Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC is reportedly planning to increase its wafer prices by up to 10% in 2025, according to a Morgan Stanley note cited by investor Eric Jhonsa. The move comes as demand for cutting-edge processors in smartphones, PCs, AI accelerators, and HPC continues to surge. Industry insiders reveal that TSMC's state-of-the-art 4 nm and 5 nm nodes, used for AI and HPC customers such as AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel, could see up to 10% price hikes. This increase would push the cost of 4 nm-class wafers from $18,000 to approximately $20,000, representing a significant 25% rise since early 2021 for some clients and an 11% rise from the last price hike. Talks about price hikes with major smartphone manufacturers like Apple have proven challenging, but there are indications that modest price increases are being accepted across the industry. Morgan Stanley analysts project a 4% average selling price increase for 3 nm wafers in 2025, which are currently priced at $20,000 or more per wafer.

Mature nodes like 16 nm are unlikely to see price increases due to sufficient capacity. However, TSMC is signaling potential shortages in leading-edge capacity to encourage customers to secure their allocations. Adding to the industry's challenges, advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging prices are expected to rise by 20% over the next two years, following previous increases in 2022 and 2023. TSMC aims to boost its gross margin to 53-54% by 2025, anticipating that customers will absorb these additional costs. The impact of these price hikes on end-user products remains uncertain. Competing foundries like Intel and Samsung may seize this opportunity to offer more competitive pricing, potentially prompting some chip designers to consider alternative manufacturing options. Additionally, TSMC's customers could reportedly be unable to secure their capacity allocation without "appreciating TSMC's value."

The PC market gathered momentum in Q2 2024, with worldwide shipments of desktops and notebooks up 3.4% year-on-year, reaching 62.8 million units. Shipments of notebooks (including mobile workstations) hit 50 million units, growing 4%. Desktops (including desktop workstations), which constitute 20% of the total PC market, experienced a slight 1% growth, totaling 12.8 million units. The stage is now set for accelerated growth as the refresh cycle driven by the Windows 11 transition and AI PC adoption ramps up over the next four quarters.

"The PC industry is going from strength to strength with a third consecutive quarter of growth," said Ishan Dutt, Principal Analyst at Canalys. "The market turnaround is coinciding with exciting announcements from vendors and chipset manufacturers as their AI PC roadmaps transition from promise to reality. The quarter culminated with the launch of the first Copilot+ PCs powered by Snapdragon processors and more clarity around Apple's AI strategy with the announcement of the Apple Intelligence suite of features for Mac, iPad and iPhone. Beyond these innovations, the market will start to benefit even more from its biggest tailwind - a ramp-up in PC demand driven by the Windows 11 refresh cycle. The vast majority of channel partners surveyed by Canalys in June indicated that Windows 10 end-of-life is likely to impact customer refresh plans most in either the second half of 2024 or the first half of 2025, suggesting that shipment growth will only gather steam in upcoming quarters."

Apple has reportedly halted the development of its future Vision Pro 2 headset, opting instead to focus on a more affordable variant. The decision comes as the company grapples with the high production costs associated with the Vision Pro, which was released on February 2 in the US for $3,499 and will be released on July 12 in other countries. According to insiders familiar with the matter, Apple is not expected to manufacture more than 500,000 Vision Pro units this year, casting doubt on the device's ability to gain widespread adoption at such a premium price point. The tech giant's suppliers have already begun scaling back production, with one supplier reducing output by 50% in May due to forecasts of weaker-than-expected demand.

While the Vision Pro promised to deliver a groundbreaking mixed-reality experience, its excessive cost effectively priced it out of reach for the mass market. Recognizing this barrier, Apple has reportedly decided to abandon the development of the costlier "Pro 2" model and instead channel its efforts into creating a more budget-friendly "Vision" variant. The new device is expected to feature fewer cameras, simpler speaker systems, and a streamlined headband design, all aimed at reducing production costs. However, sources indicate that Apple is struggling to significantly lower the costs of key components, such as the display, which could further delay the launch of the successor model. Nevertheless, the company's goal is to create a mixed-reality headset priced around the level of a high-end iPhone, approximately $1,600, and launch the cheaper headset in late 2025.

