After OpenAI announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. uninstalls of ChatGPT surged 295% in a single day. Meanwhile, rival Anthropic “gained enough popularity to earn the number one spot on the App Store’s Top Free Apps leaderboard,” reports Engadget. TechCrunch reports: This data, which comes from market intelligence provider Sensor Tower, represents a sizable increase compared with ChatGPT’s typical day-over-day uninstall rate of 9%, as measured over the past 30 days. […] In addition, ChatGPT’s download growth was impacted by the news of its DoD partnership, with its U.S. downloads dropping by 13% day-over-day on Saturday, shortly after the news of its deal went public. Those downloads continued to fall on Sunday, when they were down by 5% day-over-day. (Before the partnership was announced, the app’s downloads had grown 14% day-over-day on Friday.)
[…] Consumers are also sharing their opinions about OpenAI’s deal in the app’s ratings, where 1-star reviews for ChatGPT surged 775% on Saturday, then grew 100% day-over-day on Sunday, Sensor Tower said. Five-star reviews declined during the same period, dropping by 50%. Other third-party data providers back up Sensor Tower’s findings.
After nearly 4 million years of anonymity, the most complete skeleton of an ancient human relative ever found finally has a face (or more precisely, facial bones). Scientists have unveiled a 3D digital reconstruction of “Little Foot,” an Australopithecus individual whose nearly intact remains have provided a rare view into the dawn of the
Matthew Garrett examines
the factors that go into the decision about whether to install a
firmware update or not.
I trust my CPU vendor. I don’t trust my CPU vendor because I want
to, I trust my CPU vendor because I have no choice. I don’t think
it’s likely that my CPU vendor has designed a CPU that identifies
when I’m generating cryptographic keys and biases the RNG output so
my keys are significantly weaker than they look, but it’s not
literally impossible. I generate keys on it anyway, because what
choice do I have? At some point I will buy a new laptop because
Electron will no longer fit in 32GB of RAM and I will have to make
the same affirmation of trust, because the alternative is that I
just don’t have a computer.
Let’s deal with the bad news first: Apple is reverting a price cut from last year. It dropped the M4-powered MBA’s starting price down to $999, but for the M5-equipped model, you’ll need to shell out at least $1,099.
The company claimed the M5 MacBook Air will be able to deliver four times faster performance in AI tasks than the M4 MBA. Compared with the M1 MacBook Air, you’ll get up to 9.5 times faster performance, the company said.
Along with swapping in a more powerful chip, Apple has upgraded the starting storage by doubling it from 256GB to 512GB. The company says the SSD has “2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous generation.” You can kit out the MacBook Air with 4TB of internal storage if you have the will and the means.
You’ll also get 16GB of RAM for starters. The memory has 153GB/s of bandwidth, which Apple said is a 28 percent improvement over the M4 MBA. The latest MacBook Air can be equipped with up to 32GB of memory.
Just like it did with the latest iPad Air, Apple has upgraded the connectivity hardware. Thanks to the inclusion of the company’s N1 wireless chip, the M5 MacBook Air supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
As you’d imagine, the M5 MacBook Air runs on macOS Tahoe and it supports Apple Intelligence features. It has a Liquid Retina display, 12MP Center Stage camera, a sound system with Spatial Audio support and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which allows the laptop to support up to two external displays. Apple claims the M5 MacBook Air will run for up 18 hours on a single charge.
The M5 MacBook Air is available in 13-inch and 15-inch models, with the latter starting at $1,299. It’s available in sky blue, midnight, starlight and silver. Pre-orders start on March 4 at 9:15AM ET. The laptops will be available in stores in 33 countries and regions on March 11.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-macbook-air-m5-starts-at-1099-up-100-from-the-m4-141612909.html?src=rss
NVIDIA made relatively quick work of stomping out a bug in its 595.59 WHQL driver following reports of fan issues. Just a few days after pulling that driver release, NVIDIA is pushing out its 595.71 WHQL driver package with the same Game Ready optimizations for Resident Evil Requiem, one of the most anticipated games of the year, but gamers
As part of its big week of announcements, Apple has unveiled a new pair of M5 chips alongside two new MacBooks. The new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips will power the new MacBook Pro that was just announced today, while the new MacBook Air comes with the base M5. According to the company’s press release, the M5 Pro and M5 Max come with an “advanced GPU with Neural Accelerators and higher unified memory bandwidth for a massive increase in AI compute.”
