Artificial intelligence is increasingly being tapped to address the impacts of climate change. From a report: Google's latest announcement is one example. Countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America can now use its AI-enabled platform that displays flood forecasts. Starting Monday, governments, aid organizations and people in 60 countries across these regions are able to access Google's flood prediction information up to seven days in advance of an incoming flood.

Initially launched in 2021, Flood Hub displays forecasts for riverine floods -- or floods that take place when streams or rivers overflow their banks and into surrounding areas -- showing when and where they are likely to occur. Human-caused climate change can cause these kinds of floods to become larger or more frequent than they used to be, per the EPA. Regions with high percentages of population vulnerable to flood risk -- like the Netherlands, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as well as Myanmar, which was just struck by Cyclone Mocha -- are now on Google's list of forecastable places. It can also be used in parts of the Central American "dry corridor" in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala -- where climate change and conflict collide.

Apple is reportedly expanding its involvement in the mass production of micro-LED displays to reduce its reliance on Samsung and gain more control over the supply chain. Nikkei Asia reports: Apple has spent heavily on the development of micro-LED displays over the past decade and once production starts, it intends to perform the critical "mass transfer" step of the manufacturing process itself, according to sources involved in the project. The mass transfer step involves moving at least tens of thousands of tiny micro-LED chips onto substrates. This process will be carried out at Apple's secretive R&D facilities in the Longtan District in the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the project.

Displays are one of the most expensive components in all of Apple's devices. Since the American company first introduced OLED displays on its iPhone in 2017, its reliance on Samsung Display for the screens has only grown. To reduce that dependence and gain price-bargaining power, Apple tried to bring in other suppliers, namely LG Display and China's display champion BOE Technology, but they lag the South Korean leader in terms of technology and quality stability, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

"Apple has spent at least $1 billion on the R&D and samples for micro-LED technologies in the past nearly 10 years," said one of the people who has been directly involved in the project for years. "It wants to secure more control over the next-gen display technologies for its future products." For the project, Apple is partnering with suppliers like ams-Osram for micro-LED components, LG Display for the substrates -- also called backplates -- and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for 12-inch wafers. In addition to designing the driver integrated circuits for the micro-LED screens, Apple even designed some of the production equipment itself to better control the mass transfer process, according to two of the people with direct knowledge of the matter. "It doesn't mean that Apple will always do the mass transfer on its own. But it shows how determined Apple is to allocate resources to have more control over [these] next-gen display technologies in its own hands," one of the sources said.

"Apple's ultimate plan is to introduce the technologies on its iPhone, which is its key revenue source and has much bigger volume, to justify the investments over the years," added one of the sources.

An anonymous reader shares a report: This week, we looked at a new hardware startup called Telly that's giving away half a million of its new smart televisions for free. The catch is that the 55-inch smart television is fitted with a second display that sits underneath and displays ads while you watch your favorite shows. The trade-off for a free television is agreeing to let this brand-new startup collect vast amounts of data about you because the money ads make from you cover the costs of the television itself. According to its privacy policy, the startup collects data about what you view, where you're located, what you watch, as well as what could be inferred about you from that information.

But annotations left in its privacy policy that were published in error raise concerns about its data practices. We've pasted below the portion of Telly's privacy policy verbatim, typos included, as it was published at the time -- and have highlighted the questionable passage in bold for emphasis: "As noted in the Terms of Use, we do not knowingly collect or solicitPersonal Data about children under 13 years of age; ifyou are a child under the age of 13, please do not attempt to register for orotherwise use the Services or send us any Personal Data. Use of the Servicesmay capture the physical presence of a child under the age of 13, but noPersonal Data about the child is collected. If we learn we have collectedPersonal Data from a child under 13 years of age, we will delete thatinformation as quickly as possible. (I don't know that this is accurate. Do wehave to say we will delete the information or is there another way aroundthis)? If you believe that a child under 13 years of age may have providedPersonal Data to us, please contact us at..." A short time after contacting Telly for comment, the company removed the section from its privacy policy.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The City of Dallas in Texas has confirmed a ransomware attack has downed key services, including 911 dispatch systems. City officials confirmed on Wednesday that a number of the city's servers had "been compromised with ransomware," causing widespread service outages. The Dallas Police Department (DPD) website is currently offline. The City of Dallas website displays a message stating that "the City is experiencing a service outage and is working to restore services," and the city wrote on a page that contains updates about the incident that all courts were closed on Wednesday and would be closed again on Thursday.

