An anonymous reader quotes Variety: Oculus VR headset users just got one more video service to watch in their virtual living rooms: Amazon's Prime Video service went live on Oculus Go, Quest and Samsung Gear VR headsets with a dedicated Prime Video VR app Wednesday.

In addition to access to the entire Prime Video catalog, Prime Video VR will also feature select 360-degree video films. At launch, these include "Invasion!" from Baobab Studios and "Greenland Melting" from Frontline and NOVA, according to a blog post.

The app offers users a way to watch Prime Video titles in a virtual theater setting, and also comes with voice search for the entire Prime catalog. Prime Video VR is at launch only available to Prime subscribers in the U.S. and the U.K., but there does seem to be a way for users who aren't Prime subscribers to browse their Amazon Video purchases.

Samsung said it has made the necessary improvements to fix the Galaxy Fold and put it back on sale. The April launch of the device was postponed after early reviewers reported broken screens; it's now scheduled to go on sale in September. From a report: "Samsung has taken the time to fully evaluate the product design, make necessary improvements and run rigorous tests," the company said in a statement. Improvements include extending a protective layer to make it clear it is not meant to be removed, as well as strengthening the hinge area with new protection caps. One explanation for the broken screens appears to have been that some reviewers removed a film which they thought was a typical protective layer that came with the phone when first bought.

An anonymous reader quotes a report IEEE Spectrum: One of the most striking things about the prototype microLED display that Silicon Valley startup Mojo Vision unveiled in June was its size. At half a millimeter across, it's barely bigger than a single pixel from the microLED TV prototype Samsung showed off in 2018. That both use versions of the same technology is remarkable, and it portends big potential for screens made of superefficient and bright micrometer-scale gallium nitride LEDs. Impressive prototypes have proliferated during the past year, and now that companies are turning to the hard work of scaling up their manufacturing processes, displays could appear in some products as soon as late next year. The driving force behind microLED displays remains a combination of brightness and efficiency that LCD and OLED technology can't come close to. One demo of a smartwatch-size display by Silicon Valley -- based Glo shines at 4,000 nits (candelas per square meter) while consuming less than 1 watt. An equivalent LCD display would burn out in seconds trying to meet half that brightness. Some companies "are making monolithic displays, where the gallium nitride pixels are made as a complete array on a chip and a separate silicon backplane controls those pixels," the report says. Others "are using 'pick and place' technology to transfer individual LEDs or multi-microLED pixels into place on a thin-film-transistor (TFT) backplane. The former is suited to microdisplays for applications like augmented reality and head-up displays. The latter is a better fit for larger displays."

AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: Bulb smart energy users have reported their meter displays appearing in Welsh -- even though they are not in Wales. Some of the energy firm's customers said their displays were showing the text "defnydd heddiw," meaning "usage today." Fixing the problem involves navigating the menu, which also appears in Welsh. Bulb said the problem occurred with one in every 200 of its smart meters and could be resolved in five steps. One customer, James Tombs, who lives more than 100 miles from the Welsh border in West Sussex, said: "I don't live in Wales and don't know Welsh... I went on to the Bulb forums, found others with the same problem and followed directions to change [the] language." You can find instructions on how to change the display via Bulb.

Apple iOS developer David Smith noticed something that really jumped out at him when he was reviewing his iPhone's device analytics. "People really, really like the 4.7-inch iPhone," he writes. "When I look at the iPhone distribution for Pedometer++ the four most popular devices are all that size. Together they account for nearly 50% of all devices I see in use." The next most popular screen sizes are the 5.5-inch Plus size (19%) and the 5.8-inch X size (12%).

There are two main reasons for why this is the case: people find the 4.7-inch display to be the perfect size, whether that be for one-handed usability or pocketability, and/or the specs and features found in the 4.7-inch iPhone models still perform well to this day, prompting users to hold off on upgrading to a larger model. Whatever the case may be, the numbers show that 4.7-inch iPhones are still very popular in 2019. Are you still using an iPhone with a 4.7-inch display? Which iPhone model is your favorite?

