Sub-$600 laptops have existed for years, but consistently good ones remain rare. It seems fair to say that Apple’s MacBook Neo took the rest of the PC industry by surprise. Companies are used to competing on price and features with $1,000-and-up Apple laptops like the MacBook Air and MacBook…
Google tells Ars it fixed the first-gen Chromecast bug. Google’s first Chromecast was a hit. With 10 million units sold in 2014, it excelled as an easy solution for streaming TV and movies from the Internet to a TV. Released at a time when dumb TVs were more common,…
Workaround flouts law that bans NTSB disclosures of cockpit audio recordings. Pilots’ voices from the last seconds of a fatal cargo plane crash have been re-created by Internet sleuths using software and AI tools. The spread of reconstructed audio recordings has prompted a US government agency to suspend all…
Two additional marketing companies will also pay $25,000 each. In November 2023, we reported on dubious claims made by marketing firm Cox Media Group (CMG) Local Solutions. The company advertised a service called Active Listening on a website that said, “It’s true. Your devices are listening to you” and…
“The move to AcuRite NOW has not been as smooth as some customers expected…” AcuRite must kill its customers’ favorite companion app due to “obsolete technology,” VP of product development Jeff Bovee tells Ars Technica. AcuRite, which makes smart weather-monitoring devices, announced this month that the My AcuRite iOS…
It could be one way to make your old PC play nicely with a high-end GPU. It’s not an ideal time to be buying a new PC or doing a major upgrade. Price crunches for RAM and storage chips are making all kinds of components more expensive, and the…
President asks $1B from taxpayers to secure his $400M privately funded ballroom. President Donald Trump’s latest pitch for using taxpayer dollars to secure his White House ballroom featured a militarized building—including a rooftop hardened against drone strikes and a “drone port” that could potentially house military drones. The remarks…
Disney still has a lot of tech to unite and bundles to push. Disney currently has no plans to shutter Hulu as a standalone streaming service or app, according to a company representative. In a report from Variety today, the spokesperson said that Disney, which took total ownership of…
Access to TV OS’s source code could allow users to limit ads, tracking. For years, owners of Vizio smart TVs have had little control over the software running on their sets—software that can track viewing habits, push ads, and generally shape the experience of using the device. The Software…
Plex says that it has considered getting rid of Lifetime Passes. As of July 1, at 12:01 am UTC—or June 30 at 8:01 pm ET—people seeking access to Plex’s media server features through a one-time purchase will have to pay $750. That’s three times the current price of $250.…