At the heart of the M5 Pro and M5 Max are what Apple is calling a new “Fusion Architecture” that “combines two dies into a single system on a chip (SoC).” The chips both feature a new 18-core CPU, six of which Apple is now calling “super cores, that are the word’s fastest CPU core.”
The other 12 are “all-new performance cores, optimized for power-efficient, multithreaded workloads.” Altogether, Apple says these CPU changes improve performance by “up to 30 percent for pro workloads.” Meanwhile, the GPU is a jump over the next-gen design we saw in the M5, as it goes to up to 40 cores. Each GPU core has a Neural Accelerator in it, and together with the higher unified memory bandwidth, the company says the M5 Pro and M5 Max offer “over 4x the peak GPU compute for AI compared to the previous generation.”
Apple added that graphics performance is also getting a substantial boost, by up to “35 percent for apps using ray tracing” compared to the M4 Pro and M4 Max.
To be clear, this isn’t the first time Apple has claimed it has the “world’s fastest” core. According to our resident Apple Silicon expert Devindra Hardawar, the benchmarks have proven the company’s claims true. It’s also worth noting that the two-die design isn’t novel or unique, as companies like Intel and AMD have been doing similar.
The M5 Pro and M5 Max will first show up in the new MacBook Pro, which is available for pre-order starting March 4, and will arrive on Wednesday, March 11.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/apple-unveils-the-m5-pro-and-m5-max-chips-which-feature-new-faster-super-cores-141533420.html?src=rss
It happened much later than we expected, but Apple’s announcement of MacBook Pros with its M5 Pro and M5 Max chips has finally arrived. These more powerful variants on Apple’s silicon will be available in the 14-inch and 16-inch models of the laptops. Pre-orders will open on March 4 with an expected ship date of March 11. You’ll want to save some extra coin this time, though, as prices have gone up compared to the prior generation.
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro can be kitted out with either an M5 Pro or M5 Max. The Pro option for the chip boasts a CPU with 15 or 18 CPU cores and 16 or 20 GPU cores. For the M5 Max, users will have 18 CPU cores along with 32 or 40 GPU cores. The base model with an M5 Pro has either 24 or 48GB of RAM and now starts with 1TB of storage, up from 512GB as was standard before.
If you’re eyeing the 16-inch MacBook Pro, it starts with the M5 Pro with 18 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores. You can also get the same two M5 Max configurations as you can on the 14-inch model.
Perhaps most significantly, Apple has raised prices on its entire MacBook Pro lineup. The 14-inch M5 model previously started at $1,599; it’s now priced at $1,699. At least you’re getting something for that cash, as Apple has doubled its base storage to 1TB.
The same goes for the new M5 Pro and Max options. The 14-inch with the M5 Pro now starts at $2,199 instead of $1,999, while the 16-inch starts at a whopping $2,699 instead of $2,499. That 16-inch model comes with 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage now as standard; that’s again double the storage space from the prior model. The M5 Max model starts with 2TB of storage and 36GB of RAM for $3,599 (14-inch) or $3,899 (16-inch).
Running down the rest of the specs: Apple says the storage in the new MacBook Pro is twice as fast as the prior generation — so you’re getting more, faster storage than before for the extra cash. The laptops also include the Apple-designed N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity, and Apple says the MacBook Pro is rated for up to 24 hours of battery life. It has the same excellent Liquid Retina XDR display as we’ve seen for multiple years now, as well as a 12-megapixel “Center Stage” front-facing camera.
