PCMag – Page 5 – Tech News

Would You Attach These Giant Lenses to Your Phone to Take Better Photos?

Realme and Xiaomi showed off concept devices at Mobile World Congress that involve attaching a lens to your phone to get sharper shots. The concept phone has a physical connector that allows you to attach lenses directly to the phone itself. It lines up with the phone's internal 1-inch type sensor and allows you to use any full-frame mirrorless lens. Realme thinks pairing better optics with its phones' processing power will lead to better phone-based photos.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/would-you-attach-a-big-lens-to-your-phone-to-take-better-photos-mwc-2025

Meet Alexa+, She’s Way Smarter, and a Lot Less Stiff

Amazon showed off the upgraded Alexa+ at a press event in New York City, revealing it can choose from a whole collection of generative AI models to fulfill your requests in a more conversational way. “She’s smarter than she’s ever been before. But she’s also approachable, which is so important,” said Panos Panay, Amazon’s head for devices and services. “That intimidation factor of AI is gone. She’s useful. She can plan a date, book the restaurant, and text the sitter.”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/amazon-debuts-alexa-plus-a-smarter-but-potentially-pricer-assistant

Google ‘Career Dreamer’ Tool Uses AI to Help You Explore Career Options

A new experimental Google AI tool aims to help people explore career possibilities. Career Dreamer uses AI to analyze your past experiences and suggest potential new gigs. “Think of it like a helping hand to bridge where you’ve been and imagine where you could go next,” Google says.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/google-career-dreamer-tool-uses-ai-to-help-you-explore-career-options

Apple Joins the Event Planner Game With Apple Invites

"With Apple Invites, an event comes to life from the moment the invitation is created, and users can share lasting memories even after they get together," says Brent Chiu-Watson, Apple’s senior director of Worldwide Product Marketing for Apps and iCloud. "Apple Invites brings together capabilities our users already know and love across iPhone, iCloud, and Apple Music, making it easy to plan special events."
https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-joins-the-event-planner-game-with-apple-invites

What Is DeepSeek? China Shocks AI Industry With ‘Sputnik Moment’

Chinese AI company DeepSeek released an AI model that is sending shockwaves through the US tech industry due to its low cost and high performance. Tech investor Marc Andreessen calls it "AI's Sputnik moment," causing US tech stocks to tumble this morning, with Nvidia the hardest hit, down 11%. The app surpassed ChatGPT on the Apple App Store as the most-downloaded free application. But after receiving a flood of registrations and "large-scale malicious attacks"—possibly a DDoS attack—DeepSeek has "temporarily" restricted access to those with a +86 mainland Chinese phone number. You may still be able to sign in with a Google account.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-deepseek-china-shocks-ai-industry-with-sputnik-moment

Even a PDF File Can Run Doom

In the latest edition of “can it run Doom?” a high school student has discovered a way to port the classic PC game to a PDF file. Taking advantage of this, Allen created the Doom PDF, which can run the game if it’s viewed in a Chromium-based browser, such as Google’s Chrome.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/even-a-pdf-file-can-run-doom

Adobe Brings Live Co-Editing to Photoshop

What blew people away about Google Docs was that multiple people could be editing the same document live in real-time. It’s one thing to do this for simple text input, but drawing and image editing are a different story. So, Adobe is bringing that same gee-whiz capability to its category-leading image-editing software, Photoshop, in a beta you can apply for now.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/adobe-brings-live-co-editing-to-photoshop