Month: April 2023

Enlarge / The Mac owners who actually envy PCs owners' holographic stickers now have a place they can go. (credit: InsideSticker)

A confession: I like the little processor stickers that come on computers. Not the huge billboard-y ones that yell about a few laptop features and invariably leave a huge, sticky-residue rectangle on the palm rest when you try to peel them off. I'm not that weird. But I like the little sometimes-holographic ones about the CPU (and sometimes the GPU) inside your PC.

If you share my affliction, I recently discovered designs by Vinoth Ragunathan that recreate those holographic stickers for the M1 and M2-series processors in Apple Silicon Macs. Available for $7 a pop (or $16 for three), the stickers for each processor come with a different holographic color palette.

It might horrify those of you who peel these little advertisements off of your PCs as soon as you get them, but we sticker lovers aren't alone. Ragunathan has sold hundreds of these Apple Silicon stickers—over 450 for the M1 Pro version alone—and there's a thriving aftermarket on eBay for case stickers for new and old CPUs from Intel and AMD, versions of Windows, GeForce and Radeon GPUs, and lots of other components besides. Some people, it turns out, like being able to see what's inside a computer from the outside.

Enlarge / The Mac owners who actually envy PCs owners' holographic stickers now have a place they can go. (credit: InsideSticker)

A confession: I like the little processor stickers that come on computers. Not the huge billboard-y ones that yell about a few laptop features and invariably leave a huge, sticky-residue rectangle on the palm rest when you try to peel them off. I'm not that weird. But I like the little sometimes-holographic ones about the CPU (and sometimes the GPU) inside your PC.

If you share my affliction, I recently discovered designs by Vinoth Ragunathan that recreate those holographic stickers for the M1 and M2-series processors in Apple Silicon Macs. Available for $7 a pop (or $16 for three), the stickers for each processor come with a different holographic color palette.

It might horrify those of you who peel these little advertisements off of your PCs as soon as you get them, but we sticker lovers aren't alone. Ragunathan has sold hundreds of these Apple Silicon stickers—over 450 for the M1 Pro version alone—and there's a thriving aftermarket on eBay for case stickers for new and old CPUs from Intel and AMD, versions of Windows, GeForce and Radeon GPUs, and lots of other components besides. Some people, it turns out, like being able to see what's inside a computer from the outside.

Enlarge (credit: Getty images)

After several years of strong growth in sales of electric vehicles, there is evidence that the supply of used EVs is starting to grow as well. Data gathered by industry analyst Cox Automotive shows a 32 percent increase in sales of used EVs through licensed car dealers to 42,753 cars for the first three months of 2023. Cox says this does not include private party sales and that used EV sales in the first quarter of this year represent twice as many as were sold in Q1 2021.

"Every new vehicle eventually becomes a used vehicle," said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of Cox Automotive. "Our data sets indicate used EV sales will begin increasing rapidly from here, following a clear path set by new sales. In Q1, our team at Manheim [a wholesale marketplace for used cars] processed a record number of used EVs in the wholesale market. This is an approaching challenge for the industry we’ve already begun to embrace, as placing a value on a used EV is a new set of skills we all need to develop and refine."

More than 900,000 used cars went through Manheim in Q1 2023, of which 9,800 were EVs—a tiny overall percentage but an increase of 40 percent compared to Q1 2022.

Enlarge (credit: Getty images)

After several years of strong growth in sales of electric vehicles, there is evidence that the supply of used EVs is starting to grow as well. Data gathered by industry analyst Cox Automotive shows a 32 percent increase in sales of used EVs through licensed car dealers to 42,753 cars for the first three months of 2023. Cox says this does not include private party sales and that used EV sales in the first quarter of this year represent twice as many as were sold in Q1 2021.

"Every new vehicle eventually becomes a used vehicle," said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of Cox Automotive. "Our data sets indicate used EV sales will begin increasing rapidly from here, following a clear path set by new sales. In Q1, our team at Manheim [a wholesale marketplace for used cars] processed a record number of used EVs in the wholesale market. This is an approaching challenge for the industry we’ve already begun to embrace, as placing a value on a used EV is a new set of skills we all need to develop and refine."

More than 900,000 used cars went through Manheim in Q1 2023, of which 9,800 were EVs—a tiny overall percentage but an increase of 40 percent compared to Q1 2022.

Enlarge / Why spend hours grinding for better weapons when you can just spend $2.99 for a golden ticket? (credit: Steam / Capcom)

Capcom surprised fans of the recently released Resident Evil 4 remake over the weekend by adding a timed, score-focused Mercenaries mode as a piece of free DLC. But that DLC also comes with an addition that might seem out of place for the single-player title: microtransaction power-ups.

RE4 players can now purchase a variety of "Resident Evil 4 Weapon Exclusive Upgrade Tickets" on Steam at a price of $2.99 for one or in bundles of up to $9.99 for five. In exchange for this payment, players can "have access to a weapon's exclusive upgrade at any time, regardless of the weapon's level. Not only that, but once unlocked, the upgrade itself is free of charge!"

These same weapon upgrade tickets can be earned without spending real money by using earned in-game currency or fully leveling up a weapon's stats through gameplay. With this new DLC, though, Capcom is apparently hoping many players will want to pay to avoid the grind and blaze through the game's challenges with the most powerful weapons available.

Enlarge / Apple's M2 Pro Mac mini. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

The analysts at IDC have released their worldwide PC sales numbers for the first quarter of 2023, and the news isn't good for PC companies. IDC says that all the companies combined shipped 56.9 million PCs in Q1 of 2023, down 29 percent from Q1 of 2022, when pandemic-era demand for new computers was just beginning to fade. Apple's Mac sales are often immune to these kinds of fluctuations, but IDC says the company was hit particularly hard this quarter, with shipments falling from 6.9 million units in Q1 of 2022 to 4.1 million units in Q1 of 2023. That's a drop of 40.5 percent, more than that seen by Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, and all the companies lumped in with "Others" in IDC's data.

IDC has noted that PC demand through 2022 was still higher than pre-pandemic levels, despite falling from the highs seen in 2020 and 2021. But the first quarter of 2023 shows "at least a temporary return to pre-COVID patterns." That pattern, for those who don't remember, was one of a long, slow decline as people replaced PCs less often and did more of their computing on smartphones and other devices. IDC says PC makers shipped 60.6 million PCs in Q1 of 2018 and 59.2 million PCs in Q1 of 2019.

IDC data should be taken with a grain of salt; these are guesses about sales based on available data. Apple doesn't release Mac unit sales as part of its financial reports anymore, but its Mac revenue numbers usually don't quite line up with IDC's unit sales figures, even though the broad trendlines are similar.

Enlarge / Starship is seen stacked on top of the Super Heavy rocket on April 5, 2023. (credit: SpaceX)

This weekend SpaceX engineers completed a final "flight readiness review" for the massive Super Heavy and Starship launch system, declaring the vehicle ready to make its debut test flight. SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced the decision early Sunday morning on Twitter, saying the vehicle was only "awaiting regulatory approval" before launching.

Presently, the company is targeting April 17, at 7 am local time in South Texas (12:00 UTC) for the integrated flight test of the launch system. It should be quite a show—the combination of the Super Heavy first stage and Starship upper stage is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built.

Sources said SpaceX has been working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide the necessary data about Starship's performance and its impacts to the area surrounding the launch site. There is an expectation that a launch license will be issued this week, but there is no guarantee this will happen.