The latest firmware update for MSI motherboards broke a major security feature, putting countless computers at risk of malware (opens in new tab) and other threats, a security expert has claimed.
Researcher Dawid Potocki discovered the recently-released firmware update version 7C02v3C changed the default Secure Boot setting on MSI motherboards, allowing the boot process to run even software that is unsigned, or that has had its signature changed due to modifications.
In other words, software that would have otherwise been stopped from running due to being malicious, will now be allowed to start.
Changing the default settings
“I decided to setup Secure Boot on my new desktop with the help of sbctl. Unfortunately, I have found that my firmware was accepting every OS image I gave it, no matter if it was trusted or not,” Potocki wrote. “As I have later discovered on 2022-12-16, it wasn’t just broken firmware; MSI had changed their Secure Boot defaults to allow booting on security violations(!!).”
The firmware setting that was changed with the latest patch was “Image Execution Policy”, which is now set to “Always Execute” by default. According to Potocki, users need to set the Execution Policy to “Deny Execute” for “Removable Media”, and “Fixed Media”. That way, only signed software will be allowed to run at boot.
Potocki further claimed MSI never documented the change, but after a bit of digging, discovered that almost 300 models were affected, including many Intel and AMD-based motherboards. Even some brand new devices are affected, he added.
Secure Boot is MSI’s security system built to prevent UEFI malware, such as bootkits and rootkits. This type of malware is particularly dangerous as even wiping the operating system does not remove it from the device.
MSI is currently silent on the matter, but should the company respond to media inquiries, we’ll update the article accordingly.
The HomePod 2 has yet again been teased to be getting a 2023 launch, but even with details thin on the ground, we’re not convinced that this speaker will fare any better than its failed predecessor.
Apple’s attempt at making one of the best smart speakers, the original HomePod, was a very impressive device. It boasted amazing sound quality, an attractive design, and a decent voice assistant; but its high price seemed to put a lot of people off, and after only three years on sale it was discontinued. The HomePod mini has stuck around, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing it exists, as Apple doesn’t seem to mention it very often.
That could all change in 2023 however, with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (opens in new tab) – who has a solid track record when it comes to Apple leaks – claiming that a new HomePod should be “coming fairly soon.”
The HomePod Mini: not gone, but forgotten (Image credit: Apple)
However, while an imminent Apple product launch always brings with it an air of excitement, we can’t help but feel that the HomePod 2 is destined to be another disappointment for the tech giant.
The problem with the HomePod 2
One major advantage that the new HomePod is expected to have over the original is a more competitive price. When the first HomePod launched it came out at a weighty $349 / £319 / AU$499, which was more expensive than its rivals’ most luxurious offerings, like the $229 / £219 / $349 Google Nest Hub Max and the $199.99 / £189.99 / AU$329 Amazon Echo Studio.
Google’s best smart speaker (the Google Nest Hub Max) even has a screen (Image credit: Google)
That said, even if it’s priced more in line with those other premium smart speakers, a price around $200 / £200 / AU$300 still likely sits outside a lot of people’s budgets. Moreover, the HomePod 2 will also be a tough sell when put up against Amazon and Google’s much cheaper devices – speakers that clock in at around $50 / £50 / AU$80 (or even less when they’re on sale).
Sure, it’ll be more sonically capable, but not everyone values audio finesse enough to warrant spending four or five times more for something that is, otherwise, functionally very similar to the cheaper speakers.
Another hurdle the HomePod 2 is unlikely to overcome is its reliance on Apple’s ecosystem. Given that other periphery Apple gadgets like the Apple TV are becoming harder to use without an iPhone or iPad, we expect the HomePod 2 will share the original’s reliance on Apple’s phones and tablets (you need an iPhone or iPad to set the HomePod up).
Additionally, we found that the HomePod offered a lot of support for Apple Music, but was much less convenient for people that use one of the other best music streamings services, like Spotify – you had to AirLink the music to your speaker, rather than being able to run it natively, which meant aspects of the setup were more sluggish. There’s currently no reason to believe the HomePod 2 would be any different in this respect.
