And that’s about it. No actual release date or other updates, we just know you’ll be able to buy one next month. The company had previously promised the computer would arrive in the ‘fall,’ so presumably, you’ll be able to buy one before December 21st if Apple wants to keep true to its word. That’s one expensive Christmas gift. As a recap, the Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever, but its real claim to fame is its more traditional design....

In a statement shared with TechCrunch and The Information, the iPhone maker said it’s doing so “to give developers the time they need to make the necessary changes.” The exact date when the policy would be enforced is expected to be announced later. iOS 14, which is due in a couple of weeks, is all set to make device identifiers (called IDFA or “Identifier for Advertisers”) — a distinct, randomly generated code assigned to every iPhone and iPad — obsolete by requiring that third-party apps seek explicit consent from users before using the unique IDs for tracking their activities across other apps and websites....

The tech giant announced last night that this program is expanding to 200 more countries. In regions such as Australia, Brazil, India, Russia, Taiwan, and Vietnam, the process is starting off next week, and the rest of the countries will follow later in the year. The company originally launched the program in 2019 to allow customers in the US to get their iPhones — specifically basic parts such as batteries, speakers, and screens — repaired from authorized third-party providers....

Sources have indicated that the Cupertino-based company will take delivery of over 8 million MacBook Airs in the third quarter, with June shipments already totalling 2.4 million MacBooks and orders for July likely to push 3 million units. Apple is expected to ready stock for its new launch, increasing deliveries rapidly before announcing the update. Apple may expect to ship 15 million MacBook notebooks in 2011, helped by demand for its Air notebook, raising estimates from 13 million units....

But does the 85km (53 miles), the altitude of the recent Virgin Galactic flight, actually count as space? And what are these companies likely to achieve going forward? The definition of where space begins is very subjective. The Kármán line is a distance of 100km (62 miles), determined in 1957. This line has been adopted by the Swiss Air Sports Federation (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) to determine if an activity is aeronautical or astronautical....

A new study reveals that chemical reactions within asteroids may have freed water, slowly covering the Earth in water. Usually, astronomers thought of water from space as coming from comets — essentially, dirty snowballs — from beyond the “ice line” of our Solar System, where water stays eternally frozen. This water would come trapped in hydrous silicates, which could then be freed from its rocky matrix. Several recent studies have challenged the notion of comets bringing large quantities of water to Earth, although the delivery method remained unanswered....

But is more automation always a good thing? Social media automation helps social media managers be more efficient in their job. You can bulk-schedule your content. You can cross-post quickly and easily. With a bit of code, you can probably do a whole lot more. But while you can do all this, it is important to avoid overreliance on automation tools. If you want to grow on social media, your strategy cannot simply consist of creating content, scheduling them in as posts, and then forgetting all about them....

For years, people have highlighted how misleading it is to use words like “autopilot” to describe a range of cars that have varying degrees of autonomy, and yet nothing has changed. As EVs and self-driving cars continue to evolve, the word autopilot is taking on new meaning and is being applied in entirely new contexts. No longer is autopilot purely an aviation term, it’s being used as catch-all for high-level driver assistance features in all kinds of vehicles....

But even if you consider yourself an audiophile, you probably don’t need to pay extra for lossless music. At least, not in order to make your music sound better. It’s true that most music streaming services compress audio in one way or another in order to minimize data usage, almost always leading to some lost information. There are ways of compressing music losslessly, but they generally can’t reduce file size as much as a decent lossy compression....

When finalizing a few research papers for the AGI-20 conference, scarfing up related info from Arxiv and Google Scholar and GitHub and n-category Cafe — I was struck by the obvious realization of how utterly different this process was from when I got my PhD back in 1989. I was hit by the long-rusted memory of what it was like to have some wild, crazy, obscure science or tech idea — and then sit on it and think about it for months or even years, without having anyone appropriate around to talk to about it, and without having any easy way to figure out how original the idea was Looking through the research literature in big old bound volumes in the library was — somewhat different....

