This A.I. eavesdrops on emergency calls to warn of possible cardiac arrests

When you phone 911, you’re patched through to a trained human who is able to properly triage your phone call. Soon, you could also find yourself being listened to by a robot, however, who is tuning in to very different verbal information from the human emergency dispatcher.

Developed by Danish startup Corti, this emergency call-listening artificial intelligence is designed to listen to the caller for signs that they may be about to go into cardiac arrest. When it makes such a diagnosis, it then alerts the human dispatcher so that they can take the proper steps.

“Corti is meant to be a digital co-pilot for medical personnel,” Andreas Cleve, CEO of Corti, told Digital Trends. “Like a human doctor, Corti analyzes everything a patient says and shares in real time — from journal data, symptom descriptions, voice data, acoustic data, language data, their dialect, questions, and even their breathing patterns. Corti then outputs diagnostic advice to the medical personnel, to help them diagnose patients faster. This can be especially powerful in an emergency use case where mistakes can be fatal.”

As the company’s Chief Technology Officer Lars Maaloe told us, the technology framework uses deep learning neural networks trained on years of historical emergency calls. While it hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, the team is currently working on this. A paper describing the work is likely to published later in 2018.

“Today the technology is being used in Copenhagen EMS, who have spearheaded the application of machine learning in the prehospital space worldwide,” Cleve said. “At Copenhagen EMS, our technology is able to give emergency call takers diagnostic advice in natural language, and it’s integrated directly into the software they are already using. Our goal is to make it easier for medical personnel to do their jobs, not complicate it further with fancier technology. We are extremely skeptical of the idea of rushing to replace trained medical personnel with A.I., since from both ethical and professional perspective we prefer human contact when it comes to our health. Personally, I simply can’t see myself preferring a bot over a medically trained human agent. But the setup where humans are amplified by A.I.? That to us is a far more powerful scenario in healthcare.”

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Why weed tech is missing from CES 2018, even as the budding industry booms

As marijuana legalization sweeps through North America and governments relax their rules on cannabis, the technologies used to grow, distribute, and consume it represent an increasingly large chunk of the consumer electronics industry.

In other words, weed tech is big business.

Over the past few years, investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into weed-related startups, resulting in a corresponding flood of weed gadgets aimed at medical and recreational users. Between all the vaporizers, oil pens, dab rigs, automatic grinders, butter makers, and other miscellaneous ganja gizmos; there’s no shortage of weed tech on the market right now.

But oddly enough, you’ll find almost none of it on the CES showfloor. Despite the fact that cannabis is one of hottest spaces in consumer tech right now, it’s practically nonexistent at the world’s largest consumer technology trade show. What gives?

Don’t blame the CTA

Surprisingly, this actually has nothing to do with rules and regulations.

“Recreational and medical use of marijuana are completely legal in Nevada”

The Consumer Technology Association (the organization that runs CES) has no rules on the books that prevent or discourage companies from exhibiting marijuana-related products at the show. In fact, weed-tech startups have held booths on the show floor numerous times in the past (although not in great numbers), and there’s even one this year. Buried deep inside the “Smart Home” section of the show, you’ll find a startup called Vapium Medical, which makes a metered dosing device for medical cannabis users, as well as an app that lets them keep track of their use. So weed tech companies definitely aren’t being barred by the CTA.

You can’t blame state or local marijuana laws, either. Recreational and medical use of marijuana are completely legal in Nevada, and while the state does have a few restrictions on where and how cannabis consumption devices can be sold, there are no regulations that prevent weed-tech startups from peddling their wares at trade shows. As with gambling and strip clubs, Las Vegas has a fairly laissez-faire approach to regulating trade shows that visit the city — presumably because every convention attendee is another person who will spend money at hotels, restaurants, and casinos.

What’s going on?

So if the cannabis tech sector is booming, and there are no rules or laws barring weed startups from attending CES, then why on Earth isn’t the show floor littered with pot-leaf logos and vaporizer startups? There are entire sections of the LVCC dedicated to things like “baby tech,” “sleep tech,” and even “smart cities,” so clearly there’s room for fringe tech at this convention. So where’s all the weed at?

