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The Morning After: Samsung’s clamshell folding phone

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Another Fold, but vertical this time.Samsung’s next foldable phone could be this RAZR-like clamshell

Weibo user Wang Ben Hong shared five photos of what he claims to be Samsung’s latest foldable prototype — one that appears to be half the size of the Galaxy Fold. There’s no word on internal specs, but we can see the punch-hole camera right below the earpiece, and the lack of chin allows the unfolded screen to extend all the way to the bottom. Both characteristics match the clamshell concept art at this year’s Samsung Developer Conference, and Samsung has previously said it was working on a vertically-folding device.

Small steps.Panic’s quirky Playdate handheld will be available for developers soon

Several months ago, Panic unveiled the Playdate, a tiny gaming handheld with a crank, which is perhaps the most adorable gadget we’ve seen this year. Panic is announcing a new preview program where developers can get their hands on one early, so they can start creating games for it before it ships later next year.

Self-driving cars could require redesigned controls.Honda’s new steering wheel is built for cars that can drive themselves

How do you bridge the gap to autonomous cars? This Honda concept tries adding some Bop-It-like features to the standard steering wheel setup: Pat it twice to start the vehicle, pull it to slow the car down and push it to accelerate. “In the autonomous future, Honda believes that customers will be able to enjoy mobility in new ways when freed from the responsibility of driving,” the company wrote in its announcement. “At the same time, customers may still want to experience the emotion and thrill of driving.”

Employees have been testing FSD for over a year.Musk: Holiday Tesla update adds ‘Stardew Valley,’ self-driving preview

Elon Musk tweeted that a “holiday” Tesla update will add farming RPG Stardew Valley as an in-car playable game and include a Full Self-Driving “sneak preview.” Earlier this year, Musk said Teslas would be capable of self-driving by the end of 2019, and there’s not a lot of time left to make that happen.

All you need is a USB-C port.This Apple Watch charger plugs directly into your MacBook or iPad Pro

Charging an Apple Watch demands hauling around a proprietary charging puck. The cable is also USB-A not USB-C. Enter Satechi’s USB-C Magnetic Charging Dock, which can recharge your wearable from a battery bank to your iPad Pro while you’re sipping coffee. The puck and connection are all contained in one thing, though there’s an extension cable included. The charger is more expensive than Apple’s own options (including its native USB-C cables) at $45, but it might be easy to justify the outlay if you’re in deep with the Apple ecosystem — or bought a laptop in the last six months.

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Google Play Movies now lets you search Netflix and Disney+ content

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You can search Netflix and Disney+ content by linking your accounts to the Play Movies app. To do so, open the app menu and go to “Manage services,” and you’ll see a selection of streaming services which you can add.

With that done, if you search for a TV show or movie through Play Movies, you’ll see options from your streaming services as well as from the Play store. If you want to watch the content, you’ll need to have the relevant apps installed on your device. Currently, this feature is only available within the US, and does not support the streaming of live TV.

This brings Play Movies in line with Apple TV, which offers a similar universal search function. With the addition of Netflix and Disney+, Google Play can now search through the majority of the most popular streaming services, with the exception of Apple TV+.

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Nawa’s stylish e-motorbike uses an ultracapacitor to drastically boost range

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The prototype won’t ever be sold, but Nawa wanted to demonstrate what it’s latest ultracapacitors can do. To best showcase the tech, it created a split “tank” design with the ultracapacitor unit in the top slot and the regular battery down below. Because they’re built of carbon, the ultracapacitors are relatively inexpensive and weigh just 10 kg, yet they boost battery capacity by 65 percent or so. To get that kind of range with a regular battery, it would drastically increase the weight and cost.

The technology is most effective in stop-and-go city driving. “[It only stores a small amount of energy, but it’s being used very efficiently,” Nawa CEO Ulrik Grape told New Atlas. “We’re basically pumping that ultracapacitor in and out the whole time through acceleration and braking.”

The Nawa Racer is pretty fast too, able to go from 0-62 mph in “comfortably under three seconds,” according to Grape. The company will unveil the Racer at CES 2020 as a demonstration, and will start producing the supercapacitor at scale starting in 2020. “There is no reason why this cannot be applied to a larger motorbike, or car or other electric vehicle. And what is more, this technology could go into production in the very near future,” said Grape in a statement.

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Steam’s Winter Sale includes award-winning games ‘Sekiro’ and ‘Disco Elysium’

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As always, Steam has bundled the sale with an activity where you can earn rewards, and it’s thankfully much less complicated than the summer event’s Grand Prix. Steam will reward you with tokens whenever you buy games from the Winter Sale or complete quests, such as adding titles to your wishlist and joining a chatroom. You can use then those tokens to grab holiday-themed chat stickers, chatroom effects and emoticons. And in case you manage to collect 5,000 tokens, you can even redeem a $5 coupon, which you can use until January 3rd, 2020, a day after the event ends.



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Watch Boeing’s Starliner test launch at 6:36AM ET

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Last year around this time we talked about all of the delays going into the new space race between SpaceX and Boeing, who are competing to build a new spaceflight system that NASA can use to take astronauts to the ISS. Since then, SpaceX successfully sent its Crew Dragon on an uncrewed test flight in March, and this morning Boeing will attempt to do the same with its CST-100 Starliner vehicle.

The two companies were chosen as candidates to build NASA’s “space taxi” in the Commercial Crew Program back in 2012, with the chance to secure billions in funding. Despite a number of delays, today appears to be the day we’ll see the CST-100 in action on a mission to perform a number of test maneuvers and show its ability to dock with the ISS. Like SpaceX’s flight, this mission is uncrewed, however the anthropometric test device “Rosie” will be along for the ride to collect data.