Apple today previewed macOS Sequoia, the next version of the world's most advanced desktop operating system, bringing entirely new ways of working and transformative intelligence features to Mac. macOS Sequoia is full of exciting new capabilities, including iPhone Mirroring, which expands Continuity by enabling full access to and control of iPhone directly from macOS. Safari gets another big update with the new Highlights feature for effortless information discovery on webpages while browsing. The new Passwords app makes it even easier to access passwords and organize credentials all in one place. Gaming advances with a more immersive experience, as well as a breadth of new titles, including Assassin's Creed Shadows, Frostpunk 2, and more.

macOS Sequoia also introduces Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system for Mac, iPhone, and iPad that combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that's incredibly useful and relevant. Built with privacy from the ground up, Apple Intelligence is deeply integrated into macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18. It understands and creates language and images, takes action across apps, and draws from personal context, simplifying and accelerating everyday tasks. Taking full advantage of the power of Apple Silicon and the Neural Engine, Apple Intelligence will be supported by every Mac with an M-series chip.

Logitech today announced a new lineup of Logi for Mac products aimed at enhancing the experience for Mac users while enabling more sustainable lifestyles without compromise. Adding in the latest MX series and ergonomic innovations, the lineup includes MX Keys S for Mac, MX Keys S Combo for Mac, MX Anywhere 3S for Mac, MX Keys Mini for Mac (in Space Gray), and Ergo Series Wave Keys for Mac, a new ergo keyboard. These solutions are tailored to improve performance, productivity and comfort at the desk, catering to the diverse needs of users across macOS and iPadOS with dedicated macOS keyboard layouts and colors that complement the Apple ecosystem.

"Logitech is committed to delivering innovative, user-centric solutions that seamlessly integrate with the Apple ecosystem and are designed with sustainability in mind," said Delphine Donné, vice president and general manager of Personal Workspace Solutions at Logitech. "With a focus on optimizing workflow, productivity, and comfort, our Designed for Mac portfolio empowers Apple users to unleash their creative potential and enjoy day-long comfort at the desk without sacrificing Mac compatibility and look."

JMicron Technology Corporation, in collaboration with Vinpower, Inc., have developed the first of its kind Enhanced 10Gbps Portable SSD (PSSD), using the collaboratively developed iVP817 IC Chip, that's compatible with Apple iOS devices supporting the iPhone iAP2. The PSSD offers super-fast Read/Write (R/W) data transfer speeds and is the first of its kind to provide Secure, High Powered, High-Speed backup and storage across all computing platforms, which includes the Apple iOS platform, as well as Android, PC, MacBook, Chromebook and more. While the R/W transfer speeds for USB flash storage devices compatible with smartphones and tablets typically range from 20 MB/sec to 80 MB/sec, the enhanced PSSD achieved verifiable R/W transfer speeds at more than 800 MB/sec with an iPhone 15Pro and 15Pro Max. That means, when using the enhanced PSSD with Vinpower's iAP2 based App, one could backup a 10 GB video, from an iPhone 15Pro or 15Pro Max, in around 12 seconds. On top of that, the PSSD will accommodate a range of NVMe SSD with varying form factor lengths and capacities up to and exceeding 8 TB of secure storage.

JMicron is a leading IC design company specialized in high-speed data and signal interfaces bridge controllers including NVMe to USB bridges, while Vinpower is a leader in designing IC chip firmware, circuit design, and manufacturing Apple iOS backup and storage devices and related Apps. The two companies recognized the enormous untapped market potential for a new solution that can perform smooth, fast, and secure data transfer and backup for portable mobile devices, especially for the Apple iOS platform, such as iPhones and iPads.

Apple is locked in a fierce competition to stay ahead in the client AI applications race, and needs access to the latest foundry process at TSMC to built its future-generation SoCs on. The company's COO, Jeff Williams, reportedly paid a visit to TSMC CEO CC Wei to discuss Apple's foundry allocation of the Taiwanese foundry's 2 nm-class silicon fabrication process, for its next-generation M-series and A-series SoCs powering its future generations of iPhone, iPad, and Macs. Taiwan based industry observer, Economic Daily, which broke this story, says that it isn't just an edge with performance and efficiency that Apple is after, but also leadership in generative AI, and client AI applications. The company has reportedly invested over $100 billion in generative AI research and development over the past 5 years.

