Apple’s big week of Mac news continued with the arrival today of the new M4-based MacBook Pro family, including a powerful new M4 Max processor and a bump to standard memory in the MacBook Air.

“MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful tool that millions of people use to do their life’s best work, and today we’re making it even better,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, announcing the new machines.

Apple’s latest notebooks follow the introduction of the mighty Mac mini and iMac — also powered by M4 processors – and promise to deliver the kind of power and performance for even the toughest professional workflows. Of course, the energy benefits are also apparent in the 24-hour battery life Apple promises. 

Apple Intelligence is visible throughout all the new Macs. But perhaps another facet of Apple’s intelligence is that by introducing a new Mac each day this week, it has grabbed a huge chunk of the news cycle. Apple also quietly beefed up the MacBook Air (the world’s most popular laptop), bestowing M2 and M3 models with 16GB of unified memory as standard, at no additional cost — pretty much confirming that, in the age of AI, 16GB is the new 8GB.

The new MacBook Pro

There’s a lot to like in the new laptops, which can be ordered with an M4, M4 Pro, or an all-new M4 Max chip.  Compared to an Intel-based MacBook Pro, the new model provides nearly 10 times faster performance for AI-based workloads and 20 times faster performance for graphics-intensive tasks, Apple said.

In other words, the chips unleash huge leaps forward in computational power similar to what a supercomputer cluster would have given you not so long ago – with estimated battery life that’s the longest we’ve ever had in a Mac. You can also support two high-resolution external displays as well as the built-in display.

All models, both 14-in. and 16-in. configurations, feature a Liquid Retina XDR screen with a nano-texture display option and up to 1,000 nits of brightness (1,600 nits of peak brightness). Equipped with a six-speaker sound system, they offer a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, Thunderbolt 5 on M4 Pro and M4 Max models, an 8K HDMI port, MagSafe 3, headphone jack, SDXC card slot, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Available in space black and silver, all can be pre-ordered today; shipments begin Nov. 8. 

But what’s different is all about the processor.

Apple

Speed demons

“Apple silicon has taken the Mac to unprecedented heights, and the rapid pace of innovation continues with M4 Pro and M4 Max,” Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, said in a statement. “With the world’s fastest CPU core, immensely more powerful GPUs, and the fastest Neural Engine ever, the power-efficient performance and capabilities of the M4 family extend its lead as the most advanced lineup of chips in the industry.”

Built using second-generation 3-nanometer technology, the M4 family of chips boasts the world’s fastest CPU core, along with outstanding multithreaded CPU performance. The chips also support increased memory bandwidth, which is water in the desert for large language models (LLMs) you might want to run.

That 24-hour battery life hasn’t made for any compromise in terms of performance. Apple claims the new M4 MacBook Pro will run 1.8 times faster than the M1 MacBook Pro, with some tasks running even faster than that. The Neural Engine is also three times more powerful, which — in combination with the increased 120Gbps memory bandwidth and 16GB installed unified memory — means the computer will be incredibly capable of running and creating new AI.

Apple cherry-picked some illustrations of how this performance equates to getting work done faster, promising image processing in Affinity Photo will be seven times faster than it was with the Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro (13-in.) or 1.8 times faster than in the M1 MacBook Pro. Blender users can expect 3D rendering to be more than 10 times faster than on Intel.

But even those comparisons are thoroughly trashed by the performance you can expect from the M4 Pro Macs. Apple claims that a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro will enjoy a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth over the prior generation — double that of any AI PC chip. These things really do promise massive enhancements in complex professional workflows in fields like structural engineering or data modeling. Those performance boosts are essential to some industries. 

Apple

King of the Hill – the M4 Max

It’s hard to miss just how much performance Apple promises with the M4 Max MacBook Pro: 3.5 times the performance of the M1 Max MacBook Pro. (That’s pretty impressive on its own, given that particular Mac still blows people’s socks off.)

What this means is that the heaviest creative, scientific, or data modelling tasks will be absolutely devoured by this machine. Want to run DNA sequences in Oxford Nanopore? Now you can — an astonishing 23.8 times faster than you could before.

The LLMs we use tomorrow will be built in these Macs, because they can handle the workload it takes to manage nearly 200 billion parameters. It doesn’t stop there, the M4 Max holds a Media Engine with two ProRes accelerators, so media handling (at least on apps that support ProRes) will fly.

Consider this: Apple claims a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max can compile code in Xcode 4.6 times faster than the 16‑in. MacBook Pro with Intel Core i9.

If you recall, I looked at that particular Mac in 2019 and called it the most capable Apple notebook I’d ever used. To deliver a near five-fold performance increase in under five years since then really shows the extent to which the move to Apple Silicon has unleashed evolution on the Mac. This is also more than twice as fast as the 16‑in. MacBook Pro with M1 Max (“a major step forward,” reviewers said).

Apple

The details about the chips

M4

Up to 10-core CPU. (four performance, six efficiency cores). 1.8x faster than M1.

10-core GPU. Two times faster than M1.

16-core Neural Engine

16GB of unified memory at 120GBps, with support for up to 32GB.

M4 Pro 

Up to 14-core CPU. (10 performance, four efficiency cores). 1.9 times faster than M1 Pro.

20-core GPU. Apple says this is twice as fast as the M4 (which means it’s probably four times faster than the M1).

16-core Neural Engine.

16GB of unified memory at 120GBps, with support for up to 64GB at an astonishing 275GBps (the latter can be configured for up to 546GBps).

M4 Max

Up to 16-core CPU. (12 performance, four efficiency cores). 2.2 times faster than M1 Max.

40-core GPU, 1.9 times faster than the M1 Max.

16-core Neural Engine

Up to 128GB unified memory. Over half a terabyte per second (546GBps) of unified memory bandwidth.

Media Engine that includes two video encode engines and two ProRes accelerators.

There are a variety of build-to-order options that can further increase performance.

Apple

How much do they cost?

The 14-in. MacBook Pro with M4 starts at $1,599, and with M4 Pro, $1,999; the 16‑in. MacBook Pro starts at $2,499. I ran a quick build-to-order calculation to find that a 16-in. MacBook Pro with a 16-core M4 Max chip, nano-texture display, 64GB memory, and 1TB SSD will cost you $4,349. Completely maxxed out (bar software) you’re looking at $7,349.

Weirdly, in light of the performance you can expect, I imagine that for some users in some industries even the very highest end system will seem to be a bargain, though most of us don’t need that much power.

Better for the Environment

Apple really is pressing hard on its goal to becoming carbon neutral by 2030. These new Macs are created from a custom alloy that uses 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosure. You’ll also find 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100% recycled tin soldering, gold plating, and copper in multiple printed circuit boards. The packaging has no plastic included.

One more thing

Stop everything for a moment, zoom out, and take another look at Apple’s news this week. You might then recognize that from the $599 Mac mini all the way to the cream of the MacBook Pro crop, Apple now offers systems more than capable of handling any task; even the Mac mini can handle heavy workloads, just a little slower.

Not only this, but with Apple Intelligence, Apple has the foundations for a Mac/iPhone/iPad AI ecosystem no one else can touch. That’s all fine and impressive on its own — but these new pro Mac notebooks add another arrow to Apple’s bow. 

Look at it another way: MacBook Pro is already incredibly popular among data scientists and AI researchers. What that means, of course, is that even if Apple doesn’t prevail in the AI race (I wouldn’t bet against it), there’s still a very, very big chance that whatever AI does gain dominance will be something that was, itself, made on a Mac.

And that’s an accomplishment no one else can match. Time to upgrade?

Please follow me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill group on MeWe.

Source:: Computer World

OpenAI intends to design its own AI chips, which would give it an edge over its competitors, according to Reuters. The chips will be developed in collaboration with TSMC and Broadcom, meaning OpenAI will not invest in its own factories.

If all goes according to plan, the first chips could be ready for use as early as 2026.

While waiting for its own chips to arrive, OpenAI has decided to order processors from AMD to be used to train its AI models. (Nvidia chips are currently used for that purpose, but high demand has meant prices for these chips have risen sharply.)

Source:: Computer World

By Andrii Degeler  Welcome to the new episode of the TNW Podcast — the show where we discuss the latest developments in the European technology ecosystem and feature interviews with some of the most interesting people in the industry. In today’s special episode, we’re happy to present an interview with Diana van Stijn, co-founder and chief medical officer at Lapsi Health, a Dutch startup that builds smart medical hardware — starting with a digital stethoscope. Also featured in the interview is the sound of Andrii’s heart as captured by Lapsi’s first device, Keikku. Here are the links for this episode: Dutch startup…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Amanda Kavanagh Whether you’re looking to change the direction of your career or expand your skillset as a programmer, the languages you chose to learn will significantly impact your time commitment and prospects. Some languages use familiar syntax, welcome minimum code commands for heavy-duty work, and are open-source with a helpful developer community that guides users in making the most of it. Others are complicated due to complex syntax, how the code is structured and organised, and not-so-seamless onboarding experiences. 5 hot roles hiring right now Test Engineer High Tech – Netherlands based only, Capgemini, Eindhoven Software Developer (C++), Artisans, Zwolle Senior…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

Amazon might have accidentally broken the story early, but as anticipated the introduction of Apple’s all-new, M4-processor-powered Mac mini is making big waves. The tiny but incredibly powerful desktop exemplifies all the advantages of Apple Silicon — smaller, faster, and cheaper than we could have seen before, a new building block in the Apple Intelligence ecosystem.

All the rumors were true (again)

It turns out that all the expectation for the tiny Mac were correct:

The Mac mini offers either an M4 or M4 Pro chip.

The M4 CPU offers 4 performance, 6 efficiency cores and a 10-core GPU.

The M4 Pro offers 10 performance and 4 efficiency cores, boosted by a 20-core GPU. And it has 75% more memory bandwidth than the M3 Pro, twice as much bandwidth as available to any AI chip. 

