Author: easyfilo

Enlarge / X-ray technicians take a chest X-ray of an unvaccinated COVID-19 patient on the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) floor at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

A bout of COVID-19 can take a hefty toll on the heart and blood vessels; people who recover from the infection have substantially higher risks of developing any of 20 serious cardiovascular disorders in the year following their recovery. Those disorders include heart failure, stroke, atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias, myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), and blood clots in the lungs.

Cardiovascular risks increase with the severity of an infection—that is, people who need intensive care for COVID-19 face the highest cardiovascular risks. But, overall, the pandemic virus appears to be indiscriminate, wreaking havoc on cardiovascular systems and increasing risks in all groups of patients, from those with mild disease, to the young, to those without underlying conditions or pre-existing cardiovascular diseases.

That’s all according to an open-access study involving more than 11 million veterans published this week in Nature Medicine by researchers at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and Washington University in St. Louis.

Enlarge / The 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Apple has released updates for iOS/iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS that primarily address bugs and security vulnerabilities.

iOS 15.3.1 is a minor update, feature-wise, for most users. It fixes a problem with Braille displays and addresses an arbitrary code execution vulnerability.

Apple’s iOS update notes are as follows

Enlarge / AirTag box at an Apple Store on April 30, 2021, in Sydney, Australia. (credit: Getty Images | James D. Morgan)

Apple yesterday announced upcoming AirTag updates designed to combat stalking and other unwanted tracking.

“AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person’s property, and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products,” Apple said. Thieves have used AirTags to track high-end cars, and stalkers have used the devices to track women. Apple’s update yesterday acknowledged that the company has “seen reports of bad actors attempting to misuse AirTag for malicious or criminal purposes.”

AirTags already have some safety features, such as making beeping sounds when they’ve been away from their linked devices for a day. iPhones also receive warnings about unknown AirTags nearby. But the beep can be difficult to hear, and the timing of the warnings apparently varies. One person who was tracked “said she was notified four hours after her phone first noticed the rogue gadget,” while “others said it took days before they were made aware of an unknown AirTag,” a New York Times article in December said.

Enlarge / Alienware AW3423DW. (credit: Scharon Harding)

We now have an idea of how much QD-OLED screens will run you compared to the OLED panels we know today.

OLED is already an expensive, high-end display technology, but Samsung’s QD-OLED puts a quantum-dot spin on the tech, promising image enhancement and improved color coverage. We’re still waiting to learn how much QD-OLED TVs will cost, but the first PC monitor with the tech, coming this spring, will be $1,300.

Samsung Display announced QD-OLED, or Quantum Dot-Organic Light Emitting Diode, last month, with TVs and monitors expected this year. The new type of OLED panel is supposed to provide the same deep blacks and rich contrast that make OLED popular among HDR users, gamers, and anyone who wants a crisp image. The difference is that the new tech uses a blue OLED material that goes through a layer of quantum dots. This setup is supposed to ensure vivid color regardless of the screen’s brightness setting, plus more detail in highlighted areas. (For an in-depth look, check out our story explaining what QD-OLED is.)