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Enlarge / The 2020 iPhone SE. (credit: Samuel Axon)

It doesn't seem like that long ago that Apple announced a plethora of new iPhone, Apple Watch, and MacBook Pro computers, but we're likely now just a couple of months away from another product unveiling event from the company.

The Internet is spinning with wild speculation today, so now seems like a good time to check in and set expectations as much as is possible at this stage.

Why a spring event?

Apple spring events in the past several years have fallen on April 20, March 25, March 27, and March 21. And based on the company's typical release/update cadence, several of Apple's products are due now: high-end Mac mini models, the iPad Air, the iPhone SE, the Mac Pro, the larger-format iMac, and the iPad Pro.

Enlarge / The 2020 iPhone SE. (credit: Samuel Axon)

It doesn't seem like that long ago that Apple announced a plethora of new iPhone, Apple Watch, and MacBook Pro computers, but we're likely now just a couple of months away from another product unveiling event from the company.

The Internet is spinning with wild speculation today, so now seems like a good time to check in and set expectations as much as is possible at this stage.

Why a spring event?

Apple spring events in the past several years have fallen on April 20, March 25, March 27, and March 21. And based on the company's typical release/update cadence, several of Apple's products are due now: high-end Mac mini models, the iPad Air, the iPhone SE, the Mac Pro, the larger-format iMac, and the iPad Pro.

Enlarge / A bowl of salad stands on a table. (credit: Getty | Sina Schuldt)

As the pandemic enters its third year with cases and hospitalizations as high as ever, fresh data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reminds us that we already had a long track record of failing to manage our health.

The latest data from a decades-long health survey finds that—yet again—the vast majority of Americans have a poor diet and many of us are inactive. Specifically, just 10 percent of Americans eat enough vegetables, and only 12 percent eat enough fruit, according to recent responses to the CDC's survey, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance system. Recent responses also reveal that 25 percent of Americans don't do any exercise outside of any work activity.

A poor diet and inactivity can both set people up for medical conditions, such as weak immune function, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and certain cancers, the CDC notes.

Enlarge (credit: The_Grim_Sleeper)

Bandai Namco, publisher of the Dark Souls role-playing game series, has taken down its player-versus-player servers while it investigates reports of a serious vulnerability that allows players to execute malicious code on the PCs of fellow players.

Word of the critical remote-code-execution flaw emerged over the weekend in Reddit threads here and here. An exploit that hit a user named The_Grim_Sleeper was captured in a video stream posted over the weekend. Starting around 1:20:22, the user’s game crashed, and a robotic voice mocked his gameplay and maturity level.

“What the fuck,” The_Grim_Sleeper said in response. “My game just crashed, and immediately Powershell opened up and started narrating a fucking” screed. “I didn’t even know that shit was possible.”

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | zf L)

AT&T has started offering 2Gbps and 5Gbps symmetrical Internet speeds over its fiber-to-the-home network, the telecom company announced today. The multi-gigabit speeds are available to "nearly 5.2 million customer locations in parts of more than 70 metro areas, such as LA, Atlanta, and Dallas," AT&T said.

AT&T is charging $110 per month plus taxes for its 2Gbps home-Internet plan and $180 per month plus taxes for the 5Gbps home-Internet plan. Business fiber prices are $225 per month for 2Gbps and $395 for 5Gbps. Base prices for other fiber home-Internet plans are $55 for 300Mbps, $65 for 500Mbps, and $80 for 1Gbps. The fine print notes that a "$99 installation fee may apply."

AT&T imposes data caps on lower-end home-Internet plans but provides unlimited data on tiers with speeds of 100Mbps and above. AT&T's announcement said its new fiber plans have "no equipment fees, no annual contract, no data caps, and no price increase at 12 months." The 1Gbps and multi-gigabit plans also include HBO Max access.

Enlarge / Steam Deck's head is in the clouds—and thanks to Dynamic Cloud Sync, that's a good thing. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

As Valve's first portable PC, the Steam Deck, approaches its estimated February launch, the back-end work to translate third-party PC games to a Switch-like form factor has ramped up considerably. While we expected to see the Steam ecosystem get updates for things like improved Linux support and Deck-compatible store flags, a surprise Monday announcement confirmed a cool feature that nobody necessarily saw coming: a major change to Steam's support for save files in the cloud.

Dynamic Cloud Sync is now live on Steam, and it's a first for any gaming platform currently in operation. It appears to be inspired by a specific use case: playing your favorite PC game on the go via the Steam Deck, then resuming that same game later on your home PC. That concept sounds well and good, but in practice, it requires the logistical step of making sure your game is saved and then uploading that save to the cloud. The idea of tapping through menus, saving, quitting, and watching your device upload a save to the cloud isn't necessarily compatible with the pick-up-and-go nature of a portable console.

In a statement on its official Steam Community site, Valve all but called out the Nintendo Switch by name in addressing this issue: