An anonymous reader shares a report from TechCrunch, written by Devin Coldewey: It's no secret I'm a fan of the reMarkable, a tablet with a paper-like display that's focused on text and sketching rather than rich media and games. The sequel to the original, announced today, looks to make a good thing even better. Designed for the creation and consumption of monochromatic content like long documents, e-books, notes and sketches, the reMarkable set itself apart as a more minimalist alternative (or complement) to the likes of the iPad or Surface. The device was crowdfunded and has sold more than 100,000 units; meanwhile, the company has grown and attracted a $15 million A round. One sees in retrospect that the money helped launch this successor.

The most obvious change is to the design. It has a bold asymmetrical look with a chrome band along the left side, indicating the tablet's main use as an alternative to a paper notebook: Hold it with your left hand and write with your right. Sorry, lefties. The new tablet is just 4.7 mm (0.19 in) thick, thinner than the iPad Pro and Sony's competing Digital Paper tablets, both of which are 5.9 mm. Let's be honest -- at these levels of thinness it's getting hard to tell the difference, but it's an accomplishment nevertheless. [...] The software running on the reMarkable has received several major updates since the product made its debut, adding things like handwriting recognition, a new interface, better performance and so on. But one of the most requested features is finally coming with the new device: saving articles from the web. The company is claiming a 3x boost to battery life, using the same 3,000 mAh battery, based on performance improvements throughout and a more efficient (but more powerful) dual-core ARM processor. That means two weeks of use and 90 days of standby. This is welcome news, because frankly the battery life and power management on the last one were not great. The reMarkable 2 will sell for $399 if you pre-order, and comes with a Marker and a folio case.

As countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic expect to run out of ventilators and other equipment, makers are desperately trying to fill the gap with proposals for open-source, do-it-yourself devices. From a report: Most cases of COVID-19 -- the disease caused by the novel coronavirus -- do not require hospitalization. But for people hospitalized with severe infections, coronavirus damages their lungs and makes it hard to breathe in and circulate the amount of oxygen that their bodies need. Ventilators, machines that provide the lungs with oxygen, are proving to be key to treating these people, who seem to comprise around 10 percent of cases. Governments are already preparing for what a shortage of ventilators could do to their health care systems.

In a call to U.S. governors on Monday that was shared with The New York Times, President Donald Trump told states not to rely fully on the federal government for equipment. "Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment -- try getting it yourselves," he said, according to The Times. "We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself." Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN that the U.S. has stockpiled 12,700 ventilators, but in a worst-case scenario that number might not be enough. In Italy, he added, physicians are having to make "very tough decisions" about whom to treat.