>"I actually know quite a few people with Fold phones and precisely zero of them think the creases are in any way a discouragement"

My point (which probably wasn't clear) was that the links and info provided for this article didn't show anything about how it folded or that there are creases or that it didn't lay flat, etc. But the youtube review did show that useful info (and a lot of the positives too).

>"Make no mistake these phones are not designed for everyone, they are a niche product for a minority."

Indeed... my mouth was watering over it. Super cool and useful. But it isn't practical for me for the way I would want to use it, and probably most others. And that is even before the $3,000 price tag.

Also, there is something a bit off-putting that one of their main listed features is that the *FIRST* screen repair is half price!!! Their marketing department needs some serious reprimand on that one. :) LOL!

>"Literally every Samsung Fold phone has a 1st party case (as well as 3rd party cases) that are designed specifically to cause the phone to sit flat with the camera bulge."

It might have that 1/3 lay flat, but it will be considerably higher than the other 2/3, so it will not be flat in totality. It just won't be rocking on the camera.... which is a plus, but something potential customers might not expect.

In any case, it is a marvel of technology and I wish them the best. But if someone gave me one for free, I am not sure I would want to carry around something so bulky and heavy. So I encourage someone to send me a free one and I will try it out and report back ;)

Any time an AI is given permission to modify or delete files, it should be on an isolated computer, preferably airgapped, but always isolated
It should be assumed that the AI will misbehave and cause damage, so backups are essential
The entire exercise should be treated as a dangerous experiment

Give it time, he also doesn't watch TV, but only just recently stopped announcing it.

If there is a three party Presidential race, the US House of Representatives makes the decision as to who wins.

No they don't unless none of the candidates manage to get a majority in the Electoral College, and that's not a sure thing by any means. Remember, Ross Perot tried that in both '92 and '96 and didn't carry a single state in either election.

The stupidest voting system for representational systems ever. Ok, it was the first - dating back to Magna Carta days - but why is it still being used today?

Pick almost anything else, and you get better results. My favorite would be Concordet, but any Single Transferrable Vote would probably work fine.

Ah, ye olde Osborne luggables - the days when geeks were real men.

So many questions, so many dollars.

And wham, pre-reviews show folding and creases, like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Thick and heavy for a phone, but if you want something that can be an actual tablet, you gotta make some serious trade-offs. When when using it as a phone OR tablet on a table, there is that bulge with the cameras so it can't sit flat. And that inner big screen is soft and scratch-prone. Hmm.

>"In practice, it is seen more as an unwanted evil, like car crashes, than as bad choices that needs the attention of family members or mental health professionals."

What it needs to be is children not having unsupervised access to devices that have unrestricted internet access. Social media is certainly detrimental, but there are millions of other "dangerous to children" sites/apps, not to mention texting or media'ing to/from strangers. Children cannot comprehend or deal with the crap they read/see/hear on the Internet. In many, it can cause all kinds of agitation, addiction, bullying, psychoses, dysmorphia, depression, obsession, suicidality, etc.

Children do not need smart phones. If the parents want their children to have them, then the responsible thing is to lock them down with a very small whitelist of safe sites and apps, and call/text/media only to/from known contacts that the parent knows and approves. Same goes for tablets/laptops/desktops.

There is tons of good educational stuff available for devices without the risk of being brainwashed, picked on by other children, sucked into conspiracies, led down who-knows-what rabbit holes with hallucinating AI's, groomed by pedophiles, amplifying any stupid thing they might have ever written, lured into scams, thrust into adult concepts and conflicts, etc. It is hard being a minor, why would a parent want to make it 100 times worse? So it is convenient to shut them up? Because "all my friends do it"? Because it is cheap "entertainment"?

It's actually pretty understandable.

Despite the meme power of a broken login, the bug affects a fallback feature you might well go years without using.

It requires you have PIN/Touch sign in enabled; which if you've enabled that, that means that is how you normally login.
And that works just fine. Nothing is broken there.

What is missing is a "password" icon in the 'fallback' options to "sign in a different way" (using a password, e.g., instead of a PIN or fingerprint.)

So despite being on the login screen, its not actually something you are going to regularly interact with normally, unless you forgot your pin or something. And its hardly something human beta testers are going to think to explicitly test for, every single build. And since the bug is a missing element as opposed to a visibly broken element, well, its easy to fail to notice something you almost never use isn't there.

Meanwhile, clicking where its supposed to be still actually works, so its entirely plausible that you could have automated test scripts that continue to pass if they've been scripted to click at coordinate (X,Y), or to select the password button programmatically by an identifier or something, and then 'expect' something to happen in response, because the button is there and it works just fine, its just missing its texture or something. This would slip past a lot of test frameworks, the button is "in the model", "its active/enabled", "its selectable", "its clickable", and "it fires a click event if you click", "and whatever it is supposed to do happens", and its probably even "visible" (though you can't see it); most likely the icon or texture is missing or unassigned or referencing a transparency by mistake, and its just a "transparent button". So unless you specifically add checks to screen capture and compare a pixel block range to a reference image bitmap or something, you aren't even going to catch it with an automated test.

Tests like THAT do exist and can be written, but its not usually very useful, and the cost to write and maintain such tests with reference images is huge. change an icon or font or background color and a zillion tests need to be updated. Its a difficult balancing act to decide what to test, even for a highly competent QA team.

It's possible it just outright incompetence too... but in this case, for this bug... its pretty understandable.

Percentages do not work the way you think they work.

Laws that require backup noises make no sense and cause problems

It's a recall when a software update is important enough to ground planes until it's been done...

Here in Australia if your phone is stolen you can have the IMEI blacklisted and it will no longer be able to connect to any network. And both iOS and Android already have tracking features that let you find the device remotely and even lock or wipe it. Not to mention the cloud lock many phones have to prevent factory resets.

I would suggest you look at Kagi, or something like SearXNG. I pay for the former, and occasionally use the later.

Kagi can be configured to leave out the AI bullshit, and even in the default mode (currently) does it with a light touch. I don't believe searXNG even has AI search as an option.

This is supposed to be the value of the internet, that if a site starts to suck, we are simply a new URL away from one of their competitors. Google just is not that good anymore in my experience. I occasionally have to use it when using someone else's machine (sons PC, kids school Chromebook, etc.), and I'm frustrated the whole time. There really are better alternatives for search. You just need to be willing to kick the tires on them.

Gov mandated backdoors killed Blackberry. It wont work this time either.