Ming-Chi Kuo Predicts First Apple Silicon Macs

The first wave of Apple Silicon Macs are set to include a 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Those will be released this year, With 14.1-inch and 16-inch, MacBook Pro Models coming in 2021. That’s according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, in a note reported on by MacRumors.

In a research note with TF International Securities today, seen by MacRumors, Kuo said he expects the ‌Apple Silicon‌ 13.3-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ to go into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, but he also now predicts we will see an Arm-based MacBook Air either in the same quarter or in the first quarter of next year. Kuo still believes that Apple intends to launch a mini-LED 16-inch ‌‌MacBook Pro‌‌ and a 14.1-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, also with a mini-LED display, but these will likely arrive in the second or third quarter of 2021, and intriguingly, both will have an “all-new form factor design.” Previous rumors suggested an updated 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ could arrive this year in October or November.

Kinkoo Mini Portable Air Conditioner: $59.99

We have a deal on the Kinkoo Mini Portable Air Conditioner that cools, humidifies, and cleans the dust particles from the air. Fill the viewable water tank, and the device uses evaporation to cool you down—the company says it works best in a hot and dry climate. It’s $59.99 through our deal.

'Little Voice' on Apple TV+ Aims to Improve Autism Representation

Little Voice arrived on Apple TV+  on Friday. It features an autistic character Louie King, who was played by an actor who is on the autism spectrum, Kevin Valdez. The actor joined the show’s co-creator, Jessie Nelson, to explain why this was so important.

“He’s really similar to me,” Valdez says. “It’s almost like this role was made with me in mind”… Apple’s service has a show, See, that features a large cast of actors who are blind or low vision.  “I was so pleased with how far we’ve come that Apple was so supportive of finding an autistic actor to play this role,” Nelson says. “This is a very different moment in history.” Increasingly, autistic actors are playing characters on the autism spectrum. And those characters are moving beyond the male autistic savant stereotype, says Arianna Esposito, director of lifespan services at Autism Speaks. Having a person with autism playing a role like Louie “really brings an authenticity to the character,” Esposito says.

Nokia Collaborates With Apple on Data Center Networking Tools

Nokia launched a set of tools for data center networking in collaboration with Apple on Thursday. Reuters reported that the aim is to help firms manage increased traffic as 5G networks are rolled out.

As the usage of 5G networks expands, vast quantities of data will be generated as more household appliances and other machines are linked up with sensors and artificial intelligence tools, creating the so-called “internet-of-things”. Nokia, which competes against China’s Huawei and Sweden’s Ericsson to build 5G networks, has been broadening its portfolio by adding open interfaces to its 5G equipment and launching new networking products. “We worked very closely with (Apple) over the last two plus years to understand their requirements,” said Steve Vogelsang, Nokia’s chief technology officer for IP and optical business.

Quibi Loses 90 Percent of Users After Free Trial

Quibi lost 90 percent of early users after their free trials expired. That’s according to data from Sensor Tower, reported on by The Verge. 

According to the firm’s new report on Quibi’s early growth, the short-form video platform signed up about 910,000 users in its first few days back in April. Of those users, only about 72,000 stuck around after the three-month free trial, indicating the app had about an 8 percent conversion rate. That’s not too bad. But compare it to the streaming video industry’s most successful debut of the last few years, Disney Plus, and the resulting picture is a grim one for Quibi.

Microsoft Reveals Details of Vast Phishing Campaign Against Users

In a blog post published Tuesday, Microsoft revealed details of a major phishing campaign that its Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) first observed in December 2019. The criminals targeted user accounts in 62 countries,

Based on patterns discovered at that time, Microsoft utilized technical means to block the criminals’ activity and disable the malicious application used in the attack. Recently, Microsoft observed renewed attempts by the same criminals, this time using COVID-19-related lures in the phishing emails to target victims. This malicious activity is yet another form of business email compromise (BEC) attack, which has increased in complexity, sophistication and frequency in recent years. According to the FBI’s 2019 Internet Crime Report, the most-costly complaints received by their Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) involved BEC crimes, with losses of over $1.7 billion, representing nearly half of all financial losses due to cybercrime. While most of the public’s attention in recent years has justifiably focused on the malign acts of nation state actors, the increasing economic harm caused by cybercriminals must also be considered and confronted by the public and private sectors. For our part, Microsoft and our Digital Crimes Unit will continue to investigate and disrupt cybercriminals and will seek to work with law enforcement agencies around the world, whenever possible, to stop these crimes.

