The 20 most-read stories of 2023

The 20 most-read stories of 2023
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Every so often, you live through a year that you know you’re going to remember. Sometimes it’s because of a personal milestone. Other times it’s because of noteworthy events that affected all of us in one way or another. And in some years, it’s because we were all surprised by unanticipated and rapid technological advances.

2023 definitely will be a year that will be remembered. On the tech side, the biggest story was AI, due in no small part to rapid advances in large language models. We had news about space flight, hackers, operating systems, and even music players.

Read on to find out which stories resonated the most with our readers throughout the year.

Depending on the screenwriting, time travel can be one of the best plot devices in a movie… or one of the most confusing, if done poorly. As we have come to better understand the nature of time, Hollywood has begun producing more flicks that use it as part of the story.

Our ace science reporter Jennifer Ouellette happens to be married to a physicist with his own subreddit, so we decided to turn them loose on the topic of time travel and the movies to see which films had the best combination of entertainment and scientific rigor. Read on to find out where Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 12 Monkeys, and Hot Tub Time Machine ended up.

Largely considered relics of a bygone computing era, over 10,000 mainframe computers are still used today. Used primarily by Fortune 500 companies, most of these mainframes are sold by IBM. With a lineage dating back to technological advancements of the 1950s, these computers still excel with some high-volume use cases, especially those involving banking.

There used to be a bunch of companies in the mainframe game, but Rand, GE, NEC, Honeywell, and just about everyone else either no longer exists or is no longer building mainframes. IBM is now the only mainframe manufacturer that matters, so check out the story to learn why some companies still do some of their computing on mainframes instead of in the cloud.

I cannot remember a top-20 list that didn’t include a macOS review. But this may be the furthest down the list it has ever appeared, and <spoiler> this is actually the only OS review to appear on this year’s list.</spoiler>

This is due in no small part to how major OS updates come out like clockwork once a year, even when there are no major new features to excite users. These days, OS updates can be met with grumbling due to unnecessary UI changes and hardware obsolescence. Sonoma is another “low key” update, as Andrew Cunningham described it in his usual, comprehensive review. Call it “Ventura plus” or whatever you like—Sonoma is business as usual.

Ah, it’s our first 0-day of the 2023 countdown. This one primarily affected users of third-party app stores and involved the Pinduoduo app, downloaded millions of times. As Dan Goodin described it:

“[T]he malicious Pinduoduo app includes functionality allowing for the app to be installed covertly with no ability to be uninstalled, falsely inflating the number of Pinduoduo daily active users and monthly active users, uninstalling competitor apps, stealing user privacy data, and evading various privacy compliance regulations.”

Yikes.

The versions of the app in Google Play and Apple’s App Store did not contain the backdoor.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991951




Ars is hosting an IT event in Houston on November 1, and you should come

Photograph of a shuttle mock-up on top of a real 747
Enlarge / Space Center Houston’s Shuttle Independence sits atop one of the two Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 747s.
Lee Hutchinson

Are you an Ars Technica reader? (I hope so, because otherwise, how are you reading these words?) Are you somewhere in or around the greater Houston area, or maybe even somewhere reasonably Houston-adjacent, like Austin or San Antonio? Are you free on the afternoon of November 1, from about 2 pm to about 6 pm? And, if so, would you like to hang out?

If the answers to these questions are mostly “yes,” then you could do much worse with your time than attending the event we’re hosting on November 1! Ars Technica has partnered up with IBM to bring you a set of panel discussions lasting a half-day, titled “Harnessing Big Data: Resiliency, AI, and the future of IT.” On the menu for the day is a talk about modern strategies for fighting ransomware and other disasters; a discussion on managing machine-learning data flows; and a talk about what the future of big distributed hybrid app development might look like.

Because this is Houston, we opted for just about the most location-specific event venue that we could find: Space Center Houston, right next door to NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the headquarters of Mission Control. Holding the event at SCH gives us access to some really cool stuff!

<a href="https://events.arstechnica.com/ibm/rsvp?ref=ArsEdit" class="enlarge" data-height="1306" data-width="2500" alt="If clicking the image doesn't take you to the sign-up site, this link will get you there.”><img alt="If clicking the image doesn't take you to the sign-up site, this link will get you there.” src=”https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ars-is-hosting-an-it-event-in-houston-on-november-1-and-you-should-come-1.jpg” width=”640″ height=”334″ srcset=”https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ars-is-hosting-an-it-event-in-houston-on-november-1-and-you-should-come-1.jpg 2x”>
Enlarge / If clicking the image doesn’t take you to the sign-up site, this link will get you there.

What kind of neat stuff? No industry event would be complete without cocktails and elbow-rubbing after, so once the panel discussions are concluded we’ll have the requisite drinks and mingling. However, there’s an extra bonus feature: an (entirely optional) private tour of SCH’s Starship Gallery, which features the flown Apollo 17 command module America along with a bunch of other awesome spacecraft and exhibits. Additionally, we’ve convinced senior space editor Eric Berger to attend and sit on one of the panels to talk about some of the unique weather-related disaster challenges that face Gulf Coast companies, and he’ll also be hanging around during cocktail time. It’s going to be fun!

We’d like to keep the size of the event somewhat intimate, so RSVP slots are limited. But if you’re in the area—or if you can get there—we’d love to have you. The full details about each panel are on the registration site, so please hit the sign-up link and come!

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1977352




Our 10-point scale will help you rate the biggest misinformation purveyors

Our new Ladapo scale rates misinformation merchants
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

The world has been flooded with misinformation. Falsehoods and conspiracy theories bubble up on everything from the weather to vaccines to the shape of the Earth. Purveyors of this garbage may be motivated by attention, money, or simply the appeal of sticking it to the educated elite. For people who try to keep both feet planted in the real world, it’s enough to make you want to scream. Even if you spend 24 hours a day pushing back against the wrongness on the Internet, it seems impossible to make a dent in it.

I’ve been pondering this, and I’ve decided that we need a way to target the worst sources of misinformation—a way to identify the people who are both the most wrong and the most dangerous. So, as a bit of a thought experiment, I started playing with a simplified scoring system for misinformation merchants.

I’m calling it the 10-point Ladapo scale in honor of the surgeon general of Florida, for reasons I hope are obvious. Any person can be given a score of zero or one (fractions are discouraged) for each of the following questions; scores are then totaled to provide a composite picture of just how bad any source is. To help you understand how to use it, we’ll go through the questions and provide a sense of how each should be scored. We’ll then apply the Ladapo scale to a couple of real-world examples.

Is the person spreading misinformation where anyone will see it? A zero score here, representing a completely harmless individual, might be the person who keeps ranting to bots in an IRC channel that the last human left in 2012. Anybody who gives a press conference that the national media attends earns a one, as do people who find their place as talking heads or on the op-ed pages of The New York Times.

Does anyone care about the topic of the misinformation? If your conspiracy du jour somehow links the color of orange used on traffic cones to the sale of balsa wood model aircraft, congratulations, you pose no threat and rate a zero. If it involves who won the presidential election, you’re looking at a one here.

Is the subject easy to understand? Misunderstanding quantum chromodynamics, a subject many physicists fear, is not at all surprising. Getting things wrong about evolution, which is simple enough that textbooks explain its basics to pre-teens, is far less excusable and would thus get a one.

Is accurate information easy to find? Self-correction is only a possibility if the correct information is available. One can kind of understand holding false beliefs about a top-secret military technology. But when any search engine will pull up a dozen accurate FAQs on the topic you’re misinforming people about, you have earned your one.

Just how badly wrong is the argument? It continues to astonish me that there are people who apparently believe the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist. That level of detachment from reality should set the high end of the scale for wrongness. To get a zero (which is good here!), I’d allow even being mostly right but wrong about some details.

Is the misinformer promoting fake experts? Nobody can be an expert in everything, so we all find ourselves deferring to the expertise of others on some complicated topics. That makes assessing a source’s credibility critical. Unless you can tell an expert from a crackpot, you’re likely to find yourself relying on a climate “expert” who can’t reason scientifically. Like one who thinks dowsing works or one who happens to be a creationist or a former coal lobbyist. If so, you’ll have earned a point for relying on unreliable expertise—and increasing the reach of other serial misinformers.

Will people be harmed by the confusion created? If it turns out we’re living in a false quantum vacuum, everyone will die when the Universe finds a new ground state, and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. Misinforming people about the topic would have no influence on their ultimate fate, so you could lie to your heart’s content here and still earn a zero. That is very much not the case when it comes to issues like climate change or the pandemic. Putting people in danger earns you a one.

Should the individual know better? Anyone who is actually in the field they’re misinforming about, like Ladapo himself, obviously earns a one. But high scores also go to people who could easily access better information. It’s safe to say that every op-ed columnist at a major newspaper could easily call up scientists or other experts and have complicated topics explained to them. If someone refused to talk to experts because their feelings were hurt by people telling them they’re wrong, well, their score of one is probably best presented by a middle finger. Only the person who would struggle to access quality information truly earns their zero.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970465




Gears Technica: Favorite coffee-making setups from the Ars Technica staff

Kevin Purdy

If you’re like our staff, you’ll understand that a good cup of brewed coffee is a requirement every morning. Whether it’s a simple French-pressed brew or an espresso-based drink with complex flavors and aromas, coffee has not only provided the fuel to get the Ars Technica staff through our daily tasks, but it has also become a ritual that helps us start the day anew and grounds us—pun intended—amid the chaos of the world.

We asked the Ars staff to show off their coffee-making setups and tips below—they range from low to high tech, from hand-cranked grinders to automatic machines and all points in between, but all these methods have one thing in common: They make awesome coffee.

John Timmer’s setup: Flavorful French press method

Buy The John Timmer French Press Setup

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What I want from coffee-making equipment is purely a function of what I’m looking for from coffee. And that is as much flavor as you can possibly extract from beans that are roasted so dark that they risk absorbing all light and becoming a black hole. I want a thin sheen of random organic molecules floating on top of an explosion of bitter, complex flavors.

What that has meant in practice is that the beans matter considerably more than the equipment. While my options are somewhat complicated by a medical requirement to drink decaf, many purveyors of fine beans offer a decaf French Roast, which suits my needs well. If you happen to be in New York City near one of the instances of a small chain called Union Market, their Prospect Park Blend is usually (though, frustratingly, not always) even better.

Extracting the flavor those beans contain requires three pieces of equipment.

One is something to heat the water, and all kettles are functionally equivalent. Another is something to brew the coffee in. I’m happy with a French press, partly because it’s simple and partly because it allows me to give the beans lots of time to give up their flavor to the water. Again, all French presses are functionally equivalent; mine’s from Bodum, but it doesn’t really matter.

Then third, there’s the grinder. French presses are meant to use a rougher grind to allow their relatively coarse filter to trap all the grinds at the bottom. But that means less coffee surface in contact with the water, which runs counter to my goals. So I use a standard spinning-blade grinder and make things finer than I should. I prefer one from KitchenAid that lets me lift a small cup containing the coffee away from the electricals and dump the contents directly into the press. (KitchenAid also makes a new burr grinder.)

Does every single cup of coffee I make end up having a dark sludge of fine grounds swirling around the bottom? Absolutely. But it’s a small price to pay.

Beth Mole’s setup: Easy cleanup with Aeropress

Beth Mole makes her coffee with an AeroPress.
Enlarge / Beth Mole makes her coffee with an AeroPress.

Buy The Beth Mole AeroPress Setup

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For a long time, I was all about French press coffee. But last year, after I started craving a cleaner cup, my significant other surprised me with an Aeropress—and I haven’t looked back.

At first, I was a little skeptical. With a column, plunger, filter cap, paper filter, and funnel, I thought it would be an annoying early morning fuss compared to the simple press. But it’s not.

Setup is a snap; the plunger essentially cleans the column with each go, and shooting out a compressed puck of spent coffee grounds is unexpectedly satisfying after years of cleaning oily, messy grounds from the French press beaker and mesh filter.

More importantly, the coffee is excellent. It’s clean and flexible. With different starting amounts of coffee, grind sizes, and steep times to play with, you can individualize each cup.

Our 1.5 L French press still has a role in our house for batch brewing, but as I’m a one- to two-cup-a-day person, the Aeropress is perfect for most days.

In addition to the Aeropress, my setup includes locally roasted coffee beans, an OXO Conical Burr Coffee Grinder, and a Cuisinart Electric Kettle.

Eric Bangeman’s setup: Strong espresso drinks

Jura Capresso on left, Nespresso on the right.
Enlarge / Jura Capresso on left, Nespresso on the right.
Eric Bangeman/Ars Technica

Buy The Eric Bangeman Espresso Setup

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I love coffee. It is literally my favorite thing to drink. Unfortunately, my body doesn’t love caffeine the way it used to when I was younger. I still drink at least a liter of coffee daily, but it’s mostly decaf.

I also love my coffee dark and strong. After some experimentation, I’ve landed on an ideal setup for my wife and me.

My main machine is a Jura Capresso D6. It’s the least-expensive machine in their lineup, and for me, it’s worth every cent. Water goes in the left side, beans in the right, and a dial on the front lets you adjust strength and volume based on your preferences. I keep it loaded with decaffeinated Sumatran roast. (The Jura Capresso D6 is no longer available, and the least-expensive model in Jura’s current lineup is the ENA 4.)

There’s also a built-in milk steamer, which is just alright. I don’t use it, but my wife prefers a standalone steamer.

The D6 replaced a Jura Capresso E8 I bought refurbished for $450 in the early 2000s but died in 2021. Over the roughly 20 years of ownership, I probably spent around $500 on repairs. (The Capresso E8 has been discontinued, but Jura has a newer E8 model.)

To get some caffeine into my coffee, I have a Nespresso D110 Citiz, which I picked up on Craigslist for $40. I buy Nespresso Napoli capsules, which score a 13 on Nespresso’s 13-point scale for darkness of the roast, along with a couple of sleeves of Cioccolatino or Chiaro pods.

With each order, Nespresso includes a Mylar bag with a UPS label so you can ship the used pods back to them for recycling.

To get my morning cuppa, I do three 4.5-ounce shots from the Capresso D6 on the Coffee setting and a single shot from the Nespresso for caffeine. Rinse, lather, and repeat.

Chuong Nguyen’s setup: Saving time with pods

Nespresso's Breville Creatista coffee system uses the Nespresso Vertuo pods.
Enlarge / Nespresso’s Breville Creatista coffee system uses the Nespresso Vertuo pods.
Chuong Nguyễn

Buy The Chuong Nguyen Coffee Pods Setup

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Unlike my fellow colleagues, I hate to admit that my caffeine palate isn’t quite as refined. Perhaps it’s just laziness on my part or a belief that coffee is about the caffeine and not about the taste. Whatever it is, I started my home brewing exercise, if you can even call it that, about a decade ago with instant coffee. The ease at which I can obtain some of the aromas and about 75 percent of the caffeine content as a brewed cup with about 10 percent of the work appealed to me. As a person who’s useless in the morning, I can’t be bothered with cumbersome brewing processes and recipes.

I eventually made my way to Nespresso pods. My journey into the world of Nespresso began with the company’s original capsules, which produced espresso-like shots. I selected my first Nespresso machine partly because of its heft, which I equated as more durable than the plastic construction of systems made by Nespresso. The metal-clad KitchenAid Nespresso also had a pleasing aesthetic; it looked retro and blended well with other KitchenAid appliances on my countertop. When Nespresso launched its line of machines that can make coffee in addition to Nespresso, I eventually upgraded to a polished chrome system made in collaboration with Breville called the Vertuo Creatista.

The Breville Creatista is a versatile system that can brew up to six different cup sizes depending on the pods you select, and a steam wand makes latte drinks a breeze. It’s an upgrade to my instant coffee fix, with richer flavors and aromas. I’d even argue that Nespresso’s system gets me to about 90 percent of a true cup of fresh pour-over coffee but without the hassle of having to own a grinder, digital scale, and fancy glass instruments.

My favorite pods for this system include single-origin coffee pods from Costa Rica and Mexico. For pumpkin lovers, there’s even a special limited-edition flavor for fall to rival Starbucks’ pumpkin spice.

Kevin Purdy’s ode to caffeine: Coffee for two is brewing

Kevin Purdy

I bought my first espresso machine from a seller on Facebook Marketplace about six months ago. After the awkward small-talk/Venmo/handoff ritual, the seller asked if I had any questions. “What did you upgrade to?” I asked. He gave me a kind of fellow traveler look, then detailed the E61 machine I was helping to finance.

Buy The Kevin Purdy Coffee For Two Setup

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Once you’re on the home espresso path, there are few roads that go back. My secondhand Breville Bambino Plus works great, and I keep getting better with it. It pulls decent straight shots with medium and dark roasts, and the steam wand is good enough for those with a lot of technique to learn. I consistently make better drinks than I can buy within walking distance of my house, which might have been the original point.

So there is no reason I will need to upgrade. The grinder and choice of beans have far more impact on taste than the steam machine. In fact, a higher-end machine introduces only more variables to tame, namely temperature and pressure. And yet, I know in my bones that when I go to sell my Bambino Plus, I, too, will be waiting for the slightest opening to tell the latest traveler about where I’m headed in my journey.

Below is the gear I use to make espresso drinks, along with Chemex batches for two or more people, and, when I’m traveling or just feel like distracting myself, hand-ground AeroPress:

Kevin Purdy

Little espresso things for dialing in shots and losing all perspective, most of them provided gratis by the former Bambino owner:

  • Normcore spring-loaded tamper, puck screen, and WDT tool.
  • Bottomless portafilter, of unknown brand.
  • Tamping mat, of random Amazon brand.
  • Collar/dosing funnel.
  • Bottom paper filters.
  • Milk frothing jug (standard with Bambino).
  • Tiny 2s digital scale, with 0.1g resolution, for both dosing coffee and measuring shot output.
  • A bent cat feeding dish used as a makeshift knock box for spent pucks. You can make out its impact on the portafilter.
Kevin Purdy

Buy The Kevin Purdy Travel-Ready Setup

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To get my caffeine fix while traveling, for the last 15 years, I have been swapping out my Bambino Plus for an AeroPress.

Along with the AeroPress, you’ll also want to measure your beans and weigh them using a scale. A compact digital scale would fit the purpose of frequent travelers.

And to extract the flavor and caffeine from your beans, a hand grinder does the trick for me, though you could swap this out for a compact electric grinder.

This story was written with contributions from John Timmer, Eric Bangeman, Beth Mole, and Kevin Purdy. Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Listing image by Kevin Purdy

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1966533




Ars Frontiers is live: Come (virtually) hang out with the experts

[embedded content]
The Frontiers livestream. Your favorite Ars writers will appear inside of this magic box starting at 1:30 pm US Eastern Daylight Time!

It’s Frontiers Day at Ars Technica! Between the hours of 13:30 and 17:00 (all times US Eastern Daylight, UTC-4:00), we’ll be carrying our livestreamed discussion with a half-dozen expert-packed panels on topics that range from IT to health care to space innovation. Each session will last approximately 30 minutes, with the last 10 minutes reserved for questions and answers from the audience. If you want to weigh in, leave your questions as comments on the YouTube stream. (You can also leave questions in the comments of this article, but YouTube is the preferred place because the moderators gathering questions will be focusing their efforts there.)

