Once this was set up, I hit the triangle button, assuming that it would start cleaning. In fact, it was mapping the first floor, which I didn’t pick up as well as I should have, so then I had to keep picking up the Freo and it might have messed up the mapping, so I just had to remap it again once I downloaded the Freo Mind app.The map editing feature is very specific, you can merge rooms, add furniture management and carpet, and create no-go zones. You can also identify the floor material by room, which is very specific and includes the following: hardwood, tile, tatami, marble, and cobblestone. Freo Mind will adjust the humidity level and suction power to each material, which makes sense because clearly marble is not the same as hardwood floors. My kitchen has laminate floors, which is not one of the features so I have it run on hardwood floors throughout. The carpet is also clearly marked on the maps.The SpecsDimensions14"L x 14"W x 4.3"HSuction power15,000 PaMop typeDual spinning and scrubbingDustbin capacity2.5LSelf-empty docYes, and self-washing and dryingMulti-floor mappingYesWorks withAlexa, Siri, and Google HomeWhile the physical setup was pretty intuitive, the app navigation was much more challenging. I really wish Narwal included a special app booklet outlining all the features, because there are a lot and I had to learn trial by error.When I added a second map for the second floor, it took me a minute to figure out how to select the area that will be cleaned. I assumed it would be the entire space that was mapped, but for some reason it was a small square that needed to be stretched out across the entire space. Still, this is a good feature because it lets me select zones, say clean my bedroom but not my son’s room if he has Legos on the floor.Photo: Yelena Mroz AlpertPhoto: Yelena Mroz AlpertBefore each cleaning, I could choose the type of vacuuming/mopping features. There is “vacuum and mop,” “vacuum then mop,” “vacuum,” and “mop.” Since the robot vacuum uses Freo Mind, a feature that uses AI technology to go back to areas with remaining dirt, the mopping requires the machine to return to the station to clean the pads. Because the base station is on the first floor, that’s not possible, so I have only used the vacuum feature upstairs.The mop combo feature is great thanks to the drying capabilities. I have definitely left my wet-dry vac with a wet roller inside the cleaning closet to find it smelling musty and icky days later. Instead of standard mop washing and drying by hand, the app tells me the mop drying progress, which is a bit long, but it is quiet and does not interfere with my daily life so I don’t even think about it. The Manage Accessories feature tells me how many hours I have until brushes and mops need replacement.My first reaction was that having to buy replacement pieces is annoying, but I bet if my basic robot vac had these, it would run better, and that’s just part of the functionality. #narwal #freo #z10 #robot #vacuum

Legal Power LEGO seemingly shuts down Bionicle fan game after 8 years of development, because as we all know Bionicle is a scorching hot IP that the company is doing a lot with right now The team has taken the alleged takedown request in stride, forming an independent developer called Unmasked Games. Image credit: Team Kanohi News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 19, 2025 Bionicle: Masks of Power - a fan game that has been in development for eight years - has been shut down following a request from The LEGO Group, its developers claim. In a statement released to the public via a Google Doc, the team broke down the situation for fans who've been waiting to actually play the game after all this time. The devs, who were preparing to drop a demo this August, claim that LEGO reached out to request they shut down development on the project and remove the game from the public eye. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. In the statement, the team expressed its historical intention to keep in line with the official LEGO Fair Play Guidelines, as to not draw the eye of an legal action from LEGO looking to protect its copyright. Despite these intentions, the hammer has seemingly come down. While it says no official reason for the takedown was given, the team suspects that it was because the average person may mistake the game for an official game, rather than a fan project. It seems this fan game was a victim of its own good SEO. In reaction to the news, the development team has released a walkthrough of the demo, and has decided to form a new indie studio: Unmasked Games. That name is great by the way, hinting towards its Bionicle roots but taking the mask off for future endeavors. They conclude the statement with the following: "This has been heartbreaking news for our entire team, but we’re also incredibly excited about what the future has in store, and for what we’ll get the chance to create next. We hope that you’re all just as excited as we are. For the final time… May the Great Spirit guide you." Bionicle has been a dead IP product line since 2010 by the way. That's the last time any actual toys were produced by The LEGO group. There was a series of comics written by Greg Farshtey, though that has also been dead for