It’s a little unusual for these heavy-duty upgrades to Apple’s MacBook Pros to be announced so much later from the news of its latest silicon updates. The company debuted the M5 chip last fall as usual, but spent several months before it revealed these major hardware additions for housing it. And the M5 MacBook Pro that was announced in October shortly after the M5 chip news came with zero fanfare.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/apple-brings-its-m5-pro-and-max-silicon-to-the-next-macbook-pro-generation-141553279.html?src=rss
Colnago has revealed two limited-edition bikes that put their carbon frames on full display, without any paint and only minimal graphics.
The Y1Rs and V5Rs Dark Series bikes are said to take Colnago’s philosophy of creating bikes for riders who want more from the machine beneath them “to its logical extreme”.
“The finish reflects the ideal color scheme for dedicated racers: full carbon with visible carbon-fiber layup, complemented by chrome-plated details. A minimum layer of transparent coating is sprayed to assure the quality of the finishing,” says Colnago.
Colnago says the bikes have been made the same way as Tadej Pogačar’s raw-carbon Y1Rs that he used at last year’s Tour de France.
Having stuck with his standard Colnago Y1Rs for the opening weeks of the Grand Boucle, Pogačar switched to a raw-carbon version of the aero bike for the stage 15 uphill time trial and then used it again for stage 16, which finished on Mont Ventoux.
The Dark Series frames show off the carbon layup. Colnago Tadej Pogačar used a raw-carbon Colnago Y1Rs at the 2025 Tour de France. Colnago
Colnago said at the time that a typical Y1Rs build weighs between 7.2 and 7.5kg, while Pogačar’s raw-carbon version was just over 7kg. The Italian brand also said the aerodynamic gains of the Y1Rs outweighed the small weight savings of switching to the V5Rs.
Whether the radical looks of the Y1Rs or the more classic appearance of the V5Rs appeal to you, Colnago says there will be 300 of each Dark Series bike, and production has already started in a range of sizes.
The bikes will arrive in shops from early March, starting with Colnago Elite Dealers. Prices are to be confirmed.
Apple continues its gradual unveiling of new products this week with the launch of the Studio Display and an all-new 27-inch Studio Display XDR. The latter is a higher-end model aimed at content creators with a 27-inch 5K Retina XDR display that features a mini-LED display with 2,000-plus dimming zones, up to 2,000 nits of peak HDR brightness and a wider color gamut for improved accuracy. It appears to be a replacement for the expensive, nearly seven-year-old 32-inch 6K Pro XDR Display, which is no longer for sale on Apple’s website.
The Studio Display XDR also has a 120Hz refresh rate, addressing complaints about the relatively anemic 60Hz refresh rate of previous models. At the same time, it addresses a longstanding user ergonomic complaint with a new tilt- and height-adjustable stand, with a height range of 105mm.
Apple
Apple calls the Studio Display XDR the “world’s best pro display” for things like HDR video editing and medical displays. Brightness levels are certainly outstanding at 1,000 nits of SDR and 2,000 nits HDR, and the 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 80 percent Rec.2020 coverage are also outstanding. The new model should also be fine for some light gaming thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate and Adaptive Sync support, though many buyers may want a 32-inch or larger display like the previous model.
Other features include a 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View support and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity with a second port for downstream high-speed accessories or additional daisy-chained displays. It can also act as a Thunderbolt hub, while offering up to 140W of charging power through the included Thunderbolt 5 Pro cable, enough to fast-charge a 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple
Along with the Display XDR, Apple also announced a new version of the basic Studio Display. As before, it comes with a 27-inch 5K Retina display with up to 600 nits of brightness and P3 wide color, either with standard of optional nano-texture glass (a $300 option). However, it now includes an improved 12MP Center Stage camera along with Desk View to show your face and an overhead view of your desk at the same. You also get a studio-quality three-microphone array and six speaker sound system with Spatial Audio
That display now supports Thunderbolt 5 connectivity as well, providing higher-speed connections for accessories and the ability to daisy-chain displays. However, max charging power on this model is limited to 96W, enough to fast-charge a 14-inch MacBook Pro. The Studio Display comes standard with a tilt-adjustable stand, but you can get it with a tilt- and height-adjustable standard or a VESA mount adapter for custom desk setups.
