Technology
Portable monitors could make foldable-screen gadgets finally make sense
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Asus plans to release this foldable OLED monitor in 2024. Electronics retailer Abt Electronics captured footage of it on display at CES. [credit: Abt Electronics/YouTube ]
Foldable screens have been bending their way into consumer gadgets over the last few years. But with skepticism about durability, pricing, image quality, and the necessity of such devices, foldable screens aren't mainstream. With those concerns in mind, I haven't had much interest in owning a foldable-screen gadget, even after using a foldable laptop for a month. However, the foldable portable monitor that Asus is showing at CES in Las Vegas this week is an application of foldable OLED that makes more sense to me than others.
Asus' ZenScreen Fold OLED MQ17QH announced on Tuesday is a 17.3-inch portable monitor that can fold to a 12.5-inch size. The monitor has 2560×1920 pixels for a pixel density of 184.97 pixels per inch. Other specs include a 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage claim and VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification.
When I think of the ways I use portable monitors, foldability makes more sense than it does with other device types. For example, I love working outside when possible, and an extra 17.3-inch screen that's easy to carry would make long work sessions with an ultraportable laptop more feasible. The Fold OLED's 17.3 inches is near the larger size for a portable monitor, but the fold and comparatively light weight should make it feel more transportable than similarly sized monitors that don't fold in half.
A Volkswagen with ChatGPT told me a story about dinosaurs at CES 2024
Earlier this week, Volkswagen announced plans to augment its in-car voice assistant IDA with ChatGPT. I'll admit that I initially didn't quite understand the point, but I got a chance to hear about the vision for this integration from Cerence, the company that already powers the back-end of VW's voice assistant. As usual, it's a bit of a rough demo, because it's hard to exactly see how ChatGPT will help you out when you're on the road when you're instead sitting in a stationary car inside of a convention center.
But conceptually, the idea behind bringing ChatGPT into a car is all about avoiding a "dead end" when you as IDA something, Cerence told us. Drivers don't need to do anything different — you just say "Hello IDA" or press the voice assistant button on the driver's wheel and start talking. And if there's something that IDA doesn't know, it'll check with ChatGPT. When the voice assistant hits ChatGPT, you'll only know because the response says "According to ChatGPT" at the beginning of it.
I wasn't able to get a great sense yet of what things ChatGPT is good for. One of the demos we saw involved asking the car to tell us a story about dinosaurs, as a theoretical way to entertain kids in the back seat. ChatGPT quickly came back and started spinning a cute yarn — a good proof of concept but probably not something you'll need to do in the car a lot. I asked the car to tell me about Sphere, the massive new concert / entertainment venue in Las Vegas, and it started responding with details about it "opening soon." That's because the version of ChatGPT in the car didn't have the absolute latest details about it. I was expecting more of a Google-like experience, where I could ask things like "who won the Celtics game last night?" but that's not really what ChatGPT is for.
Given how capable the IDA voice assistant already seems to be, I'm not yet sure how much ChatGPT will add to the equation. But, the usual caveats apply — this was just a quick demo, not on the road, and it's not fully ready for release yet. But VW is not alone in seeing benefits for adding LLMs to its cars. BMW is working with Amazon to bring AI-powered vehicle info to its cars, and Mercedes-Benz started testing a ChatGPT integration last year. I wager we'll hear more about this from other manufacturers in the year ahead.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas from January 6-12. Keep up with all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/a-volkswagen-with-chatgpt-told-me-a-story-about-dinosaurs-at-ces-2024-185239472.html?src=rssTiny Tina’s Wonderlands and RE2 headline January’s PlayStation Plus monthly games
Sony shared its upcoming PlayStation Plus free games for January on Wednesday. Headlining this month’s batch are Capcom’s 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake and the Borderlands spinoff Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can claim the 14 new games on January 16.
The Resident Evil 2 remake (PS5 / PS4) is far from just a fresh coat of paint. Although the revamp retains the core gameplay elements from the 1998 original, it’s visually unrecognizable, now running on Capcom’s RE Engine. “It feels like a contemporary title,” Engadget’s Jessica Conditt wrote in a 2018 preview.
CapcomTiny Tina’s Wonderlands: Next-Level Edition (PS5, PS4) takes one of Borderlands’ most memorable NPCs and drops you into a genre-blending fantasy world conjured from her macabre and erratic imagination. Expanding on the ideas from the Borderlands 2 DLC Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, Gearbox’s spinoff (and Dungeons & Dragons parody) includes magic, guns and chaotic instant revisions to the game world. It also has star-studded voice work from Andy Samberg, Wanda Sykes and Will Arnett.
Other claimable titles this month include salvaging sci-fi physics sim Hardspace: Shipbreaker (PS5), Lego’s rare non-IP installment Lego City Undercover (PS4), 2015 action-adventure title Just Cause 3, tactical stealth game Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (PS4), narrative RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong (PS5 / PS4) and post-apocalyptic strategy title Surviving the Aftermath (PS4).
CapcomThis month’s redeemable classic (retro) titles include the Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection (PS4), which collects 12 classic games in the fighting series, including the original installment and the trendsetting Street Fighter II. Secret of Mana (PS4), Legend of Mana (PS4), Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace (PS5 / PS4) and Rally Cross (PS5 / PS4) will also be available for subscribers starting on on January 16.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tiny-tinas-wonderlands-and-re2-headline-januarys-playstation-plus-monthly-games-183050065.html?src=rssAmazon lays off 500 Twitch employees, hundreds more at MGM and Prime Video
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto)
Amazon today is laying off 500 employees at Twitch and several hundred more at its MGM and Prime Video divisions, the company announced. The 500 job cuts at Twitch reportedly amount to 35 percent of the game-focused live-streaming platform's staff.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced the cuts in a blog post and email to staff. "As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible. Unfortunately, we still have work to do to rightsize our company and I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch," Clancy wrote.
