Technology

Amazon customers can now connect with healthcare providers through Echo devices, the companies announced today. The service is provided by telemedicine company Teladoc, one of the largest telemedicine companies in the United States. Customers can connect with Teladoc by saying “Alexa, I want to talk to a doctor.” They’ll get a call back on their device from a Teladoc doctor. The service is only for non-emergency visits, like allergies or flu symptoms. At this point, visits are audio-only, but video visits are “coming soon,” according to a press release. “Whether they’re taking care of their sick child in the middle of the night or wanting to ask a doctor about allergy symptoms in between meetings during the day, we hope this experience will help customers find the convenient help they want...

Oppo has announced a new 150W SuperVOOC fast-charging standard today which it claims will be able to charge a 4,500mAh battery from 1 percent to 50 percent charge in just five minutes, and to 100 percent in just 15. It’s going to appear first in an unnamed smartphone from sub-brand OnePlus in the second quarter of this year. OnePlus has also offered an update on the global launch of the OnePlus 10 Pro, which came to China earlier this year. OnePlus didn’t offer any more details on the first phone to feature this technology, such as whether it will be a flagship phone or a part of the company’s midrange Nord lineup, but it said the technology will be on display at its booth during this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Realme is also announcing a technology it’s branding as 150W Ul...

Spice DAO wants to be clear about one thing: it is not filming Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune. If you’ve heard of Spice DAO, you might know it as an example of cryptocurrency’s silliest excesses. The group began with a quest to buy one of Jodorowsky’s Dune script bibles: a set of storyboards for what’s sometimes dubbed the “greatest sci-fi film never made.” Spice DAO blew past its fundraising goal and expanded its ambitions, aiming to become one of the crypto world’s first successful production houses. But when it announced its plans to the world, some awkward phrasing implied it had made one of the worst copyright deals ever conceived — believing it had bought the film rights to Dune by acquiring the book. To put it bluntly, this wasn’t true. Spice DAO’s existence has been messy, precarious,...

Lenovo has announced a new Chrome OS tablet at Mobile World Congress 2022 that seems like a stellar value, along with a wave of other promising Chromebooks in its IdeaPad productivity lineup. The IdeaPad Duet 3 tablet seems to deliver more of what we liked about the 13-inch Duet 5 tablet, but smaller. It’s an 11-inch tablet, which should make it easier to lug around, and to hold in your hands. Lenovo says it’s the successor to the well-liked 10.1-inch Duet from 2020. Compared to the larger Duet 5, the Duet 3 bumps the screen’s resolution from 1080p to 2K, while providing a slightly taller aspect ratio at 5:3 compared to 16:9 in the Duet 5. This should make the Duet 3 feel a little more natural to hold and view in portrait mode. The most notable difference between the two, apart from size, ...

Lenovo has made some hefty updates to its mid-range IdeaPad Gaming 3 lineup for 2022, which includes two Intel 12th Gen- and two AMD Ryzen 6000-series-equipped models, each with a 15.6-inch and 16-inch option. Notably, the 16-inch option for either CPU you opt for has a 16:10 aspect ratio display with the option to go up to 2560 x 1600, like the Legion 5 Pro, which is more desirable because it offers more vertical space for browsing, gaming, or anything else you want to do on a PC. The only thing they’re not particularly great for is watching movies or TV shows, which are traditionally presented in 16:9 aspect ratio. <div class="c-imageslider" data-cid="apps/imageslider-1646042405_239_1201147" data-cdata="{"caption":"This slider shows the sizing d...

Lenovo has dumped a whole bunch of new ThinkPads into the world, and there’s some exciting stuff in there. We’re getting a brand-new ThinkPad X13s powered by Snapdragon chips, a fifth-generation ThinkPad X1 Extreme with a WQXGA 165Hz screen option, and new additions to the P-series and T-series as well. The news I’m personally most excited about is the screen shape. A few months ago, Lenovo told me that much of its portfolio would be moving to the 16:10 aspect ratio this year. They appear to be keeping their word. Across the board, the new models are 16:10 — taller and roomier than they were in their 16:9 eras. Some news that’s a bit more… intriguing is the all-new ThinkPad X13s, which is the first laptop to feature the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 compute platform. Qualcomm made some lofty ...

