It's been a week filled with new Apple hardware, with entirely new iMacs, new iPad Pros, and even a new iPhone, even if it was only a new purple color. Apple also announced a new spin on podcasts — a subscription service. Meanwhile, NASA's Mars rover has been crafting Oxygen on the red planet, messaging app Signal hacked back and Mortal Kombat is also, well, back. And if you're shopping for a mirrorless camera, we've updated our guide for 2021.
Apple's M1 chip is finally making its way to iMacs, along with a slew of other long-awaited upgrades. The new design has far slimmer bezels on their 4.5K Retina Displays, as well as a completely flat rear case.The new iMacs feature updated 1080p FaceTime cameras with larger image sensors. They'll be able to work together with the M1 processor to handle white balance, noise reduction and exposure settings. There are also three microphones that can use beamforming to reduce background noise.
The new 24-inch iMac is available starting at $1,299 with a 7-core GPU. The more powerful 8-core GPU, with three USB 3 ports, starts at $1,499. Continue reading.
More money is good, but only if you can command it.
During Apple's "Spring Loaded" event on Tuesday, alongside all that hardware, the company confirmed that it would soon offer paid subscriptions for podcasts — a potentially significant change for the ever-growing industry.
Starting next month, podcasters can set their own price and Apple will take 30 percent of the first year of each subscription, dropping to 15 percent thereafter. Apple is pitching the service as a way to enable creators to offer either a vanilla paywall, early access or unique premium content. It's a big change by arguably one of the biggest podcast players. James Trew breaks it down. Continue reading.
Along with a family portrait of its robotic siblings, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab fitted Perseverance with an instrument called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE for short. On April 20th, it successfully pulled carbon dioxide from the planet's atmosphere and converted it into oxygen.
The toaster-sized tool allowed Perseverance to separate oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules by heating the gas at approximately 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit and creating carbon monoxide as a byproduct. During the instrument's first test, it produced about five grams of oxygen or about enough to give a lone astronaut approximately 10 minutes of breathable air in their suit. Continue reading.
We've touched on the addition of the M1 chip, but when it comes to the bigger 12.9-inch model, the screen tech is possibly a bigger change. It has a Liquid Retina XDR panel, with a new mini-LED backlighting system. Because each lighting element is much smaller, this means more tightly controlled lighting for better contrast and significantly higher brightness overall. The new bigger iPad Pro can reach 1,000 nits of brightness, compared to just 600 nits in last year's model.
With the M1 chip inside both iPad Pro models, these are iPads that truly pack desktop power. To complement that, the new iPad Pro's USB-C port doubles as a Thunderbolt port with USB 4.0 support. Apple says the bandwidth for wired connections peaks at around 40Gbps, ensuring power users with high-speed external storage should be satisfied. Both models will go up for pre-order on April 30th. Continue reading.
The company may update its messaging app to stymie future attempts.
After the cellphone hacking company Cellebrite said it had figured out a way to access the secure messaging app Signal, the company announced it had done the same in retaliation. The app's creator Moxie Marlinspike claimed his team obtained Cellebrite's hacking kit and discovered several vulnerabilities. He added that Signal may well update its app to thwart any law enforcement attempts to hack it. Continue reading.
Apple's Airtags have landed. The fobs can be customized with engravings of characters, letters and emoji, while there will also be a Hermes edition if you're feeling particularly glamorous. You'll be able to use the Find My app to locate your AirTag and any Apple phone with a U1 chip (like the iPhone 11 and 12 series) can give you AR overlays to direct you to your lost item.
The company is calling this feature Precision Finding, which combines camera, accelerometer, gyroscope and ARKit data, along with ultra-wideband tech, to hone in on your lost item. When your belongings are further away, Apple says it will use the Find My network, which is approaching a billion devices, to locate it. It will detect Bluetooth signals from lost AirTags and "relay the location back to its owner, all in the background, anonymously and privately." We've already given them a quick test, too. Continue reading.
Apple's tracker tags go on sale today, and while it's not an extended test, Mobile Editor Chris Velazco has been trying to lose his keys and find them again for a whole day. In real life, the AirTag is a little larger than a quarter and roughly the same size as those little buttons you pin to your bag or lapel. It still crams in a user-replaceable CR2032 battery, Bluetooth radio, NFC and a little speaker that plays a "surprisingly loud" alert tone.
Chris explains that the tags are incredibly easy to pair: Once you remove a tab blocking the AirTag's battery, your nearby iOS device should detect it in seconds. Give it a name and you're ready to find it when you lose it.
A single AirTag costs $29, or you can get a four-pack for $100. It's pretty reasonable, given rival devices, but Apple is happy to take more of your money for key fobs and other accessories for your new accessory. Judging by first impressions, though, the technology is sound, especially the Precision Finding feature. As long as your iPhone has a U1 chip, it can direct you to your lost possessions with giant on-screen arrows. It's a feature you won't find on other tracking tags. At least, not yet.
— Mat Smith
Signal hacked Cellebrite's phone hacking software used by law enforcement
The company may update its messaging app to stymie future attempts.
After the cellphone hacking company Cellebrite said it had figured out a way to access the secure messaging app Signal, the company announced it had done the same in retaliation. The app's creator Moxie Marlinspike claimed his team obtained Cellebrite's hacking kit and discovered several vulnerabilities. He added that Signal may well update its app to thwart any law enforcement attempts to hack it. Continue reading.
