Tag: ipad

Amazon AI Wearable Listens to Everything You Do; Starlink Bows Battery Powered Mini; YouTub Shorts Gets AI Image to Video Tool; Apple Care Plus Covers 3 Devices

July 23rd, 2025

Amazon is in the process of picking up a Bay Area startup called Bee. Bee makes a wearable and Apple Watch app that can record everything a wearer says. Engadget.com says the deal isn’t finalized yet, but that all Bee employees have gotten offers to join Amazon. Bee positions its snoopy device and app as being like a personalized AI assistant that passively learns from its wearer by listening to all of their conversations and activities. While the wearable does have a button to mute recording, it can theoretically observe every single thing the owner does or says. The app can then summarize daily activities, suggest to-do items or recall previously discussed details. Basically, now you can take your Alexa with you everywhere, so the ‘A-Lady’ won’t miss a snappy or off-color remark, or other regrettable thing you might utter. By the way, the wearable starts at $50. That’s a heck of a price point compared to the doomed Humane AI pin that ran $499.

The Starlink Mini satellite dish has gotten more useful. According to theverge.com, you can now attach a $119 LinkPower 1 power bank from PeakDo. The pack locks onto the back to the smallest terminal from SpaceX and you can run on the battery pack for over 4.5 hours. The pack can also be simultaneously charged via a USB-C port from your vehicle, solar generator, or solar panel. It is still small enough to fit into a backpack, even with the power bank. If you travel, or are one of those folks like a couple I know that live in a van or sailboat full-time, the battery pack will come in very handy!

YouTube is unveiling an image to video AI tool that will make photos into a short video. TechCrunch.com notes that the tool lets you turn a picture from your camera roll into a 6 second video. You will get a list of suggestions, or you can choose I Feel Lucky, and see what you get. Look for the feature under the Effects icon in the Shorts camera, then tap AI to browse the generative effects. YouTube does say it uses SynthID watermarks and clear labels to indicate that the creations are made with generative AI.

Apple is rolling out AppleCare+ tomorrow. The new plan will cover more than just iPhones…your iPhone, Watch, and iPad can be covered. Macrumors.com reports that the plan includes coverage for up to two incidents of theft or loss in a one-year period, and unlimited repairs for accidental damage. It starts at $4.99 a month for an iPad, and $2.99 a month for Apple Watch. The theft and loss coverage was previously only available for iPhones. Note that AppleCare+ with theft and loss is still not available for other devices, such as the Mac, Apple TV, HomePod, AirPods, and Apple Vision Pro.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Pixel 10 Leak; Salesforce Buys Hiring AI Tools Startup Moonhub; Microsoft Reveals Bing Video Creator; Instagram for iPad-Coming This year…Finally

June 3rd, 2025

A leaked prototype of the Google Pixel 10 has produced several reveals. 9to5google.com reports that the handset appears to have a thicker oval-shaped camera bar which is also wider…it comes very close to the edges of the phone. In addition, there are some smaller visual changes….the cutouts at the bottom on either side of the USB-C port are identical in size. It is expected that one is the speaker and the other is for the microphone. Google has moved the SIM card tray to the top left edge. The prototype has 16 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage.

Salesforce has somewhat stealthily snapped up a startup that is making AI tools to vet and hire talent. According to techcrunch.com, the company is Moonhub, and the entire crew, based in Menlo Park, will join Salesforce. Moonhub was just started in 2022 by an ex-Meta engineer. They make a number of tools designed to help companies recruit, evaluate, and hire job candidates. Moonhub’s AI can automatically identify candidates for roles, reaching out and assisting with tasks such as onboarding and payroll management.

As it does whatever it can to attract people to Bing, Microsoft has rolled out Bing Video Creator. Geekwire.com says Creator is a new generative AI tool for creating videos from text prompts. It is based on Sora, the video model that came out in December from OpenAI. Microsoft is a rather heavily invested partner in OpenAI. You can use text prompts to make 10 videos up to 5 seconds long each with Bing Video Creator. After that, you will need Microsoft Rewards points for additional creations. Expect to see more AI-generated silly stuff on social media soon.

Meta dropped the iPad version of WhatsApp last week. If it seems like it’s been a while for this, it has…2 years. Now, bgr.com reports that Meta employees are testing out Instagram for iPad, and we may see it out later this year. For those that don’t use apps like these, let me get on my soapbox. What you get is an iPhone-sized app sitting in your screen with nothing in the space around…in other words, it is just like using an iPhone app, and wastes the larger screen and abilities of the iPad. Meta’s Threads has the same format,,,I hope they will get an iPad version of that out soon, too. Meta says they have been concerned with how the square pictures in Instagram would look on the iPad. They may have that worked out, and with in increase in time on Reels from 90 seconds to 3 minutes, those videos will look nice in landscape if they have that figured out. It is not just Meta, by the way. I use Bluesky, and they have the same deal….a little iPhone screen in the middle of a vast area of wasted screen on iPads. Come on, people!

