Best Lenovo Laptop Deals: Latest ThinkPad X1 Carbon Is More Than Half Off - CNET

Many of Lenovo's laptops are on sale for less than half price. And you can save more than $600 on a Legion gaming laptop with RTX 3070 graphics.

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The telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 1,170.75 million in January, driven by net customer gain in the fixed line segment, according to a sector regulator TRAI report released on Friday. The net gain in the wireline segment was 0.28 million customers while mobile telephony recorded a net gain of 0.09 million subscribers.

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Google Cracks Down on Scams and Fake Content on Google Maps - CNET

Millions of photos, reviews and other pieces of fraudulent content were removed in 2022.

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US Treasury Announces Strict New Rules for EV Tax Credit - CNET

The tax break is worth up to $7,500 but new regulations about battery components mean few EVs currently qualify for it.

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TV maker Hisense held an event in NYC this week to announce its new partnership with the National Basketball Association. Along with the NBA sponsorship news, the event gave the company a chance to announce that they are now the number two TV brand in North America based on unit share according to data supplied by the Circana retail tracking service.

Hisense has made great strides in the North American TV market over the past few years, heightening its visibility with a lineup of affordable QLED sets. Last year’s U8H series, the first model with mini-LED backlighting to arrive from the company, impressed us with its high brightness and rich contrast, earning a spot on our list of the best 4K TVs and best 120 Hz TVs for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Mini-LED in general has given QLED tech a shot in the arm, with top new Mini-LED backlit TVs like the Samsung QN95C starting to rival the best OLED TVs when it comes to performance aspects like shadow detail and black uniformity. As it previously announced at CES, Hisense will offer four series of mini-LED TVs in 2023, starting with the budget U6K line and topping out with the flagship limited edition UX series.

As part of its NBA partnership, Hisense will sponsor X-Factor Moments, a weekly series of game highlights from the 2023 postseason on the NBA’s social media channels. The NBA League Pass live game subscription service will also be available in the NBA TV app on Hisense smart TVs.

ULED X: The Official Television of the NBA 

While the sponsorship arrangement extends to all Hisense TVs and appliances, the flagship ULED X model has been designated as The Official Television of the NBA.

The limited edition ULED X, which will only be available in an 85-inch screen size, boasts impressive specs. Its backlight consists of over 20,000 mini-LEDs that are controlled by 5,000-plus local dimming zones. Peak brightness is 2,500 nits, according to Hisense, with a claimed two times higher contrast range than OLED TVs. The ULED X also features a built-in 4.1.2 Dolby Atmos and DTS:X speaker system powered by 80 watts.

The other new mini-LED models in the Hisense lineup are the U8K, U7K, and U6K series. These are all available in 55-, 65-, 75-, and 85-inch screen sizes and have a peak brightness spec ranging from 600 nits on U6K series up to 1,500 nits on the U8K series. Both the U8K and U7K also have 144Hz-capable panels, making them a good choice for gaming, while all models feature a built-in ATSC 3.0 digital TV tuner.

Hisense's L9H laser TV ultra short throw projector comes with 100 and 120-inch screen options. (Image credit: Future)

L9H Laser TV ultra short throw projector 

Hisense’s top ultra short throw projector for 2023 is the L9H. This comes paired with either a 100- or 120-inch ambient light rejecting screen and uses an RGB laser light engine that’s capable of 107% BT.2020 color space coverage. Dolby Vision high dynamic range is supported by the L9H and it runs the Google TV smart interface for streaming and voice control.

Other features of the L9H include a built-in 40-watt Dolby Atmos sound system and an ATSC 3.0 tuner for viewing next-gen digital TV broadcasts.

Hisense was also showing its L5H ultra short throw projector at the event, a step-down model that uses a blue laser light source with reduced BT.2020 color space coverage.

Hisense USA CEO David Gold announcing the brand's NBA sponsorship. (Image credit: Future)

TVs and sports: a winning combination 

There’s no surprise in Hisense becoming the official partner of the NBA, because the high visibility that sports sponsorship nets a brand literally brings it into the living room of millions of viewers. That’s why TCL, Hisense’s main competitor in the budget TV space, is the official partner of NFL football, and OLED TV maker LG is an official partner of NCAA basketball.

For Hisense to compete with TCL it needs to expose its brand to as many eyeballs as possible. And while this sponsorship should do precisely that, the upside to Hisense’s competition with TCL for consumers is that the company’s TVs are seeing year-over-year picture quality improvements, while their prices remain affordable. 

Hisense hasn’t yet announced specific pricing for its new TVs, all of which should arrive around June. At that time, we’ll see just how good they look when we get the new U8K model in for review.

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China's cyberspace regulator will conduct a cybersecurity review of products sold in the country by US memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology, the regulator said on Friday. The move, which comes amid a spat over chip technology between Washington and Beijing, is aimed at protecting the security of the supply chain for critical information infrastructure, prevent ...

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Researchers from SentinelLabs have uncovered a new toolkit cybercriminals are using to breach email and web hosting services. 

The malware toolkit, called “AlienFox”, is being described as “highly modular” and getting regular updates. Most of the tools in the kit are open source, and with the speed at which it’s being updated, the researchers concluded the devs are becoming “increasingly sophisticated”.

As per SentinelLabs’ report, hackers are shilling AlienFox on Telegram groups, claiming it can be used to compromise misconfigured hosts on cloud platforms and steal sensitive data.

Abusing scanning platforms 

"AlienFox tools facilitate attacks on minimal services that lack the resources needed for mining," the researchers said in their report. "By analyzing the tools and tool output, we found that actors use AlienFox to identify and collect service credentials from misconfigured or exposed services. For victims, compromise can lead to additional service costs, loss of customer trust, and remediation costs."

To generate a list of misconfigured hosts, the toolkit uses security scanning platforms, such as LeakIX, or SecurityTrails. Then, it uses multiple scripts to pull sensitive information such as API keys and secrets from configuration files, the researchers explained. Some of the versions analyzed for the report were able to establish AWS account persistence and escalate privileges, as well as collect send quotas and automate spam campaigns through victim accounts and services.

Read more

> Nearly all firms have some kind of cloud misconfiguration issue

> Many data breaches are being caused by misconfigured clouds

> Check out the best endpoint protection right now 

So far, attacks against cloud-based services were limited mostly to cryptominers. Threat actors would use compromised cloud servers to run XMRig or similar cryptocurrency miners, generating tokens without needing to pay for electricity, internet, or compute power. With AlienFox, SentinelLabs claims, opportunistic cloud attacks are no longer confined to cryptomining. 

“For victims, compromise can lead to additional service costs, loss in customer trust, and remediation costs,” the researchers concluded.

• Here are the best firewalls 

Via: The Register 

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Microsoft Unveils Diablo 4 Xbox Series X Bundle Available for Preorder - CNET

It's a hell of a bundle.

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Deepfake photos are fast approaching the point where many can’t tell the difference between them and real images. It’s a lesson AI image generator Midjourney learned the hard way when some used its platform to create several recent images, including several fakes of former US President Donald Trump being arrested. After the images went viral, many thought they were real, sparking conversations and controversy based on completely fabricated information.

According to The Washington Post and reported on by The Verge, these deepfakes became so widespread, they prompted Midjourney to halt free trials on March 28. However, when TechRadar reached out to Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz for clarification, he insisted that there was a different reason for the halt: “Users signing up for multiple free trial accounts was bringing down the service for paid users so that's why we temporarily halted free trials.”

