TikTok - Page 6 of 10

Parkinson’s meds are hard to grab, so TikTok users crowdsourced a solution

Brian Alldridge’s pill bottle design.

Image: Brian Alldridge

Stitching together a pill bottle prototype

Jimmy Choi’s TikTok page is filled with the typical videos of a high-level athlete: clips of himself doing one-armed pushups, climbing ropes, holding planks with weights on his back. If you look closely, though, you’ll notice that even before he begins his feats of strength and endurance, his hands are shaking. Choi has Parkinson’s disease, a central nervous system disorder that causes tremors, and he often posts about what it’s like to live with the disease.

“People see the stuff that I post and they’re things that most average people can’t do,” Choi says. “I often show the other side of things, things that I struggle with on a daily basis.” He makes air quotes as he talks about the things “normal” people do easily — tying shoes, buttoning shirts, picking up pills — that he has trouble with.

One of his daily struggles comes in the shape of the pills he takes to manage his tremors. They’re very tiny, making them difficult to grasp with trembling hands. In late December, he posted a video showing his struggle to grab a pill from a container. That video set off a domino effect, inspiring designers, engineers, and hobbyists across TikTok to craft a better pill bottle for people with tremors or other motor disorders.

The video made its way to the For You page of Brian Alldridge, a videographer whose page had, until then, mostly consisted of Snapple facts. Though he had no prior product design experience, Choi’s problem struck him so much that he almost immediately set out to fix it. He started sketching designs for a 3D-printable bottle that would remove the need to dig for an individual pill.

One of Alldridge’s initial sketches for the bottle design.

Illustration by Brian Alldridge

Alldridge has graphic design experience, but he had never tried making a 3D-printable object before. So he started learning Fusion 360 3D modeling software, and a few days after seeing Choi’s video, Alldridge posted a TikTok with a design for a more accessible pill bottle. The design features a rotating base that isolates a single pill, which can then be dispensed through a chute to a small opening at the top.

Because he doesn’t have a 3D printer himself, Alldridge put out a call on TikTok seeking someone to try printing his design. That’s when things started to snowball in a way neither he nor Choi could have anticipated. Alldridge woke up the next day to find that his video had thousands of views, and an overwhelming number of people wanted to print the bottle. He says he panicked, thinking to himself, “Oh no, this is bad, what if it doesn’t work.” And it didn’t. The base didn’t turn, the pieces wouldn’t snap together.

But the 3D printmakers of TikTok had already latched on to the idea. One of them, Antony Sanderson, printed a copy and stayed up for hours sanding down the pieces to get the bottle to work. Once it was proven that the design had potential, others joined in to fine-tune it — fixing up the printing problems, adding a quarter turn, and making it spillproof. The design is now up to version 5.0, and while some people are continuing to make tweaks, it’s ready for use and distribution.

People sometimes get so swept up in the excitement of making a thing to help disabled people that they forget to actually consult with any. “As disabled people, we are used to frequently being designed for, not designed with,” says Poppy Greenfield, an accessibility consultant with Open Style Lab. But the team involved in the making of the bottle have been in contact with Choi throughout the process, sending him each prototype and asking for feedback.

Choi has been excited about the device from the very first version. He’s found that it not only cuts down the amount of time it takes him to grab a pill, but also significantly reduces the frustration and anxiety that usually come with it. Stress makes the symptoms of Parkinson’s worse, but with this bottle, “the anxiety level goes away,” he says. “The time it takes, and your risk of spilling these pills out on the floor in public, it’s almost zero.”

David Exler, a mechanical engineer, began sending bottles out to other people. He started a fundraising push through TikTok to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation: when someone orders a bottle on Etsy for $5, he sends that money to the foundation. So far, he’s reached his initial goal of 50 bottles, and he plans to continue donating as he prints and sends more. He just bought a second 3D printer to keep up with demand, and he’s been using part of his stimulus check to fund printing and shipping.

Printed bottle parts ready to be assembled.

Photo by Antony Sanderson

While Exler, Sanderson, and others continue printing the bottles, Alldridge is working on patenting his original design and pursuing mass production. He plans to release the 3D-printable version into the public domain and let nonprofits manufacture their own. Version 5.0, which is Exler’s derivation of Alldridge’s design, will remain available to anyone who wants to print it. “His creation of that patent doesn’t stop me or others from taking this model, making changes, sending it out to people who need it,” says Exler.

Alldridge is dismayed at people who have reached out to him with the intention to make money from the design. “The thing that really surprised me and continues to surprise me,” he says, “is the audacity of people to try and take something that’s been so community-driven and should be made so freely available, to outright show up and be like, ‘Hey we can make a lot of money on this.’” For everyone involved in the project, the point is to get bottles into the hands of people whose lives would be improved by it, at as little cost as possible.

Low costs are important for disabled people, who often encounter a “CripTax” on useful products and services that are prohibitively expensive and not covered by insurance. A collaborative process like this one, where anyone with a 3D printer can print and send the bottle to whoever needs it, “has the potential to minimise CripTax and put us on a level playing field,” says Greenfield.

Both Greenfield and Choi think the pill bottle project is a prime example of the good that can come out of social media. When it comes to community-driven projects for disabled people, “it can be hard to attract the attention of non-disabled designers,” says Greenfield. “I think TikTok does this in an enticing way, creating awareness and encouraging more community involvement through visually seeing the issue.”

Choi thinks the way videos spread on TikTok is something that’s particularly useful for disabled people whose struggles are typically overlooked. “We don’t have to wait for the knight on a horse to come save us, we can be our own advocates and we can make a difference on our own,” he says. In this case, his self-advocacy led to an idea that was crowdsourced into fruition in only a few days. That speed is exciting for Choi, who is used to hearing about Parkinson’s research and product development that take months or years to complete.

There’s a story Choi likes to tell about a marathon he ran a few years ago. He stopped at a water station to take his Parkinson’s medication. His tremors caused him to drop the pills on the ground. “People are stepping on these pills,” he says, “and I’m sitting there staring at five or six crushed pills on the floor and I’m thinking to myself, ‘do I want to lick them off the floor?’” He still had miles to go in the marathon, and he seriously considered crouching down to lick the stomped pills. “If I had a device like this back then, that wouldn’t have been a problem.”

Netflix surpasses 200 million subscribers, but has more competition than ever in 2021

Netflix has surpassed another major milestone: 203.6 million subscribers around the world.

The achievement comes after Netflix saw spectacular growth in the first half of 2020. But as it celebrates passing the 200 million subscriber mark, Netflix is also acknowledging that 2021 likely won’t see as many net subscriber gains every quarter, starting in the first quarter of 2021.

Netflix added a total of 8.5 million paid net subscribers in Q4, bringing in a record breaking 37 million paid memberships in 2020. Netflix “achieved $25 billion in annual revenue,” according to the earnings report. Still, Netflix is warning that “we expect paid net adds of 6 million” in Q1 2021 compared to last year’s “15.8 million, which included the impact from the initial COVID-19 lockdowns.” Most importantly, however, Netflix executives are telling shareholders that “we no longer have a need to raise external financing for our day-to-day operations.” Or, more simply put, Netflix no longer needs to borrow substantial amounts of cash.

Coming off a less than stellar third quarter in terms of subscriber gains (2.2 million added compared to the 6 million expected), the current uptick in growth is a sign of what Netflix can achieve with a string of must-watch content. In the fourth quarter, new shows like The Queen’s Gambit and Emily in Paris found a sizable fan base right away. Plus, strong returns for popular shows like The Crown helped make Netflix a destination streamer, even amid competition from Disney Plus (The Mandalorian’s second season premiered at the end of October) and HBO Max.

More than 62 million households watched The Queen’s Gambit within the first four weeks of its release, making it the second most watched limited series on Netflix. The only show that beat it was Tiger King. Toward the end of the quarter, Netflix also saw another big hit with Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton, which Netflix projected would amass more than 63 million household views within its first four weeks. If true, that would make Bridgerton Netflix’s fifth most-watched series to date. The Crown’s fourth season also remained one of the most-watched shows for weeks. George Clooney’s The Midnight Sky is also estimated to reach we 72 million households.

Now, as Netflix moves into 2021, the company is trying to let subscribers know that it has plenty more to come. Just a month after Netflix announced price increases in the United States to its most popular plan, the company also declared it would release at least one movie a week — or about one every five days. That doesn’t account for new shows, either.

Despite the up-and-up seen in this most recent quarter, there is some hesitancy about the upcoming year. One reason is the pulldown effect. Those who didn’t have Netflix, particularly in the United States, signed up. Co-CEO Reed Hastings warned at the time that subscriber gains wouldn’t be as strong because so many people signed up at once — something the company saw happen in its third quarter.

HBO Max and Peacock still hadn’t launched, Disney Plus didn’t have too much original content, and sports were shut down — Netflix became one of the only things to do. That’s changed. WandaVision just launched on Disney Plus, and it will roll right into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Hawkeye. WarnerMedia is releasing its big theatrical titles simultaneously on HBO Max the same day movies hit theaters, possibly drawing attention away. Then there’s TikTok and YouTube and Fortnite and, hopefully sometime soon, the real world to rejoin.

“Our strategy is simple: if we can continue to improve Netflix every day to better delight our members, we can be their first choice for streaming entertainment,” Netflix’s letter to shareholders reads.

Netflix has a pipeline of big movies and TV shows coming up — including The Witcher’s return, Umbrella Academy, and Shadow and Bone — but it’s getting harder for those titles to stick out simply because they’re on Netflix. People who want Netflix most likely already have Netflix, and the very nature of streaming allows people to cancel one service and jump to another one whenever they want because of easy monthly plans.

By October 2020, 25 percent of general streaming subscribers canceled a service to sign up for another one, according to a recent study conducted by Deloitte. It was 17 percent in May, just before HBO Max and Peacock launched. Deloitte also found that 62 percent of people who signed up to watch a specific show canceled once they finished. On Netflix, when that show is dropped at once and people can marathon it, it’s easier to cancel than on Disney Plus, where episodes are released weekly.

Netflix is entering a new year with more high-power competition than ever before and even more uncertainties about what the pandemic will bring. Netflix will likely continue to sit atop the streaming throne, but it’s not going to ever be as easy as it was before.

Instagram lead says he’s not happy with Reels yet and might ‘consolidate’ video formats

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, isn’t thrilled with the platform’s TikTok competitor Reels. He discussed the format, which launched in the US in August, during an interview with The Verge’s Decoder podcast today.

“I’m not yet happy with it,” he says. “We’re growing both in terms of how much people are sharing and how much people are consuming, but we have a long way to go. And we have to be honest that TikTok is ahead.”