DPD spokesperson Melinda Gutierrez confirmed to TechCrunch that the outage has also impacted Computer Aided Dispatch, or "CAD" systems, which are used by dispatchers and 911 operators to prioritize and record incident calls. Local media reported that this has forced 911 call takers to manually write down instructions for responding officers. "There is no effect to 911 calls at this time, and they continue to be dispatched for service," Gutierrez added. "The outage is not affecting police response."

Printers on the City of Dallas network reportedly began printing out ransom notes on Wednesday morning. As per a copy the note, the Royal ransomware gang has claimed responsibility for the attack, and a URL included on the note directed to a contact form on Royal's dark web victims site. The note said critical data was encrypted, and threatened to publish it online if a ransom demand is not met. The City of Dallas has not yet been listed on Royal's dark web leak site and it's not yet known what types of data has been stolen. City officials have not responded to TechCrunch's questions. The full impact of the ransomware attack remains unknown. In a statement, the city said it was "actively working to isolate the ransomware to prevent its spread, to remove the ransomware from infected servers, and to restore any services currently impacted. The City is currently working to assess the complete impact, but at this time, the impact on the delivery of City services to its residents is limited."

More than half the public would like to see a ban on gambling advertising, according to a new poll taken as ministers prepare to unveil an overhaul of the industry. In the survey, carried out for the charity Gambling with Lives, 52% of respondents said they supported a ban on all gambling advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and nearly two-thirds wanted new limits on online stakes. From a report: Ministers are expected to reject a blanket ban on gambling advertising in a white paper that could be published this week. The Premier League recently announced that its clubs would end shirt sponsorship by gambling firms by the end of the 2025/26 season.

Will Prochaska of Gambling with Lives, which supports families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, said: "This poll displays the strength of public sentiment on gambling advertising. The Premier League's decision to remove ads from shirts but leave them all over stadiums and across broadcasts, is a cynical attempt to avoid regulation. This data shows the public won't be tricked into thinking it's enough. If gambling reforms fail to significantly restrict gambling advertising, they'll be woefully out of step with a public that expects action." The Survation poll of 1,009 adults found that 68% of respondents thought under-18s should not be exposed to gambling advertising, 64% supported affordability checks for those wanting to bet more than $124 a month, and 60% saw gambling as a danger to family life.

The Google Assistant continues to suffer at the hands of Google's product shutdowns. The latest products to die are third-party Google Assistant smart displays. From a report: "Google no longer provides software updates for these third-party Smart Displays: Lenovo Smart Display (7", 8" & 10"), JBL Link View and LG Xboom AI ThinQ WK9 Smart Display. This could impact the quality of video calls and meetings," said Google Duo said in a support page. We're pretty sure that announcement applies to every third-party Google Smart Display that has ever launched, so the product line is dead. Google's first-party smart displays, the Google Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max, aren't going anywhere and will now be the only options on the market.

Google Smart Displays put the Google Assistant on a screen and support all the same commands that a Google Assistant speaker like the Google Home or Nest Audio would; just shout "Hey Google," and it will attempt to recognize your command. The screen adds the ability to see a visual accompaniment to your search results, usually either some text, a photo slideshow, a timer, or media or smart home controls. The system is a touchscreen and has a really basic user interface that you can swipe around in without needing to talk to it.

Duke University announces their engineers "have produced the world's first fully recyclable printed electronics that replace the use of chemicals with water in the fabrication process" — bypassing the need for hazardous chemicals.

Electrical/computer engineering professor Aaron Franklin led the study, according to Duke's announcement: In previous work, Franklin and his group demonstrated the first fully recyclable printed electronics. The devices used three carbon-based inks: semiconducting carbon nanotubes, conductive graphene and insulating nanocellulose. In trying to adapt the original process to only use water, the carbon nanotubes presented the largest challenge.... In the paper, Franklin and his group develop a cyclical process in which the device is rinsed with water, dried in relatively low heat and printed on again. When the amount of surfactant used in the ink is also tuned down, the researchers show that their inks and processes can create fully functional, fully recyclable, fully water-based transistors....