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) today announced that it has released version 2.0 of the DisplayPort (DP) audio/video standard. DP 2.0 is the "first major update to the DisplayPort standard since March 2016, and provides up to a 3X increase in data bandwidth performance compared to the previous version of DisplayPort (DP 1.4a), as well as new capabilities to address the future performance requirements of traditional displays," it said in a statement. From a report: These include beyond 8K resolutions, higher refresh rates and high dynamic range (HDR) support at higher resolutions, improved support for multiple display configurations, as well as improved user experience with augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) displays, including support for 4K-and-beyond VR resolutions. The advantages of DP 2.0 are enjoyed across both the native DP connector as well as the USB Type-C connector, which carries the DP audio/video signal through DisplayPort Alt Mode. DP 2.0 is backward compatible with previous versions of DisplayPort and incorporates all of the key features of DP 1.4a, including support for visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) with Forward Error Correction (FEC), HDR metadata transport, and other advanced features.

The increased video bandwidth performance of DP 2.0 carried over the USB-C connector enables simultaneous higher-speed USB data transfer without compromising display performance. DP 2.0 leverages the Thunderbolt 3 physical interface (PHY) layer while maintaining the flexibility of DP protocol in order to boost the data bandwidth and promote convergence across industry-leading IO standards. In addition, the new data rates of DP 2.0 come with a display stream data mapping protocol common to both single-stream transport and multi-stream transport. This common mapping further facilitates multi-stream transport support of DP 2.0 devices for a single DP port on the source device to drive multiple displays either via a docking station or daisy-chainable displays. First products incorporating DP 2.0 are projected to appear on the market by late 2020.

Long-time Slashdot reader jrepin writes: The KDE community has released Plasma 5.16, the newest iteration of the popular desktop environment. It features an improved notification system, Not only can you mute notifications altogether with the Do Not Disturb mode, but the system also groups notifications by app.

Developers also focused on user's privacy. When any application accesses the microphone, an icon will pop up in your system tray, showing that something is listening. Vaults, a built-in utility to encrypt folders, are easier and more convenient to use.

Dolphin file and folder manager now opens folders you click on in new tabs instead of new windows. Discover software manager is cleaner and clearer as it now has two distinct areas for downloading and installing software. The Wallpaper Slideshow settings window displays the images in the folders you selected, and lets you select only the graphics you want to display in the slideshow.

For a more comprehensive overview of what to expect in Plasma 5.16, check out the official announcement or the changelog for the complete list of changes.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: With in-screen fingerprint readers quickly becoming a regular feature of flagship phones, manufacturers are starting to wonder about what other things they can stick under the display. In the past day, both Oppo and Xiaomi have taken to social media to show off the latest development: under-display front-facing cameras. Forget camera notches, hole punch displays, and complicated pop-up mechanisms; the under-display camera enables all-screen smartphone designs with no moving parts.

Under-display cameras will work a lot like optical under-display fingerprint readers -- a CMOS chip will be placed under a transparent section of the display, and it will peer through the pixels to see the outside world. For an optical fingerprint reader, the image capturing setup only needs to be of high enough quality to identify the ridges and valleys of your fingertip. For selfies and video chats, there will be much higher demands for image quality, and we wonder what obstructing the camera view with pixels will do to the image quality. Both Xiaomi and Oppo shared videos of the in-display cameras working, but the videos are too low quality to make any kind of image quality determinations. When you aren't taking a picture, the display pixels work normally, and when it's picture time, the pixels around the camera turn off, allowing the camera to see through the display. Xiaomi detailed some of its implementation, saying it was using a "special low-reflective glass" for better image quality.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: iOS 13 will introduce Dark Mode to iPhones, iPads, and iPods for the first time. Apple brought Dark Mode to Macs via macOS Mojave last year, to much fanfare. As was the case there, Dark Mode doesn't actually change anything about the interface -- just the aesthetics. Apple showed Dark Mode running on the company's first-party apps for news, calendar, messages, and more. Dark Mode may also save battery life on devices with emissive OLED displays -- savings like that were discovered in our own tests comparing Android devices with LCD and OLED displays. But we'll have to test the new OS to be sure.