He went on to say the team is mostly focused on “table stakes” right now, and not honed in on how to differentiate itself. Specifically, he calls out TikTok’s innovative creative tools, like filters and effects that spur new video meme formats as something Instagram isn’t making on its own yet but needs to eventually do.

“I think we have to get better at building more powerful and creative tools that aren’t necessarily a meme or a sort of moment in a package, but give people who are more creative than us and make content for a living the ability to make something that’s going to pop,” he says.

Instagram is also seeing a conflict between its many different video formats. Mosseri says “most people” likely don’t know the difference between videos posted to Instagram and IGTV, the app’s format for longer videos that’s existed since 2018.

“That’s probably too nuanced a distinction to resonate with anybody, so we’re looking about how we can — not just with IGTV, but across all of Instagram — simplify and consolidate ideas, because last year we placed a lot of new bets,” he says. “I think this year we have to go back to our focus on simplicity and craft.”

This is a wildly different tone than when Instagram launched the format and called it the “future of video.” But it speaks to the rapid success of TikTok which, in 2018, wasn’t fully known in mainstream culture but is now a driver of conversation, memes, and viral dances. Mosseri hints that IGTV and Reels, as well as general videos posted to the Instagram grid, need some sort of consolidation and clarity, which makes sense, especially when the app is trying to do everything all at once.

2020 Game is a surprisingly fun side scroller about an awful year

I get it, there’s absolutely no part of you that wants to relive the terrible year we just lived through. But I implore you to make an exception for 2020 Game, a free web-based side scroller that offers a lighthearted take on last year’s events. It’s well-designed, creative, and — dare I say it — even laugh-out-loud funny in places, and well worth the 10 minutes or so it takes to complete.

2020 Game is the work of Max Garkavyy, who developed it alone over the course of six months. Each level takes the form of a major event or trend from last year, ranging from the early rush on toilet paper to the US presidential race. There’s even a brief TikTok dance interlude.

The whole experience is complimented by some fantastic pixel-art graphics and great musical choices. Check out some more screenshots below, or better yet, give it a go yourself.

Technology and Corona: the biggest failures of 2020

Technology has had to save us for almost a year. A pandemic is sweeping the world, there have been dire forest fires, troubled political times and the airy miasm of social media wafts through our lives. 2020 has shown more clearly than ever how technical innovations can help us, but also hurt us at the same time.

The COVID – 19 -Call vaccines. At this point, however, it should not be about such successes – but rather a review of the last year’s worst technology flops. Also on the balance sheet: Billions in digital business plans that crash landed, COVID tests that went wrong and the unpredictable consequences for a planet wrapped in cheap satellites.

Incorrect COVID tests The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is not a new technique. In fact, the method to detect the presence of certain genes in a sample had already been developed 1980 and its developer received the Nobel Prize a decade later. It is used in a large number of diagnostic tests, as well as in laboratory research. So it can be seen as a mess of historical proportions that at the beginning of the COVID – 19 – pandemic those laboratories of the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which specialize in PCR testing, have sent kits to states that contained the wrong ingredients called primers. They didn’t work.

And so it started: The CDC failed to stop the pathogen in the first wave. The country where the PCR technique was invented failed to adequately carry out corona tests for weeks. According to economists, extensive and frequent testing would have offered the fastest and cheapest way to keep the country running economically. Even now, less than a year later, queues and delays are still test normal in the U.S., even though private labs, universities, and health centers can perform an estimated two million tests a day.

Unregulated face recognition Imagine a surveillance video from a robbery in a shop. The robber looks into the camera and bang, the police identify the suspect using facial recognition. Now imagine a city – like Portland, Oregon – that decides: The police are no longer allowed to do that. The ability to recognize and match faces is one of the outstanding triumphs of a new generation of artificial intelligence. The technology is used everywhere. Even in places where it may seem excessive and illegal, such as schools or social housing facilities. 2020 Then the consequence: Many cities, states and companies introduced a series of bans and restrictions.

One reason this technology has accelerated so much is that we have cameras everywhere – and we all give out our selfies. “We unleashed the monster by feeding it millions of faces and we also tagged ourselves,” says Joseph Atick, who built an early face recognition system using special cameras and a custom image database. There are now hundreds of face recognition apps that process images online. The use of these systems is, according to Atick, “no longer a technical problem”.

Last summer, both Microsoft and Amazon denied the police access to their face-matching systems, at least temporarily. Cities like Portland have enforced sweeping bans that have also prevented hotels and businesses from identifying people. There is still no national framework in the USA that differentiates between permitted and prohibited use. Instead of a vicious circle of abuse on the one hand and prohibitions on the other, legal provisions are required. Quibis faster collapse “Quick bites. Great stories.” That was the motto of Quibi, a Hollywood-powered streaming service that launched in April. He should revolutionize the entertainment industry with 10 – minute shows for cell phone screens. But the story ended in Quibi’s rapid decline. Six months after its debut, the company was already firing employees and giving the remainder of its 1.4 billion euro budget back to investors.

The misfire was reminiscent of the infamous project of important American news websites in the year 2018 when they hired tons of reporters to produce super-short text-on-screen videos because they wanted to place this advertisement before – just before it was next round of savings came. Similarly, Quibi worked with well-paid professionals to deliver clever content on a $ 5 subscription model to keep up with YouTube, TikTok, and hordes of creatives providing free cat movies and dance moves.

