Month: February 2023
13 Best Foods for Kidney Health – CNET
These foods provide your kidneys with all of the nutrients they need to properly function.
These foods provide your kidneys with all of the nutrients they need to properly function.
Lenovo’s Rollable Laptop and Smartphone Are a Compelling, Unfinished Pitch For the Future
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Lenovo demoed a laptop and smartphone with rollable screens that “can gradually expand to offer more screen real-estate, rather than needing to be completely unfolded like books,” writes Jon Porter from The Verge. These are early proof of concept devices that don’t have any public release dates as of yet. From the report: Before we get into the concept laptop’s signature feature, it’s worth pointing out just how unassuming the device looks before its screen unrolls. Lenovo had the device sitting alongside its other laptops in a conference suite, and not a single one of the dozen-or-so journalists in attendance clocked that it was anything other than a standard ThinkPad. In its unextended form, it’s got a regular looking 12.7-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. That all changes with a flip of a small switch on the right of the chassis, at which point you can hear some motors whirring and the screen extends upwards. That switch causes a couple of motors in the laptop to spring into action, pulling the screen out from underneath the laptop’s keyboard to hoist it up more or less vertically in front of you. It’s an admittedly slow process on this concept device (from our footage it seems to take a little over ten seconds to fully extend) but eventually you’re left with an almost square 15.3-inch display with an 8:9 aspect ratio. The device brings to mind LG’s fancy (and eye-wateringly expensive) rollable TV that’s designed to roll away when you’re not using it. Only in Lenovo’s case the screen is rolling down into the laptop’s keyboard rather than a small box, and it also can’t roll away entirely. Once fully extended, Lenovo’s laptop screen has a small crease where its screen originally bent underneath the keyboard. But again — it’s a prototype.
Lenovo’s other rollable device it’s demoing at MWC is a Motorola smartphone. We’ve seen numerous companies including Samsung Display, Oppo, TCL, and even LG (RIP) show off rollable concept devices in various stages of development over the years, but we’re yet to see the technology break through in a consumer device. Like a foldable, the idea is that a rollable smartphone can be small when you need it to be portable, and big when you need more screen to get the job at hand done. Lenovo’s phone — which it’s calling the Motorola rollable smartphone concept — is all about taking a small square of a display and making it longer. It’s almost like a foldable flip phone, but without a secondary cover display because it’s the same screen the entire time. When all neatly rolled up, Lenovo’s Motorola rollable offers a 5-inch display with a 15:9 aspect ratio. Then, with a small double tap of a side button, the screen unfurls to give you a remarkably tall 6.5-inch display with a 22:9 aspect ratio. […] “In 2019, it seemed like foldable phones were about to become the next big thing in the world of smartphones,” writes Porter, in closing. “But four years later, it feels like we’re still waiting for this future to become a mainstream reality. Lenovo would be the first to admit that its rollable concept devices are far from ready for prime time, but they offer a compelling argument for an alternative, rollable future.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Lenovo demoed a laptop and smartphone with rollable screens that “can gradually expand to offer more screen real-estate, rather than needing to be completely unfolded like books,” writes Jon Porter from The Verge. These are early proof of concept devices that don’t have any public release dates as of yet. From the report: Before we get into the concept laptop’s signature feature, it’s worth pointing out just how unassuming the device looks before its screen unrolls. Lenovo had the device sitting alongside its other laptops in a conference suite, and not a single one of the dozen-or-so journalists in attendance clocked that it was anything other than a standard ThinkPad. In its unextended form, it’s got a regular looking 12.7-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. That all changes with a flip of a small switch on the right of the chassis, at which point you can hear some motors whirring and the screen extends upwards. That switch causes a couple of motors in the laptop to spring into action, pulling the screen out from underneath the laptop’s keyboard to hoist it up more or less vertically in front of you. It’s an admittedly slow process on this concept device (from our footage it seems to take a little over ten seconds to fully extend) but eventually you’re left with an almost square 15.3-inch display with an 8:9 aspect ratio. The device brings to mind LG’s fancy (and eye-wateringly expensive) rollable TV that’s designed to roll away when you’re not using it. Only in Lenovo’s case the screen is rolling down into the laptop’s keyboard rather than a small box, and it also can’t roll away entirely. Once fully extended, Lenovo’s laptop screen has a small crease where its screen originally bent underneath the keyboard. But again — it’s a prototype.
