Apple Bows New M5 Chip & MacBook Pros; US Charges Cambodian in Huge Crypto Scam; Microsoft Rolls Out Image Generator; ‘Pixnapping’ Hack for Android

Posted: October 15, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple has introduced its latest greatest system…the M5 chip, with their next generation GPU. The new system will be the brains of the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro goggles. Macrumors.com reports that the new chip has 10 cores with a ’Neural Accelerator’ for each individual core…which enables GPU based artificial intelligence workloads to run dramatically faster. Apple claims graphics performance up to 45% higher than the M4 chip. It is worth noting that the new 14 inch MacBook Pro doesn’t really have any new major features, besides the more robust chip. The higher end 14 inch and 16 inch MacBook Pro models with M5 chips are yet to come…expect them in early 2026. 

A Cambodian executive masterminded a huge crypto scam, but now is on the run and the US government has seized more than $14 billion in Bitcoin, and indicted him. According to NPR, Chen Chi and his Prince Holding Group have been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. The US and British authorities have also placed sanctions on his company, which has operated in real estate development, financial services, and some other businesses. Chen is accused of sanctioning brutal violence against workers, authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to foreign officials and using his other businesses, such as online gambling and cryptocurrency mining operations, to launder illicit profits. He is on the run and at large. He is a native of China and has gone by the alias of ‘Vincent.’ He had compounds in Cambodia, where workers were held captive and beaten, while they were forced to contact thousands of victims through social media or online messaging platforms, build rapport and entice them to transfer cryptocurrency with hopes of big investment returns. The money was just stolen from them. 

Microsoft has rolled out its own image generator, and Redmond claims it is faster than rival generators. Bgr.com notes that the clunky named MAI-Image-1 is better than OpenAI’s Sora2 and Google’s Nano Banana. Both those apps raced to the top of app stores, with Sora being the most downloaded app on iPhone in less than a week. Microsoft hasn’t released the generator yet, saying it will take into account feedback from early users before releasing it in Copilot and Bing Image Creator. 

A new kind of hacker attack for Androids. Mashable.com reports that it lets bad guys snag your private chats, text messages, emails, and even two-factor authentication  codes. It has been named ‘Pixnapping’, and it can be used to grab info from any data displayed on your screen. The victim has to have downloaded a malicious app. After that, the screen grabs can happen without any permissions or without being noticed.  Google released an early patch for it already, but there is a work around to evade the patch. Pixnapping was uncovered by a group of researchers collaborating from University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington, University of California, San Diego, and Carnegie Mellon University.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

China Blocks Sale of Nvidia AI Chips; Meta Connect is Tonight; Waymo Finally Gets SFO Permit; Apple MacBook Pro With OLED Display & Touch Screen Coming

Posted: September 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

The trade war continues, now with China’s Cyberspace Administration telling companies this week…including ByteDance and Alibaba…to stop testing and ordering Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D AI chips. The verge.com reports that the chips were just introduced a couple months ago, and are specifically designed for China. China appears to be pressing Chinese tech companies to stop relying on Nvidia and utilize Chinese made chips, on order for China to compete better with the US in the AI race. 

Meta Connect launches this evening with a keynote from Mark Zuckerberg. According to engadget.com, we should get a pretty detailed update on Meta’s smart glasses…including the rumored ones with built-in displays, which have been code named ‘Hypernova’ internally. Zuck may give a timeline for introducing the next gen glasses, and even pricing. Right now, it doesn’t appear that there will be any update to the latest Quest VR headsets, which were just rolled out last year. The keynote is at 5 PM Pacific, and is available on stream at the Meta Connect 2025 site. 

Waymo has finally scored a permit to start testing robotaxis at San Francisco International Airport. CNBC.com notes that Waymo will partner with the airport to roll out the service in phases…starting with employee testing, and then moving on to riders from the general public. The taxis will start out with human safety drivers aboard, but eventually will operate as a driverless ride hailing service. 

