Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 03/08 – The Spring Apple Event

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Tuesday, March 8th, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. All the news from the spring Apple event this afternoon. Google is buying a cybersecurity company. A bunch of crypto security companies banned together to protect critical infrastructure. Amazon launches an app to allow anyone to be a DJ and the arrival of Android 12L. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. By the way, when editing this segment, I discovered I might have transposed gigabit and gigabyte once or twice. I could re-record this whole segment or get it out to you now, and I'm electing to do the latter. You know what I meant.

Starting point is 00:01:16 The Apple event this afternoon went by in a rush. Everything came fast and furious, which was welcome. No word about Apple expressing support for Ukraine, which showed admirable restraint, I thought, but for those of you that were playing that particular bingo game, thought I'd note that. I more was reporting that Apple initially blocked viewers in Russia from watching this. product event live stream on YouTube and then unblocked it this morning. Don't know if that is true or not. It's now become common to open with Apple TV Plus shoutouts, and Apple did that again. Consider every Apple event going forward to be like, I don't know, the Apple TV up fronts or something. Apple is

Starting point is 00:01:59 getting into Pixar style animation, it seems. I also saw that Henry Cavill is getting his own super spy turn. But the big headliner was that Friday night baseball is kind of. coming to Apple TV Plus, two games each Friday. Of course, that assumes there will be a baseball season. Then it was on to the iPhone, specifically two new iPhone 13 colors. One is green, a green goblin color, somebody said. Technically, the iPhone 13 Pro gets a slightly different shade of green, but whatevs? Pre-order those this Friday.

Starting point is 00:02:34 Then news that the A-15 bionic chip is coming to the new iPhone SE. not an iPhone SE 5G. No nomenclature there. It's the same iPhone 8 era design, including the home button, but yes, same chip as the iPhone 13s. And also look, smaller phone lovers, be grateful that Apple is giving you this option still. They claim that battery life on the new iPhone SE is better. And yes, 5G is still coming to this phone as well, even if it's not in the name. There are camera improvements. All of this is starting at $429, and it's coming March 18th, with pre-orders beginning on Friday. By the way, it's worth noting that is a $30 price bump. Now, onto the iPad. The M1 chip is coming to the iPad Air. That means up to 60% faster performance than the A14 chip, two times faster graphics, etc., etc. But notable that the iPad Air,

Starting point is 00:03:36 now has the same chip as the iPad Pro, which makes me wonder what the pro is for now, at least the 11-inch version of the iPad Pro. The iPad Air gets a 12-machal ultra-wide front-facing camera, and with that center stage comes to the iPad for the first time, that feature that keeps you in the frame as you move around. 5G is also coming to the iPad Air. It's got a USBC port again, but it's still not a Thunderbolt port. It is still compatible with the Magic keyboard, the smart keyboard, and second generation Apple pencils. Imovie got a shout out. So is that new for iPads? Imovie coming to iPad? It's not new, is it? Still no face ID for this iPad air, but you do get 64 and 256 gigabyte configurations. The price is still the same, starting at $599. Pre-orders begin on Friday,

Starting point is 00:04:32 March 18th availability. And then, again, blazing through everything, onto the Mac, say hello to a new chip, the M1 Ultra. This is, according to Apple's John Ternis, designed for the desktop. Apple says the M1 Ultra is built out of two M1 Max dies, interconnected by some magic that Apple went into, something called Ultra Fusion. So I guess the M1 Ultra Chip is two M1 Max chips pasted together. It's a 5-nanmeter process. It connects over 10K signals and 2.5 terabits per second bandwidth between the dyes. It lets two M1 chips behave like a single chip, at least from a software perspective. So from a software perspective, the software thinks this is one chip, not two. The memory bandwidth is increased to 800 gigabits per second, a 20-core CPU, 16 high-performance cores, and four high-performance cores as well. It supports 128 gigabits of

Starting point is 00:05:42 unified memory, a 64-core GPU. Apple says it's eight times faster than the M-1 chip. They say it uses 65% less power than a 16-core desktop. So where to use this badass new chip? Well, how about in the studio? This is something totally new. Get ready. It's called Mac Studio. Imagine a taller Mac Mini. This is the Mac Mini Pro that we had heard rumors of. It comes alongside also a new studio display. Let's begin with the Mac Studio. It has ports, including a friggin' SD card slot on the front, plus two USBC ports on the front. Think about this. Not only did we get Apple to give us ports back on our laptops, but now they're putting ports on the front of a desktop again. Easy to reach, Apple says, I guess, depending on where you put it, but also solving a problem that

