs will receive five years worth of webOS upgrades. For example, an LG TV from 2024, such as the LG C4, one of the best TVs released in 2024, will be upgraded each year to the next version of web OS in its life cycle. So, in late 2025, it's scheduled to be update to webOS 25, late 2026 it'll receive webOS 2026 and so on.

With older models, say the LG C3 from 2023, it will be upgraded to webOS 24 in early 2025 and receive webOS 25 in late 2025/early 2026 and so on.

The full schedule is as planned below:

The company's webOS 25 is set to arrive built-in with LG's 2025 TVs, including its 2025 OLED TV lineup and 2025 QNED TV lineup, which were first revealed at CES 2025. webOS 25 itself has seen several upgrades from its predecessor, webOS 2024, with the majority focused on AI. LG has even adopted the moniker of 'LG AI TV' to 2025's batch of screens.

Some of the upgrades of webOS 25 include AI search (US and Korea only, at launch) where AI will carry out an advanced search based on a user's questions for recommended content, plus AI Concierge, where users will be recommended movies, TV shows and keywords based on their viewing history.

There's also the AI Generative Art store, where users can spend credits to create AI generated images. There have also been upgrades to AI Picture Wizard and AI Sound Wizard which will now remember different users preferred picture and sound profiles.

AI Chatbot, introduced in webOS 24, can now also make picture and sound settings changes to suit the user, e.g. if you ask it to "make the screen brighter", it will up the brightness.

A welcome upgrade

We haven't had a chance to test webOS 25 just yet, but we did like webOS 24, with 3 upgrades in particular standing out. We also scored it highly in our LG reviews in 2024, thanks to its streamlined design, updated Quick Cards system and its streamlined Quick Menu.

The LG Re:New program is a welcome one, as it means users don't have to spend money to update their TV to get the latest smart TV features, services and crucially, latest security updates. for at least 5 years from first purchase.

LG likened the update to a full OS upgrade like you'd find on the best phones, say an iPhone going from iOS 17 to iOS 18, rather than a simple update you'd find on an app.

While some may not like the changing design, layout and features on a yearly basis, LG web OS upgrades over the past few years have been significant and have generally seen good upgrades and improvements over their previous generations.

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• Details about the first Assassin's Creed Shadows expansion have leaked
• The DLC is seemingly titled Claws of Awaji and could introduce 10 hours of additional content
• The information comes from a new-deleted Steam listing update for the game

Assassins Creed Shadows' first expansion has seemingly leaked ahead of the game's official release.

That's according to a new post over on the Assassin's Creed subreddit, as spotted by VGC, where the first details about the game's unannounced downloadable content (DLC) were revealed via a now-deleted Steam listing update.

The first DLC is seemingly titled Claws of Awaji and is expected to introduce 10 hours of additional content to Shadows, alongside a "new explorable area" and a new weapon type called "the Bō".

Since the update has now been removed from the game's Steam page there isn't much more information to go by, however, some fans are theorizing that Claws of Awaji could be the free DLC that was previously promised if you preorder the game.

Last week, Ubisoft once again delayed Assassin's Creed Shadows, this time to March 20 from its original February 14 release date "as part of the renewed focus on gameplay quality and engaging day one experiences".

"This additional time will allow the team to better incorporate the player feedback gathered over the past three months and help create the best conditions for launch by continuing to engage closely with the increasingly positive Assassin’s Creed community," Ubisoft said.

The next Assassin's Creed game was initially set for a November 12, 2024 launch date, before it was delayed the first time back in September 2024.

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• Adobe Firefly Bulk Create will handle thousands of images at once
• Users can resize for different platforms or remove/change backgrounds
• It’s available through the web to paying Firefly Services customers

Adobe has launched Firefly Bulk Create, a new tool allowing creatives and designers to edit large amounts of images in one go, helping them to apply similar settings to maintain a consistent feel across a brand as well as improve workload efficiency.

The tool, accessible to customers paying for Adobe Firefly Services, is accessible via a web browser and doesn’t require users to download any desktop software.

From launch, the service promises to help users change backgrounds and resize images in bulk. This includes removing backgrounds from images and inserting new AI-generated backgrounds with Firefly AI.

Adobe launches Firefly Bulk Create

According to PetaPixel, Adobe said customers can change “thousands of product shots at a time.” The company is also said to have stated: “Firefly Bulk Create will be able to intelligently place creative components across any layout.” This will enable it to resize images in such a way that they work across different platforms, including social media and online ads.

Varun Parmar, general manager of Adobe GenStudio and Firefly Enterprise, said the tool was designed to help ensure “an efficient content supply chain across planning, creating, managing, activating, and measuring content for campaigns” to help brands stay ahead of the curve.

“Adobe Firefly Bulk Create enables teams to efficiently create the hundreds of thousands of variations that are needed each year to provide highly personalized experiences and drive better conversion,” added Parmar.