This correlates with a previous statement Holz made to The Verge concerning the free trials, that it was due to “extraordinary demand and trial abuse.” Previously, Midjourney’s free trial allowed for 25 free images a month before users had to pay at least a $10 per month subscription fee. 

When asked about the creation of these controversial deepfakes created through Midjourney, Holz told TechRadar “I think we're still trying to figure out what the right moderation policies are. We are taking feedback from experts and the community and trying to be really thoughtful. We already have some new systems coming which should ship soon.”

Now, though, it looks like Midjourney will be keeping free trials disabled, at least for the immediate future. “We tried turning trials back on again with new safeties for abuse but they didn’t seem to be sufficient so we are turning it back off again to maintain the service for everyone else,” Holz told us.

He added that free trials will be coming back eventually, but the company is still considering how to go about it. “We're still trying to figure out how to bring free trials back, we tried to require an active email but that wasn't enough so we're back to the drawing board.”

What is Midjourney?

Midjourney is just one of several AI image generators, with others including Dall-E, Jasper Art, Starry AI, Stable Diffusion, and plenty of others. These sites exist to create new and entirely fabricated images that are trained on existing online images and data. The images can be photorealistic, fanciful images of animals, surreal images, pixel art, and more. What originally set Midjourney apart from other generators was the more painting-like quality of its images compared to others. At least until version 5 was released on March 15.

Initially, Midjourney-created images were easily spotted thanks to common signs like wonky hands (too many fingers). But once version 5 of its software launched, images became vastly superior in quality, which meant that people could create images with more realistic hands, as well as better lighting and fabric. Essentially you can make tons of deepfakes of celebrities and other public figures thanks to the combination of better technology and the sheer number of real-life images available for training Midjourney.

Deepfakes, or photos created using AI technology for the purpose of spreading misinformation with fake images, have become a growing problem. Beyond the Donald Trump arrest deepfakes, others created with Midjourney featured Pope Francis wearing a puffy, white down coat, French President Emmanuel Macron walking through the ongoing protests in Paris, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk holding hands with U.S. representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

This isn’t the first time that AI-generated creations have been at the center of controversy, as tech leaders and AI experts recently released an open letter calling for the halt of training AI chatbots like ChatGPT. 

The future of AI-generated image sites like Midjourney is uncertain. While the technology holds great potential to aid humans, it can and has already been used in more destructive ways. Only time will tell whether safeguards, from lawmakers to the companies themselves, can manage safety and public good, while still allowing AI to flourish and grow.

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Struggling With Brain Fog? You Might Be Missing These 4 Key Vitamins - CNET

Check your diet -- a lack of certain vitamins and minerals may be causing your brain fog.

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Having recently impressed us with their mid-range FiiO M11S portable digital audio player, Chinese audio firm FiiO is back with a decidedly high-end offering for its next on-the-go device.

The new M15S portable player comes packed with two desktop-grade ES9038PRO digital-to-analog converters, with individual DAC chips dedicated to the left and right stereo channels.

Each chip makes use of four D/A converters for what FiiO claim to be extremely high-quality decoding, with the device able to support playback of audio files up to 384kHz/DSD256. 

The new M15S also supports MQA, allowing listeners to directly stream TIDAL Masters as well as MQA files stored locally, while further Hi-Res audio options come in the form of aptX HD Bluetooth, alongside LDAC and LHDC wireless codecs. 

There's onboard 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi allowing for support of Apple AirPlay and DLNA streaming, as well as compatibility with the increasingly popular multi-room music software platform Roon.

(Image credit: Fiio)

Weighing 345g, the device runs on Android 10, which allows for lossless access to Tidal, Qobuz and Apple Music, and it's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor - the same CPU which features on FiiO's flagship M17 hi-res audio player.

Along with a regular 3.5mm headphone jack and both 2.5mm and 4.4mm balanced headphone outputs, there's a 5.5-inch multi-touch HD display with 64GB of onboard storage that can be expanded up to 2TB of extra storage via the microSD card slot.

The FiiO M15S is available now to order for $999/£979 from the FiiO website, and set to ship later this month.

We can't wait to put it through its paces and see how it matches up to best MP3 players currently out there. Watch this space… 

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iOS 16.4: Your iPhone Just Got These New Emoji - CNET

A new smiley, more heart colors and additional animals are a few of the new emoji.

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Okay, Gen Z, you’ve discovered vinyl records, find them cool, and maybe even bought one of the best turntables to play them on. But how much do you know about the proper handling and cleaning of your precious vinyl stash?

If the answer to that question is “I didn’t know I had to clean it,” here’s some news that will help set the record straight. 

Spin-Clean, manufacturer of the long-running Spin-Clean record cleaning system, has announced a consumer outreach program to teach vinyl newbies about proper vinyl LP maintenance. According to the company, the program’s launch coincides with the first major upgrade to the Spin-Clean system in 50 years, and will include “digital and print ads; pop-up banners on vinyl user forums and record collector sites; and social media that specifically targets young vinyl enthusiasts.” There is also a white paper with info on vinyl care and playback basics.

The inspiration for the consumer outreach program apparently stems from recent research conducted by US-based MusicWatch, with a press release issued by Spin-Clean to announce its updated system citing the following statistics:

• 18 million consumers purchased vinyl in 2021, a 27% boost over the previous year
• 46% of these were between 18 and 34 years of age
• 43% of respondents to the MusicWatch survey said “they want to preserve or keep [records] in pristine condition for their collections”

This is all obviously music to the ears of a record cleaning system manufacturer, which may have been at one time worried about its primary market – boomers – aging out, and a lack of new customers for its products as the best music streaming services started to overtake physical media.

But a vinyl revival has been a real and ongoing thing over the past few years, with record sales experiencing record-breaking year-over-year increases in 2020 and 2021 – the height of the pandemic. That meteoric rise stalled out in 2022, however, when sales rose a mere 4.2% according to the U.S. 2022 Luminate Year-End Music Report, with a good chunk of it driven by the release of Taylor Swift’s Midnights.

So, what’s new about this upgraded Spin-Clean system that the company is targeting at the next generation of LP collectors?

Along with simple snap-in rollers for 7-, 10-, and 12-inch records, it has a new streamlined basin design that’s easier to clean, a higher-precision brush alignment, and improved stability from new self-adhesive rubber feet. The company says these changes should make the record cleaning process more approachable for newbies, and they apparently won’t come at an increased cost since the new Spin-Clean will sell at the same $79 / £79 / approximately AU$120 price as its predecessor.

(Image credit: Spin-Clean)

Analysis: The vinyl revival keeps on spinning 

If the growing number of record stores in my hometown is any indication, vinyl continues to be very much a viable medium. There are regular events like Record Store Day that drive consumer demand and interest, and major artists like Taylor Swift continue to max out the capacity of existing record-pressing plants in the US with their new releases.

For many newcomers to collecting, playback apparently isn’t an issue – that same Luminate 2022 year-end report cited that 50% of consumers who had bought vinyl over the previous 12 months don’t even own a record player. Reading into that data, some people are buying vinyl LPs simply to own a physical token that gets them closer to their favorite artists. Streaming may be convenient, but it’s clearly not enough of an experience for serious music fans.

As someone who owns a record cleaning machine and uses it to scrub the LPs that I pick up from garage sales, record fairs, and on occasion those local record stores, I can vouch for the sound quality improvements proper record cleaning brings. At $79, the Spin-Clean system counts among the more affordable options on the market, and with a 50-year history, it’s obviously one that has plenty of satisfied users.

