This week has been a rollercoaster on the planet of tech. Twitter shut down due to its greatest outage in years, giving us all a second of peace, Google unveiled Gemini-infused robots, which appears like the beginning of a robotic revolution, and we examined Apple‘s new Macbook and iPad Air.
To atone for all that and extra, scroll down for our in case you missed it and atone for the week’s seven greatest tech information tales.
When you’re caught up on the week’s information, take a look at our picks for the 7 new films and TV reveals to stream this weekend (March 14).
X had its greatest outage in years
The social media large previously referred to as Twitter has had a tumultuous few years – however even in comparison with Elon Musk’s takeover in 2022, this week was a turbulent one. X was taken fully offline a number of occasions on Monday, with Musk later claiming that this was resulting from a “large cyberattack”.
Given X is attacked “day-after-day”, in keeping with Musk, this huge outage was defined by the perpetrator having “quite a lot of assets”. Cue some inevitable political finger-pointing and lots of people discovering what DDOS stands for (spoiler in your trivia quiz, it’s ‘Distributed Denial of Service’). X is again to its previous self now with its trademark mixture of memes and outrage, nevertheless it may not be lengthy earlier than its subsequent large outage.
We noticed Sony’s next-gen TV tech in motion
OLED is usually thought to be the best-performing TV tech, and for good motive, since OLED TVs ship completely uniform photos with “infinite” distinction and wealthy shade. OLED’s primacy has principally gone unchallenged, however a brand new RGB LED backlight know-how for TVs that Sony simply introduced may lastly make mini-LED TVs aggressive.
Sony’s “next-generation show system” replaces the quantum dot layer used for higher-end mini-LED TVs with a “excessive density LED backlight” with particular person management over the purple, inexperienced and blue main colours. Its advantages embody excessive brightness, prolonged shade, and OLED-like distinction, and Sony additionally claims it may be cost-effectively scaled as much as bigger display sizes than OLED TVs, which max out at 97 inches.
TV makers commonly problem chest-beating bulletins of recent tech in improvement, however on this case, TechRadar was invited to Sony’s headquarters for a preview, and it’s each bit nearly as good as they declare. Watch your again, OLED!
We reviewed the brand new MacBooks and iPads
Apple just lately launched some new tech and we’ve had the prospect to attempt all of it out. Lengthy story brief, it’s all nice.
The iPad Air with M3 earned four-and-a-half-stars due to its new chipset providing a stable energy enhance and not using a value bump. The display is simply as vibrant as ever, the battery life and audio are nice, and due to help from the brand new Magic Keyboard, it’s extra laptop-like than ever earlier than. Our solely gripe is Apple’s new slate is slightly too just like final yr’s mannequin within the digital camera and show division – with nonetheless solely a pair of 12MP snappers (one dealing with every route) and a display missing easy ProMotion refresh charges you’ll nonetheless solely get on extra premium fashions.
As for the brand new MacBook Airs with M4, they wowed us but once more as not solely do they boast wonderful efficiency – helped by the upgraded chipset they simply obtained – however they’re much less dear in addition. As an alternative of $1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,199 you’ll be able to choose the laptop computer up for $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099 cementing this smooth machine as among the best worth for cash laptops available on the market.
iRobot changed nearly its complete Roomba vary
This week we discovered that iRobot was scrapping nearly its complete vary of Roomba robotic vacuums, and changing them with 4 shiny new fashions. It is a daring transfer, however feels mandatory given how far the model was beginning to slip behind rivals.
New options embody LiDAR navigation (in the end), spinning mop pads, a cool design aesthetic, and a naming system that truly makes some type of sense. Maybe probably the most fascinating mannequin is the Roomba 205, which boasts a dust-compacting onboard bin, and appears excellent for these with small houses who haven’t got house for a cumbersome dock.
They may not be the flashiest improvements we have seen out there of late, however we predict iRobot has nailed what prospects are literally searching for in a robotic vacuum. Here is hoping it may assist the unique robovac model catch as much as the competitors.
New restricted Ray-Ban sensible glasses upset us
Meta launched new Ray-Ban sensible glasses this week – effectively, it launched a brand new design of glasses, which can be found for a restricted time in collaboration with vogue model Coperni.
They’re undeniably fashionable with a translucent black body (which helps you to see their inside workings) and mirrored lenses, however past the Coperni emblem stamped on the finish of every arm there’s nothing significantly particular about this restricted run. What’s extra not solely are these specs extra restricted than Meta’s earlier clear body drop – solely 3,600 Coperni sensible glasses can be found as a substitute of seven,500 like earlier than – they’re additionally pricier.
Meta’s glasses usually begin at $299 / £299 / AU$449, and its final restricted drop was $429 / £429 (it wasn’t out there in Australia). These Coperni specs are promoting for $549 / £519 / AU$859. Some commenters on the unique story love the design, however for us it’s not sufficient to justify the hype and price of Meta and Ray-Ban’s first-ever sensible glasses collab.
Disney+ is making Andor free to stream on YouTube
Did you miss out on seeing what’s come to be thought-about as the perfect Star Wars present ever made? Properly, you don’t have to fret about having FOMO anymore as a result of Disney has determined to publish the primary three episodes of Andor on YouTube totally free.
It has additionally made all the first season of one of many greatest Disney+ reveals out there on Hulu within the US forward of the highly-anticipated premiere of Andor season 2 on April 22, giving any non-Disney+ subscribers much more methods to get in on the motion.
That’s a sensible transfer to hook extra followers on the present and in the event you’ve change into considered one of them (welcome) then you definitely’ll little question wish to benefit from this nice streaming deal that brings down the Disney+ and Hulu bundle price again right down to its superior Black Friday value – come be part of the rebels!
Google Gemini simply obtained bodily
Google Gemini is without doubt one of the strongest AI platforms, however up till this week, it was principally about textual content, pictures and didn’t join on to the bodily world. That adjustments with Gemini Robotics and its counterpart, Gemini Robotics-ER (embodied reasoning). Collectively, these platforms will join the dots between Gemini’s highly effective fashions and robots.
The long-term purpose is humanoid robots operating Gemini fashions (many main robotic firms, like Boston Dynamics, are already on-board) to help them in interacting with the actual world, and particularly unfamiliar conditions. Our private favourite was a pair of robotic arms that shortly found out find out how to slam dunk a toy basketball with none particular coaching. The race to our robotic revolution is accelerating.