Latest news

Apple has been rumored to be working on self-driving cars for ages. Many believe it's just a matter of time before Apple reveals their own Tesla killer.

However, it's been years, and nothing has really happened. Except that Apple first bought some AI firms, recruited top Tesla engineers, and more recently restructured over 200 of its employees to other jobs.

Now they are ready to many another move towards their own AI-driven vehicle, as The Information reports that Apple is closing in on buying Drive.ai.

Drive.ai is, as you might guess from the name, a company developing autonomous driving. It was established by students from Stanford and is headquartered near Google in Mountain View, CA.

The hundred strong Drive.ai will likely mostly move to work for Apple after the acquisition, and know-how is what Apple is really after, not current prototypes or patents.

The company was founded in 2015 and secured $12 million in funding in 2016 and $50 million the following year in the second round.

Google has now not only officially announced Stadia, a cloud gaming platform, but also given us the appropriate information to consider getting one.

We also got a glimpse of the details thanks to our Canadian friend leaking some details, but no we have the full story in black and white.

Stadia will indeed provide games at up to 4K resolution and 60 frames per second with both HDR an 5.1 sound support. To access all that among the first you'll have to acquire the Founder's Edition of Stadia as it lands in November, which will cost you an initial $129.

That gives you the Stadia controller, Chromecast Ultra as well as three months of subscription to Stadia Pro. Further subscription costs $9.99/mo.

Stadia Pro also offers occasionally free games, starting with Destiny 2: The Collection, as well as discounts on others. There also will be a free Stadia available next year with Full HD (1080p) games at 60fps and stereo sound without HDR support. The free tier won't include free games or discounts.

We also got to finally know a little more about available games. Google revealed that at least the upcoming list of games will come to Stadia.

Google's upcoming cloud gaming platform seems pretty impressive if you trust that Google can indeed deliver quality it has promised.

The search giant getting into the cloud gaming space has even gotten Sony and Microsoft worried. In fact so much so that they've started working together to provide better cloud services.

The one thing that worries many of us, in addition to Google not managing to deliver on low latency and good quality, is that the prices are just way out there.

Well, thanks to Canadian La Presse, we've got some leaked pricing details to lay our eyes upon.

According to the information leaked, not every game is going to be included in a subscription fee. Instead some of them need to be bought separately. In Canada, the service, called Stadia Pro, is said to cost $11.99/mo and it offers 4K gaming with 60 fps framerate.

Minimum internet connetion requirement is stated at 10/1 Mbps but to enjoy the 4K@60fps you'll need at least 35 Mbps down.

Games that are expected initially on Stadia include the likes of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Doom, The Division 2, Destiny 2, and three Tomb Raider titles. However, there's no word whether these will be included with the monthly fee or sold separately.

Apple's perhaps strongest part of the business is not iPhones or iPads themselves but the App Store, which keeps on printing money with royalties.

However, there might be a problem with how Apple conducts its business regarding to the App Store.

Supreme Court recently decided that Apple is in fact a participant in and responsible for the app selling business, even though it argued, and continues to do so, that it is only in business with the app developer that pays the commissions, not selling the apps to the customer.

After the Supreme Court opened Apple to be sued for antitrust violations by customers, we expected several to be hitting the courts in the coming days, weeks, and months.

It is bound to happen from the customers too, but today we have us a case against App Store by app developers.

Apparently the website Apple put out to promote its side of the App Store story didn't ward off this developer.

The plaintiffs include developers from a baby naming app and a basketball workout app who argue that the Cupertino company "stifles innovation" with its policies, Yahoo! Finance reports.

One of the leading game conferences is upon us. Los Angeles' own E3 starts next week, and while there's tons of exciting game content to behold your eye on, one important piece of the video game puzzles is not attending.

Sony has said a while ago that it won't be going to E3 this year. Therefore we won't see PS5 sneak peaks at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

However, worry not. Sony has decided that it still wants to take some of the limelight ahead of the convention. In an interview with CNET, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has revealed some new information about PlayStation 5.

As we've already learned, the successor to PlayStation 4 will include things like a speedier SSD storage instead of the obsolete HDD technology. Now Ryan has revealed that PS5 will also support gaming in 4K and 120hz (or 120fps).

4K gaming has been here for a while thanks to PS4 Pro but increasing the framerate to 120 is a big upgrade. Not only is it double of PS4 Pro max framerate but many of the 4K games can't output even 60fps.

Ryan also confirmed that game saves will move from console generation to another seamlessly, thanks to cloud storage.

PlayStation Now will be revamped this year, too. Competing platforms like Google's new Stadia cloud gaming platform have made Sony push even harder in the cloud, so much so that they've announced partnership with Microsoft, who's thought to be the arch rival of Sony in this space.

Apple announced a lot of things earlier this week at their annual Worldwide Developer Conference, some of them less of a surprise than others. One thing we already knew about was that Apple was going to kill iTunes on Mac, like it has done on iOS.

Apple replaced iTunes with new Music, Podcasts, and TV apps and thus iTunes is no longer. Well, it's no longer available on iOS or macOS, but you can still use it if you really, really want.

One place you'll still find iTunes on is Windows. Thus, Apple is not going kill iTunes in its entirety, but just replacing it on all of its own platforms.

In an interview with ArsTechnica, Apple confirmed that Windows version of iTunes is not going to change for now, and there are no updates announced for it.

However, one can imagine that this isn't going to last forever. Apple is trying to get rid of its bloated app and one of its least liked brands, and this will eventually mean that the three aforementioned apps will replace iTunes on Windows too.

Do not expect the iTunes experience to get better on Windows, and for it to be eventually replaced by separate apps.

Apple's this year's developer conference was full of new service and even product announcements. Not only did we get a new iOS 13, we have a brand new iPadOS, not to even mention the ridiculously expensive cheese grater with an even more ridiculously expensive display.

One of the things that we didn't get to tell you about yet is the new macOS update, which has some interesting improvements and additions as well.

Like many of us have suspected, Apple has been working on unifying the mobile and desktop experience behind the scenes for quite a while. This doesn't yet mean that all the desktop features are going to be found on mobile and vice versa, although some are making their way already to iPadOS.

For most of us the annual OS upgrades are the most meaningful announcements at Apple's WWDC. However, some people have been waiting for a professional grade computer from Apple for ages, and they finally got some exciting news this year.

Apple announced the new Mac Pro, which returns to its previous cheese grater design before the 2013 trash can. The computer is as nutty when it comes to maxed out specs as is it's asking price even at the low end, $6,000.

However, many of the pros also need a high-end professional display to go with the professional grade computer. Fortunately Apple announced a new display alongside its Mac Pro.

The new Pro Display XDR specs are out of this world, too. The 32-inch display features 6K resolution, 6016 by 3384 pixels, at 218 PPI. It has 1000 nits continuous full screen brightness and 1600 nits peak.

The XDR moniker comes from eXtreme Dynamic Range, and that is exactly what you get with a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, which is insane for an LCD. Color-wise it features P3 wide color gamut and 10-bit depth for 1.073 billion colors.

The bulk of Apple's this week's WWDC keynote was taken by new OS announcements, including iOS 13 and the new iPadOS.

However, one thing that most of us will probably never get, or even see, caught the attention of us all. Apple's new Mac Pro.

Apple is finally releasing a replacement for their modular computer aimed at professionals. The previous one is the iconic trash can Mac Pro from 2013, and now they've introduced a new one with a brand new design.

The design itself is controversial, after all it does look exactly like a cheese grater pretty much like the one before the trash can, but it's also pricey beyond mere mortals.

It starts at $6,000, and no one knows how high the price goes when you jack it up with everything they've got.

The system includes a 8/12/16/24/28 core Intel Xeon processor and 12 DIMM slots for up to 1.5 TB of RAM. It starts with one AMD Radeon Pro 580X and can be suited with up to four AMD Radeon Pro Vega 2 cards. There's 8 PCI slots, four full and four half-sized, up to 4 TB of SSD storage, and a 1400 watt PSU.

As expected, Apple released a new version of their mobile operating system at WWDC earlier this week. However, they also announced another mobile operating system, solely meant for iPad.

Apple has been trying to convince customers for a long time now that iPad is actually going to replace PCs. Not many Apple commercials are as controversial at the one where a kid using an iPad asks "What's a computer?"

Not only is iPad a computer but also it is nowhere near replacing a proper one. You know, one with a file system and I/O support worth anything.

Now Apple has unveiled the new iPadOS. Starting in iOS 13, also announced at WWDC, iPhone and iPad software aren't exactly alike anymore.

Unfortunately iPadOS is still a fork of iOS and shares almost everything with iPhone's operating system. It's definitely not yet a computer operating system with aforementioned features.

However, there are some improvements that take it more to that direction. Multitasking has been improved, which means that you can make multiple instances of the same app and use them in separate Spaces. Also, while file system is still crippled by iOS DNA, file management is better thanks to improved Files app with support for USB storage and SD cards.

Apple's this years WWDC is now behind us with all it's impressive, or less impressive, product launches and fresh updates.

