Google has been trying to make it easier for people to secure their accounts for years now. The company is one of several that are pushing a transition to passkeys from passwords, and they have also sold physical keys for unlocking accounts that support FIDO standards. Today, Google has updated its lineup of Titan security keys with some features that'll make them work better with passkeys as well as passwords.
As before, Google is offering two Titan keys, one with USB-C and another with USB-A. Both keys still support NFC so they can be used to unlock accounts on compatible smartphones as well as through the physical port. The new key supports FIDO2 specifications for password-free sign-ins and can store up to 250 passkeys.
Google is using this as an opportunity to push people towards using passkeys to protect their Google account — as part of the set-up process, you'll be encouraged to create a passkey and store it on the Titan key rather than continue using your password. At that point, you'll also set up a PIN that can be used in conjunction with the security key to unlock your Google account. But the Titan key can work with any supported account, not just Google. And, of course, you can use it as a two-factor authentication device alongside traditional passwords, as well.
These new Titan keys are on sale today on the Google Store and cost the same as the ones they're replacing. The USB-A model is $30, while the USB-C key costs $35.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-updated-titan-security-key-can-store-up-to-250-passkeys-180035899.html?src=rss
Apple’s latest and greatest iPad Air tablet is on sale via Amazon for $500 as part of an early Black Friday deal. The MSRP is $600, so this represents a savings of $100 for the fifth-gen device. The record-low deal applies to every available color, from purple to space gray, but some hues require you clip an affiliated coupon on the side of the page. You know the drill.
This deal is for the M1-equipped iPad Air, so it’ll be fast enough for just about anything you throw at it. It's the 64GB version, though the 256GB models are also on sale for $650 instead of $750. Additionally, there’s a similar discount for the 5G cellular models that shaves off $100 from that sticker price.
The fifth-gen iPad Air is generally considered to be the best all-purpose tablet that Apple makes. There’s a reason, after all, why it sits atop our list of the best iPads. We gave it high marks in our official review, calling out the sheer power of the M1 chip and the excellent battery life, which lasts around 12 hours per charge. We also admired the much-improved front camera, the optional 5G and, of course, the top-notch design and build.
On the downside, the storage options are a bit stingy, as is typical with Apple. The 64GB model will fill up fast, particularly if you are downloading apps and games at a rapid pace. This model also lacks Face ID, if that’s a dealbreaker for you. Finally, like all Apple tablets, the official pencil and keyboard accessories are on the expensive side. Despite these caveats, though, this was the best Apple tablet you could buy at $600, so that certainly holds true at $500.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-ipad-air-m1-drops-to-a-record-low-500-in-an-amazon-black-friday-deal-155933724.html?src=rss
A machine learning-based weather prediction program developed by DeepMind researchers called “GraphCast” can predict weather variables over the span of 10 days, in under one minute. In a report, scientists highlight that GraphCast has outperformed traditional weather pattern prediction technologies at a 90% verification rate.
The AI-powered weather prediction program works by taking in “the two most recent states of Earth’s weather,” which includes the variables from the time of the test and six hours prior. Using that data, GraphCast can predict what the state of the weather will be in six hours.
In practice, AI has already showcased its applicability in the real world. The tool predicted the landfall of Hurricane Lee in Long Island 10 days before it happened, while the traditional weather prediction technologies being used by meteorologists at the time lagged behind. Forecasts made by standard weather simulations can take longer because traditionally, models have to account for complicated physics and fluid dynamics to make accurate predictions.
Not only does the weather prediction algorithm outperform traditional technologies to forecast weather patterns in terms of pace and scale, GraphCast can also predict severe weather events, which includes tropical cyclones and waves of extreme temperatures over regions. And because the algorithm can be re-trained with recent data, scientists believe that the tool will only get better at predicting oscillations in weather patterns that coincide with grander changes that align with climate change.
Soon, GraphCast, or at least the basis of the AI algorithm that powers its predictions, might pop up into more mainstream services. According to Wired, Google might be exploring how to integrate GraphCast into its products. The call for better storm modeling has already paved a path for supercomputers in the space. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) says it has been working to develop models that will provide more accurate readings on when severe weather events might occur and importantly, the intensity forecasts for hurricanes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai-is-starting-to-outperform-meteorologists-173616631.html?src=rss
Ableton’s simply-named Push controller, which is actually the Push 3 for those keeping count, is on sale for 20 percent off straight from the manufacturer, bringing the cost down to $1,600 from that eye-watering MSRP of $2,000. This deal’s for the standalone version of the hardware, so you can make beats wherever you want.
