Last year at CES, Samsung folded its displays nearly every way you could think of, but this year it's combining that with another trick — sliding. The Flex Hybrid OLED mobile screen, debuting at CES 2023, can both fold from one side and slide out on the other, changing both the size and aspect ratio. 

Starting off at a relatively compact 4.2-inches or so wide, it can fold out to a 10.5-inch 4:3 display suitable for productivity. You can then slide out the right side to create a 12.4-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. That would make it well suited for entertainment or content creation, particularly considering the potentially excellent image quality offered by the OLED display technology. 

Samsung Display

The extra two inches of screen appears to roll from under the right-hand side of the device when slid out, judging by the extra thickness on that side of the display. The combined technology could effectively allow you to carry a 12.4-inch, 16:10 OLED tablet in a jacket pocket — ideal for entertainment or working on the go.

Two other Samsung displays will make their public debuts at CES 2023. The Flex Slidable Solo expands from a 14-inch OLED panel to a wider 17.3-inch display by sliding open from one side. And the Flex Slidable Duet OLED extends from two sides to make the same conversion. Both panels were featured at Intel's Innovation 2022 event in September, but have yet to be shown in public. 

Samsung launched its QD-OLED TV lineup last year at CES promising higher brightness than other OLED TVs, particularly its arch-rival LG. However, it was only mildly brighter than LG OLEDs back then, and yesterday, LG unveiled its 2023 OLED TV lineup with up to 70 percent more brightness and peak levels reportedly hitting around 1,800 nits. 

Now, Samsung Display has announced that its 2023 QD-OLED TV lineup will hit up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness, possibly pipping LG and approaching Mini-LED TVs, if accurate. That's thanks to a new QD-OLED Panel from Samsung Display, which uses a new "HyperEfficient EL" OLED material and Samsung's IntelliSense AI. The TVs will also be more energy efficient and offer more accurate colors, according to Samsung Display.

The new TVs will also be available in a wider range of sizes. Where the 2022 S95B came in just 55- and 65-inch sizes, you'll be able to purchase 49-, 55-, 65- and 77-inch TVs this year. The company hasn't announced other features, but you can expect to see Tizen OS, HDR10+ (and likely not Dolby Vision, once again), along with Bixby, Alexa and SmartThings. Pricing and availability haven't been revealed either, but we should learn more at CES 2023 in the coming days.

CES 2023 is nearly here, which means we're once again writing about Samsung smart refrigerators. With the Family Hub Plus, Samsung has boosted the touch display size to 32-inches from 21-inches in the previous models, giving you a much bigger canvas to display photos, shopping lists and videos, or control SmartThings devices.

On top of the bigger display, Samsung has added support for Google Photos along with the OneDrive integration seen on past models. That allows you to display family or other photos on the refrigerator, or upload photos to a mobile device from the Family Hub Plus. As before, you can also display artwork from Samsung's Bespoke Atelier app. 

Samsung

The built-in hub can control multiple SmartThings devices, giving you a smart home control center on a very large touchscreen. It also supports six SmartThings Home Life services: air care, home care, pet care, clothing care, energy, and cooking. Samsung has also included Samsung TV Plus, giving US users 190 TV channels for free. You can use it in the vertical orientation for TikTok, Facebook Shorts and other social media content, or employ picture-in-picture mode to view videos and do other tasks at the same time. 

Finally, it supports Amazon's Your Essentials service, letting you order groceries and other products directly from the touchscreen. Samsung didn't detail any other specs or pricing, but we'll see it at CES 2023 early next month and should learn more then.

Health company Movano has teased its first smart ring, the Evie, designed for health, fitness and cycle tracking. It looks like a rival to Oura's latest smart ring and other health-tracking wearables, though the company says it's "designed uniquely for women." Movano plans to provide a closer look next week at CES 2023.

The ring made its debut at CES 2022 with no name and a similar design, but Movano has since changed course on price and other factors. It will sell the ring sometime in 2023 at a one-time price below $300 (there's no exact date or price yet), rather than using a subscription model as it said last year. 

It offers many of the health metrics seen on Oura's ring and wearables from Apple and others. It can measure heart rate, blood-oxygen, skin temperature variability, steps, calories, sleep, period and ovulation tracking, and more. Wearers will can get advice from health experts inside the app and it will meet medical device manufacturing standards, the company promised.

"As a medical device, Evie will go beyond the status quo of other wearables on the market," said Movano CEO John Mastrototaro. "We are bringing together medical grade biometric data and insights in a comfortable and contemporary wearable."

With the ability to measure steps, calories burned and specific activities, Evie can also be used as a fitness tracker. However, it's primary purpose is to give a picture of overall health, "turning biometric data into actionable insights," Movano wrote in the press release.

