Lenovo’s Rollable Laptop is Real. And Good! - DTNSB 5074

Plus, some clarity on the adult game-credit card processing controversy.

Starring Tom Merritt and Robb Dunewood.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, August 4, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.

ROBB: Today, why a rollable concept laptop is now a reality. And apparently a good reality.

I’m Tom Merritt

I’m Robb Dunewood

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

“Lenovo’s rollable laptop is the coolest computer I’ve used all year | The Verge”
“ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable (14-16 inch Intel) | Business Laptop With Expandable Display | Lenovo US”

TOM: The Verge's Antonio G. Di Benedetto has a review of Lenovo's ThinkBook Plus Gen 6. Why is that today's Big Story? Because the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 is Lenovo's laptop with a rollable screen that you would be forgiven for thinking was just another CES vaporware concept.

But now you can buy it for $3,299. And Di Benedetto says it's good. Actually, he says it's very good.

The Gen 6 has a 14-inch OLED display with 2000x1600 resolution and a 120 Hertz refresh rate. You can press a button and it will unroll into a 16.7-inch version of the same screen. It takes about 8 seconds to do it.

If you try to close it before rolling it back up, it emits a high-pitched warning tone. And if the battery gets below 5% a countdown timer starts unti it will automatically unroll the screen so you don't have the battery die with it extended.

Lenovo claims the screen is rated for 30,000 hinge openings and closings and 20,000 rolls up and down.

Di Benedetto said he kept it unrolled almost all the time he was working with it.

The screen delivers "punchy colors and crisp, bright details from the flexible OLED." He notes that it is also great for productivity and eye-level video calls.

The negatives are that the laptop is a pound a heavier than a 13-inch MacBook Air, in part due to its aluminium chassis, the hinge tilt is limited and the plastic "screen wobbles, creaks, and has visible ripples."

He also liked the trackpad, calling it Mac-like and did not like Lenovo's Workspace software for helping manage multiple windows, finding Windows 11 managed the space just fine.

[[DISCUSS]]

ROBB: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
Michelle Sirjue
Kirk Steffensen
Miranda Janell
New Patron: Syed
[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary. They do not need to include stories that could be done another day in follow ups. Just the essentials of the day Should include sound where possible.]]

“Yonhap News TV”
“Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 delivery truck with 12,000 mobiles worth over ₹90 crore stolen in London - Hindustan Times”

ROBB: Yonhap news reports that a truck carrying approximately 12,000 Samsung devices was stolen near Heathrow Airport in London. The products were being moved from the airport to a warehouse. It contained about 5,000 foldable phones, 5,000 Galaxy Watch 8s, and some S25 and A16 models. It totaled about 9 million Euros worth of phones at retail prices. Police launched an investigation and found the stolen containers, but not the phones.

“Lyft and Baidu plan to bring their robotaxis to the UK and Germany next year”
“Lyft Partners With Baidu on Robotaxis in European Expansion - Bloomberg”

TOM: Baidu announced that after rollouts of joint autonomous taxi service in Asia and the Middle East later this year in partnership with Uber, the company's next market will be Germany and the UK in 2026, in partnership with Lyft, pending regulatory approval. Baidu provides the Apollo Go vehicles, and Lyft enables the booking system for riders. Lyft recently acquired Freenow which has existing service in Germany and the UK.

“Attackers exploit link-wrapping services to steal Microsoft 365 logins”

ROBB: Malicious hackers are always attacking something, and in June and July, they targeted link-wrapping services from security company Proofpoint and cloud communications company Intermedia to get users to visit phishing pages that tricked them into entering their Microsoft 365 credentials. The attackers compromised email accounts protected by Proofpoint and Intermedia. They’d shorten malicious links and then send them from a compromised account, which would wrap the link. The link wrapping is meant to rewrite URLs to a trusted domain that scans them to block malicious destinations. The shortened URLs protected them from detection, and the link wrapping made them look legitimate to recipients. Cloudflare’s email security team discovered the practice.

“Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand | PC Gamer”
“Itch.io starts reindexing free NSFW content”

TOM: A couple more developments in the ongoing saga of game platforms delisting adult titles and blaming payment processors for having to do so. First, Itch.io is re-adding adult games that are free, since those do not need to go through payment processors. Meanwhile, MasterCard released a statement saying, "Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations." PCGamer did a good job untangling the seemingly contradictory statements from the multiple parties. Steam and Valve say it's because of payment processors. Payment processors like Stripe and Paypal say it's because of banks. And now MasterCard says it isn't them. And alternative payment processors like Verotel and CCBill, do accept credit cards.

Valve says payment processors (like Stripe and Paypal) put the pressure on, and they told Valve it's because of MasterCard's Rule 5.12.7 which says a merchant must not submit illegal transactions or any that "in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks." The marks being the trademarks of the credit card companies.

So if I'm reading all this correctly. MasterCard is able to say it's not evaluating games or game platforms, but it is pressuring its payment processor partners not to process transactions that would harm the MasterCard brand, and activist groups like Collective Shout are providing the basis for the idea that the brand could be harmed.

“OpenAI says ChatGPT is on track to reach 700M weekly users | TechCrunch”
“Apple might be building its own AI ‘answer engine’ | TechCrunch”

ROBB: OpenAI says it now has 5 million paying users, up from 3 million in June, and ChatGPT now sees 700 million weekly active users, which is 4 times what it had at this time last year. Meanwhile, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple has formed a new team called Answers, Knowledge, and Information to make an app like ChatGPT. It could end up being a standalone app, or a feature inside Siri, Safari or other Apple products.

“Delta’s dynamic AI pricing plan sounds different now | The Verge”

TOM: Recently, both here and on our Live stream, we talked about Delta's plan to, in the words of its president Glen Hauenstein, “have a price that’s available on that flight, on that time, to you, the individual,” using an algorithm to determine it. AKA AI pricing for you. The recent stories caused US lawmakers to send some questions to Delta. VP and chief external affairs officer Peter Carter says in a letter that “there is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized prices based on personal data.” Carter further explained that the algorithm uses aggregated data that "provides informed insights for our analysts." Carter says the company is evaluating the system, which works with tech from a company called Fetcherr, and that Delta does not share personal information with Fetcherr.

“Nintendo raises price of Switch hardware and Switch 2 accessories in the U.S.”
“If you don't like Nintendo's controversial game key-cards, you can now let the company know directly | Eurogamer.net”

ROBB: Speaking of prices, we have the amounts of the price hikes on Nintendo products in the US. The original Switch goes from $300 to $330. The OLED original Switch goes from $350 to $400, and the Switch Lite from $200 to $230. Nintendo also raised prices on several controllers, the Switch 2 Dock Set, and the Nintendo Sound Clock: Alarm. The price of the Switch 2 itself remains unchanged. Meanwhile, Nintendo is running a survey to ask its users how they feel about digital games versus physical games, including the Digital Key cards.

“OpenMind wants to be the Android operating system of humanoid robots | TechCrunch”

TOM: TechCrunch has a write-up on a company called OpenMind that is building a software layer called OM1 that it would like to become the Android of robot operating systems. OpenMind was founded by Stanford professor Jan Liphardt. It launched a new protocol Monday called FABRIC that lets robots verify identity and share context and information with other robots. OpenMind will ship its first 10 OM1-powered robotic dogs by September for testing in people's homes.

“VinFast in talks to boost India sourcing as its first overseas plant swings into gear”

ROBB: Vietnam's EV maker VinFast began operations at a new plant in India on Monday. The plant will source parts locally and is fulfilling orders for India as well as customers in nearby Sri Lanka, Nepal and Mauritius. It can make up to 50,000 EVs per year. VinFast also has a plant in Indonesia set to go online later this year, and production in the US to start by 2028.

[[PROMO]]
TOM: What do YOU want to hear us talk about on the show? One way to let us know is in our subreddit. Submit stories and vote on them at www.reddit.com/r/DailyTechNewsShow/

[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]

[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[This is the mailbag/ special contributions segments. Should be short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

ROBB: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Jason has a tip and Kevin has an incredible coincidence

TOM: First Jason writes:

In DTNSB (and probably DTNS Live, since I'm sending this just after Live wrapped) y'all covered "why politicians hate iOS 26" because a person can have political messages go to Unknown Senders and not get notified.

This feature is in iOS 18 right now, and I've had it enabled since 18.5. Go to Settings > Apps > Messages > Notifications > Customize Notifications and there's an option to allow notifications from Unknown Senders that is enabled by default. As soon as I found that option, I turned that bad boy to off.

I realize there's not long before iOS 26 comes out, but hopefully this tip gives some people a little peace and quiet from the political notifications in the meantime.

-Jason F

AND

As incredible as it may sound, I literally got a political spam text message that came in while I was in the process of listening to the recent podcast about political spam text messages. The iPhone dutifully paused the podcast to try and read out the spam text message to me.

This change can’t come soon enough.

Keep up the good work!

• Kevin

[[DISCUSS]]

ROBB: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM Thanks to Jason and Kevin for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns