The hurricane jumped three Safford-Simpson hurricane categories in less than a day, and scientists now propose a new factor that contributed to the storm’s evolution.
On March 6, federal prosecutors in northern California said they seized approximately $24 million worth of cryptocurrencies that were clawed back following a $150 million cyberheist on Jan. 30, 2024. The complaint refers to the person robbed only as ‘Victim-1,’ but according to blockchain security researcher ZachXBT the theft was perpetrated against Chris Larsen, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency platform Ripple.
ZachXBT was the first to report on the heist, of which approximately $24 million was frozen by the feds before it could be withdrawn. This week’s action by the government merely allows investigators to officially seize the frozen funds. But there is an important conclusion in this seizure document: It basically says the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI agree with the findings of the LastPass breach story published here in September 2023.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ahead of Andor‘s return, showrunner Tony Gilroy talks political ideology and playing in the spaces of Star Wars‘ familiar iconography.
Samsung’s offering up to $400 in instant trade-in credit on their elite smartwatch to make it an absolute steal for just $250.
“From the ID 2all onwards, we will have physical buttons for the five most important functions — the volume, the heating on each side of the car, the fans and the hazard light — below the screen,” he explained, adding: “It’s not a phone: it’s a car.”
This doesn’t mean touch screens are set to disappear on new Volkswagens, just that drivers will now have the option of physical controls for their most used day-to-day tasks. The new controls are set to make their debut in the ID.2all, a small, budget EV set to debut in Europe.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google didn’t explain exactly why it shipped a mandatory software update to the Pixel 4a, an Android phone from 2020, earlier this year. The nature of that update, which gave some models all but unusable battery life, provided some clues, as did later software analysis. But now, Australian authorities have provided a more concrete answer: battery overheating and fire risk.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Product Safety arm issued a recall for the Pixel 4a late last week. The reason, the commission said, is that Google’s firmware update and battery changes served to “mitigate the risk of overheating” because “an overheating battery could pose a risk of fire and/or burns to a user.”
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In the US and elsewhere, Google’s messaging did not use the term “recall.” Google stated on its “Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program” page that “certain” Pixel 4a models “require a software update to improve the stability of their battery’s performance,” which also “reduces available battery capacity and impacts charging performance.” Google said it is still safe to charge a Pixel 4a.
Why wait? Shark FlexStyle is at its best price ever, $350 cheaper than Dyson.
Google has gotten its first taste of remedies that Donald Trump’s Department of Justice plans to pursue to break up the tech giant’s monopoly in search. In the first filing since Trump allies took over the department, government lawyers backed off a key proposal submitted by the Biden DOJ. The government won’t ask the court to force Google to sell off its AI investments, and the way it intends to handle Android is changing. However, the most serious penalty is intact—Google’s popular Chrome browser is still on the chopping block.
“Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that—no matter what occurs—Google always wins,” the DOJ filing says. To that end, the government maintains that Chrome must go if the playing field is to be made level again.
The DOJ is asking the court to force Google to promptly and fully divest itself of Chrome, along with any data or other assets required for its continued operation. It is essentially aiming to take the Chrome user base—consisting of some 3.4 billion people—away from Google and hand it to a competitor. The government will vet any potential buyers to ensure the sale does not pose a national security threat. During the term of the judgment, Google would not be allowed to release any new browsers. However, it may continue to contribute to the open source Chromium project.
Aaron Paul and Eiza González co-star in the new sci-fi film from artist Flying Lotus, opening March 21.
Companies across healthcare, retail and utilities are increasingly seeking candidates who can integrate AI into existing roles rather than creating entirely new positions, with these skills commanding premium pay and greater job security.
The information sector leads with 36% of IT jobs in January seeking AI expertise, followed by finance and professional services firms. AI-related listings account for 1.3% of all job postings nationwide. New AI job postings surged 68% since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022 through end-2024, while tech postings overall fell 27% during the same period.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
No more need to crank the volume or turn on the closed captioning when you buy this compact speech-clarifying speaker from Amazon.
The celestial squabble between two stars has been going on for thousands of years, and is set to continue for another 1 million years.
Wolf argues that for AI to drive real scientific breakthroughs, it needs to do more than retrieve and synthesize information. AI should question its own training data, take counterintuitive approaches, generate new ideas from minimal input, and ask unexpected questions that open new research paths. Wolf also weighed in on the idea of a “compressed 21st century” — a concept from an October essay by Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei, “Machine of Loving Grace.” Amodei wrote that AI could accelerate scientific progress so much that discoveries expected over the next 100 years could happen in just five to 10.
“I read this essay twice. The first time I was totally amazed: AI will change everything in science in five years, I thought!” Wolf wrote on X. “Re-reading it, I realized that much of it seemed like wishful thinking at best.” Unless AI research shifts gears, Wolf warned, we won’t get a new Albert Einstein in a data center — just a future filled with “yes-men on servers.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Lego has always thrown curveballs with its approach to Mario sets, and its latest is no different.
If you’ve been looking for a reason to get a new tablet, this might be it.
Apple’s latest iPad Air isn’t a massive leap in performance compared to 2024’s version with M2.