If you’re all-in on the Apple ecosystem then this won’t be an issue, but people who only own a couple of Apple devices, or none at all, would be disincentivized to buy a HomePod 2 over a system-agnostic option from Amazon or Google, or even something like the Sonos One. That is, unless Apple decides to make it a more agnostic speaker, though don’t hold your breath.
The Sonos One already does what the HomePod is trying to do (Image credit: Future)
Lastly, there’s the unfortunate possibility for the HomePod 2 that the smart speaker train has already departed the station. That’s not to say the fad is dead – smart tech will only likely to become more prevalent with the release of Matter, a unified smart home platform – but we expect that a lot of people who want a smart speaker already have one, and are therefore already tied into one of the existing systems.
If you already have an Amazon Echo you’ll probably get another Alexa-powered device if you buy a second smart speaker, as it can be incorporated into your setup more easily and offers expanded functionality versus something that runs on Siri or Google Assistant. As very few people likely have a HomePod, Apple will need to make a convincing presentation if it wants to tempt people to pick up its speaker over one from the brand they’re already invested in.
We’ll have to wait and see what Apple’s HomePod 2 has in store for us if and when it appears, but right now the odds look stacked against it. Just like the original, this new HomePod is likely to find a fanbase among Apple diehards and audiophiles, but to be a success it’ll need to win over a broader spectrum of people that the previous iteration failed to convince; and if it fails again, we can’t see Apple giving the HomePod line a fourth chance to hit the big time.
Following a recent update to Apple’s terms and conditions, people are noticing that their Apple TV is now blocked in certain ways if they don’t have an iPhone, because Apple is requiring you to approve the T&Cs on your phone, and not offering an alternative option.
One of the great things about the Apple TV 4K – and a huge part of why we’re happy to rate it as the best streaming device around – is that it’s never been too tied to the Apple ecosystem.
You need an Apple ID to use it, yes, but you need some kind of account for any other streaming box; more importantly, unlike the Apple Watch, you didn’t need an iPhone to use it. And its best features aren’t locked away if you don’t have an iPhone, as is the case with the AirPods. You could sign in to your services and watch away, in some of the best quality any similar device offers.
But it appears that’s started to change. You can see the least-aggressive version of this issue in the image at the top of this page – that’s the message I received in the Settings app on my Apple TV 4K (2021) today on one of the user accounts, requiring the user to update their Apple ID by holding their iPhone or iPad close to their Apple TV before I can use a minor new feature.
Interestingly, I didn’t see the same message on my own personal user account, which means I probably already accepted the new terms. I say “probably” because I have no memory of doing this, but I use my iPhone to control my Apple TV pretty often, so it likely popped up and I accepted without reading it, like most people do with T&C changes.
What happening there isn’t stopping anyone from using the Apple TV at all right now, because it’s just asking in the background and disabling a minor new feature after an update, so it’s a relatively small problem – but some people report having much larger problems.
The user who posted the tweet below was prompted to accept the new T&Cs using “a device running iOS 16 or later, or iPadOS 16 or later” every time they turned on the Apple TV, and seemed to be unable to do anything else with it until they didn. Except, as they point out, then don’t own any Apple devices other than their Apple TV.
I own an Apple TV.I own not a single other Apple device. Not one.Every time I start the Apple TV I get this prompt now. @Apple what do you expect me to do about this? pic.twitter.com/CsNaTNNIHpJanuary 16, 2023
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That’s the worst-case scenario of an approach like this – an expensive device that people have paid for and rely on, rendered completely unusable.
I called this new approach a step back in the headline, because the Apple TV finds a lot of favor with movie lovers who don’t otherwise own Apple products. I’ve recommended it to people, and I know people who use one solely because of the quality of Apple’s movie purchases and rentals. This change would be a regression, and would mean I could no longer recommend it so easily.
But if you already have an Apple TV, and are blocked from using it as in the image above, it’s not a step back, it’s a disaster.
However, that tweet has gone pretty viral, and has attracted the attention of an Apple Security Engineer as well as the Apple Support Twitter account, which has stepped in to respond to several people in the replies to the original tweet who are having different problems with their Apple TV.