Egypt: Women acquitted after convicting Tiktok videos

A court in Egypt acquitted two women who had been convicted of videos on the Tiktok social network in connection with the country’s moral laws. Mauada al-Adham and Hanin Hussam were each given two years in prison and a fine of around 16 in July. 000 Euro was convicted of “violation of family values”. An appeals court overturned the judgment, as the state news website Al-Ahram reported on Tuesday evening. Three other defendants in the same case were also acquitted.

Dancing and singing The arrest and conviction of the two young women, who have millions of fans on social networks, caused a stir. The videos show the women dancing and singing or having fun with friends. In June, a belly dancer was sentenced to three years in prison and fined for allegedly posting offensive photos and videos of herself on social media. The dancer had denied the allegations and stated that her cell phone had been stolen and that the pictures had been published without her consent.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had 2018 Let a new law on Internet crime come into force. This gave the government, which justified its actions with the fight against terrorism, even more leeway in the possible censorship of websites and content on the Internet. In Egypt 2020 more than 500 websites were blocked. Under the law, content that violates “family values and values upheld by Egyptian society” can be punished with a prison sentence of at least six months and a fine of at least 2600 euros .

(mho)

Briefly informed: inventory data information, CES, Corona-Warn-App, TikTok

Opposition warns of new attack on digital civil rights Representatives of all opposition factions have sharply criticized the bill with which the grand coalition wants to adapt the provisions on the provision of inventory data to the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court. The FDP network expert Manuel Höferlin fears that this threatens the “next crack in the foundation of digital civil rights”. Left MP Niema Movassat described it as highly problematic that network operators would have to report suspicious content and related data to the BKA. The anti-hate law was supposed to be “the reaction to the attack in Halle,” said the Green Konstantin von Notz. However, the coalition “screwed up” it by installing the requirements for inventory data information.

Together against “massive attacks” such as SolarWinds Microsoft President Brad Smith has called on the tech industry to work together to secure critical infrastructures against cyber attacks. The recent Solar Winds attacks against Microsoft and numerous other companies are “an indiscriminate, massive attack on the global supply chain that we must protect together,” said Smith in his recorded keynote at the digital CES. The Microsoft President wants a global agreement that outlaws attacks on certain infrastructure such as the healthcare system.

Our weekday news podcast delivers the most important news of the day compressed into 2 minutes. Anyone who uses voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant can also hear or see the news there. Simply activate the skill on Alexa or say to the Google Assistant: “Play heise top”.

Google fixes errors in the Exposure Notification Framework Google has eliminated the error in the technical interface of the Corona warning app for Android smartphones. The error had led to a number of users not having received the current result of the risk assessment since Tuesday evening. However, the problem did not result in the loss of data or information about potential threats, emphasizes Google.

TikTok adjusts privacy settings for young people to The social network TikTok, which is particularly popular with young people, is making changes to the privacy settings. The profiles of all users between 13 and 15 Years are now set to “private” by default. Thus the content is not shared publicly. In addition, videos of this age group cannot be commented on unless they have activated the comment function for their own friends list. The changes are intended to bring young people closer to the benefits of privacy settings, explains TikTok.

(igr)

TikTok adjusts privacy settings for teenagers

The TikTok social network, which is particularly popular with younger people, is making changes to privacy settings. The profiles of all users between 13 and 15 years are now set to “private” by default, which means the content is not shared publicly. The changes are intended to bring young users closer to the benefits of privacy settings, TikTok explains in a press release.

In addition, videos from 13 – to 15 – Do not comment on year olds unless they have activated the comment function for their own friends list . The TikTok functions “Duet” and “Stitch” allow you to interact with the content of other users. From now on, this is only possible if the corresponding content was created by users from 16 years. For all users between the ages of 16 to 17 years TikTok configures Duet and Stitch by default so that they can only work with the Content from friends can interact.

TikTok makes further adjustments to the download function. Videos from users under 15 can no longer be downloaded via the app. The function is deactivated by default for everyone between the ages of 16 to 17, but can be reactivated via the privacy settings . TikTok puts the “Propose your account to others” option, which is used to increase your own audience, between 13 and 15 years. The function can be reactivated.

Small-scale settings When asked by the dpa, why the settings are not uniform for all young people under 17, explains TikTok: “The needs and skills of young people change and develop the older they get. Our attitudes reflect this development”. In order to register for the social network, users have to enter their age using a mask. However, the specified age is not verified. TikTok declares to delete accounts if it turns out that the users are under 13 years old.

Insufficient data protection for children and Young people at TikTok had led to criticism of the platform in the past. Youth advocates criticized the fact that the profiles and content of children and adolescents could by default be viewed and commented on across platforms. This exposes young users to potentially harassing and abusive comments and encourages cyber grooming.

(ndi)

Mobile phone users will spend 125 billion euros on apps in 2020

During the coronavirus pandemic, people not only spend more time at home but also on their smartphones. They download more new apps than ever before and spend more money on them. This comes from statistics from the market analysis company App Annie.

According to this, users last year 218 Billions of new mobile apps downloaded, seven percent more than 2019. Mobile phone users in the app stores from Apple, Google and the Android derivatives in China have a total of 143 billion US Dollars (about 125 million euros after the annual mean exchange rate), an increase of 20 percent. The average mobile phone time around the world is 4 hours by the same percentage and 10 Minutes increased daily.