Franklin explains that, by demonstrating a transistor first, he hopes to signal to the rest of the field that there is a viable path toward making some electronics manufacturing processes much more environmentally friendly. Franklin has already proven that nearly 100% of the carbon nanotubes and graphene used in printing can be recovered and reused in the same process, losing very little of the substances or their performance viability. Because nanocellulose is made from wood, it can simply be recycled or biodegraded like paper. And while the process does use a lot of water, it's not nearly as much as what is required to deal with the toxic chemicals used in traditional fabrication methods.

According to a United Nations estimate, less than a quarter of the millions of pounds of electronics thrown away each year is recycled. And the problem is only going to get worse as the world eventually upgrades to 6G devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand. So any dent that could be made in this growing mountain of electronic trash is important to pursue. While more work needs to be done, Franklin says the approach could be used in the manufacturing of other electronic components like the screens and displays that are now ubiquitous to society. Every electronic display has a backplane of thin-film transistors similar to what is demonstrated in the paper. The current fabrication technology is high-energy and relies on hazardous chemicals as well as toxic gasses. The entire industry has been flagged for immediate attention by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

"The performance of our thin-film transistors doesn't match the best currently being manufactured, but they're competitive enough to show the research community that we should all be doing more work to make these processes more environmentally friendly," Franklin said.

Apple will expand ProMotion to the standard iPhone models in two years, according to Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants. ProMotion was first introduced on the iPhone 13 Pro models in 2021 and remains exclusive to Pro models for now. MacRumors reports: In a tweet today, Young provided a roadmap outlining various display-related technologies coming to future iPhones. Notably, the roadmap indicates that low-power LTPO display technology will be expanded to the standard iPhones in 2025, which Young said will enable ProMotion on these devices, allowing the display to ramp up to a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother scrolling and video content when necessary.

ProMotion would also allow the display to ramp down to a more power-efficient refresh rate. iPhone 13 Pro models can ramp down to 10Hz, while iPhone 14 Pro models can go as low as 1Hz, allowing for an always-on display that can show the Lock Screen's clock, widgets, notifications, and wallpaper even when the device is locked. All in all, the roadmap suggests that the so-called "iPhone 17" and "iPhone 17 Plus" will feature ProMotion, and likely an always-on display too. Young also claimed the "iPhone 17 Pro" will be the first iPhone to feature under-panel Face ID technology.

An anonymous reader shares this report from AppleInsider: Apple has allegedly demonstrated its mixed reality headset to its top executives recently, in an attempt to generate excitement for the upcoming platform launch. While executives are keen on the product, others within Apple are not sure it's a home run hit. Eight anonymous current and former employees told the New York Times that they are skeptical about the headset, despite Apple's apparent glossy demonstration of the technology.
Manufacturing has already begun for a June release of the $3,000 headset, insiders say in the Times' article: Some employees have defected from the project because of their doubts about its potential, three people with knowledge of the moves said. Others have been fired over the lack of progress with some aspects of the headset, including its use of Apple's Siri voice assistant, one person said.Even leaders at Apple have questioned the product's prospects. It has been developed at a time when morale has been strained by a wave of departures from the company's design team, including Mr. Ive, who left Apple in 2019 and stopped advising the company last year....

Because the headset won't fit over glasses, the company has plans to sell prescription lenses for the displays to people who don't wear contacts, a person familiar with the plan said. During the device's development, Apple has focused on making it excel for videoconferencing and spending time with others as avatars in a virtual world. The company has called the device's signature application "copresence," a word designed to capture the experience of sharing a real or virtual space with someone in another place. It is akin to what Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, calls the "metaverse...."

But the road to deliver augmented reality has been littered with failures, false starts and disappointments, from Google Glass to Magic Leap and from Microsoft's HoloLens to Meta's Quest Pro. Apple is considered a potential savior because of its success combining new hardware and software to create revolutionary devices.

Still, the challenges are daunting.

On March 1st, a European Union regulation went into effect that effectively bans 8K TVs. This is because they exceed the new lower Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) limit that set the maximum power consumption level for all TVs at 90W, which is significantly lower than the 190W that new 8K TVs can consume. According to Tom's Guide, Samsung "seems to have already developed a workaround for this 8K TV ban." From the report: The ban is specifically based on the EEI power consumption numbers, so if you can manufacture an 8K TV that consumes less than 90W then you are in the clear. Because of this loophole, Samsung has decided to ship its 8K TVs with low-powered default settings. According to AV Magazine, the new Samsung 8K TVs will come out of the box with a "brightness-limiting eco mode" as the default brightness setting. This will allow the TVs to still meet the EEI limit while maintaining their 8K resolution.

But does this mean that Europeans will be limited to low brightness settings if they want 8K resolution? Turns out, the answer to that is, no. The E.U. regulation requires that the TVs be energy efficient out of the box, but once users have them set up, they can change to a higher brightness setting and watch to their heart's content, even though their 8K TV will now consume more power than the 90W limit set by the EEI. Other manufacturers will likely find workarounds for the E.U. regulations if Samsung's workaround is successful [...].

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: With Starlink speeds slowing due to a growing capacity crunch, SpaceX said a launch happening as soon as today will deploy the first "V2 Mini" satellites that provide four times more per-satellite capacity than earlier versions. Starlink's second-generation satellites include the V2 Minis and the larger V2. The larger V2s are designed for the SpaceX Starship, which isn't quite ready to launch yet, but the V2 Minis are slimmed-down versions that can be deployed from the Falcon 9 rocket. "The V2 Minis are smaller than the V2 satellites (hence the name) but don't let the name fool you," SpaceX said in a statement provided to Ars yesterday. "The V2 Minis include more advanced phased array antennas and the use of E-band for backhaul, which will enable Starlink to provide ~4x more capacity per satellite than earlier iterations."

SpaceX didn't specify the amount of data that each V2 Mini satellite can provide, but its first-generation satellites were designed for an aggregate downlink capacity of 17 to 23Gbps per satellite. The Federal Communications Commission recently gave SpaceX approval to launch 7,500 of the 30,000 planned second-generation satellites. A SpaceX Falcon 9 launch tentatively scheduled for today would put 21 V2 Minis into orbit. The larger V2 satellites that can't launch until Starship is ready will be able to send signals directly to cell phones, a capability that'll be used by SpaceX and T-Mobile in a partnership announced in August 2022. "Each Starlink V2 Mini satellite weighs about 1,760 pounds (800 kilograms) at launch, nearly three times heavier than the older Starlink satellites," notes Spaceflight Now. "They are also bigger in size, with a spacecraft body more than 13 feet (4.1 meters) wide, filling more of the Falcon 9 rocket's payload fairing during launch."

UPDATE: SpaceX successfully launched the first batch of "V2 Mini" Starlink satellites. "A Falcon 9 rocket hauled the 21 Starlink satellites into a 230-mile-high (370-kilometer) orbit after lifting off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:13:50 p.m. EST (2313:50 GMT) Monday," reports Spaceflight Now. "SpaceX delayed the launch from earlier Monday afternoon to wait for radiation levels to abate following a solar storm that sparked dramatic auroral displays visible across Northern Europe and Canada." You can watch the launch here. Elon Musk also shared video of the first V2 satellites to reach orbit.

More than 30 years ago Nintendo released the third game in its Legend of Zelda series — appropriately titled, "A Link to the Past."

This week Neowin called it "one of the most beloved video games of all time," reporting that it's now been reverse-engineered by a GitHub user named Snesrev, "opening up the possibility of Link to the Past on other platforms, like Sega's 32X or the Sony Playstation." This reimplementation of Link to the Past is written in C and contains an astonishing 80,000 lines of code. This version is also content complete, with all the same levels, enemies, and puzzles that fans of the original game will remember.

In its current state, the game requires the PPU and DSP libraries from LakeSNES, a fast SNES emulator with a number of speed optimizations that make the game run faster and smoother than ever before. Breaking from the LakeSNES dependency, which allows for compatibility on modern operating systems, would allow the code to be built for retro hardware. It also offers one of the craziest features I have seen in a long time; the game can run the original machine code alongside the reverse-engineered C implementation. This works by creating a save-state on both versions of the game after every frame of gameplay, comparing their state and proving that the reimplementation works.... Snesrev now works alongside 19 other contributors.

Despite the immense amount of work that went into this project, the result is brilliant. Not only does the game play just like the original, it also includes a number of new features that were not present in the original. For example, the game now supports pixel shaders, which allow for even more stunning visuals. It also supports widescreen aspect-ratios, giving players a wider field of view, making the game even more immersive on modern displays. Another new feature of this reimplementation is the higher quality world map. The new map is much more detailed and gives players a better sense of the world they are exploring....