The Studio Display XDR will be available tomorrow for pre-order starting at $3,299, while the new Studio Display also goes on pre-order on March 4 for $1,599.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/apple-reveals-its-new-5k-mini-led-studio-display-xdr-141515587.html?src=rss
XLR microphone owners, rejoice: Shure’s successor to the MVX2U Digital Audio Interface (DAI) brings the adapter into the mobile era. The compact MVX2U Gen 2 adds more advanced onboard audio processing. But its most notable upgrade is mobile device compatibility, so you’re no longer limited to desktop use.
The single-channel MVX2U Gen 2 provides up to +60dB of gain and 48V phantom power. On the processing front, the adapter includes an auto-level mode. There’s also a real-time denoiser to minimize background noise and a pop filter (“Popper Stopper” in Shure marketing-speak) to soften those harsh plosive sounds. Shure says the new model improves the noise floor, headphone amp and DAC.
The adapter stores your last-used audio processing settings. That way, you don’t have to worry about your settings getting wiped out when switching between devices or software.
The Shure MVX2U Gen 2 includes a 1m (3.3 ft) USB-C to USB-C cable, so you can get it up and running quickly on your phone, tablet or PC. The adapter is now available for $139 from the company website.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/shures-next-gen-dai-adds-mobile-support-140000205.html?src=rss
An anonymous reader shares a CTech article with the caption: “A brilliantly executed operation.” From the report: Years before the air strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israeli intelligence had been quietly mapping the daily rhythms of Tehran. According to reporting by the Financial Times (paywalled), nearly all of the Iranian capital’s traffic cameras had been hacked years earlier, their footage encrypted and transmitted to Israeli servers. One camera angle near Pasteur Street, close to Khamenei’s compound, allowed analysts to observe the routines of bodyguards and drivers: where they parked, when they arrived and whom they escorted. That data was fed into complex algorithms that built what intelligence officials call a “pattern of life,” detailed profiles including addresses, work schedules and, crucially, which senior officials were being protected and transported. The surveillance stream was one of hundreds feeding Israel’s intelligence system, which combines signals interception from Unit 8200, human assets recruited by the Mossad and large-scale data analysis by military intelligence.
When US and Israeli intelligence determined that Khamenei would attend a Saturday morning meeting at his compound, the opportunity was judged unusually favorable. Two people familiar with the operation told the FT that US intelligence provided confirmation from a human source that the meeting was proceeding as planned, a level of certainty required for a target of such magnitude. Israeli aircraft, reportedly airborne for hours, fired as many as 30 precision munitions. The strike was carried out in daylight, which the Israeli military said created tactical surprise despite heightened Iranian alertness. The Financial Times reports that the assassination was a political decision as much as a technological feat. Even during last year’s 12-day war, when Israeli strikes killed more than a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists and senior military officials and disabled air defences through cyber operations and drones, Israel did not attempt to kill Khamenei.
The capability to do so, however, had been built over decades. Former Mossad official Sima Shine told the FT that Israel’s strategic focus on Iran dates back to a 2001 directive from then-prime minister Ariel Sharon instructing intelligence chief Meir Dagan to make the Islamic Republic the priority target. What distinguishes the latest operation, according to the FT, is the scale of automation. Target tracking that once required painstaking visual confirmation has increasingly been handled by algorithm-driven systems parsing billions of data points. One person familiar with the process described it as an “assembly line with a single product: targets.” Further reading: America Used Anthropic’s AI for Its Attack On Iran, One Day After Banning It
Last year AMD and Intel as part of the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group announced ChkTag for x86 memory tagging across processors to better fight buffer overflows and use-after-free errors. In preparing for ChkTag with future processors, Intel has begun adapting their Linear Address Masking (LAM) support to more nicely jive with it…
The KDE project released KDE Plasma 6.6.2 today as the second maintenance update to the latest KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop environment series to address more bugs, crashes, and other issues.
