List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Apple has revealed an updated version of its MacBook Pro, featuring new chips and a new colour. The new computer was launched at its ‘Scary Fast’ event. The only other launch from the event was an update to the iMac, which was first released in 2021, which receives a new processor but no other changes. Both the new laptops and the updated iMac are powered by Apple’s new M3 chip. That is the third generation of the company’s own Apple Silicon chips, since it began producing them in 2020. Apple said that the M3 chip was around 15-30 per cent faster than the previous M2. But it preferred to compare its performance with the Intel chips that it used in its computers until 2019, in what appeared to be a gesture of humility about the changes in the new line-up. As well as the base version of the M3, which will go into the new 24-inch iMac and 14-inch MacBook Pro, Apple launched the more powerful M3 Pro and M3 Max. It is the first time that Apple has unveiled three chips at once – in previous generations, Apple launched the base version of the processor before higher-powered versions some months later. In addition to the new chip, Apple announced a new “space black” colour for the MacBook Pro. It specifically pointed out that it used a particular kind of aluminium that would not pick up fingerprints. The updated 14-inch MacBook Pro received a price cut from $1,999 to $1,599. All of the updated computers will go on sale next week, with the exception of the MacBook Pro with M3 Max, which will arrive later in November. Those three announcements – a new family of chips, alongside a new iMac and two versions of the MacBook Pro to put them in – were the only announcements from the event. Apple also removed the 13-inch version of the MacBook Pro from its line-up, but did not announce it during the event. It lasted only 30 minutes, unusually short for an Apple event. Apple chief executive Tim Cook closed the event by suggesting there would be no more major announcements for the rest of the year. The livestreamed launched had been odd from the beginning. Apple held it at night time rather than its standard morning launch, as well as holding it much later in the year than usual, and announced it with relatively little preparation. Read More Apple is about to launch new products at a shock event - follow live How Apple gave people a library of classical music – and made it accessible Apple is about to add a host of new features to the iPhone

Chipmaker Wolfspeed on Monday forecast a smaller-than-estimated second-quarter loss as it expects a boost to its business from

By Stephen Nellis Apple is expected to unveil at an event on Monday new Mac computers and possibly

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Zeba Siddiqui WASHINGTON The White House is working to finalize as soon as Tuesday

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada on Monday banned Chinese messaging application WeChat and Russian antivirus program Kaspersky on government-issued mobile devices due

MOSCOW The popular messaging platform Telegram will block channels that called for anti-Semitic violence in Russia's Dagestan region,

Apple is set to hold its latest event – and is promising that it will be “scary”. The event will begin the day before Hallowe’en and is rumoured to be bringing a host of new Macs. The company teased it with an invitation reading “Scary Fast” and apparent references to the Mac operating system. It is Apple’s third major event of the year, after the iPhone launch in September and its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. At WWDC, Apple revealed its new augmented reality headset, which might also feature in the upcoming launch. Otherwise, Apple is rumoured to be updating its iMac with a new chip, and putting new processors in its high end, 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. It will begin at 5pm local pacific time, which is 8pm eastern or 1am in the UK. It will be livestreamed on YouTube as well as Apple’s website.

Meta will launch a paid-for, subscription-based version of Facebook and Instagram. The company will allow people to pay up to €13 to have no ads appear on those apps. The change has been made to comply with European Union regulations, it said. As such, it will only be available to people in the EU, the European Economic Area and Switzerland. The monthly subscription plans for users in the EU, European Economic Area and Switzerland, will cost 9.99 euros ($10.58) for web users, while iOS and Android users will have to shell out 12.99 euros a month. The difference is to account for the fees taken by Apple and Google for payments on its platforms, Meta said – a move that follows a similar price difference for Twitter’s premium offering. The EU regulations threaten to curb Meta’s ability to personalize ads for users without their consent and hurt its major revenue source. Users across the world will continue to be able to use the site for free, and will see no change to their experience as a result, Meta said. But offering the paid-for subscription version allows Meta to comply with “the requirements of European regulators”, the company said, after a recent ruling. Having the option of paying for a version of Facebook and Instagram with no ads means that people will have more clearly consented to having their data used for marketing, Meta suggested it in its announcement. That in turn means it will better comply with European regulations, it said. The world’s most popular social media network has been under antitrust pressure in the EU. In July, it lost its fight against a German data curb order as Europe’s top court backed the German antitrust watchdog’s power to also investigate privacy breaches. Offering a choice between a free, ad-supported plan and an ad-free paid subscription might lead to users opting for the former, helping Meta to comply with the regulations without affecting its ad business. Meta was fined 390 million euros earlier this year by Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner, and was told it cannot use the so-called “contract” as a legal basis to send users ads based on their online activity. The company later said it intended to ask users in the EU for their consent before allowing businesses to target ads in order to address evolving regulatory requirements in the region. Additional reporting by agencies Read More Threads is not dying, Mark Zuckerberg insists Letitia James and 32 other attorneys general sue Meta for ‘harming youth’ People’s Instagram posts are showing where they are not expected

(Reuters) -Ford Motor said on Monday it would add more of Tesla's Superchargers to its electric-vehicle charging network, higher than

By Jeff Mason U.S. President Joe Biden will take wider-ranging action on artificial intelligence (AI) on Monday by

LONDON Britain said on Monday it would put forward legislation to implement its first set of rules to

Your brain doesn’t work the same when you speak to someone on Zoom, scientists have confirmed. Neural signalling is significantly less when chatting to someone through a video call rather than having a face-to-face conversation, the new study found. When researchers watched the brain of someone talking in real life, they found that there was a detailed and complex system of neurological activity. On Zoom, however, that was dramatically less. It suggests that there is still something fundamentally lacking about speaking with someone online. People’s faces are not able to light up people’s brains in the same way, the researchers suggest. That is something of a surprise: current models suggest that the brain should process people’s faces in the same way whether they are on Zoom or in real life, given the features of them are the same. But the new study suggests that there really is something fundamentally different between the two contexts. “In this study we find that the social systems of the human brain are more active during real live in-person encounters than on Zoom,” said Joy Hirsch, a Yale professor who was the lead author on the new study. “Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions.” To find that, researchers studied people’s brains in real time as well as looking at other signals, such as where people’s eyes moved. As well as increased neural activity, the researchers found that people’s eyes hovered for longer on the real faces, for instance. The two people’s brains also seemed to be more co-ordinated. That suggests that there are more social cues being shared between the two people, they said. “Overall, the dynamic and natural social interactions that occur spontaneously during in-person interactions appear to be less apparent or absent during Zoom encounters,” Professor Hirsch said. “This is a really robust effect.” The study suggests that face-to-face encounters remain very important, even as technology companies and others come up with new ways for us to interact with people remotely, the authors said. “Online representations of faces, at least with current technology, do not have the same ‘privileged access’ to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing,” said Professor Hirsch. The findings are described in a new paper, ‘Separable Processes for Live “In-Person” and Live “Zoom-like” Faces’, published in Imaging Neuroscience. Read More Scientists reveal what talking on Zoom does to your brain – and it’s not good Infrared lights spotted on Uranus could be clue to alien life Elon Musk says X posts with misinformation are ‘ineligible for revenue share’