Starting point is 00:06:41 Apple itself created, as they always do. Anyway, the Mac Studio is 3.7 inches tall, 7.7 inches wide and deep. It has two fans that pull air from the bottom and out through 2,000 perforations on the back. And did I say ports? Forget the front. On the back, you get four USB-C-4 ports, a 10-gabit Ethernet port, two USBA ports and HDMI, and a headphone jack, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 as well, you can connect up to four monitors to this and a TV to top it all off. Apple says Mac Studio with an M1 Macs is 50% faster than a Mac Pro with a 16-core Zeon chip. What about Ultra? Well, an M-1 Ultra will get you 3.8 times faster speeds than the 27-inch IMac with a 10-core I-9. Apple says the M-1 Ultra is 60% faster than a 28-core Mac Pro. The M-1 Ultra is 60% faster than a 28-core Mac Pro.

Starting point is 00:07:40 Ultra is up to 80% faster than a top of the line Mac Pro. And you can get up to an 8 terabyte SSD capacity. Apple says you can do 18 streams on this bad boy of 8K Pro Res 422 video. Well, now, they've split the display from the computer, so they can get you to pay more, of course. But what about this display? The studio display. It looks like one of those newer IMAX. It's very thin, but, you know, it's also without a computer inside. It looks a lot like the Pro Display XDR 27-inch display. It's got 5K, 208 pixels per inch, 600 nits of brightness, true tone and anti-reflective coating. But by the way, it does have an A13 bionic chip inside. So I was wrong. This does have a computer inside of it. It's got a 12-machixel front camera with center stage coming to the Mac for the first time. as well, six speakers, four woofers, two tweeters, spatial audio support. And hey, there are ports on this as well. Three USBC ports and one Thunderbolt port. This allows you to fast charge a 14-inch

Starting point is 00:08:52 MacBook Pro from the display because it has 96 watts of power. What do you think this will run you? Well, get ready. The Mac Studio with an M1 Max starts at $2,000. A Mac studio with an M1 Ultra will run you $4,000 for the base model. And then the studio display is $1,600. Both can be ordered today with availability on March 18th. So if you combined the base units of both, you're talking about starting at $3,600. $1,600 is a lot for a 27-inch screen.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Again, I might want to go for one of those 40-inch wraparound screens that are available for the same price. though, remember, studio display gets you an A-13 chip inside of it, so you're basically getting an entire iPhone brain inside your display. And that was it. Well, I got my Mac Mini Pro, I guess. It's called the Mac Studio. And frankly, the ports options alone make me want to consider this.

Starting point is 00:09:56 Time to crunch some numbers once I get this episode out to you. In other news, Google plans to acquire cybersecurity company Mandient for around $5.4 billion or $23 a share with the deal closing later in 2022. Mandient will join Google Cloud as a useful addition to their utility belt, quoting Leverge. Mandiant's operations which draw on the work of more than 600 security consultants and more than 300 intelligence analysts will be folded into Google Cloud to create an end-to-end security operation suite. A range of services will be offered from consulting on cybersecurity to detect upcoming threats and testing companies' digital defenses. Mandiant is perhaps best known for uncovering

Starting point is 00:10:46 the devastating solar winds attack, a massive operation thought to be sponsored by the Russian government that compromised computers across the U.S. federal government. The attack went unnoticed for the best part of a year until Mandiant reported details of the operation in December 2020. Previously, Microsoft had been rumored as a potential buyer of Mandient. Microsoft and Google have been competing to control the lucrative cloud services market, where cybersecurity plays an increasingly prominent role, end quote. And obviously somewhat related, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, and Ping Identity have formed the Critical Infrastructure Defense Project, offering their services to U.S. hospitals and utilities

Starting point is 00:11:30 for free, quoting Silicon Engel. The project is designed to enhance defenses against critical areas of enterprise risk. Under the project, eligible organizations will have access to the full suite of Cloudflare zero-trust security solutions, endpoint protection and intelligence services from CrowdStrike, and Zero-Trust Identity solutions from Ping Identity. In addition, in collaboration with core partners across the public sector, the project will also offer an easy-to-follow roadmap that businesses in any industry can use to implement step-by-step security measures to defend themselves from cyber attacks. The security features available to organizations through the

Starting point is 00:12:07 Critical Infrastructure Defense Project provide a zero-trust model for securing networks, endpoints, and identities of organizations and critical threat intelligence for teams at risk of attack. Hospitals and water and power utilities in the U.S. are encouraged to apply to be part of the program. We rely on our infrastructure to power our homes, to provide access to water and basic necessities, and to maintain critical access to health care, Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cloudflare said in a statement, that's why it's more important than ever for the security industry to band together and ensure that our most critical industries are protected and prepared. George Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of CrowdStrike, noted that, quote, this is first and foremost a public service initiative to secure the endpoints and data of some of the most important critical infrastructure entities in the country, end quote.