Every iOS update brings changes to key apps made by Apple itself, and most of the apps included with a new installation of iOS have seen some changes. Mail now allows you to mute certain conversations. Maps has a new, easier way of accessing saved locations. The upgrade to Apple Maps will bring far more detail to the overhead view of roads and landmarks, with this rolling out to the entire United States by the end of 2019 and "select countries" next year. Reminders has seen a ground-up interface overhaul, with natural-language processing similar to what's seen in third-party apps -- you'll be able to type the relevant details and Reminders will understand when and where the reminder should be set for. Apple is also adding a swipe-typing ability to its iOS keyboard for the first time, replicating something that has been available in third-party keyboards for years. Notes will have a new gallery view and support for shared folders. Safari will have new options to change text sizing, with per-website settings. The iPad's multitasking UI has also been overhauled, bringing a new window-based experience and an easier way to switch between apps in Slide Over mode. You'll also be able to plug thumb drives into newer iPads with USB-C.

Apple, which has already introduced "dark mode" in macOS, is widely expected to replicate this in its mobile operating system iOS this year. The move comes as a number of technology companies introduce dark mode in their apps and operating systems. But is it something everyone wants?

TidBITS: When text is white on a black background as it would be in Dark Mode, the whiteness of the lines lightens the edges of each line broadly on both sides, blurring the edge. If the thin lines of the text are black and the background is white, however, white from both sides washes over the entire line, lightening it evenly, so the edges aren't blurred. Blur is a bad thing because of how the human eye relies primarily on contrast when extracting detail from an image. In "Reality and Digital Pictures" (12 December 2005), Charles wrote: The eye does not see light per se, it sees changes in light -- contrast. If two objects do not contrast with one another, to the eye they meld into one. This fact makes controlling the contrast of adjacent details to be paramount in importance. He was focused on issues revolving around photographs, but contrast has been shown to be paramount in numerous studies of textual legibility as well.

Of course, contrast goes in both directions -- black on white and white on black both have high contrast. In the scientific literature, black on white is called "positive polarity," whereas white on black is called "negative polarity." Numerous studies over decades of research have found that positive polarity displays provide improved performance in a variety of areas. [...] Taptagaporn and Saito (1990, 1993) tracked changes in pupil size for different illumination levels as well as for the viewing of different visual targets, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) display, script and keyboard. They found less visual fatigue as measured by the frequency of changes in pupil size when working was accomplished with a positive than with a negative polarity display. Likewise, Saito, Taptagaporn, and Salvendy (1993) found faster lens accommodation and thus faster focusing of the eye with positive than with negative polarity displays.

To summarize, a dark-on-light display like a Mac in Light Mode provides better performance in focusing of the eye, identifying letters, transcribing letters, text comprehension, reading speed, and proofreading performance, and it results in less visual fatigue and increased visual comfort. The benefits apply to both the young and the old, as that paper concludes: In an ageing society, age-related vision changes need to be considered when designing digital displays. Visual acuity testing and a proofreading task revealed a positive polarity advantage for younger and older adults. Dark characters on light background lead to better legibility and are strongly recommended independent of observer's age.

Lenovo is launching a new AR-and-VR system targeted at businesses. It's called ThinkReality, and from the looks and description of the device and platform, it looks like a competitor for Microsoft's HoloLens. Engadget reports: There are two parts to the new ThinkReality system -- the AR headset and a software platform. The ThinkReality A6 is a comfortable 380-gram headset with two fisheye cameras on the front, as well as depth sensors and a 13-megapixel RGB sensor. There's also microphones onboard for voice control, and the headset can also detect where you're gazing to optimize resolution or navigation. You'll also be able to interact with your virtual environments using an included 3DoF controller. Untethered, the A6 can last up to four hours with its 6,800mAh battery, and you can still use the device while it's plugged in and charging.