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Apple Bows Fresh Air-MacBook Air Models; New Mac Studio Ultra; YouTube Premium Lite; Google Search gets ‘AI Mode’; Trump Tariffs on Mexico May Stifle Game Disc Production

March 5th, 2025

No big, glitzy dog and pony show, but this week Apple continues to introduce refreshed hardware. Yesterday, we saw upgraded iPad Air models. Today, macrumors.com reports that the expected MacBook Airs with M4 chips are in the spotlight. Besides the newer, faster chips, Apple is offering a new ‘Sky Blue’ color…which will join Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. The new Air models also get a 12MP ‘center stage’ camera that keeps you centered in frame as you move around in front of the computer…handy for Zoom meetings. The new Air has a lower base price…it’s $999…with education pricing starting at $899. The Air can be preordered today and is out March 12th.

If you are all about max power for creative work, Apple also rolled out a freshened Mac Studio with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips. The Mac Studio starts at $3999 with the M3 Ultra, but if you really want to go nuts, and configure it with all the whistles and bells, expect to drop a bit over $14,000! By the way, the M3 Ultra is more powerful than the M4 Max…and Apple said that not every computer will have an Ultra version available. Confusing? Yes. Like the MacBook Airs, the Studios can be preordered now and will be out March 12th.

YouTube is launching YouTube Premium Lite at $7.99 a month. According to 9to5google.com, it will make ‘most’ videos ad-free. Standard YouTube Premium stays at $13.99 a month, nearly double the price of the new tier. A couple of notable changes with Lite. For one thing, YouTube Music is removed. You will see ads on music videos. You also can’t download videos or music for offline use. Besides that, Background play is not available. Lite starts out as a pilot program in the US, and will also be dropping in Thailand, Germany, and Australia, then to other countries.

Google is rolling out a new ‘AI Mode’ experimental feature in Search that will compete head on with Perplexity AI and OpenAI’s ChatGPT search. TechCrunch.com says that the new mode will allow users to ask complex, multi-part questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic directly within Google Search. AI Mode will be available to Google One AI Premium subscribers starting this week, and it’s accessible via Search Labs, Google’s experimental division. It is powered by Gemini 2.0. As with everything AI, Google warns it isn’t perfect and is subject to ‘hallucinations.’

With the 25% Trump tariffs on Mexico, most think of big ticket items like vehicles, vehicle parts, appliances, etc. Here’s something that may have slipped under your radar…video game software and hardware. Arstechnica.com notes that physical game discs are overwhelmingly produced in Mexico these days. Ars says this may mean that some publishers will move to an all-digital strategy. This has been a trend for some time, but the tariffs appear poised to accelerate it. Game makers that do keep burning physical discs will probably pass all or most of the 25% tariff on to you, the consumer…just like every other sort of goods subject to tariffs. Another issue: around 75% of all game consoles are made in China, which is just now seeing tariffs go up from 10% to 20% under the new Trump rules. If you are waiting on a new Nintendo Switch 2, you may be ok, though. Over half of those are produced outside of China. This could let Nintendo just ship the units built outside of China to the US and they could hold the line on price increases.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
New Intel Processors Coming; Threads Adds Swipe Left & Right Feature; Open AI & Google DeepMind Alums Warn of Serious Risk’ and Lack of Oversight in AI; Apple May Add ‘Respiration Tracking’ to Vision Pro

June 4th, 2024

Intel is putting its foot on the gas with the new Lunar Lake chip. Theverge.com reports that the new system-on-a-chip design triples the size and more that quadruples the performance of its AI accelerator, while promising a 14% faster CPU at the same clock speed. Intel also brags about 50% more graphics performance and up to 60% better battery life than last year’s model. A really big change…no separate memory sticks or chips. Lunar Lake has either 16 or 32GB of memory right in the package itself. The downside? No ability to add more RAM. The move does cut power consumption by 40% though. Intel says for those needing more memory, they will roll out the Arrow Lake chip family later this year.

Threads has made some recent revisions to its interface, and now they have added swiping right to like a post, or left to indicate you aren’t interested. The movements echo those of Tinder, where you can swipe to like or ignore potential people. According to mashable.com, Threads and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said “We’ll use those signals to show you more posts like the ones you swipe right on and fewer of those you swipe left on. I hope this helps you find more posts that you’re interested in.” The feature can be a little confusing as you can only swipe left or right when scrolling through your feed (thankfully, a little heart or crossed out eye icon shows up to let you know what’s up when you start swiping). If you’re looking at a single post on Threads, you won’t be able to swipe left, and swiping right will bring you back to feed view.