Apple is apparently planning a major upgrade to the MacBook Pro next year. Bgr.com reports that the upcoming MacBook will not only have an M6 chip, but also may get an OLED screen…and get this…analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says it will have a touchscreen like an iPad. That would be a huge move for Apple. It also, as Kuo notes, blurs the line between iPads and MacBooks. Personally, I think a MacBook with a touchscreen could be a big help with productivity…being able to use a keyboard or touch screen could really make work intuitive and faster. The laptop is also rumored to be thinner and have cellular connectivity built in.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Apple WWDC ’24 – Some Highlights

Posted: June 10, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

After about an hour of reveals about new features for iOS, MacOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, VisionOS, etc, Apple dove into what they call Apple Intelligence…AI for the Rest of Us…their branding for their expanded AI. Most will be on device, but some things will need to be elevated to the server level. Apple has what they claim will be secure ways to only share info needed to the servers and it won’t be saved. On top of that, they have integrated ChatGPT 4.o without a charge or account. If you have a ChatGPT account, it will still work the same on your device. 

The much maligned Siri is getting a hefty AI upgrade, which look good…we’ll have to see how well they actually work when the operating systems are released to the public this fall. Of course, if you want to dive in earlier, a beta will be out of all their operating systems later this summer. 

As for iOS 18, you will now be able to lock Apps as well as just the entire phone…requiring FaceID or TouchID to open them. They are making the screens vastly more customizable with layout, colors, and even a custom Control Center.  A couple standout areas are improvements to Mail and Messages. Mail will get some machine learning help in separating your mail into categorized ‘buckets,’ including Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. You can set to Primary, and screen out a lot of sales pitches or junk mail. For Messages, there is a huge expansion of emoji customization, and they can be used for tapback responses. A big plus if you are heading to the beach or mountains, or wilderness areas…messages will soon work over satellite, just like Emergency SOS…so you can stay in touch even in a non-emergency situation. 

The WatchOS update gives you a deeper look at your vitals, including new overnight vitals. It also gets a new ‘training load’ measurement to check your workout intensity. 

For iPad OS, the biggest headline to me was that scientific calculator is coming to the iPad at long last. They even have included ‘Scratch Math,’ which lets you write out formulas and the device will solve for you after an equals sign or it will automatically sum a stack of numbers when you draw a line under the last one. It will create graphs from your work, too, and you can save your work…and calculator works in Notes, too. 

A new wrinkle for MacOS allows you to bring up your iPhone screen on your Mac…so if your phone is downstairs, and you want to use an app on it to order coffee ahead, you can do that. The iPhone screen on the actual device stays locked, to no one can get into it. iPhone notifications will also appear on your Mac…and with AI, notifications are prioritized and summarized if you are in Focus mode. You can drag and drop items and files from Mac to iPhone. 

A big bump in Keychain power. New Passwords will let you use passwords, verification codes, etc across all your Apple devices. They will autofill as before, but you can do it on any device now…and they stay in the secure enclaves.

Photos also gets a major makeover across all devices. AI will help remove unwanted objects from images, or you can just tell Siri ‘make this picture pop’ and it will enhance the photo without going into the Edit functions and doing it manually. 

There’s a lot more, but this gives you the Cliff’s Notes version, boiling things down from and hour and 45 minutes to just a few minutes. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Apple-ized’ for now. 

Google Builds Its First ARM CPUs; Microsoft Says Windows PC with Snapdragon Will Be Faster than M3 MacBook Air; WhatsApp Adding “Nudging”; Sam Altman and Former Apple Designer John Ive Look to Fund New Company to Make ‘AI Powered Personal Device

Posted: April 9, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Google is building its own custom ARM based CPUs to support its AI work and data centers….and introducing a more powerful version of it Tensor Processing Units AI chips. Theverge.com reports that the new Google ARM based CPU is called Axion. It will be used to support Google’s AI workloads before it rolls out to business customers of Google cloud ‘later this year.’ The Axion chips are already powering YouTube ads, the Google Earth Engine, and other Google services. Google won’t be selling these chips to customers, instead making them available for cloud services that businesses can rent and use. 