The headset connects to an SSD-sized compute box that contains a Snapdragon 845 CPU running an Android-based platform. There's also an Intel Movidius chips powering waveguide optics here, and each eye on the A6 offers a 40-degree diagonal field of view and 1080p resolution. By comparison, the HoloLens 2 uses a Snapdragon 850 CPU and packs two 2K MEMS displays. Microsoft also squeezes all the computing components into the headset rather than in a separate box like Lenovo does. While I'm not a fan of having to carry around an additional accessory to power a headset, this setup does make the ThinkReality A6 lighter, so it's a compromise I'm willing to make. You can wear the box on a belt clip or an armband, which should make it easy to move around when wearing this setup at work. Lenovo claims this is "one of the lightest fully featured AR headsets in its class," and during a brief trial with a non-working model, I certainly found the A6 lightweight.

The Verge reports on the new ad types Google announced today that will start showing up throughout its mobile products, including some that interrupt the core Google search and discovery experiences. From the report: Google searches on mobile will soon include "gallery" ads that allow advertisers to display multiple images for users to swipe through. You'll also begin to see ads in Google's discover feed -- the feed of news stories that you find built into many Android home screens, inside the Google app, and on Google's mobile homepage -- though they'll only appear in select locations for now. The new ad formats are meant to make ads a lot more noticeable. In a blog post, Google ad chief Prabhakar Raghavan says that, in tests, gallery ads resulted in "up to 25 percent more interactions" than traditional search ads.

Gallery ads will only be launching on mobile, not the desktop. Discover ads will appear in Google's mobile app, as well as on the discover feed on Android phones. Google tells us those ads won't appear in the discover feed that's built into the google.com mobile homepage. [...] The discover feed -- a personalized feed of recommended news stories that Google displays on mobile -- will also be getting ads for the first time. They'll appear just like any other story, with an image on top, a headline, and a subject field with more information. But they'll have a small badge that says "ad" to let users know it's sponsored. Those ads will extend to YouTube as well, where they'll slot in alongside recommended videos. Discover ads will also roll out later this year.

Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has revealed two flagship smartphones: the OnePlus 7, and the OnePlus 7 Pro. From a report: The OnePlus 7 Pro's headlining features include a 6.67-inch AMOLED display (resolution: 3120 x 1440 pixels) with a 90Hz refresh rate, upgraded fast charging, and a telephoto lens -- and they don't come cheap. At $669, the 7 Pro's sticker price is far higher than that of previous OnePlus devices. The OnePlus 7 Pro's edge-to-edge waterproof design is very "of the moment," and that's not a knock against it. Much like the displays on Samsung's Galaxy S10 series and Huawei's P30 Pro, the OnePlus 7 Pro's is rounded at each corner along the contours of the frame and slightly tapered at either edge, slightly curving toward the rear cover. Other features of the OnePlus 7 Pro include a Snapdragon 855 SoC; 6GB or 8GB, or 12GB RAM; 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.0 storage; 4,000mAh battery; "Warp charge" fast charging (no wireless charging). For its camera system, the OnePlus 7 Pro has three different cameras on the back, with a 48-megapixel main sensor, a 16-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera. There is a 16-megapixel on front in a motorized module that pops up out of the top of the phone -- meaning the display has notch, or any other cut out. The phone runs Android 9 with OxygenOS skin. Now, about the OnePlus 7: So the OnePlus 7 won't hit U.S. stores. It makes do without a retractable selfie cam (it's got a notch instead) and it omits the 7 Pro's curved screen edges in favor of a thicker border between the display's left and right side and the frame. The ultra-wide angle sensor is missing in action, but as something of a consolation, the OnePlus 7 features a slightly larger battery -- 4,150mAh -- that's compatible with Warp Charge. The OnePlus 7's price has yet to be announced, but it's expected to be a good deal cheaper than the OnePlus 7 Pro.

At its Google I/O developer conference today, the company announced that Google and Nest are combining into a single smart home brand aptly called Google Nest. For now, the newly announced Google Nest Hub Max and Google Home Hub, which will now be called the Google Nest Hub, are the only products that will carry the new name in their official branding. CNET reports: Other products are expected to be rebranded in the future. All of Nest's smart home products will fall under this brand, which includes the company's famous smart thermostats and security cameras, although their names won't change retroactively. Google's smart speakers, including the Google Home; smart displays such as the Google Home Hub; Google Wifi routers and Google Chromecast streamers will also fit under the purview of Google Nest. Several products under the new brand are getting a price cut, including the Google Home Max, which now costs $100 less than before at $299.

