Technologies

How Galaxy AI Camera Tools Help You Take Better Photos Automatically on the S25

From photobomb fixes to better low-light shots, Galaxy AI1 helps you get polished, post-worthy photos without a heavy manual lift.

Summary:

The Samsung Galaxy S25 and S25 Ultra are packed with new AI-powered camera
features.
The Scene Optimizer feature will automatically adjust settings like exposure and contrast to optimise for different scenes and lighting conditions.
Editing tools like Object Eraser and Generative Edit
let users remove, move, or resize elements in photos
with just a tap.
Super HDR enhances dynamic range, delivering richer detail and truer color in both stills and previews.
AI-driven search
capabilities make it easier to find photos and get pro-quality results without navigating complex menus or learning new skills.

If you’ve ever missed a perfect photo
op because you were fussing with settings, you’re the kind of photographer Galaxy S25 is built for. In Samsung’s
latest flagship device, the brand embeds intelligent enhancements throughout the camera experience—from photo capture to editing and sorting.

What’s so compelling about these Galaxy AI* updates is that they don’t require you to watch hours of tutorials to master—they just work. The S25 marks a step forward for the way AI quietly works in the background to elevate your photography, without you needing to do anything special.

Here’s how Galaxy AI helps make great photos happen automatically.

Smarter settings in real time

One of the most low-key powerful features of the S25 is Scene Optimizer, which uses AI to identify what you’re shooting—landscapes, food, people, pets—and automatically fine-tune settings like exposure, contrast, and saturation to make it looks its best. Simply enable the feature in the camera app settings to turn it on indefinitely.

Thanks to AI, the S25 also produces more balanced photos in tricky lighting scenarios. For instance, in low light, Samsung’s Nightography feature reduces noise while preserving sharpness
and color. (Results may vary depending on lighting, subject, and shooting conditions.) In broad daylight, the device’s built-in Galaxy AI compensates for harsh contrast and reflective surfaces.

That means the S25 can adapt instantly to your environment, making quick decisions that improve image quality without slowing you down. Shooting your dinner in a dim restaurant? When you turn on Scene Optimizer in your settings, Galaxy S25 kicks in to enhance brightness without making it look like a flash went off. Snapping a mountain range in peak sun? The S25 will naturally balance the sky and landscape so neither gets washed out. No toggling between modes, no extra effort—just a well-adjusted shot, ready to send to your friends or post online.

Take a clean shot, every time, with Object Eraser and Generative Edit

We’ve all had great shots ruined by a stranger walking into the frame
—or a power line cutting across an otherwise pristine skyline. The Galaxy S25‘s Object Eraser handles those intrusions with ease.

Powered by advanced AI and Samsung’s ProVisual Engine, users can simply tap on an object they want removed, and the phone fills in the background. In seconds, the tool recreates patterns, textures, and lighting to make it look like the offending object was never there.

Generative Edit, the broader suite of AI tools included on the S25, also lets users move or resize elements in their photos—for instance, you can reposition a subject for better framing, or scale down a distracting element in the background. The AI fills in any gaps for a seamless final result.

Super HDR for richer detail in every pic

Dynamic range is one of the toughest things for smartphone cameras to get right. Bright skies and dark shadows often lead to blown-out highlights or murky details. Super HDR on the S25 addresses this common problem by capturing multiple exposures nearly simultaneously, and blending them with AI to preserve detail across the full tonal range.

Super HDR doesn’t apply solely to stills in the camera app; it also enhances preview and playback in the Gallery. It even extends to social media apps like Instagram, so what you share is more representative of what you actually shot.

Better and more intuitive search

The Galaxy S25 also makes it easier to find the photos you’ve already taken without spending half an hour in a conversation-interrupting endless scroll. Thanks to Galaxy AI-enhanced search in the Gallery app, you can now type natural queries like «dog playing fetch» or «spring break at the beach,» and the phone will parse both visual elements and metadata to surface exactly what you’re looking for.

AI that’s there when you need it—and invisible when you don’t

One of the best parts about Galaxy AI is that it doesn’t require a learning curve. Even if it’s your first-ever Samsung device, you can pick up the phone and just start using it. Most of the photography tools activate automatically or appear at the precise time you need them with minimal interruption.

You don’t need to fiddle with menus or sliders; the phone quietly does the heavy lifting. Behind the scenes, the device’s AI is making thousands of tiny decisions—tweaking exposure by fractions, choosing the right tone curves, sharpening only where it helps—in mere milliseconds.

Whether you’re taking, editing, or sharing a photo, Galaxy AI helps eliminate the friction between your vision and the final result. You don’t have to overthink it—the S25 helps you get a great shot, then gets out of the way.

It flips, it folds, it’s anything but expected: the Galaxy Foldable is coming.

*Samsung account login is required for certain AI features.

Technologies

AI Notification Summaries Come Back to iPhone News Apps, but With a Warning

Apple disabled these summaries for most of 2025.

Apple brought AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps back to Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones when the company released iOS 26 in September. Apple disabled these summaries in early 2025 after the BBC pointed out in December 2024 that the feature twisted the media organization’s notifications and displayed inaccurate information.

