With the dust still settling on the tech giant's debut AR/VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro, one of the biggest announcements in recent years, there are still many unanswered issues. When will the Vision Pro actually be available? What is known about its specifications? And if you wear glasses, how will you use them?

In this compilation of all the information we currently have (so far) on the Apple Vision Pro, we address these queries as well as many others. For a more first-hand account of how the headset feels to wear, see our hands-on Apple Vision Pro review. 

The operating system for the headset, visionOS, is now in the hands of developers, and a clearer image of how this "spatial computer" (as Apple describes it) will function and fit into our lives is beginning to take shape.

A new report claims that the Apple Vision Pro may be lacking some features at launch, including the ability to show multiple Mac desktop screens.

July 7, 2023: you might struggle to get your hands on the Apple Vision Pro as Apple may only be able to manufacture 150,000 of them in 2024.

June 22, 2023: the Apple visionOS beta is now out in the wild with developers, and it's taught us six things about the AR/VR headset.

June 22, 2023: a new report from The Information suggests Apple had planned to include more features in its Vision Pro unveiling, but left five key ones out as they weren't yet ready for primetime.

June 19, 2023: the iPhone 15 is tipped to have a UWB (Ultra Wideband) chip, which could help unlock the Apple Vision Pro's potential.

June 12, 2023: according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman Apple is already working on two Vision Pro successors, including a cheaper one. Though the latter isn't slated to arrive until the end of 2025.

June 8, 2023: some new speculation has hinted at how expensive the Vision Pro's 'vision correction accessories' could be for glasses-wearers. The short answer: you're looking at "$300-600 a pair" for the Zeiss prescription lenses. Ouch.

June 7, 2023: all of the early verdicts on the Apple Vision Pro are in from those lucky enough to try it out at Apple Park (including TechRadar). Our Vision Pro review roundup gives you an early temperature check of everyone's early thoughts.

Vision Pro release date: Sometime "early next year" according to Apple.

Vision Pro headset price: Starts at $3,499 (around £2,800 / AU$5,300).

Vision Pro headset specs: Apple's headset uses two chipsets, an M2 and a new R1 to handle regular software and its XR capabilities respectively. It also has dual 4K displays.

Vision Pro headset design: The Vision Pro has a similar design to other VR headsets, with a front panel that covers your eyes, and an elastic strap. One change from the norm is that it has an outer display to show the wearer's eyes.

Vision Pro headset battery life: It lasts for up to two hours on a full charge using the official external battery pack.

Vision Pro headset controllers: There are no controllers – instead you'll use your eyes, hands, and voice to control its visionOS software.

Apple says the Vision Pro will "start" at $3,499 (that's around £2,800 / AU$5,300). That wording suggests that more expensive options will be available, but right now we don't know what those higher-priced headsets might offer over the standard model.

As for release date for the Vision Pro, Apple has only given a vague “early next year.” That's later than we'd been expecting, with leaks suggesting it would launch in the next few months – perhaps around the same time as the iPhone 15 – but that isn't the case. As 2024 gets closer we expect Apple will give us an update on when we'll be able to strap a Vision Pro onto our heads.

Interestingly, Apple's website only mentions a US release. Apple has yet to confirm if the Vision Pro will launch in regions outside of the US, and when that'll happen. Even if it does launch outside of the US you might struggle to get your hands on one; Apple is reportedly going to make less than 400,000 Vision Pros and maybe even as few as 150,000.

The Phone (2) will include a cutting-edge Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset to provide outstanding performance and Nothing OS 2.0 will already be installed on it.

The Nothing Phone (2) will be released on July 11 in India, but Flipkart has already run out of pre-order codes for the device. Similar to the Nothing Phone (1), the Nothing Phone (2) will be sold through Flipkart in India. Beginning on June 29, the business began to accept reservations for the smartphone, and it has since announced that the phone's passes have all been purchased. The business announced that it is striving to soon make additional pre-order passes available.

"We are incredibly grateful for the incredible response to Nothing Phone (2). We want to reassure our Indian customers that team Nothing in India is working around the clock to increase production to satisfy customer demand, according to a statement from Manu Sharma, vice president and general manager of Nothing India.

The Phone (2) will include a cutting-edge Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU to provide outstanding performance, and Nothing OS 2.0 with a totally revised User Interface will be pre-installed. One of the greenest cellphones, Phone (2) is made of recyclable materials and comes in plastic-free packaging, according to the business.

India will be the location of the Phone (2)'s manufacturing, Nothing has been announced in the meantime. "Our desire to manufacture in India demonstrates our dedication to the needs of the regional market. The production of Phone (2) will take place in India, we are pleased to announce," Sharma stated.

source url

Google is implementing some significant changes for its Chrome browser, and this update cannot be avoided at all; all three billion Chrome users will be compelled to interact with it.

There is nothing concerning, so calm down. In actuality, the modifications could be highly advantageous and are intended to enhance user privacy and data security. It represents the beginning of Google's 'Privacy Sandbox' initiative for Chrome, which also calls for the elimination of third-party cookies in the browser.

This doesn't mean that Chrome will overnight stop serving tailored advertisements, but rather that it will give users more control over the ads they see and the way their data is collected. As a result, Google is creating a set available to all Chrome users (and, more crucially, developers) are six new APIs that enable targeted advertising without the use of external cookies that invade users' privacy.

Ad Topics, Site-suggested Ads, and Ad Measurement are the three categories where you can make changes. The first option, possibly the most significant, allows you to choose particular areas of interest for the advertisements you receive, whereas the default option builds an interest profile based on the websites you frequent. Your browser history won't be shared with Google or any other advertising, though; it will only be saved to your device.

You will have much more control over how your data is gathered and processed if you opt to modify the Privacy Sandbox settings. Changes are essential Chrome will lock you out until you accept the updated settings in order to make sure that Google continues to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Microsoft's GDPR compliance initiatives for the Edge browser include the capability to partially or entirely disable third-party cookies. Edge hasn't completely phased out these cookies yet, despite Google's promises, so perhaps this will be the next front in the struggle between Chrome and Edge.

It appears that Apple has secretly added Bluetooth 5.3 capability to the new 13-inch MacBook Air models, bringing them up to par with the features of the just-released 15-inch MacBook Air.

When the most recent 13-inch MacBook Air model was introduced last year, it enabled Bluetooth 5.0; nevertheless, some keen-eyed web users have noticed that the 13-inch model's specifications page now lists Bluetooth 5.3 (as noted by MacRumors).

Since Bluetooth 5.3 is the most recent version of wireless technology and delivers faster communication and higher energy efficiency, connected Bluetooth devices should operate better and last longer, this is good news for those considering purchasing the smaller MacBook Air have longer battery lives if they can connect to Bluetooth 5.3.

It's encouraging to see the 13-inch MacBook Air join the list of high-end Apple products that support Bluetooth 5.3, which includes the iPad Pro 12.9 (2022) and new Apple Watch models. Although Apple has been hesitant to incorporate Bluetooth Low Energy (also known as BLE) or employ LC3 (Low Complexity Communication Codec) for music, the most recent AirPods Pro headphones do support Bluetooth 5.3. This implies that you won't fully benefit from Bluetooth 5.3 even if you pair the AirPods Pro to the MacBook Air, which is irritating.

Since the Bluetooth 5.3 hardware update is also a compatibility update, it appears that only new MacBook Airs will receive it You won't get this upgrade if you purchased a 13-inch MacBook Air with Bluetooth 5.0 capability last year.

Don't worry if you already own a MacBook Air because Bluetooth 5.0, despite being a few years old, is still suitable for most users. However, for those seeking to purchase a new one, this is a wonderful update that is provided for free to one of the best laptops money can buy.

There is no patch, thus the only option is to replace the TBK DVRs that are infected.

Researchers have warned that a vulnerability that has been present in some digital video recording (DVR) devices for half a decade has unexpectedly resurfaced as an attractive target for threat actors. 

A rise in attacks on TBK DVRs using a publicly accessible proof-of-concept to exploit the CVE-2018-9995 vulnerability has been seen by Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs. Due to a vulnerability that was first identified in 2018, remote attackers are now able to access the target network by avoiding authentication. 

Threat actors would create a malicious HTTP cookie to take advantage of the vulnerability, forcing the endpoint to respond with JSON data including admin credentials. 

"A remote attacker may be able to exploit this flaw to bypass authentication and obtain administrative privileges, eventually leading to access to camera video feeds," Fortinet warns.

According to the researchers, over 50,000 attempts to hack into susceptible devices will have been made by April 2023. 

The researchers stated that the fact that there are tens of thousands of TBK DVRs accessible under various brands, publicly available PoC code, and an easy-to-exploit make this vulnerability an easy target for attackers. The recent increase in IPS detections demonstrates that attackers continue to favour network camera equipment as a target.

The worst aspect is that there isn't a patch available to fix the problem. The only way to be safe is to switch to a more recent, actively maintained system. 

Banks, government agencies, and other similar businesses frequently employ these sorts of DVRs as a component of their security surveillance(opens in new tab) solution.

source url

Furthermore, it is built for AI tasks.

Although IBM's response to the affordable supercomputer has been operational for some time, it has only lately made any concrete disclosures about its so-called Vela project.

Looking to its blog(opens in new tab) for more information, IBM disclosed that the study, which was written by five company employees, addresses issues with earlier supercomputers and their unpreparedness for AI tasks.

The business clarifies the choices it made regarding the use of low-cost but powerful hardware in order to adapt the supercomputer model for this future type of workload.

We need your assistance to create a better website for our users. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas about the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and secret, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

Although it's obvious that these supercomputers can handle demanding AI workloads, including the one built for OpenAI, the company behind the well-known ChatGPT live chat software, a lack of optimization has left traditional supercomputers at risk of lacking valuable power and having an excess in other areas, which results in an unnecessary expenditure.

Although it is well known that bare metal nodes are the best for AI, IBM wished to investigate making these available inside of a virtual machine (VM). Big Blue claims that the outcome is significant efficiency improvements.

We developed a method to expose all of the node's capabilities (GPUs, CPUs, networking, and storage) into the VM so that the virtualization overhead is less than 5%, which is the lowest overhead in the industry that we are aware of, after conducting a substantial amount of research and discovery.

Vela has four 3.2TB NVMe storage drives, 1.5TB of DRAM, and 80GB of GPU memory in terms of node architecture.

According to The Next Platform's estimation, if IBM wished to include its supercomputer in the Top 500 rankings, it would produce approximately 27.9 petaflops of performance, putting it in 15th place as of November 2022.

Although existing supercomputers are capable of handling workloads related to artificial intelligence, the rapid advancements in this field and the pressing need for cost-effectiveness highlight the need for such a machine.

For fans of Apple, good tidings

The Linux operating system has been updated to version 6.2, and while those hoping for significant feature additions may be let down, one modification will likely catch the attention of many users.

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and its chief developer, explained in a brief blog post(opens in new tab) that there had been a few minor fixes prior to the release, adding, "I wasn't going to apply any last-minute patches that weren't aggressively pushed by maintainers."

Nothing stuck out as warranting delaying the release of 6.2, according to Torvalds, so any finishing touches "will have to show up for stable."

We need your assistance to create a better website for our users. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas about the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and secret, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

This may downplay the fact that Asahi Linux's developers' work has enabled Linux-based operating systems to be supported on a variety of Apple's proprietary silicon, including the M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra processors.

Apple's M-series chips have been excellent news for ardent macOS users, bringing notable performance improvements to all aspects of processing and efficiency, but they have created a barrier for other hardware apps.

The mainstream Linux support joins the recently announced availability of Windows 11 on Macs with M1 and M2 processors using Parallels 18.

Although this is encouraging news, it's unclear what it might imply for the future of the Linux roadmap. Although it lacks the massive financial support of Windows and macOS, its committed team of coders is likely to keep pushing for greater compatibility in upcoming releases.

The most recent Microsoft product to receive ChatGPT is Viva.

Microsoft's sales-focused software is expected to significantly benefit from the company's developing relationship with OpenAI, the organization behind the incredibly popular ChatGPT.

Microsoft Viva Sales will be the first to use GPT-3.5, which will, in the words of the firm, "enable sellers to remain on top of customer communications and spend a fraction of the time doing it."

Microsoft wants to make the experience better for the clients who will really use the tool, not for the customers of its clients. It predicts an increase in productivity and a better user experience.

We need your assistance to create a better website for our readers. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas regarding the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and anonymous, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

Sellers can enter a prompt, and ChatGPT will provide a suggested response that can be modified as they go. In a product announcement(opens in new tab), Dynamics 365 Customer Experience Platform corporate VP Lori Lamkin stated that it will be able to manage a variety of emails, from inquiries to bids.

According to Microsoft, who conducted a research study that revealed salespeople were spending two-thirds (66%) of their days monitoring emails, end customers are expected to benefit significantly from this inclusion.

With its current offerings including natural language technology that can generate call summaries, detect questions, calculate conversational KPIs, and extract action items, Microsoft has been increasing its use of AI in recent months. This is just the newest addition to what is likely to be a whole flurry.

Despite the WebKit restriction, Google is testing Blink on iOS devices.

According to a recent report from, instead of Apple's WebKit engine, Google's Chromium team is testing the Blink browser engine on iOS devices.

The terms and conditions of the Apple App Store mandate that all software, including the current version of Google Chrome, use the WebKit engine. However, it appears that Chromium's engineers are planning for a time when the business could be able to employ the Blink engine that typically drives its browser in other places.

