Technologies

iPhone 14 Sets the Stage for 2023’s Biggest Phone Trend

Everyone’s jumping on the idea of texting through orbiting satellites, but is it just a fad?

The next time you find yourself needing to send a text while stuck in the middle of nowhere, you may be able to look to the sky, where low-Earth satellites can help send an SOS, no matter what device you have.

Last year, Apple became the first tech company to offer new satellite texting capabilities to its devices, introducing it with the iPhone 14 as a system to call for help in emergencies. The idea is easy enough: Point your phone at the sky, line it up with a satellite passing overhead and send a text to authorities. You can even send GPS data too.

Now, other companies are poised to jump on board, making satellite texting a new frontier for the phone world.

«I think 2023 is certainly shaping up to be the year of mobile satellite connectivity,» said Avi Greengart, an analyst at research firm Techsponential. «Everyone’s doing it. Everyone is doing it differently.»

Sadly, it’s not as easy as adding a satellite texting app and an extra satellite radio to the phone. Low Earth-orbiting satellite systems cost money to run and maintain, just like cellular internet and phone systems do. Apple has said it’ll give iPhone owners free access to emergency services for two years after they buy their device, but it hasn’t said what happens after. Other satellite texting systems haven’t launched yet and seem likely to charge users for the privilege.

There’s no debate about whether this technology can be useful. We’ve already heard stories of people’s lives being saved because of it. The question is whether people are willing to pay for it. And if not, will satellite texting be just another fad, like 3D TV?

Currently, satellite tech on our phones is only for emergencies and only in expensive smartphones like Apple’s iPhone 14, which starts at $799. That makes the technology a nice-to-have feature that the broader population of phone owners won’t have access to for some time. Those that do may never end up in a dire situation without signal when the feature would come in handy — a group that IDC research director Nabila Popal counts herself among. «I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have cell service,» Popal said.

Given satellite texting’s niche use, Popal doesn’t believe having it will sway consumers into buying one phone over another. It will certainly appeal to backcountry hikers, desert drag racers and remote truckers who plan to head beyond cell networks. But, for everyone else, it’s not an important enough feature to rush out to buy.

Instead, it’s more like one more feather in the cap of modern smartphones, which have already bundled together so many other technologies we used to have to carry separately in our bags, like cameras and handheld video games.

The current state of satellite texting

Satellite phones have been around for decades, showing up in films as far back as Steven Seagal’s 1992 classic military thriller Under Siege whenever someone needs to make calls from the middle of the ocean. A satellite phone also played a critical role in getting people off dinosaur-infested island in 2001’s Jurassic Park III.

«Where’s the phone? Get the phone!» yells veteran dino survivor Alan Grant as it nearly slides off a boat and into a river during a Spinosaurus attack. (Spoilers, he grabs it at the last minute and is able to signal for help.)

The real-life versions aren’t as exciting, but they can be just as helpful. They use networks of dozens of satellites orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes or so to relay phone signals to the ground. The first of these systems was Iridium, which launched its service in 1998 and a dozen other satellite networks have survived by offering connectivity to frequent travelers, but the prospect became popular recently after Elon Musk’s rocket startup SpaceX borrowed the idea to surround the globe with internet coverage through its Starlink program.

You can still get satellite phone coverage by purchasing a bulky, nearly $900 feature phone and paying a premium of at least $50 for 5 minutes of call time for service from companies that own a private network of satellites. But phone makers are building in the capability to use those orbital networks to send emergency texts because smartphone radios have gotten good enough to communicate with satellites directly, instead of relying on a separate — and often large — antenna.

Phone radios have «gotten so good now that you can build satellite connectivity into a phone without needing an external antenna,» said Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

Among mainstream smartphone makers, Apple was the first with its iPhone 14 line. The company partnered with GlobalStar, which has limited coverage of the US, Europe, Australia and limited parts of South America. Apple only activates this feature in a handful of countries in those continents, and it only works for emergency text messages made outside (it won’t reach deep within buildings), but the company pledged that new iPhone 14 owners get two years of service included when they buy the phone.

Earlier this month, Qualcomm revealed a new feature coming in Android phones that will let users send and receive text messages through satellites. It uses the Iridium network and Qualcomm says it will have global coverage, which is more than Apple’s services says.

The service, called Snapdragon Satellite, will only be for emergencies to start but will eventually be able to exchange messages socially and even use data, likely as part of a premium service. It’s not available yet and will come in phones launching in the second half of 2023 that use Qualcomm’s latest premium chips, though the company is leaving it up to phonemakers whether to have the service at all in their phones or if they should charge for the privilege. That leaves lots of unknowns.

And there are smaller players with their own niche devices, like Bullitt, which announced its Motorola-branded rugged phone powered by a MediaTek chipset at CES 2023 that will launch in the first quarter of 2023 for an undisclosed price tag. Bullitt promises two-way satellite texting through connectivity partner Skylo, which leases time on existing satellite constellations. Huawei actually launched its Mate 50 series of phones with satellite texting through China’s BeiDou satellite network a day ahead of Apple’s iPhone 14 debuted, though Huawei’s reach has diminished over the years.

More individual phones coming out with their own ideas of satellite texting will likely follow, and the big US carriers have all selected their own satellite partners to eventually offer mobile service beyond their networks’ edges, though none has a firm launch date yet.

Everyone’s in on the race because they can see the potential value of providing satellite safety nets as a service, analysts say. Apple could easily add it alongside its subscription services, like the $7 per month Apple TV Plus, $10 per month Apple Music Plus or $17 Apple One bundle. Carriers could use it to sweeten the deal for the priciest subscription plans, betting that the risk-averse among us are willing to pay extra for peace of mind. «It’s hard to overstate how important telling someone you’re out of gas in the middle of the Gobi Desert or Death Valley or the Adirondacks is,» Techsponential’s Greengart said.

Is it a bad thing to be the new phone trend?

Of course, the phone industry doesn’t have the best track record with new technologies. Analysts broadly consider the last couple years of transition to 5G wireless to have been a letdown, particularly because coverage has been spotty and speeds are sometimes as slow as the 4G LTE service we’ve had for years.

Satellite texting could be even more finicky than 5G was, particularly because it depends on the availability of satellites and the yet-untested strain of having many people relaying help requests through them.

Still, early signs seem promising. At CES 2023, Qualcomm took journalists outside Las Vegas to test its Snapdragon Satellite feature, and it worked. CNET phone editor Patrick Holland tested Apple’s Emergency SOS feature on his iPhone 14 and found that it worked — in fact, anyone can try it out without sending an emergency message thanks to a demo mode in the phone’s settings.

This seems like the next frontier — to use satellites to bolster mobile networks and keep people in contact. Even if most people will never have the misfortune to need it, the feature still acts as a safety net, helping the more adventurous phone users who wander beyond cell towers or disaster survivors after mobile networks fail.

Some iPhone 14 owners have reportedly been saved already thanks to the feature, including one man stranded when traveling by snow machine in Alaska above the Arctic Circle. In another case, a couple tumbled down into a deep canyon in a Los Angeles forest and used an iPhone to send for help. In less than 30 minutes, they were rescued. Without the iPhone’s satellite texting feature, emergency services wouldn’t have been contacted, and «nobody would have known to look for them,» Los Angeles County Sheriff Sgt. John Gilbert told The Los Angeles Times.

We’ve come a long way from needing to buy big, clunky satellite phones if we want to venture safely beyond the range of cell networks. Pretty soon, many smartphones will be able to call for help, whether you’ve taken a wrong turn in the wilderness or been attacked by dinosaurs on a remote island that you should have just stayed away from.

Technologies

OpenAI Says It’s Working With Actors to Crack Down on Celebrity Deepfakes in Sora

Bryan Cranston alerted SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, when he saw AI-generated videos of himself made with the AI video app.

OpenAI said Monday it would do more to stop users of its AI video generation app Sora from creating clips with the likenesses of actors and other celebrities after actor Bryan Cranston and the union representing film and TV actors raised concerns that deepfake videos were being made without the performers’ consent.

Actor Bryan Cranston, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and several talent agencies said they struck a deal with the ChatGPT maker over the use of celebrities’ likenesses in Sora. The joint statement highlights the intense conflict between AI companies and rights holders like celebrities’ estates, movie studios and talent agencies — and how generative AI tech continues to erode reality for all of us.

Sora, a new sister app to ChatGPT, lets users create and share AI-generated videos. It launched to much fanfare three weeks ago, with AI enthusiasts searching for invite codes. But Sora is unique among AI video generators and social media apps; it lets you use other people’s recorded likenesses to place them in nearly any AI video. It has been, at best, weird and funny, and at worst, a never-ending scroll of deepfakes that are nearly indistinguishable from reality.

Cranston noticed his likeness was being used by Sora users when the app launched, and the Breaking Bad actor alerted his union. The new agreement with the actors’ union and talent agencies reiterates that celebrities will have to opt in to having their likenesses available to be placed into AI-generated video. OpenAI said in the statement that it has «strengthened the guardrails around replication of voice and likeness» and «expressed regret for these unintentional generations.»

OpenAI does have guardrails in place to prevent the creation of videos of well-known people: It rejected my prompt asking for a video of Taylor Swift on stage, for example. But these guardrails aren’t perfect, as we’ve saw last week with a growing trend of people creating videos featuring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They ranged from weird deepfakes of the civil rights leader rapping and wrestling in the WWE to overtly racist content.

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The flood of «disrespectful depictions,» as OpenAI called them in a statement on Friday, is part of why the company paused the ability to create videos featuring King.

Statement from OpenAI and King Estate, Inc.
The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. (King, Inc.) and OpenAI have worked together to address how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s likeness is represented in Sora generations. Some users generated disrespectful depictions of Dr.…

— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) October 17, 2025

Bernice A. King, his daughter, last week publicly asked people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father. She was echoing comedian Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda, who called these sorts of AI videos «gross.»

I concur concerning my father.
Please stop. #RobinWilliams #MLK #AI https://t.co/SImVIP30iN

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) October 7, 2025

OpenAI said it «believes public figures and their families should ultimately have control over how their likeness is used» and that «authorized representatives» of public figures and their estates can request that their likeness not be included in Sora. In this case, King’s estate is the entity responsible for choosing how his likeness is used.

This isn’t the first time OpenAI has leaned on others to make those calls. Before Sora’s launch, the company reportedly told a number of Hollywood-adjacent talent agencies that they would have to opt out of having their intellectual property included in Sora. But that initial approach didn’t square with decades of copyright law — usually, companies need to license protected content before using it — and OpenAI reversed its stance a few days later. It’s one example of how AI companies and creators are clashing over copyright, including through high-profile lawsuits.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 21, #863

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Oct. 21, #863.

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 has a diverse mix of topics. Remember when you see a word like «does» that it could have multiple meanings. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now 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: Deal me in.

Green group hint: I can get that.

Blue group hint: Hoops.

Purple group hint: The clicker.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Playing cards.

Green group: Takes on.

Blue group: N.B.A. teams.

Purple group: Things you can control with remotes.

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 playing cards. The four answers are aces, jacks, kings and queens.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is takes on. The four answers are addresses, does, handles and tackles.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is N.B.A. teams. The four answers are Bucks, Bulls, Hornets and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is things you can control with remotes. The four answers are drones, garage doors, televisions and Wiis.

Technologies

Ninja Gaiden 4 Review: The Comeback Fans Have Been Waiting For

PlatinumGames and Team Ninja revive the franchise with pure adrenaline.

With 2025 coming to a close, so is the «Year of the Ninja» for video games. What kicked off in a big way with a surprise remaster of 2008’s Ninja Gaiden 2 Black and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, now ends with the release of Ninja Gaiden 4.

Developed in partnership with longtime series studio Team Ninja and action game specialists PlatinumGames, Ninja Gaiden 4 is the first new 3D entry in the franchise since 2012, following the retro 2D release of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound in July. As expected from a series known for its fast-paced slashing action, Ninja Gaiden 4 delivers plenty of stylish combat — but not much beyond that.

Ninja Gaiden 4 introduces a new protagonist, Yakumo, who replaces longtime series hero Ryu Hayabusa. It’s a similar move to what publisher Tecmo Koei did with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. As part of the Raven clan, a rival of Ryu’s Dragon clan, Yakumo doesn’t differ that much from the series’ previous main character. Don’t worry, Ryu fans: He does show up in the game.