Apple's latest silicon, the M4 SoC, which debuted with the iPad Pro earlier this month, is built on TSMC's N3E (3 nm-class) node, and it's widely expected that the rest of the M4 line of SoCs for Macs, and the "A18," could be built on the same process, which would cover Apple for the rest of 2024, going into the first half of 2025. TSMC is expected to commence mass-production of chips on its 2 nm node in 2025, which is why Apple is in the TSMC boss's office to seek the first foundry allocation.

According to Geekerwan, Apple's latest M4 silicon has achieved a remarkable milestone by using liquid nitrogen to chill Apple's M4 iPad Pro. This unconventional approach unlocked great single-core performance, surpassing even the M3 Max and M2 Ultra processors in Geekbench v6 benchmark tests. The setup involved cooling the M4 iPad Pro, equipped with a 3+6 core configuration, using a Kingpin Cooling T-Rex Rev 4 CPU LN2 pot filled with liquid nitrogen. This extreme cooling allowed the M4 processor to operate at an astonishing 4.41 GHz during the benchmark run, resulting in a staggering single-core score of 4,001 points. This score represents a 28% increase over the M3 Max found in the 16-inch MacBook Pro and an impressive 44% improvement over the M2 Ultra powering the Mac Studio.

Notably, the M4's single-core performance is capable of reaching scores in the 3,000s. With liquid nitrogen cooling, it suprases the 4,000-point mark, making this achievement all the more remarkable. While the M4's multi-core performance did not match the lofty expectations set by its single-core power, it still managed to achieve a score of 13,595 points, outperforming both the M3 Max and M2 Ultra, which scored 20,957 and 21,330 points, respectively. This was done on the 3+6 core configuration with three P-cores and six E-cores, which is not the top-end M4 configuration. This shows that with adequate cooling, like MacBooks, the upcoming M4 Pro and M4 Max chips could achieve much higher performance than their predecessors.

A product roadmap leak at leading PC OEM Dell, disclosed the tentative launch dates of several future generations of processors by Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. The slide was detailing hardware platforms for future revisions of the company's premium XPS notebooks. Given that Dell remains one of the largest PC OEMs, the dates revealed in the leaked slides are highly plausible.

In chronological order, Dell expects Intel's Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake-MX" processor in September 2024, which should mean product unveilings at Computex. It's interesting to note that Intel is only designing "Lunar Lake" for the -MX memory-on-package segment. This chip squares off against Apple's M3, M4, and possibly even the M3 Pro. Intel also has its ambitious "Arrow Lake" architecture planned for the second half of 2024, hence the lack of product overlap—there won't be an "Arrow Lake-MX."

Yesterday, Apple launched its next-generation M4 chip based on Apple Silicon custom design. The processor is a fourth-generation design that brings AI capabilities and improved CPU performance. First debuting in an iPad Pro, the CPU has been benchmarked in Geekbench v6. And results seem to be very promising. The latest M4 chip managed to score 3,767 points in single-core tests and 14,677 points in multi-core tests. Compared to the M3 chip, which scores 3,087 points in single-core and 11,702 in multi-core tests, the M4 chip is about 22% faster in single-core and 25% faster in multi-core synthetic benchmarks.

Of course, these results are not real-world use cases, but they give us a hint of what the Apple Silicon design team has been working on. For real-world results, we have to wait a little longer to see reviews and results from devices such as MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, which should have better cooling and possibly better clocks for the chip.

Personal computers (PCs) have been used as the major productivity device for several decades. But now we are entering a new era of PCs based on artificial intelligence (AI), thanks to the boom witnessed in generative AI (GenAI). We believe the inventory correction and demand weakness in the global PC market have already normalized, with the impacts from COVID-19 largely being factored in. All this has created a comparatively healthy backdrop for reshaping the PC industry. Counterpoint estimates that almost half a billion AI laptop PCs will be sold during the 2023-2027 period, with AI PCs reviving the replacement demand.