So, it looks like Apple is paying attention to the problems this change is causing, and will hopefully provide another option in the future – of course, how long that will take is anybody’s guess.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, but have yet to hear back at the time of publishing.
In the meantime, if you want more new Apple stuff, check out the
Qbot has become the most prevalent banking trojan around, taking the top spot from Emotet, new figures have claimed.
According to fresh figures from the Check Point Global Threat Index for December 2022, Qbot (also known as Qakbot) impacted 7% of organizations worldwide, retaking the number one spot from Emotet (4%).
Based on proprietary data, Check Point’s report says that besides Qbot and Emotet, XMRig rounded off the top three most prevalent malicious programs around, for the last month of the year.
Abusing known vulnerabilities
XMRig, impacting 3% of businesses worldwide is a cryptominer, a program that “mines” the XMR cryptocurrency for the attackers. It’s a popular application, which the threat actors aim mostly to install on servers and other high-end machines.
When it comes to mobile devices, a completely different set of malware prevailed. Anubis was the most prevalent variant, followed by Hiddad and AlienBot.
But to install these malware, hackers need to have some way to access the target endpoints, which is mostly done through known vulnerabilities.
“Web Server Exposed Git Repository Information Disclosure” was the most commonly exploited vulnerability, Check Point said, impacting almost half (46%) of organizations globally. “Web Server Malicious URL Directory Traversal” was second-placed with 44% of businesses around the world being impacted. The top three were rounded off with “Command INjection Over HTTP” – 43%.
Education and Research remained the most attacked industry, before Government and Military, and Healthcare.
“The overwhelming theme from our latest research is how malware (opens in new tab) often masquerades as legitimate software to give hackers backdoor access to devices without raising suspicion. said Maya Horowitz, VP Research at Check Point Software. “That is why it is important to do your due diligence when downloading any software and applications or clicking on links, regardless of how genuine they look.”
Last year, hackers were busy building fake landing pages, tricking people into either downloading malware, or giving away sensitive data. In just one instance, in late October last year, cybersecurity researchers from Malwarebytes discovered a major campaign that leveraged more than 200 landing pages used to gain access to people’s bank accounts.
Following the mishap, Microsoft took to the Internet to confirm (opens in new tab) that many users had experienced “a series of false positive detections” for the “Block Win32 API calls from Office macro” Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) rule, leading to many program shortcuts (.lnk files) vanishing.
Among the initially suggested fixes from the company was to turn the “Block Win32 API calls from Office macro” rule into audit mode, however Microsoft has now issued a more comprehensive fix that, after deploying, will allow users to turn the ASR rule back into block mode.
Microsoft Defender problem
The company has told users to upgrade to security intelligence build 1.381.2164.0 or later. An extract from the help page reads:
“Microsoft has confirmed steps that customers can take to recreate start menu links for a significant sub-set of the affected applications that were deleted.”
The steps have been provided as a PowerShell script on a GitHub page (opens in new tab) – a developer platform that Microsoft owns. There’s also a set of instructions for deploying the script using Intune, which many users were vocal about when it came to discussing the blunder on platforms like Reddit (opens in new tab) and Microsoft’s own Tech Community page (opens in new tab).
One user asked Microsoft “why Defender did not record the lnk file deletions”.
As the problem continues to be an ongoing source of disruption among Microsoft users, it’s unclear whether the fix has been enough for the tech giant to restore some of its lost faith. Overall, user experiences remain a mixed bag, with some claiming successful restores, and others reporting errors.
The digital systems used to inform and protect the McLaren F1 and esports teams are seeing a significant boost from using AI and machine learning to help get a leap on the competition.
From telemetry to cybersecurity, the amount of data harvested in Formula 1 is colossal, and understanding that often very complex data is crucial, especially in an environment where speed is of the utmost importance.
TechRadar Pro had the chance to speak to Ed Green, Head of Commercial Technology at McLaren, and James Hodge, GVP & Chief Strategy Advisor of the team’s data platform provider, Splunk, about where AI fits into the equation, how it can help to protect the company’s digital world and enhance it’s decision making – as well as its limitations.
