YTechnology

In the 1983 movie " WarGames ," a young Matthew Broderick and a likeable AI come to a tense nuclear moment. The AI concludes "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." Today, in 2026, amidst a tense AI spend and scramble, Apple has come to the same conclusion: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." yahoo/finance's article  Apple Skipped the AI Arms Race ...  shows how Apple is thinking different .  Instead of spending billions like Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta, Apple will use its platform to host AI assistants -- Claude, Gemini, Copilot -- and let the user choose among them. Apple, with its M series chips and unified memory, can support AI locally and privately on the device, rather than remotely, in a data center somewhere. Admittedly, success is also partly luck. Apple avoided the AI scramble because it struggled to upgrade the foundations of Siri. Viewed as a running race, Apple was still lacing up its sneakers...

Every written and spoken word about the Apple Studio Display is true. The brushed aluminum hardware is beautiful. The panel, sharp and vibrant, is stunning.  And the price, starting at $1599, is crazy high. Back in 2022, I was merely  thinking about getting one. By 2025, those thoughts turned into reality. I purchased the display and maxed it out with the height adjustable stand and the nano texture glass. Now in 2026, my heart is a little heavy because Apple just released a new 2026 Studio Display . More on that later. My old iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch) had a very glossy panel, and I struggled during the day with mirrored sunlight from my windows and a skylight, and at night with reflections from a lamp. The nano texture glass effectively neutralized them all without sacrificing image quality. It was well worth the added cost. Over time, I discovered two things not discussed much: The ambient light sensor is not in or near the camera lens. The display continuously draws 11-1...

  It's an all too common attack. Hackers break C code by finding a way to re-use a freed pointer. A recent exploit was serious enough for Google to issue an emergency Chrome update. For a business perspective, read the Forbes article . For a technical look, watch the youtube video from Low Level . This is an old problem with an old, and apparently forgotten, solution. I've written about before: Pointers Don't Create Memory Bugs, Programmers Do . Just set your pointer to NULL after freeing it:      free (ptr);      ptr = NULL; It's a simple measure , and can be made even simpler with a macro:     #define FREE(ptr)    (free(ptr), ptr = NULL)  Thus, any subsequent use of the NULL pointer will trigger a segment fault (crash) and make any exploit useless. A bonus benefit is that it could catch stray pointers in development and QA, rather than have them wait silently in production. While this technique won't catch every use-aft...

  This is the Keychron Q3 Pro TKL. Normally costing $150, Keychron offered it for $125 configured with banana switches. I thought I was getting a deal but I failed to read the fine print. Because the keyboard was shipped from China, DHL invoiced me $25 to cover the tariff. This is not an uncommon story, as any coffee drinker will tell you. You can probably find this keyboard stocked a US warehouse, and thereby avoid any tariffs, but I was looking for the banana switches which are tactile. Think  Gatreon Brown or Nuphy's Wisteria  switches. The Keychron Q3 Pro is a good keyboard with some quirks.  Mechanical, full height with a heavy aluminum base (~3.5 pounds!), it supports three bluetooth connections and one wired connection. The OEM keycaps are sculpted, feel deep, and have a sharp edge. All that works fine until you press a key on the bottom row. The well defined keycap edge cuts into your thumbs, especially when pressing the spacebar. For a work around, look clos...

While reaching behind my computer, I banged my Apple Watch 4. The crystal was unfazed, but the watch itself, which I bought in 2019, was feeling large, heavy, and tired. The battery barely holds a charge for a day. I could buy a new Apple Watch, but I was looking for something smaller, lighter, and  simpler .   The first incarnation of the Pebble Watch was introduced in 2013 and discontinued in 2016. Pictured above is the just released, second incarnation called the Pebble 2 Duo . which I pre-ordered for $149 and now sits on my wrist.  From the price alone, it's clear the Pebble is not a replacement for the iWatch. The iWatch has a touch screen, more sensors, and a password lock to protect the data it measures and stores. More durable, you can take the iWatch to the beach for a salt water swim, whereas the Pebble risks corrosion and seal breaches (it has real buttons) if exposed for extended periods. The Pebble, however, can wade into the Apple ecosystem and do alright. ...

From Clicky To Quiet: Blue, Brown, Wisteria, Red My Nuphy Air75 mechanical keyboard seems to drop keys occasionally. I ordered it with blue switches, the clickiest available, and also the ones that require the most operating force. This could explain (some of) the dropped keys. Apple keyboards, with scissor switches, have short travel distances and don’t require much force. With muscle memory ingrained, my fingers just glide over the keys with speed and accuracy. But mechanical keyboards provide better, even addictive, tactile feedback. They also offer auditory feedback which, on a subconscious level, helps with focus. Operating forces from the   Nuphy website : Blue operating force: 65±15gf end force: 70±5gf Brown operating force: 55±15gf end force: 60±5gf Wisteria operating force: 55±15gf end force: 50±5gf Red operating force: 50±15gf end force: 60±5gf All switches have the same total travel distance of 3.2+0.2mm Wisteria sits alongside Brown, between Blue and Red. Wisteria’s end...