As part of the new unified brand, customers with Nest accounts will be encouraged to merge them into Google accounts. You can control your Nest devices with the Google Home app. You won't be able to set up new Nest devices using that app yet, so customers can't remove the separate Nest app from their phones entirely. Nest accounts will be moved to a maintenance mode, where they will still get security updates, but Google will provide new features only to Google accounts. Similarly, companies that had joined the Works with Nest program will be encouraged to use Actions on Google -- a platform that allows third-party developers to create commands for Google Assistant -- to be compatible with the new joined brand. As for the Google Nest Hub Max, it's basically a big Google Assistant smart display with a camera on top that can be used for video calls and home security monitoring. It's coming this summer, and it will retail for $229. The Verge reports: Like the smaller $149 Google Home Hub, the Nest Hub Max has a matte display that adjusts its color temperature to match the room. The 10-inch screen often looks more like a regular photo in a frame than a standard LCD panel. It comes in both gray and white, though the bezel around the display will always be white. Also, it lets Google know when you're home, and it can recognize your face so it can show customized personal information on the screen. [...] The other thing that's bigger is the sound. There are two front-firing 10W tweeters and one 30W woofer on the back. I wasn't able to do a real sound-quality test in the couple of hours I spent with the Hub Max, but I can tell you that it's definitely louder than the smaller Hub, and it didn't obviously distort at high volumes. But a Sonos One or Apple HomePod this is not...

A total of 50 malicious apps have managed to bypass Google's security checks and land on the Google Play store, leading to millions of installs on Android devices. ZDNet reports: Now, the cybersecurity team from Avast have found a further 50 apps relating to lifestyle services which masquerade as legitimate software but are actually adware, and these malicious apps have been downloaded a total of 30 million times. On Tuesday, Avast published a report on the discovery, in which the apps are linked to each other through third-party libraries that "bypass the background service restrictions present in newer Android versions."

"Although the bypassing itself is not explicitly forbidden on the Play Store, Avast detects it as Android:Agent-SEB [PUP], because apps using these libraries waste the user's battery and make the device slower," the researchers say. "The applications use the libraries to continuously display more and more ads to the user, going against Play Store rules." Each app displays full-blown ads to users, and in some cases, will also attempt to lure viewers to install additional adware-laden applications. The malicious apps include Pro Piczoo, Photo Blur Studio, Mov-tracker, Magic Cut Out, and Pro Photo Eraser. Installation rates range from one million to one thousand.

Windows 7 users have started to report the appearance of a pop-up message from Microsoft informing them that support for the operating system is coming to an end. From a report: While this will not come as a surprise to everyone, not all Windows 7 users will be aware that Microsoft is on the verge of dropping the aging OS. We have already seen pop-ups encouraging users to update to Windows 10 but now Microsoft is turning up the pressure, telling Windows 7 users: "After 10 years, support for Windows 7 is nearing the end." People have been reporting that the message started appearing as early as April 18, but not all Windows 7 users are seeing it yet. The message includes a link to a Microsoft website that encourages people to backup their data, buy a modern computer and make the jump to Windows 10.

Four Samsung Galaxy Fold review units in the hands of major US tech journalists all experienced device-breaking display failures today. AndroidPolice: Steve Kovach of CNBC, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, and Dieter Bohn of The Verge have reported major failures of their phones' display panels, just two days after receiving them. To say this is a disaster for Samsung is probably underselling it. Well-known YouTuber MKBHD claims to be having similar problems, but hasn't posted any images. Bohn and Kovach claim their displays failed without removing the panel's protective film (Samsung says not to take it off), but both Gurman and Brownlee did. The company has yet to begin shipping the device to consumers. So far it has only handed the phone to select journalists, most of whom reported issue with it today.

