New iPad Pros with OLED displays and the thinnest design ever, powered by Apple’s new M4 chip topped the news out of Cupertino’s “Let Loose” launch event, where redesigned iPad Airs were unveiled in 11‑inch and 13‑inch M2 configurations. The switch to OLED is a major change for Apple, which used mini-LED on the most recent models. And it’s not just garden variety OLED, but tandem OLED, combining two OLED displays for very high contrast with deep blacks and 1,600 nit peak brightness. The Ultra Retina XDR visuals are enabled by the M4 and its new display engine. Continue reading Apple Brings Tandem OLEDs to New M4-Powered iPad Pros

Samsung Electronics grew net profit by more than 400 percent in Q1, to $4.91 billion, on revenue of about $52.3 billion, a nearly 13 percent increase year-over-year. The results were credited mainly to higher memory chip prices resulting from AI demand buoying the company’s semiconductor business. Solid performance in smartphones — with the launch of its Galaxy S24 series, the first to pack AI-optimized chips — supported the stellar performance. It was a dramatic rebound from 2023, when post-COVID economic fallout drove Samsung to a 15-year profit low and semiconductor losses of almost $11 billion. Continue reading Samsung Chip Rebound Sends Q1 Net Profit Up 400 Percent

Anthropic has launched a paid tier catering to business customers as well as a free mobile app for iOS users featuring its chatbot Claude. The generative AI startup — which has backing from Amazon, Google and Salesforce — is positioning itself to compete with companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft that focus on enterprise plans for revenue while also offering individual plans. Anthropic’s Team plan starts at $30 per user per month, on par with competing enterprise products, and requires a minimum of five seats. Anthropic has been beta testing Team over the past few quarters in industries including legal, tech and healthcare. Continue reading Anthropic Debuts Enterprise Plan, Free Claude App for iPhone

Apple revealed its largest quarterly decline in iPhone sales since the July-September period in 2020 during the pandemic, placing additional pressure on the tech giant to step up its artificial intelligence efforts. Apple iPhone sales for January-March dropped 10 percent year-over-year, as its top product faced increased competition from Huawei in China, Apple’s third-largest market. Apple’s quarterly revenue decreased 4 percent from the same period last year to $90.8 billion, marking the fifth dip in the past six quarters for the company. Apple’s $23.64 billion profit for the quarter represents a 2 percent reduction from last year. Still, Apple shares rose in after-market trading. Continue reading Apple’s Revenue Is Impacted by Pressure from Chinese Rivals

Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies continues to bounce back after taking an initial hit from U.S. sanctions resulting from the company being declared a national security threat in 2019. Year-over-year, net profit surged 564 percent to $2.7 billion in Q1, with revenue up 37 percent to $24.65 billion. It was the company’s fourth consecutive quarterly profit gain. Although Huawei doesn’t breakout performance for individual sectors, analysts estimate the company’s smartphone sales rose 70 percent, leading to further speculation the global firm is taking market share from rivals, particularly Apple in China. Continue reading Huawei Continues Financial Rebound Despite U.S. Sanctions

The trend toward small language models that can efficiently run on a single device instead of requiring cloud connectivity has emerged as a focus for Big Tech companies involved in artificial intelligence. Apple has released the OpenELM family of open-source models as its entry in that field. OpenELM uses “a layer-wise scaling strategy” to efficiently allocate parameters within each layer of the transformer model, resulting in what Apple claims is “enhanced accuracy.” The “ELM” stands for “Efficient Language Models,” and one media outlet couches it as “the future of AI on the iPhone.” Continue reading Apple Unveils OpenELM Tech Optimized for Local Applications

Airchat is the latest app to take tech leaders in Silicon Valley by storm. Described as a “combination of voice notes and Twitter,” Airchat lets you follow other users and scroll through posts — adding replies, likes and shares — but the twist is the content is generated through audio recordings the app then transcribes. Airchat ranked 27th on the App Store’s social networking chart, even though users must be invited to join. Launched last year by Naval Ravikant, founder of AngelList, and erstwhile Tinder product exec Brian Norgard, Airchat was just relaunched on iOS and Android. Continue reading Audio-First Social Platform Airchat Has Successful Relaunch