The amount of time, effort, and talent that went into creating this is simply astonishing.
Thanks to Slashdot reader segaboy81 for sharing the article.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ArsTechnica: Google is still reeling from the biggest layoff in company history last Friday. Earlier cost cuts over the past six months have resulted in several projects being shut down or deprioritized at Google, and it's hard to fire 12,000 people without some additional projects taking a hit. The New York Times has a report about which divisions are being hit the hardest, and a big one is Google's future OS development group, Fuchsia. While the overall company cut 6 percent of its employees, the Times pointed out that Fuchsia saw an outsize 16 percent of the 400-person staff take a hit. While it's not clear what that means for the future of the division, the future of Fuchsia's division has never really been clear.

Fuchsia has been a continuous mystery inside Google since it first saw widespread press coverage in 2017. Google rarely officially talks about it, leaving mostly rumors and Github documentation for figuring out what's going on. The OS isn't a small project, though -- it's not even based on Linux, opting instead to use a custom, in-house kernel, so Google really is building an entire OS from scratch. Google actually ships the OS today to consumers in its Nest smart displays, where it replaced the older Cast OS. The in-place operating system swap was completely invisible to consumers compared to the old OS, came with zero benefits, and was never officially announced or promoted. There's not much you can do with it on a locked-down smart display, so even after shipping, Fuchsia is still a mystery.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Over the past few days, dozens of tech companies have filed briefs in support of Google in a Supreme Court case that tests online platforms' liability for recommending content. Obvious stakeholders like Meta and Twitter, alongside popular platforms like Craigslist, Etsy, Wikipedia, Roblox, and Tripadvisor, urged the court to uphold Section 230 immunity in the case or risk muddying the paths users rely on to connect with each other and discover information online. Out of all these briefs, however, Reddit's was perhaps the most persuasive (PDF). The platform argued on behalf of everyday Internet users, whom it claims could be buried in "frivolous" lawsuits for frequenting Reddit, if Section 230 is weakened by the court. Unlike other companies that hire content moderators, the content that Reddit displays is "primarily driven by humans -- not by centralized algorithms." Because of this, Reddit's brief paints a picture of trolls suing not major social media companies, but individuals who get no compensation for their work recommending content in communities. That legal threat extends to both volunteer content moderators, Reddit argued, as well as more casual users who collect Reddit "karma" by upvoting and downvoting posts to help surface the most engaging content in their communities.

"Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act famously protects Internet platforms from liability, yet what's missing from the discussion is that it crucially protects Internet users -- everyday people -- when they participate in moderation like removing unwanted content from their communities, or users upvoting and downvoting posts," a Reddit spokesperson told Ars. Reddit argues in the brief that such frivolous lawsuits have been lobbed against Reddit users and the company in the past, and Section 230 protections historically have consistently allowed Reddit users to "quickly and inexpensively" avoid litigation. [...]

The Supreme Court will have to weigh whether Reddit's arguments are valid. To help make its case defending Section 230 immunity protections for recommending content, Reddit received special permission from the Supreme Court to include anonymous comments from Reddit mods in its brief. This, Reddit's spokesperson notes, is "a significant departure from normal Supreme Court procedure." The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit defending online privacy, championed the court's decision to allow moderators to contribute comments anonymously. "We're happy the Supreme Court recognized the First Amendment rights of Reddit moderators to speak to the court about their concerns," EFF's senior staff attorney, Sophia Cope, told Ars. "It is quite understandable why those individuals may be hesitant to identify themselves should they be subject to liability in the future for moderating others' speech on Reddit."

"Reddit users that interact with third-party content -- including 'hosting' content on a sub-Reddit that they manage, or moderating that content -- could definitely be open to legal exposure if the Court carves out "recommending' from Section 230's protections, or otherwise narrows Section 230's reach," Cope told Ars.

Apple has announced new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, featuring its latest M2 Pro and Max chips. From a report: The M2 Pro model will launch with a 12-core CPU, up to 19-core GPU, and up to 32GB of unified memory, while the M2 Max includes up to 38 cores of GPU power and support for up to 96GB of unified memory. The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro starts at $1,999, with the 16-inch model starting at $2,499. Both are available to order online today and will start shipping and appearing in Apple stores on January 24th.