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Musk: Holiday Tesla update adds ‘Stardew Valley,’ self-driving preview

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It’s been a few months since Tesla’s 10.0 update brought Cuphead, Netflix and YouTube to some of its in-car systems, and it appears more options are around the corner. Elon Musk tweeted tonight that a “holiday” update will add farming RPG Stardew Valley as a playable game, and include a Full Self-Driving “sneak preview,” as well as other things.

Late last year, Tesla expanded testing of full autonomous features among employees, and Musk has continued to promise it will arrive for the customers who’ve ordered it on their existing cars to go well beyond the capabilities of its current Autopilot driver assist.

We’ve seen a lot of clips of the carmaker’s sedans and SUVs roaming the roads without human input over the years, but if the beta expands beyond employees then such sights could become more common. Earlier this year Musk said Teslas would be capable of self-driving by the end of 2019 before robo-taxi Teslas are a thing in 2020, and there’s not much time left to get that done.



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Honda’s new steering wheel is built for cars that can drive themselves

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The automaker says the concept features over eight modes, from semi-autonomous to fully autonomous operation, allowing users to choose whether to control their vehicle or leave it up to its self-driving system. “In the autonomous future, Honda believes that customers will be able to enjoy mobility in new ways when freed from the responsibility of driving,” the company wrote in its announcement. “At the same time, customers may still want to experience the emotion and thrill of driving.” Users can even switch between automatic and manual modes by hitting a switch.

The vehicle’s sensors, Honda says, will keep an eye out for the user’s intentions to shift between multiple modes in order to create “an instinctive driving experience.” And to prevent accidents caused by human error, the autonomous driving system will be ready to jump in and control the vehicle when needed. That’s pretty much all Honda revealed about the system, but it promises that CES attendees will get the chance to experience simulations of its concepts — we’ll let you know how it goes.

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FDA issues its first approval for an Ebola vaccine

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A month ago the European Union issued marketing authorization for a vaccine to prevent the Ebola virus in adults, and now the FDA has approved it. While noting that Ebola cases in the US have been very rare, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Peter Marks said in a statement that “Vaccination is essential to help prevent outbreaks and to stop the Ebola virus from spreading when outbreaks do occur.”

Studies supporting its approval included one with 900 subjects in Canada, Spain and the U.S., where antibody responses matched with those seen elsewhere. Side effects included “pain, swelling and redness at the injection site, as well as headache, fever, joint and muscle aches and fatigue.” An ongoing outbreak of Ebola in the Congo has killed more than 2,000 people, and more than 200,000 people have received the vaccine. A study during an outbreak in Guinea ” determined to be 100% effective in preventing Ebola cases with symptom onset greater than 10 days after vaccination.”

The EU marketing approval precedes increased manufacturing of the dose, called V920, in Germany later in 2020.

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Panic’s quirky Playdate handheld will be available for developers soon

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In a blog post and a series of tweets, Panic states that it hopes to get early units to developers as soon as possible: “Very soon, we’ll put these Developer Preview units up for sale. We’ll email our developer preview list when it’s time.” The selection will be random as the company can only make so many of these early units. Any developer can order and they won’t be charged unless they’re chosen. Though Panic wouldn’t tell us just how many of them will be offered, we did hear that it would be in the “hundreds.” It also hopes to set aside a number of units for underrepresented developers.

To be clear, these early Playdates aren’t meant for consumers at all. They won’t have any games on them and won’t have any functionality out of the box. The final version, on the other hand, will come with an entire season’s worth of games; one delivered every Monday for 12 weeks. Some of the designers already on board include Zach Gage, Shaun Inman and Keita Takahashi.

While Panic was hoping to make pre-orders available before the year was over, that has been pushed to the first half of 2020. It hopes to open full orders once the Developer Preview program is over, when the first season’s worth of games are done and when it has enough inventory in stock.

Also, don’t worry if you don’t get your order in early. According to Panic, it hopes to keep making them: “But, this is important: once that first batch of units is sold, Playdate will not be ‘sold out.’ Our plan is to take back orders and do constant production at the factory, keeping our line running every weekday, and shipping units as they arrive.

Last but definitely not least, Panic also teased a protective case for the Playdate, which looks like a plastic sleeve that fits over the handheld. There’s no word yet on how much it’ll cost, but Panic says it hopes to launch the case concurrently with the device.



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Malware at Wawa stores has been stealing credit card info since March

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Readers on the East Coast ,are getting some bad news after yet another retailer has uncovered malware in its systems stealing card numbers. The victim this time is Wawa, with its line of convenience stores and gas stations that stretches across several states. A letter from CEO Chris Gheysens explains that the company discovered the malware in its payment processing systems on December 10th, and believes it affected potentially all Wawa locations since March 4th, 2019, although some were infected later and some not at all. If you used your card at the payment terminal or gas pump, then the attack probably got your information — store ATMs were apparently unaffected.

According to the company, the information leaked “is limited to payment card information, including debit and credit card numbers, expiration dates and cardholder names, but does not include PIN numbers or CVV2 numbers.” The statement also says it is not aware of unauthorized use of payment information from the attack, but has rolled out the usual warnings and offer of free credit monitoring services.

Even in 2014 the FBI was predicting these types of incidents would become more common, and they have, affecting everyone from Target to Forever 21 to Wendy’s. For advice on paying as securely as possible, we’ve listed some tips, in case you don’t just want to go back to carrying cash.

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