More about Arm chips. Microsoft is touting its upcoming Windows laptops with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processor as being faster than a MacBook Air with Apple’s latest M3 chip. According to macrumors.com, internal documents say “Microsoft is so confident in these new Qualcomm chips that it’s planning a number of demos that will show how these processors will be faster than an M3 MacBook Air for CPU tasks, AI acceleration, and even app emulation.” The Snapdragon X Elite is ARM based, like Apple silicon. Note that Microsoft is comparing to the low end MacBook Air, and not Apple’s higher end M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. It will be interesting to see when the new Microsoft laptops come out what they do on independent benchmark tests against the Macs. 

It smacks of the old Facebook ‘poke.’ WhatsApp is going to start nudging you to ‘start chatting’ with contacts you have never messaged. Androidpolice.com says this new so-called feature, which just sounds annoying to me, has showed up for some beta users, in version 2.24.9.5. The nudge shows up as ‘suggested contacts.’ The idea is to suggest new people to reach out to that come from the user’s own contact list. It isn’t overbearing about it, fortunately, and should be widely available for Android users soon, should you want to try it. 

Former Apple design guru Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are looking for backing to start a new company that will ‘produce what thy are calling an ‘artificial intelligence powered personal device’. Arstechnica.com reports that The Information picked up the story, but nothing is known so far about the device. Will it be a wearable, something like a smartphone, or maybe even a personal robot assistant? Altman and Ive are trying to raise at least a billion for the new company. A number of big Silicon Valley hitters have already been approached. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Apple Mac & iPad Rollout & More

Posted: October 30, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New MacBook Air— Now gets Retina display….finally.
It has no bezel….13.3 inch display. 4x resolution compared to old Air. They have added Touch ID with the keyboard. There’s a T2 chip and secure enclave. The keyboard is improved, and there’s a Force Touch trackpad.

Stereo speakers are 25% louder and have better bass. 3 mics improve use of Siri. 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports ( yep…only 2..you’d better buy a bag full of dongles!!)

Even though it has a 13.3” screen the new Air is 17% smaller than the old air and only weighs 2.75 lbs, dropping a quarter lb. Every new Air is made of 100% recycled aluminum.

1.6GHz i5 processor, 128GB storage, 8GB Ram Starts at $1199 and available next week.
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Updated Mac Mini— All get 4 cores, with 6 cores available. They aren’t mobile chips, but regular cpu’s. The new Mini is 5X faster. The new Mini is able to support 64 Gigs of memory on SO-DIMMs. They are available with up to 2TB of SSD memory. 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI, 2 USB A ports.

Mini starts at 799 with a base config of 8GB, 3.6GHz quad-core processor. Order today and available next week.

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New iPad Mini, iPad, and Pro. The new iPads have Face ID, no home button, a thinner bezel, and a magnetically attached Apple Pencil.

The Pro has the ‘liquid retina’ display. With no bezel, it 12.9” screen, but in a smaller package. The iPads Face ID works like it does in the iPhone X, Xs, etc.

The new iPads are running the new A12X Bionic chip. There’s an 8 core CPU…7 core GPU. It’s 90% faster, and is faster than 92% of PCs sold in the last year. The new Pro will be available with 1TB of storage, and will get USB-C. You will be able to charge your iPhone from your iPad Pro, too!

The new Pencil attaches magnetically, automatically pairs, and charges wirelessly. New magnetically attachable smart keyboard folio (that also protects the iPad.)

They demoed a basketball game (NBA 2K Mobile) that looks nearly like video of an actual game. Apple claims this kind of resolution has never been done on a mobile device.

Adobe demoed actual Photoshop on the iPad Pro. Adobe also showed off their new augmented reality product, which will be out next year.

11″ starts at $799, 12.9″ starts at $999. Orders start today, arrive November 7. Current 10.5-inch remains at $649. LTE versions available.

iOS 12.1 will be available today, with Group FaceTime, eSIM support for iPhone Xs and Xs Max, 70 new emoji, and more.

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Other things are happening besides with Apple. Twitter is rumored to be considering killing the ‘Like’ button, in order to force more debate between users. CEO Jack Dorsey said so at a private Twitter event last week, according to vox.com. Also of note…increasing the character count from 140 to 280 didn’t really produce an avalanche of longer Tweets.