Counterpoint separates GenAI laptop PCs into three categories - AI basic laptop, AI-advanced laptop and AI-capable laptop - based on different levels of computational performance, corresponding use cases and the efficiency of computational performance. We believe AI basic laptops, which are already in the market, can perform basic AI tasks but not completely GenAI tasks and, starting this year, will be supplanted by more AI-advanced and AI-capable models with enough TOPS (tera operations per second) powered by NPU (neural processing unit) or GPU (graphics processing unit) to perform the advanced GenAI tasks really well.

Apple today announced the redesigned 11-inch and all-new 13-inch iPad Air, supercharged by the M2 chip. Now available in two sizes for the first time, the 11-inch iPad Air is super-portable, and the 13-inch model provides an even larger display for more room to work, learn, and play. Both deliver phenomenal performance and advanced capabilities, making iPad Air more powerful and versatile than ever before. Featuring a faster CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine in M2, the new iPad Air offers even more performance and is an incredibly powerful device for artificial intelligence. The front-facing Ultra Wide 12MP camera with Center Stage is now located along the landscape edge of iPad Air, which is perfect for video calls. It also includes faster Wi-Fi, and cellular models include super-fast 5G, so users can stay connected on the go. With a portable design, all-day battery life, a brilliant Liquid Retina display, and support for Apple Pencil Pro, Apple Pencil (USB-C), and Magic Keyboard, iPad Air empowers users to be even more productive and creative. The new iPad Air is available in new blue and purple finishes, along with starlight and space gray. The 11-inch iPad Air still starts at just $599, and the 13-inch iPad Air is a fantastic value at just $799. Customers can order the new iPad Air today, with availability beginning Wednesday, May 15.

"So many users—from students, to content creators, to small businesses, and more—love iPad Air for its performance, portability, and versatility, all at an affordable price. Today, iPad Air gets even better," said Bob Borchers, Apple's vice president of Product Marketing. "We're so excited to introduce the redesigned 11-inch and all-new 13-inch iPad Air, offering two sizes for the first time. With its combination of a brilliant Liquid Retina display, the phenomenal performance of the M2 chip, incredible AI capabilities, and its colorful, portable design with support for new accessories, iPad Air is more powerful and versatile than ever."

Apple today unveiled the groundbreaking new iPad Pro in a stunningly thin and light design, taking portability and performance to the next level. Available in silver and space black finishes, the new iPad Pro comes in two sizes: an expansive 13-inch model and a super-portable 11-inch model. Both sizes feature the world's most advanced display—a new breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display with state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology—providing a remarkable visual experience. The new iPad Pro is made possible with the new M4 chip, the next generation of Apple silicon, which delivers a huge leap in performance and capabilities. M4 features an entirely new display engine to enable the precision, color, and brightness of the Ultra Retina XDR display. With a new CPU, a next-generation GPU that builds upon the GPU architecture debuted on M3, and the most powerful Neural Engine yet, the new iPad Pro is an outrageously powerful device for artificial intelligence. The versatility and advanced capabilities of iPad Pro are also enhanced with all-new accessories. Apple Pencil Pro brings powerful new interactions that take the pencil experience even further, and a new thinner, lighter Magic Keyboard is packed with incredible features. The new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, and Magic Keyboard are available to order starting today, with availability in stores beginning Wednesday, May 15.

"iPad Pro empowers a broad set of pros and is perfect for anyone who wants the ultimate iPad experience—with its combination of the world's best displays, extraordinary performance of our latest M-series chips, and advanced accessories—all in a portable design. Today, we're taking it even further with the new, stunningly thin and light iPad Pro, our biggest update ever to iPad Pro," said John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. "With the breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display, the next-level performance of M4, incredible AI capabilities, and support for the all-new Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard, there's no device like the new iPad Pro."

Apple today announced M4, the latest chip delivering phenomenal performance to the all-new iPad Pro. Built using second-generation 3-nanometer technology, M4 is a system on a chip (SoC) that advances the industry-leading power efficiency of Apple silicon and enables the incredibly thin design of iPad Pro. It also features an entirely new display engine to drive the stunning precision, color, and brightness of the breakthrough Ultra Retina XDR display on iPad Pro. A new CPU has up to 10 cores, while the new 10-core GPU builds on the next-generation GPU architecture introduced in M3, and brings Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and hardware-accelerated mesh shading to iPad for the first time. M4 has Apple's fastest Neural Engine ever, capable of up to 38 trillion operations per second, which is faster than the neural processing unit of any AI PC today. Combined with faster memory bandwidth, along with next-generation machine learning (ML) accelerators in the CPU, and a high-performance GPU, M4 makes the new iPad Pro an outrageously powerful device for artificial intelligence.