The company also promises security and privacy when transferring data to the cloud or health providers. It's currently seeking all-important FDA clearance, which will dictate the release date. If that takes too long, though, it may come to market as a wellness device at first. The Evie smart ring will only be released in the US to start with, but may come to other markets later — we should learn more about it next week at CES 2023. 

Sony's WH-1000XM5 is a highly desirable set of wireless headphones, thanks to improved sound quality, a comfortable fit and incredible active noise cancellation (ANC). If you've been eyeballing a pair, now is absolutely the time to act. They're currently on sale in white at Amazon for $279 (30 percent off), the lowest price we've seen to date, by far. 

The WH-1000XM5 scored an excellent 95 in our Engadget review, thanks to improvements in nearly every way over our previous favorite headphones, the WH-1000XM4. Perhaps the biggest improvement was in fit and comfort thanks to the more optimal weight distribution, synthetic leather ear cups and slightly reduced weight. 

Sound quality also went up, due to the new 30mm carbon fiber drivers that deliver punchier bass. We also saw more clarity that helps you hear fine detail, along with improved depth that makes music more immersive. And Sony's DSEE Extreme sound processing recovers detail lost to compression, without any noticeable impact on sound quality.

The ANC is equally impressive. With double the number of noise cancellation microphones found in the M4, along with a new dedicated V1 chip, the M5 does a better job at minimizing background noise. And in terms of the microphone, we found that the M5 offers superior call quality over its predecessor. Moreover, you get 30 hours of listening time with ANC enabled, enough for the longest of flights. 

The main drawback of the WH-1000XM5 headphones is the $400 price tag, but at $279, they're a stellar deal — as long as you're good with the white color. Just act fast before the sale ends.  

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LG may not make smartphones anymore, but it's still building components for them. The company's LG Innotek arm just unveiled a periscope-style true optical zoom camera module with a 4-9 times telephoto range. That would allow smartphone cameras to retain full image quality through the entire zoom range, while potentially reducing the size and number of modules required. 

Samsung developed a similar camera module, also known as a "folded" lens, with a four times zoom first used in the Galaxy S20 Ultra smartphone. LG Innotek provided a previous version of its zoom module to Sony for the Xperia 1 IV smartphone. 

Most smartphone cameras use hybrid zoom setups that combine digital zoom and multiple camera modules. Certain zoom ranges (typically 2x, 3x, 10x, etc.) use individual cameras, with a digital zoom to fill in between those (2.5x, 4.5x, etc.). As a result, sensor resolution and thus detail can be considerably reduced.

LG's "Optical Zoom Camera," however, contains a zoom actuator with movable components, similar to what you'd seen on a zoom lens in a mirrorless or DSLR camera. It operates quickly and precisely down to the micrometer, according to LG, while saving battery life. It also has a built-in optical image stabilizer to reduce blur, something that can be a problem for telephoto lenses that magnify hand movements. (iFixit shows exactly how such modules work here.) 

With the module installed, a sensor would retain full resolution through the entire 4-9x zoom range, providing more detail on telephoto shots. LG also pared down the module's thickness to reduce the size of the camera bump. 

The company partnered with Qualcomm to integrate the tech in the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform. "It will enhance the image tuning custom for the optics, which includes Auto-Focus, Auto-Exposure, Auto-White Balance, lens shading correction and much more. Users will be able to focus quickly. And the photos and videos will have stunning image quality," LG wrote. 

The new module will appear in smartphones announced at CES 2023 starting January 3rd. LG didn't reveal any brands or models, but there are a number of smartphones coming soon with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset that could potentially use it. Those include the OnePlus 11 series, Xiaomi 13, Motorola X40 and Oppo Find X. Apple is also a large customer of LG Innotek and could use the zoom module in next year's iPhone 15 series, according to previous reports. 

German researchers who purchased biometric capture devices on eBay found sensitive US military data stored on their memory cards, The New York Times has reported. That included fingerprints, iris scans, photographs, names and descriptions of the individuals, mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many worked with the US army and could be targeted if the devices fell into the wrong hands, according to the report.

A group of researchers called the Chaos Computer Club, led by Matthias Marx, bought six of the devices on eBay, most for under $200. They were spurred by a 2021 report from The Intercept that the Taliban had seized similar US military biometric devices. As such, they wanted to see if they contained identifying data on people who assisted the US Military that could put them at risk.

They were "shocked" by the results, according to the report. On the memory card of one device, they found the names, nationalities, photographs, fingerprints and iris scans of 2,632 people. Other metadata showed it had been used near Kandahar, Afghanistan in the summer of 2012. Another device was used in Jordan in 2013 and contained the fingerprints and iris scans of a small group of US military personnel. 