However, although various media reporting such as this VentureBeat article confirm details of the new product release, Adobe has since removed the announcement from its website.

There’s currently no mention of Firefly Bulk Create on Adobe’s Firefly web page, so we’re uncertain whether the company had intended to announce the product so soon or whether it needs essential changes prior to going live.

It’s therefore unclear whether Adobe intended to publicize Firefly Bulk Create or whether further revisions are required for the service. TechRadar Pro has asked Adobe to comment, but we did not receive an immediate response.

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YouTube is prepping new AI features to make passive video watching a lot more interactive, according to unreleased code found by Android Authority. The Talk Live features undergoing testing use Google Gemini's AI models to let you converse about YouTube videos and PDFs.

Imagine you’re watching a video on, say, the history of art movements, and halfway through, you’re scratching your head over what separates Impressionism from Post-Impressionism. Instead of pausing the video to dive into a Google rabbit hole, you could summon Gemini Live to clarify things for you right then and there. With a simple tap on a contextual “chip” that pops up, the AI assistant will be ready to answer questions, provide context, or summarize key points from the video.

The Talk Live PDF feature takes the same premise as the YouTube feature and applies it to PDF documents. You can get Gemini Live to discuss the document with you. That might mean summarizing it, explaining complicated terms, or answering specific questions about sections that don't make sense when you read it. Whether you’re using the YouTube app or a PDF reader, you'll be able to summon Gemini and get all your queries on videos and documents answered.

AI enhancement

Google has been pushing AI for YouTube for months now. The Talk Live tool fits right in with the likes of YouTube's Brainstorm with Gemini feature for coming up with ideas. The same goes for the the AI tool for removing copyrighted music from your video without taking it down completely, or the one for making new, uncopyrighted music to fit the theme of your video. There's also the useful auto-dubbing feature, which translates and dubs videos into multiple languages.

Still, the idea of remaking YouTube viewing as an engaging conversation on top of the more passive viewing experience is one that might appeal to a lot of people, especially if the video is really long and the viewer is impatient. And everyone from students trying to grasp a lecture, to creators looking to expand their audiences could benefit. It might make people more willing to engage with difficult content. Or, at the very least, the AI will make understanding Impressionism much easier.

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• Amazfit has unveiled a new health gadget to help you with your eating
• The V1tal is a camera that watches and analyses you while you eat
• It can track calories, macros, and your eating behavior

Amazfit is a household name when it comes to smart tech and wearables, and makes some of the best cheap smartwatches in the industry. But at CES 2025 the company unveiled a brand-new type of health gadget that promises to transform the way you eat food – as long as you don't mind eating on camera.

As reported by Digital Trends, the Amazfit V1tal is a camera that records and analyzes your eating. The device itself is straightforward enough – it's a simple camera with a viewfinder screen, and it looks a bit like a primitive GoPro or DJI.

But it's the technology under the hood, and what the V1tal does with your eating data that are impressive. You simply set your V1tal up on your table and record yourself eating your meal. Once you've finished eating, V1tal can use its recording data along with the Amazfit Zepp app to log what you've consumed, complete with a macronutrient breakdown of carbs, proteins, and fats. As the report notes, it's akin to the food-tracking chops of MyFitnessPal, but it's a purely automatic process powered by video recording.

Amazfit tackles nutrition

(Image credit: Amazfit)

While tracking your food consumption and calories isn't a novel concept, the technology right now is largely limited to scanning bar codes, so introducing video-recorded automation into the mix would be a big step up – but V1tal isn't just about running the numbers.

According to the report, V1tal can also monitor your eating behavior, such as whether you're skipping the healthy green bits of your meal, or whether you're rushing your food. That's insight that could not only help you count the calories and refuel, but also recalibrate your relationship with food.

It also sounds like Amazfit is positioning the V1tal as just one part of an ecosystem of health tech, which also draws on data and insight from other devices like its smartwatches and smart scales.

The V1tal isn''t just a camera either, with functionality that includes notifications from your phone, a to-do list, and even good old-fashioned video recording. Amazfit's execs reckon the V1tal could be a better version of the largely poorly received Humane AI Pin or Rabbit R1. It's a low bar, but it's a sign that Amazfit is perhaps envisioning a more integrated AI network rather than a standalone health gadget, which could be a smart strategy.

There are no firm details about the V1tal's price or release date yet, but Amazfit is reportedly targeting the first half of this year for a launch, and it certainly feels like more than a pipe-dream concept.

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• Professionally modified to Ringo Starr's exact specs
• Comes with a certificate of authenticity
• Expected to sell for at least €50,000 ($51,000)

Ringo Starr is one of the most famous people in the world, and not just for his voiceovers in the Thomas The Tank Engine animations. The former Beatle is a hugely influential drummer and still makes music today: his latest album of country and roots music, Look Up, came out just four days ago. And now you can own a unique bit of equipment from his very own recording studio.

