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After a year of speculation, months of rumors, and weeks of post-announcement waiting, the Samsung Galaxy S25 series is finally here – the first Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra units have hit store shelves and customer’s doorsteps. The wait is finally over.

If you’re like me, though, and always on the lookout for a great tech deal, then you may have been waiting for a piece of news about a different Galaxy smartphone – for the past few weeks, I’ve been holding out hope that we might see an official price reduction for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in the wake of the Galaxy S25 Ultra going on sale.

It’s standard practice for phone makers to reduce the price of their older models as new flagships take center stage, in recognition that these erstwhile pack-leaders are no longer at the cutting edge of technology or the company’s smartphone lineup.

However, at the time of writing, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra remains on sale from Samsung directly at full price in the US and UK.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (Image credit: Future / Roland Moore-Colyer)

Personally, I’m a little confused by this decision. Is Samsung suggesting the Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy S24 Ultra are of equal value? That wouldn’t make much sense if it wants people to see the Galaxy S25 Ultra as the shiny, new, bucket-of-AI device that it is.

Perhaps Samsung is banking on more selective customers, who prefer the sharper design and exclusive colors of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, being willing to shell out to get these features. But that doesn’t quite add up either, as Samsung is now drastically undercut on the Galaxy S24 Ultra by third-party retailers.

I hate to say it, but the continued listing of the Galaxy S24 Ultra at full price could also just be a last minute cash grab as stocks dwindle. Though Samsung doesn’t leave any signs of this on the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s various international landing pages, the absence of certain storage configurations suggests a “while stocks last” situation is afoot.

From this perspective, I have to raise some concerns about Samsung’s approach. Is leaving the Galaxy S24 Ultra up at full price really the fairest thing to do for those who may not be up-to-date on the latest tech releases? On the phone’s UK landing page, there’s no mention of its successor being available. I’m not sure that’s the most considerate way to do things.

Is it just the S Pen?

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (Image credit: Peter Hoffmann)

As we previously covered, the Galaxy S24 Ultra does have a stylus-shaped ace up its sleeve over the Galaxy S25 Ultra – a Bluetooth-enabled S Pen.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra’s stylus is able to function as a remote control for One UI, the camera app, and other gesture-based commands – but the Galaxy S25 Ultra cut this connectivity, leaving many Samsung fans dismayed.

A petition to bring back Bluetooth connectivity to the S Pen was signed thousands of times in its first few days online.

I’m not seriously suggesting that Samsung is charging a premium for the Bluetooth S Pen by keeping the Galaxy S24 Ultra at full price, but this sole example of the older phone having a hardware advantage does highlight the feature disparity between the two evenly-priced devices.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes equipped with the blazing-fast Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, gets a new 50MP ultra-wide camera, and has the new Personal Data Engine hardware core for AI and security.

In comparison, the Galaxy S24 Ultra has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset, a 12MP ultra-wide camera, and no such core. The phones are otherwise very similar hardware wise.

In any case, if the “while stocks last” theory holds, we may not have to worry about this conundrum for much longer – though if you are looking to buy a top-end handset directly from Samsung, be sure to take a look at our Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review and our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review to make sure you’re really getting the one you want.

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• HPE begins notifying those affected by the 2023 Midnight Blizzard attack
• So far, at least a dozen people have received their breach notification letters
• We don't know exactly how many people were affected

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has started sending out breach notification letters to people who were affected by the 2023 data breach, with TechCrunch reporting the company has notified at least a dozen individuals so far, citing a review of breach notices filed with two US state attorney generals.

HPE reported Russian state-sponsored threat actors known as Midnight Blizzard breached its IT systems in 2023 and stole sensitive data from its employees’ email inboxes. In an 8-K submission filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the time, the company said the attack started in mid-May 2023, and that it spotted it on December 12.

The investigation uncovered that Midnight Blizzard (also known as Cozy Bear, or Nobelium) had access to “a small percentage” of HPE’s cloud-based email inboxes. Newer reports claim the crooks took Social Security numbers, driver’s license information, and credit card numbers, as well.

No material impact

HPE said the attackers used “a compromised account to access internal HPE email boxes in our Office 365 email environment.” Later, the company clarified the mailboxes belonged to HPE employees in cybersecurity, go-to-market, and business departments.

The exact number of compromised individuals is not known. The company told TechCrunch the data was “limited to information contained in the users’ mailboxes,” suggesting a relatively small number.

That being said, HPE doesn’t believe the attack will have a material impact on the company, or that it will disrupt its operations.

“Upon undertaking such actions, we determined that such activity did not materially impact the Company,” HPE said in the filing. “As of the date of this filing, the incident has not had a material impact on the Company’s operations, and the Company has not determined the incident is reasonably likely to materially impact the Company’s financial condition or results of operations.”

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Additionally, he plans to announce reciprocal tariffs on "everyone" on Tuesday or Wednesday: "If they charge us, we charge them. That's all," he said. "Every country will be reciprocal."