All have at least 16GB of unified memory.

As anticipated, it’s much faster than the M1 Mac mini which blew everybody’s minds when it was introduced, and the Neural engine in the M4 Pro model is more than three times faster than the M1 Mac mini.

For connectivity, you’ll find two USB-C ports, a headphone jack on the front, and three Thunderbolt 4 ports (or Thunderbolt 5 ports on the Mac Pro models), Ethernet, and HDMI at the rear.

The M4 Mac mini can support up to two 6K displays and up to one 5K display, while the M4 Pro can support up to three 6K displays at 60Hz. You get hardware-based ray-tracing, too.

For size, it’s just 5-in. square (about 127mm each side).

Pricing: Mac mini with M4 starts at $599. The Mac mini with an M4 Pro starts at $1,399.

Apple

The power, the glory, and now the M4 Pro

Apple Silicon has been transforming Apple’s ecosystem ever since the company acquired PA Semi. First, it enabled the company to deliver uniquely powerful smartphones that delivered computational performance at low energy. Apple has now taken those ideas and put them inside Macs equipped with M-series chips. Not only do these Macs make the Intel chips the company previously used the equivalent of Elmer Fudd trying (and failing) to keep up with the Road Runner, but they also deliver performance while sipping electricity.

As a result, Apple can continue to focus on delivering real computers in multiple form factors — want a tablet? Here’s an M4 iPad Pro. Looking for a super powerful laptop? MacBook Pro is there for you. Searching for a small “bring your own mouse and keyboard” system that won’t break the bank for use in your home or office? This is what Mac mini was born for.

Apple Silicon continues to unleash the imagination of Apple’s product design teams, and I suspect we’ve barely seen what’s coming. And all this performance power is now available to Apple Intelligence, which Apple will introduce globally into spring 2025.

Apple

How can a Mac mini help you get things done?

Hyperbole aside, how will Mac mini help you get your work done? Apple shares the following proof points to attest to the performance boost you can expect from M4 chips in mini:

When compared to the best-selling PC desktop in its price range, the mini is up to six times faster and 1/20 its size.

With M4, Mac mini delivers up to 1.8 times faster CPU performance and 2.2 times faster GPU performance over the M1 model.

When compared to the Mac mini with an Intel Core i7, the new M4 mini delivers up to 33 times faster image upscaling performance in Photomator.

When compared to an M1 Mac mini, the new model is up to twice as fast transcribing on-device AI speech-to-text in MacWhisper.

These real world performance advantages are even more impressive on the M4 Pro device.

When compared to the Mac mini with Intel Core i7, the Mac mini with M4 Pro performs spreadsheet calculations up to four times faster in Microsoft Excel. It’s also 26 times faster at DNA sequencing in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW.

The Neural Engine in the M4 Pro is also more than three times faster than in the M1 Mac mini.

M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory and 273GBps of memory bandwidth — twice as much as any AI PC chip — for accelerating AI workloads.

Apple

Climate control

So, apart from being smaller, faster, and more energy efficient, how else can the new Mac mini help your company reduce its carbon impact? Just by existing, I suppose — the new Mac mini is Apple’s first carbon neutral Mac. It is made with more than 50% recycled content overall, including 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100% recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards, and 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets. Apple has also told us the device uses 85% less aluminium than it did before. (Even the electricity used in its manufacture is sourced from 100% renewable electricity.) 

This is important stuff and marks a really solid stepping stone on the company’s progress toward being completely carbon neutral by the end of the decade. But Apple is going even a little further than that. 

The company understands that within carbon neutrality, it must also consider the consequences of its products during normal use. To address this, Apple has invested in clean energy projects around the world to help mitigate the electricity consumption customers will cause when using these Macs. It is also investing in carbon credits, which it characterizes as being “high-quality.”

Apple has slammed some carbon credit schemes for not delivering what they promise, but in this case has focused those efforts on nature-based projects. Finally, the packaging for the Mac is also entirely fiber-based. Apple aims to remove all plastic from its packaging by next year.

The new AI PC

What this means for users is that Apple’s new AI PC is also the most environmentally-friendly PC. For enterprise buyers, it means that when you purchase a larger number of these machines you’re also ticking a few more boxes in your corporate sustainability policy, while also entering a new space for digital transformation of your business. Plus, of course, you’re reducing your TCO, tech support draw, and reducing your exposure to ransomware and hacks.

With Apple Intelligence already available in some nations and scheduled to arrive in Europe in April next year, Apple’s approach to AI is mandatory. It has set out to design a safe, private, and secure system that works across its entire ecosystem, and the immense contribution of Private Cloud Compute means any business can begin to explore the productivity-boosting capability of AI on machines more powerful than anything else you can purchase at that price.

And given that Private Cloud Compute is something you can weave into your internal enterprise applications, it makes sense for heavily regulated industries to explore it, too. The company is defining what everyone should expect from cloud-based AI.