Innotech Bluetooth 4.0 Smart Scale, BMI Analyzer, Health Monitor: $41.99

We have a deal on the Innotech Smart Scale, a device that provides 9 precise ways to look into your body measurements including weight, body fat, water, muscle mass, BMI, BMR, visceral fat, bone mass, and protein. It connects to an app on your iPhone or Android device via Bluetooth 4.0, and it supports supports Fitbit, Apple Health, and Google Fit. This smart scale is $41.99 through our deal.

Will 'Free as a Bird' be Enough to Make Peacock a Success?

NBCUniversal is set to fully enter the streaming wars next week. Variety took a look at the story behind the Peacock service, which has suffered delays to some of its major launch productions.

Most of the Peacock originals slate has been delayed by COVID-19. The service will come out with just nine originals, which include a slick series adaptation of “Brave New World” and U.K.-set workplace comedy “Intelligence,” starring David Schwimmer. The Summer Olympics were postponed until 2021, depriving the launch of some valuable promotional real estate. And with two weeks before go time, Peacock had deals for Apple, Google, Xbox and Vizio and LG TVs, but still had not clinched distribution pacts with Roku or Amazon Fire TV, the two biggest over-the-top TV device makers (which also have been holdouts on HBO Max). But Strauss remains undeterred, convinced that Peacock’s greatest potential lies in the free-to-watch tier with a light advertising load that promises no more than 5 minutes of commercials per hour. NBCU’s theory is that “Free as a bird” will resonate with millions of Americans who are financially strapped or just too maxed out to pay for yet another streaming package.

Google+ is Officially no More - Replaced on iOS and Android

Google+, the search giant’s ill-fated social network, is officially no more. It has been replaced on iOS and Android with Google Currents, reported 9to5Mac Google.

This launch is starting with a rebrand of Google+ for Android and iOS to Google Currents. The latest version introduces the blue waveform-like icon and gives the application a Google Material Theme redesign. The core UI is mostly unchanged with a home stream ordered by relevance (or chronology), while posts from company leadership can be given priority with a sparkle icon. Text, links, images, and other content from Drive can be shared, along with polls. Otherwise, this internal community tool carries over the concept of “tags” and “streams” from Google+.

H.266 Video Codec Uses Half the Data to Stream 4K

The H.266 video codec was recently revealed, and it was designed for 4K and 8K video streaming. It can steam at these resolutions using half the data as previous codecs.

Fraunhofer said that if a 90-minute, H.265/HEVC-encoded movie is about 10GB, it would only be 5GB for the same quality when encoded with the new codec. “Because H.266/VVC was developed with ultra-high-resolution video content in mind, the new standard is particularly beneficial when streaming 4K or 8K videos on a flat screen TV,” Fraunhofer said. At the same time, it will support all formats from 480p on up.

Logitech Launches Mouse and Keyboard for Apple Devices

Today Logitech has launched the MX Master 3 mouse and MX Keys keyboard for Macs and iPads.

Our newest additions to the Master Series and multi-device Bluetooth keyboard lineup have been re-imagined for advanced content creators who need the best tools for their craft and value Apple aesthetics, alongside increased productivity and performance.

Both products mention “For Mac” in the name, but of iPadOS now supports mice and keyboards.

Apple Patent Shows Folding Device With TouchBar

A patent application filed today shows a folding Apple device with a TouchBar and an exposed strip for notifications.

If desired, touch sensors (e.g., a two-dimensional touch sensor), buttons, or other input-output devices may be formed in a region such as region on rear surface R of housing (e.g., so that a user may supply input to one of these regions in response to adjacent content being displayed on protruding portion.

This is probably my own bias showing (because I think folding phones are gimmicks) but I think Apple is going for a folding iPad. That makes sense to me.

Secret Service Warns of Hacking Increase to Managed Service Providers

The U.S. Secret Service sent out a security alert to warn of an increase in hacking to Managed Service Providers. These provide remote management software for companies, like file-sharing systems.

In a security alert sent out on June 12, Secret Service officials said their investigations team (GIOC — Global Investigations Operations Center) has been seeing an increase in incidents where hackers breach MSP solutions and use them as a springboard into the internal networks of the MSP’s customers.

iPadOS 15 Wishlist - Proper Second Screen Support And More

We learned at WWDC 2020 what will be the upcoming version of the iPad’s operating system. On Cult of Mac, Ed Hardy look to the future and offered his iPadOS 15 wishlist. Full second display support? Yes, please.

You can mirror the iPad’s display onto a larger screen, which is very convenient for presentations and gaming. The videos from streaming services like Netflix can take full advantage of a big-screen TV. And a few drawing apps have embraced external displays. But there’s little to offer the average person to get day-to-day work done. It’s high time that changed. An iPad can show two applications side by side, or two windows from the same app. The feature should extend to moving app windows to an external display. An Apple A-series processor can easily handle displaying four open applications at once.

