Given the sheer number of headlines about ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Galaxy AI, and other astronaut-adjacent terms in recent months, you’d be forgiven for thinking that artificial intelligence (AI) is the best thing since sliced bread. These headlines oscillate between slack-jawed wonder (see OpenAI) and brutal skepticism (see the Humane AI Pin), but it’s clear that a significant shift is underway in the smartphone landscape.
Honor is the latest mobile brand to embrace the AI revolution, unveiling its ambitious “four-layer AI architecture” at VivaTech 2024. What does this mean exactly? Without delving into the technical minutiae, the company behind the world’s thinnest foldable phone has outlined plans to compete with Samsung and Apple using a suite of “cutting-edge” generative AI features powered by Google Cloud.
While Honor is keeping the full extent of these features under wraps for now, the company has teased an innovative new AI-powered portrait shooting mode for its upcoming Honor 200 series smartphones, aiming to recreate the iconic style of Studio Harcourt.
If you’re unfamiliar with Studio Harcourt, it’s a 91-year-old French photography studio renowned for its black-and-white portraits of movie stars and celebrities. Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Edith Piaf, Salvador Dalí, Roger Federer, and Monica Bellucci are just some of the luminaries who have been photographed there since 1934. Now, through a new creative partnership, Honor plans to leverage Studio Harcourt’s photographic expertise in its upcoming mobile products, starting with the Honor 200 series in June.
The ‘Harcourt method’ of portrait photography is characterized by dark, smoky glamour and meticulously orchestrated shadows. Honor claims its AI-based software has “learned from a vast dataset” of Studio Harcourt portraits to replicate this process on a smartphone camera.
TechRadar had a brief glimpse of this supposedly “revolutionary” portrait mode during Honor’s VivaTech presentation. It looks poised to help the Honor 200 challenge for a spot on our list of the best camera phones. However, further details on Honor’s Studio Harcourt partnership remain under wraps until later this year.
Taking the fight to Samsung Regarding how Honor’s approach to AI differs from Samsung’s, Honor CEO George Zhao told TechRadar that his company’s four-layer AI architecture—comprising cross-device AI, platform-level AI, app-level AI, and Interface to Cloud-based AI—aims to deliver a more intent-based user experience than what Galaxy AI currently offers.