Save 40% on the latest model of the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K for a limited time.
If you’ve picked up an iPad in the last five years or so, the new iPad Air will not surprise you. It is, in every way but one, identical to the iPad Air that Apple released last spring. The only difference is that the latest iPad Air has the M3 chip inside, instead of the already-capable M2. Even the (extremely muted) colors appear identical this year. Besides the 13-inch screen option Apple added last spring, the iPad Air is barely different from the one that was released way back in 2020.
That makes this iPad exceedingly easy to review — everything I wrote last May when I reviewed the 13-inch iPad Air M2 applies here. I like that it has a long-lasting battery, plenty of power, a reasonable amount of base storage and a front-facing camera on the landscape edge. The 13-inch model is still fairly large, but it’s thin and light enough to hold without issue — though if you prefer holding an iPad to using it with a keyboard, you’re probably better off with the 11-inch model. The Apple Pencil Pro released last year is a nice upgrade for serious visual artists. I don’t like that it still relies on Touch ID instead of Face ID, and I think it’s time the iPad Air had a better display.
Given that the M3 chip is the main change here, it’s worth giving it a little more attention. Geekbench 6 scores show that the iPad Air with the M3 is about 16 percent more powerful in both single- and multi-core scores. That’s pretty impressive given that the M2 iPad Air is less than a year old, but it’s not something that’ll radically change how you use the device. It does mean it’s a little more future-proof, though, and I’m always happy about that. In real use, the iPad Air handled multitasking through my workday, playing games, transcoding video and trying out various Apple Intelligence features with absolutely no hiccups and slowdowns.
Apple has been aggressive about putting extremely powerful chips in the iPad Air and Pro lineups for a few years now, and it’s nice that you basically never have to worry about slowdowns. And the newer chip had no ill effects on battery life — I easily got eight hours during a workday with the Magic Keyboard connected the whole time, and close to the 10 hours Apple promises when doing more causal activities or watching video.
Apple also fixed one of my two major complaints about the last iPad Air. It has a new Magic Keyboard modeled after the much-improved one that was introduced alongside the iPad Pro M4. It’s thinner and lighter than the old iPad Air keyboard, has a row of useful function keys and the trackpad is a bit bigger. These aren’t major changes, but they are enough to make me much happier with the keyboard experience this year. It doesn’t have a few niceties you’ll find on the iPad Pro Magic Keyboard, though: The top case is smooth plastic rather than aluminum, the keys aren’t backlit and the trackpad has a physical click rather than haptic feedback. However, this keyboard is also $30 cheaper than the one it replaces. It’s still wildly expensive — $269 for the 11-inch Air and $319 for the 13-inch model.
In fact, this whole package I’m trying is wildly expensive. The 13-inch iPad Air with 1TB of storage and 5G connectivity costs $1,449, and that’s not including the keyboard. However, a comparably specced iPad Pro costs, wait for it, $2,099 without its keyboard. The 13-inch Air starts at $799 with 128GB of storage, a price that seems fair to me. Similarly, the 11-inch Air at $599 feels like a great value and has numerous meaningful improvements over the basic iPad.
With the new iPad Air so similar to last year’s model, I started thinking about the compromises that Apple makes to keep the price of the Air at a more approachable level, and whether those are reasonable in 2025. The major advantages the iPad Pro M4 has over the iPad Air M3 are: a much better OLED display with a higher refresh rate, more storage space on the base model, a more powerful chip, better speakers and microphones, Face ID instead of Touch ID, a thinner and lighter design, a LiDAR sensor and a few extra photo and video capture capabilities. The iPad Pro also offers a nano-texture front glass option (to reduce screen glare) on the 1TB and 2TB models, and those models with more storage also have 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB.
In almost all cases, I don’t have any issue with those features staying exclusive to the iPad Pro. But after using the iPad Air for a bit, I think it’s time Apple finds a way to improve on the screen. In fact, I think there’s a solid solution waiting in the wings: deploy the mini-LED display that Apple used in the iPad Pro from 2021 and 2022. That screen refreshes at up to 120Hz, the same as others that Apple brands as ProMotion-capable, and max brightness when watching movies was 1,000 nits — and could jump up to 1,600 nits for HDR content. Brightness when not watching video maxed out at 600 nits, like the iPad Air, but given how popular iPads are for watching video, this would be a major improvement.
Chances are that between the higher refresh rate and improved brightness, Apple feels the mini-LED screen would still be too close to the iPad Pro’s OLED panel (which remains shockingly nice, probably the best portable screen I’ve ever seen). And Apple never made a mini-LED display for the 11-inch iPad Pro, so it would have to develop something new for the smaller iPad Air.
There are plenty of reasons not to do it, but I think the iPad Air deserves a better screen. In fact, I’d be happy enough if Apple just gave me the same screen with a higher refresh rate. The company still reserves that feature for its most expensive “Pro” devices, but the landscape is a lot different in 2025 than it was in 2020. Plenty of midrange phones have 90Hz or 120Hz screens. Of course, Apple has never really cared about what other manufacturers do; it has pretty consistent rules about what devices get what tech. The iPad Air’s screen is essentially the same as the one on the MacBook Air, while the more expensive iPad Pro, MacBook Pro and iPhone Pro lines all get higher refresh rates. That’s just where we’re at, but I’m ready for it to change.
