Say hello to Apple's most baffling laptop, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M2 chip. It was already a confusing computer when we reviewed the M1 model in 2020 andit was out-shined by the fan-less MacBook Air. But now that there's a new MacBook Air with a bigger screen and a more modern design, the 13-inch Pro seems a bit like a relic from another era. It’s from a time when Apple had to build machines around Intel's hotter and less efficient chips, instead of taking full advantage of its own hardware.

To be fair, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is still a very nice computer, and the M2 chip gives it a decent performance boost. But it's also something I can't really recommend, not when the new Air offers so much more, and the 14-inch MacBook Pro has a far better screen, plus ports professionals actually need. Apple claims the 13-inch MacBook Pro continues to be one of its most popular models, and that's not too surprising since it's the cheapest "Pro" notebook in its lineup. Still, it's 2022, and this MacBook Pro design has been around for years. Popularity is no excuse for being lazy.

Now, I suppose it makes sense that Apple would coast a bit. The MacBook Pro's unibody aluminum case still outshines the vast majority of PCs on the market. And, given the many design and supply chain constraints we're facing amid the ongoing pandemic and chip crunch, it was probably smarter for Apple to focus on the new Air, as well as the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros. It's just a shame that those priorities left the 13-inch model with the same chunky-bezeled display and anemic port selection we've seen for years.

And no, the Touch Bar doesn't help the situation at all. Just when we thought we'd rid ourselves of Apple's second screen misfire, it's back to torture us again with disappearing function keys and constantly shifting app shortcuts. It's almost as if Apple had some leftover Touch Bar stock it just had to unload, and we’re paying the price. Developers aren’t doing much more to take advantage of it, so in several years it'll just be a useless appendage, like the last protohuman with a tail.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Now that I've gotten my frustrations out, we can talk about what's good: Apple's new M2 chip. It offers 8 CPU cores and up to 10 GPU cores, which Apple claims will deliver 18 percent faster multithreaded performance, and up to 35 percent faster graphics speeds. The real upgrade for Pros, though, is that it now supports up to 24GB of RAM (instead of being limited to 16GB), and also has double the memory bandwidth. Together with support for ProRes encoding and decoding, the M2 should make the MacBook Pro a far better option for video editors who don't want to make the leap to the pricier 14-inch model.

Our review unit, which featured the M2 chip (10 GPU cores) with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, was noticeably faster in just about every benchmark. It scored almost 9,000 points in Geekbench 5's multi-core test, whereas the M1 MacBook Pro was closer to 7,000 points. The M2 chip also blew away the M1 in Geekbench's Compute benchmark, as well as Cinebench R23, where it scored 1,300 points higher than the M1 machine. The performance bump isn't enough to dump the M1 MacBook Pro if you've already bought one, but it's still nice to see Apple make some decent gains with its sequel chip.

Here's the thing: we haven't benchmarked the new MacBook Air yet, and based on my experience with the last model, I expect it to score about the same as the MacBook Pro. Once again, Apple's big selling point for this computer is that it has a fan and more elaborate cooling system, allowing it to handle sustained workloads like video encoding or 3D rendering. The MacBook Air is still fan-less, so it will likely throttle performance significantly as it gets warmer.

So sure, if you're a professional, the MacBook Pro is still a better bet. But if you need a computer for serious work, one that'll deliver far better performance today and last you a lot longer, it may make more sense to save up and invest in the 14-inch MacBook Pro. I realize for many consumers, that's not an easy choice to make. The 13-inch model starts at $1,299, while the cheapest 14-inch offering is $1,999.

But move beyond their base specs (the 13-inch starts with an anemic 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage), and the cost difference is less stark. Bumping both systems up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage raises the prices to $1,899 and $2,199, respectively. At that point, you might as well spend $300 more for the vastly more powerful 14-inch MacBook Pro with the better display.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

After all, every other "Pro" Apple device has a ProMotion screen, which delivers high refresh rates for silky smooth scrolling. Why should the 13-inch MacBook Pro be left out? Its Retina Display still looks fine, but my eyes have been spoiled by Apple's modern screens. Omitting ProMotion is even more glaring now that Microsoft squeezed fast refresh rates into the Surface Laptop Studio. And we've seen plenty of gaming laptops, like the ASUS Zephyrus G14 and Acer Predator Triton 500 SE, that can easily double as productivity machines with fast screens.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Those computers also have far more ports that professionals would actually use. I was disappointed to see Apple reduce the 13-inch MacBook Pro to 2 USB-C ports back in 2020. Today, it just doesn't make sense for a "Pro" product. You'll lose one port whenever you're charging, and basically demands that you invest in a USB-C mini-hub. Anyone working with photos or video will need one of those accessories anyway, since there's no SD-card reader. (At this point, I'm grateful Apple is still including a headphone jack.)

There are elements of the 13-inch MacBook Pro I still like. Apple's build quality remains impressive, the keyboard and trackpad are fantastic, and the MacBook's speakers sound good enough to fill a small room. The battery life is also solid, lasting more than 17 hours in our benchmark. If you didn't know what you were missing from the other MacBooks on the market, then I'm sure you'd be happy with the M2 MacBook Pro.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

Personally, though, I just want better for potential MacBook buyers. Why should they be stuck with the chunkiest screen bezels in Apple's laptop lineup? Why don't they deserve a high refresh rate screen? Shouldn't Apple devote more attention to one of its best-selling machines? The 13-inch MacBook Pro is fine, like I said. But it should have been so much more.

IKEA already lets you preview furniture in your home via AR, but its latest AI-powered iOS app offers a big leap in capability. Called IKEA Kreativ, it can scan your rooms using LiDAR and build a complete 3D replica of them, then let you delete your existing furniture. From there, you can try out new IKEA couches, tables, etc. and get a much better idea of how they'll look in your home. 

The scanning is done via something IKEA calls the Kreativ Scene Scanner, which uses LiDAR if it's available on your iPhone. It also works on iPhones or iPads without LiDAR, though having it allows the app to "pull in additional spatial detail," IKEA told Engadget.  

IKEA

To use it on the web or a mobile device without LiDAR, you simply have to input a series of photographs of a room. Those are then "automatically processed and assembled into a wide-angle, interactive replica of the space, with accurate dimensions and perspective," IKEA said in a press release. From there, you can erase existing furniture and position new IKEA pieces, quickly try alternatives and fully design the room. All of our ideas can be saved for later or shared with others. Naturally, the app also lets you add preferred pieces to your shopping cart. 

If you're looking for further inspiration, IKEA also unveiled 50 new 3D showrooms. Those let you browse the IKEA catalogue virtually and try out products in 3D settings, "quickly swapping, moving, rotating, stacking and hanging IKEA products," the company said. 

The app is the latest high-tech move by IKEA, which has launched a raft of connected speakers, smart home hubs, connected lights, charging pads and more over the last few years. On top of that, IKEA joined a new group created by Microsoft, Meta and others to create metaverse standards — so, you might be able to at least find furniture in virtual reality. 

Nothing's debut Phone 1 smartphone won't be coming to the US, the company confirmed to PCMag. "While we’d love to bring Phone 1 to the entire community around the world, we're focusing on home markets, including the UK and Europe," the company said in a statement. However, it added that "a limited number of our private community investors" could get one in the US through a closed beta program. 

Nothing showed off the device for the first time last week on Twitter following a tease by founder Carl Pei. The most noticeable feature is a transparent back, revealing a wireless charging coil and a mysterious pattern that lights up. The company has also promised "an open and diverse product ecosystem" and the pure Android Nothing OS. 

The company further explained that "it takes a lot to launch a smartphone... from ensuring the handset is supported by the country's cellular technologies to carrier partnerships and local regulation, and as we're still a young brand we need to be strategic about it." Even folks in the closed beta program are likely to have issues with coverage and a lack of support of features like voice over LTE, according to PCMag. A similar disclosure was given by Nothing when the first 100 phones went up for bid on StockX.

Still, Nothing does have North American ambitions. "We have big plans to launch a US supported smartphone in the future," the company wrote. The Nothing Phone 1 is set to debut in London on July 12th — you can catch it via a livestream if you RSVP in advance. 

One of the boons of cryptocurrency is meant to be that no particular company, central bank or government has control. Er, right?

That might not be true. Researchers for a report commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) found there can be "unintended centralities" in these supposed decentralized systems.

Cryptocurrency power is concentrated among people or organizations with a large chunk of the pie. Almost like any other capitalist system? Gasp.

"Unintended centralities" was the term used, defined as circumstances where an entity has sway over a so-called decentralized system. This could give them the opportunity to tamper with records of ownership. The report also notes three ISPs handle 60 percent of all bitcoin traffic.

The report said 21 percent of nodes are running an old, vulnerable version of the core bitcoin client. Attackers could target these nodes and take over the majority of a blockchain network. Theoretically, at least. But there have been plenty of cryptocurrency attacks in the last few years. Nothing wrong with some skepticism.

Real-life examples already exist: Read CNBC’s report on lending platform Solend. It’s had issues with one major account holder wielding influence over the entire platform.

— Mat Smith

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Proteus is Amazon's first fully autonomous warehouse robot

Amazon has also introduced a new robotic arm at its fulfillment centers.

Amazon

It’s an imposing name for Amazon’s first autonomous warehouse robot, but it still looks like an industrial Roomba. Proteus can move around Amazon's facilities on its own while carrying carts full of packages. The company said the robot uses an "advanced safety, perception and navigation technology," so it can do its work without getting in the way of human employees.

Continue reading.

Microsoft will phase out facial recognition AI that could detect emotions

The move comes as Microsoft pushes for more responsible uses of AI.

Microsoft will "retire" facial recognition technology it said could infer emotions as well as characteristics like age, gender and hair. The AI raised privacy questions, Microsoft said, and offering a framework created the potential for discrimination and other abuses. There was also no clear consensus on the definition of emotions.

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New Philips Hue smart lights include its first portable rechargeable smart lamp

Signify has also launched a new sunrise effect for Philips Hue lights.

Philips

Signify (the company responsible for Hue lighting) has introduced a bunch of new Philips Hue smart lighting products, including its first portable rechargeable lamp designed for both indoors and outdoors. The Philips Hue Go portable table lamp has a silicone grip so you can take it with you wherever you go. It can last for up to 48 hours on a single charge. The lamp will be available by the end of summer for $160 in the US and £130 in the UK. The company has new sunrise lighting effects, brighter downlights and even a new floor lamp. For all your smart lighting desires, read on.

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The best smart displays you can buy

Plus our advice on how to choose one.

Engadget

Smart displays are the second-wave devices born out of the success of the Amazon Echo, Google Home and other smart speakers. Adding visual and tactile components to what were once devices you could only bark orders at makes them more functional and intriguing. Amazon and Google dominate the space, and we’ve just updated our guide to buying a smart display, and we have opinions!

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NASA finally succeeds with its Artemis 1 wet launch test

It has fully fueled the Space Launch System for the first time.

NASA encountered a couple of issues while conducting the Artemis 1 wet dress rehearsal, but it still checked off a major milestone by the end of the test. The agency was able to fully fuel all the Space Launch System's propellant tanks for the first time and proceed to terminal launch countdown. Wet dress rehearsals are tests that simulate a rocket launch without the rocket actually lifting off.

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A group of companies, including some of the biggest names in tech and the internet, have banded together to develop interoperability standards needed to achieve an open metaverse. The organization is called Metaverse Standards Forum, and its founding members include Meta, Microsoft, Huawei, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, Unity and Adobe. As Reuters notes, one company that's conspicuously missing from the list is Apple. Multiple reports have come come out these past few years that Apple is releasing its own virtual or augmented reality headset, and it's expected to become a major player in the metaverse when the device becomes available.

Yet another big name that's missing from the list is Google, which is also reportedly working on an AR headset codenamed Project Iris. Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, and Roblox aren't in the list of members, as well. That said, membership is free and open to any organization, so more companies could join later on. As with any standard, one for the metaverse would only be considered a success if companies, especially the biggest players in the industry, adopt them. "Multiple industry leaders have stated that the potential of the metaverse will be best realized if it is built on a foundation of open standards," the forum wrote in its press release.

The group also said that it will focus on "pragmatic, action-based projects." Those include conducting hackathons and working on open-source tools designed to accelerate the testing and adoption of metaverse standards. And while companies can join anytime, members are expected to start forum meetings this July. 

The PCI-SIG committee has unveiled the latest PCI Express 7.0 standard with blazing speeds, even as we still wait for two-generation-older PCIe 5 devices to arrive in quantity. Set to launch in 2025 and probably hit shelves around 2027, PCIe 7 will offer up to 512 GB/s of throughput, 8 times that of the latest PCI Express 5.0 speeds.

The 512GB/s bi-directional speeds will be available on x16 connections, but will be considerably reduced in the real world due to encoding overhead and header efficiency. Still, it's double the PCI 6.0 standard that's supposed to arrive by the end of the year. PCI-SIG (which is currently holding its annual developers conference) said that it's ahead of its goal of doubling PCI Express speeds every three years. 

PCI-SIG

All this speed depends on device and chip makers, though. Intel's 12th-gen Alder Lake chips released in January 2022 do support PCIe 5.0, but AMD's Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 desktop chips with PCIe 5.0 support won't arrive until this fall. The first PCIe 5.0 SSDs for consumers have only just arrived with read speeds up to 13GB/s. 

Other key features include improved power efficiency, low latency and backwards compatibility with previous generations. However, PCIe 7.0 will require shorter traces to achieve those speeds, so motherboards could be more expensive as they'll likely require extra components and thicker PCBs. 

On the plus side, even x1 PCIe 7.0 lanes will be as fast as PCIe 4.0 x16 speeds (32 GB/s), so storage and other devices could be smaller and hog fewer resources. Put another way, you could have four NVME SSD drive slots with each using just 1 PCIe lane, and all of them would be twice as fast as a PCIe5 x4 NVMe slot.

In a post looking back over the past 10 years since it purchased robotics company Kiva, Amazon has revealed its new machines, including its first fully autonomous warehouse robot. It's called Proteus, and it was designed to be able to move around Amazon's facilities on its own while carrying carts fulls of packages. The company said the robot uses an "advanced safety, perception and navigation technology" it developed to be able to do its work without hindering human employees.

In the video Amazon posted, you can see Proteus moving under the carts and transporting them to other locations. It emits a green beam ahead of it while it moves, and it stops if a human worker steps in front of the beam. 

Amazon's aim is to automate the handling of its package carts so as to reduce the need for human workers to manually move them around its facilities. In fact, the e-commerce giant stressed that its robots were designed to create a safer workplace for people. "From the early days of the Kiva acquisition, our vision was never tied to a binary decision of people or technology. Instead, it was about people and technology working safely and harmoniously together to deliver for our customers," it wrote. 

Another new robot called Cardinal was also designed with the idea of reducing risk of employee injuries in mind. Cardinal is a robotic arm that picks up packages, reads their labels and then places them in the appropriate cart for the next stage of the shipping process. Artificial intelligence and computer vision enable it to sort packages correctly. Amazon is currently testing a prototype that's able to lift boxes up to 50 pounds and expects to deploy the robotic arm to fulfillment centers by next year.

Finally, the company has also revealed that it's working on an AI technology that can automatically scan packages. Currently, workers have to scan barcodes on packages using hand scanners — this technology will eliminate the need to do that. With this scanning capability in place, human workers don't even need to pause while sorting packages: The system can quickly recognize a package the passes its camera. Amazon explained that its camera runs at 120 frames per second and is powered by computer vision and machine learning technology.

The e-commerce giant has introduced several robots over the years, and it has always emphasized that their purpose is to improve safety at its warehouses. As The Verge notes, the company said it's not looking to replace human workers even though an internal report that recently leaked revealed that the company expects to "deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024." An Amazon robotics lead told Forbes that "replacing people with machines is just a fallacy" that could end with a company going out of business. 

Google News turned 20 this year, and it's getting a major redesign that reflects changing priorities in journalism. The newly launched News desktop revamp now prioritizes catching up on important stories. In addition to top stories and personalized picks, there's a particular focus on local news. That section is finally at the top of the page, and you can add multiple locations in case one city's coverage isn't enough.

The company is also bolstering its fact checking. Google News now shows the original claim next to a headline, along with fact checks (from independent sources) that show whether the claim holds up. You aren't locked into the topics Google chooses, either. Click a "customize" button in Your Topics (pictured below) and you can add, delete or reshuffle subjects to match your tastes.

Google

The reworked site also marks Google News' official return to Spain. Google dropped the local offering in December 2014 ahead of a law that would have required paying publishers to use their content, including headlines. A newspaper coalition pushed for Google to restore News, however, and Google announced plans for a revival last November following a Royal Decree that let Google negotiate licenses with individual publishers (in sync with the EU's European Copyright Directive) instead of having to pay all of them.

The updated site helps support the Google News Initiative, a long-running campaign to support newsrooms amid concerns the internet is eroding access to quality journalism. Accordingly, Google has started taking applications for a Global News Equity Fund that helps back news for minorities and underrepresented groups. They have until July 21st to apply for money. The tech firm is also handing out its first round of funding ($1 million) for a Data-Driven Reporting Project that assists communities with data-heavy investigations.

It's too early to say if the redesign will prove a success. It does give local news much higher priority than in the past, though (you previously had to scroll past multiple sections just to see it). And simply speaking, the new layout is overdue — the cleaner, more modern look is easier to digest. In theory, this could get more people to use Google's hub instead of visiting specific media outlets or relying on dedicated apps like Apple News.

Last year Owen Diaz, a former contracted elevator operator at Tesla’s Fremont assembly plant, successfully sued the automaker for creating a hostile, racially abusive work environment, and was awarded $137 million by the jury. That award was winnowed down to just $15 million by a judge who gave Diaz two weeks to accept or reject the new amount. As reported by Bloomberg, lawyers for Diaz have taken the latter option.

“In rejecting the court’s excessive reduction by asking for a new trial, Mr. Diaz is again asking a jury of his peers to evaluate what Tesla did to him and to provide just compensation for the torrent of racist slurs that was directed at him,” wrote Diaz’s lawyers in a statement to NBC News.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2017, described a work environment where Black workers were regularly subjected to racial slurs and other abuse, with at least one supervisor allegedly telling Diaz to "go back to Africa" — issues which he also claims the company was negligent in addressing. Tesla has pushed back against some of Diaz’s claims, arguing that it took timely action to stop the harassment, as well as claiming these racial slurs were "used in a “friendly” manner and usually by African-American colleagues." It also argued that it was not liable for how Diaz was treated given his status as a contractor.

Last year a jury awarded Diaz a total of $6.9 million of compensatory damages and $130 million of punitive damages, which likely would have amounted to one of the largest payouts in a corporate racial discrimination lawsuit. US District Judge William Orrick, in an opinion filed in April, rejected Tesla’s claims that it was not liable for a contract employee, but also slashed the award amount, calling it “excessive.” He reduced the amount of compensatory damages to $1.5 million and punitive damages to $13.5 million. Since Diaz's lawyers have now rejected the award, the case will proceed to a new trial.

The automaker is also facing another lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing on the behalf of more than 4,000 former and current Black Tesla employees. According to three former Tesla workers interviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Black workers at the Fremont facility were segregated, given the most difficult tasks and subject to more discipline than other workers.

After a seven-year hiatus, Twitter is once again hosting an in-person developer conference. The company is bringing back Chirp, which will take place in San Francisco on November 16th. Chirp was the name of Twitter’s first-ever developer conference back in 2010, though the event was canceled in subsequent years. The last time the company hosted a live developer conference was Twitter Flight in 2015.

Since then, Twitter has had a somewhat rocky relationship with developers. The company made a series of API changes in 2018 that were deeply unpopular and poorly communicated. Makers of third-party Twitter clients were particularly affected, and they accused the company of “breaking” their apps.

More recently, Twitter has tried to (once again) improve its relationship with developers. The company launched an all-new version of its API in 2020, and has also introduced new tools to make it easier for researchers to study the platform. It’s also tested out new developer-friendly features like recommending some third-party services in its own app.

It’s not clear exactly what will be on the agenda at Chirp. The company says in a blog post that there will be a “keynote, technical sessions, [and] opportunities to meet the Twitter Developer Platform team to get your questions answered and connect with other developers in our global community.” The keynote will also be streamed live on Twitter for those not attending in person.

It’s also notable that Twitter is going ahead with the conference despite uncertainty about the company’s future as Elon Musk works to take over the company. Company executives have noted that they are very much in the dark when it comes to Musk’s plans for Twitter, and current CEO Parag Agrawal may not remain in his position for long after the deal closes (whenever that may happen). On the other hand, Twitter’s developer tools could be an important source of revenue for the company — something Musk has also made a top priority.