Yakumo’s quest in Ninja Gaiden 4 is to defeat the Dark Dragon, an evil deity who has been the series’ primary villain. Standing in Yakumo’s way is the Divine Dragon Order, which defends the beast and controls the futuristic Tokyo setting of the game.

Does the story make a lot of sense? Not really, except to fans who already know the ins and outs of the Ninja Gaiden lore. Does that matter? Absolutely not, because all you need to know is where to go to slice up more enemies, which Yakumo is stellar at.

Go Ninja Go

To say Ninja Gaiden 4’s action is fast is almost an understatement, which is to be expected. The series was already focused on rapid combat that requires quick reactions, even prior to PlatinumGames’ involvement. The developer took on Ninja Gaiden 4 after revolutionizing the hack-and-slash action game genre with the Bayonetta series and games like Nier: Automata.

If you’ve played plenty of hack-and-slash games, Ninja Gaiden 4’s combat formula will be familiar. Yakumo has weak and heavy attacks, and chaining these together creates your standard combos. The more enemies he defeats, the more money and points he gets to unlock new moves and weapon skills. Some of the new moves extend Yakumo’s combos for longer sequences of attacks and against more enemies, while others are defensive, allowing him to unleash a powerful riposte after parrying an enemy attack.

Yakumo starts off his journey with his twin blades, but he finds more weapons throughout the game. A favorite of mine is the Magashuti staff that has a long reach to attack multiple enemies as Yakumo spins it around himself.

Where Yakumo differs greatly from Ryu is his Bloodraven form. Unleashed when attacking with the left trigger held down, it changes Yakumo’s weapon to do greater damage. The Magashuti, for example, will take the form of a giant hammer whenever Yakumo uses his Bloodraven form. Certain enemies and bosses have armor that can deflect or reduce the power of Yakumo’s attack, so you’ll need to switch to Bloodraven form to break that armor.

All of these mechanics make for unrivaled action. Players who spend enough time practicing will engage in beautiful dances of slashing weapons. The fact is, there are times when the action feels just a bit too fast, even for my veteran gaming reflexes. Trying to maneuver to certain areas or to talk with a non-playable character sometimes had me jumping off walls while hardly touching the controller. It almost takes more work to keep Yakumo still, especially after unlocking so many of his skills. There was also an instance when I did a finishing move to an enemy, and the animation pushed me out of bounds, causing me to have to reload to my last checkpoint.

Arguably, the biggest frustration for me was the lock-on button. It was not intuitive at all, as it had no rhyme or reason for what it was locking onto. Even when I was fighting just the boss, it still never fully locked onto it as every other action game does.

Also, what might be a bit of a downer for some Ninja Gaiden fans, this entry in the franchise is noticeably the easiest of the bunch. Thanks to healing items and equipable accessories, I died maybe once or twice per chapter. If a certain boss kills you too many times, the game will give you free items and even an NPC to help. For those who want more of a challenge, there’s a higher difficulty option available, but players with reasonable skill should be able to coast through the game otherwise.

A Feast for Ninja Eyes

Another mainstay of the Ninja Gaiden franchise is the beautiful visuals. As the game takes place in a futuristic Japan, the development team really leaned into the cyberpunk-like look of a city bathed in neon and glass.

This excels in the moments when Yakumo has to traverse in the most ninja ways, such as sliding on the train rails high above the city or gliding on rushing winds that blow through the mountain pass. These are the moments where you don’t have to worry about enemies attacking or creating the fanciest combos. You can just look around and take in these beautiful graphics.

Combine these visuals with an excellent soundtrack and solid voice acting, and you have a presentation worthy of being included in the Ninja Gaiden series.

Despite these quality elements, Ninja Gaiden 4 is a good reboot but not revolutionary. PlatinumGames resurrected the franchise 13 years after the last main entry, but didn’t take it in any different direction that would give this mass appeal to the gaming public. It’s an exciting 7 to 8 hours to beat, but I didn’t feel like jumping right back in.

Ninja Gaiden 4 will not be up for Game of the Year, or likely even considered one of the best games in the series, but that doesn’t matter. This is a game for anyone who just wants to feel like a badass ninja carving up enemies in the blink of an eye, because sometimes that’s all you want.

Ninja Gaiden 4 will be released on Oct. 21 for $70 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles. It will be available for Xbox Game Pass on day 1.