The formidable Dark Side duo proved to be some of the most badass villains working against Ahsoka and Sabine in the first season of the Star WarsDisney+ series. Their figures are incredibly detailed and come with an arsenal of accessories including their lightsabers.
Take a closer look in this gallery. Shin Hati is $280 and is expected to ship between January and June of 2025; Baylan Skoll is $285 and has the same production timeline.
Elon Musk met with Donald Trump in Florida this past Sunday, according to a new report from the New York Times. And while it’s not clear what the two men discussed, news of the meeting comes as Musk has ratcheted up his rhetoric against illegal immigration and Trump looks for new sources of cash.
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The Times report doesn’t name a source for the meeting but cites “three people briefed on the meeting.” An account that tracks Musk’s jet on the social media platform BlueSky shows he landed in West Palm Beach on Saturday, March 2, and left the next day.
Musk previously claimed that he’d never voted for a Republican before 2022, which heavily suggests he never voted for Trump either in 2016 or 2020. But Musk has fully embraced Republican politics in recent years, even if he’s kept Trump at an arm’s length at times.
Musk was an early advocate for Vivek Ramaswamy to become the Republican nominee for president, though Ramaswamy dropped out of the race back in mid-January. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and long-shot candidate, never put up much of a fight against Trump and has since endorsed the former president.
The billionaire SpaceX CEO may not love Trump personally, but the two men have many shared interests. Trump, for example, wants to unleash U.S. troops on American streets to round up anyone who might look like they’re in the country illegally, a plan that Musk might just agree with.
Musk has created a steady drumbeat of xenophobic nonsense on X in recent months, insisting that illegal immigration is the biggest issue facing the country—an overwhelming potential threat that’s become a fixation for Musk. Oddly, Musk didn’t seem to care much about immigration until about 2023, judging solely from his tweets and public comments. And Musk’s new pet issue puts him at odds with President Joe Biden, who’s not exactly a dove on immigration policy.
“This administration is both importing voters and creating a national security threat from unvetted illegal immigrants,” Musk tweeted late Monday in a tone that’s become typical of the billionaire.
To be clear, non-citizens aren’t allowed to vote in the U.S., so Musk’s insistence that Biden is “importing” voters is flat wrong. But Musk went on to say immigration could create a threat as serious as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
“It is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11. Just a matter of time,” Musk continued.
It should be noted that none of the terrorists that carried out the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York were in the country illegally. They all entered on completely legal visas.
Biden has said he’d like to “close” the border if Republicans can get him a bill that addresses the issue. Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, spent months negotiating a bipartisan bill that’s widely viewed as the toughest immigration reform in a generation. But that legislation was torpedoed by Republicans after Trump made it clear he wants the border to be an issue he can campaign on in the lead-up to November’s presidential election.
And that’s the problem the U.S. now faces. Trump, who’s currently leading Biden in several national polls, thrives in a world of chaos. And Musk might be signing up for precisely that kind of chaotic mission if he starts to support Trump financially.
The ‘Meth Lab Oompa Loompa Lady,’ whose real name is Kirsty Paterson, has been through a lot over the past week, but even she wasn’t ready for the latest twist in her story. After being forced to learn an AI-generated script for a disastrous Willy Wonka-themed event in Scotland and facing hordes of hate on X/Twitter, Paterson got a message from someone she never expected: Chrissy Teigen.
Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox Controller
“Somebody get the Wonka meth lab girl on Cameo immediately—while it’s still hot,” Teigen said in a recent Instagram story. “I need a Cameo.”
How the ‘Meth Lab Oompa Loompa Lady’ Turned Into an Internet Meme
The 30-year-old actress from Glasgow saw her life turned upside down by the failed “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” event in the city last month, which was promoted with fantastical AI-generated images of lollipop forests and jellybean waterfalls.
However, the reality was a far cry from what was promised in the AI images. Instead of the “place where chocolate dreams become reality,” parents and their children encountered a dirty and gutted factory with a couple of plastic candy canes and other props sparsely thrown about the bare concrete floor.
Paterson was one of the actors hired to work at the event and played an Oompa Loompa. In an interview with Vulture, the 30-year-old shared that she saw multiple red flags before the event, such as getting the script the night before the event and seeing a bared-bones set during dress rehearsal. The situation didn’t improve the day of the event, Paterson recalled, and organizers eventually told actors to abandon the script and just let the guests walk through the venue.
At this point, the actress was manning a so-called “Jellybean Room,” where she had to ration a meager three jellybeans per child, and feeling humiliated and angry over what was going on. It was then that someone snapped the now infamous photo of Paterson standing behind what looks like a smoking chemistry set with an expression that seemed to say she was questioning her current life choices.
The photo quickly went viral and got its own entry on KnowYourMeme. While some people poked fun at Paterson, others were needlessly cruel, criticizing her appearance and accusing her of doing drugs. The Twitter comments were hard on the actress, who said she stopped looking at her phone for days because the situation was “too much.”
“The comments are savage—very, very savage and not very nice. I think people need to learn to be a bit more kind and realize that people are just human beings,” Paterson said in a video on TikTok, where she’s already amassed more than 13,000 followers. “I’m just a normal 30-year-old woman from Glasgow who did a job that is the worst acting job I’ve ever done in my life. I love my job. I really do. I do other stuff and the whole thing’s mental to be honest with you.”
Creating a Cameo for the ‘Viral Oompa Loompa’
That doesn’t mean Paterson hasn’t gotten a kick out of some of the comments and memes. The actress said she and the other actors have laughed at some of the funny aspects coming out of the Wonka disaster. Paterson said she’s now working on trying to turn the experience into something positive.
Her new fans on social media support her. When Paterson, dressed in her Oompa Loompa costume from the event, announced she was now on Cameo on Monday night, many users were delighted. Some told her to go “make that money.”
As of Tuesday morning, one of the most popular comments was a question on whether Paterson would do a Cameo collab with The Unknown, an evil and creepy-looking character at the event who also went viral. The identity of the actor who played The Unknown is currently, lol, unknown.
NASA still has plenty of cool projects afoot in the real world—did you hear about that asteroid-redirecting test? Or those space-friendly cameras?—but it’s also trying to stir imaginations in fantastically creative ways, too. Enter The Lost Universe, the agency’s first-ever tabletop roleplaying game.
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Its first what now? Yes, a TTRPG crafted at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with a gameplay instructional booklet currently available for free download here (plus a Tolkien-esque map); it’s for 4-7 level 7-10 characters, and is touted as being compatible which whichever game system you prefer for gathering parties and venturing forth. Here’s the pitch: “A dark mystery has settled over the city of Aldastron on the rogue planet of Exlaris. Researchers dedicated to studying the cosmos have disappeared, and the Hubble Space Telescope has vanished from Earth’s timeline. Only an ambitious crew of adventurers can uncover what was lost. Are you up to the challenge?”
