It’s always tempting to focus entirely on the weird and wonderful gadgets that come out of CES, but today I want to take a moment to highlight a few of interesting laptops to have been announced at the show.
First up are the new Razer Blade 16 and 18, the latter of which features an absolutely massive 18-inch display. But it’s actually the 16-inch version that I’m more interested in after reading my colleague Monica’s hands on thanks to its Mini LED display, which has a thousand local dimming zones for better HDR performance.
And if you’re after something less bleeding edge, then Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus Twist has you covered thanks to its 12-inch color E Ink display, which comes in addition to its more standard 13.3-inch OLED touchscreen. Or if you want to go in the opposite direction, then there’s this Lenovo Yoga Book 9i, which has two screens and no E Ink in sight.
Finally, it’s nice to see Asus’ collaboration with PC fan specialists Noctua continue. It’s just announced a Noctua Edition of an RTX 4080 graphics card which, if previous collaborations are anything to go by, should result in a GPU that can run beautifully quiet even under heavy loads. Shame there’s no pricing or available just yet.
And now, here’s a silly tweet to start your day:
Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Friday, January 6th, 2023.
Throwing the book at Clearview AI’s speedrun into creepy facial recognition.
You may remember New York Times writer Kashmir Hill from episodes including hacking a stranger’s smart home via Google, lifting the veil on Facebook’s shadow profiles tracking people who don’t have Facebook accounts, and making an exhaustive attempt to live online without the big five tech companies.
Now she has announced a release date for her book on Clearview AI, the facial recognition firm she once called “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It.”
Your Face Belongs to Us is a gripping true story about the rise of a technological superpower that has been long-feared by the civil liberties community and long-desired by governments and authoritarian regimes. And it is a powerful warning that in the absence of vigilance and government regulation, this kind of technology will fundamentally change our ability to be anonymous.
Netflix heard you loved Wednesdays.
Despite Netflix’s Wednesday series being a surprise hit, there was no guarantee that the streamer was going to bring the series back — especially given its penchant for canceling shows. But in Wednesday’s case, the future’s looking bright as Netflix has just announced its plans for a season two.
Unsurprisingly, the video doesn’t detail any of the next season’s plot or when it might air. But in a statement published to Netflix’s Tudum blog, Wednesday co-showrunners Miles Millar and Alfred Gough said they “can’t wait to dive headfirst into another season and explore the kooky, spooky world of Nevermore.”
Another round of brown and tans, please.
Asus quietly announced the Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition at CES 2023, a sequel to last year’s 3080. It maintains the polarizing brown and tan styling, and Asus claims it worked with Noctua to keep temps and noise low on this beefy card.
Price and availability aren’t available yet, but here’s to hoping this year you can actually buy the thing without getting gouged.
So ugly it’s beautiful. Image: Asus
