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    Meta’s flailing Portal repurposed as a wireless portable monitor

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 11 August, 2022 - 16:24

Meta’s flailing Portal repurposed as a wireless portable monitor

Enlarge (credit: Meta )

Meta's Portal displays have always felt pretty niche. The 10- to 14-inch screens were heavily marketed as video-calling devices for apps like Facebook Messenger and Zoom. Even with the addition of music apps like Spotify and productivity apps like Microsoft Teams and a calendar, the products struggled to become something that felt necessary in tech-gadget-filled homes.

Rumor has it that Meta is pivoting the Portal from consumers to businesses, but first, the product is getting at least one more chance to prove it can add value to people's homes. On Wednesday, Meta announced that the Portal Plus Gen 2 and Portal Go now support Duet Display, an app that can turn a display into a secondary monitor for Macs and PCs.

The Portal Plus is the same size as some of the best portable monitors , so it makes sense to repurpose it for that function. Because it's built for video image quality, it has a decent resolution for a portable display—2160×1440.

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    Google’s Nest thermostat gets a redesign and a bunch of new features

    news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 12 October, 2020 - 19:04

  • The new Nest thermostat is operated with a touch-sensitive ring interface. [credit: Google ]

Roughly five years have passed since the third-generation Nest thermostat was introduced, and a lot has happened since then—like an acquisition of Nest by Google. Today marks the first big overhaul to the Nest thermostat since that acquisition, and as you might expect, Google Home integration is a big part of the update.

As with most other smart thermostats, the main pitch behind this device is that it could both save you money on utilities and make your home more eco-friendly. That's possible because it lets you do things like set different temperatures for different situations, like when you are at home, when you're out, or when you're sleeping.

For example, the Nest thermostat could save energy by automatically lowering the temperature in your home while you're away, then returning it to a comfortable level once you get back.

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