Hasta La Gadget!

“There was no fairness or decency in treatment of the plaintiffs’ most sensitive information, and no excuse for [Norman Pattis’] misconduct,” the judge ruled.

Negotiations to keep about 10,000 nurses from walking off the job are heading into a final weekend.

It’s almost time for the 2023 edition of the week-long Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) speedrunning marathon. This year’s event takes place between January 8th and January 15th. As ever, AGDQ will showcase a bunch of skilled players racing to finish games as quickly as they can. Runners will go head-to-head in some games and we might see world records being broken too.

For the third year in a row, AGDQ will take place entirely online. The event was scheduled to take place in Florida with a live audience, but organizers decided against that plan due to the state’s “continued disregard for COVID-19’s dangers (including anti-mandate vaccination policies) and an increased aggression towards LGBTQ+ individuals.” They said that “we do not believe it is a safe place for our community at this time,” but relocating to a “safer location” wasn’t financially feasible. That means speedrunners won’t have an in-person crowd to cheer them on.

As always, the schedule is full of some intriguing runs. Stray, Cult of the Lamb and Neon White (a game that’s all about speedrunning) are among the recent titles making their first appearances at AGDQ. A bunch of fan-favorite games are in the mix too, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Cuphead and Portal.

I’m looking forward to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge run, as well as watching a crew of six players cleaning a bunch of vehicles in PowerWash Simulator as quickly as possible. I’m also curious about a run for a game called I’m going to die if I don’t eat sushi!, which I simply had to buy after seeing it on the schedule. Unless it’s added as a bonus game, though, there’s no Elden Ring this time around.

AGDQ is once again raising funds for Prevent Cancer Foundation. The 2022 edition brought in a record $3.4 million for that cause. AGDQ and its sibling event, Summer Games Done Quick, have raised more than $41 million for charity since 2010.

The latest marathon will commence at noon ET on Sunday with an any-percent run of Splatoon 3 (meaning the player can take advantage of glitches). You’ll be able to watch the entire event on Twitch via the Games Done Quick channel. The stream is embedded below too. If you miss a run or can’t watch AGDQ live, you’ll be able to catch up on the GDQ YouTube channel.

Mercedes is taking a big step toward helping its EV drivers find chargers and activate a charging session more easily.

When we first started seeing foldable device concepts a few years back, I was intrigued but not particularly impressed. Many of those early prototypes felt very much like experiments: they were often bulky and the bendy displays seemed fragile. And there were creases.

Thankfully, display tech has come a long way in just a few years. That was particularly evident at LG Display’s booth at CES this year, where the company showed off two new mobile OLED concepts: a 17-inch laptop/tablet and an 8-inch smartphone-like device that can fold in two directions.

The 17-inch device is far from the first foldable tablet we’ve seen, but LG Display claims this one is “almost entirely crease-free.” We looked at it pretty closely, and there was a visible seam along the fold, but it was very difficult to detect when the tablet was fully extended. And there wasn’t any kind of rippling or gap that we sometimes see with foldables. Moreover, LG says the display was tested for up to 50,000 folds, so it should be pretty durable.

The other concept was something LG Display officially calls the “360-degree Foldable OLED,” an 8-inch display that looks a lot like Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, but folds in both directions. So, in addition to folding it closed, you can also fold it outwards, with the two displays in a sort of tent shape.

LG Display says these “360-degree” abilities could potentially allow an eventual device to be used in multiple different modes. Of course it would also depend on hardware makers and app developers to decide how take advantage of the functionality, but it’s interesting to think about how you might want to use a phone when it’s folded in the other direction.

Of course, two-way folding also requires a more durable display and LG says it’s delivered on that as well. According to the company, the 360-degree foldable is rated for 200,000 folds and is stronger than comparable foldable devices currently on the market. So while we don’t yet know for sure if companies like Samsung are going to pursue phones with these two-way folding abilities, LG Display has shown that such a device could be a lot closer than we think.