Apple Vision Pro users disappointed by the Netflix webOS experience on the spatial computing wearable can now take advantage of the independently developed Supercut app, designed to enhance the streaming platform on Apple’s new headset, as well as to make Amazon Prime Video work better through a dedicated iPad app port. Created by Christian Privitelli, Supercut delivers the correct aspect ratio for each app, as well as eliminating black bars, and more. It also enables 4K streaming with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Privitelli is working on a version for streaming platform Plex. Continue reading Supercut Improves Streaming of Netflix, Amazon on Vision Pro

Google is attacking slow-loading web pages with the new JPEG image encoder/decoder Jpegli, which offers a 35 percent compression ratio improvement using high quality compression settings, the Alphabet company says. The Jpegli JPEG coding library offers backward compatibility via “a fully interoperable encoder and decoder complying with the original JPEG standard and its most conventional 8-bit formalism, and API/ABI compatibility with libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG,” Google says. The resulting images compressed using Jpegli are “more precise and psychovisually effective” as a result of computations that make images “look clearer” with “fewer observable artifacts.” Continue reading Google Introduces Faster, More Efficient JPEG Coding Library

Apple has developed a large language model it says has advanced screen-reading and comprehension capabilities. ReALM (Reference Resolution as Language Modeling) is artificial intelligence that can see and read computer screens in context, according to Apple, which says it advances technology essential for a true AI assistant “that aims to allow a user to naturally communicate their requirements to an agent, or to have a conversation with it.” Apple claims that in a benchmark against GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, the smallest ReALM model performed “comparable” to GPT-4, with its “larger models substantially outperforming it.” Continue reading Apple’s ReALM AI Advances the Science of Digital Assistants

Oregon has signed into law one of the strongest right to repair bills in the United States. With the new law, it will become the first state to ban “parts pairing,” which is when replacement parts are prevented from working unless the manufacturer’s software approves them. The pairing protections also forbid companies from limiting functionality for off-brand parts. Apple — which endorsed California’s right to repair law, passed in October — pushed back against the pairing provision. Only devices made after January 1, 2025, when the Oregon law goes into effect, are prevented from parts pairing. Continue reading Oregon’s Right to Repair Law Is the First to Ban Parts Pairing

The European Commission has opened five investigations targeting Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon with regard to its new Digital Markets Act (DMA) antitrust rules. Under examination are steering practices with regard to Google and Apple and their app stores, potential “self-preferencing” tactics by Google and Amazon, Meta’s “pay or consent” policy for ad targeting, Apple’s compliance with “user choice” obligations, and also its recent App Store price adjustments for third parties. The vetting is expected to last for 12 months. The DMA was adopted in 2022 and goes into force this May. Continue reading EU’s Digital Markets Act Investigation Targets Big Tech Firms

Google is beginning to extend YouTube TV’s multiview functionality to mobile platforms, with iPhones and iPads added in time for March Madness and Android coming in the months ahead. During early access, some users will see an option to simultaneously watch up to four different, though pre-selected, streams in their “Top Picks for You” section. After selecting multiview, viewers will be able to toggle audio and captioning between streams and can jump in and out of a particular game’s full screen view. YouTube TV announced multiview last month “on all devices that support multiview.” Continue reading YouTube TV Begins Offering Multiview for iPhones and iPads

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, joined by 16 other state and district attorneys, has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Apple for “monopolization or attempted monopolization” of the smartphone market. The move comes after years of regulatory scrutiny triggered by complaints from companies who compete against Apple or rely on it to do business and pay hefty fees for doing so. The charges center on the iPhone, which has an estimated 60 percent share of the U.S. smartphone market and is seen as an essential platform for anyone that wants to reach mobile consumers. Continue reading U.S. Targets Apple Smartphone Monopoly in Antitrust Lawsuit

Since Epic Games debuted the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) and Creator Economy 2.0 tools in March 2023, the company says creators have published more than 80,000 UENF islands, and Epic has rewarded creators with more than $320 million in engagement payouts. Now Epic is adding more core features to UEFN: MetaHuman Creator and MetaHuman Animator, which enable the creation and animation of non-playable MetaHuman characters. Epic’s UEFN 2024 roadmap, presented at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, includes more camera options for the player-made game platform, including a first-person perspective. Continue reading MetaHuman and Animator Now Available to Fortnite Creators