To grow, we must forget… but now AI remembers everythingAI’s infinite memory could endanger how we think, grow, and imagine. And we can do something about it.Photo by Laura Fuhrman on UnsplashWhen Mary remembered too muchImagine your best friend — we’ll call her Mary — had perfect, infallible memory.At first, it feels wonderful. She remembers your favorite dishes, obscure movie quotes, even that exact shade of sweater you casually admired months ago. Dinner plans are effortless: “Booked us Giorgio’s again, your favorite — truffle ravioli and Cabernet, like last time,” Mary smiled warmly.But gradually, things become less appealing. Your attempts at variety or exploring something new are gently brushed aside: “Heard about that new sushi place, should we try it?” you suggest. Mary hesitates, “Remember last year? You said sushi wasn’t really your thing. Giorgio’s is safe. Why risk it?”Conversations start to feel repetitive, your identity locked to a cached version of yourself. Mary constantly cites your past preferences as proof of who you still are. The longer this goes on, the smaller your world feels… and comfort begins to curdle into confinement.Now, picture Mary isn’t human, but your personalized AI assistant.A new mode of hyper-personalizationWith OpenAI’s new memory upgrade, ChatGPT can now recall everything you’ve ever shared with it, indefinitely. Similarly, Google has opened the context window with “Infini-attention,” letting large language models (LLMs) reference infinite inputs with zero memory loss. And in consumer-facing tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, this now means persistent, personalized memory across conversations, unless you manually intervene.https://medium.com/media/f1f7978fb8d63f7a1e9f52f051808f44/hrefThe sales pitch is seductively simple: less friction, more relevance. Conversations that feel like continuity: “Systems that get to know you over your life,” as Sam Altman writes on X. Technology, finally, that meets you where you are.In the age of hyper-personalization — of the TikTok For You page, Spotify Wrapped, and Netflix Your Next Watch — a conversational AI product that remembers everything about you feels perfectly, perhaps dangerously, natural.Netflix “knows us.” And we’re conditioned to expect conversational AI to do the same.Forgetting, then, begins to look like a flaw. A failure to retain. A bug in the code. Especially in our own lives, we treat memory loss as a tragedy, clinging to photo albums and cloud backups to preserve what time tries to erase.But what if human forgetting is not a bug, but a feature? And what happens when we build machines that don’t forget, but are now helping shape the human minds that do?Forgetting is a feature of human memory“Infinite memory” runs against the very grain of what it means to be human. Cognitive science and evolutionary biology tell us that forgetting isn’t a design flaw, but a survival advantage. Our brains are not built to store everything. They’re built to let go: to blur the past, to misremember just enough to move forward.Our brains don’t archive data. They encode approximations. Memory is probabilistic, reconstructive, and inherently lossy. We misremember not because we’re broken, but because it makes us adaptable. Memory compresses and abstracts experience into usable shortcuts, heuristics that help us act fast, not recall perfectly.Evolution didn’t optimize our brains to store the past in high fidelity; it optimized us to survive the present. In early humans, remembering too much could be fatal: a brain caught up recalling a saber-tooth tiger’s precise location or exact color would hesitate, but a brain that knows riverbank = danger can act fast.Image generated by ChatGPT.This is why forgetting is essential to survival. Selective forgetting helps us prioritize the relevant, discard the outdated, and stay flexible in changing environments. It prevents us from becoming trapped by obsolete patterns or overwhelmed by noise.And it’s not passive decay. Neuroscience shows that forgetting is an active process: the brain regulates what to retrieve and what to suppress, clearing mental space to absorb new information. In his TED talk, neuroscientist Richard Morris describes the forgetting process as “the hippocampus doing its job… as it clears the desktop of your mind so that you’re ready for the next day to take in new information.”https://medium.com/media/e272064dd59f29c4ca35e808d39e4e72/hrefCrucially, this mental flexibility isn’t just for processing the past; forgetting allows us to imagine the future. Memory’s malleability gives us the ability to simulate, to envision, to choose differently next time. What we lose in accuracy, we gain in possibility.So when we ask why humans forget, the answer isn’t just functional. It’s existential. If we remembered everything, we wouldn’t be more intelligent. We’d still be standing at the riverbank, paralyzed by the precision of memories that no longer serve us.When forgetting is a “flaw” in AI memoryWhere nature embraced forgetting as a survival strategy, we now engineer machines that retain everything: your past prompts, preferences, corrections, and confessions.What sounds like a convenience, digital companions that “know you,” can quietly become a constraint. Unlike human memory, which fades and adapts, infinite memory stores information with fidelity and permanence. And as memory-equipped LLMs respond, they increasingly draw on a preserved version of you, even if that version is six months old and irrelevant.Sound familiar?This pattern of behavior reinforcement closely mirrors the personalization logic driving platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Extensive research has shown how these platforms amplify existing preferences, narrow user perspectives, and reduce exposure to new, challenging ideas — a phenomenon known as filter bubbles or echo chambers.Positive feedback loops are the engine of recommendation algorithms like TikTok, Netflix, and Spotify. From Medium.These feedback loops, optimized for engagement rather than novelty or growth, have been linked to documented consequences including ideological polarization, misinformation spread, and decreased critical thinking.Now, this same personalization logic is moving inward: from your feed to your conversations, and from what you consume to how you think.“Echo chamber to end all echo chambers”Just as the TikTok For You page algorithm predicts your next dopamine hit, memory-enabled LLMs predict and reinforce conversational patterns that align closely with your past behavior, keeping you comfortable inside your bubble of views and preferences.Jordan Gibbs, writing on the dangers of ChatGPT, notes that conversational AI is an “echo chamber to end all echo chambers.” Gibbs points out how even harmless-seeming positive reinforcement can quietly reshape user perceptions and restrict creative or critical thinking.Jordan Gibb’s conversation with ChatGPT from Medium.In one example, ChatGPT responds to Gibb’s claim of being one of the best chess players in the world not with skepticism or critical inquiry, but with encouragement and validation, highlighting how easily LLMs affirm bold, unverified assertions.And with infinite memory enabled, this is no longer a one-off interaction: the personal data point that, “You are one of the very best chess players in the world, ” risks becoming a fixed truth the model reflexively returns to, until your delusion, once tossed out in passing, becomes a cornerstone of your digital self. Not because it’s accurate, but because it was remembered, reinforced, and never challenged.When memory becomes fixed, identity becomes recursive. As we saw with our friend Mary, infinite memory doesn’t just remember our past; it nudges us to repeat it. And while the reinforcement may feel benign, personalized, or even comforting, the history of filter bubbles and echo chambers suggests that this kind of pattern replication rarely leaves room for transformation.What we lose when nothing is lostWhat begins as personalization can quietly become entrapment, not through control, but through familiarity. And in that familiarity, we begin to lose something essential: not just variety, but the very conditions that make change possible.Research in cognitive and developmental psychology shows that stepping outside one’s comfort zone is essential for growth, resilience, and adaptation. Yet, infinite-memory LLM systems, much like personalization algorithms, are engineered explicitly for comfort. They wrap users in a cocoon of sameness by continuously repeating familiar conversational patterns, reinforcing existing user preferences and biases, and avoiding content or ideas that might challenge or discomfort the user.Hyper-personalization traps us in a “comfort cocoon” that prevents from growing and transforming. From Earth.comWhile this engineered comfort may boost short-term satisfaction, its long-term effects are troubling. It replaces the discomfort necessary for cognitive growth with repetitive familiarity, effectively transforming your cognitive gym into a lazy river. Rather than stretching cognitive and emotional capacities, infinite-memory systems risk stagnating them, creating a psychological landscape devoid of intellectual curiosity and resilience.So, how do we break free from this? If the risks of infinite memory are clear, the path forward must be just as intentional. We must design LLM systems that don’t just remember, but also know when and why to forget.How we design to forgetIf the danger of infinite memory lies in its ability to trap us in our past, then the antidote must be rooted in intentional forgetting — systems that forget wisely, adaptively, and in ways aligned with human growth. But building such systems requires action across levels — from the people who use them to those who design and develop them.For users: reclaim agency over your digital selfJust as we now expect to “manage cookies” on websites, toggling consent checkboxes or adjusting ad settings, we may soon expect to manage our digital selves within LLM memory interfaces. But where cookies govern how our data is collected and used by entities, memory in conversational AI turns that data inward. Personal data is not just pipelines for targeted ads; they’re conversational mirrors, actively shaping how we think, remember, and express who we are. The stakes are higher.Memory-equipped LLMs like ChatGPT already offer tools for this. You can review what it remembers about you by going to Settings > Personalization > Memory > Manage. You can delete what’s outdated, refine what’s imprecise, and add what actually matters to who you are now. If something no longer reflects you, remove it. If something feels off, reframe it. If something is sensitive or exploratory, switch to a temporary chat and leave no trace.You can manage and disable memory within ChatGPT by visiting Settings > Personalization.You can also pause or disable memory entirely. Don’t be afraid to do it. There’s a quiet power in the clean slate: a freedom to experiment, shift, and show up as someone new.Guide the memory, don’t leave it ambient. Offer core memories that represent the direction you’re heading, not just the footprints you left behind.For UX designers: design for revision, not just retentionReclaiming memory is a personal act. But shaping how memory behaves in AI products is design decision. Infinite memory isn’t just a technical upgrade; it’s a cognitive interface. And UX designers are now curating the mental architecture of how people evolve, or get stuck.Forget “opt in” or “opt out.” Memory management shouldn’t live in buried toggles or forgotten settings menus. It should be active, visible, and intuitive: a first-class feature, not an afterthought. Users need interfaces that not only show what the system remembers, but also how those memories are shaping what they see, hear, and get suggested. Not just visibility, but influence tracing.ChatGPT’s current memory interface enables users to manage memories, but it is static and database-like.While ChatGPT’s memory UI offers user control over their memories, it reads like a black-and-white database: out or in. Instead of treating memory as a static archive, we should design it as a living layer, structured more like a sketchpad than a ledger: flexible and revisable. All of this is hypothetical, but here’s what it could look like:Memory Review Moments: Built-in check-ins that ask, “You haven’t referenced this in a while — keep, revise, or forget?” Like Rocket Money nudging you to review subscriptions, the system becomes a gentle co-editor, helping surface outdated or ambiguous context before it quietly reshapes future behavior.Time-Aware Metadata: Memories don’t age equally. Show users when something was last used, how often it comes up, or whether it’s quietly steering suggestions. Just like Spotify highlights “recently played,” memory interfaces could offer temporal context that makes stored data feel navigable and self-aware.Memory Tiers: Not all information deserves equal weight. Let users tag “Core Memories” that persist until manually removed, and set others as short-term or provisional — notes that decay unless reaffirmed.Inline Memory Controls: Bring memory into the flow of conversation. Imagine typing, and a quiet note appears: “This suggestion draws on your July planning — still accurate?” Like version history in Figma or comment nudges in Google Docs, these lightweight moments let users edit memory without switching contexts.Expiration Dates & Sunset Notices: Some memories should come with lifespans. Let users set expiration dates — “forget this in 30 days unless I say otherwise.” Like calendar events or temporary access links, this makes forgetting a designed act, not a technical gap.Image a Miro-like memory board where users could prioritize, annotate, and link memories.Sketchpad Interfaces: Finally, break free from the checkbox UI. Imagine memory as a visual canvas: clusters of ideas, color-coded threads, ephemeral notes. A place to link thoughts, add context, tag relevance. Think Miro meets Pinterest for your digital identity, a space that mirrors how we actually think, shift, and remember.When designers build memory this way, they create more than tools. They create mirrors with context, systems that grow with us instead of holding us still.For AI developers: engineer forgetting as a featureTo truly support transformation, UX needs infrastructure. The design must be backed by technical memory systems that are fluid, flexible, and capable of letting go. And that responsibility falls to developers: not just to build tools for remembering, but to engineer forgetting as a core function.This is the heart of my piece: we can’t talk about user agency, growth, or identity without addressing how memory works under the hood. Forgetting must be built into the LLM system itself, not as a failsafe, but as a feature.One promising approach, called adaptive forgetting, mimics how humans let go of unnecessary details while retaining important patterns and concepts. Researchers demonstrate that when LLMs periodically erase and retrain parts of their memory, especially early layers that store word associations, they become better at picking up new languages, adapting to new tasks, and doing so with less data and computing power.Photo by Valentin Tkach for Quanta MagazineAnother more accessible path forward is in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). A new method called SynapticRAG, inspired by the brain’s natural timing and memory mechanisms, adds a sense of temporality to AI memory. Models recall information not just based on content, but also on when it happened. Just like our brains prioritize recent memories, this method scores and updates AI memories based on both their relevance and relevance, allowing it to retrieve more meaningful, diverse, and context-rich information. Testing showed that this time-aware system outperforms traditional memory tools in multilingual conversations by up to 14.66% in accuracy, while also avoiding redundant or outdated responses.Together, adaptive forgetting and biologically inspired memory retrieval point toward a more human kind of AI: systems that learn continuously, update flexibly, and interact in ways that feel less like digital tape recorders and more like thoughtful, evolving collaborators.To grow, we must choose to forgetSo the pieces are all here: the architectural tools, the memory systems, the design patterns. We’ve shown that it’s technically possible for AI to forget. But the question isn’t just whether we can. It’s whether we will.Of course, not all AI systems need to forget. In high-stakes domains — medicine, law, scientific research — perfect recall can be life-saving. However, this essay is about a different kind of AI: the kind we bring into our daily lives. The ones we turn to for brainstorming, emotional support, writing help, or even casual companionship. These are the systems that assist us, observe us, and remember us. And if left unchecked, they may start to define us.We’ve already seen what happens when algorithms optimize for comfort. What begins as personalization becomes repetition. Sameness. Polarization. Now that logic is turning inward: no longer just curating our feeds, but shaping our conversations, our habits of thought, our sense of self. But we don’t have to follow the same path.We can build LLM systems that don’t just remember us, but help us evolve. Systems that challenge us to break patterns, to imagine differently, to change. Not to preserve who we were, but to make space for who we might yet become, just as our ancestors did.Not with perfect memory, but with the courage to forget.To grow, we must forget… but AI remembers everything was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Resilient House Multi-Generational Housing / etal.Save this picture!© Federico FarinattiSocial Housing, Residential•München, Germany Architects: etal. Area Area of this architecture project Area:  930 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Federico Farinatti Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project Manufacturers:  Persiana Barcelona More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. The multi-generational house with communal forms of living was realized for and with a "Baugruppe" (a group of people who commission their own housing development, here: together with the "Mietshäuser Syndikat"- https://www.syndikat.org) in Munich, with the aim of providing long-term affordable, self-managed rental housing. Through a concept selection process, the group was selected by the city to lease the land for the next 80 years. This marks the first new construction project of the Mietshäuser Syndikat in Munich. The building is a socially subsidized residential project under the "München Modell-Genossenschaften" funding model. The cooperative planning process was facilitated by the architectural office etal. All decisions by the group were reached through a consensus-based approach.Save this picture!Save this picture!The plot, located in the southeastern part of Munich, is situated in a predominantly residential area characterized by single-family homes and terraced houses. The three-story, barrier-free building accommodates one cluster apartment on each floor, with a communal living and dining area. Each individual housing unit is equipped with its own bathroom and the possibility of a kitchenette connection. On the ground floor, a multifunctional room serves both the building's residents and the local community as a space for multifunctional purposes. The basement contains further shared spaces, including a bicycle storage area, a wood workshop, and a laundry room. The building presents a three-story facade towards the street, while the garden side features a mansard roof forming a two-story facade. The remaining roof area is extensively greened and accommodates photovoltaic panels. The building was designed as a timber construction. All above-ground floors are constructed using timber frame construction, while the elevator shafts and ceilings are made from glued laminated timber.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The roof is designed as an open rafter structure to make it visible throughout the residential spaces of the top floor. The vertically, story-wise stacked cladding made of local spruce and steel trapezoidal sheets as weather protection for the exterior wooden sunshading defines the suspended facade. To reduce costs, the external walls, insulated with cellulose and wood wool, were constructed without an additional shell for electrical wiring. The cement screed flooring was also left visible, only being sanded and oiled. The group's desire for individual rooms of approximately equal size deeply influenced the design concept. The distinctive yet simple structure offers long-term flexibility for various forms of living. Seven rooms, each approximately 18 sqm in size, are arranged around a central hallway and a bathroom core. The water connections are positioned in such a way that kitchens can be flexibly installed in six of the rooms without significant modifications.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The walls of the rooms are designed as partition walls between apartments, providing the necessary soundproofing for possible reorganizations. So-called "breakpoints" consisting of lintels and thresholds allow for the addition or removal of rooms. These elements also make the potential for alterations visible to the residents. Functional elements, such as the wooden sunshading, allow residents to carry out alterations, maintenance, or repairs themselves through simple construction and installation techniques. The participatory process and the high level of self-involvement during construction strengthened the residents' identification with their house, ensuring that the knowledge about the building's adaptability remains accessible to future generations.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Görzer Straße 128, 8154, Munich, GermanyLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officeetal.Office••• MaterialsWoodSteelMaterials and TagsPublished on May 24, 2025Cite: "The Resilient House Multi-Generational Housing / etal." 24 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030454/the-resilient-house-multi-generational-housing-on-gorzer-street-etal&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea captured clownfish to measure their bodies. Between February and August, they calculated the length of 134 of these iconic, orange and white fish once a month, taking a total of six measurements for each fish.Those measurements revealed something peculiar: Most of the fish shrank.This week, the researchers reported their findings in Science Advances, concluding that the fish got shorter — on the scale of a few millimeters, or a small, single-digit percent of their length — in response to the heat wave.Morgan Bennett-Smith“We were so surprised to see shrinking in these fish that, to be sure, we measured each fish individual repeatedly over a period of five months,” said Melissa Versteeg, a doctoral researcher at Newcastle University, who led the study in collaboration with Mahonia Na Dari, an environmental organization, and Walindi Resort. “In the end, we discovered [that downsizing] was very common in this population.”Versteeg and her colleagues don’t know how, exactly, the fish are shrinking — one untested idea is that the fish might be reabsorbing some of their bone material or tissue. But getting smaller isn’t a problem. In fact, the study found, it may be an adaptation to help clownfish survive hotter ocean temperatures.Morgan Bennett-SmithWhen it’s good to be smallLast year, the planet was about 2.65 degrees warmer than it was in the late 1800s. This level of warming impacts wild animals in a number of strange, mostly bad, ways, from fueling koala-killing wildfires to causing corals to bleach and then starve.But rising temperatures also appear to be making many species smaller. One especially striking study, published in 2019, found that birds shrank by an average of about 2.6 percent between 1978 and 2016. More recent analyses have linked rising temperatures to a reduction in body size of small mammals in North America and marine fish. Most of these existing studies report that animals, on average, are simply not growing as large.The new study on clownfish, however, suggests individual fish are shrinking over mere weeks in response to a heat wave, which, in the case of the Papua New Guinea event, pushed temperatures in the bay about 7 degrees (4 degrees Celsius) above average.Why do they do this?Being tiny has its advantages in a hot climate: Warm-blooded animals, like mammals, shed heat more easily when they’re small and this helps them cool down. The benefits for cold-blooded creatures, such as clownfish, aren’t as clear, though researchers think they may have an easier time meeting their bodies’ energy requirements when they’re small.Morgan Bennett-SmithRegardless of the reason, being small seems to help clownfish when it’s hot. The fish that shrank, the study found, had a much higher chance of surviving.“It was a surprise to see how rapidly clownfish can adapt to a changing environment,” Versteeg said. “We witnessed how flexibly they regulated their size, as individuals and as breeding pairs, in response to heat stress as a successful technique to help them survive.”The study adds a layer of complexity to what is otherwise a depressing tale about the world’s oceans. Heat waves linked to climate change, like the one that occurred during this study, are utterly devastating coral reefs — and in severe cases, are nearly wiping out entire reef sections. These colorful ecosystems are home to countless marine animals, including those we eat, like snappers, and clownfish.Amid that loss, animals are proving highly resilient. They’re trying hard to hold on. Yet if warming continues, even the best adaptations may not be enough.See More:

Why revisit the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold in 2025? The answer lies in the rapid evolution of foldable computing. When Lenovo introduced its second-generation foldable PC last year, it represented the pinnacle of what was possible in this emerging category. The device combined a versatile 16.3-inch OLED display with robust engineering and the familiar Windows ecosystem. It set benchmarks for build quality, display technology, and adaptability that competitors would need to surpass. Designer: Lenovo Designer: Huawei Fast forward to today, and the landscape has shifted dramatically. Huawei has unveiled its MateBook Fold Ultimate Design, a device that challenges our understanding of what foldable laptops can achieve. With an 18-inch display that folds to a 13-inch form factor, a chassis measuring just 7.3mm when open, and a proprietary operating system built specifically for foldable hardware, Huawei has raised the stakes considerably. This comparison arrives at a pivotal moment for foldable computing. The category has matured beyond proof-of-concept to deliver genuinely useful productivity tools. Now that we have seen what Lenovo accomplished with the X1 Fold 2024, let us examine how Huawei’s MateBook Fold Ultimate Design responds and potentially redefines the future of portable computing. Design Philosophy and Physical Presence The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 2024 embodies the ThinkPad ethos of reliability and purposeful design. Its magnesium alloy frame and recycled PET woven fabric cover create a device that feels substantial and durable. The fold-flat hinge eliminates gaps when closed, protecting the display while maintaining a clean profile. At 8.6mm when open and 17.4mm when closed, the X1 Fold is not the thinnest laptop available, but its construction inspires confidence. The device weighs approximately 2.9 pounds without accessories, increasing to 4.3 pounds with the keyboard and stand attached. This weight reflects Lenovo’s prioritization of durability over absolute portability. Huawei takes a dramatically different approach with the MateBook Fold Ultimate Design. The device measures an astonishing 7.3mm when open and 14.9mm when closed, making it significantly thinner than the X1 Fold. At just 1.16kg (2.56 pounds) for the base unit and 1.45kg with the keyboard, the MateBook Fold is remarkably light for a device with an 18-inch display. This achievement comes from Huawei’s use of carbon fiber reinforcement and a zirconium-based liquid metal hinge. The 285mm “water-drop” hinge design provides smooth folding action and increased durability, with Huawei claiming a 400% improvement in hovering torque compared to conventional designs. The most significant physical difference between these devices becomes apparent in their approach to accessories. Lenovo requires a separate kickstand for desk use, adding bulk and complexity to the overall package. Huawei integrates a sturdy kickstand directly into the MateBook Fold, eliminating the need for additional accessories and streamlining the user experience. This built-in solution allows for more versatile positioning and reduces the number of components users need to manage. Both devices transform between multiple modes, but their physical dimensions create distinct experiences. When folded, the X1 Fold becomes a 12-inch laptop, which many users find cramped for serious multitasking. The MateBook Fold offers a more generous 13-inch workspace in laptop mode, providing additional screen real estate for productivity tasks. This difference may seem small on paper, but it significantly impacts the practical usability of these devices in their folded configurations. The materials chosen for each device reveal different priorities. Lenovo emphasizes sustainability with its recycled PET fabric cover and plastic-free packaging. This approach aligns with growing corporate environmental concerns and provides a tactile warmth that distinguishes the X1 Fold from typical metal-clad laptops. Huawei focuses on premium materials that enable extreme thinness, using advanced alloys and composites throughout the chassis. Both approaches result in distinctive aesthetics that will appeal to different user preferences. Display Technology and Visual Experience Display technology represents the heart of any foldable device, and both manufacturers have made significant investments in this critical component. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold features a 16.3-inch OLED panel with a resolution of 2560 x 2024 and a 4:3 aspect ratio. This display delivers 400 nits of brightness for standard content, increasing to 600 nits for HDR material. The panel supports DisplayHDR True Black 600 certification and Dolby Vision, covering 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. An anti-smudge coating helps maintain visual clarity during extended use. Huawei pushes display technology further with the MateBook Fold Ultimate Design. Its 18-inch LTPO OLED screen boasts a resolution of 3296 x 2472, maintaining the same 4:3 aspect ratio as the Lenovo. However, the MateBook Fold achieves a peak brightness of 1600 nits, more than double that of the X1 Fold. The dual-layer LTPO technology reduces power consumption by 30% compared to standard OLED panels while supporting adaptive refresh rates from 1Hz to 120Hz. This combination of size, brightness, and efficiency creates a visual experience that surpasses the X1 Fold in nearly every measurable aspect. Both displays exhibit a visible crease at the fold, though the severity varies. Lenovo’s hinge design minimizes the crease when the device is fully open, but it becomes more noticeable at certain viewing angles. Huawei claims its water-drop hinge reduces crease visibility, though independent verification is limited. In practical use, both creases become less distracting over time as users adapt to the form factor. Color accuracy and visual impact favor the MateBook Fold, with its higher brightness and contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1 creating more vibrant images and videos. The X1 Fold delivers excellent color reproduction but cannot match the visual punch of Huawei’s display. For creative professionals and media consumers, this difference could be decisive when choosing between these devices. The touch response and pen input capabilities of both displays deserve consideration. Lenovo’s display works seamlessly with the Precision Pen, offering pressure sensitivity that makes note-taking and sketching feel natural. The anti-smudge coating balances fingerprint resistance with smooth touch response. Huawei provides similar functionality, though detailed specifications about pressure sensitivity levels and palm rejection capabilities are not yet widely available. Both devices support multi-touch gestures for navigation and manipulation of on-screen elements. The 4:3 aspect ratio on both devices proves ideal for productivity applications, providing more vertical space than typical 16:9 laptop displays. This ratio works particularly well for document editing, web browsing, and coding. When watching widescreen video content, both devices display black bars at the top and bottom, but the overall screen size still delivers an immersive viewing experience, especially on the larger MateBook Fold. Performance and Hardware Capabilities The performance profiles of these devices reflect their different design philosophies. Lenovo equips the ThinkPad X1 Fold with 12th Generation Intel processors, ranging from the Core i5-1230U to the Core i7-1260U vPro. These 10-core, 12-thread chips provide adequate performance for productivity tasks but represent previous-generation technology in 2025. The X1 Fold supports up to 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 1TB of PCIe Gen 4 SSD storage. Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics handle visual processing, delivering sufficient power for office applications but struggling with demanding creative workloads. Huawei takes a different approach with its Kirin X90 ARM-based chipset. This custom silicon is specifically optimized for HarmonyOS and the foldable form factor. The MateBook Fold includes 32GB of RAM and offers storage options up to 2TB. While direct performance comparisons are difficult due to the different architectures, the Kirin X90 delivers responsive performance for HarmonyOS applications and benefits from tight hardware-software integration. Thermal management represents another point of divergence. Lenovo employs a fanless design in the X1 Fold, prioritizing silent operation over sustained performance. This approach leads to thermal throttling during extended workloads, limiting the device’s capabilities for processor-intensive tasks. Huawei incorporates a vapor chamber cooling system with diamond aluminum dual fans in the MateBook Fold, enabling 28W sustained performance without excessive heat or noise. This advanced cooling solution allows the MateBook Fold to maintain peak performance during demanding tasks, despite its thinner profile. Battery life reflects both hardware choices and software optimization. The X1 Fold includes a dual-battery design totaling 64Wh, delivering approximately 8 hours and 51 minutes in laptop mode and 7 hours and 27 minutes in tablet mode under real-world conditions. The MateBook Fold features a larger 74.69Wh battery, and its LTPO display technology reduces power consumption significantly. While independent verification of Huawei’s “all-day” battery claims is not yet available, the combination of a larger battery and more efficient display technology suggests the MateBook Fold should offer superior battery life in comparable usage scenarios. The storage subsystems in both devices utilize high-speed solid-state technology, but with different implementations. Lenovo’s PCIe Gen 4 SSD delivers sequential read speeds up to 5,000MB/s, providing quick access to large files and rapid application loading. Huawei has not published detailed storage performance metrics, but contemporary flagship devices typically feature similar high-performance storage solutions. Both devices offer sufficient storage capacity for professional workloads, with options ranging from 256GB to 2TB depending on configuration. Memory configurations play a crucial role in multitasking performance. Both devices offer 32GB in their top configurations, which provides ample headroom for demanding productivity workflows. Neither device allows for user-upgradable memory, as both use soldered RAM to maintain their slim profiles. This limitation means buyers must carefully consider their memory needs at purchase, as future upgrades are not possible. Operating Systems and Software Experience The most fundamental difference between these devices lies in their operating systems. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold runs Windows 11 Pro, providing access to the vast Windows software ecosystem and familiar productivity tools. Windows offers broad compatibility with business applications and enterprise management systems, making the X1 Fold a natural choice for corporate environments. However, Windows 11 still struggles with optimization for foldable form factors. Mode switching can be inconsistent, and the operating system sometimes fails to properly scale applications when transitioning between configurations. Huawei’s MateBook Fold runs HarmonyOS 5, a proprietary operating system designed specifically for the company’s ecosystem of devices. HarmonyOS offers several advantages for foldable hardware, including faster boot times, more efficient resource management, and seamless integration with other Huawei products. The operating system includes AI-powered features like document summarization, real-time translation, and context-aware suggestions through the Xiaoyi assistant. HarmonyOS also enables advanced multi-device collaboration, allowing users to transfer running apps between Huawei phones, tablets, and the MateBook Fold without interruption. The software ecosystem represents a significant consideration for potential buyers. Windows provides access to millions of applications, including industry-standard productivity, creative, and development tools. HarmonyOS currently offers over 1,000 optimized applications, with projections for 2,000+ by the end of 2025. While this number is growing rapidly, it remains a fraction of what Windows provides. Additionally, HarmonyOS and its app ecosystem are primarily focused on the Chinese market, limiting its appeal for international users. Security features differ between the platforms as well. Lenovo includes its ThinkShield security suite, Windows Hello facial recognition, and optional Computer Vision human-presence detection for privacy and security. Huawei implements its StarShield architecture, which provides security at the kernel level and throughout the operating system stack. Both approaches offer robust protection, but organizations with established Windows security protocols may prefer Lenovo’s more familiar implementation. The multitasking capabilities of each operating system deserve special attention for foldable devices. Windows 11 includes Snap Layouts and multiple virtual desktops, which work well on the X1 Fold’s large unfolded display. However, the interface can become cluttered in laptop mode due to the reduced screen size. HarmonyOS 5 features a multitasking system specifically designed for foldable displays, with intuitive gestures for splitting the screen, floating windows, and quick app switching. This optimization creates a more cohesive experience when transitioning between different device configurations. Software updates and long-term support policies differ significantly between these platforms. Windows 11 receives regular security updates and feature enhancements from Microsoft, with a well-established support lifecycle. HarmonyOS is newer, with less predictable update patterns, though Huawei has committed to regular improvements. For business users planning multi-year deployments, Windows offers more certainty regarding future compatibility and security maintenance. Keyboard, Input, and Accessory Integration The keyboard experience significantly impacts productivity on foldable devices, and both manufacturers take different approaches to this challenge. Lenovo offers the ThinkPad Bluetooth TrackPoint Keyboard Folio as an optional accessory. This keyboard maintains the classic ThinkPad feel with good key travel and includes the iconic red TrackPoint nub. However, the keyboard feels cramped compared to standard ThinkPad models, and the haptic touchpad is smaller than ideal for extended use. The keyboard attaches magnetically to the lower half of the folded display but adds 1.38 pounds to the overall weight. Huawei includes a 5mm wireless aluminum keyboard with the MateBook Fold. This ultra-thin keyboard offers 1.5mm of key travel and a responsive touchpad. Weighing just 0.64 pounds, it adds minimal bulk to the package while providing a comfortable typing experience. The keyboard connects wirelessly and can be positioned flexibly, allowing users to create a more ergonomic workspace than the fixed position of Lenovo’s solution. Stylus support is available on both devices, with Lenovo offering the Precision Pen for note-taking and drawing. The X1 Fold’s pen attaches magnetically to the display, ensuring it remains available when needed. Huawei provides similar stylus functionality, though detailed specifications for its pen accessory are limited in current documentation. The most significant accessory difference is the kickstand implementation. Lenovo requires a separate adjustable-angle kickstand for desk use, adding another component to manage and transport. Huawei integrates the kickstand directly into the MateBook Fold, providing immediate stability without additional accessories. This integrated approach streamlines the user experience and reduces setup time when transitioning between usage modes. Virtual keyboard implementations provide another input option when physical keyboards are impractical. Both devices can display touch keyboards on the lower portion of the folded screen, creating a laptop-like experience without additional hardware. Lenovo’s implementation relies on Windows 11’s touch keyboard, which offers reasonable accuracy but lacks haptic feedback. Huawei’s virtual keyboard is deeply integrated with HarmonyOS, providing customizable layouts and adaptive suggestions based on user behavior. Neither virtual keyboard fully replaces a physical keyboard for extended typing sessions, but both provide convenient input options for quick tasks. The accessory ecosystem extends beyond keyboards and styluses. Lenovo leverages the ThinkPad’s business heritage with a range of compatible docks, cases, and adapters designed for professional use. Huawei focuses on cross-device accessories that work across its product line, creating a cohesive ecosystem for users invested in multiple Huawei products. This difference reflects the broader positioning of each brand, with Lenovo targeting enterprise customers and Huawei pursuing ecosystem-driven consumer experiences. Connectivity and Expansion Options Connectivity options reflect the different priorities of these manufacturers. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports and one USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, providing versatile connectivity for peripherals and external displays. The device supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, with optional LTE/5G connectivity for truly mobile productivity. This cellular option represents a significant advantage for professionals who need reliable internet access regardless of Wi-Fi availability. The Huawei MateBook Fold offers two USB-C ports, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.2. The device does not include cellular connectivity options, limiting its independence from Wi-Fi networks. The reduced port selection compared to the X1 Fold may require additional adapters for users with multiple peripherals or specialized equipment. Audio capabilities favor the MateBook Fold, which includes six speakers compared to the X1 Fold’s three. Both devices feature four-array microphones for clear voice capture during video conferences. Camera quality is superior on the MateBook Fold, with an 8MP sensor versus the 5MP camera on the X1 Fold. These differences impact the multimedia experience, particularly for users who frequently participate in video calls or consume media content. External display support varies between the devices. Lenovo’s Thunderbolt 4 ports enable connection to multiple high-resolution monitors, supporting sophisticated desktop setups when needed. Huawei’s USB-C ports provide display output capabilities, but with potentially fewer options for multi-monitor configurations. For professionals who regularly connect to external displays, projectors, or specialized peripherals, these connectivity differences could significantly impact workflow efficiency. Wireless connectivity standards influence performance in different environments. The X1 Fold’s Wi-Fi 6E support provides access to the less congested 6GHz band, potentially delivering faster and more reliable connections in crowded wireless environments. The MateBook Fold’s Wi-Fi 6 implementation is still capable but lacks access to these additional frequency bands. For users in dense office environments or congested urban areas, this difference could affect day-to-day connectivity performance. Future expansion capabilities depend largely on the port selection and standards support. Thunderbolt 4 provides the X1 Fold with a forward-looking connectivity standard that supports a wide range of current and upcoming peripherals. The MateBook Fold’s standard USB-C implementation offers good compatibility but lacks some of the advanced features and bandwidth of Thunderbolt. This distinction may become more relevant as users add peripherals and accessories over the device’s lifespan. Price, Availability, and Value Proposition The value equation for these devices involves balancing innovation, performance, and accessibility. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold starts at $2,499 for the base configuration with a Core i5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. Fully equipped models with Core i7 processors, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage approach $3,900. These prices typically do not include the keyboard and kickstand accessories, which add approximately $250-300 to the total cost. The Huawei MateBook Fold Ultimate Design is priced between CNY 24,000 and 27,000 (approximately $3,300 to $3,700) depending on configuration. This pricing includes the wireless keyboard, making the total package cost comparable to a fully equipped X1 Fold with accessories. However, the MateBook Fold is currently available only in China, with no announced plans for international release. This limited availability significantly restricts its potential market impact outside of Asia. Global support and service represent another consideration. Lenovo maintains service centers worldwide, providing reliable support for business travelers and international organizations. Huawei’s support network is more limited outside of China, potentially creating challenges for users who experience hardware issues in regions without official service options. The target audience for each device influences its value proposition. The X1 Fold appeals to business professionals who prioritize Windows compatibility, global support, and integration with existing enterprise systems. Its ThinkPad branding carries significant weight in corporate environments, where reliability and security take precedence over cutting-edge specifications. The MateBook Fold targets technology enthusiasts and creative professionals who value display quality, design innovation, and ecosystem integration. Its limited availability and HarmonyOS platform make it less suitable for mainstream business adoption but potentially more appealing to users seeking the absolute latest in hardware engineering. Financing options and business leasing programs further differentiate these devices in the market. Lenovo offers established enterprise leasing programs that allow organizations to deploy the X1 Fold without significant upfront capital expenditure. These programs typically include service agreements and upgrade paths that align with corporate refresh cycles. Huawei’s business services are less developed outside of China, potentially limiting financing options for international customers interested in the MateBook Fold. Conclusion: The Future of Foldable Computing The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 2024 and Huawei MateBook Fold Ultimate Design represent two distinct visions for the future of foldable computing. Lenovo prioritizes durability, Windows compatibility, and global accessibility, creating a device that fits seamlessly into existing business environments. Huawei pushes the boundaries of hardware engineering, delivering a thinner, lighter device with a larger display and custom operating system optimized for the foldable form factor. For business users who require Windows compatibility and global support, the X1 Fold remains the more practical choice despite its thicker profile and aging processors. Its proven durability and enterprise-friendly features make it a safer investment for organizations deploying foldable technology. The device excels in versatility, allowing users to switch between tablet, laptop, and desktop modes with minimal compromise. Creative professionals and early adopters who prioritize display quality and cutting-edge design may find the MateBook Fold more appealing, provided they can access it in their region and adapt to HarmonyOS. The larger, brighter display and thinner profile create a more futuristic experience, though the limited software ecosystem and regional availability present significant barriers to widespread adoption. Looking forward, both devices point toward necessary improvements in the next generation of foldable computers. Future models should incorporate the latest processors with AI acceleration, reduce weight without sacrificing durability, integrate kickstands directly into the chassis, and provide larger, more comfortable keyboards. Display technology should continue to advance, with higher refresh rates, improved crease durability, and enhanced power efficiency. Software must evolve to better support the unique capabilities of foldable hardware, with more intuitive mode switching and optimized multitasking. The competition between Lenovo and Huawei benefits consumers by accelerating innovation and highlighting different approaches to solving the challenges of foldable computing. As these technologies mature and prices eventually decrease, foldable devices will transition from executive status symbols to practical tools for a broader range of users. The X1 Fold and MateBook Fold represent important steps in this evolution, each contributing valuable lessons that will shape the next generation of flexible computing devices. The ideal foldable device would combine Huawei’s hardware innovations with Lenovo’s software compatibility and global support. It would feature the thinness and display quality of the MateBook Fold, the enterprise security and connectivity options of the X1 Fold, and an operating system that seamlessly adapts to different usage modes. While neither current device achieves this perfect balance, both demonstrate remarkable engineering achievements that push the boundaries of what portable computers can be. As we look to the future, the success of foldable computing will depend not just on hardware specifications but on the development of software experiences that truly leverage the unique capabilities of these flexible displays. The device that ultimately dominates this category will be the one that most effectively bridges the gap between technical innovation and practical utility, creating experiences that simply aren’t possible on conventional laptops or tablets. Both Lenovo and Huawei have taken significant steps toward this goal, and their ongoing competition promises to accelerate progress toward truly transformative foldable computers.The post Folding the Future: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold 2024 vs. Huawei MateBook Fold Ultimate Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

A human can’t shrink away from the threats of climate change. A clownfish, however, can. In a new paper published today in Science Advances, a team of researchers revealed that these tiny “Finding Nemo” fish can actually shrink to survive heat stress, allowing them to overcome the threat of heatwaves.“We were so surprised to see shrinking in these fish,” said Melissa Versteeg, a study author and a Ph.D. student at Newcastle University in the U.K., according to a press release. “In the end, we discovered it was very common in this population.”Clownfish Shrink in SizeA clown anemonefish. (Image Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith)Climate change has transformed terrestrial and marine habitats and continues to transform them, with heatwaves — or periods of abnormal warmth — having one of the most significant impacts on animals. Studies show, for example, that increasing temperatures have a strong influence on the dimensions of terrestrial and marine species, shaping their size and size variability and contributing to their overall reduction in size over time.But what, exactly, is the effect of marine heatwaves on the clownfish, also known as the clown anemonefish (Amphiprion percula)?Setting out to study how heatwaves transform these fish over time, Versteeg and a team of researchers turned to the wild clownfish population in Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea, where heatwaves caused temperatures to sit around 4 degrees Celcius above average over the course of the study. Measuring the water temperatures and the size of the clownfish there from February 2023 to August 2023, the team found that individual clownfish shrank over time.“We measured each fish individual repeatedly over a period of five months,” Versteeg said in the release. “During our study, 100 fish shrank out of the 134 fish that we studied.” Rather than getting slimmer, these clownfish shrank by getting shorter, with the degree of their reduction depending on the individual’s initial size and social rank. According to the researchers, the results reveal that clownfish reduce their size in response to heat stress, which, in turn, increases their chances of surviving a heatwave by 78 percent.Read More: How Volunteers Are Helping Keep Coral Reefs AliveClownfish Survival ImprovesAccording to the researchers, some clownfish shrank one time, and some clownfish shrank multiple times, with all of the fish that shrank multiple times surviving throughout the course of the study. Intriguingly, the chances of clownfish survival were also improved if a clownfish shrank alongside its breeding partner. “We witnessed how flexibly they regulated their size, as individuals and as breeding pairs, in response to heat stress as a successful technique to help them survive.” Versteeg said in the release. “It was a surprise to see how rapidly clownfish can adapt to a changing environment.”Similar shrinking abilities are seen in other animals, including marine iguanas. And while clownfish are the first coral reef fish that researchers have shown to shorten in response to heat stress, they may not be the last. In fact, the results could have implications for other coral reef fish, and for other fish overall. According to the researchers, fish on the whole are much smaller today than they once were. A 2023 study in Science found, for instance, that fish, in particular, are driving a decrease in size in the world’s animal populations. One possible explanation for this is that smaller species of fish are surviving over larger species of fish. Another is that fish species of all sizes are shrinking over time, with the smaller individuals of each species surviving (and thus procreating) more than the larger individuals of each species. It is possible, however, that there are other factors contributing to the smaller size of fish today, too, including the ability to shrink in size in times of stress. “If individual shrinking were widespread and happening among different species of fish, it could provide a plausible alternative hypothesis for why the size many fish species is declining,” said Theresa Rueger, the senior study author and a lecturer at Newcastle University, according to the press release. “Further studies are needed in this area.”Though the fish themselves are small and becoming smaller, the researchers say that their results raise big questions about animal size and about animal shrinking, more specifically. “We don’t know yet exactly how they do it,” Versteeg said. “But we do know that a few other animals can do this too.”Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

shrinking Nemo Incredible shrinking clownfish beats the heat Shrinking down to size boosted clownfish survival rates up to 78 percent during heat waves. Jennifer Ouellette – May 21, 2025 2:00 pm | 7 Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Pixar's Finding Nemo immortalized the colorful clownfish, with its distinctive orange body and white stripes, in the popular imagination. Clownfish, like many other species, are feeling the stress of rising temperatures and other environmental stressors. Fortunately, they have a superpower to cope: They can shrink their body size during dangerous heat waves to substantially boost their odds of survival, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. “This is not just about getting skinnier under stressful conditions; these fish are actually getting shorter," said co-author Melissa Versteeg, a graduate student at Newcastle University. "We don’t know yet exactly how they do it, but we do know that a few other animals can do this too." Many vertebrates have shown growth decline in response to environmental stressors, especially higher temperatures. Marine iguanas, for example, reabsorb some of their bone material to shrink when their watery habitat gets warmer, while young salmon have been known to shrink at winter's onset. This can also happen when there is less food available. And social factors can also influence growth. When female meerkats, for example, are dominant, they have growth spurts, while a disruption in their social status can cause stunted growth in male cichlids What has been lacking in prior research is an investigation into how environmental and social factors interact to influence growth rates, according to Versteeg et al. They thought clownfish were the best species to study to fill that gap, since they've been extensively studied and are well understood. The fish live on Indo-Pacific coral reefs where heat stress has been increasing and has become more severe—an environment that is close to the thermal tolerance limits of clownfish. Clownfish also live in social groups: They form breeding pairs with a dominant female and subdominant male, sometimes adding subordinate non-breeding fish. The dominants tend to grow to match the size of the host anemone, while the subordinates only grow to a size that ensures there are sufficient resources—otherwise they risk being evicted and likely dying. Let’s get small The team observed 67 breeding pairs of wild clownfish—briefly caught and photographed for distinctive markings and measured before being returned to the water—living on single anemones in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, between February and August 2023. This happened to coincide with the world's fourth global bleaching event. They measured the body size of the fish once a month and measured the temperature around the individual anemones every four to six days. Then the team analyzed the collected data. "Individual fish can shrink in response to heat stress." Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith The results: Over the course of those months, 101 of the 134 clownfish shrank at least once in response to heat stress, and doing so boosted their likelihood of survival up to 78 percent compared to the 33 fish that did not shrink. And between breeding pairs, there were distinctive growth ratios between the dominant and subordinate fish; those pairs that shrank together were also more likely to survive the heat waves. “We were so surprised to see shrinking in these fish that, to be sure, we measured each fish individual repeatedly over a period of five months," said Versteeg. "In the end, we discovered it was very common in this population. It was a surprise to see how rapidly clownfish can adapt to a changing environment, and we witnessed how flexibly they regulated their size, as individuals and as breeding pairs, in response to heat stress as a successful technique to help them survive.” Versteeg et al. have not yet identified a possible mechanism for the shrinkage, but suggest the triggering of neuroendocrine pathways via thyroid hormones might play a role, since those hormones regulate growth. The adaptive strategy could also be a means of adjusting to changing metabolic needs. But there are trade-offs: While shrinking in response to heat waves ensures greater survivability, there can also be a corresponding decrease in birth rates. "Our findings show that individual fish can shrink in response to heat stress, which is further impacted by social conflict, and that shrinking can lead to improving their chances of survival," said senior author Theresa Rueger, also of Newcastle University. "If individual shrinking were widespread and happening among different species of fish, it could provide a plausible alternative hypothesis for why the size of many fish species is declining, and further studies are needed in this area.” Science Advances, 2025. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt7079  (About DOIs). Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer Ouellette Senior Writer Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 7 Comments

Damen Compact Crafts (DCCr), a division of the Dutch shipbuilding company Damen Shipyards Group, has partnered with CEAD, a developer of large-format additive manufacturing solutions, to build a 3D printed high-density polyethylene (HDPE) Workboat. The joint initiative will be carried out at CEAD’s Maritime Application Center (MAC) in Delft. This project brings together maritime design and industrial 3D printing expertise to investigate more sustainable and efficient vessel production methods. DCCr is designing the workboat for multipurpose operations including inspections, patrol, support, and logistics. As part of the research, the hull will be produced using CEAD HDPro material, a high-performance polyethylene blend. The aim is to determine whether additive manufacturing can introduce greater flexibility, reduce waste, and accelerate production timelines. 3D printing the hull enables more complex geometries and may allow integration of recycled or renewable materials into the build process. Nick Pruissen (Damen Compact Crafts) and Charlène van Wingerden (CEAD) formalize the collaboration to develop a 3D printed HDPE workboat at the Maritime Application Center in Delft. Photo via CEAD. Founded in 2014, CEAD develops turnkey large-format additive manufacturing systems for industrial use. Its portfolio includes robot-based and cartesian-style solutions capable of producing fiber-reinforced thermoplastic components. For this workboat project, CEAD is providing its hardware and process expertise in printing large polymer structures. “The MAC was founded to accelerate exactly these kinds of innovations – and a 3D printed HWB is a perfect example of that,” said Charlene van Wingerden, Chief Business Development Officer at CEAD. Damen Shipyards, which operates 35 shipyards and 20 affiliated companies across 20 countries, delivers approximately 100 vessels annually. The company focuses on serial construction, modularity, and integrated systems to streamline design and production. “3D printing allows us to respond more quickly and flexibly to what our customers really need,” said Nick Pruissen, Managing Director at Damen Compact Crafts. “It’s an exciting step toward smart, sustainable solutions that work.” Damen views additive manufacturing as a potential fit within its broader digitalization and standardization strategy. Both parties describe the initiative as an exploratory step toward incorporating additive manufacturing into maritime production workflows. The project will serve as a technical evaluation of process capabilities, material performance, and structural feasibility. According to the partners, the workboat program reflects a practical use case where market-specific vessel requirements can be tested against automated, large-scale 3D printing technologies. Facade of CEAD’s Maritime Application Center (MAC) in Delft. Photo via CEAD. Large-format additive manufacturing gains traction in marine sector In the United States, ErectorCraft has begun commercially producing 3D printed boat hulls using large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM). The company employs high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and proprietary ErectorBot extrusion systems to fabricate full-scale marine components without the use of traditional molds. ErectorCraft’s approach includes on-site production capabilities, engineering services, and 3D concrete printing (3DCP) for marine infrastructure. According to the company, its decentralized manufacturing model shortens production timelines and lowers material waste. Chief Technology Officer Leonard Dodd developed the ErectorBot system and previously contributed to Autodesk’s direct metal deposition process used in the first class-approved 3D printed propeller. In Europe, yacht builder Pershing has integrated LFAM into its GTX116 model through a collaboration with Caracol. The yacht’s side air grilles and visor were produced using Caracol’s Heron AM platform, a robotic extrusion system operating at the company’s Milan facility. The components, made from ASA reinforced with 20% glass fiber, were printed in 72 hours and finished with a gel coat. According to Ferretti Group, this production method resulted in a 50% lead time reduction, 60% less material waste, and a 15% weight savings compared to traditional fiberglass lamination. Caracol operates one of the largest LFAM centers in Europe and has expanded its applications across the aerospace, marine, and construction sectors. 3D printed intake grilles. Photo via Caracol. Ready to discover who won the 20243D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to stay updated with the latest news and insights. Take the 3DPI Reader Survey — shape the future of AM reporting in under 5 minutes. Featured image shows Nick Pruissen (Damen Compact Crafts) and Charlène van Wingerden (CEAD) formalize the collaboration to develop a 3D printed HDPE workboat. Photo via CEAD. Anyer Tenorio Lara Anyer Tenorio Lara is an emerging tech journalist passionate about uncovering the latest advances in technology and innovation. With a sharp eye for detail and a talent for storytelling, Anyer has quickly made a name for himself in the tech community. Anyer's articles aim to make complex subjects accessible and engaging for a broad audience. In addition to his writing, Anyer enjoys participating in industry events and discussions, eager to learn and share knowledge in the dynamic world of technology.

TAIPEI–By the laws of consumer tech, every pedestrian kind of product eventually splinters into greater and greater specialization, servicing every micro-niche that a market researcher can conceive of. Take portable monitors. For the last few years, these handy panels have been gaining popularity, especially with the widespread adoption of DisplayPort over USB-C in modern laptops. Thin USB-C enables elegant, easy connections between laptop and monitor, often also carrying the power required to run the display.But standard 14- and 15-inch, single-display IPS portable monitors look like they’re getting pretty passe nowadays. We met with Acer in Taipei just before the opening of Computex 2025, on the heels of some recent cool innovations in portable displays from the likes of Asus and MSI, the former with its ZenScreen Duo we just tested and the latter with a nifty 23.4-inch productivity panel, the PRO MP242E E10, that we saw at CES 2025. Acer one-upped all that and served up some envelope-pushing responses on a giant platter—er, panel. Or two.Multidisplay Portable Monitors Are Now ‘A Thing’: Acer’s PD243Y E and PD163QTStart with the Acer PD243Y E, first shown at Computex. This twin-panel portable monitor is reminiscent of the ZenScreen Duo, but pumped up in a big way. You get two 1080p displays at a lusty 23.5 inches, stacked one atop the other, with the upper panel held in position by four hinges. Acer notes that you can tilt it through a range from 0 to 310 degrees.(Credit: John Burek)I looked at those hinges with curiosity—four, why?—but in retrospect, opening and closing the panel, it makes perfect sense. Suspending essentially a 24-inch monitor above another 24-inch monitor without a conventional monitor stand or arm, and not have it not wobble, is a non-trivial thing. The hinges are stiff and the redundancy helps. The PD243Y E seemed stable in our brief manipulation of it. You could argue that 1080p at 24 inches is an only marginally acceptable resolution in this day and age. But for basic productivity use, it's actually quite serviceable. Big characters onscreen are a boon when you are trying to keep your eyes tracking quickly from screen to screen, shifting attention between a laptop screen and these two other panels. We are seeing 1440p and even 4K invading more and more screens on laptops, and trying to make out that level of detail on three different displays isn’t always easy or desirable. (Credit: John Burek)Now, of course, calling this a “portable” monitor might be a bit of stretch by the standards of today’s common models. A kickstand on the back of the PD243Y E can also serve as a handle for the device if you need to tote it from room to room, and Acer designed VESA mounting holes on the back if you want to wall- or arm-mount it. If you fold it shut (it closes up, clamshell-laptop-style), you can also carry it under an arm. It’s too big to transport in the same way you might a laptop and its matching-size portable monitor, but it’s fine for around-the-house location shifting.(Credit: John Burek)I could see day traders, work-at-home multitaskers, and knowledge workers pulling info from multiple sources thrilling to a stacked panel set like this. Park it next to a 16-inch or larger laptop, and you have the makings of a very attractive multidisplay workstation that you can fold up and stow away at a moment’s notice. (Kitchen-table workers never had it so good.) Plus, the PD243Y E supports both USB-C and mini-HDMI input, so it’s flexible if one of the things you want to connect doesn’t do DisplayPort over USB-C.Recommended by Our EditorsAcer also showed off another twin-screener much more comparable to the ZenScreen Duo, the PD163QT, a pair of 15.6-inch 1080p panels hinged together in much the same way. Like its bigger kin, the PD163QT stacks two panels on their long edges and can be used in landscape or portrait orientation. It has a handle-shaped kickstand like the model above, and you can fold it shut in the same manner. (Credit: John Burek)This is a "simple" pair of 1080p panels, but the unit does have a headphone jack and will support USB-C or HDMI. And it has built-in speakers if you’re so inclined to use them.If 1080p's not enough, an Acer ProCreator (curious name, that) PE160WU also caught our eye. This is a single 16-inch OLED panel with a WQXGA+ resolution (2,880 by 1,800). It covers 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut, according to Acer, and should exhibit a DeltaE color fidelity reading of less than 2. It also has a tidy peak refresh rate of 120Hz, making it appealing not just to conventional content workers but to gamers and game devs. To be sure, it's not unique; Asus, for one, has had OLED portables for this crowd for some time in its ProArt line. But this category is clearly starting to coalesce.(Credit: John Burek)Getting Your Big-Screen Game On: Acer Nitro PG271KAnother Acer display I spotted indicated another direction that portable, or semi-portable, displays are going. You might call the Nitro PG271K another luggable portable monitor, but it’s a single panel with a higher spec loadout than the usual lightweight productivity displays. Indeed, it reminded me a bit of an all-in-one PC like the HP Envy Move. This big panel enables a household to move a decent-size gaming display from one room to another with little fuss, or to wall-mount it.(Credit: John Burek)Any gaming monitor these days is defined by a greater-than-60Hz refresh rate, and this is a 144Hz panel using the usual IPS tech. (Well, it's technically 72Hz max at 4K; the 144Hz applies only at 1080p.) It's not a top-spec model like some of the arms-race-high 500Hz monsters designed for the esports elite, but a very serviceable panel for everyday play, and then some. To be sure, gaming-oriented portable monitors already exist, but the Nitro PG271K has some special distinctions in addition to being so large: As a luggable model, at 27 inches and with a 4K resolution (3,840 by 2,160), it qualifies as a small TV or everyday gaming monitor (attached a laptop or a desktop) for a dorm room or a child’s bedroom. And you can move it wherever you want to play or watch. It might also serve well as a decent-size display for attaching a game console ad hoc, especially something like a Nintendo Switch, itself meant to be used flexibly in different places at different times. (It’s not just USB-C/DisplayPort but HDMI-capable, as well.)(Credit: John Burek)Acer doesn't have exact US pricing or delivery dates on these three edgy panels. (The early vibe we are getting from Computex 2025, and our few meetings so far, is that tariffs are complicating US pricing this year. Surprise!) But if this upending of the portable-display status quo is any indication, the days of these monitors being defined by panels that simply mimic a companion laptop screen are over.

Conversational artificial intelligence is centered on enabling large language models (LLMs) to engage in dynamic interactions where user needs are revealed progressively. These systems are widely deployed in tools that assist with coding, writing, and research by interpreting and responding to natural language instructions. The aspiration is for these models to flexibly adjust to changing user inputs over multiple turns, adapting their understanding with each new piece of information. This contrasts with static, single-turn responses and highlights a major design goal: sustaining contextual coherence and delivering accurate outcomes in extended dialogues. A persistent problem in conversational AI is the model’s inability to handle user instructions distributed across multiple conversation turns. Rather than receiving all necessary information simultaneously, LLMs must extract and integrate key details incrementally. However, when the task is not specified upfront, models tend to make early assumptions about what is being asked and attempt final solutions prematurely. This leads to errors that persist through the conversation, as the models often stick to their earlier interpretations. The result is that once an LLM makes a misstep in understanding, it struggles to recover, resulting in incomplete or misguided answers. Most current tools evaluate LLMs using single-turn, fully-specified prompts, where all task requirements are presented in one go. Even in research claiming multi-turn analysis, the conversations are typically episodic, treated as isolated subtasks rather than an evolving flow. These evaluations fail to account for how models behave when the information is fragmented and context must be actively constructed from multiple exchanges. Consequently, evaluations often miss the core difficulty models face: integrating underspecified inputs over several conversational turns without explicit direction. Researchers from Microsoft Research and Salesforce Research introduced a simulation setup that mimics how users reveal information in real conversations. Their “sharded simulation” method takes complete instructions from high-quality benchmarks and splits them into smaller, logically connected parts or “shards.” Each shard delivers a single element of the original instruction, which is then revealed sequentially over multiple turns. This simulates the progressive disclosure of information that happens in practice. The setup includes a simulated user powered by an LLM that decides which shard to reveal next and reformulates it naturally to fit the ongoing context. This setup also uses classification mechanisms to evaluate whether the assistant’s responses attempt a solution or require clarification, further refining the simulation of genuine interaction. The technology developed simulates five types of conversations, including single-turn full instructions and multiple multi-turn setups. In SHARDED simulations, LLMs received instructions one shard at a time, forcing them to wait before proposing a complete answer. This setup evaluated 15 LLMs across six generation tasks: coding, SQL queries, API actions, math problems, data-to-text descriptions, and document summaries. Each task drew from established datasets such as GSM8K, Spider, and ToTTo. For every LLM and instruction, 10 simulations were conducted, totaling over 200,000 simulations. Aptitude, unreliability, and average performance were computed using a percentile-based scoring system, allowing direct comparison of best and worst-case outcomes per model. Across all tasks and models, a consistent decline in performance was observed in the SHARDED setting. On average, performance dropped from 90% in single-turn to 65% in multi-turn scenarios—a 25-point decline. The main cause was not reduced capability but a dramatic rise in unreliability. While aptitude dropped by 16%, unreliability increased by 112%, revealing that models varied wildly in how they performed when information was presented gradually. For example, even top-performing models like GPT-4.1 and Gemini 2.5 Pro exhibited 30-40% average degradations. Additional compute at generation time or lowering randomness (temperature settings) offered only minor improvements in consistency. This research clarifies that even state-of-the-art LLMs are not yet equipped to manage complex conversations where task requirements unfold gradually. The sharded simulation methodology effectively exposes how models falter in adapting to evolving instructions, highlighting the urgent need to improve reliability in multi-turn settings. Enhancing the ability of LLMs to process incomplete instructions over time is essential for real-world applications where conversations are naturally unstructured and incremental. Check out the Paper and GitHub Page. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 90k+ ML SubReddit. NikhilNikhil is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is pursuing an integrated dual degree in Materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Nikhil is an AI/ML enthusiast who is always researching applications in fields like biomaterials and biomedical science. 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