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- Rivian's price hike leads to a shareholder lawsuit
- Senator Elizabeth Warren drafts bill to target use of crypto by sanctioned Russians
- Amazon stops accepting new AWS customers in Russia and Belarus
- Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell
- Lumen is the second major US internet provider to leave Russia
- Here’s everything Apple announced at its ‘Peek Performance’ event
- Twitter launches a Tor service to help Russians evade censorship
- iOS 15.4 will arrive next week, allowing you to use Face ID with a mask
- Apple discontinues the 27-inch iMac
- Apple's new iPad Air vs. the Galaxy Tab S8 and Fire HD 10
- Android will soon let you archive apps to save space
- The iPhone SE vs. the competition: Battle of the mid-range
- How to pre-order Apple's iPhone SE with 5G
- Spotify and Discord are back online after outage
- Apple announces the 27-inch 5K Studio Display for Mac Studio
- Apple's Mac Studio is a tiny pro-level desktop powered by M1 Ultra
- Apple unveils the M1 Ultra, its most powerful chip yet
| Rivian's price hike leads to a shareholder lawsuit Posted: 08 Mar 2022 06:45 PM PST Rivian is facing a shareholder lawsuit after raising the price of its electric pickup and SUV and subsequently reversing course, Protocol has reported. The action alleges that Rivian failed to disclose that it would hike the base price of its vehicles by around $12,000, nor the potential damages that would cause. An individual shareholder brought the complaint, but is seeking class-action status. On March 1st, Rivian unveiled the higher pricing that applied to everyone except those who placed the earliest orders, including most reservation holders. The company did give potential buyers another option, as it also introduced dual-motor versions of the R1T and R1S EVs, with both starting at the original $67,500 and $72,500 prices. However, neither of those vehicles will be available until 2024, and both will have smaller "standard" battery packs that deliver less range than the large packs (260 instead of 310 miles). Two days later, the company reversed the price increases. Anyone who reserved before March 1st will pay the original price, and those who cancelled because of the increase can reinstate their orders with the same price and delivery date. The company's CEO RJ Scaringe also apologized. "I have made a lot of mistakes since starting Rivian more than 12 years ago, but this one has been the most painful," he said. "I am truly sorry and committed to rebuilding your trust." Rivian gained a massive $10.7 billion in funding with investors including Ford and Amazon, which owns the largest stake (22 percent). The company went public via a regular IPO and not a SPAC merger. It had a "blockbuster debut," according to CNBC, with an initial valuation of $86 billion. Early reviews of the R1T electric pickup, including by Engadget, have been positive. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Senator Elizabeth Warren drafts bill to target use of crypto by sanctioned Russians Posted: 08 Mar 2022 06:04 PM PST Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is preparing a bill in response to fears that Russian nationals may be using cryptocurrency to evade sanctions. The draft legislation, first reported by NBC, would require banks and other financial institutions to both identify customers and transfers to private wallets, and regularly report information to the Treasury Department. But crypto firms insist that there's no evidence of sanctions evasion on their exchanges. "Criminals can use cryptocurrency to move money in the shadows, opening a door for Putin & his cronies to evade economic sanctions,"Warren wrote in a tweet Tuesday afternoon. "I want answers from @USTreasury on how they'll ensure crypto doesn't undermine our response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine." While the bill's text hasn't been released yet, NBC reports that one of the provisions is identical to a proposed Treasury Department rule that requires banks to regularly identify suspicious transactions that it believes is linked to sanctions evasion. If passed, the legislation would codify the rule. Lawmakers are worried that the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control lacks the muscle to hunt down crypto criminals. A letter by Warren and three other Senate Democrats asks the Treasury Department to list ways it plans to counter sanctions evasions through crypto platforms, including how it plans to work with foreign governments. The senators also detailed the methods they suspect Russians are using to skirt sanctions, including using the dark web to move funds, ransomware attacks and the Bank of Russia's new digital ruble. In the wake of 9/11, the passage of the PATRIOT Act required banks and financial institutions to adopt customer identification programs. Requiring banks to disclose suspicious transactions into private crypto wallets is not without precedent, even if it's disagreeable to some parties. The cryptocurrency industry, which largely views anonymity (or at least lack of government intervention) as one of its central tenets, understandably is less than enthusiastic. While Coinbase, Binance and Kraken are cooperating with government officials to make sure individuals targeted by sanctions aren't using their platforms, they have refused to ban Russian accounts altogether. Crypto platforms also argue that widespread Russian sanctions evasion simply isn't happening. One example: Coinbase recently announced that it blocked 25,000 crypto addresses it believed to belong to Russians engaging in illegal activity, but also added that it identified the majority of them before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, the Coinbase said it didn't notice a surge of new illicit activity following sanctions on Russia. Blockchain data platform Chainalysis noted a considerable tick in crypto transactions using the Russian ruble and the Ukrainian hryvnia in the last week of February, just as Russia advanced on Ukraine. Still, the platform was quick to point out that the surge in potentially illicit trading could also be due to average Ukrainian and Russians buying crypto in order to preserve their savings while both fiat currencies lose value. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon stops accepting new AWS customers in Russia and Belarus Posted: 08 Mar 2022 03:00 PM PST Another important internet player is changing its relationship with Russia due to the country's invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, Amazon quietly stopped accepting new Amazon Web Services customers in Russia and Belarus, as first reported by The New York Times. The company announced the change in an update on Tuesday to a blog post it published last week. "Given the current events and the uncertainty and lack of credit available in Russia right now, we're not accepting new Russian AWS customers at this moment," a spokesperson for Amazon told the outlet. In practice, the move is unlikely to have a major impact on Russia. That's because Amazon already had an existing policy in place that saw it not do business with the Russian government. It also doesn't have any data centers or offices in Russia. Additionally, of its biggest AWS customers in the country, Amazon notes most are multinational companies with local development teams. Still, the decision sees yet another major US tech company distance itself from the country. In recent days, Cogent Communications and Lumen, two of the largest American backbone internet providers, pulled out of Russia. That's a move that's expected to disrupt and slow down internet connectivity in the country. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple turns monitor height adjustment into a $400 upsell Posted: 08 Mar 2022 02:27 PM PST Apple unveiled a new standalone monitor—the $1599 Studio Display—that includes your choice of either a tilt-adjustable stand or a VESA wall mount adaptor. But for $400 more, you can purchase a fancier tilt and height-adjustable version of that stand. In the Apple universe, a 5K retina display monitor and stand aimed at the consumer market priced just shy of $2000 is a steal. Be forewarned: If you're partial to non-reflective surfaces, shooting for nano-texture glass on the Studio Display is another additional $300. Even hardcore Apple enthusiasts balked at the Pro Display XDR the company released in 2019, which started at $4,999, not including $999 for the (optional) stand. Back then, we called the smooth, elegantly designed accessory "an expensive gadget no one needs". It's due to this type of conditioning that a $400 metal stand— even though it's roughly the same price as a new iPad with 128 GB of storage or an Apple Watch Series 7—still seems like a bargain. It's definitely not. For consumers who opt not to purchase the $400 stand, the stand included with the Studio Display is still tilt-adjustable. If you want to save some desk space, mounting your Studio Display is another good option. But for those who struggle with eye strain or are using a standing desk, a height-adjustable stand is non-negotiable. Those still recovering from sticker shock induced by the $400 Studio Display stand should also remember the cost of wheels for the Apple Mac Pro, which will set you back $699. Once again, this new mount feels like a relative bargain. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lumen is the second major US internet provider to leave Russia Posted: 08 Mar 2022 02:01 PM PST Cogent isn't the only large American internet provider pulling out of Russia following that country's invasion of Ukraine. The Washington Postreports Lumen is "immediately" halting business in the country. The company is disconnecting over concerns of an "increased security risk" inside Russia, fears of government action and a desire to protect the integrity of the Internet at large. The company claimed that its services are "extremely small and very limited" in Russia, and that it only has a handful of enterprise customers. However, analysts at Kentik noted that Lumen is a major source of international data within the country, and that those customers include state-owned telecoms like Rostelecom and TransTelekom. Russia should feel the impact, in other words. This could hurt Russians' access to internet services hosted outside of the country, and might make them reliant on state propaganda. However, it comes as many US tech companies are limiting or pulling products, including Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft. Lumen is joining a united front, then. Support is growing, too, as Amazon Web Services said it would stop accepting new customers from either Russia or Belarus. This isn't going as far as Ukraine wanted. It called on ICANN to boot Russia from the internet. It's still a significant move, though, and it suggests many tech heavyweights aren't worried about the threat of Russian retaliation. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Here’s everything Apple announced at its ‘Peek Performance’ event Posted: 08 Mar 2022 01:14 PM PST On Tuesday, Apple held its first event of 2022. What initially seemed like it would be a low-key affair turned into something a bit more exciting. Yes, Apple updated the iPhone SE and iPad Air, but it also had a new Mac to show off and a matching display. Here's everything the company announced at its Peek Performance keynote. iPhone SEApple Apple opened the event with the announcement of the third-generation iPhone SE. Like its 2020 predecessor, the 2022 model looks like an iPhone 8 but features some of the company's latest technologies, including its blazing fast A15 Bionic processor. The SE also includes a new modem that can connect to 5G networks. Additionally, Apple claims it features a "new" camera system that includes a handful of computational photography features found on the iPhone 13, including Smart HDR 4 and Deep Fusion for better low-light shots. At $429, it's also $30 more expensive than its predecessor. Pre-orders for the iPhone SE open on March 11th, with general availability to follow on March 18th. Alongside the SE, Apple announced it would offer the iPhone 13 in two new green colors. Those too go on sale on March 18th. iPad AirApple After its glow-up in 2020, the iPad Air became one of the most compelling products in Apple's lineup. At its Peek Performance event, Apple announced a minor refresh of the tablet that adds a couple of handy upgrades. Likely the most impactful is the inclusion of a new front-facing camera sensor that supports the company's Center Stage feature for ensuring that you're in the center of the frame during FaceTime calls. Internally, the 2022 iPad Air, like the 2021 iPad Pro, features Apple's M1 chip. The company claims that should make its tablet about twice as fast as a similarly priced Windows laptop. Apple will also offer the iPad Air with optional 5G connectivity. The iPad Air starts at $599. It will be available to pre-order starting March 11th, with general availability to follow on March 18th. Mac Studio and Studio DisplayApple Thankfully, Apple's Peek Performance event didn't only consist of refreshes to existing products. The company also had something fresh to show in the Mac Studio, a pro-level desktop that features its new M1 Ultra. Thanks to its most powerful chip to date, Apple claims the Mac Studio is up to 60 percent faster than a Mac Pro with a 28-core Intel processor in CPU tasks. Outside of performance, a highlight of Mac Studio is all the I/O it includes. On the back of the computer, you'll find four Thunderbolt 4 connections, two USB-A ports, HDMI and 10Gbps Ethernet. Meanwhile, there's an SD card slot and two additional USB-C connectors on the front of the computer. Of course, power and versatility come at a cost, and the Mac Studio is no exception. It starts at $2,000 before you include upgrades and optional accessories. All in, you're looking to pay as much as $7,999 when you include peripherals and a matching display. Speaking of that matching display. Alongside Mac Studio, Apple announced its new Studio Display, a 27-inch monitor that features a 5K Retina panel capable of 600 nits of brightness and P3 wide color gamut coverage. It also features a built A13 processor, six-speaker sound system and a 12-megapixel front-facing camera with Center Stage. The Studio Display starts at $1,599. If you want a height-adjustable stand, that's an extra $400. Like everything else Apple announced today, both the Mac Studio and Studio Display will ship on March 18th. Friday Night BaseballApple Provided MLB owners and the players association can agree on a new collective bargaining agreement before the 2022 season is canceled, Apple will offer two weekly doubleheader baseball games through its TV+ streaming service. Those games will be available to watch in eight countries and won't be subject to local broadcasting restrictions. Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Twitter launches a Tor service to help Russians evade censorship Posted: 08 Mar 2022 01:05 PM PST Twitter has a simple solution to Russia's ban on the social network: offer a service that helps you circumvent the ban. The company has introduced a Tor onion service that should let you access Twitter even when it's blocked in a given country. The anonymizing nature of Tor will also help protect against surveillance. The platform is based on a version of the Enterprise Onion Toolkit (EOTK) customized to meet Twitter's "extraordinary production requirements," according to contributor Alec Muffett. He broke the news rather than Twitter as there were concerns news on the official TwitterSafety account would produce a "load-spike" that flooded the Tor service right when it was most needed. The timing is more than a little convenient. This will let Russians see and share the truth about the invasion of Ukraine despite their country's efforts to censor social apps like Facebook (which already has an onion) and communications tools like Zello. And when President Putin's government has made it illegal for media outlets to contradict the official narrative on the war, Twitter may offer one of the few ways to access objective reporting in Russia. That's not the only use, of course. The Tor offering could also help residents in other countries that block Twitter, such as China, Iran and North Korea. It might also help elsewhere — you could use the Tor onion to post without as much worry that others might track your online activity.
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| iOS 15.4 will arrive next week, allowing you to use Face ID with a mask Posted: 08 Mar 2022 12:23 PM PST Apple has confirmed it will roll out iOS 15.4 next week. One especially useful feature that'll hit iPhones in the coming days is another way to unlock your device with Face ID while wearing a mask. You'll no longer need an Apple Watch to unlock your phone without removing your mask or punching in your passcode. Apple has been testing the feature in public betas since January. You'll need to activate it manually in the Face ID & Passcode section of Settings. There's one key caveat: it doesn't work with sunglasses. Other features expected to arrive as part of iOS 15.4 include an anti-stalking warning for AirTags, a less-gendered voice option for Siri, PS5 DualSense controller adaptive trigger support, a way to add notes to iCloud Keychain passwords and dozens more emoji. In addition, macOS Monterey 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4 will be released next week. Those updates will include the long-awaited Universal Control feature, which will allow you to control multiple Macs and iPads with one keyboard and trackpad or mouse. Apple announced Universal Control at WWDC in June, but delayed it from the fall until this spring. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple discontinues the 27-inch iMac Posted: 08 Mar 2022 11:57 AM PST You're out of luck if you were hoping for a larger, brawnier counterpart to the M1 iMac. Apple has discontinued the 27-inch iMac, leaving last year's 24-inch M1 model as the only all-in-one in the lineup. If you want to buy a higher-end (but relatively compact) desktop, you'll have to spring for the new Mac Studio and a monitor to match. We've asked Apple for comment on the move. This might not come as a shock. Apple last updated the 27-inch iMac in August 2020, and the basic design hadn't changed much since its most recent form factor debuted in 2012. Combine that with the Apple Silicon transition and the discontinuation of the iMac Pro and the company clearly lost interest in the iMac as a workstation, at least for now. We wouldn't completely rule out a comeback. At present, though, this represents Apple's largest shift in desktop Mac strategy for a long time. The iMac has had to cater to a wide range of customers, from newcomers to creative pros, for well over a decade. Now, Apple appears happy to concentrate on a relatively mainstream audience and give pros more conventional and flexible options. Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple's new iPad Air vs. the Galaxy Tab S8 and Fire HD 10 Posted: 08 Mar 2022 11:42 AM PST Since you've been spending so much time at home these past two years, you could probably use a better tablet for when you're kicking back on the couch or hanging out in the yard. And Apple's new iPad Air might just be the screen you need in front of you. The company finally brought its home-grown M1 chip to the iPad Air for better working and gaming, but it is really your best option? The major competition includes Samsung's Galaxy Tab S8 unveiled last month, and Amazon's stalwart Fire 10 HD from 2021. We've got these three 10-ish-inch tablets and all their specs below, so you can get an idea of which one might hit the spot for you; stay tuned for our full review of the iPad Air later this spring.
Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Android will soon let you archive apps to save space Posted: 08 Mar 2022 11:37 AM PST At some point, most of us have had to uninstall apps to free up space on our phones. And while it's become less of an issue in recent years with the introduction of devices that start with 64GB and 128GB of internal space, not everyone can afford to upgrade the storage on their phone. But with some luck, deleting apps on your Android device to free up space may become a thing of the past. Google announced today it's working on a new feature it estimates will reduce the space some apps take up by approximately 60 percent. Best of all, your personal data won't be affected. The feature is called app archiving and will arrive later this year. Rather than uninstalling an app completely, it instead temporarily removes some parts of it and generates a new type of Android Package known as an archived APK. That package preserves your data until the moment you restore the app to its former form. "Once launched, archiving will deliver great benefits to both users and developers. Instead of uninstalling an app, users would be able to 'archive' it - free up space temporarily and be able to re-activate the app quickly and easily," the company said. "Developers can benefit from fewer uninstalls and substantially lower friction to pick back up with their favorite apps." Google has started making archived APKs available to developers ahead of the feature's consumer release later this year. If you own a relatively recent and high-end device like the Galaxy S22, you probably won't get much use out of app archiving, but it's a feature that could be a significant boon for those with low-end devices. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The iPhone SE vs. the competition: Battle of the mid-range Posted: 08 Mar 2022 11:23 AM PST The past few years have seen the major phone manufacturers release handsets that were low on price but big on features — basically flagship phones at a mid-range price. Today Apple announced an update to its own offering, the iPhone SE. It packs in the powerful Apple A15 Bionic, 5G connectivity and a dedicated home button, while coming in at a nice affordable $429 to start. But the SE isn't the only stunning midrange phone; Samsung has offered up a slew of affordable handsets for years now, and Google continues its line of "a" phones with the 5a. And if you're outside the US, you may even have the option of picking up a OnePlus Nord 2. We've taken all of these outstanding affordable phones and lined their specs up in the table below so you can get an idea of the power on offer, but make sure you check out our review of the new iPhone SE when it drops later this spring.
Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How to pre-order Apple's iPhone SE with 5G Posted: 08 Mar 2022 11:19 AM PST Apple's "peek performance" event today brought a bunch of new hardware across many of its product families. The new iPhone SE 5G brings long-awaited features to the small handset, including 5G support and an upgraded processor. The new iPad Air may look the same as the previous model, but it also has significant performance improvements thanks to the M1 chipset and 5G capabilities. On the Mac side, the new Mac Studio is powered by the most powerful M1 chip Apple's made yet, and the Studio Display sports over 14.7M pixels. Here's how to pre-order the iPhone SE 5G and everything else Apple announced today. iPhone SE 5GApple The new iPhone SE 5G will be available for pre-order starting at $429 on Apple's website on Friday, March 11th. It'll be widely available on March 18th. Pre-order iPhone SE 5G at Apple starting at $429As expected, Apple didn't reinvent the wheel here. The latest iPhone SE looks much the same as the previous model, featuring a 4.7-inch inch display and a physical Home button with TouchID. The biggest changes are inside the small handset, where Apple put an A15 Bionic chipset and support for 5G. The new processor should make the smartphone feel much zippier than before, and 5G support is a much-needed addition. iPad Air M1Apple The new iPad Air with the M1 chipset will be available for pre-order starting at $599 on Apple's website on Friday, March 11th. It'll be widely available starting March 18th. Pre-order iPad Air M1 at Apple stating at $599Much like the iPhone SE, the new iPad Air will look familiar as all of the pertinent updates are inside the device. The updated tablet features the same 10.9-inch LCD display as the previous model, along with flat edges and a TouchID-toting power button. Inside, Apple upgraded the machine with its M1 chipset, a 16-core Neural Engine, 5G support and new front-facing cameras that support Center Stage. The M1 processor along with 5G will make this iPad even more viable as a productivity tool and laptop replacement, while Center Stage will keep you in frame during FaceTime calls. Mac Studio & Studio DisplayApple The new Mac Studio desktop and Studio Display are available to pre-order today starting at $1,999 and $1,599, respectively, from Apple's website and both will be widely available on March 18th. Pre-order Mac Studio at Apple starting at $1,999Pre-order Studio Display at Apple starting at $1,599Apple's latest desktop is designed for creative professionals and those that want a ton of power in their main computer. It looks like a taller Mac Mini, featuring an aluminum body with a rounded-square design. It'll come powered by either Apple's M1 Max or new M1 Ultra chipsets, with the latter being the most powerful M1 chip Apple has made yet. In addition to the performance gains you'll get from either chip, the Mac Studio has a variety of connectivity options. On its back edge are four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10GB Ethernet port, two USB-A connectors, an HDMI port and a pro audio slot. Apple also added a few connectors to the front edge, too — M1 Max machines have two USB-C ports on the front, while M1 Ultra devices have two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and both tote an SD card slot, too. On top of that, the Mac Studio supports WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5 and connecting to up to four Pro Display XDRs or a 4K TV. Unsurprisingly, Apple's positioning the Studio Display as the ideal companion screen for the Mac Studio. The "all-screen" monitor has an aluminum enclosure and a 27-inch 5K Retina panel that has 14.7M pixels, a peak brightness of 600 nits and support for TrueTone. You'll be able to tilt the standard model up to 30 degrees, but Apple's also offering a tilt- and height-adjustable model as a $400 upgrade if you need more control over your screen. There will also be a VESA-mount option as well. Inside the Studio Display are some powerful components, too. It runs on an A13 Bionic chip and it has the same 12MP ultra wide camera found in the latest iPads, so it supports Center Stage. There's also a three-mic array, which should help keep your voice loud and clear during video conferences. The display also has a six speaker sound system that supports Dolby Atmos and spatial audio, along with three USB-C ports and one Thunderbolt port. While it's designed to work with the Mac Studio, the Studio Display can be used with MacBooks as well — and you can connect up to three of the monitors to a MacBook Pro. iPhone 13 (green)Apple Apple's adding two green hues to its iPhone 13 lineup. The regular iPhone 13 will get a colorway simply known as "green," while the Pro family will get the Alpine Green color. You'll be able to pre-order both the iPhone 13 and 13 Pros in the new green colors this Friday, March 11th, and they'll be widely available starting March 18th. Pre-order iPhone 13 (green) at Apple starting at $699Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spotify and Discord are back online after outage Posted: 08 Mar 2022 11:06 AM PST Spotify and Discord are down right now and inaccessible to users. It's unclear what the source of the problem is, or if the two outages are related, but users began reporting issues with both services at about 1pm ET, according to reports on downdetector.com. Spotify acknowledged the outage on Twitter, writing that "something's not quite right," but didn't elaborate.
Likewise, Discord said it was "working on a fix." The company wrote on its website that an "issue has occurred causing an major outage of the API" and that it was investigating the "root cause." The latest outage apparent happened after an earlier issue was resolved Tuesday morning.
We've reached out to both companies for more details. In the meantime, Discord is encouraging users to "go outside." Update 3/8 2:48pm ET: Spotify seems to have resolved the outage and the service is once again accessible. Discord is still experiencing some issues, but is starting to come back online as well. "While we continue to investigate the root cause, work has begun on restoring service by working around the issue," the company wrote in its latest update. "Oncall Engineering will begin allowing more traffic through as we restore service." Update 3/8 3:15pm ET: Discord confirmed that messages, calls and streams are back up and running and that other features "should come back online soon." Spotify also confirmed in a statement that it should be "functioning normally for most users." Neither company has elaborated on the source of the outage. "Spotify and several other platforms experienced a brief service outage today beginning around 1:15pm EST," a spokesperson told Engadget. "As of 2:40pm EST Spotify is back up and functioning normally for most users." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple announces the 27-inch 5K Studio Display for Mac Studio Posted: 08 Mar 2022 10:56 AM PST As expected, Apple is adding a new display to its product lineup. On Tuesday, the company announced the Apple Studio Display during its Peek Performance event. The standalone monitor features a 5K retina panel with 14.7 million pixels, 600 nits of brightness and P3 wide color gamut coverage. It also includes Apple's True Tone technology, allowing the display to match the color temperature of its panel to the ambient lighting in your workspace. On the top of the display, you'll find a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera with Apple's Center Stage feature, a first for one of the company's monitors. That tool will automatically keep you centered in the middle of the frame during FaceTime and Zoom calls, leading to a more natural video calling experience. Studio Display also comes with a six-speaker sound system that supports Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio. Internally, the monitor includes Apple's A13 Bionic processor. The chip is there to bolster the Studio Display's camera and audio capabilities. If you want to mount it to a monitor arm, Apple will offer a separate VESA adapter that will allow you to do just that. On the I/O front, the monitor comes with four USB-C ports, one of which offers Thunderbolt 3 connectivity. That connection can provide up to 96W of power to a Mac notebook, allowing you to fast charge the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Before today, Apple's most recently announced monitor was the 2019 Pro Display XDR. That's a screen that famously starts at $5,000 before you even include an optional $1,000 stand. The last time the company offered a consumer-level monitor was 2016, the year it discontinued the 2011 Thunderbolt Display. Apple Studio Display is available to pre-order today starting at $1,599. Like the Pro Display XDR, Apple will offer a Nano-texture glass option that is designed to reduce glare in brightly lit workspaces. That option adds an additional $300 to the price of the monitor. You also have multiple stand options. If you just want a tilt-adjustable one or the VESA adapter, those come at no extra cost, but a stand with height adjustment adds $400 to the price of the package. The Studio Display will ship March 18th. Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple's Mac Studio is a tiny pro-level desktop powered by M1 Ultra Posted: 08 Mar 2022 10:43 AM PST The rumors were true: Apple has introduced a high-powered headless desktop that sits between the Mac mini and Mac Pro. The company has launched the Mac Studio, a compact machine with up to a 20-core M1 Ultra chip, a 64-core GPU and more expansion than its mini counterpart. Not surprisingly, Apple is making bold performance claims — it believes the Studio is up to 60 percent faster than a 28-core Intel Mac Pro in CPU tasks, 80 percent faster than the fastest Mac graphics card and capable of handling up to 18 8K ProRes 4:2:2 video streams at once. You'll have plenty of choice for peripherals with four Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI and 10Gbps Ethernet on the back. And yes, Apple is aware you want front ports — two USB-C connectors and an SD card slot will spare you from reaching behind the system to upload photos. The computer is also power-efficient. Apple claims the Mac Studio uses about 100W less power than a 16-core Windows at similar performance levels. It's not clear how performance stacks up in real life, of course, but it's notable that Apple is even comparing a desktop Mac against high-end consumer PC towers. The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 with an M1 Max, 32GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, and will be available on March 18th. Pre-orders start today. A version with the M1 Ultra, 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD costs $3,999, and maxing out the system with 128GB of RAM and an 8TB SSD will cost a whopping $7,999. The complementing 27-inch Apple Studio Display is $1,599, and you can once again buy the Magic Keyboard (with Touch ID), Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse in silver and black at respective $199, $149 and $99 prices. This isn't the Apple Silicon-based Mac Pro some creatives want. That's "for another day," Apple said at its event. It also isn't cheap, as you're looking at a cool $3,600 (plus peripherals) if you want an all-Apple setup. Still, this might be appealing if you've craved a fast Mac desktop but didn't want to tie yourself to a built-in display or the overkill of a full-size workstation. This might be a dream machine for Power Mac G4 Cube fans. Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Apple unveils the M1 Ultra, its most powerful chip yet Posted: 08 Mar 2022 10:30 AM PST Apple rocked the computing world with its M1 chip, the first "Apple Silicon" hardware that turned the MacBook Air, Mac Mini and other computers into portable powerhouses. Last year, the company followed that up with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, which delivered even more performance for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Now, Apple is adding a new member to the family: the M1 Ultra. Apple The M1 Ultra is essentially two M1 Max chips put together, making it even better suited to intensive creative applications like video editing and 3D rendering. During its launch event today, Apple revealed that the M1 Max chips housed a secret feature: a die-to-die interconnect, dubbed "UltraFusion," that allows it to connect multiple chips. Conceptually, it's similar to AMD's Infinity Fabric, which ensures speedy communication between the CPU, GPU and other components. Apple Apple says the UltraFusion interconnect can handle bandwidth up to 2.5 terabytes per second, so it shouldn't lead to any performance slowdowns between the two M1 Max dies. Altogether, the M1 Ultra sports a whopping 114 billion transistors, and it supports up to 128GB of unified memory with 800 GB/s of bandwidth. As you'd expect, its specs are basically what happens when you sandwich two M1 Max chips: the Ultra features a 20-core CPU (16 high performance and 4 high efficiency cores), and a 64-core GPU. The company claims it offers up to 8 times faster graphics than the original M1 chip. Apple Given that the M1 Ultra will make its debut in Apple's new Mac Studio mini-desktop, the company didn't need to worry about battery life at all. Still, Apple says the Ultra is at least more efficient than the competition, as it uses up to 65 percent less power than a 10-core x86 chip. Naturally, Apple didn't reveal which CPU it was comparing the M1 Ultra to, but the numbers make sense given what we've seen from the M1 Max so far. Catch up on all of the news from Apple's Peek Performance event right here! |
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