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The era of electric aviation is nearly upon us. easyJet says they will launch a 9 passenger electric plane next year. They are also working on a battery powered 150 seat plane for short haul trips of under 300 miles. Electrek.co reports that 30% of flights are in that range, and that Boeing and Airbus sold nearly 1000 jets for those routes last year at around $90 million a pop, so an electric model would really shake up the market.

Alexa Can Send SMS Messages; Amazon QR ‘Smile’ Codes; Samsung Chip Biz Eclipses Intel; Apple Still Bringing iOS Apps to Macs

Posted: January 31, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bringing us one step closer to a Star Trek future, Amazon just rolled out another skill for Alexa. Thenextweb.com reports that now you can send SMS text messages by voice command over your Echo or other speaker that has Alexa. A couple of notes, though. It doesn’t work for texting 911 or sending group messages or MMS. Should be pretty handy though, if you need to send a text, and your phone’s across the room or across the house!

Yet another trick Amazon has pulled out of its sleeve…they are working with their own version of QR codes…those little boxes with gibberish patterns. TechCrunch.com says they call them ‘SmileCodes.’ In this case, you can open the scanner that is built into the Amazon app, scan the code, and it will take you to that item on Amazon’s site, or play a related movie trailer or product review. Right now, the codes are listed to pop-up shops and Amazon Lockers in Europe, but the test should be over soon, and expect a rollout in the US before long.

After decades as the top dog in chip manufacturing, Intel has been eclipsed by Samsung as of 2017. The numbers have been crunched, and according to theverge.com, Samsung raked in $69.1 billion worth of the little silicon rascals, while Intel’s take was $62.8 billion. To be fair, Samsung produced more memory and flash, while Intel still leads in processor chips. With the demand only set to increase with self-driving vehicles and more AI coming on line, Samsung should be sitting pretty with this segment of their business.

Yesterday, there was a story out that Apple would be holding back some features for iOS 12 in order to focus on security and reliability of the OS. Apparently, one feature that won’t be held back will be the ability to port iOS apps to Macs. Cnet.com says the team developing that is still on track to roll it out this year, which will make the App Store on the Mac a lot more fun and interesting.

PC & Mac Sales; Smart Speaker Market Booming, Wireless Earbuds-‘Assistive Hearing’ Coming

Posted: January 15, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s easy, especially when covering tech, to be all over the latest mobile devices, and lose track of what’s happening with the venerable PC…which most of us still have and use. Bgr.com has the numbers as tracked by IDC, and here’s where computer brands stood in 2017: #1 was H-P with 22.7% of the market. Lenovo came in 2nd with 21.1%. In third place was Dell with 16.1% market share, and 4th was Apple at 7.6%. Acer was in 5th place with 6.8%, and ASUS grabbed 6th with 6.6%, hot on their trail. The other 19.1% of computer sales was ‘everybody else.’ Of all of them, Apple had the most growth in the 4th quarter covering the holidays.

While Apple fanboys and fangirls breathlessly await the Apple HomePod, the smart speaker market is absolutely booming. According to 9to5mac.com, it’s up 128% since a year ago. Research from Edison Research and NPR indicates one in 6 Americans own a smart speaker of one type or another. 65% of owners say they would never want to go back to not having one! Of the 16% of us that have smart speakers, 11% are Amazon Alexa powered, while 4% use Google Home.

Since Congress passed a law allowing some hearing aid tech without prescription, wireless earbud makers are looking to that as a new market. Engadget.com reports that wireless earbud pioneer Bragi announced at CES that they would be diving into personalized hearing enhancement for their Dash earbuds. On top of that, they are working to develop personalized fitting for hearing loss using the so-called ‘Earprint’ test….pointing out that correcting for hearing loss needs to be as personalized as fitting for glasses. Another company called Nuheara showed off their updated product called IQBuds Boost.