"The new iPad Pro with M4 is a great example of how building best-in-class custom silicon enables breakthrough products," said Johny Srouji, Apple's senior vice president of Hardware Technologies. "The power-efficient performance of M4, along with its new display engine, makes the thin design and game-changing display of iPad Pro possible, while fundamental improvements to the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and memory system make M4 extremely well suited for the latest applications leveraging AI. Altogether, this new chip makes iPad Pro the most powerful device of its kind."

Apple is reportedly working on creating in-house chips designed explicitly for its data centers. This news comes from a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, which highlights the company's efforts to enhance its data processing capabilities and reduce dependency on third parties to supply the infrastructure. In the internal project called Apple Chips in Data Center (ACDC), which started in 2018, Apple wanted to design data center processors to handle the massive user base and increase the company's service offerings. The most recent advancement in AI means that Apple will probably serve an LLM processed in Apple's data center. The chip will most likely focus on inference of AI models rather than training.

The AI chips are expected to play a crucial role in improving the efficiency and speed of Apple's data centers, which handle vast amounts of data generated by the company's various services and products. By developing these custom chips, Apple aims to optimize its data processing and storage capabilities, ultimately leading to better user experiences across its ecosystem. The move by Apple to develop AI-enhanced chips for data centers is seen as a strategic step in the company's efforts to stay ahead in the competitive tech landscape. Almost all major tech companies, famously called the big seven, have products that use AI in silicon and in software processing. However, Apple is the one that seemingly lacked that. Now, the company is integrating AI across the entire vertical, from the upcoming iPhone integration to M4 chips for Mac devices and ACDC chips for data centers.

Global PC shipments grew around 3% YoY in Q1 2024 after eight consecutive quarters of declines due to demand slowdown and inventory correction, according to the latest data from Counterpoint Research. The shipment growth in Q1 2024 came on a relatively low base in Q1 2023. The coming quarters of 2024 will see sequential shipment growth, resulting in 3% YoY growth for the full year, largely driven by AI PC momentum, shipment recovery across different sectors, and a fresh replacement cycle.

Lenovo's PC shipments were up 8% in Q1 2024 off an easy comparison from last year. The brand managed to reclaim its 24% share in the market, compared to 23% in Q1 2023. HP and Dell, with market shares of 21% and 16% respectively, remained flattish, waiting for North America to drive shipment growth in the coming quarters. Apple's shipment performance was also resilient, with the 2% growth mainly supported by M3 base models.

While everyone has been focused on shipping an AI-enhanced product recently, one tech giant didn't appear to be bothered- Apple. However, according to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, Apple is readying an overhaul of its Apple Silicon M-series chips to embed AI processing capabilities at the processor level. As the report indicates, Apple is preparing an update for late 2024 and early 2025 with the M4 series of chips, which will reportedly feature AI processing units similar to those found in other commercial chips. There should be three levels of the M4 series, with the entry-level M4 codenamed Donan, the mid-level M4 chip codenamed Brava, and the high-end M4 chip codenamed Hydra.

Sales of Apple Macs peaked in 2022; the following year was a sharp decline, and sales have continued to be flat since. The new AI PCs for Windows-based systems have been generating hype from all major vendors, hoping to introduce AI features to end users. However, Apple wants to be part of the revolution, and the company has already scheduled the World Wide Developer Conference for June 10th. At WWDC this year, Apple is supposed to show a suite of AI-powered solutions to enable better user experience and increase productivity. With M4 chips getting AI enhancement, the WWDC announcements will get extra hardware accelerations. However, we must wait for the exact announcements before making further assumptions.

After two years of decline, the worldwide traditional PC market returned to growth during the first quarter of 2024 (1Q24) with 59.8 million shipments, growing 1.5% year over year, according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Growth was largely achieved due to easy year-over-year comparisons as the market declined 28.7% during the first quarter of 2023, which was the lowest point in PC history. In addition, global PC shipments finally returned to pre-pandemic levels as 1Q24 volumes rivaled those seen in 1Q19 when 60.5 million units were shipped.