New vinyl records can be expensive (and sometimes not exactly what you expect in the case of reissues of older titles). Gen Z, Millennial, Boomer, whomever, if you are actually playing LPs on a turntable, you will benefit from giving them a semi-regular cleaning. Spin-Clean is on the right track with its outreach program, so let's hope it locks in groove with its target market.

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Criminals have been discovered distributing fake Tor browsers that are designed to steal cryptocurrency, and so far, have been quite successful, raking in roughly $400,000 in various tokens from unsuspecting victims, experts have warned

Cybersecurity researchers from Kaspersky are warning users to watch out for Tor browser installers from third-party stores. 

They’ve spotted one such executable sitting in a password-protected RAR archive which, when extracted and installed, monitors the Windows clipboard for cryptocurrency wallets. If it spots one, it will replace it with one controlled by the attacker. 

Complicated addresses

When a person tries to send funds from one address to another, they would usually copy and paste the recipient’s address, as these are a long string of seemingly random characters which are almost impossible to remember.

If the malware replaces the copied address with a different one, chances are the victim won’t see the difference and will just send the funds to the wrong address. 

The method actually works quite well, as these attackers stole some $400,000 from roughly 16,000 users, just this year. Most of the stolen cash is in Bitcoin ($380,000), Litecoin ($10,000), Ethereum ($4,800), and Dogecoin ($517). Due to the way the malware is designed, the researchers can’t be absolutely certain about the amount of money stolen, and speculate that the final figure is probably even bigger. 

Read more

 > Nearly $200m in crypto stolen in Euler Finance attack

> North Korean APT43 hackers target organizations to launder crypto using cloud

> Keep your business safe with the best endpoint protection for small business

While the victims are scattered all over the world (52 countries) the bulk of them reside in Russia, followed by Ukraine, and the US. The researchers believe Russians were the biggest targets as Tor was first banned, and later censored, in the country. That made Russians look for alternative places to grab the famed browser from.

"The Tor Project called to help keep Russian users connected to Tor to circumvent censorship," said Vitaly Kamluk, head of Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team for APAC. "Malware authors heard the call and responded by creating trojanized Tor browser bundles and distributing them among Russian-speaking users."

• Check out the best firewalls right now 

Via: The Register

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Siri’s 11-year reign may be drawing to a close as a new generative AI rival called Perplexity has just landed on the Apple App Store.

Note that Perplexity is not based on ChatGPT and has its own AI. However, it does function in a similar manner to ChatGPT. You ask it a question, like who designed the Golden Gate Bridge, and it’ll churn out a response in a few seconds. From there, you can either type in a follow-up question, use the voice command feature to verbally ask questions, or choose one from the generated selection. Responses can then be shared via a messaging app or social media platform. It’ll even save “your thread history so you can pick up where you left off,” according to the App Store listing. But unlike ChatGPT, Perplexity actually provides the sources it used to generate content. Underneath, you will see citations from Wikipedia, local news sites, and national newspapers like NPR accompanied by a brief piece of text providing context. 

To use Perplexity, you will need an iPhone supporting iOS 16 or later to install the app or an M1 Mac sporting macOS 13.0 or later.

As for an Android version, it doesn’t appear the developers behind Perplexity have any plans to make one at the time of this writing. We reached out to the team via the official PerplexityAI Discord channel, but haven’t heard back yet. The closest thing you can do is use the AI through a web browser on your Android device or Windows computer. There’s also a Chrome extension available if you prefer more direct access.

Perplexity on an iPhone (Image credit: PerplexityAI/Twitter)

Siri's future

With the introduction of Perplexity on iPhone, you essentially have some form of ChatGPT-like AI on every Apple platform and we don’t mean accessing the generative AI through a web browser. Mac computers have MacGPT, a native app offering quick access on desktops that saw a big update recently. A couple of weeks ago, the Apple Watch got Petey as an easily accessible, on-device assistant to replace Siri.

So we can’t help but wonder what’s cooking behind the scenes at Apple Inc. The company has been suspiciously quiet, allowing the likes of ChatGPT to roam on its platform unfettered as third-party apps. It's unlike Apple to just leave this new trend in the tech industry alone so it must be up to something. The closest indication we currently have is Apple enacting some new rules on its App Store for generative AI. According to a report by CNBC, it recently rejected an update to the BlueMail app due to concerns about the software’s ChatGPT feature not including a filter to protect minors from inappropriate content.

The date for Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2023 has been set for June 5. We’re looking forward to seeing what changes, if any, Siri may get. It'll be interesting to see if the long-standing virtual assistant will get a revamp allowing it to go toe-to-toe with its newfound rivals or be thrown out for a brand new AI model. 

Until then, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best virtual assistants for 2023. 

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Best Google Pixel Deals: Up to $1,000 Off Pixel 7 Pro, Free Pixel 6A and More - CNET

Grab one of Google's latest phones at a great price with these current promotions.

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Investment bank Goldman Sachs has echoed the fears of worker around the world that generative AI, like ChatGPT and Google Bard, could very soon replace our jobs.

Despite the technology having a respectably healthy effect on global GDP, the bank's report highlights that 300 million jobs are at risk, and that “significant disruption” is on the horizon as artificial intelligence becomes more accurate.

Some hope is portrayed in the mention that generative AI can ultimately boost workers’ productivity, making the news more of a shift in work patterns rather than total redundancy, however how the world adapts to AI remains pivotal to the livelihood of millions.

Will AI take my job?

As we have come to expect, AI’s effects are far-felt, extending to an estimated two-thirds of US and European jobs, with office and administrative support, and legal both likely to be heaviest affected. Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance; installation, maintenance, and repair; and construction and extraction are all among the least likely to be affected.

A smaller, but no less worrying, percentage of people are deemed to be working in high-risk roles. As many as 7% of US workers could see at least half of their work replaced by generative AI, presenting a significant risk to their roles.

Read more

> These are the best AI writers around

> The NCSC warns of the dangers of ChatGPT

> AI generations can be copyrighted now - on one condition

Goldman Sachs’s predictions haven’t come from nowhere, though. OpenAI, the company behind popular generative AI ChatGPT, recently announced the findings of a study on the effects of such models on the labor market. It found that four in five workers would see at least 10% of their work tasks affected by GPTs, while almost one in five would see at least half of their work affected.

While many have likened this new era to the transition from industrial to technological, others argue that even more people are at risk of being left behind, highlighting the urgency for countries and organizations to carefully consider - and even reconsider - the implications of AI.

• Considering a career change? Here are the best job sites

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Apple Pay Later Rolls Out on iPhones. Here's What It Means for You - CNET

Select users can now quickly finance purchases up to $1,000.

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Best Open Wireless Earbuds For 2023 - CNET

Looking for a set of true-wireless earbuds but hate jamming silicone tips in your ears? Here are your best options.

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Cybersecurity researchers have shared details on a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group that’s been operating in the shadows for five years now. 

Called APT43, the group was seen targeting governments, and high-profile individuals in the West (the US, Europe), but also in its neighborhood (Japan, South Korea).

The findings were shared by experts from Mandiant, which described APT43 as a “moderately sophisticated” group that mostly goes after sensitive information, but sometimes also is just after money, with stolen funds usually going to fund additional cybercrime operations.

Laundering cryptos

When stealing money, APT43 mostly targets cryptocurrencies. The researchers spotted the group using fake crypto investment apps for Android, tricking people interested in crypto loans, and stealing their funds, which are later laundered through hash rental and cloud mining services.

When stealing sensitive information, it mostly targets government and military agencies from North Korea’s adversaries:

"The group is primarily interested in information developed and stored within the U.S. military and government, defense industrial base (DIB), and research and security policies developed by U.S.-based academia and think tanks focused on nuclear security policy and nonproliferation," Mandiant says in its report.

