With a limited launch in mainland China today, one glance at the new smartphones from Xiaomi leaves little doubt what the smartphone is all about. A third of the back of the smartphone is dominated by a dome covering a number of cameras with one of the biggest sensors we’ve seen in a smartphone so far – a 1-inch sensor covered with Leica glass.

A lot of people – men especially – will tell you that size doesn’t matter. In the case of imaging sensors, that just isn’t the case; the glass in front of lenses can only do so much and perfect glass doesn’t exist. Bigger sensors means higher resolution, yes, but it also means that the sensors have space for  bigger individual pixels. This helps both with the cooling of the sensor and could indicate much better low-light performance.

The entire 12S series of smartphones features different imaging systems jointly developed by Xiaomi and Leica. I know that in the process of making fun of Leica recently, I was making fun of Hasselblad for its smartphone integration, but in this case it actually somewhat makes sense. By using lenses designed by Leica (carrying the prestigious Leica Summicron brand, no less), the phone might actually be able to make the most of its sensors.

The range of cameras available on the various cameras include some pretty sophisticated lens designs rarely seen on smartphones; I can’t wait to get my hands on one and see if it works as well out in the real world as it looks on paper.

The company claims that its lens designs drastically improve the photo quality the camera can deliver in general. The alphabet soup in the press release makes it sound as if the smartphone has re-invented the wheel, and makes some pretty juicy promises:

Xiaomi 12S Ultra primary camera adopts an 8P aspheric lens, in order to address common photography issues such as flare, ghosting, and chromatic aberration, the camera module of Xiaomi 12S Ultra also adds anti-glare lens coating, lens edge ink coating, cyclic olefin copolymer material, and infrared light filter with spin coating technology. Together, these features offer a clearer overall picture that is consistent across the lens.

In addition to the advanced optical design, Xiaomi 12S Series “co-engineered with Leica” also utilizes Leica imaging profiles, inheriting Leica’s century-old image aesthetic and reproducing Leica’s tone and aesthetics with the aid of cutting-edge algorithms. For the end user, this means access to two photographic styles: The “Leica Authentic Look” and “Leica Vibrant Look”, both offering enhanced creative freedom to the photographer.

To those of us who’ve read a photography press release or two, the first paragraph above can be summarized as “We stuck tech in this camera that was pretty common on compact cameras in 2005 or so” and the second can be summarized as “… and we created some filters that have been around in Hipstamatic since 2009, but these look kinda like Leica cameras look. Ignoring, of course, that the ‘Leica look’ is heavily dependent on the films you put in the camera giant’s legendary cameras.

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Press release sleight of hand aside, the cameras themselves do look impressive, and sticking Sony’s IMX989 1-inch sensors in smartphones is a hell of a feat to pull off, both from an engineering point of view and as a commitment to photography from the smartphone maker.

I mean just look at that thing! Image credit: Xiaomi. 

To use a corollary: Have you ever heard of the A-10 fighter plane? Usually referred to as the Warthog, was essentially a ridiculously large machine gun firing depleted uranium rounds, and they built a plane around it to be able to blow up tanks. That’s the image this smartphone conjures for me; this isn’t the kind of optics you just slap into a phone at the last minute because the product folks thought it was a good idea.

The sensors, mated with high-quality glass, promise exceptional low-light photography capabilities. Pair that with some smart computational photography skills, and a 10-bit RAW format, and you’re starting to talk about some truly advanced camera tech indeed. These phones could very well be the final nail in the low-end compact camera category that’s been at death’s door for so long.

Wild, for the photography buffs, is that we’re here talking about an SLR-challenging 50.3 megapixels of resolution and a 23mm-equivalent wide-angle lens. This is, as far as I’m aware, the most advanced set of lens/sensor combos of any smartphone on the market. Of course, megapixels aren’t everything.

Sample image shot with the new flagship smartphone. It was taken with the 24mm f/1.9 built-tin lens at 1/1250 shutter speed and ISO 225. Image credit: Xiaomi. 

The rest of the smartphone looks decent on paper as well – 67W high-speed charging, a large 4,860 mAh battery and smart battery management should keep you running for a while. The phone is powered by the all-new Snapdragon® 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra is even equipped with a cooling pump that uses a capillary network to pump cooling liquid around and keep things from overheating and a 6.73” AMOLED color display.

