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The first PCs powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors are expected to arrive in mid-2024, with most major PC markers partnering with Qualcomm in one way or another. While we’ll probably have to wait a little longer for real-wor…
The first PCs powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors are expected to arrive in mid-2024, with most major PC markers partnering with Qualcomm in one way or another. While we’ll probably have to wait a little longer for real-world reviews, Qualcomm is giving us a slightly better idea of what to expect from those […]
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Apple’s is refreshing three Mac chips at once, in a total of six configurations.
Enlarge / Apple is introducing three M3 performance tiers at the same time. (credit: Apple)
NEW YORK—None of the new Macs that Apple is announcing at its "Scary Fast" product event today look very different from the ones they're replacing on the outside, but the inside is another story. This is the first batch of Macs to include Apple's next-generation M3-series chips, and unlike past years, Apple is introducing multiple M3 performance tiers all at the same time.
The M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max all share the same underlying CPU and GPU architectures, the same ones used in the iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro chip. Also like the A17 Pro, all M3 chips are manufactured using a new 3 nm process from Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC). Let's dive into everything we know about the M3 family's capabilities, plus the differences between each performance tier.
Apple prioritized comparisons to the M1 generation, which is more likely to be relevant for upgraders. But in context with the M2 numbers, M3 looks like a typical year-over-year upgrade. [credit: Apple ]
Apple says that the performance cores in any given M3 processor can run up to 30 percent faster than the M1's performance cores, and that the efficiency cores are up to 50 percent faster. Most of Apple's direct performance comparisons were to the M1 generation, which is useful insofar as M2 Mac owners aren't likely to want to spring for M3, but it has the added marketing benefit of making the performance increases sound larger than they are.
The exterior is mostly the same, but there’s a new low-end option in town.
Apple leans into its event's spooky vibes with the new space black version of the MacBook Pro. [credit: Apple ]
NEW YORK—As expected, Apple has launched a newly refreshed lineup of 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros at its "Scary Fast" product event this evening, replacing not just the last-generation versions of those laptops but also the old 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The company is accomplishing that last goal by introducing a less-expensive $1,599 version of the 14-inch MacBook Pro that uses a regular M3 chip instead of the M3 Pro or M3 Max.
It isn't as fast, it starts with a skimpy 8GB of RAM of storage, it has one fewer Thunderbolt port (for a total of two), and it only supports a single external display. But at $1,599, the M3 MacBook Pro is $400 cheaper than the M2 Pro/M3 Pro version of the laptop, and it still uses the larger high-refresh-rate ProMotion display, the contrast-boosting and bloom-reducing mini LED screen technology, the MagSafe connector, the 1080p camera, 512GB of storage in the base model, the speaker system, and a full-sized HDMI port. And while Apple quotes the same "up to 22 hours of battery life" for all of the new MacBook Pro models, in the real world, the M3 should give you a bit more runtime than the M3 Pro or Max.
The M2 MacBook Pro was the last gasp of 2016-era MacBook design.
Enlarge / Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro, gone but not forgotten. (credit: Apple)
NEW YORK—Apple refreshed its MacBook Pro lineup earlier today, and there was one surprise that the rumor mill hadn't anticipated: a new base model of the 14-inch MacBook Pro with a plain-old M3 chip in it, starting at $1,599. That new 14-inch MacBook Pro is totally replacing the old 13-inch MacBook Pro in Apple's lineup.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro still used the same basic design that Apple had been using since 2016, when Apple redesigned the MacBook Pros to make them thinner and lighter and to replace all of their ports with Thunderbolt. The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros backtracked on several of those design decisions, but the 13-inch model stayed as it was, complete with the regular notchless display and the Touch Bar.
This effectively means that the MacBook Pro is getting a price increase from $1,299 to $1,599. But the $1,599 Pro includes many features that were never included in the 13-inch Pro, including the larger high-refresh-rate ProMotion display, the contrast-boosting and bloom-reducing mini LED screen technology, the MagSafe connector, the 1080p camera, and the return of the HDMI port. Apple also now sells a 15-inch MacBook Air at that $1,299 starting point, giving people another option in between the mainstream 13-inch Air and the Pro lineup.
Jumping straight from the M1 to the M3 gives the new iMac a big speed boost.
The new iMac comes in the same seven colors as the old one. [credit: Apple ]
NEW YORK—The new MacBook Pros are the biggest news from Apple's October Mac event, but one other model got a long-overdue refresh, too—the 24-inch iMac, most recently refreshed with an Apple M1 processor in June 2021.
The new iMac is available for order today, and the first ones will arrive on November 7. The base model, which includes an M3 with an 8-core GPU, 256GB of storage, two Thunderbolt ports, a non-Touch ID keyboard, and 8GB of RAM, starts at $1,299. An upgraded version with a 10-core GPU, a power brick-mounted gigabit Ethernet port, two additional USB-C ports, and a Touch ID keyboard starts at $1,499. Those prices are $1,249 and $1,399, respectively, for education users.