Ableton doesn’t do hardware sales too often, so this is worth considering if you’ve been on the fence about the Push controller. To sweeten the deal, the company’s also selling its DAW, Live 11, for 20 percent off, bringing the price down to $350 for the standard version and $600 for the complete Suite version with 70+ gigs of additional content. There’s also a bare-bones version for $80, down from $100.
If you’re an Ableton-head, you probably know that Live 12 just got announced with a release date of early next year. Don’t worry. Buying Live 11 now with today’s discount ensures a free upgrade to Live 12 when it arrives.
The latest and greatest Push controller is a hybrid device that works as a standalone groovebox or connected to the computer, similar to the Native Instruments Maschine+. We admired the Push controller when we used it, calling out the usefulness of the 64 MPE enabled pads and the power of the integrated 11th Core i3 processor with 8GB of RAM.
We were impressed by the decreased latency during use, noting that playing with the controller in standalone mode actually featured less lag than when working tethered to a computer. This makes it a fantastic device for live performances. The battery life isn’t the greatest, but that’s to be expected with all of that juice. The price is also exorbitant, which has been mitigated a bit by this sale.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/abletons-push-standalone-midi-controller-is-20-percent-off-in-early-black-friday-deal-161429042.html?src=rss
Meta now lets Threads users avoid automatically sharing their posts with its other apps. When activated, the opt-out feature prevents Meta’s Twitter clone from sharing posts to Instagram and Facebook without user consent. Software engineer Alessandro Paluzzi spotted early signs of the privacy toggle earlier this month.
Threads users can turn off automatic cross-platform content sharing by heading to their profile page, selecting the menu at the top right, then Privacy > Suggesting posts on other apps, and toggling off Instagram and Facebook individually. Note that changing this feature only prevents your posts from being used in cross-promotions; you’ll still see other people’s Threads posts on Instagram and Facebook, irrespective of your privacy settings.
Some Threads users were upset about Meta automatically sharing their content from the nascent X competitor, mainly because people often use the apps to connect with different crowds (for example, Threads for news and politics with strangers, Facebook for extended family and old friends). TechCrunchhighlighted several comments from people describing Threads posts automatically posted on other platforms as odd clickbait seemingly “designed to get comments” by stripping bold statements of context. In October, the company said it was “listening to feedback” in response to a Threads user’s complaint about automatic sharing to Meta’s more established platforms.
Meta is no stranger to using its existing stockpile of social apps to turbocharge its newest ones. It used easy onboarding and promotion via Instagram to vault Threads to the fastest app to reach 150 million downloads. Although growth appeared to slow after that, CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said Threads had tallied nearly 100 million users. The Facebook founder said he sees a path for the Twitter clone to reach the one-billion user milestone.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/threads-users-can-now-opt-out-of-automatically-sharing-posts-to-facebook-and-instagram-172807726.html?src=rss
NVIDIA has launched its next-generation of AI supercomputer chips that will likely play a large role in future breakthroughs in deep learning and large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's GPT-4, the company announced. The technology represents a significant leap over the last generation and is poised to be used in data centers and supercomputers — working on tasks like weather and climate prediction, drug discovery, quantum computing and more.
The key product is the HGX H200 GPU based on NVIDIA's "Hopper" architecture, a replacement for the popular H100 GPU. It's the company's first chip to use HBM3e memory that's faster and has more capacity, thus making it better suited for large language models. "With HBM3e, the NVIDIA H200 delivers 141GB of memory at 4.8 terabytes per second, nearly double the capacity and 2.4x more bandwidth compared with its predecessor, the NVIDIA A100," the company wrote.
In terms of benefits for AI, NVIDIA says the HGX H200 doubles inference speed on Llama 2, a 70 billion-parameter LLM, compared to the H100. It'll be available in 4- and 8-way configurations that are compatible with both the software and hardware in H100 systems. It'll work in every type of data center, (on-premises, cloud, hybrid-cloud and edge), and be deployed by Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, among others. It's set to arrive in Q2 2024.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA's other key product is the GH200 Grace Hopper "superchip" that marries the HGX H200 GPU and Arm-based NVIDIA Grace CPU using the company's NVLink-C2C interlink. It's designed for supercomputers to allow "scientists and researchers to tackle the world’s most challenging problems by accelerating complex AI and HPC applications running terabytes of data," NVIDIA wrote.