Starting point is 00:13:00 Amazon has launched an app called AMP, A-MP, that lets people host live radio shows, take calls and play tracks, license to Amazon music, quoting TechCrunch. Amazon's clubhouse competitor has arrived. The retail giant on Tuesday launched a new mobile app called AMP, which allows people to create live radio shows where they can act as a DJ by taking callers and playing tracks from Amazon music's tens of millions of licensed songs, ranging from classic titles to today's music. The app is available in a limited U.S. beta, Amazon says. It's easy to share your voice and favorite songs with the world on AMP, reads the app's description on the app store, decide on a show title, create a playlist, and you're just seconds away

Starting point is 00:13:44 from streaming your own radio show, the page says. The new app, which was previously reported by The Verge when in development under the name Project Mike, represents Amazon's somewhat belated entry into the live audio market. While the app clubhouse led the way by establishing a new format for live audio interactions, the idea has since been spun out into numerous competitors, each with their own angle, including Twitter's spaces, Facebook's live audio rooms, Spotify's Green Room, and those from smaller startups like the Mark Cuban-backed Fireside or David Sacksbacked. call-in. However, for the most part, these clubhouse rivals have focused on talk, like live

Starting point is 00:14:20 podcasts. Amazon's AMP differentiates itself by providing access out of the gate to the broader Amazon music catalog. That means AMP users can play DJ, streaming and chatting about their favorite songs and artists to establish themselves as a creator, or they can use the app to talk about anything else, like sports or pop culture, for example, but do so while also curating a selection of music for their listeners and taking live callers. According to Amp's App Store description, creators will also be able to pre-plan and schedule their shows, alert listeners to their upcoming shows, control who speaks when taking live collars, and more.

Starting point is 00:14:53 Notably, creators do not have to pay the labels when accessing the music for their show, the app's listing notes. That's being covered, it seems. Amazon announced the news of Amps arrival via a blog post where the company mentioned that its catalog of tens of millions of licensed songs includes those by Universalized Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and other independent music companies such as Beggars Group, Believe, CD Baby, and Piaz, with more being added. As part of the beta, Amp is also announcing a slate of upcoming shows from Nikki Minaj,

Starting point is 00:15:24 who will soon bring the return of her show Queen Radio to Amp. Other shows are from Pusha Tee, singer-songwriter Tanashi, electronic artist and violinist Lindsay Sterling, Travis Barker, Little Yadi, and Big Boy. Well-known personalities, Teffi Pesci, and Nikita Dragon, popular radio host Zach Sang, Kat Cobert, Christian James Hand, and Guy Raz, and writers from music and culture publication The Fader, Amazon says, end quote. And finally today, Samsung, Lenovo, and Microsoft have committed to shipping Android 12L, featuring optimizations for tablets and foldables for some of their devices later this year. What is Android 12L?

Starting point is 00:16:10 Quoting the verge. Android 12L is the new version of Android D. designed to be better optimized for tablets and foldable devices. Google's VP of Engineering for Android-Andre Popescu announced the news in a blog post saying that 12L would ship to devices from the three companies later this year. Lenovo isn't a surprise since its P-12 Pro tablet can already run a beta version of Android 12L. It's not exactly clear which devices from the other two companies will get the update. Presumably Microsoft Surface Duo 2 is one of them, while any number of Samsung Galaxy tablets or Z-fold phones could potentially benefit from the new software,

Starting point is 00:16:47 Android 12L has various features designed to make better use of bigger screens. There's a new notification shade that separates quick tiles and notifications into separate columns, a two-column layout for settings and the setup process, and a taskbar that lets you select apps to run side by side. 12L is a dedicated new version of Android that will only come to certain tablets on foldable devices, but it sounds like future mainline Android releases will include its UI improvements. We'll continue to build more features and functionalities to help you make the most of your larger screen devices in Android 13 and beyond. Popescu writes, end quote.

Starting point is 00:17:30 Nothing for you today so that I can get this out to you ASAP. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 03/08 – The Spring Apple Event

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