Apple says the M2 Pro has double the amount of transistors the M2 shipped with and nearly 20 percent more than the M1 Pro. It also features 200GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, twice what's available on the regular M2. All of this power should result in better performance in apps like Adobe Photoshop and Xcode. Apple claims the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro "is able to process images in Adobe Photoshop up to 40 percent faster than with M1 Pro, and as much as 80 percent faster than MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9 processor." The M2 Max chip has the same 12-core CPU as the M2 Pro, but much like the M1 Max, it really pushes the GPU power more. Apple claims the M2 Max is up to 30 percent faster than the M1 Max in graphics and can apparently "tackle graphics-intensive projects that competing systems can't even run." Chips aside, the latest MacBook Pro models now include Wi-Fi 6E3 and a "more advanced HDMI" (probably HDMI 2.1) that supports 8K displays up to 60Hz and 4K displays up to 240Hz.

"I saw the future at CES 2023," writes Geoffrey Morrison, describing "a new, top-secret prototype display technology" that could one day replace LCD and OLED for phones and TVs. "It was impossibly flat, like a vibrantly glowing piece of paper."

Meet electroluminescent quantum dots: Until now, quantum dots were always a supporting player in another technology's game. A futuristic booster for older tech, elevating that tech's performance. QDs weren't a character on their own. That is no longer the case. The prototype I saw was completely different. No traditional LEDs and no OLED. Instead of using light to excite quantum dots into emitting light, it uses electricity. Nothing but quantum dots. Electroluminescent, aka direct-view, quantum dots. This is huge.

Or at least, has the potential to be huge. Theoretically, this will mean thinner, more energy-efficient displays. It means displays that can be easier, as in cheaper, to manufacture. That could mean even less expensive, more efficient, bigger-screen TVs. The potential in picture quality is at least as good as QD-OLED, if not better. The tech is scalable from tiny, lightweight, high-brightness displays for next-generation VR headsets, to highly efficient phone screens, to high-performance flat-screen TVs.
The article predicts the simpler structure means "Essentially, you can print an entire QD display onto a surface without the heat required by other 'printable' tech.... Just about any flat or curved surface could be a screen." This leads to QD screens not just on TVs and phones, but on car windshields, eyeglass lenses, and even bus or subway windows. ("These will initially be pitched by cities as a way to show people important info, but inevitably they'll be used for advertising. That's certainly not a knock against the tech, just how things work in the world....")

Nanosys is calling this direct-view, electroluminescent quantum dot tech "nanoLED," and told CNET that "their as-yet-unnamed manufacturing partner is going to be talking more about the technology in a few months...

"Even Nanosys admits direct-view quantum dot displays are still several years away from mass production.... But 5-10 years from now we'll almost certainly have options for QD [quantum dot] displays in our phones, probably in our living rooms, and possibly on our windshields and windows."

The Verge reports "undeniable momentum" for Matter, the royalty-free interoperability standard that "allows smart home devices from any manufacturer to talk to other devices directly and locally with no need to use the cloud."

"Matter was the buzzword throughout CES 2023 this year, with most companies even remotely connected to the smart home loudly discussing their Matter plans." The new smart home standard was featured in several keynotes and displayed prominently in smart home device makers' booths as well as in Google, Amazon, and Samsung's big, showy displays. More importantly, dozens of companies and manufacturers announced specific plans. Several companies said they would update entire product lines, while others announced new ones, sometimes with actual dates and prices. And Matter controllers have become a major thing, with at least four brand-new ones debuting at CES. Interestingly, nearly all of them have a dual or triple function, helping banish the specter of seemingly pointless white hubs stuck in your router closet....

Matter works over the protocols Thread, Wi-Fi, and ethernet and has been jointly developed by Apple, Google, Samsung, Amazon, and pretty much every other smart home brand you can name, big or small. If a device supports Matter, it will work locally with Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, Apple Home, Google Home, and any other smart home platform that supports Matter. It will also be controllable by any of the four voice assistants....

The big four have turned on Matter support on their platforms, but Amazon's approach has been piecemeal, and aside from Apple, nobody supports onboarding devices to Matter on iOS yet.

However, that is shifting: at CES, Amazon announced a full rollout by spring, and Samsung's Jaeyeon Jung told The Verge that Matter support is coming to its iOS app this month. There's still no news on Matter support in Google Home's iOS app. Then there's the whole competing Thread network issue, although that sounds like it will be resolved sooner rather than later....