It’s also important to think about how Apple Intelligence works across Apple’s ecosystem — smartphone, tablet, and Mac. It means the company now offers business the fastest and most flexible secure AI experience. It’s hard not to avoid thinking that when it comes to the incoming world of AI PCs, Apple now (as anticipated) offers the world’s very best ecosystem for AI — all in a tiny box that has created very big waves in a very big pond.

By its actions, Apple is making it clear that it sees the AI opportunity very well and intends to seize the moment. 

Please follow me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill group on MeWe.

Source:: Computer World

Microsoft has combined chat and channels in Teams as part of a redesign that will include a new threaded conversation experience. 

Channel conversations — currently accessed in the team section — will be moved to chat. The goal is to make it easier for users to view all their messages in one place rather than continuously switching between sections. 

“This integrates both chat and channels into your critical workflows, making it easier to access, triage, and organize your conversations,”  Jeff Teper, president of Collaborative Apps and Platforms at Microsoft, said in a blog post Monday. 

New filters available in Teams can be applied to let users focus on chats, channels, or unread messages.

Among the other changes is a new @mention view to highlight new messages across multiple chats or channels. There’s also a “custom section” where users can keep conversations relating to a project or topic — whether that’s in chat, channels, or with a Teams bot — in a single place. 

Teams users will see a “self-service, guided onboarding flow” when the updates are made available in public preview next month, Teper said. This will help introduce users to the new look and allow them to configure it to the way they want to work: those who prefer to keep chat and channels separate can do so, for example, either during the onboarding or at a later stage. 

Microsoft will test threaded conversations with customers during this quarter, with an expected roll out in mid-2025. 

Source:: Computer World

By Adarsh Verma If you want to open a PDF document these days, the first solution that comes to…
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Source:: Fossbytes

The Phoenix fabrication facility of the world’s largest semiconductor chip maker is yielding more usable chips than similar plants in Taiwan, according to the Taipei Times.

Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC’s US division, said during a webinar last week that the share of usable chips from the company’s Phoenix plant exceeds that of similar Taiwanese plants by 4%. If true, the superior performance at the Phoenix fab is notable because the US government has been working to spur a return of the semiconductor manufacturing industry to US shores, where manufacturing tends to be more costly.

Better yields would help offset those higher costs.

“Four percent higher yield is certainly good news,” said Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, a non-profit that offers companies assessments on offshoring costs. “To be competitive, we need a higher yield. It is agreed that US factory capital cost and operating cost will be 10% to 20% higher than in most other countries. The 4% will offset some of that difference.”

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted critical gaps in the semiconductor supply chain as imports to the US and other nations ground to a halt, affecting the production of everything with electronics, from smart phones to cars. The CHIPS and Science Act, passed in 2022, earmarked more than $52 billion in funding and tax incentives for use by the US semiconductor industry to create new or expand existing manufacturing and R&D facilities.

The CHIPS Act was created to address both future possible supply chain catastrophes and to re-establish the US as a major chips manufacturer.

To date, the CHIPS Act has allocated more than $32 billion in proposed funding across 18 companies, 16 states, and 26 projects. However, no CHIPS funding has yet been disbursed to any companies, according to the US Department of Commerce.

TSMC is the main supplier of chips for both Nvidia and Apple. The CHIPS Act allocated $6.6 billion in grants and $5 billion in loans, along with a 25% tax credit, to incentivize the company to build three fabs in Arizona. TSMC’s first facility was scheduled to open this year, but the company pushed that back to next year after labor shortages surfaced.

The US reshoring efforts come at a time when the industry doesn’t have anywhere near the workforce — including technicians, computer scientists, and engineers — required to support future needs. By some estimates, the US semiconductor industry will face a worker shortfall of between 59,000 and 146,000 workers by 2029. A minimum of 50,000 trained semiconductor engineers will be needed over the next several years in the US to meet the overwhelming and rapidly growing demand, according to a study by Purdue University.

The broader US economy is set to have a gap of 1.4 million such workers, according to a 2023 study from the Semiconductor Industry Association. So the competition will be fierce over those skilled workers. Compounding the problem is an ongoing exodus of existing talent as older workers retire. A study from Deloitte found that nearly 90% of tech leaders interviewed cited recruiting as their biggest challenge.

A TSMC spokesperson shared statements regarding the Phoenix fab with Computerworld from a third quarter earnings call by CEO C.C. Wei, but declined to comment on Cassidy’s claim directly.

“Our first fab entered engineering wafer production in April with 4-nanometer process technology, and the result is a highly satisfactory, with a very good yield,” Wei said. “This is an important operational milestone for TSMC and our customers, demonstrating TSMC’s strong manufacturing capability and execution.”

Wei said he expects volume production of the company’s first Arizona fab to start in early 2025, and he is “confident” it will deliver “the same level of manufacturing quality and reliability” from our fabs in Taiwan.

TSMC is also building two other fabs in the Phoenix area that will use more advanced technologies based on its customer needs, Wei said. The second fab is scheduled to begin volume production in 2028 and the third fab will begin production by the end of the decade.