"APT43 has displayed interest in similar industries within South Korea, specifically non-profit organizations and universities that focus on global and regional policies, as well as businesses, such as manufacturing, that can provide information around goods whose export to North Korea has been restricted."

Read more

> Google says Chinese hackers are targeting US government Gmail accounts

> Microsoft says it took down a Russian cyberattack against Ukraine

> These are the best endpoint protection software right now

Mandiant’s key argument that APT43 is a government player is the fact that it’s been seen “abruptly” switching targets, most likely after getting orders from higher echelons.

"More specifically, Mandiant assesses with moderate confidence that APT43 is attributable to the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the country's primary foreign intelligence service," the company said. The researchers have been tracking the group’s activities since 2018.

• Check out our list of the best firewalls right now

Via: BleepingComputer

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Spring Cleaning Your Closet? Here's How to Declutter and Organize Your Clothes - CNET

It's time for spring cleaning. That means throwing out those garments you haven't worn in years.

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Best Weight Loss Programs for 2023 - CNET

The right weight loss program will help you maintain healthy eating habits. These are our top picks.

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12 iOS 16 Features That Will Help You Make the Most of Your iPhone - CNET

You don't even need a new iPhone to take advantage of most of these features.

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After suffering through multiple delays, Apple Pay Later is finally touching down as it begins rolling out to randomly selected users across the United States.

Originally, the service was supposed to launch alongside iOS 16 back in September 2022, but developers ran into a variety of “technical setbacks”. Apple Pay Later allows people to apply for loans from $50 up to $1,000 to purchase whatever they want while avoiding paying the full price up-front. From there, users will pay off that amount in four separate payments across six weeks with no interest or extra fees slapped on top. $1,000 is a decent chunk of change, however, it's not a guarantee. Eligibility depends on your credit score; a history with low numbers will qualify for smaller loans. 

The feature will have its home in the Apple Wallet which comes with a detailed calendar that'll notify you of upcoming payments. If you're having a hard time paying, Apple will work with you to make up a new plan. And if you still can't pay off the bill, you won't be eligible for future loans. Customers must connect either a bank or debit card to their account to use the money. Credit cards cannot be used in order to, as Apple notes in its release, “prevent users from taking on more debt to pay back loans”.

Basic requirements

Before applying, you'll need to meet some basic requirements first. Currently, the feature is unavailable in Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Wisconsin plus all US Territories. Currently, Apple Pay Later is available in 45 states. People living in Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Wisconsin, or any of the US territories do not have access to the feature, at this time. You have to be at least 18 years old (19 if you live in Alabama) and living in a supported state with a valid physical address.

As for hardware, all you need is an iPhone or iPad updated to iOS 16.4 and iPadOS 16.4, respectively, with two-factor authentication enabled.

Once everything is squared away, you can apply through Apple Wallet via an option at the top. Be aware the company will run a “soft credit pull” to see if you’re in a “good financial position” to borrow the money. Those rejected will get an email from Apple explaining why you didn't make the cut.

Money rules

There are some rules regarding how you can spend the loan, however. 

The money will appear on the checkout page of a purchase under the Pay Later option where you’ll have 30 days to use everything. Past that time, you’ll have to reapply all over again. Whatever you get has to be used on one big order as leftover money can't be reused somewhere else. Additionally, the loan will only be accepted by online retailers and apps supporting Apple Pay, but you won't be forced to just buy Apple tech. It'll work for multiple products bought from a single retailer. Apple cannot see the details of that transaction (your purchase of an Xbox Series X and Sonic Colors Ultimate at Target.com will not be judged).

Pay Later is not currently supporting in-physical-store payments.

Apple Pay Later customers won't pay any fees, but Apple will be making some money off this program through its cut of the fees installment payment plan provider, Mastercard, charges retailers.

The company is pretty set on maxing out the loan at $1,000. For more expensive purchases, say a MacBook Pro, Apple recommends using something like the Apple Card to have payments across months instead of weeks. There are plans to expand support to all eligible customers in the US later this fall when Apple Financing, LLC, begins reporting to American credit bureaus. Unfortunately, there are currently no plans for a global launch.

Hopefully, there will be. Until then, check out TechRadar's list of the best iPhone models for 2023 if you're looking for a new device.

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Tired of Eye Strain? Here's How Optometrists Say to Beat It - CNET

Even if you stare at a computer all day, you don't have to accept eye strain. Here's what to do about it.

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Up to 15 Million Americans Are Losing Medicaid Coverage. Here's What to Know - CNET

Requirements for continuous coverage for Medicaid recipients expire on March 31.

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Best Road Trip Camera Gear - CNET

Here are the cameras and gear to step up your photo and video game.

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Apple’s MacGPT app, a native app for macOS that brings quick access to ChatGPT from the menu bar, has been updated to version 3.0. The new update adds on plenty of new features, as well as making it more accessible for users.

For instance, a new feature called Global lets you access MacGPT’s assistance from anywhere by using a text field that appears in the middle of the screen. Another feature is Inline, which brings ChatGPT AI into the text field by typing in a trigger phrase and prompt.

And because MacGPT loads the chat interface directly into the web browser, you’re able to log into OpenAI and then begin a conversation with the app by clicking the menu icon or you can assign a keyboard shortcut instead.

And not only will MacGPT feature its own updates, but ChatGPT-4 integration also brings with it plenty of other improvements like using images to search, being a virtual assistant for the visually impaired, and boosting your conversational skills in Duolingo.

ChatGPT has plenty of potential for good

Despite many of the moral issues that ChatGPT brings with it, there are so many accessibility uses that can make life easier for people, as well as for general quality-of-life uses. As mentioned before, the visually impaired or blind can use an app called Be My Eyes, which lets GPT-4 pick out images and sounds to pull relevant information from.

It also possesses response capabilities across 26 languages, including Korean and Italian. And if asked, it can summarize novels and films by using a database trained on millions of books, webpages, and plenty of text data. Because its memory bank can now hold 64,000 words, it can also remember about 128 pages of conversational text  – handy if you need it to recall information from a previous conversation.

Then there’s the fun side to ChatGPT, which comes from making it do quirky and harmless stunts. For instance, you can use it to code a videogame but the AI is wonky and often truncates the coding thanks to the character count limit. It can also write a movie script very poorly, or you can make it talk to itself and watch as it descends into madness thanks to the closed loop of conversation swapping information that wasn’t very accurate to begin with.

There are so many uses for ChatGPT, especially the updated GPT-4 version that brings so many improvements to the AI chat application. Of course, the legal, moral, and physically dangerous ramifications of said AI technology need to be properly culled before we can truly use it as the force of good it was meant to be.

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iOS 16.4 Is Out. How to Download the Latest iPhone Update - CNET

Added features include new emoji, voice isolation for better cellular calls, Safari website notifications for the lock screen and more.

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LG has kept its promise to update its premium handsets despite shutting up shop a few years ago. The company is rolling out Android 13 to the LG V60 ThinQ on T-Mobile. It is expected to arrive on other carriers in the coming weeks.

According to a changelog shared on an LG V60 group on reddit, a recent software update includes Android 13, with accompanying bug fixes and security updates. 

Android 13 was very much a behind-the-scenes update for all but a few Android phones. Still, LG's customers on Reddit have reported increased performance, and those security updates are definitely going to be handy.

Upon shutting down its mobile division in 2021, LG shared that it would be updating select premium smartphones for up to three years after their release. This marks the third year for the LG V60 ThinQ, and therefore most likely its final update. 

