We finally have the winner of our iPhone 16 Pro international giveaway! Congratulations to Oliver T., and a huge thank you to everyone who participated.
The Mandalorian Season 2 Official Trailer
The official trailer for season 2 of The Mandalorian dropped on Tuesday. Disney+ subscribers will be able to follow as The Mandalorian and the Child continue their journey from Friday, October 30.
Apple Ends Barclays Rewards Card to Focus on Apple Card
Apple has canceled the Barclays Rewards card so that it can focus on Apple Card and make that the premier way for people to purchase Apple products.
YouTube Shorts to Begin Beta Testing
YouTube unveiled plans to begin rolling out a new product called ‘Shorts’ in a blog post on Tuesday. It is user-generated videos that last up to 15 seconds. Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before…
We’re excited to announce that we are building YouTube Shorts, a new short-form video experience right on YouTube for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones. Over the next few days in India, we’re launching an early beta of Shorts with a handful of new creation tools to test this out. This is an early version of the product, but we’re releasing it now to bring you — our global community of users, creators and artists — on our journey with us as we build and improve Shorts. We’ll continue to add more features and expand to more countries in the coming months as we learn from you and listen to your feedback. Here are more details on what to expect.
UK Lawmakers Demand Answers From Apple on Sustainability and Repairability
Apple has faced criticism from British lawmakers for its apparent failure to engage with an inquiry into product repairability.
Pixelmator Photo 1.4 Brings ML Super Resolution to iPad
The Pixelmator Photo 1.4 update brings ML Super Resolution to the iPad. This is the feature introduced on macOS that lets you upscale images using machine learning. “Today’s update also adds a very awesome comparison slider, letting you quickly compare your edited image with the original in a split-screen view. And it works all around the app, so when using the Repair tool, you can turn on and move the comparison slider to see just the changes made with that tool. When the Color Adjustments tool selected, you’ll see just the color changes, and so on. Super useful.” Finally, the company has raised the app’s price to US$7.99, up from US$4.99.
CISA Believes China Hacked US Government Systems
According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chinese-affiliated hackers have compromised U.S. government computer systems.
“This beaconing is a result of cyber threat actors successfully completing cyber operations that are often designed around emergent vulnerabilities and reliant on existing exploitation tools,” the advisory states. “CISA observed activity from a Federal Government IP address beaconing out to the threat actors’ [command and control] server.”
Get we just get it together for 10 seconds, please?
Ice Age Ecologist Dr. Jacquelyn Gill - BGM Interview
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill is an Associate Professor of Paleoecology and Plant Ecology, School of Biology, Ecology and Climate Change Institute, the University of Maine. Her research interests include: Paleoecology, community ecology, vegetation dynamics, extinction, climate change and biotic interactions. She received her Ph.D. in Paleoecology from the Univ. of Wisconsin.
An outdoor life, science fiction, cave exploration and a professor who taught her how to ask questions about what she saw in the natural environment laid the foundation for Jacquelyn’s interest in Nature and Ecology. She tells a remarkable, instructive story about how she got admitted to her Ph.D. program. Then we chatted about just what Paleoecology and Biogeography are as well as the effects of animal extinction, recovering extinct animals from DNA, ecological models, and recovery from bad ecological trends. Jacquelyn is spellbinding in her description of her work.
FCC Tests Eero Wi-Fi 6 Mesh Routers WIth BTLE, Zigbee
The FCC has been testing Eero’s Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers. Not much is known about these devices, including a launch date, but it appears that these products will have Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee to enable smart home automation connectivity.
Although the underside diagram for Gateway and Extender is shaped somewhat like the second-generation Beacon design, we don’t see any plugs shown—so it seems unlikely that they will be wall-wart designs like the Beacon’s or like Eero competitor Plume. We expect the new generation of devices will likely be desktop-style designs, with external power supplies.
Gaming Company Razer Leaked 100,000 Users’ Data
In August, security researcher Volodymyr Diachenko found a server owned by Razer that exposed the data of over 100,000 users. It took the company over three weeks to get around to fixing the issue.
The cluster contained records of customer orders and included information such as item purchased, customer email, customer (physical) address, phone number, and so forth—basically, everything you’d expect to see from a credit card transaction, although not the credit card numbers themselves. The Elasticseach cluster was not only exposed to the public, it was indexed by public search engines.
Nvidia Shopping Spree, Apple's Succession Plan – TMO Daily Observations 2020-09-14
Bryan Chaffin and Charlotte Henry join host Kelly Guimont to discuss Apple’s succession plan, and Nvidia purchasing ARM.
Apple Updates AirPods Firmware to ‘3A283’
Apple is rolling out firmware updates to AirPods 2nd-gen and AirPods Pro. Both models are getting the same update, 3A283.
Apple Stifles Cryptocurrency Innovation, Says Coinbase CEO
According to one CEO, the lack of functionality in crypto apps is because of App Store guidelines that stifle cryptocurrency innovation.