Schedule and sessions

The event kicks off at 13:30 EDT, with a quick intro from Ars Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher and me. Even though this is a virtual event, Ken and I will be at the Ars studio at the Condé Nast Manhattan office to act as hosts. Ken will welcome everyone in and say some opening remarks, and we’ll roll from there directly into the sessions. Each session will also be bookended by a short recap by Ken and me.

Session 1: TikTok—banned or not, it’s probably here to stay (13:30 EDT)

Ars senior policy reporter Ashley Belanger gets to be up first with an especially relevant topic: While Congress and various states are vowing action against TikTok, will “banning” the app (whatever “banning” actually means) really come to anything? What are the policy implications around this kind of regulation, and how did we get here? We’ll feature EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry among the panel’s guests, along with Columbia University’s Ioana Literat and former White House lawyer and CPRI Executive Director Bryan Cunningham.

Session 2: Pandemic lessons from epidemiologists (14:10 EDT)

Ars science writer and chief pandemic correspondent Dr. Beth Mole pulls together a panel of infectious disease experts to look at what we’ve learned from the last three years and what our next pandemic response might look like. Beth will talk with a panel including epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University and Dr. Caitlin Rivers, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Session 3: Internet everywhere—satellites are suddenly sexy (14:45 EDT)

Our chief space reporter, Eric Berger, will then lead a conversation on the rise of satellite Internet as a viable and accessible alternative to standard wireline Internet. What does the prospect of fast, low-latency Internet anywhere on Earth mean for travelers and locals around the globe? What do tens of thousands of orbiting satellites mean for our skies—and for the new space industry that will launch them? Guests joining Eric for this panel will include Charity Weeden, vice president of Global Space Policy and Government Relations at Astroscale; associate administrator for NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy Dr. Bhavya Lal; and Alex Fielding, CEO and chairman of Privateer Space.

Session 4: Beyond COVID—what does mRNA technology mean for disease treatment? (15:20 EDT)

Next up is Ars chief scientist Dr. John Timmer with a panel on everybody’s favorite four-letter word of the 2020s: mRNA. Thanks to the research generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA-based vaccines went from lab prototypes to commercial realities in an incredibly short amount of time. But mRNA tech can extend far beyond simple vaccinations—we could use it on other diseases, too. This panel will include Dr. Karen Bok, the director of pandemic preparedness and emergency response at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, and Dr. Nathaniel Wang, CEO and cofounder of Replicate Bioscience.

Session 5: The lightning onset of AI—what suddenly changed? (15:55 EDT)

A year ago, few of us had heard of “ChatGPT.” Twelve months later, large language model-based AI threatens to forcibly revolutionize entire industries. What innovations led to this explosion of functionality? How did we come so far, seemingly overnight? Ars AI reporter Benj Edwards dives into the subject with a group of experts that includes Paige Bailey, lead product manager for generative models at Google; and Haiyan Zhang, general manager of gaming AI at Xbox/Microsoft.

Session 6: What happens to developers when AI can code? (16:30 EDT)

One area where large language models are making inroads is programming. The same basic skills that make LLMs good at stringing English words together also make them good at stringing together words of all kinds—including, say, words in Python and Rust. I’ll be putting on the moderator’s hat for this panel and sitting down with coding expert Katie Moussouris, founder and CEO of Luta security, and Drew Lohn, senior fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

Looking forward to (virtually) seeing everyone there!

Listing image by Aurich Lawson

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1940428




Don’t miss Ars Frontiers 2023: Top minds talk AI, mRNA, and TikTok bans

Don’t miss Ars Frontiers 2023: Top minds talk AI, mRNA, and TikTok bans
Aurich Lawson

Ars Technica is pleased to announce the return of Ars Frontiers, our single-day event that explores tech’s most vexing and fascinating issues. This year’s event will be held on May 22, and everyone is invited! Attendance this year is virtual, so we’ll be streaming all six sessions over the course of three and a half hours.

Readers who stop by the front page every day already know that Ars is a leader in bringing smart people together to talk about important topics—whether that means interviewing experts about current events or watching our highly skilled readers dissect an issue in the comments. In that same spirit of fostering brilliant discussions, this year we’ve curated a list of topics that explore the modern interconnectedness of innovation, with panels led by our subject matter authorities like Eric Berger and Dr. Beth Mole. All sessions will be streamed live on the Ars YouTube channel.

The main event

Ars Frontiers 2023 will feature six virtual sessions on May 22, starting at approximately 13:30 US Eastern Daylight Time (-4 UTC). Ars Technica Editor-in-Chief Ken Fisher and I will host the event from our studio in Manhattan. Each session will run about 30 minutes, which will include some time at the end for audience questions. Here’s the line-up! (Session order might change between now and when the event happens.)

Session 1: TikTok—banned or not, it’s probably here to stay

Ars senior policy reporter Ashley Belanger will be taking on a current hot topic: While Congress and various states are vowing action against TikTok, will “banning” the app (whatever “banning” actually means) really come to anything? What are the policy implications around this kind of regulation, and how did we get here? We’ll feature EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry among the panel’s guests.

Session 2: Beyond COVID—what does mRNA technology mean for disease treatment?

Next up is Ars chief scientist Dr. John Timmer with a panel on everybody’s favorite four-letter word of the 2020s: mRNA. Thanks to the research generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA-based vaccines went from lab prototypes to commercial realities in an incredibly short amount of time. But mRNA tech can extend far beyond simple vaccinations—we could use it on other diseases, too. This panel will include Dr. Karen Bok, the director of pandemic preparedness and emergency response at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH.

Session 3: Pandemic lessons from epidemiologists

Ars science writer and chief pandemic correspondent Dr. Beth Mole pulls together a panel of infectious disease experts to look at what we’ve learned from the last three years and what our next pandemic response might look like. Beth will talk with a panel including epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University, among others.

Session 4: Internet everywhere—satellites are suddenly sexy

Our chief space reporter, Eric Berger, will then lead a conversation on the rise of satellite Internet as a viable and accessible alternative to standard wireline Internet. What does the prospect of fast, low-latency Internet anywhere on Earth mean for travelers and locals around the globe? What do tens of thousands of orbiting satellites mean for our skies—and for the new space industry that will launch them? Guests joining Eric for this panel will include Charity Weeden, vice president of Global Space Policy and Government Relations at Astroscale.

Session 5: The lightning onset of AI—what suddenly changed?

A year ago, few of us had heard of “ChatGPT.” Twelve months later, large language model-based AI threatens to forcibly revolutionize entire industries. What innovations led to this explosion of functionality? How did we come so far, seemingly overnight? Ars AI reporter Benj Edwards dives into the subject with a group of experts that includes Paige Bailey, lead product manager for generative models at Google.

Session 6: What happens to the developers when AI can code?

One area where large language models are making inroads is programming. The same basic skills that make LLMs good at stringing English words together also make them good at stringing together words of all kinds—including, say, words in Python and Rust. I’ll be putting on the moderator’s hat for this panel and sitting down with a group that will feature, among others, coding expert Katie Moussouris.

How to watch

We’ll be streaming the conference primarily on our YouTube channel, and we’ll also embed a copy of the stream on the Ars Technica homepage on the day of the event. Each panel will run for about a half-hour and will include some time for audience questions, which we’ll pull from YouTube and also from the homepage article comments. This is a fantastic opportunity to hear great minds talk about interesting topics, and everyone will have the opportunity to make their voices heard in the comments.

It will be a packed day, but we hope everyone has at least a few minutes to stop by and stream a session. We’d love to see you there!

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1937010




Screen Time: A ridiculous April 1 rhyme

Screen Time: A ridiculous April 1 rhyme

It’s April Fools’ Day—but who needs more “fake news” in their lives right now? So here’s a real poem instead, a six-part rhymed couplet romp in the playful spirit of Dr. Seuss or of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. It contains everything that literary critics say a good poem should: yak bile, yurts, Descartes, broken bones, lawyers, and an imagined Krogan romance. It brought me great joy to write such ridiculous rhymes, and I hope you experience at least a tiny fraction of that feeling as you read.

As part of my recent experimentation with AI image generation, the images come from Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator (which is powered by DALL-E). I think the drawings do a surprisingly good job of bringing some color to such a long string of words, even if—as so often happens with AI images—the fine details are a little odd.

Enjoy!

In 2007, when phones began changing,
My mother engaged in some life rearranging.
A client of hers used some “herbal” pomade,
Then he itched and he burned and he swore and he swayed.
His hair all fell out and it hurt when he sat,
He was owed, he complained, compensation for that.
My mother agreed, and it came out at trial:
The “herb” in the cream was your basic yak bile,
Well known for its harm to follicular lining
But cheap when you needed to keep male hair shining.
So mom won her case ‘gainst the maker of hair gel,
And got a promotion and started to buy. Well—
She bought a red car, a blue dress, and a Shih Tzu
With money that being made partner will get you.
She purchased a lake house, a boat, and two skis,
Booked space on a flight known for pulling 6 Gs,
She joined Junior League and a gym called “The FitZone”
But bigger change came when she snapped up that iPhone.

Watching Steve Jobs in his black shirt and jeans
As he pitched the rectangular slab of her dreams,
She saw in his spiel the last item she needed,
to keep her life’s lawn well-cut, watered, and weeded,
The one thing she lacked that would make her complete:
A phone that would mark her among the elite.
She used it for voice calls, text messages, maps,
And—when Jobs allowed it—then even for apps.
At first she took pleasure in whipping it out,
But soon she had questions; later came doubt.
Moving through life needed motion and sass,
But here she was now, just swiping on glass.
On subways, in cars, while at church, in the bar,
She stuck to that phone like one mired in tar,
Unable to extricate finger or eye,
Caught like a mammoth just waiting to die.
The things in her life that were golden and green
Soon looked beige and boring set next to that screen.

My dad was a “writer”—I put that in quotes,
Since he never wrote anything longer than notes,
That went in my lunchbox or in my mom’s purse;
When we left the house, he just stayed in and cursed.
Writer’s block had long blocked him from living his genius,
A bona fide, certified, true act of meanness
Doled out by a cosmos so fickle and foul
That it blessed dad with bricks but provided no trowel.
He cooked all our meals, cleaned our clothes, skimmed our pool
Wore green sneakers, red glasses, and had a strict rule
Against washing his jeans—said it messed with the denim—
But under the cool lay a thin streak of venom.
So mom went to work and she brought home the bacon,
While dad stayed inside on a long-term vacation.
A self-proclaimed “genius” who’s blocked might start drinking,
When hopes and raw talent both feel like they’re sinking
But rather than going the Hemingway route,
Dad scooped up the bottles and threw them all out.
He holed up instead in the den with a TV,
A seventy-five inch reflective monstrosity,
Loudly proclaiming to any who’d listen
That prestige TV’s “golden age” had arisen.
He hatched a keen plan to watch every minute
Of every long series with “real actors” in it.
Forget those new novels, forget those old poems,
And don’t even mention the biblical tomes.

Hollywood offered the realest life lessons:
The Ts and the As and the Smiths and the Wessons;
Hearts on parade; life’s jocularity;
drugs sold in Baltimore; peace, love, and charity.
But—
Whenever I happened to peek in the door
He seemed to be lying asleep on the floor,
Reality shows were binge-blasting above him,
Great British bakers with great British muffins.
The “truth” TV showed him was older than dirt:
Spend your life lying down and your soul starts to hurt.

If they were both addicts, I remained clean;
Life still had a sheen that out-shined any screen.
I read and I built and I played—then repeated,
While they binge-watched Frasier or read what they’d tweeted.
But one bright blue day, I could take it no more,
A dim indoor life was both safe and a bore.
So I put down my book and I rose from the couch,
Went outside, climbed a tree, slipped right down and screamed “ouch,”
Since I broke half the bones in my left and right feet
And for weeks couldn’t walk, though I could learn to beat
A huge backlog of games for my sweet new PlayStation,
Brought up to my room by a dark delegation:
Two guilty-eyed parents, both clearly aware
The outdoors wasn’t “great,” no one needed “fresh air,”
And “go out and play” was a scam by some nurses
Who’d push us outside… and then right into hearses.
We were safer at home, in the bedroom or basement,
Enthralled with a screen—the best cheap risk abatement.
My parents retreated, their offering made
And I stayed in bed, where I slept and I played.

No timers, no limits, no digital locks
And no one complained if I wore the same socks
For five days in a row while I wandered the West
Where I gambled, shot, looted as one of the best
Of the worst men on earth, who would take all your cash
And then rustle your horses—until a game crash
Corrupted each one of my character saves
And my undying bandit now rests in his grave.
I role-played my way through space outpost and ocean,
Kissed girls, then a guy, then two alien Krogan
And after I saved Ancient Greece, modern Gotham,
The Milky Way, Earth, and a meadow in blossom
I jumped into war games and called down some woe
Upon trench-coated Nazis, last hateable foe.
Then I found out, when my six weeks were through,
And the casts were sawed off and my feet felt like new,
That the “real world” was scary and not as much fun
As a good online game, tight controls, and a gun.

The universe spoke to us each that December
In ways that no one would much want to remember.
My dad had become the first human to view
Each glorious show in his long Netflix queue.
A powerful sense of despair then descended
As he pondered the paths in which his life had tended.
Without the TV, he had no good distraction
From thinking and thinking about his inaction.
And mom gained a habit of checking her phone
At inopportune times—not just when alone.
Once in the courtroom, she gave a small snort
After reading a joke text on spousal support.
The judge made her stand and then read her a lecture,
Suggesting that maybe her friends shouldn’t text her
While she was in court or there’d be an attempt
To blackball my mom and find her in contempt.

I spent so much time slaying demons and liches
I gained thirteen pounds and came down with eye twitches
Which didn’t concern me until Christmas came—
And I spent it upstairs with a video game.
Something wasn’t quite right—life was losing its savor
That hard-to-define-it-but-you’ll-know-it flavor.
All three of us sat on our beds or on chairs
Feeling much too depressed to go up or down stairs.
In the New Year, my mom called a Zoom meeting
And we all said yes, that we should start treating
Our addictive and yet unacknowledged submission—
And start seeing screens with a lot more suspicion.
So this would be it: our year of detoxing.
We took all our screens and spent Sunday night boxing
Them up and then down to the basement we went;
We were going to be free—one hundred per cent.
“We’ll rethink it all,” my dad said, “Like Descartes!
And rebuild our lives from the floor to rampart.”
Then came the fidgets, the phantom limb feeling
That some part of you was cut off and not healing,
That reflex of reaching for phone or controller
And finding your hand felt a little bit colder
With nothing to cradle, no glorious gizmos
That promise to stop you from thinking of escrows,
Of egos, of toads beneath harrows, of death
That still stalks us with rattling breath…
Well—
We tried what we could, we ate family dinners
And read books on how to think just like real winners,
Books written by not-yet-disgraced CEOs
And relationship gurus who maintained their pose
That life had a code, and they had it figured;
Everything came down to slogans and zingers.
“Self-love is not selfish,” my mother would say,
Walking past with her yoga mat. “So—Namaste!”
My dad ditched his flannels for logoed T-shirts
That said things like “Good Vibes” and “Selfishness Hurts.”
But I couldn’t quit the allure of distraction—
Did we have to kill all of that sweet screen time action?
Could ten minutes matter—heck, round up to an hour—
With that glowing blue screen of unusual power?
So on Easter Sunday, screens still in the basement,
I crept out at night from my hidden emplacement
Yearning to feel that now long-lost connection,
Looking to have a device resurrection.

I tip-toed downstairs, where I flipped on the switch
And startled my dad, who said, “Son of a bitch!”
Because there were my parents, on a ratty old loveseat
With gadgets plugged in and a cheese plate to eat.
They sat side-by-side, I saw with a shock,
she texting away while he watched The Rock.

Self-help hadn’t helped, so our loins then we girt
For a nine-hour drive to New York—and a yurt.
The Shambala Center would unchain our brains
Through mindfulness, yoga, and chanted refrains.
(And some really remarkably boring-ass food;
Brown rice will sustain you but won’t lift your mood.)
It was Buddhist by way of San Fran and Cape Cod;
Big dollops of Burning Man, self-help, and God.

We woke up at six and imagined hot showers
While hiking instead through the cold for two hours.
We warmed up by milking five cows and six goats,
Then shoveling muesli bars into our throats.
Meditation time followed, from nine until ten,
At which point we down-dogged—then got Zenned again.
We lived in each moment, just present and grounded
Content without screens until mealtime bells sounded.
Post-lunch you could meet with a life coach of sorts
Who wore sandals and socks and some shocking short shorts
She held herself out as a spiritual leader,
A wonderfully wise counselor and soul reader.

Mom, dad, and I got the same strong advice:
“Treat your cell phones like vermin; treat them like lice!
Shampoo them and tweeze them right out of your life,
And if that doesn’t work—go ahead, grab a knife!
Cut them and stab them until they’re all dead;
No gadgets should come anywhere near your head.”
This felt extreme, but she was persuasive;
“Doing without” came to seem innovative.
But she closed each session with one final koan:
“Bury your fears before ditching your phone.”
Feeling better and kinder and somewhat more mellow,
Without all those gadgets to thunder and bellow
Their notifications, their beeps and their boops,
Our brains settled down and stopped spinning in loops.
But three weeks in tents being mindful as balls
Made us realize how much we loved houses and walls.
Back home we headed, not “cured” and not “better,”
But willing to hack at our digital fetter.

Dad gave up his plans to watch all the way through
The Lord of the Rings and the whole MCU,
And instead moved his TV right out of the den,
Then stopped, picked it up, put it back in again.
“I don’t need an office,” he said, “and the desk?
You can forget it—just so Kafkaesque.
My new way of writing is outdoors and rambling.
Treat life like a slot machine and then get to gambling
That words won by walking will mean something special—
Real and alive, not just self-referential.”
No more skinny jeans, no more sweatshirts with hoods.
In khakis and boots, Dad went tramping through woods.
He got poison ivy his second week out,
But wasn’t distracted by even this bout
Of bad fortune, nor by the deep itching
From gnats that in week four invaded his stitching.
He owned a hard truth that was clear to us all:
Dad wasn’t a Jesus nor even Saint Paul.
He was (at the most) a quite minor apostle
Making his way through the throng and the jostle
Of life with good grace and a few observations
Jotted while fleeing those indoor temptations.
He bowed to his failures as though to a teacher,
Which unblocked the words, even when they were weaker
Than he might have wanted—than he might have yearned for—
And yet he was working and up off the floor.

My mother faced down her imposter syndrome
And read up on healing her microbiome.
She downed probiotics but felt like a jerk
When repeating her mantra: “I’m good at my work!”
But as she grew comfortable with her own worth
She gradually felt like her one shot on earth
Was wasted on suing the modestly vile—
Like those who made cash selling rare black yak bile.
Yes, bile was bad but not quite as soul killing
As finding yourself socialized into willing
That you could spend more of your life’s precious powers
Contractually parsing for billable hours.
Who needed a Bentley or rides on a jet
When all that one wanted—all one could get—
In an ultimate sense was some love and affection
(And a quite passable strappy sandal collection.)
But when she had shared this enlightened perspective
With her fellow partners, she got a corrective
To her big idea that less work wasn’t lazy.
The partners just looked at her like she was crazy,
A “typical woman” who valued her kid
More than flying first class on Spring Break to Madrid.
So Mom quit. She walked out. She began something new,
A firm where the goal was not just to accrue
But to live. Sure, money was less by a factor of two,
Yet so was the time—“And you can’t beat the view
From your own corner office,” she said with a smile,
“Even when it looks out on the city trash pile.”
Having worked on herself and then taken real action
Mom now needed less of that online distraction.
She used her phone daily but once through our door,
The glowing rectangle went into a drawer.

As for me, I could spin out a credible story
About how I came to stop playing those gory
And glorious shooters I loved to lose days in,
But that would not be a true-hearted confession.
Games are amazing! You can’t just say no
To a drug that’s so potent, it lets you go pro
And play e-sports tourneys for serious bank
By attacking with Ryu or driving a tank.
So I couldn’t stop gaming—perhaps I had failed,
But my custom controller just couldn’t be jailed.
Yet I did venture out with my mom and my dad
On short winter walks that were quiet and sad
And long summer rambles that filled me joy
In green growing things and the ways they destroy
That terminal sense of a distance from life,
Our love of distraction, “the news,” and of strife
And offer instead a rest from algorithms,
Not free from our problems—but slowed to life’s rhythms.
And though I kept thinking of games in 3D,
I ignored all my fears and then free-climbed a tree.

So that’s the whole story, with jolts and collapses
And more than a few temporary relapses,
Of how screens invaded, like all colonizers,
Dismissing our cultures, proclaiming theirs wiser.
And much of it was unbelievably awesome
But some was just petty, and parts were just dumb.
Amazing the way screens could melt down like wax
And fill in our minds’ and our hearts’ biggest cracks,
To keep us engaged with the unending new
While ignoring the quiet, the boring, the true.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1928084




The weekend’s best deals: OnePlus 11 gift card, Amazon tablets, and much more.

The weekend’s best deals: OnePlus 11 gift card, Amazon tablets, and much more.

It’s time for another end-of-the-week Dealmaster. In this week’s roundup of the web’s best tech deals, we have a $100 gift card offer for preordering the just-announced OnePlus 11 smartphone, record lows on Google Pixels, and a handful of Amazon tablets and e-readers matching their own record low prices.

The OnePlus 11, based on specs alone is a serious bargain. It outclasses the latest base model Samsung Galaxy S23 on the spec sheet at the same price, matching closer to the $1,200 Galaxy S23 Ultra. (Both of those phones are also on sale for preorder from Amazon with a free $100 gift card incentive, just like the OnePlus 11.) The OnePlus 11 totes a 6.7-inch screen, 5,000 mAh battery, a 50 MP main camera, and Wi-Fi 7 support.

It also has the fastest charging apparatus available for smartphones in the U.S., with an 80-watt charger that juices the phone from zero to 100 in a zippy 30 minutes. It’s not a perfect spec sheet though, and we’ve yet to try one, but some compromises to note are a lack of wireless charging and IP64 water and dust resistance (meant mostly to protect from splashes) versus the industry standard IP68 which protects against submersion. OnePlus 11s will also receive security updates every other month, as opposed to monthly like on Google Pixels, for instance.

The Pixel 7 lineup is also on sale for record-low prices, starting at $399 for the Pixel 7. The Pixels may be the best value you can get in an Android phone currently and offer a cleaner OS, with more frequent security updates. They’re also well-regarded for their capable cameras and snappy performance.
Elsewhere around the web, we have deals on the latest Amazon Kindle ($75, $100), Kindle Paperwhite Kids ($110, $155), and Fire HD tablets ($60, $100). You can also still grab solid deals on the latest iPad ($399, $450) and iPad Air ($499, $599) if you need a more robust tablet experience. Check out our full, curated list of this week’s tech deals below.

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Featured deals of the day

The OnePlus 11 is available for pre-order on Amazon with a free $100 Amazon gift card.
Enlarge / The OnePlus 11 is available for pre-order on Amazon with a free $100 Amazon gift card.

Electronics deals

The Google Chromecast.
Enlarge / The Google Chromecast.
Corey Gaskin
Withing's ScanWatch is easily the best-looking wearable with an ECG sensor.
Enlarge / Withing’s ScanWatch is easily the best-looking wearable with an ECG sensor.
Corey Gaskin
Beats' Fit Pro noise-canceling true wireless earbuds are a top pick for sport headphones.
Enlarge / Beats’ Fit Pro noise-canceling true wireless earbuds are a top pick for sport headphones.

Laptop and desktop PC deals

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Go 2.
Enlarge / Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 2.
Andrew Cunningham
The Sonos One.
Enlarge / The Sonos One.

Smart home deals

The wireless keyboard works over Bluetooth, a dongle, or a cable.
Enlarge / The wireless keyboard works over Bluetooth, a dongle, or a cable.

Gaming deals

Anker's chargers juice up iPhones and other devices quickly and undercut Apple's prices for similar performance in doing so.
Enlarge / Anker’s chargers juice up iPhones and other devices quickly and undercut Apple’s prices for similar performance in doing so.
Corey Gaskin

Accessories and miscellaneous deals

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1916981




Today’s best deals: Apple iPad Air, Meta Quest Pro, Surface devices, and more

Today’s best deals: Apple iPad Air, Meta Quest Pro, Surface devices, and more

Another week, another Dealmaster. In this week’s roundup of the best tech deals on the web, we have deals on the latest iPad Air, the Meta Quest Pro, and the latest MacBook Pros.

The 2022 iPad Air is in the goldilocks zone for anyone in the market for a new tablet. We called it the “easiest tablet to recommend” in our review, due to its blazing-fast M1 processor, compact form factor, and faster USB-C performance, among other things. Whether you want to upgrade from an older iPad or pick up your first, it’s a great choice for most buyers. At $499, its current discount matches the recent lower holiday prices. If you need a bigger screen and the ability to create a laptop-like experience, the 11- and 12-inch iPad Pros are on sale for $1,300 ($200 and $100 off, respectively). Meta’s Quest Pro is a bit of a splurge, but the current $400 discount (now $1,100) makes it a slightly better deal. In our review, we enjoyed the enhanced comfort, sharper image, rechargeable controls, and two to three hours of battery life with an option for a battery pack, among other improvements over previous models and the Meta Quest 2. We still think the $400 Meta Quest 2 is the better deal, but in case those upgrades are worth it to you, now’s the first time you can snag the Pro at a nearly 30 percent discount.

