When Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S23 Ultra, it claimed that it was a wonder in photography. To prove its capabilities, the company displayed moon photos, claiming that its powerful phone was able to capture such images with accurate details thanks to its advanced zoom feature. However, it seems that it was a marketing trick, and the credit goes to artificial intelligence.
What’s the story?
The Korean company marketed its previous phones and its latest phone, the S23 Ultra, as having the ability to zoom in on anything, even if it was the moon, thanks to the Space Zoom feature, which works to zoom in up to 100 times. Therefore, when you try to capture any element, even the moon, you will be able to capture the finest details with ease. According to Samsung, the Space Zoom feature can capture clear, accurate, and detailed images of the moon, even the craters on it can be seen through its smartphones that provide that feature.
The truth revealed
One Reddit user tried to confirm that Samsung's phone with Space Zoom technology was capable of capturing a fully clear image of the moon with all details shown in high quality. To do so, he downloaded a highly zoomed-in moon image on his computer and darkened it to hide the details. Then he tricked the phone and captured a photo of the moon from the computer instead of taking a photo of the real moon.
He found that the resulting image appeared in high quality, with all the details that were not present in the original unclear image, to prove that the moon photos were not real but generated through artificial intelligence, not as Samsung claimed.
Did Samsung deceive its users?
To be fair, Samsung did not claim that its camera can capture this level of fine details on the moon. However, it implied it, and through its website, the Korean company acknowledges that the Space Zoom feature is effective up to 330 feet, after which the details become unclear. And since the moon is about 240,000 miles away from Earth, I will leave the conclusion to you.
But this does not mean that the company is innocent. Many users felt that Samsung relies on a sophisticated algorithm for machine learning to analyze thousands of reference shots to improve details from the information captured by the sensor itself. However, instead of doing that, artificial intelligence directly links and sometimes replaces the subject with added images that did not originate from the camera sensor.
Not the only one
Samsung was not the only company to deceive its customers, nor will it be the last. The Chinese company Huawei did the same thing a few years ago when it announced its P30 Pro phone's ability to photograph the moon and show the terrain on it. But it turned out later that those images were fake, and Huawei was merging professional images with pictures taken by its phone camera.
Note: Samsung improves the moon image through artificial intelligence, while Huawei was completely replacing the moon image.
Finally, there is a very fine line between deceptive and false marketing. Over the past decades, companies have used words and their meanings misleadingly to draw the most beautiful pictures of their products and services and create a certain impression among users. Have you ever tried to order pizza after seeing its picture in an advertisement? When you receive it, you will know that there is a huge difference between the ad you saw and the product you received. This is exactly what Samsung did, maybe it did not lie, but it misled users.
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