The equipment in question is a Studer 80 Audio Recorder, the same recorder that was used in Abbey Road studios and many of the world's other major recording studios in the 1970s. It's being sold on the online marketplace Catawiki, where it currently has a bid price of €18,000 – lower than the reserve price. The bidding is open until February 2, 2025 and is expected to exceed €50,000.

Expect to pay a bit more for postage unless you're local to The Netherlands though: it weighs nearly 100kg.

What's so special about Ringo's recorder?

This particular Studer recorder has been modified by the Fab Four's sound engineer, Eddie Veale. And it's the real deal: current owner Lex van Coeverden, a celebrated Dutch mastering engineer and producer, has owned it since 1988 and it comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by Veale himself and detailing the modifications Veale made.

The auction is one of several Beatles-related listings on the Catawiki website, which describes itself as "the most-visited curated marketplace in Europe for special objects". Those objects include rare Pokémon trophy cards, a Chrysler Stratus Convertible from Real Madrid's European cup victory procession and the odd Banksy original too, as well as considerably more affordable items.

As for Ringo, he's touring the new album. You can see his currently planned US tour dates here. And with Record Store Day 2025 dates now locked in for April, there's never been a better time to get into vinyl. What better place to start than with Rubber Soul?

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• A Galaxy Unpacked teaser says "a true AI companion" is coming
• The video shows an AI assistant being given complex instructions
• This is likely to be an upgrade to Bixby, which could come to the Galaxy S25 and other Samsung phones

We were always expecting the Samsung Galaxy S25 series to feature new and improved AI features, and now Samsung itself has hinted that we could see some major AI upgrades.

In the company’s latest teaser for Galaxy Unpacked – the January 22 event at which the Samsung Galaxy S25 series will almost certainly be unveiled – Samsung has teased the arrival of “a true AI companion.”

The company uses those exact words in a brief video in which we see someone ask an AI assistant to find them a pet-friendly Italian restaurant with outdoor seating. They ask for all that in a single request, and also ask for the information to be added to their calendar and sent to someone else.

This sort of request is well beyond what Bixby, Samsung’s digital assistant, is capable of currently. Or at least that's the case outside China – Bixby has already had a ChatGPT-like overhaul in China, and this teaser suggests the same upgrade will be going global soon.

Samsung says its currently China-only Bixby upgrade can understand "complex user instructions" that combine multiple commands in a single sentence, which is exactly what we see in this teaser video.

It also has on-screen awareness, so you can ask it about things on your phone’s display, and it has a more modern interface than the Bixby we’re used to.

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An AI upgrade for phones new and old

So with the global launch of this Bixby upgrade presumably being announced at Galaxy Unpacked, it may well be available on the Samsung Galaxy S25 out of the box – and since this is already available in China we know it doesn’t require the power of the Galaxy S25, so we might well see this come to some existing Samsung handsets too.

That said, we’d expect some of the very best new AI features to be reserved for the Galaxy S25 series, either because they require the power of its new chipset, or just as a selling point. It’s also very possible that Bixby itself will run faster on the upcoming phones.

We’ll find out soon, and TechRadar will be in attendance at the Samsung Galaxy S25 launch, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, stick with TechRadar and we’ll bring you all the Galaxy S25 news, leaks, and teasers ahead of the full announcement.

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• Leaks suggest that an The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remake is in the works at Virtuos
• It will allegedly be fully remade using Unreal Engine 5
• Apparently multiple core mechanics will also be updated

An Unreal Engine 5 remake of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is reportedly in the works at developer Virtuos. The latest leaks suggest that it will feature substantially reworked gameplay systems.

This comes from a new report by gaming website mp1st, which states that an unnamed former Virtuos employee has accidentally spilled the beans. According to the website, this employee worked on the game from 2023 to 2024 and uploaded some details of their accomplishments on a personal page.

They inadvertently not only confirm the existence of the long-rumored remake, but also provide our first real details about how it might turn out. Allegedly, substantial changes are being made to the title's core gameplay systems including stamina, sneak, blocking, archery, hit reaction, and the user interface.

The new blocking system will apparently draw on some Souls-like mechanics, presumably to give it a little more heft. Sneaking should also be easier, with highlighted icons giving the player information more clearly. As for the stamina system, it has seemingly been simplified to reduce the number of times that it negatively affects you.

Archery has been refined to work more smoothly in both first-person and third-person, while hit reactions have also reportedly been added to inflicted damage clearer. Finally, the HUD has been wholly altered to make it more modern and aesthetically pleasing.

All of this sounds incredibly substantial, and supports the idea that this is much more than a simple port of HD remaster. As for a potential release date, the site suggests that it could arrive as early as June this year.

We'll have to wait for an official announcement to learn more, so fingers crossed for the upcoming Xbox Developer Direct.

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