Apple on Tuesday introduced two new iPads: the iPad Air with the M3 chip and an updated entry-level iPad with the A16 chip. While some believed that the cheaper iPad would finally receive support for Apple Intelligence features, that didnt happen. But if youre looking for a more affordable iPad with AI capabilities, I recommend giving the M1 iPad Air a try.Theres not much to say about the new iPad 11 except that it now has the A16 chip, while the previous version was powered by the A14 chip. According to Apple, the new iPad is 50% faster than its predecessor. Indeed, the chip is faster and has 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB. But even so, the A16 chip cant run Apple Intelligence features.This was a real letdown for customers who had been waiting a long time to upgrade their iPad, but didnt want to spend a lot of money on a brand new iPad Air or iPad Pro just to get access to Apples latest AI features. While the iPad 11 costs $349, the recently announced iPad Air with the M3 chip starts at $599, while the iPad mini 7 costs $499 in its base version.So whats the best option for buying a new iPad with Apple Intelligence without spending a lot of money? Id say the M1 iPad Air.M1 iPad Air, also known as the 5th generation iPad Air, was launched in 2022. Apple no longer sells it officially, but you can still find the M1 iPad Air for much lower prices in some stores, especially if youre willing to buy a refurbished model. This iPad is, in many ways (perhaps all of them), better than the new iPad 11 announced today. And heres why.Both have an 11-inch LCD display, but the panel on the M1 iPad Air is more advanced with a wide P3 color gamut and anti-reflective coating, while the iPad 11s display is limited to sRGB colors and has non-laminated glass, which is much more susceptible to glare.The 5th generation iPad Air is also thinner and lighter than iPad 11. Its 6.1 mm thick and 461 grams versus 7 mm and 477 grams, respectively. But what makes the M1 iPad Air unbeatable is, well, the M1 chip. M1 was the first Apple Silicon chip designed specifically for the Mac and then put into iPads. It has an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU, while the A16 chip in the iPad 11 has a 5-core CPU and a 4-core GPU. What does that mean? The old iPad Air is faster than the new iPad 11.Benchmark tests show that M1 is around 30% faster than the A16 Bionic chip (keep in mind that the comparison is based on the iPhone 15 chip, which has an additional CPU and GPU core compared to the chip in the iPad 11). The M1 also has 8GB of RAM, which is better for multitasking and AI tasks.Because of this, the M1 iPad Air supports all the features of Apple Intelligence, as well as features such as Stage Manager for using multiple app windows simultaneously and an external monitor with the iPad. iPad 11 supports none of these features.The 5th generation iPad Air also has a USB-C 3.1 port with speeds of up to 10 Gbps, while the USB-C 2.0 port on the iPad 11 is limited to 480 Mbps. This means that transferring files between the iPad and an external device (such as a camera) is much slower on the iPad 11. The Air is also compatible with Apple Pencil 2, which has more features than the USB-C Apple Pencil for iPad 11.In short, these are the advantages of the 5th generation iPad Air over the iPad 11:Thinner and lighter designBetter displayFaster chip and better graphicsMore RAMStage Manager supportApple Intelligence supportApple Pencil 2 supportUSB-C 3.1As a counterpoint, iPad 11 has only one advantage over the iPad Air launched in 2022, and thats the fact that it starts with 128GB of storage, while the M1 Air starts with 64GB.Which one to choose?If you just want an iPad to watch videos and read, it might be worth saving a few dollars and buying the new entry-level model for just $349. Of course, students can get it for even less from Apples educational store, so thats something to consider.But if you want access to the latest iPadOS features and are looking for a laptop replacement, the M1 iPad Air is certainly a better deal. Even today, the M1 chip can handle the heaviest tasks and games with ease, and it runs all the same software features as the latest iPads.Apple sells the refurbished M1 iPad Air for $379 in its 64GB version. Apple Certified Refurbished Products are pre-owned products that undergo Apples stringent refurbishment process prior to being offered for sale. Refurbished units are shipped in a special box with original accessories. Refurbished products also get Apples 1-year warranty.What do you think? Which iPad would you choose? Let me know in the comments section below.Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? 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Apple has released public beta 2 for a variety of its software platforms, including macOS Sequoia 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and more. These updates arrive just over one week after the first betas, and one day after developer versions.Installing the latest beta updatesMembers of Apples free beta software program gain advanced access to a variety of updates not yet released to the general public.Right now, the software in beta testing includes iOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, iPadOS 18.4, tvOS 18.4, HomePod 18.4, and watchOS 11.4. There is no visionOS beta available in public beta.To install the latest beta 2 updates, simply open the Software Update section inside the Settings app on your device.If youre new to the program, youll need to first enroll online.New beta 2 features in iPadOS 18.4, macOS 15.4, and moreJoining the variety of new features that arrived in the first public betas last weeklike the redesigned Mail appApple has added the following improvements in beta 2.There are seven new emoji built right into the emoji keyboard. These include:Face with bags under eyesFingerprintLeafless treeRoot vegetableHarpShovelSplatterEven though you could create these emoji on your own using Genmoji, its still important for Apple to add new emoji to the keyboard for all users to access.Apples Shortcuts app has gained lots of new actions by which to modify various settings in Apple apps. These additions will not only benefit Shortcuts users, but they also give us a glimpse into the expanded Siri app powers that are coming soon.Speaking of Siri, Control Center in iPadOS 18.4 offers a new Talk to Siri control to join the existing Type to Siri option. As for Apple Intelligence additions, the Priority Notifications feature added in beta 1 now lets you customize which apps can have their alerts included in the feature or not.If youre downloading App Store apps or updates, theres now a pause button you can use to temporarily pause a download. Previously, you had to cancel and start from scratch.Finally, if youre an Apple TV 4K user, theres one new change for you: the TV app has added a plus button to the shows and movies that display in the top carousel. This enables you to quickly add something to your watchlist from there.What are your favorite beta 2 changes in iPadOS 18.4 or another release? Let us know in the comments.Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Amazon's delivery drones became so disruptive to localsthat the tech giant is reportedly giving up on its pilot program in College Station, Texas.As Wired reports, the incredibly noisy aircraft quickly turned into a pest, with local master gardener Mark Smith describing the cacophony as if "your neighbor runs their leaf blower all day long.""It was just incessant," he told the publication.Apart from irking the locals, Amazon's experiment to make last-mile deliveries using drones has run into plenty of challenges, from regulatory hurdles to severe technical limitations.In College Station, a city 90 minutes northwest of Houston, the drones have united a dreaded foe of any local project: NIMBYs who became fed up with the racket. As Wired reports, hundreds of residents joined to oppose Amazon's proposal to more than double the number of daily drone flights.Despite the Federal Aviation Administration ultimately deciding that locals' complaints were "meritless or outside its purview," Amazon has seemingly taken the concerns to heart.The company reduced the number of flights, switched to a quieter drone, and is planning to let its lease in College Station expire by the end of September.And the project, launched in 2022 and hyped immensely by Amazon, is seemingly already winding down, with Smith telling Wired that he hasn't seen a drone in weeks.Amazon has launched its drones in three locations so far: College Station, a depot in rural California, and near one of its warehouses outside of Phoenix, Arizona.Its pilot in California was shut down in April 2024. If it were to shut down its services in College Station as well, its only location left would be in Arizona.Overall, it feels like the project is turning into a major headache for Amazon. In January, the company had to pause all of its drone deliveries after two of its latest models crashed due to rain at a testing facility in Oregon, Bloomberg reported at the time.Last year, Wired also found that its delivery drones simply couldn't bear the extreme heat in Arizona and had to be grounded when temperatures exceeded 104 degrees Fahrenheit.Meanwhile, its competitor at Alphabet subsidiary Wing is racing ahead, and is looking for regulatory approval for a proposed 30,000 daily flights over Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, three times as many as before.More on delivery drones: Elderly Florida Man Arrested for Shooting Walmart Delivery DroneShare This Article

If "failure is the mother of success," as the old Chinese proverb goes, then Tesla is long overdue for some wins.Once thought to be something of a golden goose for Tesla thanks to ultra-friendly EV policies, Chinese drivers are now avoiding Teslas like the plague. In February, Tesla's sales in China dropped a whopping 49.2 percent compared to the previous year, contributing to a 28.7 percent sales plummet over the last 12 months.Though some have noted the slump corresponds with the Lunar New Year typically a slow time for Chinese consumer sales Tesla's Chinese competitor BYD notched a whopping 90.4 percent increasein sales over the same month. In short: it's not looking great for Tesla.The numbers are both yet another knock for Tesla's growing sales woes due to Elon Musk's political meddling, and an indication of the rabidly competitive corporate market in China a commercial environment some argue is more truly capitalist than America's.One major factor: the sheer volume of tech companies in China eking out any edge they can get as sometimes hundreds of fledgling businesses nip at their heels. Rather than shying away from imitation, Chinese companies proudly undermine similar business ventures with tactics like reverse engineering, aggressive product-first marketing, and price undercutting.One prominent example on the world stage lately has been Chinese AI startup DeepSeek a now-famous software company making waves for its streamlined approach to LLM development.Contrast that to the US, where a handful of tech monopolies have been propped up by generous government handouts in order to ensure delivery of lethal military hardware, cheap consumer goods, and an American-dominated global information space.In the Chinese EV world, where over 200 EV manufacturers battle it out for mere morsels of the overall market some backed by Beijingand Wall Street at the same time that means Tesla must adjust to the breakneck pace of the country's innovation.So far, Musk's cash cow is falling way short ofthoseexpectations. In January, the company recalled over one million EVs in China due to dangerous software issues across four different Tesla models. Earlier in 2024, the EV giant was forced to recall over 1.5 million Chinese EVs due to issues with a faulty trunk latch that could pop open while driving.In February, it was reported that the rollout of Musk's long-promised Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature in China would be delayed indefinitely by Beijing lawmakers, becoming something of a bargaining chip in Donald Trump's escalating trade war. The Chinese government later reversed course, allowing Tesla to start rolling out FSD in late February. That has also been a disaster, with Chinese Tesla drivers racking up finesIt may be just as well, as less than 10 percent of Chinese Teslas are said to be eligible for the costly feature. Meanwhile, some Chinese EV companies have already rolled out FSD capabilities to the vast majority of users at no additional cost.Though this doesn't spell the end of Tesla's EV dominance just yet, it's nonetheless another major headache for the company's stakeholders to nurse as they mull whether Musk's risk is worth the reward.More on Tesla: Wave of Vandalism and Protests Hit TeslaShare This Article

You'll soon see a big change in how your Gmail account is secured and your two-factor authenticated logins are handled. Google has said it's planning to stop sending 2FA codes via text message to verify Gmail accounts in favor of security tools such as passkeys and QR codes that you would scan with your device.Google says SMS messaging for 2FA has become increasingly problematic, asreported earlier by Forbes, as scammers and fraudsters use the technology to spoof user accounts.Ross Richendrfer, head of security and privacy public relations at Google, confirmed this to CNET. He said Google will be "reimagining" how the company verifies phone numbers. Gmail and other Google services will shift from texting six-digit codes over SMS to sending a QR code that a user can verify."Just like we want to move past passwords with the use of things like passkeys, we want to move away from sending SMS messages for authentication," Richendrfer said.The goal would be to eliminate instances of users sharing their SMS code with a scammer who has tricked them and eliminate phone carriers as a possible point of breach. Some scammers, Google says, use SMS messages for a scam called "traffic pumping" that allows them to get paid for SMS messages.Richendrfer says using QR codes will reduce the risks of phishing, cut down on global SMS abuse and make users less reliant on their phone carriers."SMS codes are a source for heightened risk for users we're pleased to introduce an innovative new approach to shrink the surface area for attackers and keep users safer from malicious activity," he said.Gmail also uses other 2FA methods such as sending a user to the Gmail app to verify a login as well as its own security software, Google Authenticator.A necessary move for securityGoogle is not the only company to move away from SMS for 2FA. Last year, Evernote removed SMS from its service, and the secure messaging app Signal removed it in 2022. X, Apple and Microsoft have also transitioned users off SMS, too. Google has been signaling a transition away from SMS since as early as 2017.Experts say the move is not unexpected and probably necessary for Google."Google moving away from SMS-based logins is a smart step for security -- and while it may seem like an inconvenience at first, it's a necessary step toward stronger protection, Amy Bunn, an online safety advocate at McAfee, told CNET."Cybercrooks can hijack phone numbers through SIM-swapping, intercept security codes, and even lock people out of their accounts," Bunn said. "That's why more companies, including Google, are shifting to safer login methods like passkeys and authentication apps."Rob Allen, chief product officer at the security company ThreatLocker said that SMS for two-factor authentication, "is probably the least-preferred 2FA (process). While it is definitely better to have than no 2FA, it is certainly the least secure."Allen said that using an authenticator app on a mobile phone is a much-more secure way to utilize two-factor authentication."It's good to see companies moving towarda more secure environment," he added.

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OpinionMarch 4, 20255 min readNeuroscientists Should Set a High Bar for Evidence against Free WillNeuroscience research claiming to question the existence of free will may have been misinterpreted Jorg Greuel/Getty ImagesDo you believe in free will? Some scholars do notand they rely on evidence from the brain sciences to make their case. Some people find the dismissal of the idea that we are in control of our decisions and actions to be deeply disturbing. We, as professionals active in the field, know they do because we regularly receive their e-mails askingoften in desperationabout neuroscientific studies that seem to threaten the possibility of free will. Most of these assertions rest on scientists claiming to anticipate or predict choices based on brain activity observed before a person in an experiment is even aware of what their own choice will be. Free will naysayers contend that unconscious brain processes may initiate an action that a person then erroneously believes to be set in motion by their own volition.But what if the results of that research were misconstrued, with the devil lurking in the fine details that most people do not read or do not understand?Neuroscience research going back to the early 1980s claimed to demonstrate that conscious free will is an illusion (conscious free willrefers to our conscious decisions determining our actions). These results accumulated like nails in the coffin of free will, offered up by neuroscientists and hammered in by the mainstream media, until, in 2016, the Atlantic declared, Theres no such thing as free will.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Not so fast. More recent studies, combining empirical data and computational modeling, suggest this prior research had been misinterpreted, and none of it bears on conscious free will one way or another. Neuroscience, we conclude, has not disproven conscious free will.Many cognitive neuroscientists in the field, including former no-free-will proponents, now acknowledge that the supposed neuroscientific evidence against it is dubious. Unfortunately, the public still hasnt heard the news, and the idea that neuroscience has disproven conscious free will, or even free will in general, still hangs in the air.Once the sole purview of philosophers, free will and consciousness have been increasingly studied by neuroscientists. These topics differ from other areas of study in neuroscience in that they matter deeply to most, if not all, of humanity. In contrast, few would lose sleep over the relative importance of other human attributes, such as whether people can directly sense magnetic fields (magnetoreception).Science often moves forward by posing hypotheses that are later modified or rejected. Given the deep existential nature of research on volition, however, we face two very important questions: Where should we set the bar for evidence claiming to bear on free will? And how should we evaluate and interpret such evidence to know if or when it has been met?Recognizing what philosophers of science call inductive risk, or the costs of potential errors, we should set the bar high. The cost of mistakenly denying free will is considerable, as those troubled letters we received show. And there is good reason to doubt the evidence often cited. The neuroscience of volition typically focuses on immediate (or proximal) and meaningless decisions, (like press the button from time to time, whenever you feel like it, for no reason at all). The decisions we care about with respect to free will and responsibility, however, are ones that are meaningful and often have longer time horizons. Perhaps many, or even most, of our day-to-day decisionschoosing when to take the next sip from your water cup or which foot to put forwardare not acts of conscious free will. But maybe some decisions are. Fortunately, or unfortunately, those consequential ones are the most difficult ones to study.What would it take for neuroscience to disprove conscious free will? The evidence must clearly show that people settle on a decision unawares. Here the devil is indeed in the details of predicting behavior and inferring consciousness from brain activity. For example, using machine learning to predict behavior in advance of the conscious decision will not necessarily tell us much. Consider a simple free choice of pressing a button with your right hand or your left hand, where predictions that are about 60 percent correct might be statistically significant (compared with a coin toss of roughly 50 percent); such predictive power would not undermine conscious free will.Why not? Because a 60 percent accurate prediction might just pick up on a tendency toward one alternative or the other rather than a firm decision. Moreover, many of us have enduring preferences and character traits that affect some decisions, and it would be surprising if such choices were not at least somewhat predictable in advance based on brain activity. In addition, because consciousness and decision-making play out over time and rely on past experiences, prediction need not indicate determination. Thus, in such cases, the details of performance of the machine-learning classifier do matter, not just whether it is significantly above chance. In fact, anything less than close-to-perfect predictive accuracy may be equivocal.In addition, neuroscience results depend on their data-analysis method, which can mislead. For example, some digital data filters can, in effect, leak future information into the past, and analyses involving a sliding window can inadvertently allow the systems data analysis to peek into the very future that it is trying to predict. The devil, again, is in the details.These considerations matter because new scientific data on free will are on the horizon, mainly because of the proliferation of invasive recordings from surgically implanted brain electrodes in humans. An informed reader needs to know what evidence would truly falsify conscious free will and what would not.To be clear, we are not arguing for or against the existence of conscious free will; we are talking about the data here and the way to know whether those data constitute evidence that undermines conscious free will. We must ensure that the paradigms that we investigate in neuroscience allow us to draw conclusions about the actions that pertain to conscious free will. For many behaviors, being predictable to some degree should not surprise us: Does it undermine your free will if we predict that you will brush your teeth before going to bed tonight?The neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has taken a different approach. He discounts the brain data and instead focuses on statistical regularitiesfor example, that early-childhood adversity can negatively impact the kind of choices we make and outcomes we experience later in life. He argues in his book Determined that we are part of a deterministic world over which we have no influence and that statistics like the childhood adversity findings bear this out. We do not deny the reality of regularities; our actions today may indeed be constrained (or partly determined) by our past environment or experiences. But just how much constraint is enough to rob us of free will? The lack of very high predictability in those statistics leaves plenty of room for acts of conscious free will (again, it would be strange if your early life experiences had no effect whatsoever on your later life).Finally, we note that a single human brain is arguably far more complex than the entire Earths atmosphere, and we cant even predict the weather more than a few days into the future. So throwing sophisticated AI at brain data is unlikely to enable us to predict future brain states based on past ones, at least any time soon. We leave open the possibility that we will get there one day (though you are free to disagree). But one thing is clear: we are not there yet.This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

Grand Theft Auto 5's next-gen upgrades finally arrive on PCAs part of free update for existing players.Image credit: Eurogamer/Rockstar Games News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on March 4, 2025 Three years after the launch of Grand Theft Auto 5's Expanded & Enhanced edition on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, the game's next-gen features have - just as Rockstar promised last month - finally made the jump to PC in a free update for all existing users.From today, Grand Theft Auto 5 Legacy (as the original PC version is now being referred to) has been delisted from PC store fronts to make way for GTA 5 Enhanced. And as per Rockstar's announcement, this new edition introduces a range of features, including