Getty

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

To get an answer, we spoke with a handful of cannabis tech startups — including some that deliberately skipped the show; some that are here in Las Vegas, but don’t have booth space; and also the only one that’s actually exhibiting at the show this year.

Hazy answers

Broadly speaking, the consensus seems to be that cannabis tech just isn’t quite mainstream enough for CES.

“CES is a very mass-market trade show,” says Richard Huang, CEO of Cloudius9. Huang and his company don’t have a formal presence at the show (no booth), but he’s in Vegas to do business nonetheless.

“The buyers are all very mainstream merchants, and frankly the [marijuana] industry isn’t there yet.”

“It’s catered toward the entire electronics market,” he explains. “The buyers are all very mainstream merchants, and frankly the [marijuana] industry isn’t there yet. And it goes both ways. Generally, the big buyers [at CES] aren’t there to purchase, and eventually carry, any product related to the weed industry. So as a potential exhibitor, if you can’t find people who are interested in your product, it’s hard to justify going out and spending the marketing money on attending the show.”

Other weed-tech startups seemed to echo this sentiment. Christ Whitener, Executive Director of Magical Butter (a device for making your own weed butter) says that, “If you’re not a large-scale company that can afford the cost of having a full force on the tradeshow floor, it’s smarter to send a few scouts to Vegas so they can meet people and network and do business, but without buying exhibit space.”

This was a common theme. Most of the small handful of marijuana startups at CES this year aren’t running booths. They’ve deliberately opted out of getting formal exhibit space, and have instead chosen to do business on the periphery of the show — which is a fitting metaphor for how cannabis tech as a whole fits into the larger consumer technology industry. It’s here, but despite blistering growth and projected profits, weed tech isn’t ready for center stage. You and your friends might be into it, but won’t find vaporizers at Best Buy or Target anytime soon, and that’s presumably why CES isn’t the best venue for weed tech vendors to promote their products.

Even Vapium Medical, the only marijuana-related startup on the showfloor this year, seemed to underscore that it only made sense to attend CES because Vapium’s product is targeted at the medical cannabis community — a broader market with more potential buyers.

“Our product is a technology solution for medical users,” said Vapium COO Barry Fogarty. “It’s going to be available in every state in the United States where medical use of cannabis is legal, so it’s very much consistent with and in sync with the legal situation in the US. This is not a product that’s intended for recreational use. It’s specifically for medical users, and people in the medical community — so not just patients, but physicians and researchers as well.”

More time under the grow lamps

Weed tech will eventually have a big presence at CES, but before that happens, the cannabis industry needs to mature a bit.

First and foremost, legalization needs to happen on a broader scale. This is happening slowly across the U.S. right now, but until the majority of the world is OK with recreational pot use, weed tech simply won’t have a large enough consumer base. It just doesn’t make sense to hawk a product at CES if you can only sell it to customers in eight states.

Furthermore, society’s attitudes toward marijuana need to relax somewhat. Even after it’s legalized, pot consumption needs to be normalized so that marijuana-related products are no longer taboo to use or sell. When we reach that point, weed tech will likely be mainstream enough for CES — but unfortunately we’re not quite there yet.

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Former Tinder love gurus introduce Ripple, a swipe-based professional network

What if professional networking was as easy as swiping left or right on your phone? That’s the premise of the new Ripple app (not to be confused with the cryptocurrency app of the same name), which borrows many features from the company that developed it: Tinder, the dating app. But instead of matchmaking for dates, Ripple’s aim is to help you build a professional social network by quickly pairing you with others who share similar interests and attend similar events.

While the swipe-to-like (or dislike) approach is commonly associated with app-based dating, it wasn’t the case at the beginning, according to Ripple CEO Ryan Ogle, who officially unveiled the app and social network during CES 2018. The company, which is backed by the Match Group, operates independently of Tinder.

“One of the things we talked about, the discovery of new people was a big problem,” said Ogle, who was the former chief technical officer of Tinder and also worked at Hatch Labs, the incubator behind Tinder. “Before Tinder was a dating app, we talked about it not being about dating at all.”

