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Finnish company HMD Global has launched a new HMD Fuse smartphone aimed specifically at children. According to the company, it is the world's first smartphone that prevents children from filming, broadcasting or viewing nude and sexually explicit content, even while streaming.
Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 Chip – AI Capabilities Boosted for Headphones and Smart Glasses
24. 09. 2026 Thursday / By: Robert Denes / Reviews / Exact time: BST / Print this page
Q ualcomm has introduced the new Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform, designed for next-generation headphones, smart glasses, and other wearable audio devices. This new offering combines enhanced AI computing power, high-quality audio reproduction, and innovative connectivity features.
According to Qualcomm, Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 is the company's first audio platform designed from the ground up to support AI assistants and agent-based user experiences. The goal is to enable features such as real-time translation, context-aware assistance, personalized listening, and multimodal capabilities that integrate audio, vision, and artificial intelligence. The platform delivers up to twice the AI performance of its predecessor, while energy consumption has been reduced by up to 40 percent and overall capacity requirements have dropped by up to 30 percent.
"Our research1 tells us that up to 70% of users want advanced AI capabilities in their wearable devices,” said Ziad Asghar, Senior Vice President and General Manager of XR, Wearables, and Personal AI, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. "As AI becomes a core capability, users will increasingly expect more natural ways to interact with it. Those interactions won't always happen through a screen. They will happen through natural conversations, where users can simply speak to an AI assistant and receive help in real time. With Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, we're heralding intelligent audio wearables that enable experiences such as real-time translation, contextual assistance, personalized hearing, and multimodal interactions that combine audio, vision, and AI."
Qualcomm states that the improved energy efficiency and compact size allow for the continuous use of AI features, even in small devices. Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 is designed for a wide range of products, including earbuds, headphones, open-ear headsets, camera-equipped headsets, smart glasses, and more.
Qualcomm notes that for devices equipped with cameras, the primary purpose is not necessarily photography, but rather understanding the environment. Beyond audio, this allows the AI to gain visual context from the user's surroundings. One notable innovation is the integrated, low-power Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. This enables wearable devices to connect directly to cloud services, bypassing the need to route all data transfers through a smartphone. Through the Snapdragon Sound Apps & Agents suite, devices can also utilize AI assistants, services, and online content.
In terms of audio quality, Qualcomm’s familiar Snapdragon Sound technologies remain a key feature. For instance, Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 supports aptX Lossless audio and XPAN technology, which allows wireless audio range to extend beyond the limits of standard Bluetooth connections.
Qualcomm has also updated its noise-cancellation capabilities. The new platform employs fifth-generation Qualcomm ANC technology, alongside cVc audio processing and support for multi-microphone setups. These features are designed to reduce background noise, capture speech, and distinguish the user's voice from the surrounding environment. As a new feature, Qualcomm has introduced the Snapdragon Audio Sense Solution; this combines new microphone types and algorithms, enabling devices to recognize both the user's speech and ambient sounds with greater accuracy than before.
Furthermore, Qualcomm plans to offer reference designs for the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform, allowing device manufacturers to accelerate the development of new headphones, smart glasses, and other AI-enabled wearables. At the Snapdragon Summit 2026, Cleer showcased a concept in which the Snapdragon Sound platform integrated audio, camera, and AI capabilities into a single wearable device. According to Qualcomm, this offers a glimpse into the future use cases for Snapdragon Sound platforms.
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