There’s an educational element lurking here—“take on a classic villain (while also using and learning science skills!) as you overcome challenges and embark on an exciting quest to unlock more knowledge about our universe”—which feels both obvious as well as something that cleverly exploits the Venn diagram encompassing “TTRPG fans” and “science lovers.” Which is to say, a lot of folks!
NASA shared a video for added excitement, which you can see below. Will you be blasting off to The Lost Universe?
Welcome to The Lost Universe: NASA’s First Tabletop Role-playing Game
When you’re buying a new smartphone, salesmen love pestering you to buy some increased protection — insurance, a case, and, obviously, a screen protector. The screen protector has long been hailed as a necessity, costing anywhere from $10 to $60. These little slips of plastic and glass have ballooned to a $50 billion industry, but there’s a dirty secret underneath it all. Your screen protector may not be essential anymore.
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You wouldn’t be crazy for wanting to protect your screen. Cracking your screen is the number one way to break your phone, followed by water damage and battery issues. However, the glass in your phone has gotten significantly stronger in the last five years. Some experts say you might be able to skip the screen protector, and even warn about some relatively unknown downsides that salespeople aren’t telling you.
“It’s really not particularly useful,” said Raymond Soneira, CEO of DisplayMate Technologies, about screen protectors in an interview with Gizmodo. Soneira’s company researches how to optimize your phone’s display. He doesn’t use a screen protector, just a phone case, but caveats this by noting he is very careful with his phone and rarely ever drops it.
DisplayMate found that screen protectors make your phone more reflective. This reduces the quality of your display and requires you to increase your phone’s brightness to match the same quality. Over time, he says this will wear down your phone’s battery, and give you a shorter daily battery life.
However, the phone community is mixed on this screen protector issue. iFixit Repairability Engineer, Carsten Fraunheim notes that screen protectors can be useful against scratches, micro-abrasions, and just give you peace of mind. He calls them a “no-brainer” but admits they’re less essential than they used to be.
“As smartphone glass tech becomes more and more shatter resistant, screen protectors will lose their ‘drop protection’ selling feature,” Fraunheim said in an email.
Even the liquid screen protectors have their issues.
“Liquid wipe-on screen protectors are snake oil,” said iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens in an email. He says that this variety of protection actually compromises the structure of your screen, though he had no comment on panel-style protectors.
Trey Barnett, a computer technician at a Manhattan uBreakiFix, has seen a lot of cracked screens in the 14 years he’s been repairing phones. However, he sees fewer iPhones with broken screens than he used to.
“I would say that screens have gotten a bit stronger, but, you know, it hasn’t stopped people from breaking them altogether.”
There is an obvious argument in favor of screen protectors: they cost less than replacing your phone screen. While that’s true, the chances of having to repair your screen are far lower than they used to be. The multi-billion dollar screen protector industry would like to keep that on the down low.
Origins of The Screen Protector
In 2021, Apple’s iPhones started using Ceramic Shield, a new material that claims to be tougher than any previous smartphone glass. It comes from Corning, a glass company that Steve Jobs commissioned to produce the first screen for the iPhone in 2007.
Jobs famously gave Corning a 6-month deadline to produce the iPhone’s screen, which was originally planned to be plastic. Corning got it done, creating an especially strong, thin material called Gorilla Glass. This material would be used in the first decade of iPhones and is still used in most Samsung phones.
Gorilla Glass is stronger than most glass, but it wasn’t great at first. Screen protectors for phones almost immediately popped up, as consumers raced to wrap their phones in protective materials.
Apple forumsin 2008 were full of peoplediscussing early screen protectors. The first iPhone adopters quickly scratched their Gorilla Glass displays. Some users found these early screen protectors were so bad they messed with the iPhone’s touch screen. Screen protectors have gotten much better, but so have screens themselves.
Ceramic Shield was a major leap forward for screen technology. The materials used in Ceramic Shield are much different from typical smartphone glass. Corning describes it as somewhere in between ceramics and glass, and Apple says it’s four times stronger than Gorilla Glass when it comes to drops.
However, these major improvements have flown under the radar. That may have something to do with the growth of the screen protector industry. By 2030, the industry is expected to grow to roughly $85 billion, according to Grand View Research.
Why Screen Protectors Persist
Anyone who has cracked their phone screen will tell you how painful that experience is. Even though phone screens have gotten much better, the replacement process is scarring enough to make anyone just buy the dang screen protector.
It’s totally understandable why you might put your phone in a screen protector still. It is a large investment, but there’s more and more evidence that screens are getting better. A good phone case alone may be sufficient.
So at what point do we ditch the screen protectors? These flimsy films could be degrading the quality of that very expensive screen in your pocket, and they are potentially running through your battery. Screen protectors are slowly becoming a thing of the past.
It’s March, and we’ve got our first big movie for 2024 in Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Dune: Part Two. Even as its release date shifted around a few times, there’s been a palpable excitement in the air for the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel, and that was before it was getting high marks from nearly everyone. Financially, it’s starting off on the right foot and doing better than originally projected.
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Per the Hollywood Reporter, Dune has shored up $178.5 million in its starting weekend. $97 million of this came internationally; in regions like France and South Korea, it released a few days ahead of its March 1 date in North America. For North America, it netted $81.5 million, double the opening take of Dune: Part One back in 2021 and also the highest-grossing movie of 2024 to date. The film was initially tracked to be in the $150-$175 million range, but its small surpassing of that suggests it may have a long tail ahead of it.
Beyond its collective star power and heavy marketing, folks seemed to groove with Part One in the years since its release, if they weren’t already into it. It also helps that there’s nothing else quite on this level in terms of blockbuster scale, and it looks like something worth going out to see in the theaters: per Deadline, $32.2 million of its global take came from IMAX screenings, and it’s now the second-biggest global weekend for an IMAX film behind Batman v Superman in 2016.
Tentpole-wise, the month of March has some other big films on the horizon: Kung Fu Panda 4 drops next week for the kids, along with Blumhouse’s Imaginary. Then we’ve got Ghostbusters: Frozen Empiretowards the end of the month on March 22, concluding with WB and Legendary’s own Godzilla x Kong: The New Empireon the 29th. At the moment, Dune has word of mouth on its side, ditto a desire to see this all come to a close with an eventual adaptation of Dune Messiah and those popcorn buckets, so time will tell how those movies fare against it.
If you’ve ever wanted a movie about werewolves that also comes with some social commentary wrapped inside, your needs could possibly be sated in the near future with an upcoming movie.
