Galaxy Z Fold 5 Getting New Hinge; Tweetbot Mostly Working Now; YouTube Looking to Modify Profanity Rules After Uproar; Wyoming Looks at Banning New EVs

Samsung will show the latest Galaxy S23 phones the first of February, but in August they usually release the new folding phones. According to 9to5google.com, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is going to get a ‘droplet’ style hinge. This should lessen the crease in the display at the fold. Motorola and Oppo already use the ‘water drop’ hinge design, which allows foldable phones’ displays to flex slightly in the hinge space a bit. You lose a little radius, but also get less crease. Samsung is calling their version a ‘dumbbell’ hinge, but it is basically the same as the droplet. A drawback to the droplet besides reduced radius has been less water resistance, but Samsung has reportedly figured out a way to retain water resistance…even with the droplet hinge. The much less prominent crease in the screen may attract more buyers to the Z Fold 5, despite pricing that causes droplets to run out of your eyes!

Last week, Twitter locked users of major 3rd party clients out of the platform. Theverge.com reports that the client apps and users were not notified, nor was any reason given. Tweetbot, Twitterific, and the Android version of Fenix were all affected. Some internal communication at Twitter indicated that the lockout was intentional. There still isn’t any response as to why, but at this time Tweetbot is mostly back up and running. 

YouTube rolled out a new policy back in November concerning profanity…the aim was to make certain content more advertiser friendly. After a huge pushback, primarily from the gaming community, where some creators saw some of their old videos demonized, YouTube is taking a second look. Techcrunch.com says it’s unclear what the platform will do at this point, but that they are listing to creators’ concerns. YouTube didn’t hit any videos with ‘hell’ or ‘damn’ in them, but did penalize for the f-word, the s-word, and the like. It’s notable that if the swearing isn’t in the title, thumbnail, or the 1st 8 seconds of video, the video is still legible for revenue. One popular creator said YouTube whacked his Best of 2020 video. YouTube already has creators indicate if videos are for kids or not before you upload them, so they can’t really claim to be protecting younger viewers…but hey, have to keep those advertisers happy. Stay tuned, we’ll let you know what the final result is. 

In what seems like a stunt…but it’s a state legislature, there is a proposed resolution in Wyoming to ban the sales of new electric vehicles here by 2035! This is in response to California and New York phasing out gas vehicles by 2035. Engadget.com reports that a group of lawmakers in Wyoming say Wyoming’s “proud and valued” oil and gas industry has created “countless” jobs and contributed revenue to the state’s coffers. They add that a lack of charging infrastructure within Wyoming would make the widespread use of EVs “impracticable” and that the state would need to build “massive amounts of new power generation” to “sustain the misadventure of electric vehicles.” It should be noted…and the legislators there know this…that Wyoming’s Carbon Country is home to one of the largest wind farms in the US. Go figure.

I’m Clark Reid, and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.