The GH200 will be used in "40+ AI supercomputers across global research centers, system makers and cloud providers," the company said, including from Dell, Eviden, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Lenovo, QCT and Supermicro. Notable among those is HPE's Cray EX2500 supercomputers that will use quad GH200s, scaling up to tens of thousands of Grace Hopper Superchip nodes.
NVIDIA
Perhaps the biggest Grace Hopper supercomputer will be JUPITER, located at the Jülich facility in Germany, which will become the "world’s most powerful AI system" when it's installed in 2024. It uses a liquid-cooled architecture, "with a booster module comprising close to 24,000 NVIDIA GH200 Superchips interconnected with the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking platform," according to NVIDIA.
NVIDIA says JUPITER will help aid scientific breakthroughs in a number of areas, including climate and weather prediction, generating high-resolution climate and weather simulations with interactive visualization. It'll also be employed for drug discovery, quantum computing and industrial engineering. Many of these areas use custom NVIDIA software solutions that ease development but also make supercomputing groups reliant on NVIDIA hardware.
The new technologies will be key for NVIDIA, which now makes most of its revenue from the AI and data center segments. Last quarter the company saw a record $10.32 billion in revenue in that area alone (out of $13.51 billion total revenue), up 171 percent from a year ago. It no doubt hopes the new GPU and superchip will help continue that trend. Just last week, NVIDIA broke its own AI training benchmark record using older H100 technology, so its new tech should help it extend that lead over rivals in a sector it already dominates.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nvidia-announces-its-next-generation-of-ai-supercomputer-chips-140004095.html?src=rss
If you've had your eye on one of Apple's versatile M2-powered Mac Minis, Amazon has you covered. Right now, the 256GB Apple Mac Mini M2 is back down to $500 from $600 — its all-time low price. The first $50 is taken off immediately, while a coupon removes the rest at checkout. If you need even more storage, you can also check out the 512GB Mac Mini M2, currently at $690 from $799, thanks to a 13 percent discount and a $9 coupon thrown in at the end.
Apple's 2023 Mac Mini M2 is a long way from 2005's Mini. We gave the Mac Mini M2 an 86 in our review thanks to its eight CPU cores, ten graphic cores and 8GB of RAM. It's also wild with ports, including a headphone jack, gigabit Ethernet, two USB-A, two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C and an HDMI 2.0. Though, it doesn't have any front-facing ports, which can be a bit frustrating.
We also like the Mac Mini 2 for its sleek design and slightly raised bottom, allowing for optimal airflow. Overall, it's just a really well performing device, that can boost your Mac's performance without taking up too much room on your desk. Plus, it stays quiet while doing all this hard work. The only difference between the two models is storage, so if you're happy with 256GB, save yourself $190 (or put it towards Black Friday deals).
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-m2-mac-mini-is-up-to-109-off-ahead-of-black-friday-125447987.html?src=rss
Amazon gives Apple's product pages the special treatment and keeps them relatively clear of unrelated ads, signifying an arrangement between the companies, according to Insider. When the Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce retailer in September, it accused Amazon of "deliberately increasing junk ads that worsen search quality." However, Insider found that the pages for Apple products, such as "iPhone" and "iPad," show a clean page layout with no ads or recommendation. Meanwhile, products from rival brands, including Samsung Galaxy and Microsoft Surface, show multiple banner ads and several sponsored recommendations from other brands.
We tried it out ourselves and did find that Apple's product pages do look cleaner. Microsoft Surface Pro's, however, showed a carousel of sponsored listings "4 stars and above," along with products related to the specific item and multiple banner ads. Insider says Apple asked Amazon to keep its product pages free of ad clutter back in 2018, based on an email shared by the House Judiciary Committee. "We understand that Apple does not want to drive sales to competing brands in search or detail pages," Jeff Wilke, who was then Amazon's retail CEO, reportedly wrote.
