Daily Authority: 📁 HP foldable

🐇 Good morning! Not long after this newsletter goes out, the OnePlus Ace will launch in China… so keep your eyes out!

HP foldable PC?

A report from South Korean publication The Elec, seems to have discovered that HP is working on a 17-inch foldable laptop:

• HP would be the third major PC maker to produce a foldable option.
• It would follow Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold, from 2020, and the ASUS Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, which we’re actually still waiting to see, but is expected for mid-2022.
• HP joining the foldable PC market, as one of the biggest PC names, does add some weight and fresh credibility to the foldable PC market.
• And that foldable PC market is a little strange! The ThinkPad X1 Fold came out two years ago and hasn’t been updated since.
• We’ve been waiting for this ASUS foldable since January to see what it offers us.
• Meanwhile, smartphone foldables have been churned out by many companies.
• Now, HP and a PC.

What we know:

• The Elec reports the coming HP device will be unveiled later this year or possibly at CES early next year.
• Size-wise, it’ll be 17-inches when unfolded, tucking away to 11-inches when folded.
• It’s a 4K OLED model, which may be a challenge on battery life.
• Details are quite specific about some elements: the report suggests LG Display will make 10,000 units of the foldable OLED panel, and SK IE TEchnology, which manufactures all kinds of things, is supplying the protective film on the display.
• That aligns with what LG Display has been telling us about its own foldable laptop efforts back at CES as well.

Does it make sense?

• The idea of folding your laptop to suit the purpose, from tablet, to laptop, to portable monitor, to sidekick, sort of sounds exciting.
• The ThinkPad X1 Fold seemed like it was brilliant and exciting and definitely not worth buying at the price for the first-generation problems of battery life and expense.
• It was simply too early, though it was fun.
• The Elec noted LG Display supplied the panels for the Lenovo product.
• Two years later, with LG Display baking in improvements (in theory, at least) maybe HP’s effort can truly be a next-generation product.
• My colleague Palash Volvoikar pointed out a number of very valid criticisms of why foldable laptops don’t exactly make sense, even as smartphone foldables do.
• I don’t exactly know if HP can get around them, but I’m excited to see!

Roundup

👉 More detail on a Google-made iPhone app that simplifies iOS users switching to Android (Android Authority).

😇 Samsung Galaxy S9 gets one last surprise update on its way to smartphone heaven (Android Authority).

📞 Google will kill call recording apps on Android for good starting May 11, as it tries to avoid privacy problems (Android Authority).

🚗 Motorola’s MA1 wireless Android Auto adapter gives your car a big tech upgrade (Gizmodo).

🍎 Apple’s MagSafe Battery Pack can now charge iPhones faster with a new firmware update: 7.5W, or 50% more juice. But, click the link to understand why you might not want to update until people check it out, given heat problems (The Verge).

🍏 The EU’s consumer protection committee voted 43 to 2 for a USB-C consumer electronics charging standard, meaning it’s now on the cusp, with plenty of implications for Apple (TechCrunch).

🤔 Instagram is begging you to stop reposting TikToks to Reels, and will downrank non-original content (The Verge).

🕶 Envision glasses for the blind, built on Google Glass, can read documents, scan faces, and aid navigation (CNET).

👍 Zoom’s desktop apps now respond to raised hands and thumbs-up gestures. I saw this happen yesterday on an iPad, and I guess it’s good? (Engadget).

🍏 Filmmakers are genuinely and directly begging Tim Cook to make updates to Final Cut Pro, a product Apple seems to have just moved on from (Gizmodo).

🕳 Boring Company raises additional $675 million as investors chuck money into holes in the ground (The Verge).

🎙 The Obamas are reportedly leaving Spotify to find an open platform (Engadget).

🔵 Get ready for a decade of Uranus jokes. (By the way, the Greek god of the sky, Uranus? A very strange mythology) (Wired).

👉 This random display cable that’s actually USB-C pleased me (Twitter).

📈 “ELI5: Why does the economy require to keep growing each year in order to succeed?” (r/explainlikeimfive).

Throwback Thursday

Remember our old pal, NASA’s Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021?

The big deal this week is that it caught an eclipse on the surface of Mars. An eclipse!

And it’s pretty uniquely amazing, partly because we can throw back to a similar eclipse captured in 2019.

• So, what we have is Mars’ moon Phobos transiting across the surface of the Sun.
• First, the old eclipse. It’s fine! Pretty cool. NASA’s older Curiosity Mars rover did well.
• Now, the second eclipse. Wow.
• “I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t expect it to be this amazing,” said Rachel Howson of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, one of the team that operates the camera.
• “You can see details in the shape of Phobos’ shadow, like ridges and bumps on the moon’s landscape,” said Mark Lemmon, a planetary astronomer with the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
• “You can also see sunspots. And it’s cool that you can see this eclipse exactly as the rover saw it from Mars.”

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor.