Technologies

Sony Xperia 1 VII Lets You Shoot Video Without Looking

The premium phone’s AI video skills sound intriguing but its high price might be a problem.

Sony’s latest flagship Android phone, the Xperia 1 VII, packs a variety of exciting tech features from its Snapdragon 8 Elite chip to its promise of AI-based audio quality upscaling. But it’s the video tools that really caught my attention, in particular the ‘AI Camerawork’ and ‘Autoframing’ functions that apparently let you shoot steady, professional-looking video without even looking at your phone.

It certainly sounds like a novel idea, but this phone needs novel ideas — and plenty of them — to justify its whopping price tag. At £1,399, the Xperia 1 VII is significantly more expensive than both the equivalent iPhone 16 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Both those phones have seriously impressed us in their full reviews so Sony will have its work cut out for it if it hopes to pry that much cash out of your hands.

Read more: Best Android Phone in 2025

The phone is up for the preorder today in the UK, although Sony currently has no plans to bring it to the US. For reference, that £1,399 UK price converts to about $1,860. Ouch.

AI video shooting

The AI video tools certainly seem to be the big reason to choose this phone. While I have yet to test it myself, Sony’s press materials suggest that it works by using a wide-angle lens, AI-based subject tracking and «posture estimation technology» to keep your subject in frame.

The idea is that you only need to roughly point your phone in the vague direction of your subject and the phone will do the rest. It sounds like it could be great for things like skateboarding videos where you and your friend are speeding down the street, although how it really performs in such high-paced scenarios remains to be seen.

It’s not just the video camera that’s been given the AI treatment. Sony says the phone has its «best sound quality to date» thanks to AI-based algorithms that actively upscale compressed, streamed music to make it sound as good as it can. Sony has even equipped the phone with a wired headphone jack to keep audiophiles happy.

Sony also says it uses technology inherited from its Bravia TVs for better looking colors on its 6.5-inch display. I’m quite surprised at its low resolution though; the Xperia 1 VII’s 1,080×2,340-pixel resolution gives it a pixel density of only 396 pixels per inch (ppi). That’s quite a bit below the iPhone 16 Pro’s 460ppi or the S25 Ultra’s 501ppi and for the Xperia’s price, I’d have expected more. Still, I’ll reserve judgment on the overall quality until I’m able to see it for myself.

Other features include a triple rear camera system, IP68 water resistance and a 5,000mAh battery. While Sony’s spec sheet simply states «USB PD fast charging,» it makes no reference to the actual speed it’ll charge. The company does say it’ll support the phone with six years of security updates, which is fair, although a year less than what Samsung or Google offer for their much cheaper handsets.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 2, #967

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 2 #967

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a fun one for fans of Agatha Christie, as the last name of one of her detectives shows up in the grid. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Time.

Green group hint: Need to get in.

Blue group hint: Characters in a certain genre of books.

Purple group hint: They grow in the forest, sometimes, but there’s a twist.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Duration.

Green group: Credentials for entry.

Blue group: Modern crime series protagonists.

Purple group: Trees plus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is duration. The four answers are interval, period, span and stretch.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is credentials for entry. The four answers are lanyard, pass, stamp and wristband.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is modern crime series protagonists. The four answers are Bosch, Cross, Reacher and Ryan.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is trees plus a letter. The four answers are fair (fir), Marple (maple), popular (poplar) and psalm (palm).

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

I Found the 9 Best Gifts for Someone Who Isn’t Gonna Watch the Super Bowl

Here are some great gifts for loved ones who see Super Bowl Sunday as just a regular Sunday.

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$750 (save $295)
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$800 (save $650)
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$850 (save $350)
Acer Nitro V Intel i5 13th Gen RTX 4050 512GB SSD 8GB RAM 15.6-inch Laptop:

$709 (save $41)

Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.

Super Bowl LX is this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET, and a lot of us are excited to watch the game, the halftime or both. But let’s face it, NFL games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. If you know someone whose birthday falls around now or want to show a non-football fan how much you appreciate them, we’ve got a list of gifts that’ll do the trick.

Technologies

NordVPN Software Blocked 92% of Phishing Emails in Independent Testing

Phishing attempts continue to grow with help from generative AI and its believable deepfakes and voice impersonations.

NordVPN’s anti-malware software Threat Protection Pro blocked 92% of phishing websites in an independent lab test of several antivirus products, browsers and VPNs in results released this week.

AV-Comparatives, based in Austria, attacked 15 products with 250 websites — all verified to be valid phishing URLs — in a test that ran Jan. 7 to 19. The lab said the products were tested in parallel and with active internet/cloud access. The Google Chrome browser was used for antivirus and VPN testing.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Phishing is a form of cyberattack in which a malicious actor tries to get someone to go «fishing,» with malicious URLs as bait. These phishing attempts might be sent in emails, but they also appear on websites, in texts and in voicemails.

You might get an email that says your bank account has been hacked and you should click on a URL to solve the problem. Or an email says you’ve won a big prize, instructing you to click on a URL to redeem. During tax season, the amount of scam emails and texts increases dramatically, with AI often used to ramp up the numbers. CNET offers tips for how to detect phishing attempts on even the most sophisticated of emails.

«By creating a sense of trust and urgency, cybercriminals hope to prevent you from thinking critically about their bait message so that they can gain access to your sensitive or personal information like your password, credit card numbers, user data, etc,» warns the US State Department website. «These cybercriminals may target specific individuals, known as spear phishing, or cast a wide net to attempt to catch as many victims as possible.»

In the AV-Comparatives test, which evaluated phishing-page detection and false-positive rates, NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro ranked fourth among security products, blocking 92% of the 250 phishing URLs tested. The highest scoring included:

Avast Free Antivirus 95%
Norton Antivirus Plus 95%
Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus 93%

On its website, NordVPN says Threat Protection Pro protects devices even when they are not connected to a VPN. The company says the software can thwart phishing attempts and prevent malware from infecting your computer in several ways — alerts about malicious websites; blocking cookies that can learn about your browsing habits; and stopping pop-ups and intrusive ads.

According to cybersecurity company Hoxhunt, the total volume of phishing attacks has skyrocketed by 4,151% since the advent of ChatGPT in 2022, with a cost to companies of $4.88 million per phishing breach.

With the rapid expansion of AI across the internet, the volume of phishing attacks is growing. Some AI-generated phishing scams are able to get past email filters, but Hoxhunt found that only 0.7% to 4.7% of phishing emails were written by AI. However, cybercriminals are using AI to expand their phishing tools. AI can create deepfake videos and voice-impersonation phone calls to redirect payments or gain access to sensitive data.

AI scams will be tough to root out. CNET reported that 62% of executives had been targets of phishing attempts, including voice- and text-based scams, with 37% reporting invoice or payment fraud, all from generative AI.

Although NordVPN’s product might be effective at preventing malware from infecting your computer, it can’t eliminate malware that may already be on it. To clean up those issues, CNET lists the best antivirus software of 2026 and the best free antivirus apps. Those products can scan your computer and hopefully eradicate any malware and viruses that might be there.