‘FindTheMadness’ Safari Extension Alerts You to Fake Clicks

FindTheMadness is a new Safari extension from Jeff Johnson. It gives you an alert when a website tricks you by running JavaScript triggered by a click.

FindTheMadness detects when JavaScript on websites overrides the normal expected behavior of your mouse and keyboard […] You may be astonished to discover how often you click what you think is a link on a page, but you’re actually running JavaScript triggered by a click.

Sounds like a nice tool, and it’s free.

‘Hamilton’ Gives Disney+ Holiday Weekend Subscriber Boost

It looks like ending free trials didn’t deter users signing up to Disney+. The streaming service got a nice boost over the holiday weekend, thanks to the arrival of Hamilton. The hit musical helped the service get.a 74 percent increase in subscribers from the four previous weekends, according to TechCrunch.

According to new data from app store analytics firm Apptopia, Disney’s streaming service saw a big jump in downloads over the July 4 holiday weekend in the U.S., following the worldwide debut of “Hamilton” on Friday, July 3rd. Between Friday and Sunday, that translated to over half a million new global downloads (752K+) for the Disney+ mobile app, excluding India and Japan. Some 458K+ of those downloads were in the U.S, the firm estimated. These figures represent a 46.6% increase over the average seen during the previous four weekends in June (Friday through Sunday), Apptopia noted.

The Story Behind Apple PowerBook’s Design

Gavin Ivester is currently VP of Design at Bang & Olufsen. He started his career at Apple though, working on the PowerBook. He told TechRader how the product took shape.

The ergonomic goal was to get that front edge to be as thin as possible, for comfort, assuming you would use the laptop on a desk.  The breakthrough came from a system integration engineer named Jonathan Krakower, who proposed we push the keyboard back, and then put the battery in one of the now-empty front corners, and the disc drive in the other corner.  That left a space in the middle for some kind of cursor control, and trackballs were the best solution at that moment… My challenge was then to design options to bring that layout idea to life as a product, prototype them, test them with real users, and design better ones until we either had a final design or proved it would never work.   

Double-Spending Flaw Found in Major Bitcoin Wallets

Israeli researchers at wallet startup ZenGeo have found a vulnerability affecting at least three major crypto wallets – Ledger Live, Edge, and Breadwallet. The flaw allows hackers to spend Bitcoin more than once,  Coindesk report,Ed.

The bug, which the Tel Aviv-based firm calls BigSpender, allows a hacker to double-spend a user’s funds and possibly prevent them from ever using their wallet again. It works by exploiting how certain wallet’s handle Bitcoin’s replace-by-fee (RBF) function, a failsafe that enables users to swap an unconfirmed transaction with one that has a higher fee. “[BigSpender] can lead to substantial financial losses and in some cases to make the victim’s wallet totally unusable, with no way for the victim to protect themselves,” ZenGo CEO Ouriel Ohayon said in an email. “So this can be seen as a high severity attack.”

Foxconn Imports Disrupted by India-China Tensions

Imports to India by key Apple supplier Foxconn have been slowed as a result of escalating tensions between the country and China. Reuters reported that Apple is amongst the companies seeking to free its shipments.

Customs officers at Indian ports have held back shipments from China and sought additional clearances after deadly clashes at the disputed Himalayan border last month. The checks have been imposed without any formal order. While several companies such as Apple (AAPL.O) and Dell (DELL.N) have been battling to free stuck shipments, hundreds of employees at Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn’s two plants in the south had no major work to do this week as shipments were delayed, sources said.

macOS Big Sur and the Return of Whimsical Design

Designer Michael Flarup writes about how macOS Big Sur will bring back “fun in visual design.”

With this approach Apple is legalising a visual design expressiveness that we haven’t seen from them in almost a decade. It’s like a ban has been lifted on fun. This will severely loosen the grip of minimalistic visual design and raise the bar for pixel pushers everywhere. Your glyph on a colored background is about to get some serious visual competition.

I don’t miss pre-iOS 7 skeuomorphism, but I don’t think I’ll mind some of that era’s icons coming back (just without the gloss). I also wonder if we’ll see them on iOS, or just macOS.

Albaro Air Posture Corrector: $99.95

We have a deal on the Albaro Air Posture Corrector, a device designed to help you improve your posture. It uses a patented ergonomically-designed air pressure cell to fit your unique body, it adjusts the air pressure and creates the most comfortable back support while effectively realigning your balance. The Albaro Air is $99.95 through our deal.