Security and decisions
As you might imagine, security is important for McLaren in all its operations. For its McLaren Shadow esports team, Green described a typical setup:
“If you’ve got eight gamers on stage, that means eight PCs behind them, and probably a further four directing and cutting the show, and so you end up with 24 PCs all involved.”
To protect all these machines, Green explained that “we have standard endpoint protection we put across the estate. We use tools internally through various cybersecurity partners to monitor how our traffic moves, and we’ve got firewall providers to see exactly where the traffic is going”.
Although McLaren kept quiet about the exact software it uses, it is known that Darktrace is used in their security posture to certain degrees.
Cybersecurity also has to be light to avoid sapping power from simulation rigs. “Lots of things are normally quite lightweight, so people don’t want lots of agents on their machines doing bits and pieces”, says Green.
“We have natural endpoint clients we use across McLaren, they report up into a serious of dashboards which can be useful – I can get a view of that to monitor during the race”.
(Image credit: Future)
Green also explained that AI and machine learning is used for for the team’s cybersecurity, not just for race data:
“We’ve used a lot of machine learning and AI across [the cybersecurity] space, and in years gone that would mean our cybersecurity team would be full of lots and lots of graduates; its a really tedious and boring job to sit there looking through lines and lines of cybersecurity information.”
“Now, through the use of a lot of machine learning and AI, we don’t have as big a cybersecurity team, but they’ve got more relevant context, so they can see where the information is going, so embracing machine learning and AI is really important for us.”
He added that “when you look at AI in cybersecurity, or in general, it’s either there to help you be more efficient, to help you merge and solve really big complex challenges, or its there to provide you with additional assistance.”
“In cybersecurity, in the race team, in strategy in particular, AI is there as an aid to decision making; it’s not executing for you. So it might be that you’re under really sensitive time pressures – you can have three seconds to make a decision for a pit stop – so by giving those people the next best decision or helping them simulate what might happen, that means when the time pressure is on, we can make the right decision.”
Even though AI in this context is used predominantly for the real-life Formula 1 team, Green did suggest that it may come into play for the esports F1 team as well in the future.
The importance of data
Data provider Splunk began its relationship with the McLaren Formula 1 team in 2020 as a platform for supplying the all important telemetric data of the cars, before later being signed up to help support the Shadow McLaren esports team.
Hodge explained how more advanced and predictive computations can be made using its AI tools. He mentioned the example of predicting tire degradation, which can be affected in the game by numerous factors such as the virtual track temperature and the level of driving aggression:
“We can start to do predictive analytics to say ‘where do we think we’re going to get to a certain point at which the tires are no longer performant against coming in to the pit stop’, and so that’s where we started to look at the telemetry in the game to help with race decisions.”
Hodge echoed how AI can be an aid to decision making rather then being the decision maker. When it comes to AI’s involvement in pit stop strategy, for instance, Hodge said:
“You might not want AI to flash up to say ‘pit now’. You’ll probably want a human in the loop to say, ‘actually, we couldn’t add this data feed to that model, so it’s not quite right.’”
In explaining why automating decision making is so difficult, Hodge gave the hypothetical example of using AI to control your lights at home:
“It starts off simple: when I walk in the room I want them on. OK, how long should they stay on for? Until you see no motion, or they should stay on till midnight because I always go to bed at 11.30pm. Well, you’ve stayed up late to watch a film, so its twelve o’clock and they’ve gone off; I’m watching a film so I wouldn’t have moved, so the lights have gone off. So actually, what’s seemingly a simple problem becomes very complicated. Now, when you think about that in enterprise technology, it gets even harder.”
(Image credit: Splunk)
He stressed the importance of having adequate data built up before relying on AI tools. And even besides AI, traditional statistical methods of prediction still have their place:
“I think its about layer upon layers upon layers [of data]. So when we look at, say, cybersecurity, can we first observe everything in the whole world? – this is where we are starting to see different security teams and IT monitoring teams coming together a lot more, because they all want to observe everything digital that’s happening and put context on top of it.”