Such devices were used to identify insurgents, verify local and third-country nationals accessing US bases and link people to events, according to a 2011 guide to the devices. "It was disturbing that [the US military] didn’t even try to protect the data,” Marx told the NY Times. “They didn’t care about the risk, or they ignored the risk.

One device was purchased at a military auction, and the seller said they were not aware that it contained sensitive data. The sensitive information was stored on a memory card, so the US military could have eliminated the risk by simply removing or destroying the cards before selling them.

"Because we have not reviewed the information contained on the devices, the department is not able to confirm the authenticity of the alleged data or otherwise comment on it," Defense Department press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told the Times. "The department requests that any devices thought to contain personally identifiable information be returned for further analysis."

Given the sensitivity of the information, the group plans to delete any personally identifiable information found on the devices. Another researcher noted that any individuals found on such devices aren't safe even if they changed their identities, and should be given asylum by the US government. 

The OnePlus 11 is launching globally on February 7th, but the flagship smartphone will actually make debut in China earlier on January 4th, OnePlus announced. The company has also announced pretty much all the specs, including the processor, RAM and storage, showing it'll be right up there with other high-end smartphones. 

The OnePlus 11 will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, already announced with recent Xiaomi and Vivo phones. That chip promises not just the usual speed improvements, but upgrades to AI, camera features, 5G speeds and graphics, including ray tracing support. 

OnePlus

You'll get 12 or 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, along with up 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, and it should have OnePlus's Color 13 version of Android 13 right out of the box. Full camera specs have yet to be released, but we're seeing three cameras on a circular module with Hasselblad branding front and center. 

Along with the smartphone (shown in green and black colors), OnePlus is expected to unveil the Buds Pro 2 and TWS earbuds on January 4th, and also internationally in February. We should learn all the details (perhaps apart from international pricing) at the event on January 4th, though you'll have to pay close attention with CES 2023 going on at the same time.  

Shortly after Windows 11 arrived, Microsoft made some key improvements in the Notepad app that hasn't seen much change since the Windows 95 days. Now, it may be introducing an even bigger feature, judging by a leak from a senior Microsoft product manager spotted by The Verge. "Notepad in Windows 11 now has tabs!" the person said on Twitter, before the tweet was deleted several minutes later. 

The screenshot included in the tweet shows two tabs, along with a note "confidential, don't discuss features or take screenshots." That warning clearly failed to do the job, but the screenshot indicates that tabs are in testing and may arrive to Windows Insiders sometime down the road.

Microsoft

Given how much we all depend on tabs in web browsers, it's hard to believe they're not more ubiquitous on other apps. Microsoft added that feature to File Explorer on Windows 11 earlier this year, helping reduce the sprawl across screens when you're searching or copying files. The company did test tabs for Windows 10 apps some years ago, but essentially abandoned that project.

Notepad is an old app, to say the least, having arrived in 1983 to help Microsoft sell people on using a mouse in MS-DOS. Considering it's largely the same plain text editor it was two decades ago, it's amazing it's still used as much as it is. If you're using Notepad so much that you need tabs, my hat's off to you — but the feature is just a rumor until we see it released into the wild. 

Twitter Blue has enabled new perks for subscribers including "prioritized rankings in conversations" and video uploads up to 60 minutes in length, according to an updated feature list spotted by TechCrunch. Both features were promised by Elon Musk last month when he said Blue subscribers who pay $8 per month would get "priority in replies, mentions & search" and the ability to post long videos. 

Reply priority is now in effect, with the support page stating that "this feature prioritizes your replies on Tweets that you interact with." That seems to be the case on severaltweets I looked at, with Twitter Blue subscribers (many with few followers) appearing as the top replies. It's not clear if users paying $8 per month will always appear at the top in replies, or whether or factors are also used.

Twitter support said earlier that priority rankings will "help lower the visibility of scams, spam and bots." However, some users have expressed concern that the new system will lower the experience for non-paying users, or that paid priority might help spammers, trolls and others amplify their messages. 

The new video rules will boost length from 10 minutes and 512MB to 60 minutes and 2GB at up to 1080p resolution, though only on the web — the 10-minute rule still applies to Android and iOS users. Twitter also notes that it may "modify or adapt your original video for distribution, syndication, publication or broadcast by us and our partners" or change the bitrate/resolution depending on a viewer's internet speeds. 

Musk said that Twitter will eventually pay creators for uploaded videos, noting that it might even exceed the 55 percent cut that YouTube offers. However, it hasn't said whether that will be done with ads or other means. It's also not clear how it may address piracy issues, given that much of its moderation team has been let go or quit.