The most important upgrade—and really the only one of note—is an upgrade to the new M3 chip. Because it was the only Mac to totally skip the M2, the new iMac hops forward two generations at once. Apple says that the M3's four high-performance CPU cores are up to 30 percent faster than those in the M1, and that its four high-efficiency CPU cores are as much as 50 percent faster. Apple says that the 10-core GPU in the M3 is up to 2.5 times faster than the M1, and that its 16-core Neural Engine is up to 60 percent faster.
From netbooks and PDAs to ATMs, voting kiosks, and ungainly presidential phones.
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)
It was a proto-netbook, it was a palmtop, it was a PDA, it was Windows Phone 7 but not Windows Phone 8, and then it was an embedded ghost. It parents never seemed to know what to do with it after it grew up, beyond offer it up for anybody to shape in their own image. And then, earlier this month, with little notice, Windows CE was no more, at least as a supported operating system. Windows Embedded Compact 2013, better (but not popularly) known as Windows CE 8.0, reached end of support on October 10, 2023, as noted by The Register.
Windows CE, which had a name that didn't stand for anything and was often compacted to an embarrassing "wince," is not survived by anything, really. Remembrances have been offered by every Microsoft CEO since its inception and one former Ars writer. A public service for the operating system will be held in the comments.
Windows CE was initially Microsoft Pegasus, a team working to create a very low-power, MIPS or SuperH-based reference platform for manufacturers making the smallest computers with keyboards you could make back then. Devices like the NEC MobilePro 200, Casio (Cassiopeia) A-10, and HP 300LX started appearing in late 1996 and early 1997, with tiny keyboards, more-landscape-than-landscape displays, and, by modern standards, an impressive number of ports.
By some estimates, 20,000 devices have already been hacked.
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)
A vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass multifactor authentication and access enterprise networks using hardware sold by Citrix is under mass exploitation by ransomware hackers despite a patch being available for three weeks.
Citrix Bleed, the common name for the vulnerability, carries a severity rating of 9.4 out of a possible 10, a relatively high designation for a mere information-disclosure bug. The reason: the information disclosed can include session tokens, which the hardware assigns to devices that have already successfully provided credentials, including those providing MFA. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-4966 and residing in Citrix’s NetScaler Application Delivery Controller and NetScaler Gateway, has been under active exploitation since August. Citrix issued a patch on October 10.
Attacks have only ramped up recently, prompting security researcher Kevin Beaumont on Saturday to declare: “This vulnerability is now under mass exploitation.” He went on to say, “From talking to multiple organizations, they are seeing widespread exploitation.”
One Netbook has been cranking out handheld gaming PCs under the ONEXPLAYER brand for a few years. But like most computers in this space, they’ve tended to rely on integrated graphics rather than more powerful discrete GPUs. Now the company is pr…
One Netbook has been cranking out handheld gaming PCs under the ONEXPLAYER brand for a few years. But like most computers in this space, they’ve tended to rely on integrated graphics rather than more powerful discrete GPUs. Now the company is preparing to launch a solution that (sort of) offers the best of both worlds: […]
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“Done correctly,” default deals “can make a difference,” Google CEO testified.
Enlarge / Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai departs federal court on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. Pichai testified on Monday to defend his company in the largest antitrust case since the 1990s. The US government is seeking to prove that Alphabet's Google Inc. maintains an illegal monopoly in the online search business. The trial is expected to last into November. (credit: Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images North America)
Google's star witness in the Justice Department's monopoly trial, Sundar Pichai, took the stand on Monday. The Google CEO finally admitted that his company pays as much as $26.3 billion annually to set its search engine as the default in browsers and mobile devices because those default placements can be "very valuable,” The Financial Times reported.
When "done correctly," Pichai testified, these deals "can make a difference." The Apple deal, Pichai said, is one such scenario because it “makes it very, very seamless and easy" for Safari users to use Google's services," The Wall Street Journal reported.
"We know that making it the default will lead to increased usage of our products and services, particularly Google search in this case," Pichai said. "So, there is clear value in that and that’s what we were looking for.”
One “big wet lizard” was chewed on by another.
Enlarge (credit: Henry Sharpe / AMNH)
In 2015, Deborah Shepherd returned to the site where she and other volunteers had worked on a public fossil dig with family members. That’s when she saw it: a fossil lying there, exposed on the surface. Most people would not have recognized it for what it was: It wasn’t a skull, a leg bone, or even a partial jaw. It was just a chunk of bone.
Shepherd immediately notified a park ranger. That ranger then notified the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. Her actions ultimately led to the discovery of what scientists say is not only a new species, but an entirely new genus of mosasaur, a giant marine predator from Late Cretaceous seas. Bite marks preserved on the fossil also suggest that it met its end at the hands—or rather teeth—of another mosasaur.
The new mosasaur was described Monday in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Jǫrmungandr walhallaensis, or "Jorgie" for short, is the name suggested by co-author Clint Boyd, and it’s steeped in Norse mythology. Jǫrmungandr is the name of a sea serpent who circles the world with its body, clasping its tail in its jaws.