Magic Leap Unveals AR Headset; Apple Allowing Universal Apps-Mac and iOS; UK Deems High Speed Internet a Legal Right

Posted: December 20, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We’ve been hearing whispers for years, and now Google-backed Magic Leap has taken the wraps off their augmented reality headset’s Creator Edition. 9to5google.com says they will be shipping in 2018, too! The setup consists of a ‘Lightwear’ headset connected to a circular ‘Lightpack’ via a couple cords…the Lightpack contains the processing and graphics, in a mid-sized disk that hangs off a belt or pocket…and a Control’ remote (smaller than most TV remotes) that provides for 6 degrees of freedom and movement. The headset has tech that detects and stores the exact location of walls, surfaces, and physical objects, and also what they are calling ‘360 degree sound field audio.’ The interface accepts inputs from voice, gestures, head poses, and eye tracking. No word on pricing for the Creator Edition yet, but their SDK should be released along with it, in addition to other tools for web and game developers.

Apple is readying to let developers release universal apps that will work across iPhones, iPads, and Macs early next year. In a Bloomberg News writeup picked up by macrumors.com, the official announcement and details could come in June at WWDC 2018. So far, it’s not known if Apple will merge the Mac App Store with the vastly more popular App Store for iOS, but that seems logical. The move would mean better apps for the Mac, since developers put a lot more time and energy into making apps for the more widely used iPhones and iPads.

In the wake of the FCC killing net neutrality here in the US, Britain has taken the opposite position. According to rawstory.com, the UK has deemed high speed internet a legal right for all citizens, and will require that never household is wired for it by 2020.. Communications company BT has pledged to drop around $788 million to connect about a million and a half rural homes to the net. Right now, about 95% of homes in the UK have broadband connections with 24 Mbps or higher speed.

Patent Reveals Striking Future Google Pixel Feature; Survey Shows Way More Switching PC to Mac Than Vice Versa; Best Buy’s Interactive Alexa and Google Home Displays

Posted: June 28, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Google will continue the unusual glass/metal back with the Pixel 2, and now we may know where they’re going with it. Bgr.com reports on a Discovery by Patently Mobile -a patent that highlights a touch sensitive surface on the back that would let the user control the device without touching with any elements on the screen-instead, touching the back of the handset. This allows commands and selection without obstructing anything you would be viewing on the screen.

A survey of US computer owners indicates that 21% of Windows laptop users will switch to Mac next time, but only 2% of Mac owners will change to Windows. The number switching Windows to Mac is even higher for Windows desktop users. According to 9to5mac.com, the survey is from Verto Analytics. The biggest no shock in the survey— most of the PC to Mac flippers are in higher income brackets, reflecting Apple’s pricey offerings!

Best Buy is rolling out Amazon Alexa and Google Home products in 700 stores, to be highlighted in separate, free standing display areas. Geekwire.com says the setup will allow customers to use Alexa devices and Google Home devices to interact with nearby products like Nest thermostats, Philips Hue lighting, and Insignia Smart Plugs…a way to try before you buy. 80 million smart home devices were delivered worldwide last year according to IHS Markit, up 64% from 2015. They expect 130 million to be sold this year.

Xiaomi Getting Ready to Bring Their Smartphones to the US; Apple’s WWDC Starts June 13th

Posted: June 2, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

After following the lead of Samsung and shamelessly aping Apple’s iPhone in their home country of China, it looks like maker Xiaomi is ready for their US closeup. Bgr.com reports that they have become the fastest growing smartphone maker, and now they’re coming to the US. Their latest crop of phones barely resemble the iPhone now, and they’ve purchased about 1500 patents from Microsoft. Xiaomi is known now for selling affordable smartphones with designs and specs that rival much more expensive ones, so if you’re on a budget but want a top flight phone, this could be the real deal.

We knew it was coming soon, and now we have a date. Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference will kick off in San Francisco Monday, June 13th, with the keynote at the usual 10 am Pacific. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium will be crammed to the rafters with tech reporters and developers. By noon that day, we should have lots more details about the next version of Apple’s iPhone/iPad software — iOS 10 — as well as news on Apple Watch, Apple TV and Macs. Cnet.com says they’ll have live coverage, as will a number of other tech sites. We’ll recap things right here. Stay tuned…

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