After we saw first impressions and some early benchmarks for the Mac Pro, YouTuber Jonathan Morrison has partnered up with two successful music producers to see how the new pro machine performs during a recording session in Logic Pro X.

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At least one major provider of hardware-level BIOS drivers is actively deleting old stuff it no longer supports, while old FTP sites where vintage drivers are often found are soon going to be harder to reach. Ernie Smith, writing for Motherboard: You've never lived until you've had to download a driver from an archived forum post on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. You have no idea if it's going to work, but it's your only option. So you bite the bullet. I recently did this with a PCI-based SATA card I was attempting to flash to support a PowerPC-based Mac, and while it was a bit of a leap of faith, it actually ended up working. Score one for chance. But this, increasingly, feels like it may be a way of life for people trying to keep old hardware alive -- despite the fact that all the drivers generally have to do is simply sit on the internet, available when they're necessary. Apparently, that isn't easy enough for Intel. Recently, the chipmaker took BIOS drivers, a boot-level firmware technology used for hardware initialization in earlier generations of PCs, for a number of its unsupported motherboards off its website, citing the fact that the programs have reached an "End of Life" status. While it reflects the fact that Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), a later generation of firmware technology used in PCs and Macs, is expected to ultimately replace BIOS entirely, it also leaves lots of users with old gadgets out in a lurch. And as Bleeping Computer has noted, it appears to be part of a broader trend to prevent downloads for unsupported hardware on the Intel website -- things that have long lived past their current lives. After all, if something goes wrong, Intel can be sure it's not liable if a 15-year-old BIOS update borks a system.

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We often hear stories of Apple Watch playing a role in saving someone’s life, but this time it was Siri on iPhone. KIMT News in Iowa tells the story of Gael Salcedo, an 18-year-old who was on his way to classes at North Iowa Area Community College when he hit a patch of ice on the road.

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Kyle Wiggers, writing for VentureBeat: In January during the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Google debuted interpreter mode, a real-time translation feature for Google Home speakers and third-party smart displays like those from JBL, Sony, LG, and Lenovo. The tech giant said at the time that interpreter mode would eventually come to mobile devices, but it didn't set a date. The date is today, as it turns out. As of this morning, Google Assistant on both Android and iOS smartphones supports interpreter mode, enabling you to ask for directions, order food, or simply chat in a foreign language. The number of recognized languages has increased from 27 to 44, and interpreter mode now lets you optionally type using a keyboard or manually select the language in which you'd like to speak. Saying a command like "Hey Google, be my German translator" or "Hey Google, help me speak Thai" kicks off interpreter mode. You'll see and hear the translated conversation on your phone, and after each translation, Google Assistant might present suggestions (like "Nien" or "Ju tut et") that let you quickly respond.

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Aside from all-new Apple Watch connectivity, Orangetheory also announced a membership program along with apps for coaches and sales associates to further enhance the member experience.

Square Enix's popular role-playing game has received a surprise release on iOS in form of a remastered version with updated graphics, controls and more.

Apple Watch users will soon be able to share heart rate data with Orangetheory Fitness machines without using a separate dedicated heart rate monitor. The popular fitness club unveiled its new OTbeat Link accessory today for using the Apple Watch to track heart rate data during workouts.

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I reviewed Woolnut’s previous-generation MacBook Pro Sleeve last year and concluded that it was at least as good as the official Apple one – better in a couple of ways – for half the price. The latest version, the MacBook Pro leather Folio, improves on the protection via a two-sided zip closure but costs more…

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The details of millions of Iranian bank cards were published online after antigovernment protests last month. Experts suspect a state-sponsored cyberattack. From a report: After demonstrators in Iran set fire to hundreds of bank branches last month in antigovernment protests, the authorities dealt with another less visible banking threat that is only now coming to fuller light: a security breach that exposed the information of millions of Iranian customer accounts. As of Tuesday, details of 15 million bank debit cards in Iran had been published on social media in the aftermath of the protests, unnerving customers and forcing the government to acknowledge a problem. The exposure represented the most serious banking security breach in Iran, according to Iranian media and a law firm representing some of the victims. The breach, which targeted customers of Iran's three largest banks, was likely to further rattle an economy already reeling from the effects of American sanctions and came as Iran's leadership was grappling with deep-seated anger over its deadly crackdown on the protests. The number of affected accounts represents close to a fifth of the country's population. "This is the largest financial scam in Iran's history," reported Aftab News, a conservative media outlet. "Millions of Iranians are worried to find their names among the list of hacked accounts."

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Apple is scheduled to open a brand new brick-and-mortar store in Kawasaki, Japan this coming Saturday, December 14, marking its tenth store opening in the 127 million people country.... Read the rest of this post here "A new retail store...

The two biggest OS (operating system) makers in China announced plans last week to unite and jointly build a new "domestic operating system." From a report: The two companies are China Standard Software (CS2C) and Tianjin Kylin Information (TKC), two of China's largest software firms, with known ties to the Beijing government. Both companies are known on the local Chinese OS market. CS2C created "China's Windows XP clone," known as the NeoKylin OS, and TKC is the current steward of Kylin, China's first-ever homegrown operating system. CS2C and TKC plan to set up a new company in which they'll become investors, and through which the new joint OS will be developed. The new company will handle the new operating system's development, technological decisions, marketing, branding, financials, and sales. The current Kylin and NeoKylin operating systems will serve as a base for the new OS, the two said.

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This week, a few different financial analysts are reporting pessimism towards Apple iPhone 11 shipments. Rosenblatt reported that Apple is reducing production by about 25%.

Today, Credit Suisse analyst Matt Cabral said that shipments of iPhone in China fell more than 35% in November, compared to the same month in 2018. Apple infamously suffered a mass slowdown in China iPhone demand for the holiday quarter in 2018, so a fall compared to that reduced level is possibly significant.

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Apple’s agreement to put $200M into the bailout of supplier Japan Display has reassured other investors, and resulted in a new $830 investment from an asset manager, helping the company’s move into making OLED screens for the Apple Watch…

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google co-founder Larry Page is funneling money from his charitable foundation to a private flu-fighting initiative run as a for-profit company, TechCrunch reported. The program offers free flu shots to children in Oakland, California-area schools. Page also has a second company funding efforts to create a universal flu vaccine, according to the report. The free flu shots are offered through a group called Shoo The Flu, which started funding flu shots for both elementary and kindergarten through eighth grade schools in 2014. Shoo the Flu reimburses the Alameda County Public Health Department and school districts for the cost of the program. The second company, Flu Lab, provides funding for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenge for Universal Influenza Vaccine Development. Page and his family were initially contributing funding to the challenge directly, but they were replaced by Flu Lab. Flu Lab also supports the nonprofit Sabin Vaccine Institute, which works to expand vaccine access. The funding established the Sabin-Aspen Vaccine Science & Policy Group, which met in 2018 to discuss efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine. Shoo the Flu's director is also the CEO of Flu Lab, and TechCrunch reported that Shoo the Flu will soon move under the umbrella of Flu Lab. The report notes that both Shoo the Flu and Flu Lab are private, for-profit companies and therefore not required to file public tax returns. "However, the funding for Shoo the Flu comes from Page's charitable foundation, the Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation, which does have to file public returns," reports The Verge. "That makes the money flowing into the company public; Page's foundation gave Shoo the Flu over $4.1 million between 2015 and 2017, TechCrunch reported. What the organization did with that money is not as readily available."

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Apple has defended its policy of using strong iPhone encryption such that not even the company can gain access to the personal data stored on devices.

The company struck to its privacy guns despite the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman issuing a threat against Apple and other tech giants …

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Make sure that you can find your group conversations quickly when you need to; here’s how to name a group text in Messages on iOS and Mac.

Opera GX is now available for the Mac. It's a web browser with a range of features especially designed to cater to gamers, with networking, CPU and memory throttles and more.

Apple likes to boast about how much thought it put into the little things, and that includes the new Mac Pro fans.

The funky-looking lattice grille that gives the new Mac Pro its distinctive look got a lot of attention when the machine was first unveiled back in June. More air than metal, the grille plays a key role in both passive cooling and allowing efficient extraction of air pulled though by the fans, but plenty of work went into designing the fans themselves …

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Is your iCloud Keychain not working right? Maybe it won’t autofill or save your information like it should? Here’s what you can do to fix it.

Apple TV Channels are a convenient way to sign up to your favorite networks and watch all their content natively in the Apple TV app, with the App Store handling all billing. However, at least for CBS, it is possible to use your Apple TV Channels account to log in to the native CBS apps and website. Here’s how.

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