over a decade. It's clear that the Bionicle IP is scorching hot, something LEGO is clearly doing a lot with. Sarcasm aside, such are the ways of legal departments. IP must be protected, even for IP that has had no development or frankly relevancy for over a decade. That is, aside from a relatively small community of fans who were, until very recently, excited for a new fan game. Damn shame! It's a bummer. It's a common belief that the best way to approach making fan games is to "shut the f**k up", but obviously not all fan project teams have the luxury of silence and a sudden shadow drop before any cease and desist can come through and ruin all the fun. Still, if you were excited for Mask of Power, why not give the folks at Unmasked Games some love, and support them going forward. We've reached out to The LEGO Group for comment, and will update this article if and when we get a response. When's the last time you even thought about Bionicle, this fan game aside? Let us know below. #lego #seemingly #shuts #down #bionicle

Image: NintendoIf you've ever used multiple accounts on your Switch, the news feed is often bombarded with posts. This has been particularly noticeable if you have access to an account for a different region, resulting in the same post appearing for each location. With this in mind, it looks like Nintendo has made a slight refresh to the news feed section on Switch 2. You'll now apparently be able to select the news feed you would like to see, so hopefully there'll no longer be multiple posts of the same news on your feed. Here's a quick glimpse courtesy of 'OatmealDome' on social media, where the system asks you which feed you would like to see. This isn't the only adjustment Nintendo will be making to the Switch 2 user interface and experience. Its also got plenty of other subtle updates and enhancements to improve the overall experience. This includes updates to its eShop, which has been improved to run more smoothly when displaying a large number of games. Nintendo's system news feed isn't the only place to get official updates from Nintendo. The Japanese firm recently launched its new mobile app Nintendo Today! which shares exclusive updates about the Switch 2 and even upcoming projects like The Legend of Zelda movie. Bring it on! Bite-sized Directs! Will you benefit much from this update to the news app on the Switch 2? Let us know in the comments. See Also Share:0 0 Liam is a news writer and reviewer across Hookshot Media. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of many iconic video game characters. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Unveils Diddy Kong's Brand New Design Cap's off Nintendo Switch 2 Final Tech Specs Have Been Confirmed GameChat has a "significant impact on system resources" 27 Upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Games We're Excited For In 2025 The very best Switch 2 games coming soon #switch #2039s #news #section #will

The California Public Utilities Commission has approved Waymo’s request to expand its commercial robotaxi service area, opening the door for the Alphabet company to bring its driverless ride-hailing vehicles into more communities south of San Francisco. The company said in a post on X the approval won’t change its plans in the near term. Today, Waymo operates a commercial robotaxi service in all of San Francisco as well as parts of the Peninsula. It also provides driverless rides to paying customers throughout several Silicon Valley cities, including parts of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale. In all, the company’s service area is about 85 square miles covering San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The company is also aiming to unlock access to the San Francisco International Airport, although those plans are on a much longer timeline. Waymo was given permission in March to map roadways at SFO via a temporary permit. Waymo vehicles will not operate autonomously in the airport; employees will manually drive the vehicles to map the area. But the permit signals the beginning of a phased approach to Waymo eventually operating commercially there. Waymo provides 250,000 paid trips each week across its operations, which extends to Los Angeles, Phoenix, and more recently Austin. #waymo #gets #expand #robotaxi #service

A new architecturally expressive, adaptive reuse project has been completed at Katendrecht, a historic Rotterdam port neighborhood. MAD Architects is behind the design for Fenix, an art institution founded in 2016 that centers migration. The venue is contextual: Rotterdam is today home to over 170 nationalities, thanks in part to its status as a port city. Fenix is sited inside an old warehouse from 1923 by architect Cornelis Nicolaas van Goor. The former San Francisco Warehouse was bombed during World War II, but rebuilt in the 1950s as two separate buildings: Fenix I and Fenix II. MAD Architects transformed the Fenix II building into the museum. The 172,000-square-foot hub marks the first major culture project in Europe by the international office. The ground floor was conceived as an indoor city square, the architects said. The venue is sited in Katendrecht, a historic Rotterdam port neighborhood.Fenix offers space for connection and exchange