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• EVision Auto demoed its tech earlier this year
• Customized front bumper features a large, wraparound LED display
• Price will range between $2,500 and $3,000, company says

A number of automotive manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers have been toying with ways of making our cars instantly customizable, whether it’s E Ink dashboards or BMW’s madcap iVision Dee concept of 2023 that turned the entire body of a car into a digital canvas.

But EVision Auto believes it can already offer this technology with its front-end display unit that has been designed to fit seamlessly onto the outgoing Tesla Model Y.

The electric display, which is built into a Model Y front bumper and then fitted to the vehicle, features a high-resolution LED panel that can be personalized and customized via a dedicated Android and iOS smartphone app.

Showcased in a corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center at this year’s CES, EVision Auto demonstrated how the display could showcase a series of colorful static artworks, from Manga characters to bright landscapes.

In addition to this, the Model Y’s front end could be made to look like a Bugatti (or Bugiit, Bugtart or Bighaun for legal reasons), don Ferrari’s Prancing Horse logo or even replicate a sort of AI-generated version of a Maserati or Rolls-Royce grille and headlights.

Naturally, there are rather large question marks hanging over the legality of driving around with such a thing slapped on the front of your car – let alone the impending copyright lawsuits – while the durability of the LED unit needs to be second-to-none seeing as it is mounted in such a vulnerable place.

That said, EVision Auto claims the fully customizable grille will cost between $2,500 and $3,000 (around £2,200 / AU$4,400), with installation taking around two hours, according to CarScoops.

The company also says it plans to roll out the technology to other EV brands in the near future.

The future of car customization or flashy vaporware?

(Image credit: EVision Auto)

Although EVision Auto had a presence at this year’s CES, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the technology will soon be seen on a Tesla near you.

We reached out to the company to ask a number of questions, chiefly surrounding the screen’s legality and how many units the company had sold to date, but we are still awaiting an official response.

Much of the imagery and video on the company’s website is AI-generated, which doesn't bode well. There’s no doubt that the technology exists and the use of exterior displays will be something we see more of in the future – despite it splitting opinions.

Continental, for example, showcased a Window Projection Solution in Las Vegas this year, which beamed imagery from a projector mounted inside the car onto a side windscreen.

Chinese automaker Baojun also has a model with a digital display at the rear that can be customized to look like a watch face or feature emoji-esque graphics, while the HiPhi Z features programmable digital lighting at the front and 1,314 LEDs on the flanks to display messages to the outside world.

China seems to be driving this sort of technological change in the automotive sector and with more brands starting to make headway in Western markets, we might start to see vehicles winking, displaying images of Spider-Man or sending messages to passers-by. Whether you like it or not.

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• The first iOS 18.4 developer beta could land sometime within the next week
• Rumors predict that the beta will drop "in the coming days"
• The update is expected to give Siri "on-screen awareness" and more

iOS 18.3 recently brought Visual Intelligence upgrades and more to our iPhones, but developer beta testers will soon get to test-drive iOS 18.4, according to new rumors. It's expected to be a major update, and contain a Siri boost I've been waiting for since WWDC 2024.

The iOS 18.4 beta will arrive "in the coming days", according to Bloomberg's generally reliable Mark Gurman, writing in his Power On newsletter. To be more precise, Gurman thinks the update will roll out "sometime between the middle of this week and the next one", ahead of a public version in April.

The big feature of this update is expected to be a more personalized Siri that can tap into your personal data to answer queries. That's not all, with the iOS 18.4 beta also likely giving us our first taste of Siri with on-screen awareness and app control.

While Siri's latest brain upgrade will be iOS 18.4's main highlight, the update is also expected to bring a few other handy features. We'll likely see Priority Notifications (which uses AI to highlight your most important notifications), and the new emojis that were recently announced by the Unicode Consortium – yes, expect to see a new 'fight cloud' emoji and more for your iMessage chats.

But it's the Siri upgrade I'm most looking forward to – even if Gurman has tempered expectations by warning that "Apple is still well behind in this area"...

A better way to navigate your iPhone?

The Apple Intelligence rollout has been painfully slow, with many of the features highlighted at WWDC 2024 last June still not available on our iPhones. But I'm looking forward to seeing Siri finally break out of its straitjacket and become more of a personal assistant than a voice-activated timer.

We've already seen Siri get a few smaller updates in the last six months. iOS 18.1 gave us the ability to ask it follow-up questions, while iOS 18.2 plugged Siri into ChatGPT for the first time (although this is something I've used sparingly, due to ChatGPT's propensity to hallucinate).

But it was the next-gen Siri promises from WWDC 2024 last year (the video above jumps straight to them) that I've been most looking forward to. Apple showed demos of "on-screen awareness" and "in-app actions" that look genuinely useful – and they won't be limited to Apple's own apps, thanks to the App Intents API for developers.

There will likely be a delay until third-party apps tap into these powers, and we'll have to see if the experience lives up to Apple's lofty promises. But I could actually see Siri becoming my default way of navigating my iPhone if it works well, particularly as it's now possible to type to Siri (by double-tapping the base of your home screen) when you don't want to talk to it audibly.