With inflation numbers trending down, PC shipments have begun to recover in most regions, leading to growth in the Americas as well as Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). However, the deflationary pressures in China directly impacted the global PC market. As the largest consumer of desktop PCs, weak demand in China led to yet another quarter of declines for global desktop shipments, which already faced pressure from notebooks as the preferred form factor.

As we witness Apple's generational updates of the M series of chips, the highly anticipated SKU of the 3rd generation of Apple M series yet-to-be-announced top-of-the-line M3 Ultra chip is growing speculations from industry insiders. The latest round of reports suggests that the M3 Ultra might step away from its predecessor's design, potentially adopting a monolithic architecture without the UltraFusion interconnect technology. In the past, Apple has relied on a dual-chip design for its Ultra variants, using the UltraFusion interconnect to combine two M series Max chips. For example, the second generation M Ultra chip, M2 Ultra, boasts 134 billion transistors across two 510 mm² chips. However, die-shots of the M3 Max have sparked discussions about the absence of dedicated chip space for the UltraFusion interconnect.

While the absence of visible interconnect space on early die-shots is not conclusive evidence, as seen with the M1 Max not having visible UltraFusion interconnect and still being a part of M1 Ultra with UltraFusion, industry has led the speculation that the M3 Ultra may indeed feature a monolithic design. Considering that the M3 Max has 92 billion transistors and is estimated to have a die size between 600 and 700 mm², going Ultra with these chips may be pushing the manufacturing limit. Considering the maximum die size limit of 848 mm² for the TSMC N3B process used by Apple, there may not be sufficient space for a dual-chip M3 Ultra design. The potential shift to a monolithic design for the M3 Ultra raises questions about how Apple will scale the chip's performance without the UltraFusion interconnect. Competing solutions, such as NVIDIA's Blackwell GPU, use a high-bandwidth C2C interface to connect two 104 billion transistor chips, achieving a bandwidth of 10 TB/s. In comparison, the M2 Ultra's UltraFusion interconnect provided a bandwidth of 2.5 TB/s.

A team of academic researchers has uncovered a critical vulnerability in Apple M-series CPUs targeting data memory-dependent prefetcher (DMP) that could allow attackers to extract secret encryption keys from Macs. The flaw, called GoFetch, is based on the microarchitecture design of the Apple Silicon, which means that it cannot be directly patched and poses a significant risk to users' data security. The vulnerability affects all Apple devices powered by M-series chips, including the popular M1 and M2 generations. The M3 generation can turn a special bit off to disable DMP, potentially hindering performance. The DMP, designed to optimize performance by preemptively loading data that appears to be a pointer, violates a fundamental requirement of constant-time programming by mixing data and memory access patterns. This creates an exploitable side channel that attackers can leverage to extract secret keys.

To execute the GoFetch attack, attackers craft specific inputs for cryptographic operations, ensuring that pointer-like values only appear when they have correctly guessed bits of the secret key. By monitoring the DMP's dereference behavior through cache-timing analysis, attackers can verify their guesses and gradually unravel the entire secret key. The researchers demonstrated successful end-to-end key extraction attacks on popular constant-time implementations of both classical and post-quantum cryptography, highlighting the need for a thorough reevaluation of the constant-time programming paradigm in light of this new vulnerability.

Aleph One, a community project, has worked on an "open source continuation of Bungie 's Marathon 2 game engine" for several years. Bungie's classic 1990s trilogy—consisting of Marathon, Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity—is natively supported on the Aleph One platform (on macOS, Windows, and Linux). The first entry (1994) in the series debuted on Mac systems—Bungie stayed loyal to Apple OS ecosystems with successive titles, but started to shift over to PC platforms with its Myth franchise. A clean break occurred after post Microsoft's takeover, although Halo: Combat Evolved (2001) did eventually land on Mac OS X systems. Long-term Marathon fans have spotted an exciting entry on Valve's Steam store—the Aleph One Developers group has listed a "Classic" version of the first game.