for communities all throughout Rotterdam, the museum said. The ground level will host large scale events, food gatherings, community meetings, performances, and also a kiosk with newspapers from around the world, much like the former Newseum in Washington, D.C. Likewise, Fenix has retail and dining options like cafes, bakeries, gelato and espresso bars. The multivalent artworks are spread throughout Fenix’s upper levels. Ground level view of the double-helix stairRooftop view of the double-helix stairAmong Fenix’s standout features is what MAD calls the Tornado, a double-helix staircase connecting visitors from the ground to a viewing platform high up above the city. This amenity affords views of the River Maas, Hotel New York, and former headquarters of the Holland America Line. Its metallic exterior reflects the buildings and people around it, and glimmers in the sun. The gallery walls were left untouched, revealing exposed concrete. Exhibition materials are staged in this industrial context, set up on partitions, or hung from ceilings. The building contains more than 150 artworks by Francis Alÿs, Max Beckmann, Sophie Calle, Honoré Daumier, and many others. Narrow windows draw natural light into the galleries. Tall ceiling heights allow for large artworks, like this one by Alle Richtingen.The Family of Migrants installation viewThe ephemera on view speaks to the peripatetic migratory experience: Personal mementos from people who immigrated to Rotterdam, a sliver of the Berlin Wall, a migrant boat from Lampedusa, and a passport from Nansen circa 1923, to name but a few examples. There are also travel documents issued to stateless refugees after World War I. Geographies by Francis Alÿs“Migration stories are the heartbeat of Fenix,” museum director Anne Kremers said in a statement. “We’ve woven them into every element—whether it’s the magic of Ma Yansong’s architecture, the memories evoked by the artworks on display, the freely accessible Plein, or the gelateria by the Granucci family. We want everyone to feel welcome.” #mad #architects #tops #fenix #rotterdam

Secondo Fuoco collection by TIPSTUDIOTradition Meets Innovation in Interior and Textile Design at IED Firenze May 19, 2025 Sponsor IED Firenze Istituto Europeo di DesignFirenze expands its academic offerings with the Master of Arts in Interior and Furniture Design—Hacking Tradition: Reinventing Craftsmanship and Materials. This new program redefines the intersection of heritage and innovation, where traditional craftsmanship meets contemporary design. Aligned with IED’s sustainable textile focus, students learn to critically reinterpret cultural and material heritage through a sustainable lens, with design positioned as a transformative force that shapes environments while addressing social and ecological challenges. This Master of Arts program equips students with the skills to “hack” tradition—decoding artisanal methods, rethinking materials, and innovating applications. By fostering a dialogue between past and future, craftsmanship becomes a space for reinvention. The curriculum integrates DesignXCommons, an ecological design philosophy focused on sustainability and resource regeneration. Rooted in Tuscany’s world-renowned manufacturing traditions—marble, textiles, furniture, jewelry, and leather—the program offers hands-on experience. Students engage in workshops, industry collaborations, and real-world projects, turning cultural contexts into design innovation. Secondo Fuoco by TIPSTUDIOIt complements IED Firenze’s Master of Arts in Textile Design—Eco-Threads: Materials and Circularity, which explores sustainable materials, eco-design, and process innovation across fashion, interiors, and product design. Together, these programs position the school as a leader in sustainable design education. Set in Florence—where history, art, and fashion merge—IED Firenze offers a unique learning environment. From the grandeur of Ponte Vecchio to the heritage of Gucci and Ferragamo, the city itself becomes part of the curriculum. Housed in an architectural landmark, IED Firenze nurtures designers ready to challenge conventions, honor heritage, and shape the future of design. To learn more, visit ied.edu/courses.  Founded in 1966, IEDis an international network of higher education institutions specializing in design, fashion, visual arts, and communication. With campuses in Italy, Spain, and Brazil, IED fosters a multidisciplinary approach that blends creativity, craftsmanship, and technological innovation. Through hands-on training and strong industry connections, it prepares students to become forward-thinking professionals in the global design landscape. Cratere by TIPSTUDIOLoto mirror by TIPSTUDIOSecondo Fuoco by TIPSTUDIOPrevious articleNext article #tradition #meets #innovation #interior #textile

Anker's Qi2 wireless charging pad is fast, powerful, and affordable enough to keep one at the office and one at home. Plus, it's on sale. #choose #this #budget #wireless #iphone