Mobile phone usage in Europe below average Users in Europe spend less time on Cell phone than the global average. In Germany, for example, it was only a little over two and a half hours a day. But that’s ten minutes more than 2019.

According to the Statistics last year 2.2 billion new apps downloaded and in the app stores of Apple and Google 3, 12 billion dollars (2, 45 billion euros) spent. In Austria it was 400 millions of new apps and 230 million dollars (202 Million Euros). Although Switzerland has fewer inhabitants, users there 610 downloaded millions of new apps and 240 million dollars (210 million euros) spent. German users were on average significantly more generous than Austrians for new apps, and much more generous than Swiss.

Mobile phone usage is not only increasing among younger users in Germany. Generation Z at the age of 16 to 24 recorded a year-on-year increase of 11 Percent increased usage time, the greatest increase. Generation X 45 also spent seven percent more time on the smartphone than in the previous year. Millenials aged 25 to 44 years have only increased their cell phone usage time by three percent.

Social networks, video streaming and delivery services Mobile phone users spend a lot of their time on social networks. TikTok is the big winner. The video portal with its short amateur clips was 2019 behind WhatsApp and Facebook in terms of usage times in Germany. 2020 TikTok was able to reduce its usage times to an average of 19 more than double hours per month. That is significantly more than WhatsApp (less than 11 hours per month) or Facebook (eleven and a half hours per month).

Video streaming on smartphones stopped last year at 40 percent increased. However, the use of YouTube has decreased in Germany, from almost 13 hours to around 12, 5 hours a month. It looks similar with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Users who are more at home can use larger screens such as TV, PC or laptop more often. Apps like the game streaming service Twitch and the Joyn Mediathek from ProSiebenSat.1 were able to grow last year.

Delivery services for food or recipe information were further winners for the most popular mobile apps in times of the pandemic. The usage times of delivery services in Germany have increased by more than half over the last year. According to the market researchers from App Annie, the coronavirus pandemic and the exit restrictions have led to cell phone use rising as much within one year as it did in three years.

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What to expect at CES 2021

The Consumer Electronics Show officially begins this week. Thankfully, the Consumer Electronics Association capitulated in July and switched the whole thing over to being online-only. But it’s hard to know what CES is even supposed to be without giant convention halls filled with ostentatious displays, blinking lights, and hordes of exhausted and smelly people in off-the-rack suits. Whatever happens, you will be able to find all our coverage right here.

The chief executive of the CEA Gary Shapiro told the Wall Street Journal that his organization did its best to try to translate some of the experience online. I can tell you that many on our staff here at The Verge are absolutely dreading being made to click through 3D software models of booths like we’re playing the worst Myst remake ever.

But my guess is that it’ll be a lot smoother than that and really the thing we’ll miss the most is that it will be harder to serendipitously stumble upon some strange or clever new gadget at a tiny booth in the back reaches of the Sands convention center.

The CEA has smartly limited official keynote presentations to 30 minutes a pop. That should mean we’ll get to the announcements more quickly and have to spend a little less time hearing vague hand-waving about innovation. We’ll be covering those live (though without liveblogs), so stay tuned starting today and through the first half of the week.

The main CES keynote will come from Verizon (so expect 5G talk), but the usual suspects like Sony, Samsung, LG and others will have their own presentations. One consequence of moving the entire show online is that companies seem to be stretching out their announcements to fill the suddenly larger virtual space. So although CES’s official start is this week, many of the biggest announcements have already happened. This year’s TV announcements are essentially half-finished thanks to Samsung and Sony going so early.

This year, there will be a few trends to watch for. In TVs, 8K will continue to be everywhere but the real showdown is going to be between more traditional OLED TVs and Mini LED. But the real thing to watch for is HDMI 2.1, the new iteration of the spec that has the necessary bandwidth for more advanced gaming features. It ought to be everywhere this year. Oh, and LG has already shown off its weird concepts this year — transparent TVs are cool.

LG’s bendy TV for 2020

There will be plenty of 5G talk, but since this isn’t a phone show much of it will amount to more promises. Verizon is doing the keynote, however, so perhaps it will have something to say about improving its lackluster 5G network, which can often be slower than LTE. (Verizon’s 4G LTE network remains great, at least.)

Laptops and PCs will likely show up with their usual mix: a few weird concepts and a lot of decent spec bumps. I’m going to keep an eye out for two things: whether AMD can pick up more models from Intel and whether Intel can get a critical mass of “Evo” laptops with decent battery life. Because like it or not, the stunningly good Arm-based MacBooks are going to loom like a shadow over the whole proceeding. Perhaps a few companies will take a shot at making a better Arm-based Windows laptop, too.

As for smart home stuff, there’ll be the usual mix of oddities like smart toilets and improvements to the basics like fridges, ovens, and smart lights. I do wonder if there will be a small lull this year as we await the new CHIP industry standard that should reduce fragmentation in how these things communicate with each other.

Image: JBL

One thing we’ll definitely keep an eye out for is health gadgets — and that eye will be extremely skeptical. CES is always the place where quackery and technology team up, but this year my worry is that more than a few overzealous companies will try to make COVID-specific pitches for their gadgets.

Last and perhaps least: phones. CES is rarely a phone show, and this year the fact that Samsung will be announcing its flagship Galaxy S21 just afterwards will tamp those announcements down further. I suspect we’ll see a lot of low and mid-range phones that bring down the cost of access to 5G, but I doubt anybody will try to front-run Samsung.