And in professional networking, Ogle says existing systems, notably Linkedin, don’t do the things users actually want it to do. According to Ogle, they don’t help users build business relationships effectively, they don’t prioritize the right people, they don’t care about the context, and they’re static directories. With Ripple and its tools for social discovery, Ogle thinks the app is far more effective in building a professional network.

“Linkedin was created more than 15 years ago, but it’s a web-based platform shoehorned into mobile,” Ogle said. “When I go to Linkedin, 90 percent of the people are recruiters or trying to get something from me[A] vast majority of people don’t need that all the time.

“We want to build the opposite, a user-first network [and] match people with opportunities,” Ogle added. And what he means by a user-first network is that Ripple will introduce users to relevant people; help them get connected quickly and easily and get the most out of their professional network.

When you launch the app, the Ripple Feed presents you with other users that it thinks you would pair well with, based on the interests you indicated, users you are connected to, your location, events you’re attending, and groups you are part of. It can even connect you with nearby users via near-field communication, and you can quickly “face connect” by taking a photo of them (provided they’re also on Ripple) and using facial recognition. And like Tinder, you can swipe right to connect, or left to skip. Over time, the app improves its searches.

In addition, the app is designed to be an active network. Users will also see information from Twitter, Medium, and news sources that are relevant in a professional context. Ultimately, the goal is to not only get you connected quickly but also stay engaged. It eliminates what Ogle refers to as the dead space in current professional social networks, where users don’t know anything about the people they connect with.

As a brand new social network, Ripple still needs refinement. We had some issues registering an account, and we also couldn’t edit the interests we selected, which, for some reason, Ripple considers them your skills. But the bigger hurdle is getting more people to use Ripple. Ogle acknowledged that Ripple won’t be perfect at the beginning (it’s asking users for feedback to help improve the system), and, like Tinder, he believes it’s best to start with a small group of quality users.

The app is available to download for iOS and Android.

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Steam saw more than 7,500 titles added to its library throughout 2017

The PC isn’t dead — just ask gamers. In fact, look to the Steam platform, which saw the release of 7,672 PC games throughout 2017. That equals an average of 21 game releases per day. Did you see that same amount hit the Xbox One and/or PlayStation 4 in the same year? Nope.  

The number derives from the third-party Steam Spy website, which tracks Valve Software’s digital distribution platform to chart the number of active users, the paid versus free-to-play ratio, the average number of games owned by each Steam customer, and so on. The data is anonymous and only used to track these general statistics along with the overall growth of the platform. 

While that number sounds huge, part of the population stems from Steam Direct, a self-publishing platform that allows any game developer to sell its product on Steam for a $100 per-title fee. Steam Direct replaced Steam Greenlight, which relied on a voting system that determined if a game would or would not have a place on the Steam store. 

There are currently 20,489 titles listed on Steam for various platforms, including Windows, MacOS, Linux, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift (Steam Spy says 18,953). What’s interesting is that in January 2016, the number was reportedly only at 7,390 games. The big jump may be due to the introduction of high-definition virtual reality experiences, and an abundance of free-to-play games in addition to all content piling up under the Steam Direct umbrella. 

But Steam Spy’s statistics builds on all this data by listing more than 2 billion paid games owned as of December 31, 2017, and nearly 1 billion copies of free-to-play games claimed by millions of Steam members spread out across 254 countries. On the last day of 2016, Steam saw 1,582,281,094 paid games owned by its users, and 752,246,379 free-to-play games claimed by Steam members. 

Here are a few other statistics charted by Steam Spy generated from 2,019,883 accounts: 

Active users (two weeks): 

60,052,174 

Active users (total): 

287,419,120 

Playtime (two weeks): 

28:09 average
192,985 years, 8 months, 7 days (total) 

Playtime (total): 

337:36 average
11,077,305 years, 1 month, 24 days (total) 

Total games owned: 

3,180,746,575 

Average number of games owned: 

11.07 per user 

Games in database: 

18,953 

Right now, the biggest game on Steam is Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, which saw a peak usage of 2,821,337 players at the time we wrote this article, and a current player count of 1,287,806. The game is one of the 7,672 titles released during 2017, overtaking Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, Grand Theft Auto V, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege with the highest player count right now. 

