Tech

2023-was-the-year-that-gpus-stood-still

2023 was the year that GPUs stood still

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2023 was the year that GPUs stood still

Andrew Cunningham

In many ways, 2023 was a long-awaited return to normalcy for people who build their own gaming and/or workstation PCs. For the entire year, most mainstream components have been available at or a little under their official retail prices, making it possible to build all kinds of PCs at relatively reasonable prices without worrying about restocks or waiting for discounts. It was a welcome continuation of some GPU trends that started in 2022. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel could release a new GPU, and you could consistently buy that GPU for roughly what it was supposed to cost.

That’s where we get into how frustrating 2023 was for GPU buyers, though. Cards like the GeForce RTX 4090 and Radeon RX 7900 series launched in late 2022 and boosted performance beyond what any last-generation cards could achieve. But 2023’s midrange GPU launches were less ambitious. Not only did they offer the performance of a last-generation GPU, but most of them did it for around the same price as the last-gen GPUs whose performance they matched.

The midrange runs in place

Not every midrange GPU launch will get us a GTX 1060—a card roughly 50 percent faster than its immediate predecessor and beat the previous-generation GTX 980 despite costing just a bit over half as much money. But even if your expectations were low, this year’s midrange GPU launches have been underwhelming.

The worst was probably the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, which sometimes struggled to beat the card it replaced at around the same price. The 16GB version of the card was particularly maligned since it was $100 more expensive but was only faster than the 8GB version in a handful of games.

The regular RTX 4060 was slightly better news, thanks partly to a $30 price drop from where the RTX 3060 started. The performance gains were small, and a drop from 12GB to 8GB of RAM isn’t the direction we prefer to see things move, but it was still a slightly faster and more efficient card at around the same price. AMD’s Radeon RX 7600, RX 7700 XT, and RX 7800 XT all belong in this same broad category—some improvements, but generally similar performance to previous-generation parts at similar or slightly lower prices. Not an exciting leap for people with aging GPUs who waited out the GPU shortage to get an upgrade.

The best midrange card of the generation—and at $600, we’re definitely stretching the definition of “midrange”—might be the GeForce RTX 4070, which can generally match or slightly beat the RTX 3080 while using much less power and costing $100 less than the RTX 3080’s suggested retail price. That seems like a solid deal once you consider that the RTX 3080 was essentially unavailable at its suggested retail price for most of its life span. But $600 is still a $100 increase from the 2070 and a $220 increase from the 1070, making it tougher to swallow.

In all, 2023 wasn’t the worst time to buy a $300 GPU; that dubious honor belongs to the depths of 2021, when you’d be lucky to snag a GTX 1650 for that price. But “consistently available, basically competent GPUs” are harder to be thankful for the further we get from the GPU shortage.

Marketing gets more misleading

1.7 times faster than the last-gen GPU? Sure, under exactly the right conditions in specific games.

Enlarge / 1.7 times faster than the last-gen GPU? Sure, under exactly the right conditions in specific games.

Nvidia

If you just looked at Nvidia’s early performance claims for each of these GPUs, you might think that the RTX 40-series was an exciting jump forward.

But these numbers were only possible in games that supported these GPUs’ newest software gimmick, DLSS Frame Generation (FG). The original DLSS and DLSS 2 improve performance by upsampling the images generated by your GPU, generating interpolated pixels that make lower-res image into higher-res ones without the blurriness and loss of image quality you’d get from simple upscaling. DLSS FG generates entire frames in between the ones being rendered by your GPU, theoretically providing big frame rate boosts without requiring a powerful GPU.

The technology is impressive when it works, and it’s been successful enough to spawn hardware-agnostic imitators like the AMD-backed FSR 3 and an alternate implementation from Intel that’s still in early stages. But it has notable limitations—mainly, it needs a reasonably high base frame rate to have enough data to generate convincing extra frames, something that these midrange cards may struggle to do. Even when performance is good, it can introduce weird visual artifacts or lose fine detail. The technology isn’t available in all games. And DLSS FG also adds a bit of latency, though this can be offset with latency-reducing technologies like Nvidia Reflex.

As another tool in the performance-enhancing toolbox, DLSS FG is nice to have. But to put it front-and-center in comparisons with previous-generation graphics cards is, at best, painting an overly rosy picture of what upgraders can actually expect.

2023 was the year that GPUs stood still Read More »

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Appeals court pauses ban on patent-infringing Apple Watch imports

Apple, Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, patent appeals, smartwatch, Tech / /

still on hold —

Apple pulled the Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 from sale on December 21.

– Updated

Apple Watch Series 9

Enlarge / The Apple Watch Series 9 released in September 2023.

Apple

Just before Christmas, Apple pulled two of its latest smartwatches from stores. The cause was not an unwelcome visit from the ghost of mechanical timepieces past but the International Trade Commission, which found that the California-based computer maker had infringed on some patents, resulting in the ITC banning the import of said watches. Yesterday, Reuters reported that Apple filed an emergency request for the courts to lift the ban and will appeal the ITC ruling.

And today, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted Apple’s wish, pausing the ban while it considers the tech company’s argument.

Apple’s watch problems started back in January. That’s when a court found that the light-based pulse oximetry sensor (found on the back of the watches) infringed patents held by Masimo, a medical device manufacturer also based in California.

At the time, Apple said since Masimo was not a consumer-focused company, it chose not to collaborate or acquire the medical device maker. Masimo, for its part, said that Apple led it on in discussions then took its idea and hired away Masimo engineers.

In October, the ITC upheld the ruling of infringement and started the process to ban imports of the watches, giving US President Joe Biden’s administration 60 days to review the case and possibly veto the ruling.

But the Biden administration has chosen not to interfere, unlike in 2013 when the Obama administration vetoed a ban on iPhones and iPads during a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. Although the ITC’s import ban on Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 models was supposed to go into effect on December 26, Apple pulled the watches from sale a few days early. The older Apple Watch SE, which doesn’t use the infringing blood oxygen sensor, remains on sale.

“We strongly disagree with the USITC decision and resulting exclusion order, and are taking all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the US as soon as possible,” Apple said in a statement.

Apple had asked the CAFC to pause the ban until US Customs and Border Protection decides whether redesigned Apple Watches no longer infringe on Masimo’s patents, a decision that should be reached by January 12. Now the court has given the ITC a deadline of January 10 to respond to Apple.

This article was updated shortly after publication to reflect the court pausing the import ban.

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Matter, set to fix smart home standards in 2023, stumbled in the real market

2023, aqara, matter, nanoleaf, phillips hue, Smart Home, smart home standards, smarthome, Tech, Thread, Zigbee / /

A matter for the future —

Gadget makers, unsurprisingly, are hesitant to compete purely on device quality.

–

Illustration of Matter protocol simplifying a home network

Enlarge / The Matter standard’s illustration of how the standard should align a home and all its smart devices.

CSA

Matter, as a smart home standard, would make everything about owning a smart home better. Devices could be set up with any phone, for either remote or local control, put onto any major platform (like Alexa, Google, or HomeKit) or combinations of them, and avoid being orphaned if their device maker goes out of business. Less fragmentation, more security, fewer junked devices: win, win, win.

Matter, as it exists in late 2023, more than a year after its 1.0 specification was published and just under a year after the first devices came online, is more like the xkcd scenario that lots of people might have expected. It’s another home automation standard at the moment, and one that isn’t particularly better than the others, at least how it works today. I wish it was not so.

Setting up a Matter device isn’t easy, nor is making it work across home systems. Lots of devices with Matter support still require you to download their maker’s specific app to get full functionality. Even if you were an early adopting, Matter-T-shirt-wearing enthusiast, you’re still buying devices that don’t work quite as well, and still generally require a major tech company’s gear to act as your bridge or router.

CSA's illustration of how smart homes worked before Matter, which is unfortunately a lot like how they still work, after.

CSA’s illustration of how smart homes worked before Matter, which is unfortunately a lot like how they still work, after.

CSA

Lights that Matter, but do less

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy at The Verge has done more Matter writing, and testing, than just about anybody out there who doesn’t work for the Connectivity Standards Alliance that oversees the spec. As she puts it:

I’ve been testing Matter devices all year, and it has been the most frustrating year of my decade-plus experience with smart home devices. Twelve months in, I do not have one Matter-based device working reliably in my home. To make matters worse (yeah, I know), the one system that’s always been rock solid, my Philips Hue smart lights, is basically unusable in any of my smart home platforms since I moved it to Matter.

When the Matter upgrade for Hue lights rolled out in September, I didn’t move to switch my bulbs over. For one thing, it wouldn’t result in a net loss of limited-purpose hardware (i.e. hubs). If you wanted to move your Hue bulbs over to Matter and control them through Google’s Home app, you’d need a Google Home Hub or Home Mini to act as a Matter bridge device. The same goes for Alexa (Echo devices), Samsung SmartThings (a Hub), or Apple Home (an Apple TV or HomePod/mini). You also lose some Hue-specific function, like gradient lighting and scenes (like holiday green/red schemes). And, as Tuohy has noted, it’s likely not a more reliable network than the proprietary Zigbee setup that Hue ran on before.

The smart home and automation market is like that pretty much everywhere. Aqara offers a Matter-compliant light strip, the T1, but it requires a hub, and using Matter means you can’t use Apple’s light-sensing adaptive brightness, because Matter doesn’t support that yet. The same goes for Nanoleaf’s Matter-friendly bulbs and strips, which are Matter and Thread capable but require Nanoleaf’s own app to provide Nanoleaf’s version of adaptive lighting.

Apple Developer

Matter, set to fix smart home standards in 2023, stumbled in the real market Read More »

laptops’-2023-quantum-leap:-5-computers-we’ll-still-be-talking-about-in-2024

Laptops’ 2023 quantum leap: 5 computers we’ll still be talking about in 2024

Apple, ASUS, Features, laptops, Lenovo, Tech / /
hand reaching for laptop, with blue swirls in the background

You’ll never uncover The Next Great Thing if you don’t deviate from the norm. When looking back at 2023’s laptops, we can see that many were merely refreshed designs—approaches that already work. But what happens when a company explores a design that, though not the most appealing today, might lead us to a new trend tomorrow?

You might end up with some computers that many, or even most, people aren’t currently interested in buying. But you could also end up glimpsing the designs that influence future laptops.

The laptops we’re about to look at all defied trends in some way, and we’re curious to see if they impact the laptop industry beyond 2023. We’ll also look at the challenges these ideas might face in the future—and some ways they could improve.

Lenovo’s laptop with dual 13.3-inch screens

  • A company called SZBOX is already selling a similar design, and I don’t think it’ll be the last.

    Scharon Harding

  • I was able to multitask like never before on a 13-inch-size laptop.

    Scharon Harding

  • Lenovo’s depiction of the Yoga Book 9i’s various forms. There has to be a useful idea somewhere in there, right?

    Lenovo

With the number of secondary screens already being built into laptops, Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i, as striking as it appears, was a somewhat expected progression. But Lenovo actually pulled it off with a legitimate PC featuring most of the bells and whistles found among traditional premium laptops. With the design serving practical use cases in an improved form factor, I expect it to not only be imitated (one small firm is already selling a laptop like this) but to also give the concept of foldable-screen laptops a good run for their money.

The Yoga Book 9i, with its pair of 13.3-inch OLED screens, isn’t kicking off this list solely because it’s creative, flashy, or unique. It’s because, as detailed in our Lenovo Yoga Book 9i review, it proved itself an effective way to boost the amount of multitasking one can reasonably do on a 13-inch-size laptop. Lenovo’s revision of how to use a 13-inch chassis could improve options down the line for the many people seeking that golden area between ultra-portability and productivity potential.

On the Lenovo laptop’s 26.6 inches of cumulative screen, I was able to do the types of things that would only bring me frustration, if not a headache, on a single 13.3-inch panel. Want to take notes on a video call while monitoring your news feeds, having a chat window open, and keeping an eye on your email? That’s all remarkably manageable on a laptop with two full-size screens. And that PC is easier to lug around than a laptop and portable monitor.

What’s next?

The dual-screen setup worked well for small-laptop multitasking. But the polarizing lack of an integrated physical keyboard and touchpad challenge this form factor’s longevity. Easily accessible touchscreen controls are handy, but you can’t really replicate the reliable tactility and comfort of a keyboard and touchpad with touchscreens. A super portable laptop suddenly feels less portable when you have to remember to bring its accessories.

Still, I think this design has a place in the increasingly mobile world of computing. Future designs could improve with less reflective screens, given that reflectivity is especially distracting on a dual-screen laptop where one screen can cast reflections on the other.

Moving from OLED could help improve battery life to some degree. But, as you might have guessed, a laptop with two 13.3-inch OLED displays won’t be winning any laptop battery-life contests. Further, I wonder what price improvements could be made by foregoing OLED.

But many of the creative laptop designs these days opt for OLED, due to its high image quality, flexibility, and broad market appeal from more mainstream tech implementations, like OLED smartphones and TVs. This presents an ongoing price obstacle for a laptop design that already leans niche.

Laptops’ 2023 quantum leap: 5 computers we’ll still be talking about in 2024 Read More »

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Debt-laden Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount consider merger

culture, max, movies, paramount, paramount plus, streaming, Tech, TV, warner bros. discovery / /
Game of Thrones

Enlarge / Media firms are looking for allies to help them take the coveted media throne.

The CEOs of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and Paramount Global discussed a potential merger on Tuesday, according to a report from Axios citing “multiple” anonymous sources. No formal talks are underway yet, according to The Wall Street Journal. But the discussions look like the start of consolidation discussions for the media industry during a tumultuous time of forced evolution.

On Wednesday, Axios reported that WBD head David Zaslav and Paramount head Bob Bakish met in Paramount’s New York City headquarters for “several hours.”

Zaslav and Shari Redstone, owner of Paramount’s parent company National Amusements Inc (NAI), have also spoken, Axios claimed.

One of the publication’s sources said a WBD acquisition of NAI, rather than only Paramount Global, is possible.

Talks to unite the likes of Paramount’s film studio, Paramount+ streaming service, and TV networks (including CBS, BET, Nickelodeon, and Showtime) with WBD’s Max streaming service, CNN, Cinemax, and DC Comics properties are reportedly just talks, but Axios said WBD “hired bankers to explore the deal.”

It’s worth noting that WBD will suffer a big tax hit if it engages in merger and acquisition activity before April 8 due to a tax formality related to Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia (which formed Warner Bros. Discovery) in 2022.

A union of debts

Besides the reported talks being in very early stages, there are reasons to be skeptical about a WBD and Paramount merger. The biggest one? Debt.

The New York Times notes that WBD has $40 billion in debt and $5 billion in free cash flow. Paramount, meanwhile, has $15 billion in debt and a negative cash flow. Zaslav has grown infamous for slashing titles and even enacting layoffs to save costs. But WBD is eyeing greener pastures and declared Max as “getting slightly profitable” in October. Adding more debt to WBD’s plate could be viewed as a step backward.

Additionally, Paramount is even more connected to old, flailing forms of media than WBD, as noted by The Information, which pointed to two-thirds of Paramount’s revenue coming from traditional TV networks.

Antitrust concerns could also impact such a deal.

WBD stocks closed down 5.7 percent, and Paramount’s closed down 2 percent after Axios’ report broke.

Of course, these details about a potential merger may have been reported because WBD and/or Paramount want us to know about it so that they can gauge market reaction and/or entice other media companies to discuss potential deals.

Debt-laden Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount consider merger Read More »

google-might-already-be-replacing-some-ad-sales-jobs-with-ai

Google might already be replacing some Ad sales jobs with AI

Google, google ads, google ai, Tech / /

Better click-through rates than Cyberdyne Systems —

When AI can make assets and text for ads, you don’t need humans to do it anymore.

–

A large Google logo is displayed amidst foliage.

Google is wrapping its head around the idea of being a generative AI company. The “code red” called in response to ChatGPT has had Googlers scrambling to come up with AI features and ideas. Once all the dust settles on that work, Google might turn inward and try to “optimize” the company with some of its new AI capabilities. With artificial intelligence being the hot new thing, how much of Google’s, uh, natural intelligence needs to be there?

A report at The Information says that AI might already be taking people’s jobs at Google. The report cites people briefed on the plans and says Google intends to “consolidate staff, including through possible layoffs, by reassigning employees at its large customer sales unit who oversee relationships with major advertisers.” According to the report, the jobs are being vacated because Google’s new AI tools have automated them. The report says a future restructuring was apparently already announced at a department-wide Google Ads meeting last week.

Google announced a “new era of AI-powered ads” in May, featuring a “natural-language conversational experience within Google Ads, designed to jump-start campaign creation and simplify Search ads.” Google said its new AI could scan your website and “generate relevant and effective keywords, headlines, descriptions, images, and other assets,” making the Google Ads chatbot one part designer and one part sales expert.

One ad tool, Google’s Performance Max (or “PMax” for short), got a generative AI boost after May’s announcement and can now “create custom assets and scale them in a few clicks.” First, it helps advertisers decide if an ad should be in places like YouTube, Search, Discover, Gmail, Maps, or banner ads on third-party sites. Then, it can just make the ad content, thanks to generative AI that can scan your website for material. (A human advertiser is still in the loop approving content—for now.) It’s called “Performance Max” because variations of your ad are still left up to the machines, which can constantly remix your ads in real time using click-through rates as feedback. Google’s official description is that “Assets are automatically mixed and matched to find the top performing combinations based on which Google Ads channel your ad is appearing on.”

Changing ads on the fly with immediate click-through-rate validation and A/B testing is a task that no person would have the time to do. Also, no one would want to pay a human to do this much work, so having an AI monitor your ad performance sounds like a smart solution. The report also notes another benefit of making AI do this work: “Because these tools don’t require much employee attention, they carry relatively few expenses, so the ad revenue carries a high-profit margin.”

The Information report says, “A growing number of advertisers have adopted PMax since [launch], eliminating the need for some employees who specialized in selling ads for a particular Google service, like search, working together to design ad campaigns for big customers.”

According to the report, as of a year ago, Google had about 13,500 people devoted to this kind of sales work, a huge chunk of the 30,000-strong ad division. These 13,500 people aren’t necessarily all going to be affected, and those who are won’t necessarily be laid off—they could be reassigned to other areas in Google. We should know the scale of Google Ad’s big re-org soon. The report says, “Some employees expect the changes to be announced next month.”

Google might already be replacing some Ad sales jobs with AI Read More »

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Lian Li has discovered a new frontier for LCD screens: $47 PC case fans

ars pc guide, Lian Li, pc building, Tech / /

i have a screen —

120 and 140 mm fans can add to the blinding glow of your gaming PC’s RGB setup.

–

The UNI FAN TL LCD series puts screens where there were no screens before.

Enlarge / The UNI FAN TL LCD series puts screens where there were no screens before.

Lian Li

If you’re trying to add lights to a PC case, you have lots of options: LED strips, CPU coolers with lights, case fans with lights, keyboards and mice with lights, motherboards with lights, GPUs with lights, sticks of RAM with lights, even fake sticks of RAM that go into your RAM slots so that you don’t have un-RGB-ed spots in your setup.

But if all of that isn’t enough for you, and you need to take things one step further, Lian Li has a new product for you: case fans that include not just RGB LEDs with two different lighting zones, but 1.6-inch LCD screens that can be programmed to show your PC’s stats or small looping images and videos.

Fans in the UNI FAN TL LCD lineup are available in 120 mm and 140 mm sizes, with black and white color options. The versions with screens cost $47 for a 120 mm version and $52 for a 140 mm version, and TL fans without screens go for $33 and $36, respectively. The fans need to be connected to their own dedicated fan controller, which can drive up to seven of the LCD-equipped fans at a time. The screens can then be customized via proprietary software, as is unfortunately common for RGB lights and mini-screens.

One wrinkle for people who take pains to optimize their airflow: The LCD screens are only visible on one side of each fan. Normally, if you wanted to switch a fan from intake to exhaust—that is, blowing warm air out of the case instead of bringing cool air in—you could just flip it over. If you do that to a TL LCD fan, you’d be obscuring the screens. Lian Li sells dedicated “Reverse” versions of each fan that blow air the other way; Lian Li says that mounting the LCD fans the wrong way can damage the screens. The non-LCD versions can simply be flipped, like a regular case fan.

Other companies have played with the idea of putting LCD screens on internal components before—multiple companies manufacture all-in-one CPU watercoolers that integrate a customizable LCD screen on the water block that’s easily readable through an acrylic or glass side panel. You can also sometimes find air coolers with an LCD mounted on the heatsink somewhere. But Lian Li’s fans are, as far as we can tell, the first to mount LCD screens on the fans.

Do you actually need this many little screens all over your PC, showing your components’ internal temperatures and looping little snippets of video? No, of course not. But packing RGB lighting and other customizable components into your PC focuses more on what can be done than what should be done.

The UNI FAN TL LCDs can be pre-ordered in one– or three-packs starting today. The three-packs also include the fan controller, which is available for $25 extra.

Lian Li has discovered a new frontier for LCD screens: $47 PC case fans Read More »

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Wireless TVs use built-in cameras, NFC readers to sell you stuff you see on TV

ads, Tech, TVs / /
webcam protruding out of the Displace TV

Enlarge / A closeup of the webcam on the Displace TV announced in January.

Dislace

It’s no secret that TV makers are seriously invested in pushing ads. Using TVs for advertising goes back to 1941 when the first TV commercial aired. But as we trudge our way through the 21st century, TV vendors are becoming more involved in ensuring that their hardware is used to sell stuff and add to their own recurring revenue.

This has taken various forms, but in some cases, we’re seeing increasingly invasive strategies for turning TVs into a primary place for shopping. The latest approach catching attention comes from the startup Displace. Its upcoming TVs will use integrated webcams and NFC payment readers to make it easy for people to buy stuff they see on TV.

Displace hasn’t officially released a product yet, so skepticism about the TVs it says it will demo at CES 2024 in Las Vegas next month, as spotted by sites like Wifi Hifi, is warranted. (Displace said it would have images of the newly announced TVs to share next year). The startup specializes in wireless TVs with hot-swappable batteries that can vacuum suction-mount to a wall and zip-line slowly off said wall when sensing an unstable connection or low battery. The original “Displace TV” that Displace announced in January is supposed to ship in mid-2024. Displace has been taking preorders for those.

The two new TVs Displace is adding to its 2024 release plans, the Displace Flex and Displace Mini, are all about making watching TV shopping better.

Stop & shop: TV edition

According to Displace’s announcement, the Displace Flex (a 55-inch 4K OLED TV) and Displace Mini (a 27-inch 4K OLED TV) will use proprietary gesture technology and each TV’s integrated 4K camera to tell when a user is raising their hand. It’s unclear how accurate that will be (could the shopping experience accidentally be activated if I raised my hand to tie my hair up, for example?), but at that point, the TV is supposed to pause the content being played. Then, it uses computer vision to “analyze the screen to find products available for sale. Once they see something they want to purchase, viewers drag and drop the product into the global Displace Shopping Cart,” the announcement says.

Displace Shopping will work at any moment the TV is on, and users can buy stuff they see in commercials by using the TVs.

Displace’s December 14 announcement said:

As soon as the viewer is ready to checkout, Displace Payments makes paying as easy as bringing a user’s smartphone or watch near the TV’s built-in NFC payment reader, a fully secure process that requires no credit card info. Viewers can also pay from within the Displace app.

If the TV can’t find a specific product for sale, it will “search for similar items” without user intervention, according to Displace. The TV will show products from any available online retailers, allowing users to select where they want to make their purchase.

Displace hasn’t provided full details about how it will make money off these transactions, but when reached for comment, founder and CEO Balaji Krishnan told Ars Technica that Displace has “different business models, and one of them is to take a transaction fee,” and that Displace will share more details “later.”

Displace also sees people using Displace Payments to pay for telehealth applications and equipped the Flex and Mini with thermal cameras.

Wireless TVs use built-in cameras, NFC readers to sell you stuff you see on TV Read More »

beeper’s-esoteric-fix-for-imessage-access-suggests-why-it’s-pushing-politically

Beeper’s esoteric fix for iMessage access suggests why it’s pushing politically

Apple, Tech / /

Blue bubbles requiring space gray boxes —

Beeper’s iMessage access could depend on both Mac data and DOJ action.

–

An M1 Mac Mini, held in hand.

Enlarge / If you have one of these, or another Mac handy, you should soon be able to access Beeper on Android and desktop platforms. You’ll just need to grab its “registration data” every so often.

Samuel Axon

Beeper’s Android app, which initially promised iMessage support with just a phone number, lost that connection once Apple started openly pushing back on it less than a week after it launched. Beeper has kept revising its approach, and its newest method—involving regular access to a physical Mac—suggests why the company has added a political component to its efforts.

Beeper started pushing back after its initial blockage, both through continued development and through media and political messaging. After a second, if smaller, Apple crackdown, co-founder Eric Migicovsky welcomed CBS Mornings into his garage, where he advanced his argument that Beeper was turning grossly insecure SMS messages between iPhone and Android users into secure, end-to-end encrypted chats. (CBS also interviewed James Gill, the 16-year-old whose work connecting to iMessage, using reverse-engineering methods, is the foundation of Beeper’s iMessage tech).

CBS Mornings‘ interview with Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky and James Gill, a teenage coder.

That interview lined up with another development: a bi-partisan foursome of US lawmakers, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), sending a letter to the Department of Justice regarding “Apple’s potential anti-competitive treatment of the Beeper Mini messaging application.” Apple’s actions toward Beeper, the letter suggests, could “eliminate choices for consumers,” “discourage future innovation and investment” in messaging, and make Apple a “digital gatekeeper,” suggesting a need for review by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.

The move follows, and seems to echo, similar efforts by European Union regulators to open up iMessage, which have been stalled so far. Apple has announced that it will adopt RCS standards for SMS messaging, bringing delivery status and higher-quality media to messages between Android and iPhone users. But Apple is adopting a general RCS standard, not one with end-to-end encryption enabled, such as with Google’s own extension of RCS.

As of Sunday, more than 60 percent of Beeper users still couldn’t access iMessage, according to Beeper status updates. Today, Migicovsky told Beeper users (and a “Beeper Team” member posted on Reddit) that there was a solution, though it requires “access to a Mac computer,” or “a friend on Beeper with a Mac.” The updated workaround is due to arrive on Wednesday.

Beeper says that the issue involves the need for non-identifying “registration data” to access iMessage. Beeper had been using “our own fleet of Mac servers” to provide that data. “Unfortunately, this has proven to be an easy target for Apple because thousands of Beeper users were using the same registration data,” Migicovsky wrote users.