“Thus, TSMC will continue to play a critical and integral role in enabling our customers’ success, while remaining a key partner and enabler of the US semiconductor industry,” Wei said.

Reshore Now’s Moser said it would be good to know whether the Phoenix fab uses identical equipment as in Taiwan, speculating that the US plant could have been more modern. “Was it accomplished solely by US workers or significantly by Taiwanese brought over to aid the start-up?” he said.

Source:: Computer World

Apple’s week of Mac began today with a newly announced iMac, now beefed up with an M4 chip and more internal memory. Apple says the iMac is up to 4.5 times faster than an equivalent all-in-one Intel Core 7 Windows PC — and promises the machine will deliver up to six times the performance of the most popular Intel-based iMac.

The inference is obvious: if you use your iMac professionally, you might want to think about an upgrade. Reinforcing the point, Apple says the iMac is up to 1.7 times faster for most tasks and 2.1 times faster for more advanced tasks when compared to the M1 model.

Apple sets the scene for its AI

Part of the reason for this improved performance is the big boost to 16GB of unified onboard memory (configurable to 24GB). That memory boost is to support Apple Intelligence, which is also available for Macs running macOS Sequoia 15.1 or above. The Neural Engine in M4 chips is 3x faster than the M1. (Apple Intelligence is also now available for iPhones and iPads running iOS/iPad OS 18.1.)

Be warned, the entry-level $1,299 iMac might not reach these performance heights as it ships with an 8-core CPU; the rest of the range offers 10 cores. You do get hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which is going to make a big difference when you use the Mac.

Apple’s AI platform play means all its current devices will now support Apple Intelligence, meaning the company now offers the world’s biggest AI ecosystem.

What else is new?

The iMac display continues to be the same 24-in. 4.5K Retina display we all know and love, with a new nano-texture glass option available if color fidelity and anti-reflection matters to you.

Starting at $1,299, the new iMacs are available in a “parade” of colors, including green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver. Buyers get: a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera with support for Desk View; a brilliant microphone and speaker system; and four USB-C ports, all of which support Thunderbolt 4. You can even run two external displays. Wrapping it up, you’ll find Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1 along with TouchID support, thanks to a button on the keyboard.

Overall, this is a solid and update, but it has to be said that it doesn’t seem to be the main attraction — that honor this week is likely to be all about a smaller machine….

We’re still waiting for the Mac mini

I can’t help but feel the iMac is being seen through a lens of pre-announcement speculation for the Mac mini. That product is already attracting lots of interest — just look at the pre-release headlines:

“This is the Mac Mini’s big moment” (The Verge).

“A tiny Mac mini could be the ultimate travel companion and I can’t wait for it” (TechRadar).

“Apple Mac mini with M4 chip could be a game-changer for creatives, here’s why” (Hindustan Times).

Talk about setting the scene.

Even Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has put his well-connected assessment out there; he obliquely tells us that even if you are quite happy with your M1 Mac mini, the move to M4 processors “could feel as significant as that first shift from Intel machines to Apple chips.” 

That’s borne out by Apple’s iMac claims above. What we can piece together from the iMac introduction is that the new Mac mini will also deliver huge performance boosts in contrast to the M1 or M2 models already in use.

That’s an upgrade productivity benefits are built on in some industries, and it suggests that if your business has M1 (or older) Mac minis in its fleet, the new M4 models seem to be a tempting upgrade. After all, you don’t even need to replace the display….

Will a M4 Mac mini be the new Mac for business?

This introduction is expected to be about more than the silicon inside these Macs — it’s also the new design around them. If reports are correct, the new mini may be significantly smaller as Apple’s designers draw yet another benefit out of the energy and heat dissipation advantages of the company’s Arm-based chips.

Expect it to be a small aluminium box that’s taller but otherwise similar in size to the current Apple TV. I visualize this as being a box about half the size of a regular paperback book and perhaps as thick as three average length novels stacked atop each other. That’s really small. And it should now come with 16GB of base memory and support for Apple Intelligence.

Speaking just last year, MacStadium CTO Chris Chapman told me his existing server farms full of Mac minis used so much less power that his data center providers were, “always calling us up to tell us we’re not using enough power for the space.”

If the smaller size means lower energy consumption (and given what we know of Apple’s silicon evolution so far, it probably does), then for enterprises handling hundreds of these machines — or any other Mac, come to that — the M4 upgrade promises significant reductions in energy costs. 

A good start to a week of Mac

Combined with the faster chip, these tiny desktop Mac minis or larger iMacs are going to run just about anything you want as effectively as a hot knife through butter.

That’s why the upcoming Mac mini has generated so much interest, even before its introduction. Combined with the impressive iMac rollout today and anticipation around the expected powerful MacBook Pro improvements, Apple’s big week of Mac news is off to a strong start. But will it distract or focus interest on the company’s end of year results announcement Thursday?

Please follow me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill group on MeWe.