Prepping the Sandworm Scenes in Dune: Part Two
Per Deadline, filmmaker Jonahtan Libeseman—best known for Battle: LA and the 2014 live-action Ninja Turtles film—is drawing attention with his next project, Wolf Night. According to the outlet, the screenplay from April Maguire and Will Honley is being explicitly billed as “District 9 by way of The Purge—but with werewolves.” Does that mean it’ll be a found footage movie set in a city populated by lycans? Will werewolves have free reign of a city during a full moon, at which point anybody who isn’t one is completely screwed? Not a clue in the slightest, but it sounds interesting and potentially cool as hell.
Wolf Night is being headed up by production company Platinum Dunes, whose horror resume includes the actual Purge franchise, reboots of classic horror flicks like Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Paramount’s A Quiet Place series. Deadline says “multiple studios” are interested in this film, though no particular one was identified as a likely frontrunner. With a premise like that, it could easily wind up at any studio, from Universal to Paramount or even Warner Bros. (Hopefully not that last one.)
Either way, here’s hoping it gets snatched up—beyond its cool elevator pitch, it’d be nice to have some more mainstream werewolf movies alongside all the demons and vampires we get at a reliable clip. Other than Universal’s reboot of The Wolf Man, there’s supposed to be Larry Fessenden’s Blackout, both of which are expected to release later this year.
2020’s The Last of Us Part II is a revenge story built around two sides: that of Ellie (as played in the show by Bella Ramsey) and newcomer Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). Both women have their own respective supporting casts, and the HBO adaptation has mainly cast the folks in Ellie’s social circle like Dina and Jesse.
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According to Variety, HBO’s managed to lock down four actors who’ll play the people in Abby’s friend group. Top Gun: Maverick’s Danny Ramirez will play Manny, described as a“loyal soldier whose sunny outlook belies the pain of old wounds and a fear that he will fail his friends when they need him most.” Spencer Lord (Riverdale) is Owen, Abby’s ex who’s “condemned to fight an enemy he refuses to hate.”
Rounding out the quartet are Ariela Barer (Runaways) as young doctor Mel and Tati Gabrielle (Mortal Kombat II) as Nora, a fellow medic “struggling to come to terms with the sins of her past.” In the game, Ellie travels across Seattle to get revenge on all four characters, and eventually Abby. Even with whatever changes are in store, that’ll likely remain the same with the show; it’ll just also flesh out those characters, similar to what it’s already done with Bill. At the moment, there’s two other people on Abby’s “side” is casting is still secret: Yara and Lev, a pair of siblings she meets in her travels.
The Last of Us season two is expected to drop on HBO sometime in 2025.
A good mouse has the potential to upgrade your computing experience significantly. If it’s made with ergonomics in mind, it will feature a thumb rest or the kind of design that’s good for your wrist—a vertical mouse. If it’s a gaming mouse, it will prioritize customizable buttons, a high polling rate, adjustable DPI, and RGB lighting. The features you look for in a mouse ultimately depend on your needs. We’ve made an elaborate list with a bunch of different categories so you can find whatever suits your lifestyle best. – Dua Rashid Read More
We live in a golden age of Star Wars prequel renaissance. The biggest stories right now all go back to the age of the prequel trilogy, its stars—some of them at least— are returning left and right. Arguably the most important character in the galaxy right now, Ahsoka Tano, was born from Clone Wars’ own diligent relitigation of the prequels’ perceived downfalls. And few people are as happy about that as Hayden Christensen.
“It’s been a remarkable experience. And just a very heartwarming one. The journey that I’ve been on with Star Wars over the last 20 plus years… it’s been a wild ride, and where we’re at now is really meaningful to me,” Christensen recently told Empire in a wide-ranging interview about his time as—and return to—Anakin Skywalker, across Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and now in Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ahsoka. “I think that those movies have held up well over time. It feels like vindication for the work that we did. Everyone that worked on those movies thought that we were part of something special. We all wanted to do our very best work, and we cared a lot about it. And so to see the response from the fans now, it’s very cool.”
Christensen bore the brunt of a lot of the complaints about the prequels’ general acting performances at the time—perhaps only up there with Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best as specifically heightened targets of vitriolic abuse. But the cultural re-examination that has occurred over the last 25 years, as the children who grew up watching the films became adults, has seen Star Wars in turn more keen to re-explore the legacy of the films and return to their ideas with a similarly more matured eye. For Christensen, that potential to appreciate what the prequels did for Star Wars was there since he very first watched.
“When Episode I came out, there was a lot of excitement that they were making a new Star Wars, and it was going to be the backstory of Darth Vader. But I had friends that were upset that the character was starting off as this young kid. And I watched the film, and I loved it. It was everything I wanted and more. And I didn’t understand the disconnect between the movie that I saw, and the negativity in some of the reviews,” Christensen continued. “In a way that sort of criticism, I think, comes from a certain failure of their own suspension of disbelief. If you’re gonna go sit in a theatre, and the opening scroll starts with, ‘A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away’, that’s setting the stage that anything is possible. These people don’t need to sound and behave the way that we might expect. And if you’re going to sit down and think that you’re getting something that is of our current zeitgeist, then you’re setting yourself up for something else.”
Such is the cyclical nature of Star Wars. We’re already seeing this idea of expectation and reality furiously being applied to the fallout of the sequel trilogy—even nearly five years on from its end, that cycle will be an interesting one to experience as we move even further on, and the current prequels renaissance declines from its greatest prominence. Time will tell, just as it did for Hayden Christensen.
Facebook plans to “deprecate” its News tab for users in the United States and Australia by April, according to an announcement published Thursday night. What does that mean? As best we can tell, it means Facebook doesn’t want anyone to use the platform for news anymore and will be killing its dedicated News tab.
Meta’s Apparent Firing Goof
“In early April 2024, we will deprecate Facebook News—a dedicated tab in the bookmarks section on Facebook that spotlights news—in the US and Australia. This follows our September 2023 announcement that we deprecated Facebook News in the UK, France and Germany last year,” the unsigned announcement reads.
Facebook insists users don’t use the social media site for news anyway, claiming that just 3% of what users see globally is news articles.
“The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. has dropped by over 80% last year. We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content—they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests,” the announcement continues.
Why is Facebook saying they’ll “deprecate” the news, a word that seems like an odd choice? Typically, most Americans probably understand the word deprecate as expressing disapproval. Other common definitions include “disparage or belittle,” but Facebook is using the term “deprecate” as a synonym for de-prioritize and phase out. The News tab was already pretty damn de-prioritized if you look at where it shows up already.
I took the screenshot below to show just how “deprecated” the News tab already is compared with all the other tabs. I had to zoom out on my browser’s perspective to even show the News tab without scrolling down. That part circled in red down there? That’s the News tab.
