Did Qualcomm just kill the ring light? Future Android phones could let you add a virtual, moveable light source to video calls

Picture nan scene: you jump connected an important activity call, fresh-faced and fresh to confidently present your trademark “nothing from me” line, only to observe that nan ray (or deficiency thereof) successful your work-from-home agency has near you looking little for illustration a superior businessperson and much for illustration a seedy Omegle personification from 2010. Don’t interest – we’ve each been there.

Thankfully, Qualcomm knows we’ve each been there, which is why nan American semiconductor elephantine has seen fresh to equip its newly announced Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chipset with an AI-powered, real-time lighting instrumentality that could banish unspeakable video telephone lighting to nan annals of net history.

AI Portrait Video Re-lighting lets you adhd a virtual, moveable ray root that maps to nan contours of your look to amended illuminate it successful heavy backlit environments. This lighting tin beryllium adjusted manually, aliases you tin fto your phone’s AI do nan activity for you, and nan full process takes spot on-device, pinch nary added latency. Wait a minute, did Qualcomm conscionable termination nan ringing light?

Qualcomm debuted nan caller instrumentality astatine Snapdragon Summit 2024, demonstrating its imaginable successful a nameless dummy phone, though we could conceivably spot AI Portrait Video Re-lighting characteristic (albeit pinch a different name) successful immoderate of nan best Android phones of 2025 – deliberation nan overmuch rumored Samsung Galaxy S25, OnePlus 13, Xiaomi 15 Ultra, and truthful on.

That’s because each of those upcoming flagship phones are expected to beryllium powered by nan Snapdragon 8 Elite, meaning their respective OEMs (original instrumentality manufacturers) will person nan action of implementing this caller AI exertion arsenic they spot fit.

Indeed, arsenic Qualcomm’s Senior Director of Product Management, Judd Heape, confirmed to TechRadar successful a roundtable question and reply astatine Snapdragon Summit (with reference to Limitless Segmentation, different Snapdragon 8 Elite-specific camera feature): “Limitless Segmentation is embedded into nan [Snapdragon 8 Elite] camera model – it’s shipping pinch nan baseline camera. So, it will beryllium up to OEMs arsenic to really they merge it [and different AI features] into nan main products.”

Limitless Segmentation segments an image into complete 250 layers, optimizing and enhancing each furniture (including faces, hair, clothing, objects, and backgrounds) successful nan process, truthful presumably Qualcomm’s AI Portrait Video Re-lighting exertion could beryllium applied to still portraits, too. Might we spot a “Portraits by Qualcomm” explanation added to images taken pinch nan best Samsung phones successful nan adjacent future? It’s surely a possibility.

In immoderate case, we’re gladsome to spot Qualcomm utilizing nan powerfulness of its Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset to create applicable generative AI devices for illustration this one. Sure, bespoke emoji creators are awesome – but they’re not going to thief you prevention look erstwhile your video telephone lighting conscionable ain’t it.

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