The full version of iOS 18.4 won't be landing for a few weeks yet, with rumors point to an April release, but this developer beta will give us an idea of whether or not Siri will be capable of fulfilling the promise shown in its WWDC 2024 previews.

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• Nokia President and CEO Pekka Lundmark steps down after 4.5 years
• Intel Data Center & AI exec Justin Hotard will replace him
• Lundmark will advise Hotard until the end of the year

Nokia CEO and President Pekka Lundmark has confirmed he will be stepping down from the role in just a few weeks, and the telecoms giant has already confirmed its next leader.

Justin Hotard, who will be taking over from Lundmark from April 1, 2025, will move on from his year-long role as Intel's EVP and GM for Data Center & AI Business Group.

Prior to that, Hotard spent eight-and-a-half years at HPE – his last three years at the company was spent leading its HPC & AI Business Group.

Nokia’s next CEO comes from Intel, HPE

“[Hotard] has a strong track record of accelerating growth in technology companies along with vast expertise in AI and data center markets, which are critical areas for Nokia’s future growth," commented Sari Baldauf, Chair of Nokia’s Board of Directors.

Hotard, who has spent time working across the US in cities like Santa Clara, San Francisco, New York and Houston, as well as international locations like Beijing and Tokyo, will now be based at Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo, Finland.

The new CEO added: “I am honored by the opportunity to lead Nokia, a global leader in connectivity with a unique heritage in technology. Networks are the backbone that power society and businesses, and enable generational technology shifts like the one we are currently experiencing in AI.”

Shares rose 1.6% after the announcement, around 3.5x higher than the broader Helsinki stock exchange (via Reuters).

Lundmark indicated his intention to retire from similar roles: “Although I do not plan to stop working, I want to move on from executive roles to work in a different capacity, such as a board professional.”

After stepping down as CEO from March 31, 2025, he will continue to serve as an advisor for Hotard until the end of the year.

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Giving a little extra personality to your Microsoft Teams chats could soon be a lot quicker, thanks to a new update that's in the works,

The video conferencing service has revealed users will soon be able to add emojis into chats in a much more straightforward method than before - "making it quicker to express yourself," Microsoft says.

The update will mean Microsoft Teams users can insert emojis directly from your keyboard "without any distractions", the company added.

Microsoft Teams "add emoji"

In a Microsoft 365 roadmap post, the company noted the addition will give users more personalization communication options within their chats, as it will include custom emoji created by the user.

The tool is still listed as being "in development", but has an expected rollout start date of April 2024, from when it will be available to Microsoft Teams users across the world on Windows desktop and web.

First announced in May 2024, custom emoji and reactions are familiar to those who have to use a variety of collaboration tools at work, as it has been part of Slack for many years.

Up to 5,000 custom emojis able to be added on Microsoft Teams, forming part of Microsoft Teams' ongoing push to boost customization and personalization options on the platform.

This includes the recent addition of the option for users to select their preferred skin tone for Microsoft Teams reactions.

First introduced in January 2021, Microsoft Teams reactions give users a quick and easy way to show their approval (or not) to chat messages and on calls, covering a range of emojis and symbols such as a thumbs up, frowning face or even a love heart.

Microsoft Teams has also launched virtual avatars, offering users more customization options while also livening up the look and feel of calls, alongside new visual effects including animated frames and video hue altering, on top of existing tools that allow users to blur backgrounds and soften the video feed to mask and obscure blemishes.

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• Most white-collar jobs could be affected by artificial intelligence
• Organizational and analytical tasks are more at-risk, IPPR report finds
• AI policies should focus more on AI adoption

New research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has revealed how profound the effects of AI are on knowledge workers, with more than two-thirds of tasks in white-collar roles at risk of being affected by artificial intelligence.

The report specifically details how generative AI is transforming jobs that rely on computer-based tasks, such as project management, marketing and administrative support.

It found up to 70% of the 22,000 analyzed tasks could be either “transformed” or “replaced” by AI.

White-collar jobs are at risk of AI transformation

“Organisational and strategic tasks” and “repetitive and non-repetitive cognitive and analytical tasks” were revealed to be among the most likely to see productivity and efficiency enhancements from AI, however now that AI is evolving from a novelty to a genuine aid, the IPPR is calling for better guidance.

The report’s author and IPPR’s Head of AI, Carsten Jung, said too many policies focus on either accelerating AI adoption or ensuring its safety, but very few actually set out a clear and purposeful direction for AI adoption.

“The launch of ‘AI agents’ shows AI is different from past technologies," Jung commented, "AI technology could have a seismic impact on economy and society: it will transform jobs, destroy old ones, create new ones, trigger the development of new products and services and allow us to do things we could not do before.”

IPPR is urging governments to set clear policies, establish measurable targets, partner with private sector and civil society to guide development and to ensure that AI advancements remain aligned with public interest.

Jung added: “Politics needs to catch up with the implications of powerful AI. Beyond just ensuring AI models are safe, we need to determine what goals we want to achieve.”

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