Apple Impacted by Coronavirus; Apple Event March 31st; TCL Slide Out Turns Phone to Tablet; Twitter Filter Deletes Unsolicited Nudes Sent to Private Messages

Apple says it won’t hit the financial guidance for its March quarter, due to impact from the coronavirus in China. According to macrumors.com, they are seeing a slower ramp up after the February 10th Chinese New Year holiday than normal due to the spread of the virus, affecting production, and also less demand from consumers in China. They had originally projected revenue of $63-$67 million in the March quarter.

Despite the likely miss on revenue from the virus, Apple appears to be proceeding with an event on or around March 31st. This will center around the release of the iPhone SE2, or 9, or whatever they end up calling it. It will have the form factor of the iPhone 8 anyway, and Touch ID instead of Face ID. 9to5mac.com reports that it it’s expected to have a base price of $399. In addition to the handset, Apple may show new, premium over ear Bluetooth headphones, the Tile rip-off dubbed AirTags, and possibly a new iPad Pro and (finally) a wireless charging pad.

All the excitement about new smartphone form factors has been from folding models thus far, with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, and the new Z Flip leading the way, as well as the new iteration of Motorola Razr. Now, cnet.com says TCL is working on one with a ‘slide out’ screen. All that has leaked so far is a render, but it shows the screen sliding out to double the useable screen size. It would stand to reason that there is something of a step down you would notice between the part of the device where the screen is exposed already, and the portion which slides out. As it is still in the rumor stage, and with the numerous shut downs in China due to the coronavirus, no idea on if this will come out as part of the brand’s 10 series smartphones, or be delayed…or released at all.

If unsolicited nude pictures via Twitter private messages have been an issue for you, a developer has come up with a new plugin that does the trick on the dick pic. According to businessinsider.com, ‘Safe DM’ launched in the last few days. The plug in is designed to block and delete unsolicited nude images sent to people’s private Twitter messages. Developer Kelsey Bressler built the AI powered app after putting out a call for nude images of male members. She received over 4,000! He then programmed the plug in to recognize, block, and delete that type of pic. She hopes to port the plug in to other social media platforms. She is already in talks with one other platform about adapting her plug in there. Bressler says she has achieved a 99% success rate in blocking dic pics (although an independent test shows there is a two to three minute lag before the pic is deleted.) A 2018 YouGov survey found that 46% of millennial women have received an unsolicited dick pic.