Lenovo is taking on Google and Microsoft in the conference room with its new ThinkVision large-format smart displays, one of which stretches out to a massive 86 inches.
These new monitors are designed to take on Google’s Series One panels and Microsoft’s Surface Hub, making a play for large conference rooms in a hybrid work environment.
The new ThinkVision panels will be available in a 65-inch ThinkVision T65 model, a 75-inch ThinkVision T75, and a premium and large 86-inch ThinkVision T86. But unlike its more costly competitors — Microsoft’s Surface Hub 2S starts at $22,000 — the 65-inch Lenovo ThinkVision T65 will retail for less than one-quarter of that price at $4,999.
Similar to other smart videoconferencing solutions designed for the conference room, the ThinkVision supports touchscreen functionality with accurate IR technology, a 4K resolution panel with up to 400 nits of brightness, antiglare coating to minimize reflections and glare in bright offices, wireless projection support with a wireless dongle to mirror laptop screens for presentations, and multiple input and output ports to connect an array of devices utilizing USB-C, HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet, audio, and serial interfaces.
The ThinkVision series can be used both as a videoconferencing solution — it comes with a detachable 4K webcam that’s A..-powered to track the speaker, along with dual 15-watt speakers and a built-in eight-array microphone — as well as a whiteboard for collaboration, making it a terrific solution for offices that support hybrid work.
As a whiteboard, you can share ideas using your fingers, annotate presentations with a stylus, and even take notes on the screen with a lag-free writing experience. Up to 20 touch input points are simultaneously supported, which means multiple people can be writing or drawing on the screen at the same time for ease of collaboration.
Powering the ThinkVision panel is a quad-core ARM Cortex A73 system on a chip that supports 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage.
Lenovo says the processor comes with embedded Android that powers a custom user interface that includes the company’s Smart Whiteboard experience, support for various widgets on the display, and smart features like automatic brightness adjustments, privacy protection, and presence detection, the last of which will automatically shut off the unit when everyone has left the conference room.
All three versions of the ThinkVision interactive display come with an IPS panel that has a refresh rate of 60Hz and supports 85% of the NTSC color space.
The screens are HDR compliant, supporting HDR10. While the T65 starts at $4,999, the T75 will cost $6,999 and the T86 will retail for $7,999.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.