That said, there is definitely no sign that the PC is dead. As we have seen over the last year or so, manufacturers are proving market watchers wrong with high-performance devices packing affordable prices. Even more, Steam Spy shows the PC-based platform experienced a rapid growth over the last two years, moving from 1,772 games release in 2014 to 4,207 games in 2016. We will likely see more than 9,000 new titles in 2018 alone, keeping the PC market alive and kicking. 

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Total War heads to ancient China for ‘Three Kingdoms’ in fall 2018

Creative Assembly announced the next installment in its Total War series. The long-running strategy franchise is set to be transported to ancient China for Three Kingdoms — and fans won’t have to wait very long to join the fray.

Total War: Three Kingdoms will be set in 190 A.D., at a turbulent time for the Han dynasty. As the Yellow Turban Rebellion rages on, the nine-year-old Emperor Xian rules — although he’s a mere puppet for Dong Zhuo, a warlord who pulls the strings from behind the scenes.

“It is a brutal and oppressive regime, reads the description of the official trailer. “And as Zhuo’s power grows, the empire slips further into the cauldron of anarchy. But hope yet blossoms.”

Like the other historical games in the Total War series, Three Kingdoms will use real events as the basis for its grand-scale warfare. However, it will hone in on three heroic characters that will play a key role in shaping the future of the land as various different factions vie for supremacy.

Three Kingdoms is being billed as the next major historical installment of Total War, as publisher Sega continues to expand the enormously popular property. The A Total War Saga subseries, which was officially announced in July, is a spin-off that will focus on a more specific point in history than the mainline titles.

There’s plenty more going on in the Total War franchise, too. Total War: Warhammer II has only been available for a matter of months, but we already know that it’s the second in a planned trilogy based on the beloved tabletop franchise. The free-to-play Total War: Arena was recently released worldwide, and a mobile spinoff entitled Total War Battles: Kingdom is set to drop in 2018.

This is the first official word that we’ve seen regarding Total War: Three Kingdoms outside of a tease from a Creative Assembly blog post that was published during the summer. It seems that the game must have been in development for some time, as it’s scheduled to release in fall 2018 — you can already add the game to your Steam wishlist by visiting its store page.

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These are the 7 best horoscope apps for iOS and Android

Are you into astrology? It’s not as gimmicky as it might sound — after all, we all need a few words of encouragement every now and again. If you truly believe in the celestial bodies above, or you just like to have fun with horoscopes, having the right app will save you from having to look up your horoscope on the internet. If you’re looking for daily readings, or simply want to know what your future might hold in relation to your sign, then the best horoscope apps can help.

If you’re searching for love, take a look at this astrology based dating app.

TimePassages

TimePassages, one of the most popular astrology apps, is now a free app that you can use right on your iPhone. Astrology charts let you discover the meaning behind your sun, moon, and rising sign. You can also find out if someone is compatible with you using the compatibility meter which shows you the potential for love or even the likelihood of successful business relationships. The app is free to use with in-app purchases starting from $1 and going up to $10 for an unlimited pass.

Download now for:

iOS

Horoscoper Club

This is a great astrology app that allows you to play quizzes online and challenge friends. You get your free daily horoscope on love, career, health, and more. You can get instant advice using Tarot Cards, but the app also gives you access to numerology, moon phase, Mercury retrograde, and zodiac compatibility. This app also has an instant messaging feature to let you chat in real time with one friend or even create group conversations. Subscription packages range from $2 up to $45 for a 12-month premium package.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Chaturanga Astrology

Unlike most horoscope apps, Chaturanga actually allows you to chat with an astrologer. You can ask the first question for free, but if you want to ask additional questions, you’ll have to buy a pack or pay for each individually. The app also specializes in a variety of topics, including relationships, career, and business. It’s even compatible with the Apple Watch, even if you’re an Apple aficionado.

Download now for:

Android iOS

iHoroscope

iHoroscope allows you access to daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly horoscopes. The app also allows you to chat with a psychic, and if you ask questions, you’ll receive your answers in mere minutes. Apple Watch integration is just an added plus.