Intel yesterday sent out their first “drm-xe-next” pull request to DRM-Next of new Xe kernel graphics driver improvements they have readied for their eventual upstreaming into the Linux 7.1 kernel…
Zwift launched a set of Mystery Spinners in Watopia as a fun lead-in to the Big Spin 2026 series, so I thought it would be a fun challenge to create the shortest possible route that hits all 8 spinners.
The route, it turns out, is rather similar to the Four Horsemen in terms of the big climbs it hits, and the overall length and elevation gain. Strong riders will be able to finish the route in under 2.5 hours, while most riders can expect it to take 3+ hours to complete.
About Rebel Routes
“Rebel Routes” are Zwift rides not available on Zwift’s routes list, thus requiring manual navigation.
The reward for your rebel ride? Exploring a new route, knowing you’ve gone where few Zwifters have gone before. And a Strava segment rank in the tens or hundreds instead of the thousands! Rebel Routes are also included as a separate category on our Veloviewer Route Hunter leaderboard.
Route Description
Our basic ride plan is to knock out all the Mystery Spinners in and around downtown Watopia before heading up the Epic KOM, then finishing on Alpe du Zwift. Begin by choosing the Hilly Route, which will start you in downtown Watopia, and heading in the right direction up the Hilly KOM.
After finishing the KOM (spinner #1), take the KOM bypass to head back into downtown Watopia, then out to the Volcano for a lap of the circuit in a CW direction (spinner #2). Then it’s up the Volcano KOM for spinner #3, and out to Jarvis for the KOM and spinner #4.
That’s half the spinners done. Those are the easy ones. Now we need to do some climbing!
Head into Ocean Boulevard and take a right at Sequoia Circle to head up the Epic KOM forward. You’ll get spinner #5 at this KOM arch, then turn right to head up the Radio Tower KOM “bonus climb” for spinner #6.
Descend from the Radio Tower (it’s fast) and head down the Epic KOM the way you came up, except hang a right onto The Grade descent. Drop all the way down into Ciudad La Cumbre, then turn right toward the Jungle. Two spinners left!
A bit of flat road gets you to spinner #7, Stoneway Sprint Reverse. Now you have just one spinner left… but it’s going to take some work to get there! Get onto the Jungle Circuit, then turn left to head up Alpe do Zwift. Spinner #8 is at the top. Hup hup!
Turn By Turn Directions
Begin by choosing the Hilly Route, which will start you in the right place and heading in the right direction up the Hilly KOM.
The third course in Walkabout Mini Golf’s Passport series takes a trip back to the golden age of filmmaking.
The thirty-ninth course for Walkabout Mini Golf has been confirmed to be Passport: Hollywood. This is the third Passport entry, following trips to Venice and Tokyo. This new DLC is scheduled for March 12 for $4.99.
Prior to VR development, the team at Mighty Coconut spent ten years working animation and VFX for Hollywood features and series. Many of its current team members have film backgrounds, so Passport Hollywood doubles as a love letter to the company’s cinematic roots.
March 12 is also three days before the annual Academy Awards, so the timing for this course lines up with an increased attention on the filmmaking industry.
Passport Hollywood is the first DLC for Walkabout under its new pricing structure, which was announced as part of a restructuring within Mighty Coconut following a twenty five percent staff layoff. There will also be a reduction in DLC courses in 2026, going from seven to six and development of the iOS version will be sunset sometime in the near future.
We will have full coverage of the Passport Hollywood course when it releases next week.
Walkabout Mini Golf is available on Steam, PSVR2, Quest, Pico, and Apple App Store. The game is also available as part of Meta’s Horizon+ subscription service.
