TMO Deals

100 Entries to Win the Ultimate Gaming Giveaway and Donate to Charity: $10

Bryan Chaffin ·

Our friends at Stack Commerce have new take on a giveaway for us today, the Ultimate Gaming Giveaway. The short version is that when you donate $10—which goes to Playing for Change—you’ll get 100 entries int the giveaway.  And this giveaway is loaded with stuff:

  • PlayStation 5 Console (Value: $499)
  • 5 Years of PlayStation Plus (Value: $299.95)
  • Xbox X Series Console (Value: $499.99)
  • 5 Years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (Value: $899.40)
  • Secretlab TITAN Gaming Chair (Value: $459)
  • Corsair Optical Gaming Keyboard (Value: $229.99)
  • Sony X900H 65 Inch TV: 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (Value: $1,897.99)
  • Bose QuietComfort 35 Series 2 Gaming Headset (Value: $329.99)

There are options for more tickets, too. If you enter, good luck!

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EU Lays Out New Search Ranking Guidelines For Google And Other Tech Firms

Charlotte Henry ·

Google, Microsoft, and other tech firms will have to provide more transparency about how they rank online search results. Reuters reported on new EU guidelines forcing the change that were released on Monday.

The guidelines, which take immediate effect, will be followed up next week by the publication of draft rules that could eventually impose further restrictions on the tech sector… The Commission said the guidelines require online platforms to identify the algorithmic parameters that determine ranking and to share them with companies. “These guidelines set the standard for algorithmic ranking transparency and will increase fairness in the online platform economy, which drives innovation and welfare for millions of Europeans,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

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Will We See an Apple Hardware Plus Software Subscription?

Andrew Orr ·

Analysts at Loup Ventures wrote a wish list of an Apple hardware + software bundle they call a 360° bundle. I call it a wish list because there are no rumors or evidence suggesting this is Apple’s plan, and the article tries to align shareholder wishes with consumer wishes. However, my opinion is that this sort of bundle is in the realm of possibility. The iPhone Upgrade Program is already a subscription, the only thing missing is the software.

For hardware subscriptions and ultimately a 360° bundle to gain wide adoption, the product family must work seamlessly together, the infrastructure to service and maintain those products must exist, and the products must hold their value over time. Apple is the only company that can bring all three of those together.

Podcast

Migrating Your Mac and Its Data — Mac Geek Gab 847

John F. Braun & Dave Hamilton · · Add Comment

It seems to be the season… Migration Season, that is! So many new Macs, so many migrations, so much data, and so many questions! Thankfully your two favorite geeks have answers, as does the MGG Family. Press play and listen as John and Dave take you through all these and more. Of course, there’s more: Quick Tips are aplenty and there might even be some Cool Stuff Found! Whatever it is, you’ll enjoy learning at least five new things this episode!

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45 Years After Apple, Steve Wozniak Starts Another Company

Andrew Orr ·

Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple 45 years ago and now he’s starting another company. It’s called Efforce, and according to CNBC it will reside “business in the green tech and blockchain space.”

According to Efforce, “investors can participate in energy efficiency projects buy [sic] acquiring tokenized future savings,” while companies benefit from such improvements “at no cost.” Using blockchain, “a smart contract redistributes the resulting savings to token holders and the companies without intermediaries based on exact consumption/savings data.”

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How Apple Brings HDR to Non-HDR Displays

Andrew Orr ·

Stu Maschwitz wrote an interesting article on Extended Dynamic Range, or how Apple brings High Dynamic Range to non-HDR displays. This doesn’t just refer to its Pro Display XDR; it’s how iPhone OLED displays can be defined as HDR.

So Apple has a method of showing HDR and SDR content together on the same screen. It works on every display Apple bills as “HDR,” even though the phones are performing the stunt using a different underlying technology than the 30″ Mac display. The XDR uses “local dimming” to light up an array of LEDs brighter behind the HDR pixels, as needed. The OLED displays drive each pixel to the desired brightness individually.

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How the U.S. Used the Patriot Act to Track Web Browsing

Andrew Orr ·

Government entities have been using Section 215 of the Patriot Act as justification to collect logs of web browsing activity.

In fact, “one of those 61 orders resulted in the production of information that could be characterized as information regarding browsing,” Mr. Ratcliffe wrote in the second letter. Specifically, one order had approved collection of logs revealing which computers “in a specified foreign country” had visited “a single, identified U. S. web page.”

Cool Stuff Found

New Apple TV+ Ad Highlighting Big Name Originals

Charlotte Henry ·

A new advert for Apple TV+ was  posted on YouTube on Friday. It highlighted the streaming service’s biggest original serious like The Morning Show, Defending Jacob, Ted Lasso, and Servant. It arrived on the same day that new shows Stillwater and Earth at Night in Color became available.

TMO Deals

Easy Data Transform Software for Mac and Windows: $29.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on Easy Data Transform, data manipulation software for Mac and Windows. With 46 transforms and 60 text encodings to choose from, you’ll be able to merge, split, clean, dedupe, reformat, and more without coding or programming skills. There’s a video demonstration of this software on the deal listing, and it’s $29.99 through our deal.