HP today announced its latest Elitebook 800 G6 line of business notebooks, boasting additional privacy options and a security software agent that HP says will make them more capable against zero-day attacks. From a report: HP's new models -- the EliteBook 830 G6, HP EliteBook 840 G6, and HP EliteBook 850 G6, plus the HP EliteBook x360 830 G6 -- offer up to 18 hours of battery life, a behind-the-glass privacy shutter, and options for a 1,000-nit screen that can be used outdoors. HP said it will ship most of the models in May, while the x360 model is expected to ship in June. Prices have not been announced. According to specifications provided to PCWorld, all four notebooks will share common Core i5-8265U and Core i7-8565 Whiskey Lake processors from Intel, while the Elitebook 830 G6 and EliteBook x360 830 G6 will offer a Core i3-8145U option as well. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 also appear for the first time in this generation, HP said.

The members of the EliteBook lineup differ by screen size. The EliteBook 830 G6 and x360 830 G6 offer 13.3-inch displays. The 840 G6 is a 14-inch laptop, and the 850 G6 is a 15-inch machine. As many business notebooks do, HP has innovated on two axes: improving the hardware, as well as building in additional software and services. The company seems especially proud of the latter, specifically what it calls Sure Sense. The technology will be included on all of the newly announced EliteBook PCs. With Sure Sense, the company believes the lightweight software agent can react in real time to unknown threats, intelligently deciding whether they represent a risk to the system. The idea, HP said, is to provide an additional layer of security against so-called "zero-day" attacks that may come out of the blue and install ransomware or worse on corporate machines.

Josh Dzieza, writing for The Verge: The secrecy and vagueness are frustrating to critics. How do you prove that Foxconn won't build an enormous LCD factory during an industry glut or create a research campus larger than MIT in rural Wisconsin other than by pointing out that experts -- and even, occasionally, Foxconn executives -- say it makes no sense? State House Minority Leader Gordon Hintz recently appointed himself to the board of WEDC, and Foxconn's continued promises of 13,000 jobs make him palpably furious. Speaking in slow, measured tones in his Madison office as he packed for a trip, he said the state needs to "right-size" the project to something realistic, likely a few hundred research jobs, and that Foxconn needs to be honest about its plans. "For something that had a 25-year payback, building a factory because the president wants you to for reasons that have nothing to do with market viability is insane." Hintz believes Foxconn is trying to slow-walk the project until 2020, continuing to use it to win Trump's goodwill in the trade war and waiting to see who's elected. Foxconn has responded. Nilay Patel, writing for The Verge: Today, Foxconn responded to that piece by... announcing another innovation center in Wisconsin, this one in Madison, the state's capital. The building, which currently houses a bank, actually sits directly across the street from the Capitol building, and it will continue to house the bank because Foxconn did not announce when it would be moving in. Here are some other things Foxconn did not announce: how much it had paid for the building, how many floors of the building it would occupy, how many people would work there, or what those people would be doing. It did announce that it would be rebranding the building "Foxconn Place Madison," however.

Sony has unveiled a display that contains 16 times as many pixels as a 4K TV and 64 times as many as a regular 1080p high definition TV. "This will let viewers stand close to the unit -- which is longer than a bus -- without its image looking blurred," report the BBC. From the report: The 63ft by 17ft (19.2m by 5.4m) screen is currently being installed at a new research center that has been built for the Japanese cosmetics group Shiseido in the city of Yokohama, south of Tokyo. It is so large it will stretch between the first and second floors. The development was announced by Sony at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show, which is currently being held in Las Vegas.

Sony had previously designed a separate 16K display that went on show at Tokyo's Haneda Airport in 2014, but that looked like it was made up of dozens of smaller screens rather than presenting a single seamless picture. The new "super-size" installation has in fact been created out of several modular panels, but because they do not have bezels they can be fitted together without any visible gaps to create the impression of being a single screen. The innovation does not require a backlight, but goes much brighter than OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens while still delivering similar deep blacks. At present, however, the high manufacturing costs involved make it too expensive for widespread use.