The LG Wing phone, the last premium handset from LG’s phone division, got an Android 12 update in September, 2022, and hopefully that phone will be elligible for an Android 13 update. 

The LG Wing should also get an Android 13 update (Image credit: Future)

In all, LG said it would keep updating its G series, V series, VELVET, and Wing phones for three updates after it shut down its phones team in 2020. Certain 2020 models such as LG Stylo and K series were due for only two years of updates, so it is unlikely those phones will get a new Android system moving forward.

Promise kept

It's not often that Android manufacturers dish out timely updates to older flagships. It's even more heartening when a manufacturer that no longer sells phones keeps to its word with no easy marketing benefit. LG did well keeping its phones with Android 12 up to date, and while we doubted it would keep up with Android 13, the company has honored its promises so far.

It's worth noting that the LG V60 ThinQ will be getting Android 13 before more contemporary phones like the Motorola Edge 30. That says a lot about both companies involved.

Still waiting for 13 on our Motorola Edge 30 (Image credit: Basil Kronfli)

Other than the LGV60, the LG Velvet is also expected to pick up Android 13 this year. That phone was the company's last Android flagship and received rave reviews.

If getting the latest software update is important to you, we can recommendmany of the best foldables and best Android phones that you can buy today, whichget great updates. LG's time was good, but even this update is a reminder that its time is over.

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Nothing Phone 2 could be launched in India soon, as the upcoming smartphone has purportedly bagged a certification from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) website. The handset is listed with model number AIN065, and could make its debut in the country in the coming months.

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Elon Musk has reportedly put a value of $20 billion (roughly Rs. 1,64,600 crore) on Twitter, months after he acquired the microblogging platform. The company's owner and CEO offered employees stock grants at the new valuation that is less than half of the $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,62,100 crore) that he paid to acquire Twitter.

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Twitter's source code was partially leaked online, according to a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The company has asked the court to order Github to produce "All identifying information" associated with the 'FreeSpeechEnthusiast' user name it has accused of leaking a portion of the company's source code on the platform.

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How Taking an Ice Bath Brought Me Closer to My Son - CNET

There's a new "King of Ice" in our house.

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8 Types of Food That Should Be Thrown Out Right Now - CNET

If you have these items in your fridge or pantry, get rid of them. They might not be safe to eat.

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Get Into Spring With up to 25% Off Shoes and Apparel at Nike - CNET

Update your wardrobe at Nike's spring sale and take an extra 20% off orders of $100 or more, or 25% off $150 or more.

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A team of scientists from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines have managed to convert an extract from crab shells into a bioplastic that they say can be used to make optical parts known as diffraction gratings.

These are popular parts used in a wide variety of products; they essentially split light into several of its component colors in different directions, exploiting a well known property of light. They are commonly used in lasers, wavelength division multiplexing (a fundamental building block of modern telecommunications) and spectrometers.

And it is in the latter hardware family that these organic diffraction graters could have the biggest impact. 

Crab shell super power

The ingredient extracted from the crab shell is called chitosan and can be used as a cheap, lightweight replacement for silicone (not silicon or silica).

Early research shows that chitosan-based diffraction gratings work just as well as silicone-based ones. "By showing that useful optical components can be made from materials typically considered waste, we hope to help improve sustainability in optical manufacturing and reduce the amount of seafood waste that requires disposal," said the research team leader Raphael A. Guerrero.

Crab shell has been singled out for providing some exciting potential in a number of applications. Scientists have thought about upcycling them to create a competitor to lithium-ion which they’ve christened “Crab Carbon”. 

Chitosan has been identified as a biocompatible polymer that could be used, as nanoparticles, to help treat lung cancer.

Often considered as a byproduct of the crab industry, chitosan extracted from crab shells (and potentially other crustaceans) could help positively change the optics industry, reduce waste and improve the quality of life of crab fishermen and their families.

The research looked into using chitosan as a hard material to replace silicone and it would be interesting to see whether it can be extruded on a large scale to mimic fibre optic - commonly used for wired communication.

The sort term goal of the Philippines team is to design diffraction gratings that could be used in environmentally friendly disposable spectrometers that can be discarded after a single use.

•  Via Optica and Phys.org 

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Best 4K TVs for 2023, Tested and Reviewed - CNET

With 4K TVs becoming standard, there's no shortage of choice on the market. But the best 4K TVs stand out for good reason.

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Best TV Deals of 2023: Save Up to $1,800 Off TVs From Samsung, LG, Sony and More - CNET

Check out great offers from popular TV brands, featuring a range of sizes, from compact screens to gigantic displays.

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Best Gaming Chair for 2023 - CNET

Tested and reviewed by CNET, we tried gaming chairs from DXRacer, Secretlab and others to help you find the size and style that's right for you.

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9 Signs You Need Glasses and Why You Shouldn't Ignore Them - CNET

You'd be surprised by how many little things suggest you need glasses.

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Best BBQ Sauce for 2023 - CNET

Add to your barbecue collection with the best BBQ sauces around.

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Framework announced brand new upgrades for its DIY laptop line that should greatly improve performance. These upgrades can be installed into older models, with two main upgrades for the motherboards: one that brings them from the Intel 12th-gen CPUs to the 13th-gen CPUs, and another that brings AMD CPUs to Framework laptops for the first time.

The 12th-gen Intel chips used in previous Framework laptops negatively affected battery performance but the manufacturer stated that 13th-gen chips are far more battery efficient and "firmware optimizations" will improve battery performance even further. 

The AMD upgrade is a bit more mysterious but we do know that it will combine Zen 4 CPU and integrated graphics using AMD's current-gen RDNA3 architecture, which will give the laptop a major performance boost so it should even handle low-end gaming.

Framework is doing what Microsoft and Apple aren’t

However, the main story here is that Framework has and continues to do what many other laptop manufacturers have only just started at the most in terms of Microsoft and have been skirting around the concept as Apple does.

One of the worst aspects of laptops by far is their lack of sustainability. The fact that you can’t easily upgrade components that naturally age like CPUs, GPUs, or even motherboards, means that eventually your nice and shiny laptop will die and will produce more e-waste. It’s an extremely wasteful cycle that only benefits short-term profits.

But Framework creating a laptop that can be upgraded with new parts while keeping the same modular base is a stroke of genius. Even better is how easy and accessible disassembly is, which is the major roadblock to DIY laptop maintenance, if the laptop manufacturer even allows for it in the first place.

In recent years, Microsoft has finally loosened the reins on ‘right to repair,’ allowing users to open up their Surface Laptop SE laptops and repair them — even featuring the steps in a how-to video, though the tech giant hasn’t been clear on whether this would void your warranty. When it comes to other Microsoft products, however, users are still forced to use first-party repair services.

It’s still better than Apple, which has refused to budge on its own stance regarding ‘right to repair’ when it comes to laptops and PCs. It does offer Apple Self Service Repair, but that only works for some phones.

As a refresher, a consumer’s ‘right to repair’ means that they are given the tools, knowledge, and legal leeway to repair their own tech and hardware, a movement that has grown increasingly popular as laptops have become more widespread. And compared to two multi-billion dollar corporations, Framework is light years ahead of them in progress.

Dell does have its own version of Framework’s DIY laptops called Concept Luna, which would offer the same features. It even bragged that you could take apart a laptop in two minutes, and watching the process unfold in live demos is quite impressive. However, Dell hasn’t released said project or even announced a release date for it, which means it’s still just a concept.

