Technologies

Your Next Android Flagship Phone Will Get These 3 Updates in 2026

Are you due a new phone early next year? There’s plenty to be excited about.

With every passing year, our phones get smarter, more capable and more adept at handling anything we throw at them with speed and precision. Perhaps the biggest contributing factor in enabling this never-ending cycle of improvement is the fresh set of chips that we get on a yearly basis.

When it comes to the top Android phones, almost all of the major manufacturers, Google aside, use Snapdragon chips from Qualcomm. On Wednesday, at the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii, Qualcomm announced its latest flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

This is the processor that will power your next Android flagship phone — whether it’s from Samsung, Xiaomi, Honor or OnePlus, you can pretty much bet on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 being tucked away inside.

Every generation of chip brings crucial speed improvements to a phone’s performance, and Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the fastest mobile CPU in the world. But that’s not all. Qualcomm has tailored the chip to offer feature-specific improvements — three of which have caught my eye as being particularly exciting. Here’s what to expect.

AI, but personalized

Qualcomm has been at the forefront of making our phones powerful enough to run AI applications, but the latest chip specifically enables a much more personal AI experience.

Qualcomm’s Personal Scribe is an agentic AI assistant that can make recommendations and act on your behalf based on your routine and preferences. For example, the Scribe knows you could use more free time in your day, so it might suggest some non-essential meetings or tasks that you could push to make space.

Personal Scribe is a product of Qualcomm’s new Sensing Hub, which can learn about you and your behavior as you use your phone to enable agentic AI. The premise of agentic AI is that it will sit across your apps and services, deploying the knowledge and understanding it has about you to make recommendations and take action in ways that will benefit you.

One big benefit of Personal Scribe is that, as a Qualcomm chip feature, it can carry that knowledge to the very core of your device, allowing for a super personal experience of using AI.

Pro-level camera tools

If everything is content, everyone with a phone is, to some extent, a content creator these days. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is a creator’s dream, as it’s the first mobile platform to record in the Advanced Professional Video Codec. Not only does this mean your HDR video content will look astonishingly crisp, clear and smooth, but it also makes it easier to edit without compromising on any of that quality.

Every phone-maker has its own unique camera setup — a combination of hardware and software that it believes will make your photos and videos look their very best. But some improvements to photo quality have to come from the chip-level tech, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will open up new recording capabilities on any phone that includes it.

Better sound all around

It’s not just camera improvements that will improve your content. The 8 Elite Gen 5 also features Snapdragon Audio Sense, a new microphone technology with built-in wind noise rejection, audio zoom and HDR audio. It allows for the recording of 24-bit audio in any environment, which should, in theory, eliminate the need to use supplementary external mics.

On the listening side of things, Qualcomm’s XPAN technology will allow your phone to connect to your headphones via Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth for superior connection and audio quality. This untethers you from your phone, allowing you to listen to 24-bit, 96kHz lossless music while also being able to receive calls and messages and interact with AI assistant from anywhere you’re wearing your headphones.

Technologies

Apple to Build the Mac Mini in the United States for the First Time

Apple will begin manufacturing the wee desktop computer in Houston later this year.

Houston, we have some production. Apple announced Tuesday that it will be making its Mac Mini desktop computer in the US for the first time, shifting some manufacturing from its Asian plants, and will also increase AI server production at its existing Houston facility.

The California-based tech giant also said it will open the Advanced Manufacturing Center, a 20,000-square-foot facility where students, supplier employees and businesses will receive hands-on training in making Apple products, in the same city.

In its statement, Apple said the new Mac Mini production and increased AI server production will create thousands of jobs.

The Mac Mini will be manufactured at a 220,000-square-foot facility in North Houston. The other main building at that site is where Apple makes AI servers. The new Advanced Manufacturing Center will also be built at that location. The buildings are owned by Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturing giant that Apple initially partnered with in 2000 to produce the iMac.

Sabih Khan, Apple’s chief operating officer, said there will still be Mac Mini production in Asia after the Houston plant is up and running, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

By beginning Mac Mini production in the US, Apple is furthering its pledge to invest $600 billion in the US over four years. That promise, made last August, was in response to pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration to increase manufacturing in the US and to avoid Trump-imposed tariffs.

Apple also said it is sourcing more than 20 billion chips from 24 US factories, and that, by the end of 2026, every new iPhone and Apple Watch will have cover glass made at Corning’s facility in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

CEO Tim Cook said his company is «deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing,» with production of the Mac Mini marking one step toward that commitment.

The Mac Mini, which initially went on sale in 2005 — CNET was there from the beginning — is the cheapest of the Apple desktops ($599 at the Apple store). It’s known as a BYODKM, an acronym coined by the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs that stands for «Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, Mouse.» In other words, the Mac Mini — only 5 inches long and 5 inches wide — comes without those peripherals, making it cheaper for those who already have them.

«The Mini can fit in your hand and be everything from an everyday home office computer to a full-on professional content-creation machine,» CNET’s Joshua Goldman wrote in his review of the latest model in 2024.

Goldman also said the Mac Mini is a «perfect pairing» with Apple Intelligence, the company’s AI system that is integrated with iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates that the Mini accounts for less than 5% of its global Mac sales, according to the WSJ report.

Apple will also ramp up production of its AI servers. The company said manufacturing is ahead of schedule, months after beginning production in October. The servers are used in Apple data centers around the US.

Technologies

Waymo’s Autonomous Ride Service Expands to 4 New Cities

The company has doubled its operating area for robotaxi services over the past several months.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 25, #990

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 25 #990.

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 kind of tough. That purple category, once again, expects you to spot hidden words that are related to each other within four of the grid words. It’s fun once you see the answer, but tough to figure out on your own. 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: What a parent should do for a child.

Green group hint: «____ my dear Watson.»

Blue group hint: Some go by Jim.

Purple group hint: Look for hidden words.