The Morning After: What to expect from Apple’s Peek Performance event

Apple is holding its first virtual event of the year on March 8th, and to be honest, I’ve heard rumors about this date for weeks. And don’t get me started on the leaky product selection expected to debut tomorrow at 1 PM ET / 10 AM PT / 6 PM GMT.

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Engadget

The first major announcement is likely to be a new iPhone SE, Apple’s cheapest iPhone, packing 5G. Will it catch up, design-wise, with the rest of the iPhone family? We’re not sure, but it could still have a home button, if that’s what you’re hoping for. That might be the only throwback — we expect it to have the same A15 Bionic chip as the iPhone 13 lineup.

It’s also time for a new iPad Air, currently the oldest iPad in Apple’s lineup. Although, it’s not that old, really; it was completely redesigned back in 2020.

That’s not all we’re likely to see, however. A report yesterday suggested we could also get a new external display from Apple. Check out our full preview right here.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

Netflix stops streaming in Russia

The company had previously halted production on several projects in the country.

Netflix has suspended its streaming service in Russia: “Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” a spokesperson for Netflix told CNBC. Over the weekend, even more companies have pulled services or product sales from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Activision Blizzard and Epic have both halted game sales, TikTok has suspended parts of its service in the country and PayPal has frozen payments and services, too. But it’s gone both ways: Before the weekend, Russia cut access to Facebook and Twitter for its citizens.

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Brandon Sanderson’s secret novels break Pebble’s Kickstarter crowdfunding record

The campaign has already made over $20.4 million.

After half a decade, a new Kickstarter campaign has finally eclipsed Pebble’s crowdfunding record. Fantasy auth…well-established fantasy author Brandon Sanderson set up a campaign to raise $1 million in 30 days to fund four secret books he intends to release next year. It didn’t take 30 days to blow past that goal, though — it took only 35 minutes. The author told The New York Times that one of his objectives for launching this project is to see what it would be like to challenge Amazon. It dominates the printed book and ebook market and apparently accounts for 80 percent of Sanderson’s sales.

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Nintendo’s Switch is about to hit its prime

Just maybe not its ‘Metroid Prime.’

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Nintendo

As the Switch reaches five years old, are its best times behind it? No, quite the opposite. This year is shaping up to be the biggest for Nintendo’s hybrid hit console. The company has new Pokémon, new Zelda and new Bayonetta games inbound, not to mention Switch Sports, a new Xenoblade title and a whole lot more planned for 2022.

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Hackers may have obtained 190GB of sensitive data from Samsung

The company says it’s assessing the situation.

Some of Samsung’s confidential data has reportedly leaked due to a suspected cyberattack. On Friday, South American hacking group Lapsus$ uploaded a trove of data it claims came from the smartphone manufacturer. The collective says it obtained code related to highly sensitive features, like biometric authentication and on-device encryption, as well confidential data from Qualcomm. If the contents of the leak are accurate, they could cause significant damage to Samsung.

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The Morning After: Nintendo’s Switch turns five

Nintendo’s return to form, after the miss that was the Wii U, has been impressive. The Switch, equal parts home console and handheld, has been a huge hit for the company and recently surpassed the Wii to become Nintendo’s best-selling console. The hardware — underpowered in specs compared to the competition — has proved flexible and powerful enough, and Nintendo has crushed it with the games. With Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which landed shortly after the console launched, players got not only the best Zelda game in years but arguably (don’t come for me) the best Zelda game. Period.

To celebrate its fifth birthday, we’ve pulled together the best games that have cemented the Switch as the versatile, family-friendly console that’s still going strong. Who needs a Switch Pro?

(Me, I do.)

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

‘Star Trek: Picard’ enters the 25th century only to promptly ignore it

This season is for all those time-travel fans.

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Paramount

The first season of Picard was controversial, to say the least. Many fans were happy to see old friends again; others weren’t so thrilled at the bleak future of Starfleet and the Federation. So Star Trek did what Star Trek does: time travel! Our early preview contains moderate spoilers for the first three episodes of Star Trek: Picard season two.

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Another Netflix production was robbed, this time on the set of ‘Lupin’

Twenty masked thieves reportedly made off with $330,000 worth of equipment.

Netflix has been the victim of two big on-set robberies in two days. On February 24th, $200,000 worth of antique props were reportedly stolen after thieves broke into vehicles used for production of The Crown. And just a day later, 20 thieves with covered faces broke on to the set of Lupin, in a northwest Paris suburb. The thieves apparently set off mortar-style fireworks before making off with the equipment.

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Samsung may be throttling apps to save battery life on Galaxy phones

The company says it’s looking into reports.

Samsung may have limited the performance of a large number of apps on its Galaxy smartphones. There are claims it’s been using something called the Game Optimizing Service (GOS) to throttle up to 10,000 apps (likely to save battery life), including many that have nothing to do with gaming, like Netflix, TikTok and, er, Microsoft Office. However, it isn’t throttling benchmarking apps.

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A ‘molecular drinks printer’ claims to make anything from iced coffee to cocktails

Thousands of beverages at the press of a touchscreen.

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Cana

A company called Cana has revealed what it’s calling the planet’s first “molecular beverage printer.” The idea is that, using a single cartridge of flavorings, the machine can mix one of thousands of beverages, including juice, soft drinks, iced coffee, sports drinks, wine and cocktails. The notion seems to be it can manufacture most drinks from a water base, adding in what differentiates orange juice from, say, a latte. The system uses a “novel microfluidic liquid dispense technology” to mix the beverages. The pricing is unusual, too. After paying for the machine (early adopters can bag one for $499), you have to pay for each drink. Each costs between 29 cents and $3, though Cana claims the average price will be lower than bottled beverages at retailers.

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