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How to Buy a Smartwatch: The Biggest Questions to Ask Yourself - CNET

How much do you want to spend? What types of fitness features do you need? These are two important questions to consider.

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Are Your Meal Preps Hurting Your Health? Here's What to Know - CNET

You're missing out on key nutrients if you're eating the same thing every week.

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Action camera brand Insta360 is entering new territory as it’s set to reveal what appears to be a new smartphone gimbal on March 29.

The 20-second teaser video doesn’t reveal a whole lot, but there are a few clues that we can use to paint a picture. For starters, the device will sport a small screen on the handle and some kind of folding mechanism for easier storage. Smartphones will sit on the gimbal via a magnetic clasp. In between the handle and clasp, it looks like there is a control panel with a wheel for changing various shooting modes on the side. The trailer zooms past this portion so it’s hard to tell what it has exactly.

Arguably the most revealing aspect of the teaser, though, is those shooting modes. Each one is represented by an acronym, and although Insta360 doesn’t directly say what they represent, we have a pretty good idea.  “F” is for Follow Mode giving full freedom of control to move the gimbal however you want. “PF” for Pan Follow Mode locking the gimbal to a horizontal plane. And Auto Mode to automatically track a subject. But what confuses us the most is the fourth one, FPV Mode (presumably meaning First-Person View).

Edge above the competition

Other reports make the argument FPV Mode could mean the gimbal has the ability to connect to the camera of an external device, namely a drone, and see that view through a smartphone. Drones like the DJI FPV have the ability to connect their camera to the DJI Goggles 2 headset giving people an “immersive flying experience”. Insta360 doesn’t sell any drones itself so it’s possible the company will offer third-party support instead. 

Assuming that this is the case, this would give the gimbal a unique edge over the competition by being more flexible. To have the same experience with DJI, you have to purchase the company's FPV drone and Goggles 2. Outside of some special online sale, you’re looking at over $1500 in equipment. Being able to see a drone’s viewpoint on a smartphone through a gimbal sounds like an interesting prospect.

But at the end of the day, we don’t know for sure. We’ll just have to wait until Insta360’s event on the 29th to get the full story. In the meantime, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best drones for 2023 across different budgets. 

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Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi on Friday reported a record drop in fourth-quarter revenue as the company weathered a slowdown in consumption and disruptions due to China's COVID-19 curbs. Early signs suggest China's economy will only rebound slowly, as consumers remain cautious about spending money despite an easing of restrictions on domestic and international trave...

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Instacart, DoorDash Partner With White House in Latest 'Food Is Medicine' Push - CNET

Finding healthy foods on an app might get a little easier. As part of the same initiative, the federal government proposed changes to food labeling.

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Cybersecurity researchers from Phylum have found a new form of malware in a PyPI package that was using Unicode to hide.

Unicode is a global encoding standard used for different languages and scripts, covering more than 100,000 characters, whose goal is to simplify and streamline how characters are viewed in electronic and digital devices. With Unicode, every letter, digit, and symbol, get a unique numeric value, that stays the same, regardless of the program or platform in use.

The malware is called “onyxproxy”, it is an infostealer on the hunt for developer login credentials and authentication tokens. It was available on PyPI for a week, before being shut down, and during that time, it managed to get 183 downloads, meaning that up to 183 different developers are at risk of credential and identity theft.

Hiding in plain sight

The malware carries a package called “setup.py” which, according to the researchers, has “thousands” of suspicious code strings which use a combination of Unicode characters. 

Observed on the surface, the characters look normal and benign - however, what the human eye sees, and what the program sees, are two vastly different things.

Read more

> More PyPI packages stealing data have been discovered

> Hundreds of malicious PyPI packages are spreading havoc online

> Check out the best endpoint protection solutions

In onyxproxy, there are three critical identifiers: “__import__”, “subprocees”, and “CryptoUnprotectData”. These have a large number of variants, which makes them ideal for beating string-matching-based defenses, the researchers explain. 

While the technique might sound complicated, the researchers claim it isn’t exactly sophisticated. However, should the abuse of Unicode for hiding malicious Python code become a trend, it might become cause for concern.

"But, whomever this author copied this obfuscated code from is clever enough to know how to use the internals of the Python interpreter to generate a novel kind of obfuscated code, a kind that is somewhat readable without divulging too much of exactly what the code is trying to steal," concludes Phylum.

• Here are the best malware removal tools right now

Via: BleepingComputer

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Sonic Origins Plus Will Let You Play as Amy Rose - CNET

Sonic returns to the PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch in June.

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Nvidia has released a massive update on its Game Ready Driver, which will give plenty of the top PC titles a noticeable boost in performance and graphics over the next few weeks.

The first is Diablo IV’s open beta, which releases on March 24 and will give the title access to DLSS 2 support. Upon launch on June 6, the full version will be getting DLSS 3 support for gamers with RTX 4000-series graphics cards.

Then, on March 28, Forza Horizon 5 will be getting a DLSS 3 performance update as well. According to Nvidia, once that drops gamers will be able to hit 120 FPS at 4K resolution with every setting maxed out.

Cyberpunk 2077 will also be getting a new feature on April 11 called Ray Tracing: Overdrive Mode, which is essentially support for path-tracing or full ray-tracing. According to the official blog post, this process “accurately simulates light throughout an entire scene” which means that “practically all light sources cast physically correct soft shadows.”

Explained even further, any natural colored lighting will bounce multiple times throughout the game world, which in turn creates more realistic indirect lighting and occlusion. And considering how impressive the Cyberpunk 2077 world already looks with regular DLSS 3, a boost in that could mean one of the most visually stunning gaming worlds.

Other titles set to receive super-resolution upgrades from Game Ready Driver include Deceive Inc., Smalland: Survive the Wilds, and The Last of US Part I. Resident Evil 4 will receive a day one optimization as well and four other titles — Kerbal Space Program 2, Last Epoch, Like a Dragon: Ishin!, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty — will be given optimal settings. 

PC gaming is finally evolving

DLSS is an incredible technological advancement that brings out the best in many PC games, showcasing what the best graphics cards can really do. And it feels like this gen in particular has found its footing with DLSS 3. 

One of the best examples, in my opinion, of how downright incredible a game can look and play with it is Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. An absolute technical marvel, it’s a PC port that takes every advantage of PC hardware to become a superior port in every way possible.

And now with the RTX 4000-series graphics cards out, titles can be pushed even further. Achieving 4K resolution while having ray-tracing capabilities and settings maxed out, while the FPS still chugs along at over 100 on average, is not only obtainable but already happening right now. And on gaming laptops no less!

It’ll be exciting to see how much further PC game performance can be pushed if we’re already seeing such excellent results even now.

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Britain's parliament will block TikTok on all devices on its network following a similar ban on government devices, becoming the latest Western institution to bar the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns. A TikTok spokesperson called the action "misguided", saying it was based on fundamental misconceptions about the company.

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Stop Dry Itchy Eyes With Things You Already Have in Your Home - CNET

No allergies are not always to blame, but try these tips to feel better.

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In an effort to further reduce its environmental impact, Microsoft has signed a contract with the aptly named CarbonCapture to bury its CO2 emissions below ground. 

The tech giant has been making various gestures towards going green in recent years, especially concerning the data centers used to power its cloud computing and CDN platform Azure. It was also one of the first companies to back projects that sought to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. 

Although based in LA, CarbonCapture is building a new direct air capture (DAC) facility in Wyoming, titled Project Bison, which is slated to begin operations in late 2024. The company's modular technology will take CO2 emission from the air and store them in containers, which will themselves be stored underground. 