However, some have speculated that, amid US government pressure to open up platforms and other EU regulatory action that has implied that users should be able to download apps outside of their native store environment, Apple may soon have to allow a lot of practices that it has previously condemned.

If this is the case, then it’s possible that a Blink-powered Chrome app will be allowed, bringing it in line with the rest of Google’s offerings, and a head-start will give it a one-up on other competitors that will likely be tempted to use their own default engines rather than Apple’s WebKit.

"This is an experimental prototype that we are developing as part of an open-source project with the goal to understand certain aspects of performance on iOS. It will not be available to users and we'll continue to abide by Apple's policies."

"We are creating this experimental prototype as a part of an open-source effort with the intention of better understanding specific areas of iOS performance. Users won't be able to access it, and we'll keep up with Apple's rules."

Compared to many other tech industries, the cloud is doing better.

According to recent data, despite the increasing economic difficulties affecting businesses globally, cloud spending grew throughout 2022.

As we approach 2023, according to Synergy Research Group's most recent estimate, the cloud market appears to have been less negatively impacted than many other industries.

In the US market, it was discovered that Q4 2022 increase in cloud spending remained at 27%, down from an average growth rate of 31% during the preceding four quarters.

We need your assistance to create a better website for our readers. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas regarding the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and anonymous, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

The top spot, which has been held by Amazon Web Services for a while, remains largely steady. It has held a 32–34% market share over the past five years or so, and as we approach 2023, this proportion is stable.

However, Microsoft Azure, which now holds 23% of the market (up by about 10% from five years ago), has seen the most notable growth during the same period. Google Cloud's growth has slowed down a little bit, and it now accounts for 11% of the shares.

Synergy anticipates quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues to surpass $61 billion based on the recent spate of Q4 results reports. Although the majority of money is spent on public IaaS and PaaS services, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all have individual customers in mind as well.

Even during a period when PC shipments were down, according to Synergy, these three companies service 73% of the public cloud market.

The research firm forecasts that the global cloud market will expand going forward across all continents.

Spending on IT is expected to increase over the previous year.

Gartner(opens in new tab) has published new estimates predicting that things will return to growth as we approach 2023, following a difficult year that saw IT investment decline globally.

According to the analyst company, global IT spending is expected to decrease by 0.2% in 2022 compared to the previous year.

This reduction was primarily due to a 10.6% decrease in device spending, but data center system spending increased by an astounding 12.0%, suggesting our expanding requirement for digital archiving.

We need your assistance to create a better website for our readers. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas regarding the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and anonymous, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

In fact, Gartner predicts that the only sector that will decrease in size will be devices (down 5.1%), which may have already been updated as businesses shifted to hybrid working practices in recent years. As a result, it is anticipated that overall global IT spending will rise by 2.4% in 2023 compared to the previous year, with figures looking to the year 2023 to be around $4.49 trillion (as opposed to $4.39 trillion in 2022).

However, the company had projected growth for 2023 to be around 5.1% in October, indicating that the aftershocks of ongoing global events are still having a negative impact on firms all around the world.

"A tumultuous economy has changed the backdrop of company decisions and can force CIOs to become more cautious, delay decisions, or reshuffle priorities," said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.

Looking ahead to the coming year, it's possible that some businesses that over-invested in expansion during the pandemic may now need to carefully explore choices to trim down resources, while many employees look for employment that can keep up with demand for better earnings.

Zoom introduces a new mid-tier plan for people hosting single-session events.

A new event management tool from Zoom has been released, allowing digital event planners to build sessions without making excessive financial or other sacrifices by choosing a more expensive or less expensive option.

A "one size fits all" strategy is no longer effective, according to the video conferencing business, as more clients have grown acclimated to online settings.

In order to promote better branding, analytics, and engagements and ultimately improve ROI, the new Zoom Sessions service was created.

We need your assistance to create a better website for our readers. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas regarding the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and anonymous, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

The Zoom Sessions product, which is already on the market, fills the gap between Zoom Meetings, a more expensive option with more features, and Zoom Webinars, on which it is based. Licenses start at $990 (£730) per year, and pricing(opens in new tab) is scaleable depending on the number of guests you need.

Zoom has also made backstage accessible to Zoom Sessions for events that need several co-hosts, allowing organizers to collaborate before, during, and after an event.

Naturally, Zoom Sessions have all of the same capabilities as Zoom Webinars, such as support for films up to 30 hours long, branding-compatible virtual backgrounds, and Q&A, polling, and quiz tools.

In addition to sometimes releasing new solutions, like many video conferencing systems, Zoom frequently modifies its business- and personal-oriented plans in an effort to hold onto its sizeable market share in opposition to competitors like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

The tech sector is driving the movement toward solar and wind energy.

