The Morning After: Our verdict on Apple’s Studio Display

Apple’s new display is here, ready for the Mac aficionados unwilling to deck their workstation in anything less than brushed metal and soft corners. The Studio Display is a bit brighter than the 5K iMac; otherwise it’s the same 27-inch screen. That does mean it lacks features we’ve seen on the latest MacBook Pros, like ProMotion refresh rate and Mini-LED backlighting. 

There is an A13 Bionic chip to drive its webcam (which needs the help) and augment its speakers. For the $1,599 price, though, it’s missing some pretty standard features, like an adjustable stand, HDR and high refresh rates. If you want a Mac screen and don’t want to pay more than $2,000, it may still be the best fit. Read our full review here.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

YouTube makes thousands of TV show episodes available to stream for free

The ad-supported series include ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Heartland.’

YouTube is letting users in the US stream thousands of free ad-supported TV shows like Hell’s Kitchen, Heartland and Unsolved Mysteries. YouTube plans to offer around 4,000 free TV episodes on top of the 1,500 movies already available. This month, it added a raft of new movie titles, including Gone in Sixty Seconds, Runaway Bride and Legally Blonde, now available to stream for free with ads.

Continue reading.

PS5 will catch up to Xbox with variable refresh rates

Sony teased the feature will arrive in a few months.

Variable refresh rate (VRR) is coming to the PlayStation 5 in the “coming months,” Sony announced. If you have an HDMI 2.1-compatible TV or PC monitor, it will dynamically sync the display refresh rate to the PS5 console’s graphical output, Sony explained in a blog post. The feature is long overdue. VRR has been available on the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles since they debuted. VRR will help minimize visual artifacts, like screen tearing, offering a more consistently smooth picture.

Continue reading.

IKEA’s latest experiment in speakers is an outdoor LED lamp

It’s a Spotify-enabled Bluetooth speaker.

TMA
IKEA

IKEA has unveiled the Vappeby Bluetooth speaker with a Spotify Tap button that doubles as an outdoor lamp, confirming an FCC filing we saw last year. With IP65 dust and water splash resistance, it’s designed to illuminate outdoor parties, BBQs, etc. with LED light while delivering 360-degree sound. The new model is now available to order for $65 in blue or gray.

Continue reading.

Nothing’s first phone will launch this summer

The Phone 1 will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon and run a modified version of Android.

As teased, Nothing will release its first smartphone this summer and, in the usual marketing style of its CEO, OnePlus Co-founder Carl Pei, Nothing shared a handful of details while promising to reveal more soon. The phone will run Nothing OS, a modified version of Android that “captures the best features” of Google’s mobile OS while distilling it “to just the essentials.” Which I guess are two ways of saying the same thing. It’s a huge challenge to launch a new smartphone in a land of Galaxies, Pixels and iPhones, but I was pleasantly surprised with Nothing’s slick Ear 1 wireless buds. The company could pretty much win me over with a transparent smartphone, to be honest.

Continue reading.

iOS 15.4更新後の激しいバッテリー消耗に「最大48時間待てば解決」との公式回答

iOS 15.4更新後にバッテリーの消耗が異常に激しいとユーザー報告に対して、アップル公式サポートが「アップデートから48時間待てば、問題が解決します」との趣旨を回答しています。

Polestar’s long range single motor Polestar 2 arrives in the US

Following the release of its dual-motor variant late last year, Polestar announced on Wednesday that the 270-mile long range, single-motor version of its Polestar 2 EV is now available for sale in the US. 

Starting at $45,900 — $33,400 after federal and state incentives — the single-motor Polestar 2 is $4,000 less expensive than its AWD sibling (which starts at $51,200) and provides 16 extra miles of driving range to the all-wheel’s 249 miles. Other than the number of e-motors affixed to their axles, the two are functionally identical.

“All variants of the Polestar 2 exude the brand’s leadership in cutting-edge technology with the Google infotainment system, premium sustainable materials, and unparalleled avant-garde design,” Gregor Hembrough, Head of Polestar North America, said in a press statement. The $4,000 creature comfort “Plus” upgrade and $3,200 “Pilot” sensor and safety package are likewise available with either powertrain setup. 