Prevention vs capture

By 2030, Microsoft wants to be carbon negative, which will mean that it ends up removing more CO2 from the atmosphere than what it actually produces. And by 2050, it wants to remove same amount of CO2 that it has ever produced since its inception.  

Currently, the technologies to capture this amount of carbon do not exist, but Microsoft seems confident that eventually they will, and that this new deal with CarbonCapture is setting them up on the right path. Phillip Goodman, director of Microsoft's Carbon Removal Portfolio, said:

"This agreement with CarbonCapture helps us move toward our carbon negative goal, while also helping to catalyze the growth of the direct air capture industry as a whole."

read more

> Microsoft opens its greenest ever data center

> Google's data center water usage is revealed - and it's a lot

> Mini nuclear reactors could soon power data centers

Although Microsoft has been aiming to prevent the amount of CO2 it releases in the first place, its emissions started to rise in 2021 for the first time in years, producing 14 million metric tons that year, which is more than that produced by 2.7 million households a year in their electricity use. 

CarbonCapture, for its part, will only be able to capture 10,000 metric tons of CO2 a year according to its projections for Project Bison. However, it hopes to be able to increase this up to 5 million by 2030, a big ask considering all 18 DAC plants that are currently operational worldwide can only capture a combined total of just 0.01 million metric tons right now.

Despite this, CarbonCapture CEO and CTO Adrian Corless is excited about the deal with Microsoft, as it is the startup's biggest to date - larger even than all its other contracts combined - telling The Verge that it is "an important... validating step for our business."

Details are scarce regarding how just much of Microsoft's CO2 emissions will actually be captured by CarbonCapture, and how much the deal is worth. Microsoft has also bought carbon removal credits from another company, the Swiss-based Climeworks, again for an unknown amount. What we do know is that price per ton to buy captured CO2 from Climeworks is $600.

• Here are the best green web hosting providers to reduce your firm's impact on the environment

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Tencent Holdings on Thursday said it would restrict its focus to its core business, while maintinaing cost-cutting and improving efficiencies, as it reported its first drop in annual revenue to date. The world's largest video game company and operator of the WeChat messaging platform posted revenue of CNY 554.55 billion (nearly Rs. 6,65,600 crore) for 2022, down 1 per...

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The 8 Best Herbal Teas for Anxiety and Stress Relief - CNET

Our top herbal tea picks will help you calm down and ease anxiety.

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Intel Graphics head Raja Koduri is leaving Team Blue to found an AI gaming company, putting a spotlight on the future of Intel's discrete graphics dreams.

Announced by Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger yesterday on Twitter, the departure of Koduri comes after five years at Intel where he recently headed up Intel's AXG graphics unit, responsible for producing the company's discrete GPU to rival the best graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia.

Thank you @RajaXg for your many contributions to Intel tech & architecture-especially w/high-performance graphics that helped bring 3 new product lines to market in ‘22. Wishing you success as you create a new software co. around generative AI for gaming, media & entertainment.March 21, 2023

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Koduri is leaving to found a generative AI gaming software startup, according to Tom's Hardware, and his departure comes after a promotion in 2022 to executive vice president before being moved back to the role of Chief Architect, the role he took on after joining Intel in 2017 from AMD's Radeon Graphics Unit.

Thank you Pat and @intel for many cherished memories and incredible learning over the past 5 years. Will be embarking on a new chapter in my life, doing a software startup as noted below. Will have more to share in coming weeks. https://t.co/8DcnNdso3rMarch 21, 2023

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Koduri's time at Intel has been a bit rocky in recent years, owing to the struggles Intel has had with its Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards. Despite receiving decent reviews for those few reviewers who were able to get them in, finding the new graphics cards has been a challenge and those who have been able to get their hands on them have encountered performance issues tied to the drivers Intel has developed for the cards. Intel has since fixed some of these issues, but work remains to be done. 

How that work will continue remains to be seen, as Gelsinger's message makes no mention of a replacement or anything about the future of Intel's AXG graphics group.

Raja Koduri's departure is a great opportunity for an Intel reset

There has been a lot of hype around Intel Arc Alchemist as well as a fair bit of letdown. Many of us have been hoping hard for Intel's success in this endeavour as the AMD and Nvidia dichotomy in the GPU space could really do with some disrupting and there really aren't that many players who can enter the GPU fray thanks to the enormous cost of entry.

That cost might be one that Team Blue is eager to cut in the coming months, and I genuinely hope that Raja Koduri's departure isn't a sign of things to come in that regard.

With Nvidia's GTC 2023 event in full swing and Nvidia appearing to go all-in on AI and cloud services, I am very pessimistic about the future of Nvidia GeForce graphics cards. 

Market pressures are going to lean very heavily on Nvidia to invest in AI at the cost of its consumer products division, meaning more workstation GPUs and fewer graphics cards for gamers. The Nvidia RTX 5070 will still likely see the light of day in a couple of years, but with the way AI is going, I seriously doubt that we'll ever see an Nvidia RTX 6070.

That leaves AMD and Intel, and while Team Red makes some incredible products, lack of real competition can only stifle innovation long term, and AMD will need a fire under its ass if it is going to continue the very positive trends we're seeing.

And given the price inflation of the best AMD graphics cards in recent years, it's hard to call AMD the budget option anymore. No, we need something else to fill that gap in the market, and Intel is very well positioned to serve that very real need. Will they? I definitely hope so, and Koduri's exit should provide an opportunity for Intel to double down on its discrete graphics card ambitions rather than abandon them.

Intel Arc Alchemist might have been a semi-dud, but Battlemage can still succeed

To the intel graphics team in the battle arena🙏🙏🙏 https://t.co/DHjLeHkITLMarch 21, 2023

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Getting a new product launch is hard, and for a first effort Intel Arc Alchemist seems like a pretty decent enough offering. It could absolutely be better, but what we really need is for the next Intel GPU to knock it out of the park.

There is a lot of attachment to Arc Alchemist from the Intel Graphics team for obvious reasons, and there does seem to be some genuine affection between Koduri and the team he led. Adversity tends to produce that, especially when the world seems to be counting you out from the jump. 

But given everything, new leadership might be what's needed to get Intel's graphics team back on track to make its next GPU a success. That GPU series, codenamed Battlemage, is undoubtedly in the works and this reset could be the perfect opportunity to shrug off the challenges of Alchemist, learn the lessons that need to be learned, and come in hot with a strong contender for the best cheap graphics card on the market in a year's time.

And while every manufacturer wants to be out here claiming the title of "The Best There Is", let's be real: that's the Nvidia RTX 4090, and that's a graphics card that like five people are going to buy. Almost everyone else is going to be looking for something they can afford that will give them the next-gen gaming experience that they have been missing out on for the past few years.

Arc Battlemage can more easily hit that target and make a real case for itself as a viable alternative to Nvidia and AMD while also earning the gratitude of a lot of gamers out there who are increasingly feeling boxed out by those companies.

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The integration of OpenAI's technology into Microsoft-owned Bing has driven people to the little-used search engine and helped it compete better with market leader Google in page visits growth, according to data from analytics firm Similarweb. Page visits on Bing have risen 15.8 percent since Microsoft unveiled its artificial intelligence-powered version on February...

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Video streaming platform Lionsgate Play exposed sensitive data on millions of its users, cybersecurity researchers from Cybernews found.

The website's team found Lionsgate's platform kept an unprotected ElasticSearch instance, containing 20GB of server logs with roughly 30 million entries. Some of the data dates back to May 2022, and included user IP addresses as well as information on user devices, operating systems, and web browsers. 