Dell Technologies World focuses its keynote on Inventing the Future with AIDell Technologies Dell Technologies unveiled a significant expansion of its Dell AI Factory platform at its annual Dell Technologies World conference today, announcing over 40 product enhancements designed to help enterprises deploy artificial intelligence workloads more efficiently across both on-premises environments and cloud systems. The Dell AI Factory is not a physical manufacturing facility but a comprehensive framework combining advanced infrastructure, validated solutions, services, and an open ecosystem to help businesses harness the full potential of artificial intelligence across diverse environments—from data centers and cloud to edge locations and AI PCs. The company has attracted over 3,000 AI Factory customers since launching the platform last year. In an earlier call with industry analysts, Dell shared research stating that 79% of production AI workloads are running outside of public cloud environments—a trend driven by cost, security, and data governance concerns. During the keynote, Michael Dell provided more color on the value of Dell’s AI factory concept. He said, "The Dell AI factory is up to 60% more cost effective than the public cloud, and recent studies indicate that about three-fourths of AI initiatives are meeting or exceeding expectations. That means organizations are driving ROI and productivity gains from 20% to 40% in some cases. Making AI Easier to Deploy Organizations need the freedom to run AI workloads wherever makes the most sense for their business, without sacrificing performance or control. While IT leaders embraced the public cloud for their initial AI services, many organizations are now looking for a more nuanced approach where the company can control over their most critical AI assets while maintaining the flexibility to use cloud resources when appropriate. Over 80 percent of the companies Lopez Research interviewed said they struggled to find the budget and technical talent to deploy AI. These AI deployment challenges have only increased as more AI models and AI infrastructure services were launched. Silicon Diversity and Customer Choice A central theme of Dell's AI Factory message is how Dell makes AI easier to deploy while delivering choice. Dell is offering customers choice through silicon diversity in its designs, but also with ISV models. The company announced it has added Intel to its AI Factory portfolio with Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerators and Intel Xeon processors, with a strong focus on inferencing workloads. Dell also announced its fourth update to the Dell AI Platform with AMD, rolling out two new PowerEdge servers—the XE9785 and the XE9785L—equipped with the latest AMD Instinct MI350 series GPUs. The Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA combines Dell's infrastructure with NVIDIA's AI software and GPU technologies to deliver end-to-end solutions that can reduce setup time by up to 86% compared to traditional approaches. The company also continues to strengthen its partnership with NVIDIA, announcing products that leverage NVIDIA's Blackwell family and other updates launched at NVIDIA GTC. As of today, Dell supports choice by delivering AI solutions with all of the primary GPU and AI accelerator infrastructure providers. Client-Side AI Advancements At the edge of the AI Factory ecosystem, Dell announced enhancements to the Dell Pro Max in a mobile form factor, leveraging Qualcomm’s AI 100 discrete NPUs designed for AI engineers and data scientists who need fast inferencing capabilities. With up to 288 TOPs at 16-bit floating point precision, these devices can power up to a 70-billion parameter model, delivering 7x the inferencing speed and 4x the accuracy over a 40 TOPs NPU. According to Dell, the Pro Max Plus line can run a 109-billion parameter AI model. The Dell Pro Max Plus targets AI engineers and data scientist with with the ability to run a ... More 109-billion parameter modelDell Technologies The Pro Max and Plus launches follow Dell's previous announcement of AI PCs featuring Dell Pro Max with GB 10 and GB 300 processors powered by NVIDIA's Grace Blackwell architecture. Overall, Dell has simplified its PC portfolio but made it easier for customers to choose the right system for their workloads by providing the latest chips from AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. On-Premise AI Deployment Gains Ecosystem Momentum Following the theme of choice, organizations need the flexibility to run AI workloads on-premises and in the cloud. Dell is making significant strides in enabling on-premise AI deployments with major software partners. The company announced it is the first provider to bring Cohere capabilities on-premises, combining Cohere's generative AI models with Dell's secure, scalable infrastructure for turnkey enterprise solutions. Similar partnerships with Mistral and Glean were also announced, with Dell facilitating their first on-premise deployments. Additionally, Dell is supporting Google's Gemini on-premises with Google Distributed Cloud. To simplify model deployment, Dell now offers customers the ability to choose models on Hugging Face and deploy them in an automated fashion using containers and scripts. Enterprises increasingly recognize that while public cloud AI has its place, a hybrid AI infrastructure approach could deliver better economics and security for production workloads. The imperative for scalable yet efficient AI infrastructure at the edge is