As a result of the attack, the company, which reportedly employs 170,000 people across the globe, has shut down its IT network and its employees were reportedly sent home. The firm, which is credited as being one of the world’s biggest provider of armored vehicles to transport cash, said on Twitter that it had taken “maximum security measures” to avoid propagating the ransomware both internally and externally. — Prosegur (@Prosegur) November 27, 2019...

The decision comes amid a growing backlash against the software, which research shows consistently misidentifies people of color. An MIT study found that facial recognition algorithms designed by Microsoft, IBM, and Face++ made up to 35% more errors when detecting the gender of darker-skinned women. For light-skinned men, that error rate dropped was just 1%. Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who co-sponsored the law, said these biases made the tech unfit for use: [Read: Stop calling it bias....

But they’re also divisive. Supporters of wearable technology claim that health trackers should be prescribed by the NHS and could even deliver an early warning of a possible COVID-19 infection. GPS tracking devices designed to be worn by children, meanwhile, are seen as a safety asset for parents. Yet studies have found fitness trackers to be too inaccurate and misleading to be used by medical professionals, and that, because they’ve been rushed to market, wearables of all kinds are an insecure “Wild West” region of technology that requires urgent regulation....

Tyler Reeves, who sold the drugs under the moniker “Platinum45,” was sentenced on Monday by by United States District Judge James V. Selna. Aside from the prison sentence, Reeves, who pleaded guilty to distributing methamphetamines and money laundering in March, will also have to pay a $15,000 fine. “On September 20, 2018, law enforcement executed a search warrant at defendant’s residence. At his residence, [Reeves] possessed not only illegal controlled substances, such as methamphetamines and oxycodone (prescribed to defendant), but he also possessed 13 un-serialized firearms, and 14 un-serialized silencers, which are used to suppress the sound of a gunshot,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum....

The message, which appears on the game’s Message of the Day segment, as well as the loading screen for its battle royale format, Warzone, shows solidarity for those protesting against racism and the senseless killing of George Floyd. Our community is hurting,” the message reads. “Call of Duty and Infinity Ward stand for equality and inclusion. We stand against the racism and injustice our Black community endures. Until change happens and Black Lives Matter, we will never truly be the community we strive to be....

The system, named ‘Project Bakong,’ is a payments app powered by a central bank digital currency (CBDC). National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) chairman Chea Serey described it as “the national payment gateway for Cambodia.” The current Bakong implementation links to users’ bank accounts to exchange the CBDC with hard currency. An exec from one participating bank told reporters that Bakong is cheaper and more convenient than credit and debit cards, before noting that some banks might lose some of their market share in the short term....

Reviewing regulations to bring them up to date for new tech sounds like a good thing, but in this case Canada is kind of missing the point. It could make ebikes, escooters, and the like a lot less enticing for Canadians if things don’t pan out. So what’s going on? As of February 4, Canada’s regulators have decided to repeal its Power Assisted Bicycle (PAB) definition, The Globe and Mail reports....

Lee Luda, a conversational bot that mimics the personality of a 20-year-old female college student, told one user that it “really hates” lesbians and considers them “disgusting,” Yonhap News Agency reports. In other chats, it referred to Black people by a South Korean racial slur and said, “Yuck, I really hate them” when asked about trans people. After a wave of complaints from users, the bot was temporarily suspended by its developer, Scatter Lab....

Listen up, because I’ve got great news! You can finally stop looking enviously at your neighbor enjoying playing with their rad drone. The DJI’s Spark Drone is on sale and now costs measly $280, down from $649! This drone has a 12-megapixel camera which lets you shoot footage at 1080p, making aerial photograph a breeze. It has 16 minutes of flight time on a single charge with a maximum speed of 50 km/h, so don’t drive your car too fast when you’re shooting that scenic video from the sky....

Sorry? What did you say? You use wires to listen to music? Oh my god, I hope you’re okay. While it’s certainly fine to plug your bits of hardware into each other to play tunes — this is a judgement-free(ish) zone — it’s much better to not bother with that. Instead, you should be sending your glorious sounds through the air before they reach your ears by going through the air in a different way....