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I lived in New York City for many years and absolutely loved it, with one major caveat. Packages got stolen, like a lot. This was especially frustrating for a tech reporter waiting on review gadgets and the like. Hyve Security is looking to solve this problem with its self-named smart lockbox, which it brought to CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The Hyve is being advertised as the first branded smart lockbox and can be secured to the front of a house or apartment via a quarter-inch carbon fiber tether. Carbon fiber is notoriously difficult to cut, so thats one security measure. The lockbox also ships with an accelerometer and a shrieking alarm that will go off if the device is moved or tampered with. The boxs owner will receive an alert in this instance. Neighbors, friends and family will also receive alerts if they opt-in to the community service. The Hyve app will integrate with many current smart home security systems for even more protection. Hyve Security Its weather-proof, which is handy for something that will likely be housed outside, and includes a photo window for drivers to snap a picture of the package nestled safely inside the pod. This is also useful for retailers, as they can be relatively certain that a package was successfully delivered to its intended owner. The app can even be used to send out pings to nearby delivery trucks in the case of a pending return. It operates via a combination of battery and solar power. The company claims it can run for 18 months without requiring a charge. The obvious use case here is to prevent porch-based theft, which is great. However, Hyve Security says that wide adoption of these lockboxes can eventually allow retailers to ship items without so much wasteful packaging. The Hyve costs $300 and officially goes on sale in June. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/the-hyve-package-security-box-should-protect-deliveries-from-dreaded-porch-pirates-170016213.html?src=rss
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Peacock will start testing mini games and short-form vertical videos on its iOS and Android apps, per TechCrunch. These experimental features were available for preview at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The company intends to start testing them with users this month. A Peacock spokesperson told TechCrunch that during the testing period, some users will see the games and shorts, while others only see one or the other. The remainder wont be able to play games or watch shorts. There are five planned games for the test: Daily Sort, Daily Swap, Predictions, What The, and Venn. These games are simple and dont take up too much time, and some are even tied to various shows and sports. Players can predict outcomes of a series and come back later to see if they were correct, enhancing their streaming experience. As for the shorts, theyre curated from content from Peacocks library. They can be from TV shows or news and will be updated weekly and daily. Users can even tap on them to enter the programs page and watch the real thing. Both YouTube and Netflix opted to compete with TikTok quickly, and YouTube especially has more than 100 games. Netflix doesnt have that many, but a Squid Game spinoff game did arrive on the app last month. Peacock may be competing against giants, but the possible TikTok ban does give it a better fighting chance.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/peacock-is-testing-mini-games-and-vertical-short-videos-164012685.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
A little more than two years ago, Lenovo teased a concept laptop with a rollable screen that could expand and contract with the touch of a button. And now at CES 2025, the company has turned that idea into a reality with the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. Remarkably, Lenovos new device looks incredibly similar to what the company showed off in the past. The laptop features a flexible 14-inch OLED display that can unfurl itself to become a 16.7-inch panel at the push of a button. This effectively adds an extra 50 percent of screen space to the system without the need for any additional accessories or peripherals. Alternatively, you can use gestures to expand and contract the display for a truly touch-free experience. Though in my experience, that took so much longer you might as well use the dedicated key. Thankfully, brightness is more than sufficient at 400 nits while the OLED panel delivers rich, vibrant hues. Just this functionality would be a feat on its own. However, to help maximize the potential of its rollable display, Lenovo added a custom set of multitasking features that allow you to add widgets to the expanded screen space or use it as a visual clipboard and a place to view frequently used docs. And when youre doing something like sharing your view during a video call, you can use the extra display as a virtual monitor, so you have a clean desktop for presentations. But to me, one of the most impressive things about the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable is that its not that much bigger or heavier than a traditional clamshell of a similar size. It weighs around 3.6 pounds and measures three quarters of an inch thick. Performance looks solid too, thanks to the inclusion of Intel's Core Ultra 7 CPU, up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. And while its port selection is just OK, you still get two Thunderbolt 4 jacks and 3.5mm audio along with other handy features like Wi-Fi 7 and a 5-megapixel webcam with an electronic privacy shutter. So even with Lenovos focus on the laptops futuristic screen, you still get a pretty well-rounded machine. Honestly, as someone who is always looking for more screen space while traveling (to the point where I often bring a portable monitor), I could see myself using the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 today as my primary work device. Its build quality feels a lot more solid than youd expect and lets not forget: the wow factor on something like this is hard to beat. That said, the obvious downside is its cost, because with the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 expected to start at $3,500 when it goes on sale sometime later this spring, youre paying a hefty premium to be on the very cutting edge of laptop tech. That means at least for now, systems like the Yoga Book 9i (which has gotten a couple of important updates for 2025) and ASUS Zenbook Duo are better choices for most people as they offer similar amounts of added screen space but for much less money. But if Lenovo can get the price down even a bit, it could open up another pathway for a new breed of transforming notebooks with deceptively small displays.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-thinkbook-plus-gen-6-rollable-is-a-crazy-concept-made-real-162813649.html?src=rss
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