MacBook Pro: Apple’s most awkward laptop is the first to show off Apple M5

Apple M5 trades blows with Pro and Max chips from older generations.

When I’m asked to recommend a Mac laptop for people, Apple’s low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro usually gets lost in the shuffle. It competes with the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air, significantly cheaper computers that meet or exceed the “good enough” boundary for the vast majority of computer users. The basic MacBook Pro also doesn’t have the benefit of Apple’s Pro or Max-series chips, which come with many more CPU cores, substantially better graphics performance, and higher memory capacity for true professionals and power users.

But the low-end Pro makes sense for a certain type of power user. At $1,599, it’s the cheapest way to get Apple’s best laptop screen, with mini LED technology, a higher 120 Hz ProMotion refresh rate for smoother scrolling and animations, and the optional but lovely nano-texture (read: matte) finish. Unlike the MacBook Air, it comes with a cooling fan, which has historically meant meaningfully better sustained performance and less performance throttling. And it’s also Apple’s cheapest laptop with three Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI port, and an SD card slot, all genuinely useful for people who want to plug lots of things in without having multiple dongles or a bulky dock competing for the Air’s two available ports.

If you don’t find any of those arguments in the basic MacBook Pro’s favor convincing, that’s fine. The new M5 version makes almost no changes to the laptop other than the chip, so it’s unlikely to change your calculus if you already looked at the M3 or M4 version and passed it up. But it is the first Mac to ship with the M5, the first chip in Apple’s fifth-generation chip family and a preview of what’s to come for (almost?) every other Mac in the lineup. So you can at least be interested in the 14-inch MacBook Pro as a showcase for a new processor, if not as a retail product in and of itself.

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Google Fi is getting enhanced web calls and messaging, AI bill summaries

Google’s MVNO gets better web support, clearer audio, and yes, more AI.

Google’s Fi cellular service is getting an upgrade, and since this is 2025, there’s plenty of AI involved. You’ll be able to ask Google AI questions about your bill, and a different variation of AI will improve call quality. AI haters need not despair—there are also some upgrades to connectivity and Fi web features.

As part of this update, a new Gemini-powered chatbot will soon be turned loose on your billing statements. The idea is that you can get bill summaries and ask specific questions of the robot without waiting for a real person. Google claims that testers have had positive experiences with the AI billing bot, so it’s rolling the feature out widely.

Next month, Google also plans to flip the switch on an AI audio enhancement. The new “optimized audio” will use AI to filter out background sounds like wind or crowd noise. If you’re using a Pixel, you already have a similar feature for your end of the call. However, this update will reduce background noise on the other end as well. Google’s MVNO has also added support for HD and HD+ calling on supported connections.

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Breko: 6-GHz-Band nicht für weiträumigen Mobilfunk geeignet

Dass WLAN im unteren 6-GHz-Band in Deutschland nicht sein volles Potenzial ausschöpft, liegt laut Breko an der verzögerten Markteinführung kompatibler Router. (WLAN, Vodafone)

Dass WLAN im unteren 6-GHz-Band in Deutschland nicht sein volles Potenzial ausschöpft, liegt laut Breko an der verzögerten Markteinführung kompatibler Router. (WLAN, Vodafone)

Amazon’s DNS problem knocked out half the web, likely costing billions

Amazon’s outage is over. But backlash over billions in losses has just started.

On Monday afternoon, Amazon confirmed that an outage affecting Amazon Web Services’ cloud hosting, which had impacted millions across the Internet, had been resolved.

Considered the worst outage since last year’s CrowdStrike chaos, Amazon’s outage caused “global turmoil,” Reuters reported. AWS is the world’s largest cloud provider and, therefore, the “backbone of much of the Internet,” ZDNet noted. Ultimately, more than 28 AWS services were disrupted, causing perhaps billions in damages, one analyst estimated for CNN.

Popular apps like Snapchat, Signal, and Reddit went dark. Flights got delayed. Banks and financial services went down. Massive games like Fortnite could not be accessed. Some of Amazon’s own services were hit, too, including its e-commerce platform, Alexa, and Prime Video. Ultimately, millions of businesses simply stopped operating, unable to log employees into their systems or accept payments for their goods.

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Innenministerium Baden-Württemberg: Zugriffe durch Drittstaaten bei Delos Cloud möglich

Baden-Württembergs Innenministerium räumt bei Delos ein: Der Cloudanbieter könne von der US-Regierung “angewiesen werden, einen Datenabfluss in seine Software zu integrieren”. (Raus aus der (US)-Cloud, SAP)

Baden-Württembergs Innenministerium räumt bei Delos ein: Der Cloudanbieter könne von der US-Regierung "angewiesen werden, einen Datenabfluss in seine Software zu integrieren". (Raus aus der (US)-Cloud, SAP)

Even with protections, wolves still fear humans

European wolves flee human conversation faster than dogs’ barking.

Back in May 2025, the European Parliament changed the status of wolves in the EU from “strictly protected” to “protected,” which opened the way for its member states to allow hunting under certain conditions, such as protecting livestock. One of the arguments behind this change was that the “tolerance of modern society towards wolves” led to the emergence of “fearless wolves” that are no longer afraid of people.

“Regulators made it clear though that there is no scientific evidence to back this up,” says Michael Clinchy, a zoologist at the Western University London, Canada. “So we did the first-of-its-kind study to find out if wolves have really lost their fear of humans. We proved there is no such thing as a fearless wolf.”

Red riding hood

The big bad wolf trope is found in plenty of our myths and fables, with Little Red Riding Hood being probably the most famous example. This mythical fear of wolves, combined with real damage to livestock, led to extensive hunting. By the mid-20th century, we’d pushed wolves to the verge of extinction in Western and Central Europe. Human-wolf encounters became very rare, and the big bad wolf myth faded away. But starting in the 1970s wolves became a protected species across Europe and North America, which caused wolf populations to bounce back and reoccupy some of their old habitats.

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