CES 2020: Samsung Ballie demonstrates future AI, smart home plans

A scene-stealer at Samsung's Consumer Electronics Show keynote comes in the form of an adorable, rolling smart home control center that reminds us of a mix between Star Wars' BB-8 and a tennis ball. Ballie, as it is called, represents the company's future home robot strategy.

Ballie has a plastic, scalloped frame, which gives it a sense of playfulness. It's like having a little ball follow you around at home. Samsung won't dish much about what Ballie's hardware will be. But it doesn't seem to be using Samsung's home-made Exynos processors to power it. It has a single camera for object and person detection, and it handles all image processing directly on-device. It supposedly can't record and store footage of its surroundings entirely, which may or may not appease privacy concerns.

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CES 2020: OnePlus Concept One offers solution for pesky camera bumps

Maybe you're not a fan of unusual, pesky camera bumps that slightly jut out of the back of your phone. OnePlus has a solution for you (sort of). The company collaborated once again with McLaren to introduce the OnePlus Concept One. It is technically a vamped up OnePlus 7T Pro with a papaya-hued leather that the automaker is known for; but, it also has another material inspired by McLaren: the glass it uses for its sunroofs.

The rear cameras of the OnePlus Concept One are hidden under an incredibly thin slice of material called electrochromic glass. The glass can turn from opaque to transparent when a voltage is applied to it. OnePlus used four ultra-fine layers of solitary glass panels and the thinnest electrochromic glass in the industry right in the middle of that. The OnePlus Concept One's glass can shift from opaque to transparent in just 0.7 seconds, which the company claims is another industry speed record.

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'Birds of Prey' has shorter 108-minute runtime

Are you tired of watching films that run north of two hours all the time, especially if you're watching a superhero film? DC's upcoming flick, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), is looking to buck the trend. According to IFCO, which classifies film releases in Ireland, the film will run for 108 minutes, which is one hour and forty-eight minutes. If you consider the credits, then the film could be around one hour, forty-five minutes, which is a good length for Birds of Prey.

Lead star and producer Margot Robbie told Variety before that they are taking a non-linear, off-kilter approach to telling this tale, which is an apt approach to her character. She said, "We pulled a lot of references from the comics that we love, from different movies we love—we were really gravitating toward the idea of not having such a formulaic sort of structure, Trainspotting being of one of our favorite films. We would look at a movie like that, and then we'd break it down scene by scene, minute by minute. And funnily enough, it follows a three-act structure to the T, like, to the page, to the minute. And so we would look at a lot of films like that, like: 'How did they achieve this feeling of this beautiful chaos, but within it, everything feels satisfying?' So the non-linear aspect of the film came from those sorts of conversations... It jumps around. And then it becomes linear for the third act. You go on a ride, and it's all pretty chronological from there. It took a while to get it together, and get it approved by the studio. And then finally we got it greenlit. And we were off to the races."

Source: LRM Online

YouTube Music might let you upload your own music library

YouTube Music might be taking cues from what it's done with Google Play Music by letting you upload your library to the service. 9to5Google found the feature in the latest APK file of the app. New strings of code say it can have "all your songs in one place." It also talks about tracks from your album will show alongside the liked and added songs. 

The option could appear as a new tab in YouTube Music's Library section with a possible way to adjust what you see there in the settings page. The feature could look like the screenshot above, but that might not be the final form. 9to5Google believes this could also include content from Google Play Music. Google hasn't enabled this feature yet, so we're waiting for the time the company decides to do so.