“Now lets look at statistical outliers. That’s normally a great place to start. Then can we add a bit of more basic ML-bound predictive modelling, to then, in a cybersecurity context, look at taking lots of different indicators together, and saying, ‘do these potential statistical compromises now mean there is a higher likelihood of James being a bad actor?’ That’s when you get more into the AI space.”
He also cautioned to keep in mind practical concerns when developing AI:
“You’ve also got to look at how far you want to push it and where is the best amount of effort for investment. Because quite often the statistical side gets you close enough to where you need to be. You can spend too long getting the perfect AI model, and almost wasting effort and money doing that.”
“I am a big believer in getting the basics right, because no company in the world gets the basics perfect. The more you can do that, the more you can push decision making to the frontline staff to do what they’re employed to do.”
Apple has announced its latest silicon for professional users, the Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max, and Apple is promising some seriously improved performance with this second-generation.
With the release of the MacBook Air (M2) and MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2) in 2022, all eyes have been looking forward to the announcement of more dedicated Pro chips in 2023, and Apple didn’t disappoint, dropping a surprise announcement on its website and media accounts on January 17 with nary a press invite to plan ahead for the launch to be had (Thanks Apple!).
Still, now that the two chips have been revealed, there is an awful lot that we know about them and how they should be a huge draw for creative professionals everywhere.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: Cut to the chase
What is it? Apple’s latest professional-class system-on-a-chip for Mac desktops and MacBooks
How much does it cost? The chips are part of a package and so won’t sell on their own, but these are definitely premium upgrades, if available.
When can I get it? You can order the new MacBooks M2 Pro and M2 Max, as well as the M2 Pro Mac Mini, right now, with delivery in the US and UK starting January 23 and Australian deliveries starting on February 3.
Apple’s new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips will come in a few devices, starting on January 24, 2023. The M2 Pro will be available in both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, as well as in the new Mac Mini, also announced on January 17. The M2 Max will only be available (for now) in the two new MacBook Pro models.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: Release date
The Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max will be in the latest MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch models announced on January 17, 2023, and the M2 Pro will be available as an upgrade option for the Apple Mac Mini (M2), also announced on January 17.
When you’ll actually receive these products will depend on where you live, with US order deliveries starting on January 23. Australia, China, and others will have to wait a couple of weeks longer to get their orders delivered, which is set to begin on February 3.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: Specs
The M2 Pro and M2 Max aren’t as radical an innovation as the M1 Pro and M1 Max were when they launched, since these latest chips are an iterative improvement on the existing Apple silicon.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t a big deal, especially for creative professionals who can never have enough performance to cut through resource-intensive workloads like video editing and 3D modeling.
Starting with the M2 Pro, Apple says it’s crammed in about 40 billion transistors onto the chip, which is nearly 20% more than what the M1 Pro was packing. Add in a larger GPU and twice the memory bandwidth of the standard M2 (up to 200GB/s) and you have a very powerful chip indeed. Whether the chip itself will live up to its specs remains to be seen of course.
The M2 Pro has either a 10- or 12-core CPU and either a 16-core or 19-core GPU (with up to 2,432 execution units in the 19-core GPU), and can be paired with up to 32GB of unified memory. In addition, the eight performance cores in the 12-core M2 Pro features 32MB of L2 cache, with an additional 4MB available for the four efficiency cores.
For the M2 Max, Apple decided to go really big here and crammed in 67 billion transistors onto this chip, though these seem to go mostly to the GPU, since there are just 12 CPU cores, but the GPU core count balloons to 30 to start, with an option to go as high as 38.
This can all be paired with up to 96GB memory (with a memory bandwidth of 400GB/s) and a dedicated media engine for hardware-accelerating video encoding and decoding for faster processing of 4K and 8K video streams, making this an ideal chip for video editing on the go or in the office.
Apple M2 Pro and M2 Max: Performance
It’s hard to tell what to expect from the performance of the M2 Pro and M2 Max without testing it ourselves, but Apple is at least making some claims about performance that we can at least put a pin in and see if they pan out once we’ve done our testing.
Apple claims that the M2 Pro will have about 20% better CPU performance than the M1 Pro, 30% better GPU performance, and 40% faster neural engine performance than an M1 Pro.
The M2 Max should have GPU speeds about 30% than the M1 Max, but that’s pretty much all for the numbers Apple is giving us about these chips, and even then they are best taken with a very healthy pinch of salt.
Hackers are utilizing a known vulnerability in device monitoring tool Cacti to install all sorts of malware (opens in new tab) on vulnerable endpoints, researchers have claimed.
Cybersecurity researchers from The Shadowserver Foundation spotted multiple attempts at delivering various malware via the critical command injection vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-46169.
By abusing the flaw, which has a severity rating of 9.8 (critical), threat actors were observed deploying Mirai malware, as well as IRC botnet. Some threat actors were seen simply checking for the vulnerability, possibly in preparation for future attacks.
Thousands of unpatched instances
Mirai is a malware that mostly targets smart home devices running Linux, such as IP cameras and home routers, and assimilates them into the Mirai botnet. The botnet can later be used for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, which can disrupt operations and shut websites down.
The IRC botnet was seen opening a reverse shell on the host and having it scan the endpoint’s ports.
In total, roughly 10 exploitation attempts were seen in the last week.
A Censys report claims there are more than 6,000 unpatched Cacti instances reachable over the internet, while adding that more than 1,600 are unpatched and thus vulnerable.
“Censys has observed 6,427 hosts on the internet running a version of Cacti. Unfortunately, we can only see the exact running software version when a specific theme (sunrise) is enabled on the web application,” Censys said. That being said, 1,637 hosts were found reachable over the web and vulnerable to CVE-2022-46169, the majority (465) running version 1.1.38, released more than a year ago, it added.
Furthermore, Censys has only observed 26 instances running an updated version that wasn’t vulnerable.
As usual, the best way to protect your devices against such attacks is to make sure all software is running the latest version.
Nvidia’s RTX 4090 and 4080 are debuting in laptops very soon, and we’ve caught another glimpse of pricing – underlining just how expensive notebooks boasting these GPUs will be, particularly the Lovelace flagship.
The new prices are from Micro Center, which is now listing MSI gaming laptops as Wccftech (opens in new tab) reports, with the top model being the MSI Titan 17 (opens in new tab) with the RTX 4090. This portable weighs in at a rather monstrous $4,700 (around £3,800, AU$6,800) in the US (also packing the mighty Core i9-13980HX processor, the Intel Raptor Lake flagship).
For the MSI Raider 17 with the RTX 4080 laptop graphics card (and same CPU), the version with 32GB of DDR5 system RAM plus 2TB SSD retails at $3,300 (opens in new tab) (around £2,700, AU$4,700), but you’ll pay $4,000 (opens in new tab) (around £3,300, AU$5,700) if you want 64GB of RAM (and the same 2TB SSD).
Remember, Nvidia said that RTX 4080 and 4090 laptops would start from $1,999 in the US, but looking at the pricing here, it’s considerably above that level if you want high-end gaming on the go with a Lovelace powerhouse GPU.
The good news, price-wise, is that for Lovelace GPUs underneath the top two – meaning RTX 4050 through to 4070 – Nvidia said pricing would start at $999, and it’s not too far off that. An MSI Katana 15 (opens in new tab) with an RTX 4060 (plus Core i7-12650H and 16GB of DDR5 RAM) sells for $1,200 (around £980, AU$1,720) at Micro Center.
The RTX 4050 spin (opens in new tab) of the new Katana 15 isn’t any cheaper, mainly because it peps up the CPU to a Raptor Lake Core i7 (and doubles the SSD size to 1TB); so the choice is GPU versus CPU plus more storage.
Analysis: MSI’s pricing looks consistent with other early listings
This backs up what we’ve already seen in Europe showing the RTX 4090 as seriously pricey. If you recall, XMG’s Neo 16 gaming laptop with RTX 4090 is priced at €3,886 (around $4,200, £3,400, AU$6,000), with the GPU being €637 more expensive than the RTX 4080 as an upgrade.
So, with the 4090 being €637 dearer than the (already expensive) 4080 in Europe, and $700 more in the US, that looks pretty consistent. In short, this is likely the kind of pricing we can expect going forward from other laptop makers, at least in the near future anyway – and with those high-end cards, particularly the RTX 4090, you really are paying a huge premium.
That premium may well be worth it to some folks who simply want the most powerful laptop they can get their hands on for gaming or creative work, but it’s likely to be off-putting to some of the enthusiast community (top-end portables already being something of a niche by definition).
Particularly when, as we’ve discussed in the past, the RTX 4090 laptop GPU is only equivalent to a desktop RTX 4080 (or thereabouts). It’s simply not possible to jam the hefty, power-guzzling AD102 chip found in the desktop RTX 4090 into a notebook chassis, so Nvidia opted to use AD103 (the chip for the desktop 4080) in the laptop flagship.
At least the better news is the pricing on the lower-tier Lovelace models, with even the RTX 4070 coming in at a (relatively) much more reasonable level. The MSI Pulse 15 (opens in new tab) sporting the RTX 4070 is $1,700 (around £1,380, AU$2,440), which is not far off half the cost of the most affordable RTX 4080 model (albeit that has the top-end Core i9 Raptor Lake processor as well, compared to the Core i7 for the Pulse).
The Micro Center MSI laptop listings state that the ‘product [is] coming soon’ and indeed pre-orders are supposed to commence from February 1, so just a couple of weeks from now, before the RTX 4090 and 4080 notebooks go on sale February 8. Portables with the other lower-tier GPUs – RTX 4050, 4060, 4070 – will arrive slightly later in the month on February 22, or at least that’s what we’ve heard (add an appropriate dose of skepticism).
Of course, it makes sense that these laptops will be out soon given that we’re seeing multiple product listings pop up right now.
Apple’s iPhone 15 range isn’t likely to see the light of day until September 2023, but that hasn’t stopped tipsters from speculating about what to expect from the company’s iPhone 16 lineup, which will almost certainly follow in 2024.
According to a new report from Korean outlet The Elec (opens in new tab) (H/T Wccftech (opens in new tab)), Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro models will arrive sporting a periscope zoom lens – a feature widely expected to be exclusive to the iPhone 15 Ultra when the next iPhones arrive in 2023.
In other words, customers holding out until 2024 for their next iPhone upgrade may not need to spend big on Apple’s top-of-the-range handset to benefit from periscope zoom technology. Instead, the iPhone 16 Pro could be the first ‘mid-level’ iPhone to offer the sought-after photography feature.
Periscope cameras – which get their name from their similarity to the instrument used on submarines and other naval vessels – essentially allow the viewer to zoom to extreme lengths while maintaining image quality. In the limited space of a phone’s camera module, a periscope camera uses mirrors to allow for more lens elements, and therefore a longer zoom length.
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra features a periscope zoom lens (Image credit: Samsung)
Of course, the iPhone 16 Pro (and its inevitable Pro Max sibling) will almost certainly still sit at the high-end among Apple’s smartphones – the iPhone 14 Pro, for instance, retails for the not-so-small price of $999 / £1,099 / AU$1,749 – but the rumored existence of an iPhone 15 Ultra suggests Apple will also be releasing an iPhone 16 Ultra, which would relegate the iPhone 16 Pro to mid-tier status (as Apple devices go, at least).
Analysis: sharing is caring?
News of the iPhone 16 Pro’s periscope lens comes just days after other rumors hinted that Apple’s Dynamic Island – the virtual notch replacement that debuted as a Pro-exclusive feature on last year’s iPhone 14 lineup – will find its way onto every iPhone 15 model in 2023.
It’s clear, then, that Apple is keen to make its newer, high-end features available to as many users as possible – but only after those features have enjoyed a year of top-level iPhone exclusivity.
Other features touted as being exclusive to the rumored iPhone 15 Ultra include Apple’s next chip upgrade – likely to be the A17 Bionic – and a titanium frame. If we were a betting publication, we’d wager that both features will be appearing on the iPhone 16 Pro, too.
