Month: July 2016

Enlarge / The first Sierra developer beta. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Both the iOS 10 and macOS Sierra public betas are being released today for testing by the brave and foolish souls who choose to live their lives on the bleeding edge. You'll be able to download the beta from here when it posts in a couple of hours. Sierra drops support for a handful of Macs for the first time in a few years, so here's the hardware support list again if you need it:

• MacBook (late 2009 and later)
• iMac (late 2009 and later)
• MacBook Air (2010 and later)
• MacBook Pro (2010 and later)
• Mac Mini (2010 and later)
• Mac Pro (2010 and later)

The first public beta build of Sierra should be identical or near-identical to the second developer build that was released earlier this week, so if you already have access to that, you won't need to install the public beta. You should be able to continuously upgrade any public beta install with new beta builds all the way up until the Golden Master build is released in the fall, though of course the standard warnings about running beta software on your primary Mac (and backing up your data before installing beta software on anything) all apply.

This build of Sierra should be broadly similar to the one we previewed last month except with a few more bug fixes and some other tweaks. The Siri keyboard shortcut, for example, has been changed from function-space to "hold down command-space," and people with access to the developer beta of WatchOS 3 should be able to use the Apple Watch unlocking feature as long as they have a compatible Mac. We'll continue to track the betas as they're released, and we'll do another comprehensive check-in with Sierra when the final version is released in the fall.

Enlarge / A measure of the number of collisions already obtained at the LHC's CMS detector. (credit: CMS/CERN)

We tend to only pay attention to particle physics when scientists announce that they've found something new. But those discoveries would never get to the announcement stage without the years of grunt work needed to control particles at extremely high energies and record the debris that spews into detectors when those particles collide. This work doesn't get talked about much because it simply sets the stage for discovery rather than containing obvious "eureka!" moments.

The people behind CERN's Large Hadron Collider are in the process of setting a phenomenal stage.

Last year's run was all about taking the LHC to higher energies, which would enable the discovery of heavier particles and make it easier to spot light ones. This year's run was about taking the experience gained last year and using it to produce lots more collisions. So far, everything is going according to plan.

Enlarge / The iOS 10 beta on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro and an iPhone 6S. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

I’ve spent most of the last six months buying a house, so you’ll need to forgive me if I have houses and house metaphors on the brain. I’ve found them helpful while trying to nail down iOS 10.

Imagine iOS 6 as a fundamentally solid house in need of some major remodeling. iOS 7 was largely a cosmetic update, putting on some new siding (or maybe a nice brick façade) and giving all the rooms a nice paint job. iOS 8 with its under-the-hood changes was roughly equivalent to replacing wiring and plumbing—stuff that’s harder to see but makes a big difference in everyday usage. iOS 9 gave an extensive makeover to one particular room (let’s call it “the iPad”) that had been basically fine for a while but wasn’t being used to its fullest potential.

In the context of this overextended metaphor, iOS 10 is best thought of as an effort to redo multiple other rooms in the house, knocking out some figurative walls and removing metaphorical ugly dropped ceilings. For the first time in a while, Apple is making notable changes to the way basic things like the lock screen, the notification center, and Siri look and work.

The House Oversight Committee is holding a hearing today, focused on Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail account during her tenure as Secretary of State. The Representatives will get to question FBI Director James Comey, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, and Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullogh III. The hearing comes two days after Comey called the use of private e-mail by Clinton and the mishandling of classified information by her, her staff, and State Department officials "extremely careless" but declined to recommend criminal prosecution.

“The FBI’s recommendation is surprising and confusing," House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said in a statement announcing the hearing. "The fact pattern presented by Director Comey makes clear Secretary Clinton violated the law. Individuals who intentionally skirt the law must be held accountable. Congress and the American people have a right to understand the depth and breadth of the FBI’s investigation. I thank Director Comey for accepting the invitation to publicly answer these important questions.”

In his testimony, in response to questions about whether Clinton should have been aware that she was sending highly classified data in unclassified e-mails, Comey said, "I don’t think our investigation established she was that sophisticated about classification."

After struggling for over a year to make Evolve work as a traditional, paid title, the developers at Turtle Rock are making a radical shift to a free-to-play model with Evolve: Stage 2. The game is entering beta today on the PC and possibly coming to consoles in the future.

"Making Evolve free on PC is going to be a process that takes time and a lot of hard work, but we believe in Evolve and we believe in you, our players and want to do what’s best for both," Turtle Rock wrote in a blog post late last night.

So far, Turtle Rock hasn't announced how it plans to make money off the new, free version of Evolve. According to an extensive Turtle Rock interview with Game Informer, everything in the game will be unlockable via "silver keys" earned during play. As of now, those keys cannot be purchased for actual money.