Month: October 2024

M2 and M3 MacBook Air models get bumped to 16GB of RAM for no extra money

All baseline Macs have jumped from 8GB to 16GB this week, new processors or no.

Apple's week of Mac announcements isn't extending to an M4 MacBook Air—rumors indicate that the Air, as well as desktops like the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, will get new processors sometime in 2025. But Apple is bringing one of the best features of the new M4 Macs to the M3 MacBook Airs, as well as the entry-level M2 model: All of the base models are being bumped from 8GB to 16GB of RAM for the same prices as before. The M2 MacBook Air still starts at $999, while the 13- and 15-inch M3 versions start at $1,099 and $1,299.

All of these laptops were available with 16GB of RAM before, but it was normally a $200 upgrade. All of them still top out at 24GB of RAM, which is now a $200 upgrade to the 16GB models rather than a $400 upgrade as it was before. All models still start with 256GB of storage.

This week's launches mark the first time since 2012 that Apple has increased the amount of RAM in any of its base-model Macs, and the upgrade addresses one of our single biggest complaints about the laptops. Not all users will immediately notice the benefits of a 16GB RAM upgrade, but it will definitely make the laptops more versatile and capable of keeping up with users as their needs change.

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Hyundai teases a three-row Ioniq 9 electric SUV

The proper Ioniq 9 reveal happens in November.

In November, Hyundai will formally unveil its next electric vehicle. It's the new Ioniq 9, a three-row SUV that uses Hyundai Motor Group's highly competent E-GMP platform seen in the Ioniq 5 and 6. Ahead of that reveal, the automaker shared some teaser images.

Regular readers will know that Hyundai's various design directions always have interesting names, and like the two smaller Ioniqs, the Ioniq 9 will feature "parametric pixels" in its headlamps—the blocky 8-bit look has been used to good effect on the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6.

E-GMP has already given rise to a big electric three-row SUV. Kia's EV9 has been on sale for a while now and has just about matched the cheaper EV6 in terms of sales for the last nine months, despite a $54,900 starting price that's more than $12,000 greater than the EV6's. (American car buyers really do want larger cars, and they vote with their wallets.)

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Apple refreshes MacBook Pro lineup with M4 chips, introduces the M4 Max

More memory and better display support make the $1,599 Pro more appealing.

Apple is following the M4 iMac and the redesigned Mac mini updates with one more major refresh this week: a new lineup of M4 MacBook Pros. These updates mostly follow the template set by last year's M3 MacBook Pro refresh: there's a 14-inch $1,599 base model with the standard M4, and then beefed up 14- and 16-inch versions with the M4 Pro and M4 Max processors that also offer more RAM, storage, an optional nano-texture display finish, and other amenities for power users.

All three versions of the M4 MacBook Pro are available for preorder today and begin arriving November 8, the same date as the new iMac and Mac mini refreshes.

New chips, same designs

Even without the M4's improvements, the new $1,599 MacBook Pro addresses the biggest gripe about the original: it upgrades the base model from 8GB to 16GB of RAM without increasing the price. If this was the only change Apple made, it would have been a good upgrade (and the company has taken exactly that approach to updating the M2 and M3 MacBook Airs, which also start with 16GB beginning today). Base storage still starts at 512GB.

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(g+) Softwareentwicklung: Kommandozeilenprogramme mit Python schreiben

Python ist eine der populärsten Programmiersprachen. Obendrein gibt es Bibliotheken von Machine Learning bis hin zur Kommandozeile. Eine Anleitung von Thomas Reuß (Programmiersprachen, Python)

Python ist eine der populärsten Programmiersprachen. Obendrein gibt es Bibliotheken von Machine Learning bis hin zur Kommandozeile. Eine Anleitung von Thomas Reuß (Programmiersprachen, Python)

Verkaufsverbot in Deutschland: Smartphones von Oneplus und Oppo dürften bald zurückkehren

Oppo hat Interdigitals Patente lizenziert und den Rechtsstreit beigelegt. Bald dürften auch die Geräte von Oneplus wieder in Deutschland erhältlich sein. (Oneplus, Smartphone)

Oppo hat Interdigitals Patente lizenziert und den Rechtsstreit beigelegt. Bald dürften auch die Geräte von Oneplus wieder in Deutschland erhältlich sein. (Oneplus, Smartphone)

AI, cloud boost Alphabet profits by 34 percent

Google’s cloud business is still a distant third to Microsoft and Amazon.

Alphabet’s profit jumped 34 percent in the third quarter as the parent company of search giant Google reported strong growth in its cloud business amid robust demand for computing and data services used to train and run generative artificial intelligence models.

The solid results released on Tuesday helped alleviate investors’ fears about the financial returns on the vast sums being spent on AI by Alphabet and other Big Tech peers as they seek to dominate the nascent sector. The standout unit was Google Cloud, where revenue increased 35 percent to $11.4 billion and operating profit increased sevenfold to $1.9 billion from $266 million in the same period last year.

Net income was $26.3 billion compared with $19.7 billion in the same period a year earlier, exceeding analysts’ expectations for $22.8 billion. Revenue rose 15 percent to $88.3 billion in the three months through to the end of September, beating the average estimate for $86.3 billion.

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