The phones are currently only available in mainland China, with the Xiaomi 12S Ultra starting at around $900, the Xiaomi 12S Pro starting at around $700, and the Xiaomi 12S starting at $600. No word on if or when these will make it outside of the country’s borders.

Learning at work is broken. Across the U.S., hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year on employee training — and most of it is a waste.

A study conducted by the Harvard Business Review reported that 70% of employees claim they don’t have mastery of the skills needed to do their jobs; only 25% believe training measurably improves performance; and only 12% apply new skills learned in learning and development programs to their jobs.

But the fact remains: Employees need on-job learning to be successful at work. So what is the best way to improve the situation? The first step to fixing the problem is to understand why it exists in the first place.

Related: 4 Reasons for Low Training Participation (and How to Change it)

How we learn at work today

Today, when employees go through training, this often looks like long, exhaustive seminars, multiple videos or required readings. Many times, this content becomes outdated quickly and is not frequently updated.

But how we actually learn is closer to the concept of information foraging. According to this model, people will calculate the likelihood that a source will give them the answer they are looking for against the time cost it will take them to get the answer from that source.

So when your employees need to recall something that was presented to them in training, is it more likely that they will seek out the recording of that training session or video? Or is it more likely that they’ll go directly to someone who can answer their question quickly?

Employees quickly forget what they learn

One of the primary reasons that traditional training isn’t working is called “the Forgetting Curve.” In the late 19th century, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted experiments on memory. His findings illuminated how quickly the brain loses new information along with a visual representation of the way learning fades over time — the Forgetting Curve.

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Essentially, once we learn something, there is a steep dropoff in retention if we don’t reinforce what we have learned. Most of us can relate if we’ve ever sat through a long presentation or LMS course only to find that we remember little of it later that day.

We know from research that we need to reinforce learning regularly to keep from losing knowledge. But what does this reinforcement look like for an organization that is trying to arm its employees with knowledge that will help them to be successful in their jobs?

It’s different in every situation, but there are steps we can universally take to improve the learning experience at work. Most people prefer to learn by doing, and the best time to learn this information is when it is actually relevant and needed. Once we can connect learning with a real-world situation, it becomes easier to absorb.

Related: 3 Ways to Make Corporate Training Fun

5 steps to improve learning at work

The biggest takeaway from research on how we learn as adults is that information needs to be presented that is relevant when it is needed, and in digestible or “snackable” pieces. This is where “just-in-time learning” comes into play.

Just-in-time learning aims to deliver consumable pieces of information at the time your employee needs to use it — remember, adults prefer to learn by doing. And because we are all struggling with selective attention, we need to deliver that information in a way that is not overwhelming.

Let’s review five steps that can help make learning at work successful.

1. Make training relevant and timely. Your employees want to learn information that will actually help them. Focus on how the information will benefit them and be more successful in their jobs. Why is this worth their precious time? Rather than bombarding your new hires with hours of information that they are unlikely to remember, seek to deliver information when they will actually need it in small doses of microcontent. We have limited attention spans — the more digestible the information, the better.
2. Consider the value of your employees’ time. Take into account the hourly salary of your employees and the time they are in training today. If you calculate their hourly rate against the hours of training, how expensive are your classes if the employee is not getting value and retaining knowledge? And if your employees feel that the training is a waste of their time, that’s even worse. They are likely to be multitasking their way through the course. When you consider your training program, make sure the benefit is clear to your employees and that you are developing your training with specific and measurable goals in mind.
3. Involve your employees in the learning process. Are your employees actively involved in training, or are they passive attendees? Involving your employees in the training process is more effective for many reasons. For one, peers respect peers. Second, coworkers naturally communicate with one another more fluidly than with upper management or an instructor. And last and maybe most importantly, when your employees are involved in the process, they take ownership of the outcome.
4. Balance learning with physical needs. For your training to be successful, your employees need to be in a good place both mentally and physically. If you are hosting intensive in-person training, be sure you are providing plenty of brain breaks, time for walking or stretching, healthy snacks, and encourage everyone to stay hydrated.
5. Structure your learning program with a multifaceted approach. The need for your employees to reskill and upskill will continue to be important for the success of your team — especially as your organization strives to thrive through unpredictable tides of change. But when it comes to learning, there is not a silver bullet approach. The best method is to build a learning strategy that is versatile and broad to benefit the majority of your employees.

Learning at work today is broken, but it doesn’t have to be. With these five steps, your employees can be more engaged, prepared and set up for success.

Related: 3 Corporate Training Resolutions for 2022