A screenshot of Facebook as it exists today, with the News tab circled in red. Screenshot: Facebook
And that prime placement might suggest Facebook users don’t necessarily dislike news. Perhaps they just doesn’t know where to find it.
The decision to kill the Facebook News tab comes after other Meta properties like Instagram and Threads have made it explicitly clear they don’t want to be in the news business. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said since the introduction of Threads last year that it’s not a place for news.
Facebook stressed in its announcement on Thursday that news outlets will still be able to share their content on the platform and users will still be allowed to share any news article they like in their own feeds. Facebook also noted they’re still committed to fact-checking claims on the site.
“This does not impact our commitment to connecting people to reliable information on our platforms. We work with third-party fact-checkers—certified through accreditation bodies like the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network—who review and rate viral misinformation on our apps,” Facebook said.
“We have built the largest global fact-checking network of any platform by partnering with more than 90 independent fact-checking organizations around the world who review content in more than 60 languages,” the announcement continued.
Update, 11:10 p.m. ET: Facebook responded to emailed questions Thursday night by confirming its use of the word “deprecate” means “remove.”
For $2700, the X1 seriously lacks performance. Unfortunately, the Ultra 7 chip did fail to keep up with the completion. You’d be amazed at its portability and gorgeous display, but it’s not easy to ignore the power you’re getting for such a big price.
Pros
Long battery life
Generous array of ports
A bright, sharp display with a lot of detail
Excellent form factor
Cons
Disappointing performance for the price
Keyboard feels a bit cramped
Hands-on: Lenovo Legion Go
Lenovo’s ThinkPad series is meant for serious business. They’re not as flashy and pretty as its Yoga line or as heavy and gaming-focused as its Legion line. ThinkPads are hardcore in terms of specs and quite boring regarding aesthetics. They’re made for professionals and are best known for their portability.
The ThinkPad X1 series is famous for its slim form factor, like the ThinkPad X1 Nano, and a durable but lightweight build. Lenovo sent us their latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12, released in December 2023. The configuration sent to us retails for a whopping $2700.
The design and build are all great, and the battery life is impressive, too, but I obviously can’t skip past how little we’re getting in terms of power. You would expect an expensive laptop to be a total powerhouse, but not here.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Design
You can tell it’s only meant for work.
Don’t expect an aesthetically pleasing body on the X1. It’s fully matte, and the no-frills build may underwhelm you, but that’s just a ThinkPad thing. The build’s great because it’s incredibly light and slim. Weighing just 2.8 lbs and measuring around 0.6 inches, the X1 is pretty portable. I carried it to and from work in my small tote bag for a few days and didn’t feel it weighing me down.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
The ports attest to how this laptop is designed with business in mind. There’s a pretty generous set of ports on both sides, with even a SIM card slot being offered from Spring 2024. Though we didn’t get to test it out, our review unit sported a sim slot, too. You also get a nice old Kensington lock slot, which a lot of laptops don’t feature anymore, an HDMI port, one Type-A and two Type-C ports, and a power port. The power button is also found on the side with all the ports. I guess the keyboard didn’t have enough room for it because it does seem a bit cramped.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard feels a bit cramped in some places
The keyboard on the X1 is pretty snappy, and there’s a fair level of sound and travel feedback on it, which feels nice. The bright red trackpoint stands out in a pool of matte black keys, and while some may find it outdated, I believe this is as ‘ThinkPad-core’ as it can get. The only issue is that the arrow keys feel cramped. I wouldn’t say the keyboard is stuffy enough to be a deal breaker, but I’m still going to be a little extra critical about it because this is a productivity-focused machine.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
Another feature that left me feeling a little underwhelmed is the keyboard backlighting. It has two brightness settings, which were quite dim, even in the brighter one. I tried it out with my room’s light off, and it was post-sunset, so it was completely dark. While I could make out the keys, it wasn’t bright enough to fulfill my needs. If my work setup looks like that someday, I’d probably have to turn a small lamp on, too.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
I like that the trackpad has a firm feel and enough real estate. But it was way too matte to be comfortable. Scrolling up with two fingers—because there were usually nails involved—felt like I was scratching a chalkboard, and we all know how that feels. I didn’t have to look very closely to notice that the slightest use of nails was leaving visible scratches on the trackpad, too. I had to rub them with my forefinger for a few seconds to get rid of them.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Performance
Underwhelming performance, especially for the price
Considering its steep price, I expected a lot more power from this laptop. But unfortunately, the Intel Core Ultra 7 fell short. I ran the Geekbench 6 on it, and the results were surprisingly low. I had to run it multiple times to make sure what I see is accurate. I got a 1511 on the single-core CPU test. Compare this to the M3 MacBook Pro’s score of 3129; it’s a shame, considering the MacBook Pro is much cheaper—$1600—too.
The only good thing about the performance of the X1 is its battery life. Lenovo promises an ‘all-day battery life’ and means it. I have used this laptop for several hours over the past four days and haven’t even used the charger once.
Though the fingerprint reader is uncomfortable and so stuffed that I almost didn’t notice it at first, I’m glad it’s there. There’s also a privacy shutter, so you’re pretty sorted security-wise.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12 Display
Brilliant detail and contrast
The 14-inch OLED display on this device is one of the best I’ve come across. It features the blackest of blacks and the whitest of whites, creating the kind of striking contrasts that are a treat to watch. You get a 120 Hz 2.8K (2880 x 1800) resolution with incredible detail. I was almost distracted by the level of intricate detail and got carried away noticing the things I usually wouldn’t see in a video. The colors look vibrant with 100% DCI-P3 coverage.
Photo: Dua Rashid / Gizmodo
You also get all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a display on a $2000+ laptop. There’s anti-glare, anti-reflection, and anti-smudge technology. There’s also low blue light tech for eye safety. The screen maxes out at 400 nits, which is enough brightness for me to thoroughly enjoy content right next to my big, bright bedroom window.
Verdict
The price seriously confuses me.
I can’t see spending over two grand on a laptop with an underwhelming performance. Even though I’m a fan of the build and form factor, the battery life is excellent, too, and so is the port spec; what’s the point if it lacks power? A more reasonable price tag might have convinced me, but for what the X1 currently costs, there are far cheaper and more powerful options on the market.
Elon Musk tweeted late Wednesday night that he’s never gone to therapy, a fact that he wants to be immortalized on his gravestone. And whatever you think of the billionaire’s attitude to mental health treatment, Musk’s tweet would seem pretty unremarkable in isolation. However, Musk keeps tweeting about this for some reason, including three times in the past two months alone.
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“Put ‘Never Went to Therapy’ on my gravestone,” Musk tweeted on February 28.
“He’s dead right. Please put ‘Never went to therapy’ on my gravestone,” Musk tweeted on January 29 in response to a video of film director Wernher Herzog.