Apple has admitted to the publication that it has some sort of an agreement with Amazon that prevents other companies from buying ads for "specific Apple-related brand queries" on the latter's marketplace. They can still buy ads for key phrases with an Apple name, say "iPad keyboard case," but not for "iPad" itself. "Apple's goal for the Agreements was to create the best possible customer experience, and others are free to do the same," Apple's representative said in a statement. They added that the deal was also meant to address the company's issues with counterfeit products on the platform, because it used to send Amazon "hundreds of thousands of take-down notices" before then.
While it's not clear whether money exchanged hands between the two companies, the email shared by the House talked about a potential financial deal. Amazon reportedly turned down Apple's request at first, but Wilke wrote in the email: "We cannot alter our organic search algorithm to return only Apple products in the search results when an Apple team is searched... Apple would need to purchase these placements or compensate Amazon for the lost ad revenue."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-reportedly-blocks-junk-ads-on-apple-product-pages-045018125.html?src=rss
Amazon gives Apple's product pages the special treatment and keeps them relatively clear of unrelated ads, signifying an arrangement between the companies, according to Insider. When the Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust lawsuit against the e-commerce retailer in September, it accused Amazon of "deliberately increasing junk ads that worsen search quality." However, Insider found that the pages for Apple products, such as "iPhone" and "iPad," show a clean page layout with no ads or recommendation. Meanwhile, products from rival brands, including Samsung Galaxy and Microsoft Surface, show multiple banner ads and several sponsored recommendations from other brands.
We tried it out ourselves and did find that Apple's product pages do look cleaner. Microsoft Surface Pro's, however, showed a carousel of sponsored listings "4 stars and above," along with products related to the specific item and multiple banner ads. Insider says Apple asked Amazon to keep its product pages free of ad clutter back in 2018, based on an email shared by the House Judiciary Committee. "We understand that Apple does not want to drive sales to competing brands in search or detail pages," Jeff Wilke, who was then Amazon's retail CEO, reportedly wrote.
Apple has admitted to the publication that it has some sort of an agreement with Amazon that prevents other companies from buying ads for "specific Apple-related brand queries" on the latter's marketplace. They can still buy ads for key phrases with an Apple name, say "iPad keyboard case," but not for "iPad" itself. "Apple's goal for the Agreements was to create the best possible customer experience, and others are free to do the same," Apple's representative said in a statement. They added that the deal was also meant to address the company's issues with counterfeit products on the platform, because it used to send Amazon "hundreds of thousands of take-down notices" before then.
While it's not clear whether money exchanged hands between the two companies, the email shared by the House talked about a potential financial deal. Amazon reportedly turned down Apple's request at first, but Wilke wrote in the email: "We cannot alter our organic search algorithm to return only Apple products in the search results when an Apple team is searched... Apple would need to purchase these placements or compensate Amazon for the lost ad revenue."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-reportedly-blocks-junk-ads-on-apple-product-pages-045018125.html?src=rss
Back in January, Qualcomm announced Snapdragon Satellite, a project that aimed to let Android users send texts via satellite when they don't have cell service. It would have been the company's answer to Apple's emergency SOS feature that debuted in the iPhone 14 lineup. However, the initiative hasn't worked out as Qualcomm hoped.
Qualcomm is ending its Snapdragon Satellite partnership with satellite phone maker Iridium. Although the pair "successfully developed and demonstrated the technology" smartphone makers "have not included the technology in their devices," Iridium said in a statement.
Smartphone makers have “indicated a preference towards standards-based solutions” for satellite connectivity, Qualcomm told CNBC. In other words, they're looking for a more open approach that doesn't necessarily position Qualcomm as a go-between. As The Vergenotes, the cost of satellite texting may have dissuaded some manufacturers too. Apple is footing the bill for emergency SOS for the time being.
Now that its agreements with Qualcomm are coming to an end, Iridium says it will be able to work directly with smartphone makers, mobile OS developers and other chipmakers. Apple, meanwhile, has expanded its emergency SOS feature by adding crash detection integration in iPhone 15.
Elsewhere, Starlink is set to roll out its satellite SMS service next year. It plans to eventually offer satellite-powered voice and data functions directly to phones, meaning users won't necessarily need to have a Starlink terminal nearby.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/qualcomms-satellite-texting-plan-is-dead-because-phone-makers-arent-interested-204331091.html?src=rss