Lenovo’s other rollable device it’s demoing at MWC is a Motorola smartphone. We’ve seen numerous companies including Samsung Display, Oppo, TCL, and even LG (RIP) show off rollable concept devices in various stages of development over the years, but we’re yet to see the technology break through in a consumer device. Like a foldable, the idea is that a rollable smartphone can be small when you need it to be portable, and big when you need more screen to get the job at hand done. Lenovo’s phone — which it’s calling the Motorola rollable smartphone concept — is all about taking a small square of a display and making it longer. It’s almost like a foldable flip phone, but without a secondary cover display because it’s the same screen the entire time. When all neatly rolled up, Lenovo’s Motorola rollable offers a 5-inch display with a 15:9 aspect ratio. Then, with a small double tap of a side button, the screen unfurls to give you a remarkably tall 6.5-inch display with a 22:9 aspect ratio. […] “In 2019, it seemed like foldable phones were about to become the next big thing in the world of smartphones,” writes Porter, in closing. “But four years later, it feels like we’re still waiting for this future to become a mainstream reality. Lenovo would be the first to admit that its rollable concept devices are far from ready for prime time, but they offer a compelling argument for an alternative, rollable future.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Keke Palmer Is OK With Being Left Out of the Group Chat
The actor and new parent talks about her TV network, giving Black creators opportunities, and a group text her sisters and friend didn’t add her to.
The actor and new parent talks about her TV network, giving Black creators opportunities, and a group text her sisters and friend didn’t add her to.
“This Is What Your Worlds Are Lacking”: Artists Are Using AI To Create Fat, Black Sci-Fi And Fantasy Characters
“Fat, Black people deserve to be main characters capable of anything.”
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“Fat, Black people deserve to be main characters capable of anything.”
LastPass says employee’s home computer was hacked and corporate vault taken
Already smarting from a breach that stole customer vaults, LastPass has more bad news.
Enlarge (credit: Leon Neal | Getty Images)
Already smarting from a breach that put partially encrypted login data into a threat actor’s hands, LastPass on Monday said that the same attacker hacked an employee’s home computer and obtained an unencrypted vault available to only a handful of company developers.
Although an initial intrusion into LastPass ended on August 12, officials with the leading password manager said the threat actor “was actively engaged in a new series of reconnaissance, enumeration, and exfiltration activity” from August 12 to August 26. In the process, the unknown threat actor was able to steal valid credentials from a senior DevOps engineer and access the contents of a LastPass data vault. Among other things, the vault gave access to a shared cloud-storage environment that contained the encryption keys for customer vault backups stored in Amazon S3 buckets.
Another bombshell drops
“This was accomplished by targeting the DevOps engineer’s home computer and exploiting a vulnerable third-party media software package, which enabled remote code execution capability and allowed the threat actor to implant keylogger malware,” LastPass officials wrote. “The threat actor was able to capture the employee’s master password as it was entered, after the employee authenticated with MFA, and gain access to the DevOps engineer’s LastPass corporate vault.”