Source:: Computer World

By Deepti Pathak When using Google Chrome, managing your downloads is essential, especially if you have many downloads. And…
The post How to Change Download Location in Chrome? appeared first on Fossbytes.

Source:: Fossbytes

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By The Conversation The walking, talking, dancing Optimus robots at the recent Tesla demonstration generated huge excitement. But this turned to disappointment as it became apparent that much of what was happening was actually being controlled remotely by humans. As much as this might still be a fascinating glimpse of the future, it’s not the first time that robots have turned out to be a little too good to be true. Take Sophia, for instance, the robot created by Texas-based Hanson Robotics back in 2016. She was presented by the company as essentially an intelligent being, prompting numerous tech specialists to call this…This story continues at The Next Web

Source:: The Next Web

By Nick Godt The UK’s Wayve brings its AI automated driving software to U.S. shores.

Source:: Digital Trends

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Source:: Fossbytes

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Source:: Fossbytes

By Nick Godt Costco is again putting its brand name on an EV-charging station in the U.S.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Nick Godt Stellantis will launch a demo fleet of Dodge Charger Daytona EVs featuring Factorial’s solid-state battery tech.

Source:: Digital Trends

By Nick Godt Elon Musk says that a regular $25,000 Tesla model would be “pointless.”

Source:: Digital Trends

Apple will introduce new Macs and the first services within its Apple Intelligence collection next week. To protect cloud-based requests made through Apple Intelligence, it has put industry-beating security and privacy protecting transparency in place around cloud-based requests handled by its Private Cloud Compute (PCC) system.

What that means is that Apple has pulled far ahead of the industry in a bid to build rock-solid protection around security and privacy for requests made of AI using Apple’s cloud. It’s an industry-leading move and is already delighting security researchers.

Why is that? It’s because Apple has opened the doors that secure its Private Cloud Compute systemwide to security testers in the hope that the energy of the entire infosec community will combine to help build a moat to protect the future of AI.

Make no mistake, this is what is at stake. 

As AI promises to permeate everything, the choice we face is between a future of surveillance the likes of which we have never seen before, or the most powerful machine/human augmentation we can dream of. Server-based AI promises both these futures, even before mentioning that as quantum computing looms just a few hills and valleys away, the information picked up by non-private AI systems can be weaponized and exploited in ways we can’t even imagine.

That means to be secure tomorrow we must take steps today.

Protecting AI in the cloud

In part, protecting that future and ensuring it can say with total confidence that Apple Intelligence is the world’s most private and secure form of AI is what Apple is trying to do with PCC.  This is the system that lets Apple run generative AI (genAI) models that need more processing power than available on the iPad, iPhone, or Mac you use to get things done. It’s the first port of call for these AI requests and has been deliberately designed to protect privacy and security. “You should not have to hand over all the details of your life to be warehoused and analyzed in someone’s AI cloud,” Apple Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said when announcing PCC  at WWDC.

The company promised that to “build public trust” in its cloud-based AI systems, it would allow security and privacy researchers to inspect and verify the end-to-end security and privacy of the system. The reason the security community is so excited is because Apple has exceeded that promise by making public all the resources it made available to researchers.

Security research for the rest of us

It provided the following resources:

The PCC Security Guide

Apple has published the PCC Security Guide, an extensive 100-page document including comprehensive technical details about the components of the system and how they work together to secure AI processing in the cloud. This is a deep guide that discusses built-in hardware protections and how the system handles various attack scenarios.

A Virtual Research Environment

The company has also created something security researchers might get excited about: A Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for the Apple platform. This consists of a set of tools that make it possible to perform your own security analysis of PCC using a Mac. This is a robust testing environment that runs a PCC node — basically a production machine — in a VM so you can beat it up as much as you like in search of security and privacy flaws. 

You can use these tools to:

List and inspect PCC software releases.

Verify the consistency of the transparency log.

Download the binaries corresponding to each release.

Boot a release in a virtualized environment.

Perform inference against demonstration models.

Modify and debug the PCC software to enable deeper investigation.

Publishing the PCC source code

This is a big step in its own right and is provided under a license agreement that lets researchers dig deep for flaws. Within this set of information, the company has made source code that covers privacy, validation, and logging components. (All of this source code is available on GitHub now.)

Bounty hunters

Of course, the company understands that it must also incentivize researchers. To do so, Apple opened up a bounty system for those who succeed in finding flaws in the PCC code. 

To contextualize the extent of this commitment, it is important to note that the value of these bounties is equal to what the company pays to researchers who discover iOS security flaws. 

I believe that means Apple sees AI as a very important component to its future, PCC as an essential hub to drive forward to tomorrow, and that it will also now find some way to transform platform security using similar tools. Apple’s fearsome reputation for security means even its opponents have nothing but respect for the robust platforms it has made. That reputation is also why more and more enterprises are, or should be, moving to Apple’s platforms.