There may be surprises, too! You never know. We’ll be covering it all from the safety of our homes, so stay tuned. I’ll send out more newsletters than usual this week to try to keep up. And speaking of keeping up, below are the CES and CES-adjacent announcements that have already happened.

TVs

┏ Samsung’s 2021 TVs have dramatically better picture, thanks to Mini LED. Samsung’s big bet on Mini LED continues, including more dimming zones. Not having the chance to see Samsung’s TVs in person is one of my bigger regrets this year, because it is doing so much to try to innovate with LED tech instead of just going to OLED like everybody else.

But to me, the best thing Samsung did was tout a whole new set of accessibility features. In particular I like that its TVs will give users the option of enlarging the ASL bubble that appears on the lower-right of the screen. But it’s doing much more than that.

┏ Samsung made a solar-charging Eco Remote for its latest TVs. Samsung also made a lot of noise over the environment and here I was less sympathetic. If one were to do a study of the extra carbon cost of building this remote with its solar panel and integrated battery versus just letting users replace a couple of AA cells every so often, I wonder which would come out ahead.

┏ LG imagines a bed with a hidden see-thru OLED TV set. I dunno LG, a semi-transparent TV is cool enough on its own that adding a motorized gimmick and suggesting it go at the foot of a bed is just gilding the pixel lily.

The screen achieves 40 percent transparency, LG Display says, which is an improvement over past transparent LCDs the company claims achieved only 10 percent transparency. … LG imagines the screen sitting at the foot of a bed, where it can rise up partially or in full to show information or videos while retaining a view of the other side of the screen.

┏ Watch this flexible LG gaming TV bend from flat to curved. Okay I dig this.

┏ Sony’s 2021 TV lineup runs Google TV and fully embraces HDMI 2.1. Sony’s TV lineup is a little less flashy but a lot more functional this year. It’s switching over to Google TV from Android TV, for one thing. And I love this bit about the legs:

Sony has also focused on small touches, like adjustable legs that can be configured to allow enough space for a soundbar in front of the TV without obstructing the picture. Going down the lineup, you lose certain niceties (like an antireflective coating exclusive to the 8K set), but all of the TVs support Dolby Vision HDR.

┏ Roku says Roku TV was best-selling smart TV OS in North America for 2020.

Other very good big screens

┏ Acer’s latest gaming monitors include its first with HDMI 2.1. At some point, I am going to need to figure out a way to play PS5 games without using the main television for hours on end — there’s other people who want to watch TV. This looks like a great, overkill solution for that which could also serve as a really solid gaming monitor. Not cheap, though, and as Cameron Faulkner points out it is getting awfully close to “just buy an actual TV instead” territory.

In terms of specs, the standout product is the new Nitro XV28, a 28-inch 4K monitor with an IPS display and a 144Hz refresh rate with FreeSync Premium. It’s Acer’s first gaming monitor to use HDMI 2.1 ports, giving it the spec (assuming you’re using an HDMI 2.1-compliant cable) to support up to 4K gaming at 120 frames per second with variable refresh rate (VRR). … So, not only is this a solid option for PC gamers hoping to squeeze the most out of their Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, it’s an option about which PS5 and Xbox Series X owners can be equally excited.

┏ Mercedes-Benz unveils its absolutely massive 56-inch ‘Hyperscreen’ display. CES is nothing if not a show about screens, and I am sad that I won’t have a chance to go behold this screen (which is technically three screens) in person.

┏ Sony is going to start selling its Mandalorian-like virtual set displays. I’ll take two.

Audio

┏ These are Sony’s first 360-degree audio speakers. These speakers look really interesting! I do wonder how they sound, of course. I also wonder just how much content is really going to support 360-degree audio.

┏ Sony’s 360-degree audio is coming to streaming video.

┏ JBL’s new stereo amplifier pairs retro looks with modern connectivity. Click through and look at this thing. It’s very pretty!

The JBL SA750 is a new stereo amplifier pairing modern streaming technologies like Airplay 2 and Google Chromecast with a design that wouldn’t look out of place in a hi-fi rack from the ‘60s or ‘70s. It’s got a set of reassuringly chunky-looking dials and switches as physical controls, an understated display, and its sides are covered with wood veneers. The amplifier, whose release coincides with JBL’s 75th anniversary, will cost $3,000 when it goes on sale beginning this May.

┏ JBL’s Bar 5.0 Multibeam is an all-in-one soundbar with Virtual Dolby Atmos.

┏ The JLab JBuds Frames are open-ear headphones you clip to your glasses.

PCs

┏ LG’s 2021 Gram laptops feature Intel’s 11th-Gen processors. There are “Evo” laptops, Intel’s badge for devices that meet certain benchmarks for battery life and included features. As Monica Chin notes, LG might have exceeded those benchmarks in at least one category:

LG claims you could see up to 19.5 hours from the Gram 17, Gram 16, and 16 2-in-1. That’s a claim I’d usually be skeptical of, but I will say the 2020 Gram 17 had some of the longest battery life I saw from a laptop last year. It lasted around 10 hours of my daily workload (which is fairly intense). So LG knows what it’s doing when it comes to efficiency, and there’s reason for optimism.

┏ Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 hands-on: promisingly boring. Last year Samsung and Google did their level best to steal the CES show with a very red, very pretty Chromebook that ended up being very disappointing. This year Samsung is retrenching — this laptop is not a successor at all. As Monica Chin calls it, it’s a “regular-ass Chromebook.” Nothing wrong with that as long as it’s executed well. We’ll see.