PC Gamer reached out to Bungie for comment on the new-ish listing—a spokesperson responded with this statement: "Yup, this is real, and will be free. We're very supportive of the Marathon community and Aleph One's dedication here to bring the original Marathon to PC, Linux, and Mac for everyone to experience, with cross-platform play available in multiplayer. This is a true tribute to the original game!" The Sony-owned studio is working on a reboot of its classic IP, but that reimagining—as a PvP extraction shooter—is not due anytime soon. The entire original trilogy could be released on Steam by that time (possibly 2025/2026).

Other World Computing, the leading provider of computer hardware, accessories, and software that bring artistic expression and the digital world together for creative professionals and consumers of technology, today unveiled SoftRAID 8, a groundbreaking new software release that redefines RAID management for Mac and Windows environments.

Quickly accessing data with the right safeguards is a difficult balance. Whether it is enhancing multimedia production workflows, protecting critical business files, or ensuring uninterrupted access to valuable data, OWC's SoftRAID is the ideal solution to manage RAID arrays. SoftRAID implements the latest performance technology unleashing remarkable speeds on a RAID system. Simply connect the drive array, format the preferred RAID level, and experience the breakneck speeds first-hand. RAID management has never been this powerful and easy to use.

ITHome has highlighted several third-party protective cases listings for 12.9-inch iPad Air and Pro 2024 models—the Amazon product pages state that these accessories "will be on the shelves on March 26." The publication believes that this date could align with an official Apple unveiling—Mark Gurman, a Bloomberg reporter, predicted a planned announcement "around the end of March or April" in a recent "Power On" newsletter. MacRumors has tracked relevant activity on Weibo—based on claims made by Instant Digital (a well known Chinese leaker) they reckon that a possible March 26 presentation could be used to introduce: "pre-order availability, with shipping dates to follow."

We last heard about the rumored 2024 lineup of iPad Pro and Air models sporting some "revised physical dimensions." It was speculated that an upgrade to OLED panels has granted slimmer profiles—these possess fewer layers when compared to custom mini-LED parts on current generation premium tablets. LG is reported to be contracted for mass manufacturing of upcoming 13-inch iPad OLED tech, while Samsung (allegedly) takes care of 11-inch panels. With the launch of their M3 chipset-equipped MacBook Air 2024 range out of the way, Apple can concentrate on its next wave of new generation portable products.

NVIDIA is bringing OpenUSD-based Omniverse enterprise digital twins to the Apple Vision Pro. Announced today at NVIDIA GTC, a new software framework built on Omniverse Cloud APIs, or application programming interfaces, lets developers easily send their Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) industrial scenes from their content creation applications to the NVIDIA Graphics Delivery Network (GDN), a global network of graphics-ready data centers that can stream advanced 3D experiences to Apple Vision Pro.

In a demo unveiled at the global AI conference, NVIDIA presented an interactive, physically accurate digital twin of a car streamed in full fidelity to Apple Vision Pro's high-resolution displays. The demo featured a designer wearing the Vision Pro, using a car configurator application developed by CGI studio Katana on the Omniverse platform. The designer toggles through paint and trim options and even enters the vehicle - leveraging the power of spatial computing by blending 3D photorealistic environments with the physical world.

In the world where the largest companies are riding the AI train, the biggest of them all—Apple—seemed to stay quiet for a while. Even with many companies announcing their systems/models, Apple has stayed relatively silent about the use of LLMs in their products. However, according to Bloomberg, Apple is not pushing out an AI model of its own; rather, it will license Google's leading Gemini models for its iPhone smartphones. Gemini is Google's leading AI model with three variants: Gemini Nano 1/2, Gemini Pro, and Gemini Ultra. The Gemini Nano 1 and Nano 2 are designed to run locally on hardware like smartphones. At the same time, Gemini Pro and Ultra are inferenced from Google's servers onto a local device using API and the internet.

Apple could use a local Gemini Nano for basic tasks while also utilizing Geminin Pro or Ultra for more complex tasks, where a router sends user input to the available model. That way, users could use AI capabilities both online and offline. Since Apple is readying a suite of changes for iOS version 18, backed by Neural Engine inside A-series Bionic chips, the LLM game of Apple's iPhones might get a significant upgrade with the Google partnership. While we still don't know the size of the deal, it surely is a massive deal for Google to tap into millions of devices Apple ships every year and for Apple to give its users a more optimized experience.