Download now for:

Android iOS

The DailyHoroscope

If you just want an in-depth app that allows for different types of horoscopes, then The DailyHoroscope might be the app for you. The app provides you with your daily horoscope, along with access to yearly Chinese horoscopes, your zodiac compatibility, and even a druid horoscope. This app is also compatible with Android devices, as well as the iPhone and iPad.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Horoscope and Tarot

This app lets you see your daily, weekly, and monthly horoscope. It also provides a daily tarot reading and lets you ask an astrologer questions. The app even features several games — including Mood Ring and the Magic Love Ball — and supports the both English and Spanish languages.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Astrolis Horoscopes and Tarot

This app uses the position of the planets to provide your horoscope, giving you quick insights into your future career and love life. You can also personalize the app so that it gives you your horoscope immediately upon launching, which saves you from having to navigate to the appropriate screen. The app provides tarot readings, too, which you can then share via Facebook, Twitter, and email.

Download now for:

Android iOS

Are you looking for more apps? Check out our picks for the best apps for Android and the best apps for iPhone.

Update: We added TimePassages and Horoscoper Club.

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The best mice of CES 2018

If you’re in the market for a new mouse to dominate opponents or simply wow your co-workers, the Consumer Electronics Show is a great place to see what is coming soon.

Here we list the best mice at CES 2018, all of which target the PC gamer. Manufacturers range from Cooler Master to Mad Catz to Razer, some of which provide their own take on Logitech’s wireless charging solution that hit the market in early 2017. 

Cooler Master MM830 

Highlights

Hidden D-pad buttons 

RGB illumination 

Built-in OLED screen 

Sensitivity up to 24,000DPI 

Pixart 3360 optical sensor 

Release date: Q2 or Q3 2018 

Price: TBD 

Cooler Master’s upcoming mouse is unique because it includes a “hidden” D-pad under the thumb consisting of four, low-profile buttons. Perfect for MMOs and MOBA games, your thumb will never need to leave the surface as it maneuvers to all four buttons: Just “rock” your thumb up, down, left, or right for actuation. These buttons are configurable through the company’s desktop utility. 

In addition to assigning D-pad commands, the software can be used to assign functions to the wheel, customize the RGB illumination, and set the DPI levels ranging up to 24,000 dots per inch. The “durable” PBT chassis also plays host to a built-in OLED screen with a 96 x 94 resolution so you can add a team logo or unique design directly to the mouse itself. This screen is presumably programmable through Cooler Master’s desktop software. 

HP’s Mike Nash on why new Spectre x360 15 is thicker, much more powerful

HP’s CES 2018 and late 2017 announcements include a couple of firsts that show off the company’s willingness to take chances on brand new technology. Its Envy x2 was the first detachable tablet announced that will leverage Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 ARM processors for long-lasting, always-connected computing, and it’s recently added an Intel version. And, its updated Spectre x360 15 beat packs in Intel new 8th-gen Core with Radeon RX Vega M graphics.

Mike Nash, HP’s Chief Technologist and VP of Customer Experience, Personal Systems, is high on HP’s ability to respond to customer requirements with modern computing solutions. And he had plenty to say as he stopped by Digital Trends’ booth at CES 2018, and discussed HP’s notebook and more.

First up was a discussion of HP’s first Always Connect PC based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 ARM processor, the Envy x2 detachable tablet, with Nash specifically touting the machine’s ability to remain connected to the internet and receive data while lasting for 16 hours or more on a charge. He also touched on the Intel version of the Envy x2 that brings greater performance, while maintaining around 12 hours of battery life.

Nash went on to discuss some of the differences between the ARM and Intel versions, including HP’s decision to offer both in response to customer requests. He provided an overview of each, discussing relative strengths, and touching on what a buyer needs to consider in making a good choice between the two.

Next, Nash discussed one of the first convertible 2-in-1s to pack in Intel’s new Kaby Lake-G chips, which mate an eighth-generation Intel Core i7 CPU with AMD’s Radeon RX Vega M GL GPU. The 15.6-inch 2-in-1 promises gaming performance falling somewhere between the Nvidia GTX 1050 and GTX 1060 GPUs, with all the abilities of a pen-enabled notebook that converts to a (large) tablet for handwriting and drawing.