┏ Lenovo’s new IdeaPad 5 Pro includes AMD Ryzen mobile processors. Lenovo is joining the 16:10 aspect ratio club, which is the hottest laptop screen club even though it’s not quite as fancy as the 3:2 aspect ratio club.

┏ Lenovo’s new Yoga all-in-one has a rotating display for better TikTok videos and Twitter scrolling. Sure, the monitor rotates and that’s rare in AIOs, but I am jealous of the feature that lets you plug in your laptop and make the two computers a little more symbiotic.

Of particular note is how Lenovo is taking advantage of USB-C with the Yoga AIO 7. Plug in your laptop with a USB-C cable, and you’ll be able to use the Yoga AIO 7’s hardware — including the display, speakers, mouse and keyboard, power supply, and even the integrated hard drive — directly with your laptop.

┏ Lenovo chases dream of making a PC Nintendo Switch with the LaVie Mini concept. Another concept that is unlikely to actually end up on store shelves, as Mitchell Clark notes:

Most, like Alienware’s UFO concept from last year, don’t ever end up making it to market, as these prototypes are often less about making viable consumer products and more about experimenting with new ideas and form factors and getting the requisite press attention during CES. Some do go on sale but don’t end up appealing to enough gamers to really make an impact, like Razer’s Edge or the initial Nvidia Shield handheld.

Gadgets and gizmos

┏ LG’s newest cordless vac automatically empties itself. I don’t know if LG will actually sell this or not — the company loves doing weird concept stuff at CES. I do know that I very much hate emptying out my vacuum so having a stand that does it for me is very appealing. Probably not appealing enough to actually buy the thing, but appealing enough for me to pay attention. That, after all, is the point of weird concept stuff.

┏ Intel launches RealSense ID, facial recognition tech that uses the company’s depth-sensing cameras. As Ian Carlos Campbell, Intel has been trying to make RealSense a Real Thing that gets included in devices for a long time now.

Intel’s RealSense tech has been knocking around for several years, popping up in odd, tech demo use cases like inserting your face into Fallout 4, and more useful ones like unlocking a laptop with Windows Hello. Intel suggests this new application of RealSense could be used in a variety of settings, like ATMs, registers, and smart locks. What the company doesn’t mention is the other popular use of facial recognition: governments and law enforcement agencies tracking and profiling people.

┏ I hope to someday sit in Kohler’s new voice-activated smart bath. If your bathtub doesn’t have color-changing lights and a literal fog machine built in, well, Kohler has the solution for those pressing problems.

┏ The 2021 Moto G Stylus, Power, and Play focus on big batteries, bigger screens, and low prices. Of all of these, the one I’m most interested in is the Power. At these price points, it seems unlikely that these phones could compete with flagships in any way. That’s true except in one case: the Power might have battery life that’s hard for any phone to beat.

┏ Kensington’s SD5700T Thunderbolt 4 dock has all the ports you could need. Monica Chin:

Thunderbolt 4 is here, and so is the first fully powered Thunderbolt 4 docking station. Kensington’s SD5700T includes a whopping 11 ports, 90W of power delivery, and transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps. It provides either one 8K output at 30 Hz or two 4K outputs at 60 Hz. … Make no mistake: This is a fancy dock. It’s listed for $289.99 on Kensington’s site.

TikTok is hosting an encore performance of the Ratatouille musical

The Ratatouille TikTok musical will return for an encore performance Sunday night on the platform where it all started. TikTok is hosting another showing of the streaming musical that debuted online New Year’s Day, which has already raised more than $1 million for The Actors Fund.

The musical came together on TikTok over the past few months, with composers, fans, set designers, costumers, and choreographers creating musical numbers for the fictional “show” which is built around the 2007 Disney/Pixar animated film. Then in December Seaview Productions announced it was producing the show in association with TikTok. Disney/Pixar gave its blessing, and the show attracted big Broadway names to perform the crowdsourced songs.

Wayne Brady plays Django, Andrew Barth Feldman plays Linguini, Ashley Park nearly steals the show as Colette, Andre de Shields plays Anton Ego, Adam Lambert is Emile, and Tituss Burgess stars as Remy, the rat with a taste for fine cuisine. The 20-piece Broadway Sinfonietta orchestra provided the score.

The show drew mostly strong reviews from theater critics; the New York Times called it a “silly, multilayered delight” and the Los Angeles Times said it showed what the future of musical theater could look like.

The encore will stream live on TikTok at 8PM ET, and viewers can donate to The Actors Fund via an in-app donation sticker, TikTok says.

TikTok uses iPhone lidar for better AR filters

The video app TikTok has introduced the first augmented reality filter that uses the lidar sensor of the iPhone 12 Pro. Using Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), the camera system can detect distances by laser and thus reproduce the immediate surroundings three-dimensionally – this allows superimposed virtual objects to react to physical objects.

Bridge between the virtual and the physical world The lidar technology in the iPhone enables effects that interact with the environment instead of just overlaying it, as TikTok explains. The sensor makes it possible to “build a visual bridge between the digital and the physical world”. In a video provided by the service, a virtual glitter bomb empties its contents, which land both in real time on a person’s outstretched arms and on the couch. According to TikTok, this is just the beginning, further AR effects of this kind are to follow Depth interface of Apple’s augmented reality framework ARKit 4, making it available to a wide range of users. Other social media platforms are now also experimenting with it: Snapchat integrated the option into its Lens Studio last fall in order to enable artists and developers to use the technology for their own “lenses” or filters.