The mantle of protecting security is now under the passionate leadership of Ivan Krstić, who also led the design and implementation of key security tools such as Lockdown Mode, Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, and two-factor authentication for Apple ID. Krstić has previously promised that, “Apple runs one of the most sophisticated security engineering operations in the world, and we will continue to work tirelessly to protect our users from abusive state-sponsored actors like NSO Group.”

When it comes to bounties for uncovering flaws in PCC, researchers can now earn up to $1 million dollars if they find a weakness that allows arbitrary code execution with arbitrary entitlements, or a cool $250,000 if they uncover some way to access a user’s request data or sensitive information about their requests.  

There are many other categories, and Apple seems really committed to ensuring it motivates even trivial discoveries: “Because we care deeply about any compromise to user privacy or security, we will consider any security issue that has a significant impact to PCC for an Apple Security Bounty reward, even if it doesn’t match a published category,” the company explains. Apple will award the biggest bounties for vulnerabilities that compromise user data and inference request data.

Apple’s gamble

It’s important to stress that in moving to deliver this degree of industry-leading transparency, Apple is gambling it can ensure that any weaknesses that do exist in its solution will be spotted and revealed, rather than being identified only to be sold on or weaponized. 

The thinking is that while nation state-backed attackers might have access to resources that provide attackers with similar breadth of insight into Apple’s security protections, they will not share word of any such vulnerabilities with Apple. Such attackers, and those in the most well financed criminal or semi-criminal entities (within which I personally believe surveillance-as-a-service mercenaries belong), will spend time and money finding vulnerabilities in order to exploit them.

But there is a big world of security researchers who might also uncover weaknesses in the system who would be willing to share them, enabling Apple to patch vulnerabilities faster.

The way Apple sees it is that one way to ensure such vulnerabilities aren’t turned into privacy-destroying attacks is to make it so more people discover them at the same time; after all, even if one dodgy researcher chooses to use a weakness in an attack, another might disclose it to Apple early, effectively shutting down that route. In other words, by making these details available, Apple changes the game. In a strange irony, making these security protections open and available may well serve to make them more secure.

That’s the hope, anyway. 

“We believe Private Cloud Compute is the most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale, and we look forward to working with the research community to build trust in the system and make it even more secure and private over time,” Apple explained.

Why this matters

It is also a defining moment in security for AI. Why? Because Apple is an industry leader that sets expectations with its actions. With these actions, the company just defined the degree of transparency to which all companies offering cloud-based AI systems should now be held. If Apple can, they can, too. And any business or individual whose data or requests is being handled by cloud based AI systems can now legitimately demand that degree of transparency and protection. Apple is making waves again. 

Please follow me on LinkedIn, Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill group on MeWe.

Source:: Computer World

Humanoid robots from Tesla can “be a teacher, babysit your kids…, walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do,” said Elon Musk at this month’s Tesla “We, Robot” showcase in Burbank, CA.

To paraphrase: “Humanoid robots can be human, so you don’t have to!”

It’s a toxic and misguided vision for humanity — let me tell you why.

What is a robot, anyway?

When the public thinks of a robot, they think of a humanoid robot — an intelligent machine with feet, legs, knees, arms, a neck, a head, and a face — thanks to countless movies, TV shows, novels, and comics. 

But what is a robot, really? 

A robot is any computerized machine with sensors that gather information from its environment and can perform actions in the physical world based on that input. Robots’ attributes include autonomy, programmability, sensing capability, decision-making, and the ability to perform physical actions.

We talk about robots as a kind of future technology. But we’re surrounded by them every day.

The world of robots is big (so bear with me here); it includes consumer camera drones, smart thermostats, automated garage door openers, self-checkout kiosks, modern washing machines and dryers, robotic lawnmowers, automated pool cleaners, smart refrigerators, advanced coffee makers, automated pet feeders, and smart lighting systems.

There are robot vacuum cleaners, automated window blinds, automated dishwashers, smart ovens, self-service airport check-in kiosks, ATMs, advanced vending machines, adaptive traffic light systems, automated parking garage systems, modern HVAC systems, self-service library checkout systems, smart doorbells, advanced prosthetic limbs, automated subway or train systems, self-service bike rental kiosks, automated car washes, smart toilets, automated pill dispensers, modern pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators, automated milking machines, self-balancing electric scooters, automated baggage handling systems, smart power grids, automated trading algorithms, and even modern hearing aids.

Our food is produced with the help of autonomous robot tractors, planting and seeding robots, weeding and pest control robots, automated greenhouse systems, harvesting robots, agricultural drones, soil analysis robots, cow-milking robots, palletizing robots, autonomous tractors, robotic sprayers, and inspection robots.

When you order a pack of batteries from Amazon.com, that order is facilitated by inventory management robots, mobile drive units for transporting goods, sorting robots, AI-driven robotic arms for item manipulation and package transfer, among others.

We are already totally reliant on robots for automotive manufacturing, electronics production, metal and machinery fabrication, plastics and chemical processing, construction, pharmaceutical manufacturing, healthcare, retail and hospitality, smart cities development, transportation, last-mile delivery, e-commerce, inspection and surveillance, and semiconductor production.