“Please put ‘Never Went to Therapy’ and ‘Invented Car Fart’ on my gravestone. Those are my only requests,” Musk tweeted on January 8, adding an extra element for his hypothetical tombstone.
But those are just the most recent times Musk has tweeted about therapy. Another instance of Musk using the same language happened in July 2023, when the Tesla CEO was responding to a far-right influencer on X who suggested white liberals have more mental illness than the general population.
“Why is mental illness so prominent amongst Liberal Whites?” the account, which goes by the name The Rabbit Hole, tweeted.
“’Never went to therapy’ Please put that on my gravestone,” Musk responded.
Obviously the choice to go to therapy is a personal one and Musk is free to decide if he’d find that kind of thing helpful. But if he’s truly “never” gone to therapy it does seem a little odd that he’d think he can make an effective judgement about whether it would work for him. After all, the billionaire microdoses ketamine for depression, according to a Wall Street Journal report from last year. Typically, any drug interventions for mental health issues require treatment from a professional.
Musk has made repeated suggestions that he’s often struggled with mental health issues, including on the Lex Fridman podcast when he referred to his mind as a “storm” last year.
“My mind is a storm. I don’t think most people would want to be me. They may think they’d want to be me but they don’t know, they don’t understand,” Musk told Fridman.
Musk was asked about that comment—that his mind is a storm—in an interview with the New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin on November 30, 2023 at the DealBook Summit in New York. Sorkin tried to probe deeper into the issues that may be troubling Musk and after an achingly long 12-second silence in front of a live audience, Musk said completely unprompted that it felt like he was in a therapist’s office.
“I wish we were like on a psychiatrist couch or something. You know, I think to some degree I was born this way, but, and then it was amplified by a difficult childhood frankly. But I can remember even in happy moments when I was a kid that there’s just, it just feels like there’s just a… a rage of forces in my mind constantly,” Musk explained.
Musk said that sometimes this disturbance in his mind would make him productive. But after listing successes, Musk seemed to get troubled and introspective again.
“So these demons of the mind, you know, are for the most part, harnessed to productive ends. But that doesn’t mean that once in a while they don’t, you know… go wrong,” Musk said.
Musk also brought up the topic of suicidal ideation at a young age.
“I mean, I did have this existential crisis when I was around twelve about what’s the meaning of life? Isn’t it all pointless? Why not just commit suicide? Why exist?” Musk recalled.
That interview is probably best remembered for Musk’s defiant attitude in the face of advertiser backlash over comments that were widely seen as anti-Semitic. But these comments are worth revisiting as the billionaire keeps repeating that he doesn’t need therapy.
Again, Musk can hold whatever opinions he likes about the mental health profession and is free to choose whatever path he wants to make in life. He is, after all, the wealthiest man in the world who is doing just fine in a material sense. But given the frequency Musk tweets about how he’s never been to therapy, it’s clearly a topic that’s on his mind, and some people do find it useful to just have someone to talk with.
More than 50,000 Americans died by suicide in 2023, slightly higher than the 49,449 suicide deaths in 2022 and 48,183 suicide deaths in 2021, according to the CDC. And while therapy isn’t magic, it can help people who find themselves in desperate circumstances.
If you or someone you know is having a crisis or contemplating suicide, please call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at988. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.
These days, if you’re an epic sci-fi story looking to be told, there’s only one destination: Apple TV+. From popular novels like Foundation and Silo to originals like For All Mankind and Severance, the streamer is a haven for weird, bold sci-fi. Which is why it feels like the perfect, natural home for William Gibson’s Neuromancer.
“We’re incredibly excited to be bringing this iconic property to Apple TV+,” Roland and Dillard said in a statement. “Since we became friends nearly 10 years ago, we’ve looked for something to team up on, so this collaboration marks a dream come true. Neuromancer has inspired so much of the science fiction that’s come after it and we’re looking forward to bringing television audiences into Gibson’s definitive ‘cyberpunk’ world.”
That world follows a futuristic hacker on a secret mission against an advanced artificial intelligence. Which, admittedly, sounds kind of familiar, but that’s because, as Roland and Dillard said, the novel was so influential. Plus, Gibson followed it up with two sequels—Count Zero in 1986 and Mona Lisa Overdrive in 1988— so this could go on for longer than just a season.
It’s a pair that feels perfectly up for the challenge, too. In addition to creating Dark Winds, Roland was a writer on Lost and a writer-producer on Fringe. Dillard has written and directed several features, including the criminally underrated genre films Sleight and Sweetheart. They’ll both produce the series with Roland showrunning and Dillard directing at least the pilot.
If you like vaporware and looking at phones and gadgets you’ll never own, then Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) is the trade show for you. This week’s annual menagerie revealed new devices like the TCL Nxtpaper 14 and a working model of Motorola’s rolling phone display. Other brands—namely Samsung—used the…
For the past few years, toymaker Sentinel’s “Fighting Armor” toyline has transformed Marvel heroes from across the comics into mechanized warriors better than even the actual Marvel Comics crossovers to do so. While its forays into the worlds of Mutantkind have been few and far between, its latest turns an X-Men stalwart into maybe its best spin on the idea yet.
Announced overnight, Sentinel revealed a first look at the Fighting Armor Cyclops, which takes an amalgam of several of Scott’s classic comics looks—from the legendary ‘90s Jim Lee design to his completely-over-the-head cowl aesthetic from earlier iterations of X-Men and X-Factor—and turns them into a very cool armored hero design that’s equal parts Iron X-Man and Mutant Suit Gundam.
To be honest, the Iron Man comparisons that founded the Fighting Armor line even really fall away for Cyclops, who looks much more interestingly robotic than most Iron Man armors do thanks to the little things that make Scott’s design what it is, like his mono-eye visor—he definitely leans into more looking like what if the X-Men made their own giant robot to fight a Sentinel, rather than strapping armor over themselves. It’s perfectly Scott Summers: a little dorky and nerdy, but also extremely cool when your back’s up against the wall and people are ready to throw mechanized hands.
The Fighting Armor Cyclops is set to release in June 2024 in Japan, and comes with multiple bonus accessories including a “smoking” and regular-firing optic blast attachment for Scott’s visor, alternate hands (including a thumbs up, which is definitely something Scott would be doing after realizing he’s fighting in a robot suit), and opening parts on the suit for extra articulation and posing. He’ll cost around $100 on import sites, and is available to pre-order now—click through to see more pictures of him, as well as the other X-Men Fighting Armor figure releasing in June along side him: Magneto, the master of magnetism!