Lidar so far only in a few model series Currently Apple only uses lidar sensors in iPhone 12 Pro, Pro Max and the iPad Pro 2020. According to rumors, however, the group plans to equip all model series of the iPhone 12 with lidar, which would make the technology available to an even larger audience from autumn. Lidar also supports the camera’s autofocus in the iPhone and, as an operating aid, allows you to determine the distance to people in the vicinity.

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Lenovo’s new Yoga all-in-one has a rotating display for better TikTok videos and Twitter scrolling

Lenovo has a new Yoga computer out, but it’s not a laptop — it’s the new Yoga AIO 7 desktop. But while it may look like a standard all-in-one desktop, like its more portable cousins, the Yoga AIO 7 does have a display trick up its sleeve: the entire screen can rotate around, transforming the 27-inch landscape monitor into a vertical form factor.

Of course, the ability to rotate a display isn’t a wholly new idea. Standalone desktop monitors have offered the feature for years, making it easier for users to display content that’s better suited to a taller panel like Twitter feeds, long documents, or TikTok videos. But it’s far rarer to see the concept on an all-in-one computer.

The Yoga AIO 7 in its standard mode.

Image: Lenovo

The idea is reminiscent of Samsung’s Sero TV from last year, a similarly rotating product that scaled up the idea to a full-sized 43-inch television in response to the popularity of vertical video formats from apps like Instagram and TikTok (which, in turn is directly due to the ubiquity of smartphones with video cameras). Lenovo seems aware of the potential for a vertical TV, promising a future software update that will effectively let the AIO 7 double as a full-fledged 4K smart TV.

As for the specs, the Yoga AIO 7 offers a choice between two 27-inch 4K panels (one regular and one that meets Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 color standards); a choice between AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800H and Ryzen 5 4500H CPUs; Nvidia’s integrated RTX 2060 GPU; either 16GB or 32GB of RAM; and a mix of PCIe and HDD storage options (topping out at a 1TB SSD and a 2TB hard drive, respectively).

Of particular note is how Lenovo is taking advantage of USB-C with the Yoga AIO 7. Plug in your laptop with a USB-C cable, and you’ll be able to use the Yoga AIO 7’s hardware — including the display, speakers, mouse and keyboard, power supply, and even the integrated hard drive — directly with your laptop.

The Yoga AIO 7 is already available in China (where its called the Yoga 27), but it’ll be out in “select markets” in February starting at $1,599.

TikTok debuts first augmented reality filter that uses iPhone 12 Pro’s LIDAR camera

TikTok has released its first augmented reality filter that can utilize the iPhone 12 Pro’s LIDAR sensor for an enhanced confetti effect that realistically settles on people or objects in your room.

The effect itself is just a somewhat belated 2021 ball drop (which feels like it would have been a lot more useful a few days ago.) But the ball drop filter is just the start, with TikTok promising to “develop more innovative effects in 2021.” And the fact that one of the most popular video platforms in the world is jumping onboard with support for one of the marquee features on Apple’s more pricey and premium smartphones is certainly notable.

To ring in 2021 we released our first AR effect on the new iPhone 12 Pro, using LiDAR technology which allows us to create effects that interact with your environment – visually bridging the digital and physical worlds. We’re excited to develop more innovative effects in 2021! pic.twitter.com/6yFD2FfHta

— TikTokComms (@tiktok_comms) January 6, 2021

TikTok isn’t the only major company with eyes on Apple’s LIDAR tech. Snapchat, one of the other major players when it comes to augmented reality filters, already added support for Apple’s LIDAR sensor back in October, allowing creators to build their own enhanced AR filters for the app.

Billion dollar business for iPhone games between the years

Apple posted new record sales of apps around the turn of the year: In the days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, iOS users spent 1.8 billion US dollars (the equivalent of 1.4 billion euros) for “digital goods and services” issued, as the company announced on Wednesday; the money was mainly used for games.

On January 1st 2021 there was also a new daily record with total sales in apps of 540 million US dollars.

Apple earns with Since digital content in apps must be sold via Apple’s payment interface, the group automatically earns with it – up to 30 Percentage commission will be retained by Apple. Many small developers have joined the new App Store Small Business Program, emphasized Apple, and thereby pay a commission reduced on 15 percent to the group. Apple did not give any new figures for sales and user numbers for its own subscription services Music, TV +, Arcade and iCloud.

Google Play vs. App Store According to an estimate, for the full year 2020 Apple’s App Store 72, $ 3 billion turnover. This is an increase of good 15 percent compared to the previous year, explained the sensor tower, a market research service specializing in mobile apps. In Apple’s App Store, almost twice as much sales are achieved as in Google Play (38, 6 billion US dollars in app sales ), according to the market researchers. Sales with and in apps on Google Play have also increased by 15 percent, but the gap to the App Store has not narrowed .

Google Play, however, lacks the app sales of the huge Chinese market, in which the App Store is present. The best-selling iOS app (games excluded) was 2020 according to the market researchers, TikTok followed by YouTube and the dating app Tinder. The top-selling iOS apps also include several Chinese streaming services and the Japanese comics app Line Manga.

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