The updated Beeper app for Mac will allow for pulling a real Mac’s registration data, for both desktop and Android apps, and perhaps even sharing it with a small number of Beeper users. “In our testing, 10-20 iMessage users can safely use the same registration data,” Migicovsky wrote. He added that Beeper will be open-sourcing its full iMessage bridge, along with the Mac app code that generates registration data, which should provide a self-hosting option.

You’ll need occasional, if regular, access to that Mac running Beeper, however, as “roughly once per week or month” the data needs to be re-generated.

That kind of requirement, besides limiting a big part of its market to “Android users who also happen to have a Mac,” pushes Beeper even further into a kind of uncanny valley for providing iMessage support to non-Apple hardware. Being able to sometimes send secure, feature-rich iMessages, but occasionally losing access due to Apple’s stated intent to stop it, is a tough sell, even if Beeper isn’t charging at the moment.

That might explain why the company is looking to Congress, and user outcry, for alternate routes into iMessage.

This post was updated at 5: 30 p.m. on Dec. 19 to add context regarding Apple’s adoption of RCS, but not end-to-end encryption for RCS messages.

Beeper’s esoteric fix for iMessage access suggests why it’s pushing politically Read More »

microsoft-releases-downloadable-tool-to-fix-phantom-hp-printer-installations

Microsoft releases downloadable tool to fix phantom HP printer installations

HP, microsoft, printers, Tech, Windows 10, Windows 11 / /

unprint —

Windows 10 and 11 users noticed this bug earlier this month.

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The HP LaserJet M106w is one of the printer models that is mysteriously appearing for some users in Windows 10 and 11.

Enlarge / The HP LaserJet M106w is one of the printer models that is mysteriously appearing for some users in Windows 10 and 11.

HP

Earlier this month, Microsoft disclosed an odd printer bug that was affecting some users of Windows 10, Windows 11, and various Windows Server products. Affected PCs were seeing an HP printer installed, usually an HP LaserJet M101-M106, even when they weren’t actually using any kind of HP printer. This bug could overwrite the settings for whatever printer the user actually did have installed and also prompted the installation of an HP Smart printer app from the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft still hasn’t shared the root cause of the problem, though it did make it clear that the problem wasn’t HP’s fault. Now, the company has released a fix for anyone whose PC was affected by the bug, though as of this writing, it requires users to download and run a dedicated troubleshooting tool available from Microsoft’s support site.

The December 2023 Microsoft Printer Metadata Troubleshooter Tool is available for all affected Windows versions, and it will remove all references to the phantom HP LaserJet model (as long as you don’t have one installed, anyway). The tool will also remove the HP Smart app as long as you don’t have an HP printer attached and the app was installed after November 25, presumably the date that the bug began affecting systems. These steps should fix the issue for anyone without an HP printer without breaking anything for people who do use HP printers.

There are four different versions of the troubleshooter, depending on whether you have the 32- or 64-bit version of an Arm or x86 version of Windows. Microsoft will also release an additional recommended troubleshooting tool “in the coming weeks” that will fix the problem in Windows 11 upon a user’s request without requiring the download of a separate tool.

Microsoft has said that, despite the renaming and the download of the HP Smart tool, most basic printing functionality should continue to work as intended for users affected by the problem. But if your printer relies on its own external app to provide additional settings or extra functionality, you’ll need to run the troubleshooting tool (or manually uninstall the phantom HP printer and reinstall your own printer) to get things working properly again.

Listing image by Getty

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restored-478-key,-31-tone-moog-synthesizer-from-1968-sounds-beautifully-bizarre

Restored 478-key, 31-tone Moog synthesizer from 1968 sounds beautifully bizarre

Cornell, cornell university, culture, david rothenberg, electronic music, experimental music, moog, moog synthesizers, robert moog, synthesizers, Tech / /

You know that new sound you’re looking for? —

Cornell staff finish the job with new technology but keep Moog’s work in place.

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Shadowed photo of the Moog-Rothenberg keyboard

Ryan Young/Cornell University

Mathematician and early AI theorist David Rothenberg was fascinated by pattern-recognition algorithms. By 1968, he’d already done lots of work in missile trajectories (as one did back then), speech, and accounting, but he had another esoteric area he wanted to explore: the harmonic scale, as heard by humans. With enough circuits and keys, you could carve up the traditional music octave from 12 tones into 31 and make all kinds of between-tone tunes.

Happily, he had money from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and he also knew just the person to build this theoretical keyboard: Robert Moog, a recent graduate from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was just starting to work toward a fully realized Moog Music.

The plans called for a 478-key keyboard, an analog synthesizer, a bank of oscillators, and an impossibly intricate series of circuits between them. Moog “took his time on this,” according to Travis Johns, instructional technologist at Cornell. He eventually delivers a one-octave prototype made from “1960s-era, World-War-II-surplus technology.” Rothenberg held onto the keyboard piece, hoping to one day finish it, until his death in 2018. His widow, Suhasini Sankaran, donated the kit to Cornell in 2022.

Because of that noble garage-cleaning, there now exists a finished device, one that has had work composed and performed upon it: the Moog-Rothenberg Keyboard.

Cornell’s telling of the Moog-Rothenberg keyboard, restored by university staff and students.

The project didn’t start until February 2023, partly because of the intimidating nature of working on a one-of-a-kind early synth prototype. “I would hate to unsolder something that was soldered 50 years ago by Robert Moog,” Johns says in the video.

Johns and his students and staff at Cornell sought to honor the original intent and schematics of the device but not ignore the benefits of modern tech. Programmable micro-controllers were used to divide up an 8 MHz clock signal, creating circuits with several octaves of the same note. Those controllers were then wired, laboriously, to the appropriate keys.

  • Original designs for the Moog-Rothenberg keyboard.

    Ryan Young/Cornell University

  • Travis Johns works on some of the newer pieces of the restored (or replicated) Moog-Rothenberg keyboard.

    Ryan Young/Cornell University

  • Switches and microcontrollers for the fully realized keyboard.

    Ryan Young/Cornell University

  • A bit closer up with some of the original wiring for the one-octave prototype Moog prepared in the late 1960s.

    Ryan Young/Cornell University

  • Even closer to those circuits and keypads.

    Ryan Young/Cornell University

As Johns notes, it’s hard to categorize the synthesizer now as the original object, a re-creation, or a “playable facsimile” of a planned device. It’s also a particularly strange instrument. His team followed every mathematical and electrical detail of the original plans but found that the keyboard took on “a life of its own,” creating unusual timbres, resonances, and even volumes as soundwaves synchronized and fell away. This is, of course, the kind of thing Rothenberg originally hired Moog to make possible.

By October, the 31-tone synth was ready to play some music. Cornell professors Xak Bjerken and Elizabeth Ogonek performed and composed for it, respectively, and they were joined by members of Cornell’s EZRA quartet, themselves no stranger to strange instruments and new styles. Bjerken described his set as “bluegrass meets experimental improvisation.”

You can certainly hear the experimental come through in bits of the performance captured by Cornell. Ogonek manually controlled the instrument’s filters during the concert to create sustained tones. It requires more than two hands to control the output of 478 keys. The synthesizer now resides in Cornell’s Lincoln Hall for the Department of Music.

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the-play-store-preps-remote-app-uninstall-feature

The Play Store preps remote app uninstall feature

Google, google play, Tech / /

The power of the internet —

Remote installs have been around forever; now you can go the other direction.

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The Play Store preps remote app uninstall feature

One of the neatest features of the Play Store is remote app installation. If you have multiple devices signed in to the same Google account, the Play Store’s “install” button will let you pick any of those devices as an installation target. If you find an app you like, it’s great to queue up installs on your phone, watch, TV, tablet, laptop, and car, all from a single device. It makes sense, then, that you might want to be able to uninstall apps from all your devices, too.

The new feature coming to the Play Store will let you do exactly that: remote uninstalls from any device on your account. The first sign of the feature is in the latest Android patch notes, which list a “New feature to help you uninstall apps on connected devices.” It doesn’t seem like this has been activated yet, but news site TheSpAndroid has photos of the feature, showing what you would expect. Opening the Play Store and uninstalling an app will bring up a list of devices, just like installing does now.

  • After hitting the “uninstall” button, this list of devices will pop up.

    TheSpAndroid

It might not look like it, but under the hood, all installs from the Play Store happen via Android’s push notification system. By default, the press of the Play Store install button requests Google to send an app push to your current device, but there’s no need for the target device of a remote app install to be turned on and unlocked. Just like any other push notification, when the device connects to the Internet and sees the push, it will wake up and do whatever business it needs to do—usually, that’s “show a message and beep,” but in this case, that business is “install an app.” Google has slowly exposed its remote install functionality to the world, first with the Android Market (now Play Store) website in 2011. It took 11 years for a similar feature to come to the Play Store phone app.

Uninstalls can also work via the push notification system. Today’s news marks the first time this feature has been exposed to users, but remote uninstalls have been around for as long as remote installs. Google can trigger the remote uninstall feature without user consent, and it occasionally uses this feature to remotely mass-uninstall malware from all Play Store devices. Users are finally getting a button to do this themselves.

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