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The Ceramic Apple Watch Might Be Coming Back
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Wearables, Rumors,
Every year around this time, the Apple rumor mill produces one story that fans want to be true so badly that it spreads faster than its sourcing deserves. This year it is the ceramic Apple Watch.
The claim: Apple will bring back a ceramic case with the Apple Watch Series 12, expected at next month's September event. It would be the first ceramic Watch since the Series 5 Edition in 2019. It is a genuinely appealing idea. It is also, at the moment, one post on X.
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The Translucent Green Xbox Series X25 Will Be the Most Expensive Console Microsoft Has Ever Sold
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Microsoft, Rumors, Video Games,
The Xbox Series X25 is the best-looking console Microsoft has made in years. Translucent OG Green shell, green-lit power button, a straight callback to the 2001 Xbox that started all of this. When it was revealed at June's Xbox Games Showcase, the reaction was close to universally warm.
Then the price leaked. If the numbers hold, the 25th anniversary Xbox will be the most expensive home console Microsoft has ever sold, and it is not faster than the one below it.
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You Don’t Own What You Bought. Here’s the Proof. (Video)
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Editorial, Home Entertainment, Smart Home, Misc. Tech, Videos,
You bought the thing. It's sitting in your house. The box listed the features, you paid the money, the return window closed. So you own it, right? Here's the uncomfortable answer I landed on after digging through more than a decade of firmware updates, lawsuits, and shutdown notices: a company can sell you a product, wait out your return window, and then reach back into it to slow it down, strip its features, or kill it entirely, without anyone ever touching the hardware sitting in your living room.
Click to continue reading You Don’t Own What You Bought. Here’s the Proof. (Video)
Latest Andru Edwards Videos
Nvidia Just Paid $6 Billion for a Startup It Didn’t Buy
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Artificial Intelligence,
Poolside spent three and a half years building AI coding models, then hit a wall that had nothing to do with talent. In a letter to shareholders reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the company says it had a six-week window at the end of last year to raise $2 billion for a 40,000-GPU cluster coming online in January. It missed the window. It lost the cluster.
Last week, Nvidia paid Poolside $6 billion. Not to buy the company. To license the software Poolside used to build its models, hire more than 100 of its engineers, and take a $1 billion stake at a $12 billion pre-money valuation.
Click to continue reading Nvidia Just Paid $6 Billion for a Startup It Didn’t Buy
Walmart Starts Taking Apple Pay Today, After Eleven Years of Saying No
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News, Google,
You know the specific flavor of checkout-line dread where you reach the terminal, hover your phone over the reader out of pure habit, and nothing happens? At Walmart, that has been the default for over a decade. Today it stops being the default.
Walmart is switching on Tap to Pay at select Walmart and Sam's Club locations starting August 24, which means Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Wallet, and any contactless card finally work at the biggest retailer in the country. The company says every U.S. store and club gets it by the end of 2026, with fuel stations following by mid-2027.
Click to continue reading Walmart Starts Taking Apple Pay Today, After Eleven Years of Saying No
A Headless Robot Just Ran Faster Than Usain Bolt, Then Drove Straight Into a Wall
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Misc. Tech, Science, Artificial Intelligence,
A white, headless robot called Tiangong Ultra ran 100 meters in 9.39 seconds on Saturday. Usain Bolt's world record, set in Berlin in 2009, is 9.58. So the machine won.
Then it failed to stop, veered hard to one side, and plowed into a padded wall while spectators moved out of the way. The second-place finisher, Honor's Lightning, crossed at 9.47 seconds, also under Bolt's mark, then lost control completely and had to be carried off on a stretcher. That combination, world-class speed followed by an inability to decelerate, is the entire state of humanoid robotics in one race.
Rockstar Is Putting the Next GTA 6 Reveal Behind a Netflix Login for Six Hours
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Home Entertainment, Video Games,
For thirteen years, the pattern was simple. Rockstar drops a Grand Theft Auto trailer on YouTube, a hundred million people watch it, and the internet talks about nothing else for a week. No showcase, no partner, no gatekeeper. That changes on August 27.
Rockstar announced today that "Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look" premieres on Netflix at 3 p.m. ET, and won't hit the official Rockstar YouTube channel or the GTA VI site until 9 p.m. ET the same day. Netflix gets a six-hour head start on the most anticipated video the industry has left.
The iPhone 18 Pro Might Start at $1,399, and Even the Optimists Are Giving Up
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Rumors,
Two months ago the case for staying calm went like this: yes, memory prices have gone insane, but Apple runs the best supply chain on earth and has a long history of quietly eating costs to protect a price point. Analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities was making exactly that argument in May, saying Apple could still price the iPhone 18 Pro aggressively. This week he changed his mind.
In a new research note, Pu now expects the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max to land $250 to $300 above their predecessors. That works out to roughly $1,349 to $1,399 for the iPhone 18 Pro and $1,449 to $1,499 for the Pro Max. The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099 today. The 17 Pro Max starts at $1,199. Do that math on a Pro Max with any storage upgrade at all and you're staring at a phone that costs more than a decent laptop.
Apple Just Raised Trade-In Values, and It’s Taking Android Phones Now
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Hot Deals,
Apple raising trade-in values is normally a footnote. Apple raising trade-in values roughly a month before its biggest launch of the year, with some devices jumping close to 30 percent, is a strategy.
The company updated its U.S. trade-in estimates today, lifting the numbers for most iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models compared to the last revision in May. It also added several Android phones to the list for the first time.
Click to continue reading Apple Just Raised Trade-In Values, and It’s Taking Android Phones Now
OpenAI’s First Gadget Is a $300 Donut with Moving Arms You Carry Around
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smart Home, Rumors, Artificial Intelligence,
Picture a metal doughnut roughly the size of a hockey puck sitting on your kitchen counter. No screen. Small moving parts that shift when it answers you, and lights that glow when it's listening. That is the first piece of hardware OpenAI wants to sell you, and Bloomberg says it will cost somewhere between $300 and $400.
Mark Gurman's report gives real shape to a device we've only heard described in fuzzy terms since July. It's a speaker with no display, built to be picked up in one hand and carried from the kitchen to the laundry room to the bedroom. It runs on a battery. It has speaker grilles, microphones, a camera system, and sensors that feed it information about whatever room it's in. Jony Ive is designing it.
Click to continue reading OpenAI’s First Gadget Is a $300 Donut with Moving Arms You Carry Around