Twitch is reportedly still unprofitable nine years after Amazon acquired it. Meanwhile, Senior VP of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios Mike Hopkins sent a memo to staff announcing the elimination of "several hundred roles across the Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios organization."
After its impressive first flight, here’s what’s next for the Vulcan rocket
Enlarge / The business end of the Vulcan rocket performed flawlessly during its debut launch. (credit: United Launch Alliance)
Early Monday morning, the hefty Vulcan rocket streaked into orbit for the first time, nailing its performance targets and delivering a substantial success to United Launch Alliance on the vehicle's first test flight.
Unfortunately for the mission's primary customer, Astrobotic, there was subsequently an issue with the lunar lander's propulsion system. However, Astrobotic was quick to clear Vulcan of any blame, saying the payload was delivered into the planned lunar trajectory without issue. "There is no indication that the propulsion anomaly occurred as a result of the launch," Astrobotic said.
Vulcan's debut was much-anticipated in the US launch community because the rocket provides a potentially viable competitor to the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets flown by SpaceX. The US Space Force, in particular, has been waiting on Vulcan to fly dozens of payloads into orbit.
The Morning After: LG Display's next-gen OLEDs are 42 percent brighter than its predecessors
LG Display came to CES 2024 with something to prove. Its showroom in Las Vegas had transparent OLEDs, a 480Hz gaming monitor and the company's most advanced OLED panels yet, featuring its META technology 2.0. While it sounds like promotional fluff (and there is some of that), LG Display is trying to address arguably OLED’s biggest weakness in the face of ever-improving LEDs, MicroLEDs and the rest. Using advanced microlens arrays (now called MLA+) and new algorithms, LG Display says it’s made an OLED 42 percent brighter than the displays that came before it.
At CES 2024, I took a closer look at the prototype panels, headed to TVs later this year.
— Mat Smith
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Rabbit R1 is a very different AI-powered virtual assistant It’s co-designed by Teenage Engineering. RabbitA new startup called Rabbit seems to think our virtual assistants are less-than-ideal implementations of AI – and they’re not wrong. The dream of Rabbit is you leave your apps behind for conversation and, rather than a distracting device shoving icons in your face, you interact with what amounts to a walkie-talkie for an AI.
The stylish hardware (thanks, TE) is reminiscent of the Playdate handheld-with-a-crank, with an analog scroll wheel and a “360-degree rotational eye,” but the coolest feature — not that we’ve seen it working in real life yet — is its ability to use interfaces rather than APIs or apps. You can train it to use Photoshop to perform simple editing tasks and, apparently, even play Diablo for you. You can then make it repeat those tasks just whenever.
The Rabbit R1 costs $199 and is available for pre-order, with an expected ship date before the end of April.
OpenAI admits it’s impossible to train generative AI without copyrighted materials The company has also published a response to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times.OpenAI and its biggest backer, Microsoft, are facing several lawsuits accusing them of using other people’s copyrighted works without permission to train the former’s large language models (LLMs). OpenAI wrote in its evidence to the UK’s House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee that it would be “impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials.”
In some lawsuits, the plaintiffs accuse the companies of refusing to pay authors for their work while building a billion-dollar industry and enjoying enormous financial gain from copyrighted materials.
The ASUS Zenbook Duo is a stunning dual-screen laptop with seemingly no compromises It’s relatively affordable at $1,500. EngadgetThe ASUS Zenbook Duo features two screens and a detachable Bluetooth keyboard that can be stashed inside for traveling. This iteration stands out because the OLED panels are slightly larger than those on rival devices, at 14 inches, while also offering a 3K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate and stylus support. Plus, with a starting price of $1,500, it costs $500 less than the Yoga Book.
Clicks hands-on: An iPhone keyboard for 2024 Whimsy in three colors. EngadgetThe iPhone’s touchscreen killed the physical smartphone keyboard, so why not resurrect it with a case? Clicks’ design couldn’t be simpler. It’s a silicone case with a physical keyboard bolted on the bottom, coming to the iPhone 14 Pro, the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Read on for our first impressions.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-lg-displays-next-gen-oleds-are-42-percent-brighter-than-its-predecessors-181523507.html?src=rssAstronomers think they finally know origin of enormous “cosmic smoke rings“
Enlarge / Odd radio circles are large enough to contain galaxies in their centers and reach hundreds of thousands of light years across. (credit: Jayanne English / University of Manitoba)
The discovery of so-called "odd radio circles" several years ago had astronomers scrambling to find an explanation for these enormous regions of radio waves so far-reaching that they have galaxies at their centers. Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, think they have found the answer: outflowing galactic winds from exploding stars in so-called "starburst" galaxies. They described their findings in a new paper published in the journal Nature.
“These galaxies are really interesting,” said Alison Coil of the University of California, San Diego. “They occur when two big galaxies collide. The merger pushes all the gas into a very small region, which causes an intense burst of star formation. Massive stars burn out quickly, and when they die, they expel their gas as outflowing winds.”
As reported previously, the discovery arose from the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) project, which aims to take a census of radio sources in the sky. Several years ago, Ray Norris, an astronomer at Western Sydney University and CSIRO in Australia, predicted the EMU project would make unexpected discoveries. He dubbed them "WTFs." Anna Kapinska, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) was browsing through radio astronomy data collected by CSIRO's Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope when she noticed several strange shapes that didn't seem to resemble any known type of object. Following Norris' nomenclature, she labeled them as possible WTFs. One of those was a picture of a ghostly circle of radio emission, "hanging out in space like a cosmic smoke ring."
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