The Matter device drought should be over soon — although, judging by most of these ship dates, not until at least the second half of 2023.
"It's also likely we'll see dedicated bridges coming out that can bring Z-Wave and other products with proprietary protocols into Matter...."

According to the HDMI Licensing Administrator (LA), the HDMI Alt Mode feature is dead. Notebookcheck reports: According to HDMI LA, there are simply no more uses for Alt Mode. One of the reasons is that companies like Apple have begun putting HDMI ports on their products again. HDMI Alt Mode also no longer offers any advantages. As a result, the specification will not receive any further updates. This means an HDMI output has to come from somewhere else on a laptop. Besides the standard and mini sockets, DisplayPort is typically used in Alt Mode via a USB-C port. Eventually, the signal is converted to HDMI output. As HDMI LA mentioned at CES, there are people currently working on a logo program for labelling certified HDMI adapters to help consumers be sure that a USB-C to HDMI adapter will work properly. Right now, such a program only exists for cables. Whilst USB to HDMI adapters with DisplayPort undergo base certification, this is not something that is apparent in retail shops.

HDMI Alt Mode has never managed to win over manufacturers. HDMI LA said that it doesn't know of a single adapter that has ever been produced. Similarly, at the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), people who are familiar with the certification process have yet to see a true USB-C to HDMI adapter. This is good news for consumers because there is no longer any risk that an HDMI adapter on the market won't work with conventional USB-C ports that support DisplayPort. The HDMI Licensing Administrator may have given up on Alt Mode, but it's still working on improving power delivery. "At just 0.3A@5V, HDMI Cable Power is at most able to drive a cable over longer distances," reports Notebookcheck. "The specification was announced back at CES 2021 but only officially introduced in mid 2022."

"There are now plans to further increase the amount of power provided. This means it may be possible in future to power streaming devices (e.g. Fire TV Sticks) directly over an HDMI port."

That said, HDMI LA cautioned that the upcoming standard is still in the discussion phase and there's no date for when the update will arrive.

The PC market is in rough waters, and it was for much of last year. Every PC maker except Apple saw year-over-year decline. Laptop sales are said to have suffered the most. From a report: This all made for a somewhat uncertain backdrop heading into CES 2023, the annual conference where tech companies show off the products they'll be releasing in 2023. Throughout the show, executives and representatives from various PC manufacturers acknowledged that the industry has a big task ahead of it this year: keep the laptop exciting. Some companies are trying to do that with goofy hardware things (such as Lenovo's dual-screen, dual-OLED, and touchpad-less Yoga Book 9i). But others are moving away from hardware -- and the raw power that hardware can provide -- and emphasizing quirkier software capabilities in this year's lineups. AMD revealed that some of its new chips will come with its first Ryzen AI engine, built on its XDNA architecture.
Intel's upcoming Meteor Lake chips will also bring AI capabilities.
HP announced new features for its Omen Gaming Hub, including integration with Nvidia's GeForce Now, and new remote management and insight services for IT. A consumer Windows PC, the Dragonfly Pro, was also unveiled, with its integration with HP's new "live concierge" service touted as a highlight. The report adds: And HP isn't alone in this conviction -- quite a few other manufacturers that had a big presence at CES this year emphasized showy software features that utilized camera tracking and AI, from Asus' and Acer's glasses-free 3D displays to Razer's soundbar that follows your head around to optimize your music. Even Lenovo's aforementioned dual-screen Yoga Book is a software offering in many ways; the form factor is hardly new, but the investments Lenovo has made in an impressive system of gesture control are what make it a viable product.

Apple is planning to start using its own custom displays in mobile devices as early as 2024, an effort to reduce its reliance on technology partners like Samsung and LG and bring more components in-house. From a report: The company aims to begin by swapping out the display in the highest-end Apple Watches by the end of next year, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The screens upgrade the current OLED -- organic light-emitting diode -- standard to a technology called microLED, and Apple plans to eventually bring the displays to other devices, including the iPhone. The changes are part of a sweeping effort to replace Apple supplies with homegrown parts, an undertaking that will give the company more control over the design and capabilities of its products. The tech giant has dropped Intel chips in its Mac computers in favor of in-house designs and plans to do the same with the key wireless components in its iPhones.