I tried to wear the OnePlus Watch 2 for a short weekend workout but couldn’t. The watch is too big for me and too dense. It’s not just me, either; I asked my partner if his wrists would be interested in trying on the smartwatch, and he rejected it after seeing the relatively ginormous 47mm display. “That’s way too big for me. You know that’s why I hate wearing a watch.”
OnePlus Open is the ‘Phablet” We’ve Been Waiting For
The Watch 2 is OnePlus’s second attempt at a smartwatch, and while it’s so much better than the first-generation release, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. For one, the OnePlus Watch 2 is too large and cumbersome for daily carry—especially if you want to wear it to take advantage of all the new health and fitness tracking capabilities. It’s also missing some features that should be standard from wellness-centric watches, including fall detection and an LTE connection on the go. At least this time, the OnePlus Watch runs actual Android software: this is the first OnePlus smartwatch to feature Wear OS.
How big is the OnePlus Watch 2?
How big exactly is the OnePlus Watch 2? Hopefully, the photo I’ve provided comparing it with two other major Android smartwatches gives you an idea. The watch is more significant than the Pixel Watch 2 and Galaxy Watch 6 in 42mm, which I typically wear.
In terms of dimensions, the OnePlus Watch is 47mm x 46.6mm x 12.1mm, which makes it a little bigger and a little thicker than the larger variant of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. Surprisingly, the listed specifications say the OnePlus Watch 2 is a few grams lighter than the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. Note that these weights do not include the watchbands.
The Google Pixel Watch 2 (left), the OnePlus Watch 2 (middle), and the Galaxy Watch 6 (right) all crammed onto the author’s tiny wrists.Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
A great second attempt
I have yet to test the OnePlus Watch 2 beyond wearing it and pawing at the software, which I’ll address shortly. I’m still looking for a way to sport it for a walk around the neighborhood. It’s so big on me that it doesn’t fit under my sleeves.
If you’re into the masculine, almost tactical aesthetic, this watch could have a place on your wrist. It comes in two colors: Black Steel and Radiant Steel, the latter of which OnePlus sent over. The sage greenish hue of the Radiant Steel watchband helps cut through some of the heaviness of the smartwatch’s exterior trimmings.
There are two side buttons on the OnePlus Watch 2, just like on other Android watches. If you’re wearing the watch on your left hand, the button on the right-hand bottom side is a regular push-button, while the top is supposed to be reminiscent of a dial. The rotating dial is legitimate; it’s just not enabled by the software for whatever reason. Thus, the top button is merely a fancy-looking push button to help the watch look more like a timepiece than a wrist display. I wish it worked like the dial on the Pixel Watch.
Admittedly, OnePlus isn’t a brand I think of when I’m making a resolution to track my health, but the OnePlus Watch 2 can do so through its OHealth app. The app can track over 100 types of movement, including “leisure” activities like tug of rope. It can also track sleep, stress levels, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels. The runners in my life have also mentioned the watch’s ability to track advanced running metrics, like ground contact time and VO2 max. I’m burnt out on deciding if Apple Health on the Apple Watch or Fitbit on the Pixel Watch is my favorite “wellness” aggregator, which makes it hard to get excited about starting over with a new health suite.
Inside, the OnePlus Watch 2 takes a hybrid approach to how it does processing. The company compares it to a hybrid sports car: one engine to take on the hefty loads and one to take care of everything else. In the case of the OnePlus Watch 2, it’s two disparate chipsets: the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5, which takes care of wellness and body tracking, and the BES 2700 MCU, a background processor that’s always on to handle things like calls, notifications, step count, and features within power saving mode. It’s not the first time an Android smartwatch has done this, but OnePlus could help set a precedent for others in the category who may be struggling to deliver on battery life and performance as promised. If only Fossil had enough runway to explore this route before shutting down its smartwatch division.
Welcome, Wear OS 4
Why does the application drawer on the OnePlus Watch 2 look like the Apple Watch? Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
The biggest caveat about the last OnePlus Watch is that it ran homebrewed software when other smartwatches in the ecosystem were transitioning to Google’s rebranded Wear OS. OnePlus’s take on the Wear OS 4 interface is fine—it’s the first to usher in Wear OS 4’s new ability to offload notifications to the co-processor. But its app drawer is reminiscent of a watchOS-wannabe, which is grating. The panning app drawer works with the Watch 2’s larger display, but I’d rather OnePlus does what Samsung does with its app drawer, which splays apps across the screen and allows me to scroll up and down rather than every which way.
What I’m trying to say is this: I’m on an Android device. Why does it look like I’m in the Apple ecosystem?
The best battery life
The last thing to note about the OnePlus Watch 2 is that it’s lauding up to 100 hours for its smartwatch as long as you use it in “smart mode.” This mode turns off the always-on display and limits GPS activity to half an hour. Even if you proceed with the AOD, the OnePlus promises at least 48 hours, which is already better than what Samsung and the Pixel Watch purport. And since OnePlus made SupeVOOC a thing, it’s on the smartwatch, too: the proprietary charger can charge the device fully in an hour.
I tested the charging speed of the OnePlus Watch 2—it’s faster than what I’d get waiting for the Pixel Watch 2 to reload before I head out on the town. I’ve yet to test the battery’s total capacity and will report in the full review.
Struggling to feel it paired against the claws, but I will for science. Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
I plan to follow up with a full assessment of the OnePlus Watch 2 as soon as I can figure out how to wear it comfortably. Namely, I’m curious about the data sharing between OHealth and the rest of the Android ecosystem. Google’s been reconfiguring how it syncs data through Health Connect, and I’m seeing its benefits within Fitbit and some of the third-party equipment I have on hand.
When you look at Dave Bautista, the last thing you think of is failure. Even if he wasn’t a former wrestling superstar turned mega movie star, if you saw this tall, muscular, tattoo-covered man walking down the street, you’d instantly think he’s got it figured out. But in Dune: Part Two, Bautista’s character doesn’t have anything figured out. And the actor loves him for it.
Working With Recasted Characters
Once again, Bautista is Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, nephew of Baron Harkonnen and the new lord of Arrakis… having massacred almost the entire Atreides family for the privilege. Rabban is given the task of taking over the entire planet for his family, with almost no knowledge of the formidable Fremen force he’s up against. It results in the character not faring too well in the eyes of his family, which is exactly why Bautista was so excited about the film.
In his chat with io9, we talked about playing the pathetic villain, his relationship with director Denis Villeneuve, the chip on his shoulder when it comes to acting, and if he’s really done with his famous Guardians of the Galaxy character, Drax. Check it out.
Rabban in Part OneImage: Warner Bros.
Germain Lussier, io9: Rabban doesn’t have a huge role in Part One—it’s a much bigger role here in Part Two. Was there ever a conversation between you and Denis to say, like, hey, we might not make the second movie, but if we do, [your character] will have more to do?