There has been plenty of noise about AI developer firms playing fast and loose, and now comes an open letter from a number of former and current OpenAI employees describing concerns about the artificial intelligence industry’s rapid advancement despite a lack of oversight and an absence of whistleblower protections for those who wish to speak up. Cnbc quotes the letter as saying “AI companies have strong financial incentives to avoid effective oversight, and we do not believe bespoke structures of corporate governance are sufficient to change this.” The letter goes on to say “We also understand the serious risks posed by these technologies,” they wrote, adding that the companies “currently have only weak obligations to share some of this information with governments, and none with civil society. We do not think they can all be relied upon to share it voluntarily.” Besides the OpenAI employees and alums, the letter was signed by a couple Google DeepMind people.

A patent has turned up that indicates Apple may be going to add respiration tracking to the Vision Pro headset. Zdnet.com reports that the patent filing doesn’t really specify precisely what the respiration tracking would do for you, but code for it shows up under the Mindfulness app, so that’s a clue. Perhaps a personalized breathing exercise routine to reduce stress or such. It also isn’t clear when the feature might be released, but we may learn more after next Monday’s WWDC keynote. We will cover the World Wide Developers Conference keynote Monday for you with a recap you can scan or view…so no need to sit through the hype and Apple ‘reality distortion field.’

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
New iPad Pro with OLED & M4 Chip; Disney Almost Breaks Even on Streaming; NHTSA Drops Massive Data Request on Tesla; Google I/O Rumors

May 7th, 2024

Apple held their iPad event today, and as expected showed off the new iPad Pro models with OLED screens, new M4 chips, and a thinner case. Appleinsider.com reports that there are 11 and 13 inch displays, and that the cases on the Pros are slightly thinner than before. They also weigh a bit less. Apple crows that the new iPad Pros are the thinnest devices they have ever made. Part of the reason for the svelteness is the OLED panel, which is bright enough ton not need back lighting. Apple is using a two layer OLED panel to get the brightness. The new iPads are also jumping to the M4 processor as expected. This version of Apple’s latest chip has 4 performance and 6 efficiency cores, and a 10 core GPU. The wide camera at the back is 12MP, and again there is LiDAR included…but the ultra wide camera is gone. The iPads are available for preorder now and ship May 15th. The 11 inch iPad Pro starts at $999, and the 13 incher starts at $1299.

Streaming has been a tough nut to crack financially for everyone. Now, Disney is apparently almost at break even in streaming. According to CNBC, included in Disney’s second quarter earnings report…which beat the street’s estimates…the House of Mouse has seen total entertainment streaming segment operating income up 17%…this includes Disney Plus and Hulu. The division turned a profit for the quarter for the first time. Combined with ESPN+ though, the streaming businesses lost $18 million in the quarter. Still, that is way better than the $659 million loss the division reported a year ago. Disney+ Core subscribers grew by over 6 million 2nd quarter, and the channel now has 117.6 million subscribers. Hulu went up 1% to 50.2 million, while ESPN+ dropped 2% to 24.8 million.

Tesla has gotten a request for data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and it is a biggie. It concerns the investigation into the massive Autopilot recall of some 2 million cars…and some 20 crashes that occurred after the recall. Arstechnica.com says Tesla has until July 1st to comply. The NHTSA wants a database with information for every car it has sold or leased in the US, with information on the number and dates of all Autopilot driver warnings, disengagements, and suspensions for each of those vehicles. Again, that’s about 2 million cars! Tesla must tell NHTSA how many “hands on wheel” warnings its cars have displayed, both pre- and post-recall. Tesla also has to explain to NHTSA why it decided to implement each of the five fixes the way it did, in laborious depth for each remedy. Elon may have to hire back staff of keep some he had planned to lay off in order to comply.

Now that Apple has rolled out updated iPads, etc. it’s on to the next big show…Google I/O. It’s coming up May 14th. Engadget.com says the big story will be AI…like every tech company now. Expect Google to talk about Gemini AI, which is rumored to be a total replacement for Google Assistant. They will also probably tell us more about the AI assistant called Pixie…which is an exclusive feature for Pixel devices. Pixie is Gemini based, and expected to bow on the Pixel 9 later this year. In addition to AI, we should hear more about Android 15…which is out in beta now. Google will probably tout the updated Privacy Sandbox, and also partial screen sharing…which allows you to record or share a certain app window instead of the full screen. Additional satellite connectivity will be announced…as Samsung and Apple also race to give users more ability to communicate via satellite later this year.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now!
New M3 MacBook Airs Drop; Pixel Watch 3 Getting 45mm Size; Waymo-More Areas in LA and SF; Google Maps Tests Showing Building Entrances

March 4th, 2024

Without an event or big fanfare, Apple has released new 13 and 15 inch MacBook Air, powered by M3 Apple silicon. 9to5mac.com reports that the new laptops get support for two external displays and faster WiFi. The new Airs will ship the end of the week…Friday, March 8th. In a goofy quirk…you can’t drive two screens unless the laptop is closed…meaning you will have to buy an external keyboard and trackpad pad for Apple…costing even more money. On the plus side, the M3 MacBook Air has a faster 8 core CPU and 10 core GPU. The sizes are the same as the M2 models they replace. The 13 inch Air starts at $1099, and the 15 incher is $1299. The M1 MacBook Air is discontinued…so you may be able to pick one up for a good closeout price from vendors.

