Tech Digest daily roundup: ‘Lickable’ TV screen developed!

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A prototype “lickable” TV screen which can mimic food flavours has been developed by a Japanese professor, Reuters reports. Dubbed Taste-the-TV, ten canisters spray flavour onto a “hygienic film” which is rolled over the screen for the viewer to lick. Professor Homei Miyashita of Meiji University, suggested it could be used to train cooks or sommeliers remotely. If made commercially, the TV would cost $875 (£735), he estimated. “The goal is to make it possible for people to have the experience of something like eating at a restaurant on the other side of the world, even while staying at home,” he told Reuters. He is reportedly in talks with manufacturers about other possible applications of the flavour-spraying technology, such as adding flavours to toast. BBC 

Huawei has officially announced the P50 Pocket, a clamshell-style folding smartphone that has a circular, 1-inch external display for quick access to notifications and widgets. The device launches in China today, though US sanctions (which mean Huawei can’t use key tech like Google’s Android OS) mean the P50 Pocket won’t make any impact in the West. Huawei teased the handset earlier this month with a photoshoot focused on the P50 Pocket Premium Edition that appeared in Harper’s Bazaar China. This version of the device was created with Dutch designer Iris van Herpen. It has a gold or silver finish, and a 3D pattern on the exterior surface that’s typical of van Herpen’s work, resembling feathers or leaves. The Verge

More than a million scam texts will be sent in the UK this week in the run-up to Christmas, with more than half using parcel delivery ploys to trick customers. Cyber-security firm Proofpoint is seeing 10 times more scam texts than last year and warned consumers to be vigilant of “smishing” fraud through the festive season. Proofpoint said just over a million scam texts will be sent this week, 56 per cent of which will be fake delivery messages. Vice president of operations Jacinta Tobin said a mix of Covid and Christmas makes the messages more tempting to click on. “We are totally susceptible, because we trust and we act quickly,” she said, with 98 per cent of people reading a text within three minutes. She added that businesses have only recently begun using texts, and with that scammers too, who have become very effective. Independent

LG Media Chair
Image: LG Display

LG Display will showcase two flexible OLED concepts at CES 2022 – assuming the pandemic doesn’t claim the annual trade show as its latest victim. The first one is the “Virtual Ride” stationary bike. It features three vertical 55-inch OLED displays that form one continuous screen in front and above the rider. The topmost panel has a 500R curvature radius. According to LG Display, that’s the most extreme curve among large screens to date. The second concept is the “Media Chair.” It’s a recliner with a 55-inch OLED TV attached to it (see above).  Engadget

Robotic vacuum cleaners wouldn’t start. Doorbell cameras stopped watching for package thieves, though some of those deliveries were canceled anyway. Netflix and Disney movies got interrupted and The Associated Press had trouble publishing the news. A major outage in Amazon’s cloud computing network on Dec. 7 severely disrupted services at a wide range of U.S. companies for hours, raising questions about the vulnerability of the internet and its concentration in the hands of a few firms. That uncertainty was underscored Wednesday when Amazon reported another outage that, while much shorter and less disruptive that the Dec. 7 problem, still created problems for many of its cloud customers. AP News 

 

Chris Price
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