According to recent statistics, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet-owned Google are the top three corporate investors in wind and solar energy in the US.

While the technology industry is (perhaps understandably) setting an example for others by purchasing 48% of all clean electricity, a report(opens in new tab) from the American Clean Power Association (ACPA), a pressure group, also revealed that others are following that lead.

Over the past ten years, businesses in a variety of sectors, including the energy, telecommunications, and food and beverage industries, have boosted their purchases of renewable energy by an average of 73% annually DC as well as Puerto Rico.

We need your assistance to create a better website for our readers. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas regarding the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and anonymous, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

After Business Today(opens in new tab) recently reported that industry data has shown indicators of a decline in the demand for fossil fuels nationwide, this particular point in the ACPA's report is the second indication that the US oil industry may struggle in 2023 US businesses seem to be accepting the idea that investing in clean energy is vital but long-term. Over 300 companies have contracted 77.4 gigawatts (GW) of power, which could power 1,000 data centres or 18 million homes.

More than half of that energy has yet to go online despite that enormous expenditure. However, an ACPA spokeswoman told CNBC that they anticipate doing so "in the next three years".

These kinds of commitments are welcomed. Even while behemoths like Amazon, Meta, or Google have recently been involved in a layoff, data misuse, and ad revenue monopoly problems, the main reason for large companies making the decision is not ethical, despite our desire to do so switch is significantly less complex.

According to the ACPA survey, businesses can now seem to invest in clean power at a price that is affordable enough for them to make a decision.

Over the past ten years, the cost of solar and wind energy has decreased by 71% and 47%, respectively, and despite a rise in power purchase agreement (PPA) rates in 2022, US businesses nevertheless bought 20 GW of renewable energy by the year's end, 4 GW more than in any other year.

Even while the US's push for clean energy isn't motivated by the noblest goals, the long-term benefits of a cross-industry transition to renewables are still positive for the environment.

The majority of victims reportedly refuse to pay a ransom today.

The amount of money that ransomware(opens in new tab) assaults were used to extort from organizations is down 40% year over year, showing that more companies are choosing not to pay to get their sensitive data recovered.

A Chainalysis research looked at cryptocurrency wallets linked to ransomware organizations. All blockchain data is pseudonymous, thus on-chain tracking of wallet activity is simple. Because fraudsters must share their wallets with their victims, it is quite simple to follow these wallets.

However, Chainalysis reports that in 2022, wallets associated with well-known ransomware organizations stored a total of $456.8 million. These organizations demanded $766 million in ransom the previous year $765 million is about comparable to the amount for 2020.

You're needed by TechRadar Pro! We need your assistance to create a better website for our readers. By responding to our poll and sharing your thoughts and ideas regarding the tech sector in 2023, you can contribute. Your responses will all be kept private and anonymous, and it won't take long. Once more, thank you for your assistance in improving TechRadar Pro.

It's also intriguing that one ransomware gang, or affiliate, does not always operate with the same ransomware type. The identical wallets were actually seen accepting payments from individuals who had been infected with several malware strains, including as Conti, BlackCat, Black Lotus, LockBit, Sunscript, Hive, and others.

The study contains a warning that the statistics are almost certainly inconclusive. While it is quite simple for the researchers to monitor wallet activity, it is impossible to state with certainty whether they discovered and were monitoring all of them.

Since some businesses do not acknowledge becoming victims of this type of cybercrime, it is likely that new wallets will appear in the future.

The possibility to transmit WhatsApp data with a QR code in the future will streamline and accelerate the conversion procedure.

In the near future, WhatsApp users might be able to transfer data between devices via QR codes. According to WeBetaInfo, users will find it simpler to move their chat history to a new Android phone thanks to this new functionality because they won't need to back up their talks and images to Google Drive.

The upcoming option to share data using a QR code will simplify and hasten the migration process. The source claims that the feature is currently in development. There is no information available on when the movie will be released.

According to WeBetaInfo, the data migration procedure starts with the installation of WhatsApp on an Android device. Users can use their old smartphone to scan the QR code on their new one.

This week, the instant messaging service gave all of its customer's access to proxy capability. Thanks to this new function, users will be able to access WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations all around the world. It will allow people to freely communicate when access to the internet is limited or tampered with.

"We are introducing proxy support for WhatsApp users worldwide. This implies that we're giving users the ability to continue using WhatsApp even if their connection is interrupted or blocked, according to WhatsApp, which announced the proxy functionality.

The social media platform WhatsApp claims that using a proxy connection will offer the same level of security and privacy as it already does. It states that end-to-end encryption will still be utilized to protect consumers' private messages.