If you’re wondering how HP makes its decisions on how to design its notebooks to meet customer needs, then this is the video for you. You’ll learn more about how HP listens to its customers, while picking up additional details about each of HP’s newest notebooks.

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How to take a screenshot with your Nintendo Switch

One of the coolest features among current game console hardware is the ability to snap screenshots of your gameplay and share them easily on the internet and social media. Sony and Microsoft were first to the gate with super-easy sharing buttons on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but the Nintendo Switch has what may be the best and easiest sharing interface of them all.

It’s incredibly easy to snag a screen grab with the Nintendo Switch, thanks to a dedicated button on the left Joy-Con controller. Taking pictures, however, is just the beginning: Thanks to a function that lets you easily adjust images and overlay text, the Switch effectively offers a built-in meme maker. Here is everything you need to know about taking screenshots with the Switch and turning them hilariously viral.

Step 1: Set up your social media connections

Before you take a screenshot, let’s make sure you’re ready to do something with it. If your Switch is connected to a Wi-Fi network, you can link your Switch user profile to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. To set up your Twitter and Facebook accounts, go to the “system settings” menu on the Switch Home screen. (It’s the gear in the bottom row of round icons.)

On the Systems Settings menu, head down to “Users” and then choose your user account. From there, select “Social-Media Settings.” That menu will offer prompts to connect your social accounts. Enter your usernames and passwords, and you’re set to share.

Once you’re ready, you can tell the Switch to upload your shots to the internet straight from the Album application, without having to transfer the images anywhere else, such as to a computer.

Step 2: Grab your shot

The easiest step in taking a screenshot is actually capturing an image. While you’re playing any game, you can instantly capture a screenshot of whatever you’re doing by hitting the square screencap button on the left Joy-Con right below the bottom arrow of the directional pad. Hit it, and the Switch automatically saves a capture of whatever is on the screen.

While you can capture any game, Nintendo has blocked players from taking screenshots of many of the Switch’s menus, and within certain applications. (Our favorite example: You can’t a take a screenshot of your screenshot “Album”). For the most part, though, you should be able to snag an image of anything from a game you’re playing. The screenshots are automatically saved to the Switch’s internal memory (or a microSD card if you have one installed).

Step 3: Head to the Album

Now that you are linked up and ready to send your screenshots to the internet, you need to go find the one you want to share. The Album application is also on the Home screen lower menu near where you found System Settings. It’s the blue square icon that looks kind of like a photograph, next to the yellow bag icon for the Nintendo eShop.

In the album, you can sort your images and videos with the “filter” function by hitting the “Y” button. Using the filter function lets you alter what you see in the Album to focus on just images, just video, or things you’ve saved from a particular game, to make searching easier. To delete images you don’t want, press the “X” button.

Highlight the image you want to share and hit the “A” button to pull it up to full-screen size. From here, select “Editing and Posting” by hitting “A.” To look at the image without any user interface elements to block your view, press the plus (“+”) button on the right Joy-Con.

Step 4: Editing

Here’s the fun part. Once you select “editing and posting,” you gain access to three new options: “Post,” “Add Text,” and “Copy.” The copy function allows you to create a copy of the screenshot. Saving a copy allows you to move your image to a microSD card, which you can use to upload the image to another device (more on that later). We recommend saving a copy before editing an image no matter what, though, in case you want to make multiple images from a single screenshot.

You can also do some light editing with the Switch itself, using the “Add Text” option. This is how you can turn your images into memes. When you hit “Add Text,” you will be prompted to copy your image, so that you keep the original, unedited version in addition to the one you add text to. The “Add Text” button next pulls up the Switch’s virtual keyboard to let you type text onto the image, which works both with the controller buttons or the Switch’s touchscreen. Type out your message, hit “OK,” then “Accept” (both at the bottom right, accessed with the plus button) to get your text on the image.

From here, you can change the size, color, position, and angle of your text. The menu on the right side of the screen contains all the options — at the top, a slider adjusts the overall size of text, going from smaller on the left to larger on the right, which you can adjust with either the directional pad, the left analog stick, or the Switch’s touchscreen.