A big knock on the Pixel watch is that the 41mm size is just too small. Now, Google is working on a second size…a 45mm Watch 3. 9to5google.com notes that the larger size would match the larger Apple watch Series 9. Samsung also offers 40mm and 44mm sizes for the Watch 6 and 43mm and 47mm sizes for the Watch 6 Classic. It doesn’t look like the UI will change much if at all for the Pixel Watch 6, but several watch faces should display much better on the bigger size. Google is also working on Pixel Buds Pro 2 headphones. Since the Pro buds got several new features last fall, don’t expect a major suite of new features…maybe better active noise cancellation.

The California Public Utilities Commission has given the green light to Alphabet owned Waymo to operate its self-driving taxis. Mashable.com says in The Bay Area, the cars will now be rolling outside San Francisco…in fact, on the Peninsula all the way down to Sunnyvale in Silicon Valley. Their competitor, Cruise…a division of General Motors, is still on hold after one of the vehicles hit and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco last year. Meanwhile, Tesla is reportedly trying to develop its own driverless taxi system using its own electric vehicles.

We’ve all been there…you find parking near a venue you haven’t been to, walk to the place, and walk all around trying to find the entrance you need. Now, androidpolice.com reports that google is testing showing some entrances and exits on buildings in Google Maps. The entrances only show when you select a place on the map and zoom in. Right now, they appear as a round white circle with an entry symbol. Also, when you select a building or venue, it turns light red, helping you to find the actual destination among other buildings. It’s still in the testing stage, so things may change before it gets wide release in Google Maps.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Amazon Ends iRobot Deal, Roomba Starts Layoffs; New iPads & Macs in March; X Blocked Taylor Swift Searches after Porn Deepfakes Proliferate on the Platform; EV Battery Charges in 5 minutes

January 29th, 2024

Amazon has ended its proposed $1.7 billion purchase of iRobot, the maker of Roomba robot vacuums after a report that the EU regulatory agency refused to give approval. The UK antitrust agency had ok’ed the deal, but without the EU, both Amazon & iRobot said there was “no path to regulatory approval for the deal.” The Roomba maker also announced it would lay off 31% of its employees, around 350 people, and that its chair and CEO, Colin Angle, would step down effective immediately. Shares of iRobot fell 10% in morning trading on the news. Amazon will pay iRobot a $94 million break up fee.

Apple is expected to reveal new iPad Air, iPad Pro, and MacBook Air models “around the end of March,” according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman says new iPad Pros and a new 13 inch MacBook Air are already in production. The iPad Air collection will get a new 12.9 inch screen, and the 10.9 inch model gets a refresh…including an Apple M2 chip, and new rear camera. The Pros get OLED displays. Gurman expects both the 13 and 15 inch MacBook Airs to be updated to get the latest M3 chip. The MacBook Pros just got updated to the M3 last year.

A confirmation has come from X that it is blocking searches of Taylor Swift’s name after pornographic deepfakes of the artist began circulating on the platform this week. Engadget.com notes that the X head of business operations said, “This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue.” This step comes days after the problem first became known. X has drawn plenty of ire for being slow to curb the spread of nonconsensual, sexually explicit images. Taylor Swift fans went into action, mass-reporting the images and flooding the hashtags relating to Swift with positive content. Before X acted though, one post was viewed more than 45 million times. The deepfakes are believed to have originated from a Telegram group known for creating nonconsensual pornographic images of women.

As anyone, whether an EV owner or not, knows…the fact that it takes 30 minutes or more to ‘fast charge’ an EV is a drag on sales of the electric cars. Now, a group of researchers working at Cornell University have made an interesting breakthrough. According to a new paper the researchers published in Joule, their charger could make it possible to charge an EV battery in just five minutes, a nice upgrade from the current EV fast chargers that take at least 30 minutes to charge up. Bgr.com reports that the key to the 5 minute charging is use of a metal called indium for battery anodes. The metal is already used in touchscreens and solar panels. If the battery catches on, it could make EVs more affordable…smaller batteries with less than 300 miles of range would work for a lot of folks, if they could recharge in 5 minutes. If a buyer wanted to spring for the bigger battery, they could surpass the mileage of a gas powered car.

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