Of course, I also need to admit that the iPad Air’s screen remains quite lovely. Apple has fine-tuned its LCD tech to within an inch of its life, and it shows in the vibrant colors, overall sharpness and great viewing angles. Sure, I notice that blacks aren’t as “truly black” as they could be with an OLED or mini-LED, but I’m not sitting around thinking about that when I watch movies or play games. I just enjoy what I’m doing without fussing over screen specs.
The lower refresh rate is more noticeable in day-to-day usage — you’re constantly touching, swiping and scrolling through content on an iPad, and it just does not feel as fluid. My main devices are a MacBook Pro, iPhone 14 Pro and iPad Pro, all of which use ProMotion. Stepping down to the iPad Air is just a bit of a bummer. And while Apple clearly feels it doesn’t always have to respond to larger industry trends, it’s hard to imagine it sticking with 60Hz screens for most of their products much longer.
My other major quibble with the iPad Air is Touch ID. At this point, Face ID really does not feel like a “Pro” feature. Excluding the iPhone SE lineup, every new iPhone since 2018 has had Face ID, but you still need to spend $1,000 or more to get it on an iPad. That feels a little extreme! Touch ID is fine, but there are a lot of sites and services I often need to log in to for work and having to constantly reach up and touch the top button is a bit of a hassle. Especially compared with just making sure my face is in frame with the front camera. This probably felt like more of a pain during my review, since the iPad Air is brand new and setting up requires a ton of logging in to various apps. Still, Face ID definitely does not feel like a feature that needs to be locked to Pro devices at this point.
Everything else you need to know about the new iPad Air is covered in my review from 10 months ago, but I’ll sum it up. I think the Air remains a clear upgrade over the base iPad — I appreciate its improved display, stronger performance, more robust multitasking experience and better accessories. Not to mention the 13-inch Air is the only way to get a big-screen iPad without breaking the bank. I’m glad Apple built a better keyboard too, and if you have an older iPad Air, the new keyboard will work with it.
But the new iPad with the A16 chip is also better than its predecessor because Apple has fixed a number of issue with it since 2022. The price is lower, storage is doubled and the dumb Lightning Pencil charging situation is now gone. If you don’t care about Apple Intelligence, more advanced multitasking and a better or bigger screen, a lot of people looking for “just a good iPad” won’t miss the Air’s upgrades, especially if they’re saving $250.
However, for people who want more from their iPad, the Air is just as easy for me to recommend as it was last year. You can get 80 percent of the iPad Pro experience for a lot less money, and the vast majority of buyers aren’t going to miss the Pro’s extra features.
My main caveat is that this iPad Air feels like a slightly-upgraded stopgap ahead of a bigger redesign, much as the iPad Pro was in 2022. That iPad went from an M1 to an M2 and got some nice software updates, but was largely the same as its predecessor — and then Apple gave it a massive update a year and a half later. The iPad Air M3 feels like it’s in a similar place, just waiting for a big refresh. I don’t think it’ll be too long before Apple has to update some of its older bits, particularly the display. If you’re the kind of person who really loves a good screen, it might be worth waiting another year to see if Apple finally brings faster refresh rates to more iPads.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/ipad-air-m3-review-a-modest-update-thats-still-easy-to-recommend-130045196.html?src=rss
Plus, could Charli XCX be headed to Greta Gerwig’s Narnia?
Last week was a busy one filled with Apple announced news, with the company refreshing its Mac and iPad lineups. Now, we’re starting to see deals on some of the older models that will soon be discontinued. One of the best sales is on the 10th-gen iPad, which is down to $269 at Amazon for the blue and silver colorways. It briefly dropped to a record low of $260 at the end of last week, but now you’ll find the $269 price more readily.
The 10th-gen iPad arrived in late 2022. At least until we put the new model through its paces, this is our current pick for the best budget iPad — a recommendation that automatically becomes a little stronger whenever it gets this kind of discount.
We gave this model a score of 85 in our review. We felt that the screen was somewhat lacking compared with those found in the likes of the iPad Air. However, we appreciated several updates such as the switch to a USB-C charging port and improved performance compared with the previous base iPad. Apple also moved the front-facing camera to the landscape edge, making video calls much more palatable when you’re using the tablet in that orientation.
If you just want an iPad to help you catch up on reading and email, control your smart home devices, watch videos and stream music, this is probably the one to go for. More resource-intensive tasks will require a more powerful tablet, but this one will handle the basics.
Meanwhile, if you’re interested in picking up the latest base iPad, you can pre-order one now. Amazon even has a small discount on the latest iPad, dropping it from $349 to $329. Apple has upgraded the chipset to an A16 and doubled the base storage to 128GB, but there’s no support for Apple Intelligence in the 11th-gen iPad.
Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-10th-gen-ipad-drops-to-a-near-record-low-price-171121239.html?src=rss