One of the most anticipated was of course the new version of iOS. Apple's mobile operating system was updated to version 13, and it bring a few very welcome new features.

Clearly one of the top features is the new dark mode, which finally turns the entire OS into a darker version of itself. This was already leaked a few days ahead the official announcement of course.

Dark mode is of course good for your eyes in the dark, but it also has battery saving qualities on OLED screens. OLED screens can be found on iPhone X and iPhone XS for example.

Many of the other new features in iOS 13 have to do with performance. Apple has continued the theme of iOS 12, improving performance, to the most current update. This time around app packaging has been improved, making them 50% smaller. Also updates are said to be more efficiently packed and they are an average of 60 percent smaller.

Not only are you saving space and download time, you'll see a performance improvement in app start times. According to Apple you can expect as much as twice faster loading speeds.

Next week's World Wide Developer Conference is bound to be a premiere for some new Apple services and software, but according to new information it'll also be the deathbed of one of the longest running brands within Apple.

Apple's annual developer conference starts next Monday, and we expect at least macOS, iOS, and watchOS updates. In addition, we'll see a change in terms of apps.

Rumors have it that the company is on its way to combine iOS and macOS app platforms which would allow same codebase to serve both platforms. Rumors also suggest that this means iTunes is going to be broken apart.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is going to replace iTunes on Mac at WWDC with three separate and more specific apps. These include Music, TV, and Podcasts, which are the same apps available for iOS.

Apple has been bloating iTunes for years, and it has become a place for not only music, but movies, podcasts, as well as managing your iDevices. The update is going to bring more cohesion between iOS and macOS, and means that we are also step closer to iOS apps on Macs.

Huawei is one of the most influential Chinese companies around, and while it's still unclear whether the government indeed influences the company, they sure have been targeted like that is a fact.

After US blacklisting Huawei and disallowing American companies to continue business with them, at least after the initial 90 day delay, the company has been trying to both fight the ban in the courts and trying to minimize the damage to its brand.

They've also expressed publicly that they do not wish similar reaction from the Chinese governement and rather fight the ban in the US court of law, where it argues that the ban in unconstitutional.

Whether this is just posturing or what they actual believe, is only known by inside the company, and perhaps the Chinese government if what US has suggested for years is true.

Nevertheless, Chinese governement seems to be ready to strike back. Report from Bloomberg tells us that China is planning to determine a list of "unrealiable" entities that could be thousands of companies that aren't working with Huawei.

Google announced in January that it will be blocking extensions from using a specific API that was commonly used to block ads. Even after a fairly sizable brouhaha from the ad blocker community, Google has decided to put the new policy in place.

Google is providing a new declarativeNetRequest API within Chrome for ad blockers and other extensions but it is not as extensive as the previously used webRequest interface.

While ad blockers do have to go through a few hoops to provide similar experience to customers as before, it is not going to entirely change the landscape of ad blockers on Chrome.

Essentially extensions like uBlock Origin and Ghostery have to adopt the AdBlock Plus', arguable less effective, model.

However, Google hasn't blocked even the previous one entirely.

The Enterprise version of Google Chrome will still be allowed to use webRequest for blocking ads. This is likely so that companies don't have to change their internal extensions because of the change.

According to Google, not allowing the public use of webRequest API is done to expand on user privacy and ensure a safe user experience. Ad blockers might contest that making it harder to block ads is very convenient for the largest ad provider in the world.

Microsoft has revealed that it intends to release the console gaming subscription service to PC as well. At this point we don't have a lot of details about the upcoming extension to PC games, but fortunately E3 is just around the corner.

Microsoft is promising more information at E3 which starts in less that two weeks. At this point we know that Xbox Game Pass will bring over 100 games from 75 different developers, which unsurprisingly includes few Microsoft-owned studios.

The third-party contributors includes giants like Bethesda and Sega but also lesser known studios like Deep Silver and Devolver Digital. Deep Silver is a German game publisher known for games like Metro Exodus and upcoming Shenmue III.

Devolver Digital on the other hand has recently worked with more mobile gaming, like Reigns: Game of Thrones and other Nintendo Switch titles.

In addition to over 100 free games, Xbox Game Pass subscribers get a 20 percent discount on other games in the Microsoft Store.

For further information about things like pricing and compatibility with Xbox Game Pass on console, we'll have to wait until E3.

One thing that isn't only related to the Game Pass, but in Microsoft Store in general. Microsoft has confirmed that the store will soon support native Win32 software. This means that game developers can submit the exact same file on Microsoft's store as they do on say Steam or other competitors.