Dave Bautista: Well, I always knew that my role in the second film was going to be bigger. We never [laughs]… I only heard rumblings that there might not be a second film. We never had that official conversation with Denis. I think he always had confidence that there would be. I think he’s a person who has a vision and he doesn’t stray from that vision. I think his vision was never one film, so I think he never abandoned that. So we never had the conversation. And I also was pretty confident because I saw the first film and I was like, it’s amazing. It’s not only beautiful storytelling, but it just really cuts off and it leaves you hanging. And I didn’t see a world where people wouldn’t want to have closure on that. So I never lost faith at all. But it was a sign of the times we were living in. It was uncertain times. And I think a lot of people were cheated, not through the fault of anyone, but by not being able to see the first film on a big screen because that is what it what was designed for. That’s what it was meant to be. But yeah, I never thought that there wouldn’t be a second film.
io9: Most of the guys you play, for obvious reasons, are pretty capable, right? However this guy, besides his size and strength, is kind of an idiot.
Bautista: [Laughs]
io9: And kind of a failure. So was it fun to play somebody that is the butt of all the jokes?
Bautista: For sure. Yeah. For me, that’s why I’m in this, man. Because I want to play characters that are layered and interesting, and not clichés or generic. That’s also the challenge. But I also think that’s my obsession. So that’s what I loved about him. I was so excited when I read the script for the second film and I was even more excited after I had the conversation with Denis because I knew that there was so much for me to play with here. I mean, I always search out roles because I do have this chip on my shoulder. It’s never going to go away. I want to prove myself as an actor because guys like me, they want to put in a lane. And I never wanted to be stuck in that lane. So I came out of the WWE, came out of the gates refusing to be stuck in that lane. And so this gives me the opportunity to prove my point.
io9: Yes.
Bautista: So I thought, this character is so great because you would think about him in one way. He’s just one way. He’s just a brute and that’s all he is. But I thought, if I can take this character and make him not only that, but make him so pathetic that you almost feel sympathy for him.
io9: “Almost.”
Bautista: Yes, almost. [Laughs] I only need one little hint of sympathy when you’re like, you feel sorry for him for a second, then it’s like, “Nahhhhh, I don’t feel sorry for him.” But if I just had that one opportunity, then that could be a real accomplishment.
Bautista with Villeneuve and Austin Butler.Image: Warner Bros.
io9: Oh I think you nailed it. I think also he’s so angry early on in the movie—what was it like to be so vocal and angry?
Bautista: So, for me, screaming for me is just another way to get rid of my anxiety. I’ve always known that about myself. I discovered that in WWE and I just let it all out. On one side of the curtain in WWE, before I came out, I was dry heaving. I was a nervous wreck. I was a mess, and I was always thinking, “God, everything’s going to go wrong. I’m not ready. I’m not warmed up enough. Oh man, I don’t know what to do.” As soon as I hit that curtain, walked out the curtain, lights, music, [crowd roars]—anxiety gone. And it’s the same with this. So it just allowed me the opportunity to just shake that anxiety, and then I can just kind of slowly transform to this performance. But again, I mean, just the richness of the character, the layers of the character and the support and encouragement from Denis, he just made this very easy for me.
io9: Very cool. Now obviously this a big ensemble piece but, by the nature of your character, you don’t really get to act with most of the people in the movie. Is that isolating? Do you form a bond with the other people that you’re with?
Bautista: Yeah, for sure. No matter what you spend a lot of time with people in makeup trailers or on set or socially. There’s always a get-together, especially for the ensemble cast, where the director wants to meet with the cast. And so there’s always going to be that camaraderie. [But] selfishly, personally, like I want those scenes. I want scenes with Timmy [Chalamet]. I want scenes and Zendaya. I want scenes with Florence [Pugh]. I want a scene with Christopher Walken. But it just, you know, it wasn’t meant to be.
io9: You get a scene with Josh Brolin.
Bautista: You know, I love Josh. Josh is one of my favorite people in the world. I’ve known Josh for years now through our Marvel experiences. So I was pretty giddy getting to share scenes with him on this in this film. And it was just nothing but fun. And I love that our characters just despise each other. So it’s great.
Dave Bautista Opens Up About His Relationship With Denis Villeneuve
Dave Bautista Opens Up About His Relationship With Denis Villeneuve
io9: One of the things I love about your career, you talk about having that chip on your shoulder, is you work with such incredible filmmakers. Obviously, there’s Gunn, Snyder, Shyamalan, and Villeneuve. What sets Denis apart from the other ones you’ve worked with?
Bautista: Our conversations are different. And it’s hard for me having these conversations without sounding… because I never want to be dismissive of anybody else that I’ve worked with. They’ve all been special experiences. And they’ve all made me rise as a performer and helped me in my career. James Gunn changed my life. His belief in me, his support of me, changed my life. But our conversations have been different. Denis supports me in a different way.
Our conversations are more intimate. I’ve never had a director until Denis, since Denis, say to me that you’re a very strong actor. And he said this to me on the first film. I was holding back because I was self-conscious [and] I was. I was very unsure of myself. And he came to me. He said, “I feel like you’re holding back.” He said, “You’re a very strong actor, my friend. Just follow your instincts.” And so I started belting it out, and I started finding this character. He not only loved it so much, but he was so supportive of my performance that he wanted to capture other people’s reactions to my performance. And so when you’re getting that kind of support, that was an experience I’ve never had before or since, with a director of that caliber. So it means everything. It’s validation.
Image: Warner Bros.
io9: Wow, that’s awesome. SoI’m talking to Stellan [Skarsgård] after this and you have a lot of scenes with him. What is it like working with him in that suit? Because it’s got to be weird. Do you laugh or are you just serious? What’s the vibe?
Bautista: It’s very serious. We are respectful because we know that it’s harsh. The experience he’s gone through, like what he’s living with and what he’s dealing with. And you can tell through conversations while he’s working, that he’s already exhausted because he’s been in a makeup chair eight hours before we even started working. Eight hours, you’re typically leaving work.
io9: Right, right.
Bautista: He’s just starting work. And so it’s very respectful of him and what he’s going through. So we’re very respectful of his time. Everybody this is from the top down. But also the actors were very, aware that he’s suffering.
io9: Last thing is, I know you said on Guardians 3 that you were done with Marvel, but is there any way that you would come back, or have you just kind of put that part of your career aside?
Bautista: No, no. When I said that I was done, I was really just done with my journey as Drax. I still have a relationship with Marvel. I’ve seen Kevin Feige again, Lou [D’Esposito] as recently as two weeks ago. And they know that I would be up for a role. I love the universe—the superhero universe, I love it. I’m a fan. So Marvel or DC, if they call, I would answer the phone. And if the role makes sense, I’d be all over it. I just would like the opportunity to do a bigger role, a different role. Maybe a deeper role. I’d love to have the opportunity to play, like an ominous villain in the superhero universe. Yeah. But never. I’m not done with it. But my journey with Drax is over.
