Qualcomm’s new smartphone modem is skipping ahead.

The X105 5G modem-RF is the X85’s successor, which is 20 more X by my count. The modem comes with a familiar emphasis on enabling AI applications; it also “predicts RF conditions” with the help of sensing software to try and maintain a stronger connection.

It’s 15 percent smaller and 30 percent more power efficient compared to the last one. Shrinkflation strikes again, but in a good way, maybe?

The Clicks Communicator will come in more localized layouts.

The phone-away-from-phone that Clicks announced at CES will come in a handful of different keyboard layouts, the company says. In addition to the QWERTY version, it’ll be offered in AZERTY (French), QWERTZ (German), Korean, and Arabic.

Clicks has also extended the window for early reservations until March 15th, which brings the price down to $399 if you’re willing to put down some (or all) of that cost now. But as for a firm launch date this year? We’re still waiting on that.

Don’t mind if I do.

When I wasn’t looking at huge phones at CES I managed to track down a small one: the ikko MindOne Pro. It offers a 4-inch OLED panel and a 50-megapixel camera that flips up for selfies. The MindOne Pro will ship with Android 15 as well as a proprietary OS with AI apps that you can also use as a kind of focus mode. It’s in late stages of Kickstarter funding with shipping promised for February.

Well well well, if it isn’t another AI wearable.

This one’s a concept from Motorola called Maxwell. It includes a microphone and camera for multimodal input, and an integrated magnet means it can be worn as a pendant around your neck or as a pin on your shirt. The idea is that it’ll take meeting notes and hands-free photos, answer questions in natural language — all the usual stuff. Having picked it up, I can at least confirm that it’s much lighter than that other, ill-fated AI pin.

Even the robots are tired.

CES day 1 (or day 5, or day 200, depending on the calendar you observe) is coming to a close and we are all clearly feeling it. Case in point: I watched this robot walk out of the Central Hall and into the plaza where it threw a few punches and knocked itself out. Honestly? Big same. But we’ll be back at it again bright and early tomorrow. No word on the robot, though.

You’ll still be able to buy a new phone with a headphone jack in 2026.

Motorola is making sure of it with the latest edition of its Moto G Power. It goes on sale in the US on January 8th for $299 and comes with a 5,200mAh battery to justify its name. That, plus 8GB of RAM? In this economy?

Project Indigo now supports the iPhone 17’s selfie camera.

Fans of Adobe’s experimental camera app can finally use it with the front camera on the latest iPhones. Project Indigo was slow to support the iPhone Air and 17 series, at least partly due to problems with the new selfie camera those devices employ. Adobe finally rolled out support for those phones in late October with the selfie camera disabled. Now, selfies are back on the menu with an update that arrived yesterday.

Motorola is announcing 2026 Moto G series phones in 2025.

Taking a page out of the automakers’ playbook, the 2026 editions of the Moto G Play and Moto G will arrive before the start of the new year. The $169 G Play comes with 5G for the first time but a measly 64GB of storage; the $199 Moto G has a 50-megapixel camera and 128GB of storage.

Both also offer that rarest of smartphone features: a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Let’s check in with HP employee Imran Chaudhri.

Remember the Humane AI pin? And that serious-as-a-heart-attack TED talk about the future of computing? Well, Qualcomm featured Chaudhri in its Snapdragon Summit keynote today, where he’s talking less about lasers you wear on your shirt and more about the amazing battery life on the OmniBook 5 series. How it started, how it’s going, etc. etc.

Looks like we’re getting a foldable Galaxy Ultra.

Samsung is hinting strongly at an Ultra-branded foldable coming soon with this new press release referencing a foldable with a “powerful camera,” which is traditionally a weakness of folding phones. The attached image is also named “Galaxy Z Fold 7 Z Flip 7 Pre tease,” so there’s that too.

Between this Ultra model and a rumored FE version of the Z Flip, we might have a whole bunch of new folding phones on our hands later this summer.