What’s different now about these summaries is that your device’s settings warn you that the summaries might be inaccurate. Your device will also note that you should verify the information in these summaries, and the best way I can think of to do this is to tap into the notification and read the story. This might defeat the purpose of the summaries for some people, but it could also ensure people read past a headline.

Here’s what to know about those AI summaries and the new warning.

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

iOS 26 warns about summary inaccuracies

When I updated to iOS 26, I was greeted by some splash screens asking for various permissions. One splash screen was for the AI notification summaries. When you see this screen, you have two options: Choose Notifications to Summarize or Not Now. If you tap Not Now, the splash screen goes away.

If you tap Choose Notifications to Summarize, you’re taken to a new page where you’ll see three categories: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Tapping one of these categories allows notification summaries for apps in that category. Beneath the News & Entertainment category, there’s a warning that gets outlined in red if you tap it.

«Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline,» the warning reads, adding, «Verify information.»

There’s also a warning across the bottom of the screen that reads, «This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.»

After tapping the categories you want, tap Summarize Selected Notifications across the bottom of your screen. If you selected all the categories, this button will read Summarize All Notifications.

And if you don’t want these summaries, you can tap Do Not Summarize Notifications. If you allow these summaries and don’t like them, you can easily turn them off. Here’s how.

How to turn off AI notification summaries

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap Summarize Notifications.

4. Tap the Summarize Notifications toggle in the new menu.

You can also follow the above steps to turn AI notification summaries back on. You’ll have to select which categories you want these summaries for again, too.

For more iOS news, here’s what to know about iOS 26.2 and what was included in iOS 26.1. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Jan. 7, #471

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Jan. 7, No. 471.

Looking for the most recent regular 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 and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a bit tricky. The blue category was a real stumper for me, though I found the purple group easy today for a change. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

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

Yellow group hint: On the ice.

Green group hint: Run and jump.

Blue group hint: Baseball bosses.

Purple group hint: Golden State schools.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: NHL teams with singular nicknames

Green group: A bit of track and field equipment.

Blue group: MLB managers.

Purple group: Mascots for University of California schools in the singular.

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

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

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

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is NHL teams with singular nicknames. The four answers are Avalanche, Kraken, Lightning and Mammoth.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is a bit of track and field equipment. The four answers are baton, hurdle, javelin and pole.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is MLB managers. The four answers are Cash, Counsell, Marmol and Vogt.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is mascots for University of California schools, in the singular. The four answers are Banana Slug, Bruin, Gaucho and Golden Bear.

Technologies

Yes, This Swimming RoboTurtle Is Adorable. It Also Has an Important Environmental Mission

Beatbot is best known for making pool-cleaning robots, but it was its swimming robot turtle that won our hearts at CES 2026.

Few things in life have made me feel more privileged and awestruck than the opportunity to swim with sea turtles in their natural environment. The way in which these gentle creatures navigate through their underwater world with their deliberate and careful fin strokes is utterly mesmerizing to watch.

It’s a distinctive style of movement — so much so that when I saw Beatbot’s RoboTurtle swim across a water tank on the show floor at CES 2026, I knew that this wasn’t simply just a pool cleaner robot with turtle features tacked on. This was a studied example of biomimicry in action.

The reason for this is that the company’s engineers went on a two-month expedition to study sea turtles in their natural environment, Beatbot’s Eduardo Campo told me as we watched Turtini (the team’s affectionate nickname for RoboTurtle) splash around in its pool. «We did a lot of motion capture, like the things they use in movies, because we need to develop those joints that it has,» he said.

This isn’t RoboTurtle’s first time at CES — it also appeared in 2025 as a static concept. This is the year, however, it’s found its fins, so to speak. Not only can it swim, but it can also respond to hand gestures: I throw it an OK gesture, and it dances in response. But as cute and limber as it is, RoboTurtle is a robot with an important mission.

RoboTurtle is an environmental research tool, built with input from researchers and NGOs, which can go where humans or other machines cannot for fear of disturbing complex and delicate underwater ecosystems, particularly coral reefs. It can move silently and naturally in a way that won’t scare wildlife, monitoring water quality and fish numbers with its built-in camera.

«One of the groups that we’re working with, they want to study the coral reefs in near Indonesia,» said Campo. «There was a very big incident over there with a boat that came up onto a coral reef and it disrupted the environment, [so] they want the least intrusive robot possible.»

The group wants to deploy RoboTurtle for certain periods every year to monitor the recovery of the coral and monitor the fish population, he added. Beatbot is currently training the built-in AI to give RoboTurtle monitoring and recognition skills.

At CES, I watched RoboTurtle paddle about only on the surface of the pool, but it can also dive down up to five meters. However, it needs to resurface to send data and its GPS signal back to base, much like a real turtle that needs to come to the surface to breathe. This also gives it a chance to recharge via the solar panel on its back.

Even though I was impressed with RoboTurtle’s swimming ability, Campo estimates that the Beatbot team is still a year and a half away from perfecting its technique, with the robot ready for full deployment in between three to five years.

CES 2026 is a show where tech with a real purpose feels scarce, so it sure is refreshing to see a company use its expertise to build something designed with a sustainable future in mind. It might be a while until we see RoboTurtle take to the seas, but I’m glad that I got to witness it at this stage of its journey.