You, too, can have your own RCS chat with Google Gemini. Image: Google
Android is becoming the platform of AI fever dreams. At this year’s MWC, an overseas tradeshow where Google typically has a booth to remind the world that its mobile platform is global, the Android maker has announced new ways to interact with Gemini from inside Google Messages as if Gemini were just another buddy.
No Google AI Search, I Don’t Need to Learn About the “Benefits of Slavery”
Beginning this week, Google will roll out the ability to access Gemini right from within Google Messages on any Android device. It’s called Chat with Gemini, and like a chatbot in apps like Slack, you’ll be able to dialogue with it to draft messages, plan events, and pin ideas. You won’t have to install the Gemini app to access this feature.
Even if you don’t plan to interact with Gemini, more AI infusions are coming to an Android device near you. For those who use Android Auto behind the wheel, your car can summarize long texts and noisy group chats. The AI will also talk you through possible replies and other things you can do as you keep your eyes on the road. But speaking from experience, I hope this won’t be one of those interactions that require you to enunciate directly.
Lookout on Android, a built-in feature geared toward blind and low-vision users, will now offer auto-generated AI descriptions of photos and images that come through with messages. There’s also enhanced screen reader support for Lens inside Maps, so when you point your AR camera at a building or storefront, TalkBack will dictate what’s ahead and its entry into Google Maps.
Android watchwearers, first, let me say it’s nice to have you here. You should know that Google will allow you to access tickets, passes, and other necessary wallet staples from your wrist in the next Wear OS update. Transit directions will also be available soon, making it much easier to recall the train or bus you’re supposed to catch without taking out your phone.
Health Connect is the last portion of this mini-news maelstrom. This latest update pipes in all your third-party health data from apps like AllTrails and MyFitnessPal and aggregates them into the Today tab in the Fitbit app. I’m curious about what’s going on with this particular data-sharing suite since Google rolled it out last year. I’ll be testing this more closely as it rolls out.
I did not have Lenovo rolling out the red carpet for see-through laptops on my bingo card, but here we are. I saw the ThinkBook transparent display concept laptop in person a few weeks ago. I didn’t get to do much with it besides touching it, though I did get to sit there and imagine devices soon looking like they did in the six-season run of The Expanse. Lenovo’s ThinkBook is not it, however, and you’ll want to keep reminding yourself this is conceptual when you look at my photos in a bit.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2 Hands On
Lenovo also revealed details about other laptop updates at Mobile World Congress, or MWC, the international trade show where it’s debuting all these new devices. In addition to several updates coming to the ThinkPad line, Lenovo announced its laptops are getting easier to repair.
The transparent Lenovo ThinkBook feels like a prototype in its current state. Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
Lenovo ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop
Lenovo announced a new concept device called the Lenovo ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop. It’s a 17.3-inch notebook with a transparent Micro-LED display and a projected transparent keyboard on the bottom. There’s a length-wide trackpad embedded for pinching and scrolling, as well as the requisite connection ports. There’s even a rear-facing camera at the bottom on the backside, which helps with scanning people and objects so that you can interact with them on the see-through display.
Though it worked fine during the demonstration, I’m not a fan of the touch-typing experience on a laptop. Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
The ThinkBook is a proof-of-concept laptop, so while there were ports on the chassis and software installed on the unit, it’s not the end-all, be-all of what Lenovo’s planning with this form factor. What I saw worked—it ran Windows 11 and even fired off a few AI queries, though it took a few tries to do so successfully. But it still seems so far from what people want to do with a transparent laptop display. The projected keyboard is a huge turn-off.
I stood behind the see-through laptop while showcasing a video. The image was mirrored on the other side, and I could read most of what was on screen despite it being backward. In the wrong environment, I see that being an issue for someone less tech-savvy who leaves all program windows open even when presenting quarterly results.
The transparent Lenovo ThinkBook has AI integrated into it to do neat-looking and almost practical things with the interface. This is supposed to be a digital butterfly perched on the flower’s petal. Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
I’m also still scratching my head about the embedded rear-pointed camera. The demonstration showed a digital butterfly attempting to land softly on what the laptop had determined was a physical vase with a flower in the middle. Cool. I could see the attempt—the butterfly managed to barely grace the petal as it found a place to rest—though it wasn’t resonating enough to transport me into the vision of the future.
This laptop doesn’t exist outside of Lenovo’s test labs. At least this way, the company can proclaim it was among the first to think of laptops using this technology. However, there is still so much more polishing before a transparent laptop is as enticing as a transparent TV in the living room.
Real Lenovo laptops you can buy soon
The ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 is a tablet and laptop. Image: Lenovo
Lenovo did update models in its ThinkBook and ThinkPad lineups, and you’ll be able to purchase these very soon. The ThinkPad T14 Gen 5, ThinkPad T14s Gen 5, ThinkPad T16 Gen 3, ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2, and ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 are all getting essential updates. All models will be available with updated Intel processors and general improvements in power efficiency and AI handling. The ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 and T16 Gen 3 are also available with AMD Ryzen chips and graphic processing. These two laptops will have up to 2.8K OLED panels for the 14-inch T14 Gen 5 and up to 4K OLED on the 16-inch T16 Gen 3. The ThinkPad T14s Gen 5 is another 14-inch device with up to a 2.8K OLED display, though this model offers no AMD.
The ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 is a two-in-one device, not to be confused with the actual ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 that’s getting reprised this season. The Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 has a fully detachable display with a 3:2 ratio, so it’s more a tablet than a laptop. The ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 is more for on-the-go laptop users who occasionally want to swivel to hide their keyboard. Both devices also get the standard bump-up in specifications, including new Intel processors and up to 32GB of RAM. They’re also getting the new TrackPoint Quick Menu shortcuts, which allow you to cut off microphone and camera access with a button’s (double) touch.
The last thing to note about Lenovo’s MWC announcements is that the company wants to be known for its repairability—it’s all the rage right now with the discussion of the right to repair. The ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 and T16 Gen 3 have been reconfigured internally to be easier to fix. In collaboration with iFixit, Lenovo “created new repair guides including video procedures for all CRU parts as well as making those parts easier to order,” according to the press release. The laptops mentioned both have a repairability score of 9.3/10.
The Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 Gen 4 will be available next month at $1,170. The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5, ThinkPad T14s Gen 5, ThinkPad T16 Gen 3, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable Gen 2 will all be available in April 2024 at a starting price of $1,200. The Lenovo ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop will never be available because it’s still a proof of concept.
