Snap is laying off around 1,000 staff, amounting to 16 percent of its workforce, which it will seemingly replace with AI. The cuts were announced in a company-wide memo from CEO Evan Spiegel, who added that more than 300 open roles are also being closed. Spiegel said the "incredibly difficult" decision would likely save Snap more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, in turn helping it to "establish a clearer path to net-income profitability." Impacted staff were notified by email and the company’s North America-based team were instructed to work from home. Snap said it would provide four-month severance packages to those affected by the layoffs, as well as healthcare and other entitlements. "While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers," Spiegel wrote. "We have already witnessed small squads leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives, including Snapchat+, enhanced ad platform performance, and efficiency improvements in our Snap Lite infrastructure." Snap laid off around 20 percent of its employees in 2022 , with further cuts made in 2023 and 2024 . It follows in the footsteps of a number of tech companies laying off employees in favor of AI in a move to boost efficiency, including Amazon , Fiverr , Microsoft and Pinterest in the last year. Snap is expected to launch the consumer version of its Specs AR glasses later this year, and recently span off the brand into its own business. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/snap-is-laying-off-16-percent-of-its-workforce-blames-ai-162456069.html?src=rss
Chinese phonemaker Vivo has been pushing the limits of smartphone photography in the last few years. However, the availability of its phones — like last year’s X200 Ultra , with its beefy add-on telephoto — has been intermittent in the West. The company says the X300 Ultra its first global flagship launch, although there’s still no word on a US launch or pricing at the time of writing. Like the latest phones from Xiaomi and Oppo, Vivo is also obsessing over larger camera sensors, peripherals and a dizzying array of technical photography specs, with a particular focus on cinematic video recording. Collaborating with Zeiss again, the X300 Ultra features a “triple prime lens” camera system with 85, 35 and 14mm equivalent focal lengths. This can be punched up to 400mm equivalent with a new telephoto extender, the messily-named Zeiss Telephoto Extender Gen 2 Ultra, whose price is also unknown for now. Even without that add-on, Vivo has built its 85mm equivalent 200-megapixel telephoto camera to handle most of your zoom-heavy shooting moments. A “ gimbal-grade ” APO (apochromatic) camera is designed to correct color fringing and stabilize your shots. These are both typical issues when using higher zoom levels. In a dedicated “snapshot” mode, Autofocus tracking will even work at 60 fps, which I’m excited to test, as the phone can also shoot at up to 12 fps. Vivo says its optical image stabilization can correct up to three degrees of movement. Other cameras are similarly powerful, spec-wise. The 35mm equivalent Zeiss “Documentary” camera uses a 1/1.12-inch 200MP Sony sensor and is apparently engineered for strong low-light performance and portrait shooting, with an f/1.8 aperture. Finally, there’s a 50MP ultrawide rounding out the camera lineup. All three rear cameras support up to 4K 120fps 10-bit log video and the same in Dolby Vision. Vivo says the X300 Ultra will capture “film-like” color performance without the need for editing. If you want to dig into editing, however, it supports 10-bit log video for more dynamic range and color depth. Vivo is going hard on video capture. The X300 Ultra's new “pro video mode" has an upgraded monitoring feature that supports users’ custom LUTs, showing a real-time preview of how it will look while recording in log. Vivo’s log format is also compatible with ACES workflow, making it easier to integrate the X300 Ultra alongside other cinema cameras. Vivo To make it easier to use for hypothetical professional shoots, Vivo has collaborated with camera-peripheral maker SmallRig on a video-rig kit. This includes an expandable camera cage with quick-release ports (alongside multiple cold shoe mounts), dual handgrips and even a physical shutter control and zoom buttons. There’s also a cooling fan to keep the X300 Ultra recording at high resolution for extended periods. It’s otherwise a flagship phone everywhere else, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen5 processor and a 6.82-inch display at 3,168 x 1,440 resolution, topping out at an industry-leading 144Hz refresh rate. The X300 Ultra also supports up to 100W FlashCharge and 40W wireless charging (with compatible Vivo chargers) and a huge 6,600mAh battery. We’re planning to test the X300 Ultra in the very near future. At the time of writing, the company is keeping pricing and launch dates to itself. We’ll update this story once we hear those crucial details. It’s also likely to face immediate competition from sibling brand Oppo, which has also been teasing an ultra iteration of its latest flagship phone , the Find X9 Ultra. For now, Vivo says the X300 Ultra will launch across Asia, as well as parts of Europe (Austria, Spain, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy and Russia) and several other countries, including Brazil. And yep, no US, Canada or the UK on that list. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/vivo-x300-ultra-launch-powerful-camera-phone-availability-160008605.html?src=rss