Garmin's new Venu 2 and smaller Venu 2S fitness-oriented smartwatches both offer sleep scores that track light, deep and REM sleep stages along with movement, pulse Ox2 and breathing. There's also info on how to improve your sleep quality, displayed directly on the watch. The Venu 2 should last up to 11 days in smartwatch mode (8 hours in GPS mode + music), or 10 days and 7 hours for the smaller Venu 2S.
The new watches also include a fitness age 'score', if you needed more excuses to up your fitness levels post-pandemic. (That comes from a 36-year-old with the body of a 45-year-old.) Both are now available on Garmin's website for €400 each in Europe — US pricing is still TBC. Continue reading.
While we wait for AirTag compatible iOS 14.5, sources have already started talking about iOS 15 and its iPadOS 15 equivalent. It might include upgrades to a few core areas of the interface, including giving you control over how notifications behave based on a status you can change, such as whether you're driving, sleeping or working. Continue reading.
Things move fast in the camera world these days. Since our 2020 guide, new models have arrived with big improvements in shooting speeds, autofocus and video. That's good news if you're a buyer because the latest cameras are better than ever — and it's easier than ever to find deals on past models.
Still, it can be hard to keep track of every new camera that comes along, and that's where Associate Editor Steve Dent comes in. He'll guide you through what to look for and his best picks at several price points. Continue reading.
CD Projekt Red posted record-breaking revenue and sales numbers for the 2020 fiscal year, thanks to Cyberpunk 2077 — despite the game's problematic release. The developer has announced it made around US$563 million in total sales revenue, which is four times higher than 2019's. That's mostly due to Cyberpunk 2077, which sold over 13.7 million copies by the end of 2020, making it the largest game in the company's history.
It launched to great reviews. But when the public started receiving their copies, it revealed numerous bugs and game-breaking glitches that plagued the console versions of the game. Sony pulled the game from the PS store, where it still remains unavailable for purchase, and to offer refunds to anybody who wanted one. Microsoft followed soon after. And yet, this didn't affect the company's bottom line all that much. Continue reading.
After a relatively quiet few months, all the game movie news came at the same time. No, it's not another Uncharted delay (that we know of), but a new, reimagined Mortal Kombat movie lands tomorrow. While you can expect violence and gore (of course), according to screenwriter Greg Russo, ensuring the humor of Mortal Kombat's characters translated to the movie was important, too.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, with little-to-no gore, a Sonic movie sequel is underway. We know Sonic's sidekick, Tails, is likely to feature, but anti-hero Knuckles might also make an appearance, based on the prop of Knuckles standing alongside Sonic and Tails during shooting in Vancouver.
Neither of these game series usually feature serious emotional narratives and that's okay. We'll leave that to the incoming Last of Us series from HBO.
There's more going on than just drone test flights.
Along with a family portrait of its robotic siblings, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab fitted Perseverance with an instrument called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment or MOXIE for short. On April 20th, it successfully pulled carbon dioxide from the planet's atmosphere and converted it into oxygen.
The toaster-sized tool allowed Perseverance to separate oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules by heating the gas at approximately 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit and creating carbon monoxide as a byproduct. During the instrument's first test, it produced about five grams of oxygen or about enough to give a lone astronaut approximately 10 minutes of breathable air in their suit. Continue reading.
Samsung — which currently has more than 20 handsets for sale in its store after past efforts to cut its range by 30 percent — is hoping to resurrect its old phones by repurposing them into smart home gadgets. Now, the Galaxy Upcycling at Home program is making its way to the public after being announced at CES earlier this year. Like its other smart home experiments, Samsung is testing out the Upcycling software via the Labs feature in its SmartThings app. Once enabled, users will be able to use their old Galaxy phones as baby monitors or light detectors with the help of repurposed sensors, improved AI and battery optimization. Continue reading.
Amazon is expanding its contactless payments to Whole Foods Market stores. Amazon has now installed it at a Seattle Whole Foods Market and plans to expand to seven others in the area. With Amazon One, you can link a card to your palm print and pay for goods simply by hovering your hand over the reader device. The company is planning to expand the service further and even offer it to third-party retailers. Continue reading.
VGC spotted a logo and a description for a PlayStation Plus Video Pass on Sony's official site. While the company has since taken down the material, it promised access to Sony movies (including Venom, and Zombieland: Double Tap) as part of a "trial service" that would last for at least a year. Sony recently announced it would stop selling movies and TV shows through the PlayStation Store on August 31st, and a Video Pass could fill that gap, offering even more to PS Plus subscribers, like Amazon's Prime offering. Continue reading.
Starting at $77,400, the Lucid Air is going to be compared to the Tesla Model S. But the automaker wants to target German luxury vehicles from Mercedes and Audi. With the recently unveiled Mercedes EQS coming to market at about the same time as the Air, there's never been more choice for luxurious EVs. Watch our test drive right here.
The Hut Group: Top Five Tips for Manual Review Teams
As online spending surged due to global lockdowns and continues to rise amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it's clear that the way we shop online is forever changed. It is for this reason eCommerce businesses will need to stay one step ahead, as fraud techniques constantly evolve and detection becomes even more challenging.
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