Elsewhere around the web, we have deals on charging solutions from Anker, LG’s Ultrawide 34-inch curved monitor, the 75-inch Samsung Frame TV, a few other 4K TV favorites, and a grab-bag of computer components. Check the full curated list below.

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Featured deals of the day

The 2022 iPad Air.
Enlarge / The 2022 iPad Air.
Samuel Axon

Electronics deals

The 2022 iPad Pro, front view.
Enlarge / The 2022 iPad Pro, front view.
Know your Pixel phones: The one with the black plastic camera bar is the Pixel 6a. The base model Pixel 7 has one black camera oval, while the Pixel 7 Pro has a second camera bar cutout for the zoom lens.
Enlarge / Know your Pixel phones: The one with the black plastic camera bar is the Pixel 6a. The base model Pixel 7 has one black camera oval, while the Pixel 7 Pro has a second camera bar cutout for the zoom lens.
The display on the 2023 MacBook Pro is outstanding, but not everyone will love the camera notch.
Enlarge / The display on the 2023 MacBook Pro is outstanding, but not everyone will love the camera notch.
Samuel Axon

Laptop and desktop PC deals

Microsoft's Surface Pro 9.
Enlarge / Microsoft’s Surface Pro 9.
Andrew Cunningham
The Nest will automatically sense you're out of the house and turn down the temperature.
The Nest will automatically sense you’re out of the house and turn down the temperature.

Smart home deals

<a href="https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rdr6.jpg" class="enlarge" data-height="1080" data-width="1920" alt="Red Dead Redemption 2 does, in fact, feature horses and sunsets.”><img alt="Red Dead Redemption 2 does, in fact, feature horses and sunsets.” src=”https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/todays-best-deals-apple-ipad-air-meta-quest-pro-surface-devices-and-more-6.jpg” width=”640″ height=”360″ srcset=”https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/todays-best-deals-apple-ipad-air-meta-quest-pro-surface-devices-and-more-13.jpg 2x”>
Enlarge / Red Dead Redemption 2 does, in fact, feature horses and sunsets.

Video game deals

The Meta Quest Pro and its controllers.
Enlarge / The Meta Quest Pro and its controllers.

Gaming deals

Apple's leather wallet case comes in five different colors and affixes easily to your iPhone 12 or newer, or a MagSafe compatible case.
Enlarge / Apple’s leather wallet case comes in five different colors and affixes easily to your iPhone 12 or newer, or a MagSafe compatible case.
Corey Gaskin

Accessories and miscellaneous deals

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1913894




The weekend’s best deals: Apple computers, Kindles, 4K TVs, charging cables, and more.

The weekend’s best deals: Apple computers, Kindles, 4K TVs, charging cables, and more.

Another weekend, another Dealmaster. In this week’s roundup of the best tech deals on the web, we have deals on a range of Apple computers―desktops and laptops alike. Co-headlining the Apple computer sale are the just-released 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros and the 2021 iMac.

We recently reviewed the new MacBooks and dubbed them “the best laptop[s] you can buy today by almost any measure.” Aimed at power users who demand muscular performance and easy, varied, built-in port selection, the 2023 MacBook Pros only improved on an already impressive pair of laptops in the previous generation. If you already have one of those, there’s no pressing need to upgrade. However, if you were on the fence or waiting for the next generation, you can snag the new laptops for $50 off full retail price and gain even more improved M2-Pro-powered chips.
Also on sale is the 2021 iMac. Perhaps most easily thought of as a MacBook Air in all-in-one desktop form, it provides plenty power for most users. It’s not the Mac you want if you’re going to be gaming, editing video, or creating much beyond documents. Still, it’s a good-looking, nostalgic, simple, albeit brightly-colored desktop computer that will absolutely crush Zoom calls with great audio and video capture, and look good doing it. With a $150 discount, the iMac is a bit more attractive at $1,099 than its typical $1,250 price.

Elsewhere around the web, we have great charging solutions from Anker, a few SD and microSD cards, and even LG’s C2 and Sony’s X95K 4K TVs dipping to worthwhile prices again. Check the full curated list below.

Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Featured deals of the day

The display on the 2023 MacBook Pro is outstanding, but not everyone will love the camera notch.
Enlarge / The display on the 2023 MacBook Pro is outstanding, but not everyone will love the camera notch.
Samuel Axon

Electronics deals

The new Amazon Kindle.
Enlarge / The new Amazon Kindle.
Andrew Cunningham
Know your Pixel phones: The one with the black plastic camera bar is the Pixel 6a. The base model Pixel 7 has one black camera oval, while the Pixel 7 Pro has a second camera bar cutout for the zoom lens.
Enlarge / Know your Pixel phones: The one with the black plastic camera bar is the Pixel 6a. The base model Pixel 7 has one black camera oval, while the Pixel 7 Pro has a second camera bar cutout for the zoom lens.
The 2022 iPad Pro, front view.
Enlarge / The 2022 iPad Pro, front view.

Laptop and desktop PC deals

The 2021, 24-inch iMac with Apple's M1.
Enlarge / The 2021, 24-inch iMac with Apple’s M1.
Samuel Axon
The Apple TV 4K with Apple's improved Siri Remote.
Enlarge / The Apple TV 4K with Apple’s improved Siri Remote.

Smart home deals

Video game deals

<a href="https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/rdr6.jpg" class="enlarge" data-height="1080" data-width="1920" alt="Red Dead Redemption 2 does, in fact, feature horses and sunsets.”><img alt="Red Dead Redemption 2 does, in fact, feature horses and sunsets.” src=”https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/the-weekends-best-deals-apple-computers-kindles-4k-tvs-charging-cables-and-more-7.jpg” width=”640″ height=”360″ srcset=”https://rassegna.lbit-solution.it/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/the-weekends-best-deals-apple-computers-kindles-4k-tvs-charging-cables-and-more-15.jpg 2x”>
Enlarge / Red Dead Redemption 2 does, in fact, feature horses and sunsets.

Gaming deals

The 2022 iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.
Enlarge / The 2022 iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil.
Samuel Axon

Accessories and miscellaneous deals

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1913220