Click one of the color squares to select the text’s color, which will include a border of a different preset color to make sure it stands out from the background image. Clicking the third option lets you use the analog stick or directional pad to move the text around on the image, to change its position. You can also use the stick here to adjust its angle, rotating the text as you see fit.

When you have  your text looking the way you want it, you can finalize the process by hitting “Finished.” The new, edited image will appear in your Album.

Step 5: Sharing on Facebook and Twitter

If you’re happy with what you made and want the world to see it, it’s time to hit the “Post” button. You’ll be prompted to pick your Switch User account, which will then pull up your linked social media accounts. If you haven’t linked your accounts, you will be prompted to do so before sharing, but you can switch to your other social media account by hitting the “Change Posting Location” button at the top of the screen.

From here, just compose a message to accompany your image. The Switch automatically adds the #NintendoSwitch hashtag, and a hashtag related to the game you used to make your image, but you can delete them if you want. Once you type your update, hit the “Post” button at the bottom of the screen.

As the Switch advises, you can pull up your social media account on another device, such as a smartphone or a computer, to make sure your update went through.

Step 6: Downloading to your screenshots to a computer

When you pull up an image in the Album, the third option on the menu is “Copy.” This lets you create a copy of the image file and save it to your microSD memory card, so you can take it off our Switch without sending it to the internet. The option is always there, even after you edit an image — just go back to the Album and pull up the screenshot you’re looking to save and hit “Copy.” If you made a copy when prompted while editing your original screenshot, you will have both the version that you snapped from the game and the version that now has text on it.

The “Copy” option brings up a menu that lets you choose the destination to send the copied image, so you need a microSD card installed. (Conversely, if your System Settings save your screenshots to a microSD card, you can use this option to copy the image to the Switch’s internal memory.) When you have picked where you want the image to go, hit the “Copy” button to send it along.

Once you have saved your images, turn off the Switch by holding down the power button, then select “power off” from the power options menu. Remove the microSD card from the Switch and place it in your device’s SD card reader. (Note: Some computers have a built-in microSD card reader, but most people will need to purchase an adapter). The card will have a single file marked “Nintendo.” Click on it, then click on the file marked “Album.”

In the album file, your screenshots and video clips will be divided into files by month, then by day. Select the images you wish to transfer, then download them to your device.

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From smartphone to notebook: Razer’s Kevin Sather gives scoop on Project Linda

Razer is best known for its iconic black gaming PCs and accessories. The company has recently branched out into smartphones, releasing a device that’s unsurprisingly optimized for gaming with a fast 120MHz display to ensure a smooth gameplay experience. Now, Razer has unveiled Project Linda, a concept dock that allows the Razer smartphone to morph into a notebook.

Kevin Sather, director of product marketing systems for Razer, stopped by our booth to talk about Project Linda and give some insight into how and why the product developed. Regarding the how, Sather focused on the wealth of design experience that Razer had accumulated in building its premium gaming notebooks, along with its experience in creating the Razer smartphone itself.

The why? It just made sense to put those two together and make a product that the market might appreciate. It didn’t hurt that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 CPU provides some serious power that could be put to better use than simply powering a smartphone. In terms of creating a solid Android-based notebook experience, Sather spoke to the company’s decision to use the Centio desktop environment, and he provided an overview of how that experience made sense for Project Linda.

In our initial assessment, we found Project Linda compelling as a notebook, with a pleasant keyboard and a solid design. We were less certain about the usefulness of using the Razer smartphone as an LCD-based touchpad, at least in terms of how the concept has so far been designed and programmed. Sather spoke to that question a bit, touting Razer’s past experience with utilizing dual displays on a notebook and promising more functionality to come.

Sather also talked about the Razer smartphone, highlighting the company’s desire to create something special for gamers and also for media consumers. The 12MHz display is one aspect, an immersive audio experience is another, and Razer rounded things out with support for both HDR10 and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1. That combination of features would make for a solid notebook experience.

There’s no word yet if or when Project Linda will become a product you can actually purchase. It’s possible that Razer will utilize Project Linda to test new features and functionality for the company’s notebooks and accessories. But if it does make its way to the market, it could be one of the more interesting solutions for converting a smartphone into a notebook.

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