While this is not exactly personally identifiable information, it can still be used by threat actors to conduct intrusions, the researchers said.

Possible authentication secrets

“It can be useful in targeted attacks, especially when combined with other leaked or publicly available information,” Cybernews’ team said in its report.

By knowing the IP addresses, the attackers can deliver custom-built malicious payloads to the targets, they added.

But this is not the only data that was leaked via ElasticSearch. Usage data, such as content titles, IDs, and search queries, were also leaked. This data is usually used by analysts to track the platform’s and content’s performance. Furthermore, researchers discovered unidentified hashes with logged HTTP GET requests, which are user-made requests for data, stored on the server.

While the researchers couldn’t say what the hashes are used for, they did say they contain more than 156 characters, meaning they were supposed to stay unchanged for long. 

“Hashes didn’t match any commonly used hashing algorithms. Since these hashes were included in the HTTP requests, we believe they could have been used as secrets for authentication, or just user IDs,” said researchers.

Read more

> What is Elasticsearch and why is it involved in so many data leaks?

> Elasticsearch databases are being hit hard by ransom attacks

> Here are the best endpoint protection services at the moment

When reached out to by the researchers, Lionsgate responded by closing the open instance. However, an official statement is yet to be made. 

Streaming platforms are popular targets among cybercriminals. Before Lionsgate Play, hackers managed to breach Plex, START, and Carbon TV.

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Not one to be restricted to just teaching languages, a recently discovered job posting indicates Duolingo is working on a new music app.

The company is keeping its cards close to its chest at the moment as the description doesn’t say much about what the software is planning. According to the posting, Duolingo is currently looking for someone who can teach certain musical concepts and has “substantial experience with music education” for both children and adults. Whoever gets hired will be put in charge of ensuring Duolingo Music (as we’ll refer to it) is based on “learning science” to teach music in a way “that is fun, fast-paced, and emphasizes ‘learning by doing’”. The posting also states the “Learning Scientist” will have to take the lead in creating a curriculum hinting the app is still in the early stages of development.

Beyond the description and what the company is looking for, not much else can be gleaned about Duolingo’s latest venture. It’s unknown what these "concepts" are exactly. Additionally, we don't know if the app will teach people how to read and write music or how to play an instrument. However taking a look at the company’s other education apps, Duolingo Music may follow a trajectory similar to how the company gamified other disciplines.

For instance, Duolingo Math teaches, well, math to both children and adults. None of it is super complex; no lessons on calculus or anything. The app instead focuses more on foundational math like multiplication and geometry. It also gamifies the lessons with the goal to ease off “math anxiety”. Duolingo claims 93 percent of U.S. adults have some sort of math anxiety making it difficult for some to learn. So, following that train of logic, the upcoming app could teach music lessons in an easygoing manner. 

Still in the works

The launch date for the new service is obviously unknown since the job posting was only recently discovered. It is worth pointing out another posting from Duolingo was found on LinkedIn for a Music Composition and Curricular Consultant. The job is for a freelance composer who has experience writing songs to “teach novice learners” in a digital setting. The LinkedIn posting has since been filled, but at the time of this writing, the Learning Scientist position is still open. So if you live in the Pittsburgh area and have a Ph.D in music education or music theory, here’s your chance to boost musical literacy.

If and when the app launches, you may be itching for a way to show off those new skills. In that case, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best free music-making software for March 2023. 

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Apple will debut iOS 17 in a few months to the not-quite-as-new-anymore iPhone 14 and select older phones. The update is expected to bring changes to Apple’s first-party apps and improve the operating system overall.

Though competitor Google has already released Android 14 for testing (and teased a little of what it’s going to be about), Apple typically keeps completely mum on what to expect from the newest iOS till its debut at WWDC (its annual developer conference), which often takes place in June each year. Select other features will be revealed with the launch of the iPhone 15, later this year, likely in September.

It’ll be a while until we get more details of iOS 17, but we do have some idea of what the next version of iOS could look like, and below you can read up on what we already know, as well as a brief wish list of what we’d love to see from the new update, when it does eventually break cover.

As more rumors and reports emerge with fleshed-out details, we’ll be updating this article, so make sure to check back for further details regularly. 

iOS 17: Cut to the chase

• What is it? The next big update for iOS – the iPhone's operating system
• When does it come out? Expected to drop in the middle of September
• How much does it cost? It'll be a free upgrade
• Which phones are supported? As yet unknown. Likely the iPhone XS and newer

iOS 17 release date

iOS 17 is expected to be released on or around the middle of September, to coincide with the expected iPhone 15 launch. Before that, Apple will unveil iOS 17 at WWDC in June. The dates for WWDC haven’t been released yet, but we assume the announcement will be made sometime in the next few weeks.

Shortly after WWDC, Apple will release two beta versions of iOS – a developer preview, and a public build. The public beta is often reliable enough to use on a daily phone about a month or two after the program starts.

iOS 17 expected features

When it comes to iOS 17’s features, one thing we can be reasonably sure about is that we won’t see a lot of big additions, like the lock screen or home screen widget upgrades that came with previous releases.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman – who’s a fairly reliable leaker of all things Apple – the company is allowing iOS and macOS to take a back seat this year, as it works on its new mixed-reality headset. This means that while there will be some new features, there won’t be as many as there might ordinarily be; with the company shifting focus to a new and potentially exciting product category. 

“Apple’s focus on the xrOS operating system – along with iOS 16 snags – has also cost it some new features in iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, the next major iPhone and iPad software updates. That software, codenamed Dawn, may have fewer major changes than originally planned,” Gurman said in his Power On newsletter. 

Apple’s iOS updates often feature improvements to first-party apps, including Music and Messages. The Messages app is reportedly in line for a redesign this year, but details are light, at present. As for big changes to things like notifications, the company doesn’t typically overhaul its interface in the same way Google does every few years, but there are still a few changes we’d like to see.  

iOS 17 feature wish list

Super Siri

(Image credit: Unsplash [Omid Armin])

ChatGPT is taking the world by storm, and Google and Microsoft have been quick to react. Apple set the world on fire with the launch of Siri, alongside the iPhone 4S, but the digital assistant still has yet to reach its full potential. As generative AI models grow in popularity, the large and very engaged iPhone user base would give Apple an advantage over its competitors, if it launched its own GPT-powered chatbot.

Improved notifications

(Image credit: Future)

This particular wish comes as standard – and goes ungranted – with every Apple update. The company has worked to slightly tweak iOS notifications every year, but they’re still horribly mediocre. There’s limited notification bundling or quick-reply support, and actionable notifications are still few and far between compared to Android.

Every year, we hope that Apple will bring Notification Center up to par – and every year Apple does the equivalent of placing a smiley band-aid on a gaping wound. Sometimes, Apple likes to do things its own way, and that’s fine; in this case, however, it's time for the company to swallow its pride and do the done thing.

RCS support 

(Image credit: Apple)

RCS, or Rich Communication Services, is gaining popularity on Android phones. It essentially turns basic SMS messaging into the equivalent of more modern apps, like iMessage or Facebook Messenger. Now, it’s not necessary for Apple to make RCS work on iPhones, but it would be better than the plain old SMS we currently have.

You can see when someone's typing, get read receipts, send larger files and more. It’s an emerging standard – much like USB-C – and in countries where texting via the Messages app is more common than something like WhatsApp or Telegram, there’s no downside to upgrading the Messages experience for everyone, as iOS users who prefer not to enable iMessage for one reason or another will also to make use of RCS' additional functionality without compromise. 

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