Folks looking to stick it to their local petrochemical conglomerate can schedule a test drive either through the Polestar 2 configurator site or at one of the company’s physical retail locations located in major cities throughout the US.

ダンベル、バーベル、ケトルベル、プッシュアップバーの4wayで使える、家トレに最適な「DARBELL Max」

※本プロジェクトは沖縄・離島地域への配送は行っておりません。ご了承ください。 組み立て次第でダンベル・バーベル・ケトルベル・プッシュアップバーの４wayで使えて重量も1.25kg〜20kgまで調節できる、家トレに最適なアイテムです。 今日は上半身をメインに、明日は下半身をメインに鍛えるなど日々のトレーニングスケジュールに合わせて形状を変えて全身隈なくトレーニングしていただけます。重量も自由自在なので体格やレベルの異なるご家族との共有も可能です。 ■ダンベルやケトルベルを重量ごとに揃えるのは大変 ■ト…

GIF inventor Stephen Wilhite has died

GIF inventor Stephen Wilhite has died from COVID-19 at the age of 74 with his wife Kathaleen at his bedside, NPR has reported. He worked at CompuServe when he developed the “Graphics Interchange Format,” designed to allow photo transfers over slow modem connections. GIFs have since become synonymous with short meme videos, regardless of how you pronounce it (though it’s “JIF” with a soft “G,” according to Wilhite himself). 

Wilhite invented the GIF in 1987 virtually on his own, according to his spouse. It was designed as an “exchange and display mechanism for graphic images” at a time when internet speeds were glacial compared to today. “He actually did that at home and brought it into work after he perfected it,” Kathaleen told The Verge. “He would figure out everything privately in his head and then go to town programming it on the computer.”

With limitations like 256 colors per animation, the format could easily have died out a long time ago. It had another trick, though — it was designed by Wilhite to store multiple frames, making it natural for short animations. It took on a life of its own after AOL purchased CompuServe and let the patent expire, particularly with artists and Tumblr users, according to a Daily Dot explainer.

Besides developing GIFs, Wilhite made other key contributions to CompuServe that helped it become the internet juggernaut of its time. “I greatly admired his intelligence and perseverance as he consistently created software products that were woven into CompuServe’s tapestry of offerings for corporate, hobbyist, and home consumers,” said co-worker Ty Wait on Wilhite’s obituary page. 

Wilhite retired in 2000 to pursue his hobbies and interests, including travel and model trains. He always came back to his first love of programming, however — he was still doing that just weeks before he was struck ill with COVID, Kathaleen told NPR. “”He was probably one of the kindest, humble men you’ve ever met,” she said. “I’ve been reading about [the responses online] all afternoon, and I can’t even tell you how it comforts you.”

‘Elden Ring’ update fixes bug that could put players in an endless death loop

You may want to update your copy of Elden Ring on PC to make sure that you don’t end up losing hours of gameplay to the endless death loop exploit. Bandai Namco has rolled out a patch for the game, which fixes a bug in multiplayer that “allowed players to teleport others to incorrect map coordinates.” A few days ago, reports surfaced about bad actors exploiting a bug that gives them a way to crash your game and teleport your character off the map. Upon reloading, you’ll just find yourself falling to your death and seeing the reviving/loading screen again and again. 

Here’s the infinite death loop in action:

As The Verge notes, some players were able to save their game by quickly teleporting elsewhere, but others reported losing as much as 100 hours of gameplay to the death loop. In addition to fixing this particular bug, the update also patches other issues, including ones that will prevent you from advancing certain quests. 

Elden Ring has been out for less than a month, but it has become huge very, very quickly. It sold 12 million units worldwide merely 18 days after its release, smashing the records of other Souls-type titles — Dark Souls 3, the best-selling game in the franchise, only reached 10 million units sold four years after it became available. When Bandai Namco and Elden Ring developer FromSoftware announced the milestone, they also said that the IP could be expanded “beyond the realm of games.” 

Studio Displayはどれを選ぶべき？実は全Macユーザーにおすすめできる製品だった（本田雅一）

実のところ2022年春に発表されたApple製品の中で、Studio DisplayはMac Studioの名脇役ぐらいの位置付けで捉えていた。しかし実際に製品に触れ、使い始めてみると、Studio Displayはほとんど全てのMacユーザーにとって重要な製品であることがわかってきた。…