new vehicles, new ambient wildlife, and support for Rockstar's GTA+ subscription service.It also adds new graphics options, including the ray traced shadows and reflections first introduced on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, alongside other additions - such as ambient occlusion and global illumination - exclusive to PC. That's in addition to support for higher resolutions, higher aspect ratios, and higher framerates, as well as AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS support - with Frame Generation support coming at a later date.Digital Foundry took at look at GTA 5's next-gen updates in 2022.Watch on YouTubeElsewhere, DualSense controller owners can now use its adaptive triggers during gameplay, and Rockstar is also touting faster loading times via SSD and DirectStorage, as well as enhanced audio - including Dolby Atmos, and improved fidelity of speech, cinematics, and music.And for Grand Theft Auto Online players, the updated PC version gets kernel-based anti-cheat protections and proactive voice chat moderation, as well as the lies of new vehicles, Chameleon Paints, and high-performance mods from Hao's Special Works. All this comes with a higher set of minimum and recommended PC specifications, but anyone unable to meet those increased demands can still access Grand Theft Auto 5 Legacy via the game's launcher. Be aware, though, the two versions are considered entirely separate, meaning friends will all need to be using the same version if they want to play together. Additionally, it's necessary to migrate Story Mode and Online progress to the new edition.To coincide with the launch of GTA 5 Enchanced, Rockstar is discounting the game by 50 percent on Steam and the Epic store, bringing the price down to 14.99 until 20th March.All this PC activity comes as Rockstar prepares to release GTA 6 this autumn - although publisher Take-Two has hinted the PC version won't arrive until later. That tallies with recent claims by accessories company Corsair Gaming, which suggested the PC release isn't due until "early 2026".

Here's our first batch of Xbox Game Pass titles for March33 Immortals! Monster Train! More!Image credit: Microsoft/Thunder Lotus/Eurogamer News by Victoria Kennedy News Reporter Published on March 4, 2025 Microsoft has announced its first wave of Game Pass titles for March.Day one releases with this batch of games include co-op action-roguelike 33 Immortals. "Play as a damned soul, and rebel against God's final judgment. Dive straight into epic, 33-player co-op battles with instant 'pick-up and raid' matchmaking," reads the official blurb. "Cooperate with your allies to survive against hordes of monsters and massive, challenging bosses. Expand your arsenal and equip powerful new relics to permanently upgrade your soul."Meanwhile, the critically acclaimed deck-building roguelike Monster Train is making its return to the service across Cloud, Console, and PC.Here's everything coming to Game Pass in the coming weeks.Monster Train - Cloud, Console, and PC via Game Pass Standard, Ultimate and PC Game Pass - 4th MarchGalacticare - Xbox Series X/S, now with Game Pass Standard - 5th MarchOne Lonely Outpost - Cloud, Console and PC via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass - 6th MarchEnter the Gungeon - Cloud, Console and PC via Game Pass Standard, Ultimate and PC Game Pass - 11th MarchMullet Madjack - Cloud, PC and Xbox Series X/S via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass - 13th March33 Immortals (Game Preview) - Cloud, PC and Xbox Series X/S via Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass - 18th MarchDoes Anyone Really Want Long Games Anymore? Watch on YouTubeIn addition, and as is the case with every new batch of games, the following titles will be leaving Game Pass on 15th March:Evil West (Cloud, Console, and PC)Lies of P (Cloud, Console, and PC)No More Heroes 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC)Solar Ash (Cloud, Console, and PC)SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated (Cloud, Console, and PC)Yakuza 5 Remastered (Cloud, Console, and PC)Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (Cloud, Console, and PC)If you want to keep playing these games after they leave Game Pass, you'll need to purchase them. On the plus side, Game Pass subscribers get a 20 percent discount.For everything else in Microsoft's subscription service, you can check out our handy Xbox Game Pass guide detailing the many titles available.

"I'm a slasher... of prices!".Nintendo has announced that it is discounting several first-party retail titles on Nintendo Switch to coincide with the upcoming MAR10 Day celebrations (that's 10th March in case it wasn't incredibly obvious).Available on 9th March 2025, six games will be discounted down to a suggested retail price of $39.99, while one more will benefit from an even heavier discount, retailing at $29.99.Read the full article on nintendolife.com