Google has temporarily disabled live traffic features offered by Google Maps in Ukraine to protect users’ safety as the country is invaded by neighboring Russia. The features use anonymous location data collected from Android smartphones to show where there are traffic delays on roads and which businesses and stores are busy. Experts say such data could offer insight into the progress of the invasion. One open source intelligence (OSINT) expert said he saw signs of the Russian invasion early last Thursday after spotting unusual “traffic jams” at the Ukrainian border on Google Maps. “I think we were the first people to see the invasion,” OSINT expert, Professor Jerry Lewis of the Middlebury Institute, told Motherboard last week. “And we saw it in a traffic app.” Google said the decision to ...

Realme has announced the GT2 Pro, its latest flagship phone and the followup to last year’s impressive GT. The former Oppo sub-brand describes it as “the most premium flagship ever by Realme,” and it’s difficult to disagree with that assessment. The headline feature of the GT2 Pro is how it looks and feels. Continuing the company’s materials collaboration with legendary Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, the GT2 Pro is the first phone to be made with a “bio-based polymer,” which Realme claims reduces carbon emissions by 35.5 percent during manufacturing. The “paper green” model I’ve been using has a unique matte finish that feels coarse to the touch and doesn’t pick up fingerprints. I can’t speak to Realme’s environmental claims, but this phone doesn’t feel cheap in the slightest — I think ...

CRT monitor collector — Shank Mods — has just built one of the most sleeper gaming PCs. With the help of his local Micro Center as a sponsor, he dropped thousands of dollars into the compact Hot Wheels kids PC from 1999. Working around restrictions like chassis size and airflow, Shank Mods packs the parts below: AMD Ryzen 9 5950XGigabyte X570 Aorus Mini-ITX MotherboardASUS X570-I ROG Strix Mini-ITX MotherboardEVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 XC Graphics CardG.Skill Trident Z Neo Series RGB 128GB (4 x 32GB) DDR4-3600 PC4-28800 CL18Samsung 980 Pro SSD 2TB M.2 NVMeCorsair SF750 750 Watt 80 Plus Platinum SFX Fully Modular Power SupplyLG WH16NS40 16x Internal Blu-Ray RewriterWD 14TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive On top of souping up the flame-covered blue tower’s internals, Shank Mods also ad...

Apple is now rumored to be working on a new device featuring a large foldable display that can serve both as a tablet and laptop. According to Bloomberg regular Mark Gurman, the tech giant is now in the process of developing what he calls an “iPad–MacBook hybrid.” Carrying a 20-inch folding display, the device will feature two screens that’ll bring up a keyboard and trackpad, with functionality fully based on touchscreens. A similar claim was made by Display Supply Chain Consultants CEO and analyst Ross Young, and Gurman expects the new tech to be released sometime in 2026, which coincides with the expected launch window for Apple’s long-rumored electric car. As usual, Apple has yet to announce anything itself and given the predicted release dates to still be four years away, it...

Next week sees Mobile World Congress return to Barcelona, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the world’s biggest mobile phone trade show, and one year after the show took place without many of its largest exhibitors in attendance. Not everyone is making a return to this year’s in-person event (Sony, Lenovo, and some media outlets including The Verge aren’t attending) but it almost feels like the show is back to full strength. But it’s also an event that’s going to show off exactly how much the smartphone industry has shifted in recent years. As it stands, all the show’s biggest hardware announcements appear likely to come from Chinese brands like Oppo, Honor, TCL, Xiaomi-sub-brand Poco, and Huawei, rather than brands from Europe, America, or even another Asian...