a growing need. As Michael Dell said during his Dell Technologies World keynote, “Over 75% of enterprise data will soon be created and processed at the edge, and AI will follow that data; it's not the other way around. The future of AI will be decentralized, low latency, and hyper-efficient.” Dell's ability to offer robust hybrid and fully on-premises solutions for AI is proving to be a significant advantage as companies increasingly seek on-premises support and even potentially air-gapped solutions for their most sensitive AI workloads. Key industries adopting the Dell AI Factory include finance, retail, energy, and healthcare providers. Scaling AI Requires a Focus on Energy Efficiency Simplifying AI also requires product innovations that deliver cost-effective, energy-efficient technology. As AI workloads drive unprecedented power consumption, Dell has prioritized energy efficiency in its latest offerings. The company introduced the Dell PowerCool Enclosed Rear Door Heat Exchangerwith Dell Integrated Rack Controller. This new cooling solution captures nearly 100% of the heat coming from GPU-intensive workloads. This innovation lowers cooling energy requirements for a rack by 60%, allowing customers to deploy 16% more racks with the same power infrastructure. Dell's new systems are rated to operate at 32 to 37 degrees Celsius, supporting significantly warmer temperatures than traditional air-cooled or water-chilled systems, further reducing power consumption for cooling. The PowerEdge XE9785L now offers Dell liquid cooling for flexible power management. Even if a company isn't aiming for a specific sustainability goal, every organization wants to improve energy utilization. Early Adopter Use Cases Highlight AI's Opportunity With over 200 product enhancements to its AI Factory in just one year, Dell Technologies is positioning itself as a central player in the rapidly evolving enterprise AI infrastructure market. It offers the breadth of solutions and expertise organizations require to successfully implement production-grade AI systems in a secure and scalable fashion. However, none of this technology matters if enterprises can't find a way to create business value by adopting it. Fortunately, examples from the first wave of enterprise early adopters highlight ways AI can deliver meaningful returns in productivity and customer experience. Let's look at two use cases presented at Dell Tech World.Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies, interviews Larry Feinsmith, the Managing Director and Head ... More of Global Tech Strategy, Innovation & Partnerships at JPMorgan Chase at Dell Technologies WorldDell Technologies The Power of LLMs in Finance at JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase took the stage to make AI real from a customer’s perspective. The financial firm uses Dell's compute hardware, software-defined storage, client, and peripheral solutions. Larry Feinsmith, the Managing Director and Head of Global Tech Strategy, Innovation & Partnerships at JPMorgan Chase, said, "We have a hybrid, multi-cloud, multi-provider strategy. Our private cloud is an incredibly strategic asset for us. We still have many applications and data on-premises for resiliency, latency, and a variety of other benefits." Feinsmith also spoke of the company's Large Language Modelstrategy. He said, “Our strategy is to use a constellation of models, both foundational and open, which requires a tremendous amount of compute in our data centers, in the public cloud, and, of course, at the edge. The one constant thing, whether you're training models, fine-tuning models, or finding a great use case that has large-scale inferencing, is that they all will drive compute. We think Dell is incredibly well positioned to help JPMorgan Chase and other companies in their AI journey.” Feinsmith noted that using AI isn't new for JPMorgan Chase. For over a decade, JPMorgan Chase has leveraged various types of AI, such as machine learning models for fraud detection, personalization, and marketing operations. The company uses what Feinsmith called its LLM suite, which over 200,000 people at JPMorgan Chase use today. The generative AI application is used for QA summarization and content generation using JPMorgan Chase's data in a highly secure way. Next, it has used the LLM suite architecture to build applications for its financial advisors, contact center agents, and any employee interacting with its clients. Its third use case highlighted changes in the software development area. JPMorgan Chase rolled out code generation AI capabilities to over 40,000 engineers. It has achieved as much as 20% productivity in the code creation and expects to leverage AI throughout the software development life cycle. Going forward, the financial firm expects to use AI agents and reasoning models to execute complex business processes end-to-end.Seemantini Godbole, EVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Lowe's shares the retailers AI ... More strategy at Dell Technologies WorldDell Technologies. How AI Makes It Easier For Employees to Serve Customers at Lowe's Lowe's Home Improvement Stores provided another example of how companies are leveraging Dell Technology and AI to transform the customer and employee