The belief that robots are always, usually, or even often humanoid is false. And the belief robots are coming in the future — well, as I just illustrated — is false, too.

We already live in an economy and society that is totally dependent upon thousands of different kinds of robots. They’re all around us, even if we don’t recognize them.

The future of robots

Meanwhile, two things are simultaneously happening. Existing jobs done by robots are constantly becoming ever more sophisticated, precise, efficient, and inexpensive. 

Second, millions of tasks not previously performed by robots are being turned over to them and to robotic machinery. A diverse array of robotic devices will surely become commonplace over the next two decades.

The service sector will see a surge in delivery robots, streamlining last-mile package and food delivery logistics. Advanced cleaning robots will maintain both homes and commercial spaces. 

Surgical robots performing minimally invasive procedures with high precision will benefit healthcare. Rehabilitation robots and exoskeletons will transform physical therapy and mobility, while robotic prosthetics will offer enhanced functionality to those who need them. At the microscopic level, nanorobots will revolutionize drug delivery and medical procedures.

Agriculture will increasingly embrace harvesting and planting robots to automate crop management, with specialized versions for tasks like weeding and dairy farming. Autonomous vehicles and drone delivery systems will transform the transportation sector, while robotic parking solutions will optimize urban spaces.

Military and defense applications will include reconnaissance drones, bomb disposal robots, and autonomous combat vehicles. Space exploration will continue to rely on advanced rovers, satellite-servicing robots, and assistants for astronauts on space stations.

Underwater exploration robots and devices monitoring air and water quality will benefit environmental and oceanic research. Specialized robots designed for search and rescue operations will aid disaster response efforts.

Emerging categories like soft robots, made from flexible materials, and swarm robots working collaboratively, will open new possibilities. AI-enhanced robots with advanced decision-making capabilities will become increasingly autonomous and adaptable.

In short, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (during a March 17 speech), “Everything is going to be robotic.”

When everything is robotic, what would humanoid robots do? 

Musk’s prediction that humanoid robots will be teachers, babysitters, dog walkers, lawn mowers, grocery shoppers, bartenders, and friends showcases a toxic and misguided vision.

It’s misguided because nearly everything will already be robotic by the time Musk’s robots are capable of autonomous action. (To be clear, Tesla Optimus robots are nowhere near as advanced as Musk tried to make everyone believe at Tesla’s recent “We, Robot” event. 

Consider, as one isolated example, the “robots will mow your lawn” claim. Musk imagines a bipedal humanoid robot in the front yard pushing a mower, an obviously ridiculous scenario.

Robotic mowers are already a banality. These appliances — sort of like Roomba vacuum cleaners, but for cutting grass instead of vacuuming floors — last for years and quietly and autonomously barber turf all day, avoiding flower beds and sidewalks without fail.

Current global sales exceed 1.5 million robotic mowers per year, at an average price of $1,200 — the same price as the cheapest Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max. Within five years, annual robotic lawn mower unit shipments are expected to reach seven million per year. Anyone with a little money and a distaste for mowing a lawn can buy one. There is no unmet need here for  $50,000 humanoid robots. 

This is also true for all the other jobs specified and unspecified by the Musks of the world. Robotic devices are already doing that work. So what’s left for humanoid robots to do?

The vision is toxic because, once you eliminate the tasks and jobs specialist robots will already be doing, what remains is the replacement of human connection. This very social and familial interaction is what makes us human. 

Let’s start with dog walking. We get a dog so that we can enjoy the incredible connection that’s possible between a person and a dog. We feed a dog, pet a dog, hang out with a dog, and, yes, walk a dog because the experience of caring for a dog is clearly gratifying and meaningful for both species. Outsourcing our relationship with our dogs to an AI machine is (to be blunt) cold and horrible. We care for a dog for the bond and the relationship. We walk a dog in the morning for the ritual, for the exercise, and, above all, for the happiness that fulfilling the dog’s need to explore (and defecate) brings us.

Elderly companionship? Personal friendship? Education? Childcare? Why does anyone assume that a walking toaster fulfills the essential human need for empathy, connection, and care? People need to look into the sentient and conscious eyes of another human being. It’s literally the first and most basic human need. 

Everything about the humanoid-robot-as-a-friend idea gives me the creeps.

The founder of the AI lab Midjourney, David Holz, posted on X in January that “we should be expecting a billion humanoid robots on earth in the 2040s and a hundred billion (mostly alien) robots throughout the solar system in the 2060s,” and Musk agreed with this post. 

Such visionaries have what, to me, is clearly the wrong vision, and a disturbing one. We shouldn’t want AI robots to replace people in our lives and trick us into believing they’re human. 

We should want non-humanoid robotic devices to do repetitive, dangerous, boring, and menial work so we can spend more time doing creative, fulfilling work and also spend more time with our parents, kids, and, yes, our pets. 

Let the machines do the work. Let’s reserve our humanity for people and pets.

Source:: Computer World