This Camera Has 1080p Resolution, 2-Way Audio, Motion Detection, Companion App: $59.95
We have a deal on the Sinji Smart Outdoor Camera. It features 1080p resolution 2-way audio, motion-detection, a companion app, 128GB of on-board storage, and a cloud storage option. You can also remotely control this security camera with a user-friendly app and install it via your WiFi network or with an RJ45 Ethernet cable. It’s $59.95 through our deal.
There Are So Many VPN Apps. Which One Should You Choose?
With so many VPN apps on the market, which ones should you choose? Andrew has five VPN apps to share with his opinions.
Life in Clouds Around Venus? Scientists Now Think it's Possible
Could there be life… around Venus?! That’s a question being asked by some UK scientists, who found evidence of phosphine, a gas associated with life, around the planet’s atmosphere, BBC News reported.
On Earth, phosphine is associated with life, with microbes living in the guts of animals like penguins, or in oxygen-poor environments such as swamps. For sure, you can make it industrially, but there are no factories on Venus; and there are certainly no penguins. So why is this gas there, 50km up from the planet’s surface? Prof Jane Greaves, from Cardiff University, UK and colleagues are asking just this question.
They’ve published a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy detailing their observations of phosphine at Venus, as well as the investigations they’ve made to try to show this molecule could have a natural, non-biological origin. But for the moment, they’re stumped… Given everything we know about Venus and the conditions that exist there, no-one has yet been able to describe an abiotic pathway to phosphine, not in the quantities that have been detected. This means a life source deserves consideration.
What Does NVIDIA Buying Arm Mean For Apple?
NVIDIA’s purchase of Arm throws about a lot of interesting questions. One is what, if anything, does it mean for Apple. Gizomodo took a look.
Nvidia, however, is the least controversial processor company that could buy Arm. While it also licenses Arm technology, Nvidia’s main schtick is GPUs. There’s a reason you don’t really hear about Nvidia with regard to smartphones. In fact, the only real outside hardware using its mobile chipset Tegra is the Nintendo Switch and the Magic Leap headset, which let’s be real, doesn’t really count as a win. That said, should the deal go through, Nvidia buying Arm could mean a lot of major improvements to the Tegra chipset and could theoretically, be a good thing for Nintendo down the line.
The Journey Towards Apple Making a Carbon Neutral iPhone
GQ has taken a look at Apple’s green revolution in a new feature. It poses the question – will there be a carbon neutral iPhone?
When Cook unveils the iPhone 12 to an empty arena in Cupertino, California, in the next few weeks, it is therefore sure to be its most eco-friendly smartphone ever. If history is a guide, this will largely go unmentioned compared to the usual cocktail of redesigned hardware, customer satisfaction scores and perhaps “one more thing” to send the tech press into a tizz. Make no mistake, for a company that sold a reported $142 billion worth of iPhones last year, this is the work that we ought to be scrutinising most carefully right now… [Lisa Jackson] says that it wasn’t only the scale of the task that drew her to the job, but also the belief that Apple didn’t merely want to tick boxes. “During my interviews no one said, ‘What do we have to do to get in front of all these environmental rules and regulations?’” she recalls. “They said, ‘What can we do to lead the world to a better place?’ And that was really impressive to me. I didn’t run across that practically ever.’”
Oracle Overtakes Microsoft in Bid to Buy TikTok
Microsoft is officially out of the running to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations – a race that Oracle now appears to be leading.
NVIDIA to Purchase Arm in Record-Busting Deal
NVIDIA has come to an agreement to buy UK chip-designer ARM from Softbank in a transaction worth a total of $40 billion.
Apple Registers Various 'Apple One' Domains
Apple has registered a variety of domain names based on the phrase ‘Apple One’ ahead of its expected launch at the ‘Time Flies’ event.
Border Patrol Mistakenly Seized ‘Counterfeit’ AirPods
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 2,000 boxes of wireless earbuds that it referred to as “counterfeit AirPods.” But the photos show OnePlus Buds.
Google Aims to go Carbon-Free by 2030
Google has set itself an unprecedented target- to operate 24/7 on carbon-free energy by 2030, CEO Sundar Pichai has revealed.
Network Speed Dissection, Cool Stuff Found, and More — Mac Geek Gab 833
Having a solid connection to your network is only part of it. The other part? Speed! Dissecting the differences between these two — and teaching you how to do the same — are your two favorite geeks: John F. Braun and Dave Hamilton. Of course, that’s just one of the many things covered in this week’s episode. Lots more tips, questions answered, and Cool Stuff Found shared. Press play and learn those five new things, alright?
The Mac Web Today, Apple Event Speculation, with John Kheit - ACM 534
Bryan Chaffin and John Kheit take a look back at the Mac Web 20 years ago and discuss what’s different about today, including how coverage of Apple is different today. They also chew over expectations for Apple’s media event on September 15th.