experience. Seemantini Godbole, EVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Lowe's, shared insights on designing the strategy for AI when she said, "How should we deploy AI? We wanted to do impactful and meaningful things. We did not want to die a death of 1000 pilots, and we organized our efforts across how we sell, how we shop, and how we work. How we sell was for our associates. How we shop is for our customers, and how we work is for our headquarters employees. For whatever reason, most companies have begun with their workforce in the headquarters. We said, No, we are going to put AI in the hands of 300,000 associates." For example, she described a generative AI companion app for store associates. "Every store associate now has on his or her zebra device a ChatGPT-like experience for home improvement.", said Godbole. Lowe's is also deploying computer vision algorithms at the edge to understand issues such as whether a customer in a particular aisle is waiting for help. The system will then send notifications to the associates in that department. Customers can also ask various home improvement questions, such as what paint finish to use in a bathroom, at Lowes.com/AI. Designing A World Where AI Infrastructure Delivers Human Opportunity Michael Dell said, "We are entering the age of ubiquitous intelligence, where AI becomes as essential as electricity, with AI, you can distill years of experience into instant insights, speeding up decisions and uncovering patterns in massive data. But it’s not here to replace humans. AI is a collaborator that frees your teams to do what they do best, to innovate, to imagine, and to solve the world's toughest problems." While there are many AI deployment challenges ahead, the customer examples shared at Dell Technologies World provide a glimpse into a world where AI infrastructure and services benefits both customers and employees. The challenge now is to do this sustainably and ethically at scale. #how #dells #infrastructure #updates #deliver

In a nutshell: A few ventures are trying to bring the competition for edge computing in space, where solar energy is aplenty and ready to be harvested. A Chinese consortium is allegedly going from theory to practice, with an ambitious new constellation designed to bring AI capabilities in Earth's orbit. While Eric Schmidt and other Western space entrepreneurs are still exploring the idea of orbital data centers, Chinese companies have already begun moving forward. Last week, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation confirmed the successful launch of the first mission in its "Satellite Computing" program, which aims to deploy thousands of satellites equipped with onboard computing capabilities. Members of the Satellite Computing project include ADA Space, a company founded in 2018, and Zhejiang Lab – a collaboration between government authorities and Alibaba Group. Other participants, such as SoftStone and Kepu Cloud, are developing ground-based data centers designed to work with the orbital constellation. Chinese space authorities said the first 12 satellites launched aboard a Long March-2D rocket. ADA Space described the deployment as the world's first orbital computing constellation. The entire network will reportedly include 2,800 satellites, each with a powerful onboard AI model. The 12 satellites are capable of five peta-operations per second. The long-term goal is to build space infrastructure capable of reaching 1,000 POPS. Additionally, the satellites feature a 100 Gbps laser-based communication link for inter-satellite communication. Developed by Guangxi University, an onboard X-ray detector enables them to study extreme space phenomena like gamma-ray bursts. ADA Space argues that the growing demand for real-time space-based computing justifies deploying more hardware into Earth's increasingly crowded orbit. China is pushing to lead this new orbital race, even as the United States slashes NASA's budget and shutters offices under anti-DEI executive orders. // Related Stories Engineers are already developing a second satellite computing constellation. Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping has reportedly said that artificial intelligence should serve humanity and urged international cooperation to create better AI models. The European Space Agency also stresses the need for cooperation, though Europe appears unprepared to compete in the emerging space computing arena. Some experts, like astronomer Jonathan McDowell, argue that orbiting data centers could reduce energy consumption and ease environmental strain on Earth's fragile atmosphere. #china #launches #first #satellites #massive

“I call it the James Bond phone,” Samsung’s Annika Bizon, vice president of mobile product and marketing in the U.K. and Ireland, told Digital Trends during a conversation about the new Galaxy S25 Edge shortly after its announcement.  “I call it the Bruce Wayne phone.” Samsung’s smartphone specialist product manager Kadesh Beckford said later in the same call. Recommended Videos Why did these names come up, and how do they relate to the new, slimline smartphone? It turns out, understanding why the comparisons were drawn is key to understanding the Galaxy S25 Edge itself, and Samsung’s daring plan with it.  A statement maker Andy Boxall / Digital Trends I really wanted to understand who Samsung has made the Galaxy S25 Edge — a 5.8mm, 163 gram flagship smartphone — for, and spoke at length about it with Bizon and Beckford during an online conversation soon after the phone’s announcement.  “Samsung has seen people want lightness, slimness, and to know they have the very best technology in their device,” Bizon explained. “The S25 Edge is for people who want to make a statement, and it blows my mind how we’ve managed to fit so much into such a small space. I call it the James Bond of phones. He would only have the coolest of phones.” While the comparison with a cool character makes sense, what she said next showed while Bond would be a great fit for the S25 Edge, the phone has been positioned and pitched quite differently to other Samsung mobile devices. “We’ve looked at the younger market,” Bizon said, “but we don’t know who else it will be for yet, and that’s exciting. We’ve done the research to find there’s demand, so we’ve got the foundations, but we’ve got to learn who’s buying it, what they’re using it for, and how they’re enjoying it.” A phone with presence Andy Boxall / Digital Trends The more we talked about the Galaxy S25 Edge, the more delightfully experimental it sounded. Not in terms of its technology, but how it fits into Samsung’s range of devices, and the people the company expects it to appeal to. It’s how Batman entered the conversation.  “I call it the Bruce Wayne phone,” Beckford laughed, “In Jet Black it’d match up with the Batmobile really well.”  Beckford continued to say what the phone means to him, and his own reference to a well-known character related more to the S25 Edge’s presence than its coolness. “It allows me to make a statement. You put an S25 Edge down on the table, and it means something.” Beckford gave some deep insight into how the Galaxy S25 Edge enters new territory for Samsung: “Our Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 6 phones are called ‘Life Maximizers,” he said, “while the base Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and FE phones are ‘Social Expressers. What’s happening is we’re seeing people who want a bit of both. They want to express themselves, but they also want the power and performance from a Life Maximizer phone brings. The S25 Edge is a device that fits into both these areas.”  Internal innovation Samsung It was becoming clear the S25 Edge is more than just a new entry into the S25 series, and understanding some of the engineering that went into making it sees it shift closer to the Z Fold series for innovation. Beckford talked about some of the challenges faced by the team making the phone: “The camera module was a challenge,” he said. “The 200-megapixel main sensor is quite thick, but we reduced it in size by 18% to fit. It means the phone is well balanced. In a confined space you usually lose performance from the processor if there’s no heat dissipation. We’ve used special cooling and a vapor chamber to ensure the phone runs at its highest performance without overheating. These are challenges that come from making a phone this slim, but we solved them.”Why doesn’t the S25 Edge have a telephoto camera? After all, the Galaxy S25 Plus has one. It goes back to the phone appealing to two usually separate groups of buyers. The main and wide-angle cameras are key on the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and the S25 Edge is as much a part of that family as it is the S Series. Beckford pointed out that although there are only two cameras, you still get a macro mode and a 2x optical quality zoom alongside them.  A new direction for Samsung The Galaxy S25 Edge has elements of the technical innovation we love from Samsung’s ongoing range of folding devices, blended with the mainstream appeal of its S series phones. What differentiates it is the incredible slim, lightweight body and design. Bizon ended our conversation by telling me how this has shaped her personal opinion of the S25 Edge. “I think it’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s a statement about you, I like that it’s a conversation starter, and I see it stepping more into fashion and style.” She added, “You have to be playful and quirky and do things differently to attract people.” I felt this likely best described what Samsung is hoping to achieve with the Galaxy S25 Edge.  Playful, quirky, interesting, cool, fashionable, and stylish. When was the last time all of these words could be used together to describe a single mobile device? It’s certainly not recently, and the fact we’re using them to talk about a new Samsung — a brand few would consider daring when it comes to design — smartphone is a particular surprise.  There was an air of excitement during my conversation with Bizon and Beckford. Like it was the start of something new and exciting, but also ever-so-slightly mysterious and experimental too. After playing it safe with the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Ultra, Samsung has let itself go wild with the Galaxy S25 Edge and in the best way possible it’s not entirely sure where it’s going to lead, which makes us like this incredibly slim phone even more. #bond #batman #why #galaxy #s25