Meta Is Working On ‘AI Personas’ For Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp
In a Facebook post today, Mark Zuckerberg said the company plans to develop “AI personas” for Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. He also announced that the company is “creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI.” Engadget reports: It’s currently investigating helpers for multiple media formats. You could see advanced chat features in Messenger and WhatsApp, or unique Instagram filters and ads. Video and “multi-modal” content could also benefit, Zuckerberg says. In the near future, you’ll see an emphasis on tools for creation and expression. The social media giant is also pooling its generative AI teams into a single group to help “turbocharge” efforts in the emerging field, the executive adds. He doesn’t provide more details, and cautions that there’s a “lot of foundational work to do” before the most advanced projects come to fruition.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In a Facebook post today, Mark Zuckerberg said the company plans to develop “AI personas” for Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. He also announced that the company is “creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI.” Engadget reports: It’s currently investigating helpers for multiple media formats. You could see advanced chat features in Messenger and WhatsApp, or unique Instagram filters and ads. Video and “multi-modal” content could also benefit, Zuckerberg says. In the near future, you’ll see an emphasis on tools for creation and expression. The social media giant is also pooling its generative AI teams into a single group to help “turbocharge” efforts in the emerging field, the executive adds. He doesn’t provide more details, and cautions that there’s a “lot of foundational work to do” before the most advanced projects come to fruition.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Oppo explains why cheaper folding phones aren’t coming any time soon
We spoke to Oppo executives at MWC and they had a lot to say about the challenges of making a mid-range foldable
Sitting in on a Q&A session fronted by several members of Oppo’s senior product and strategy teams on day one of Mobile World Congress this year, we were treated to illuminating insight on the company’s current approach to the foldable market and why it feels the time isn’t right for such technology to trickle down to the mid-range space.
Although we’ve had the ability to fork over cash for foldables for about three years, the materials, engineering and hardware that go into such devices still render them notably more expensive than similarly-specced alternatives that don’t have to bend at the waist.
A week prior to MWC 2023, Oppo unleashed its first foldable clamshell on the world, the Oppo Find N2 Flip. Despite being a great value for a folding smartphone (at £849 in the UK), it still prices-out plenty of users that would otherwise welcome the convenience of a compact foldable in their pocket.
The Oppo Find N2 Flip (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)
When asked whether there was space for fold or flip style phones with a mid-range price point, Oppo’s Vice President for Overseas Sales and Service, Billy Zhang, had a lot to say in response.
Speaking via a translator, Zhang explained, “Now, when we talk about a product like [a mid-range foldable], we need to think about whether it can really deliver a good experience, because in order to try to hit the mid-range price band, if we sacrifice things like SoC [the chipset] or imaging, then that would not be good. Because, if we cut corners with the SoC, we will not be able to maximize the computing power of the imaging as well.”
Zhang continued, “As the shipments of foldable products increases, then definitely, there will be more room for costs-down – from a supply chain perspective, but this process will take time.”
You’d think that was all she wrote; Zhang confirmed that cutting corners to bring such a device to market would be detrimental to the user and until shipments increase, costs aren’t likely to come down.
If competitors want to do it, just let them do it.
Billy Zhang, Oppo
It was evident that Zhang wasn’t done; he was eager to expand on the potential and viability of mid-range foldables.
“I’d just like to share more comments regarding the cost-down of flip phones,” he continued. “Some initial ideas could be the removal of the cover screen, cutting corners with the SoC, cutting corners with the camera.
“But when we talk about the flip phone, if we remove the cover screen, that definitely is not a good experience, because the cover screen is important to bring you more convenience to check quick notifications and stuff like that. Or if you cut corners in the SoC, that will have an impact as well.”
“In about six month’s time or maybe a longer time, there might be these kind of flip phones available in the market, but they may cut corners – like using plastic in their frames or removing the cover screen – but definitely, that’s not a good experience for us; that’s not something we [Oppo] want to do. If competitors want to do it, just let them do it. User experience is our first consideration.”
Affordable foldables, but at what cost?
(Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)
Based on Zhang’s statements, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a foldable with a significantly lower price tag anytime soon.
Oppo wants to seem uncompromising in its approach to product development and its message is that the user experience comes first; an aspect of any device that’s guaranteed to suffer if you start hacking off fundamental interaction methods (like a cover display) or features.
Zhang did, however, leave the door open for other manufacturers to make the tough call on what needs to be cut in order to bring a familiar foldable experience to the mid-range market. The question then is, who’s first?
Check out our rundown of the best foldables and you can find out more about the Oppo Find N2 series while you’re at it.