…And Type-C For All: What Happened This Week?

The European Union woke up and chose violence. Actually no, they’ve been at it for a while now, and just declared Type-C cables mandatory for all, including the dear old Lightning port iPhone. And that’s going to be the highlight of this weekly tech news roundup.

Other than this big news, NASA created an official task force to look into UFO occurrences, and NFTs proved to be a really bad investment for someone. Let’s get started with what Europe just did.

Weekly tech news roundup

…And type-C for all

The EU has been trying to reign in big tech as well parts of big tech that are a menace. Its latest hit is the recent order where the EU has declared that all electronics need to have Type-C ports for charging by 2024.

These include smartphones, cameras, laptops, and other everyday electronics. While most phones already have a Type-C port, Apple’s iPhone is likely to be the worst hit as the company hasn’t still parted ways with its proprietary connector.

Anyhow, the EU’s move is going to cut down e-waste and also the number of cables you need to carry with you every day, so it’s a win-win.

NASA’s UFO research committee

While the EU is interested in human convenience, NASA wants to know if the jetpack guy is really a guy or extraterrestrials. The association has put together a team to look into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

So it isn’t really to just confirm if we have UFOs on Earth, the committee will focus on finding answers to bizarre things unexplained so far. NASA will use the available data and find ways to gather new data on unexplained occurrences and try to find an explanation for these.

WWDC 2022

This weekly tech news roundup would be incomplete without WWDC 2022. First up, Apple unveiled iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, adding powerful new features and giving the iOS a complete redesign. The company has also made it clear that the M-series chips will get the sweeter stuff.

This is because some of the iPadOS features will be M1 iPad exclusives. If that tickles your curiosity, you should read about Apple’s plans for a 14.1-inch iPad Pro.

Next up, Apple announced macOS Ventura, bringing design changes and powerful new features. You can check here if your Mac is getting macOS Ventura. But that’s not all. I think Apple wants to be known for the notch. And I say so as the company has now launched a new M2 chip-powered MacBook Air with a notch.

NFTs and Twitter deal

This week we also saw how unstable NFTs can get. Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, which was sold as an NFT for $2.9 million, is now valued at $29. Various reports also suggest the NFT market is plummeting, which has hit this particular NFT too.

However, Sina Estavi, the crypto expert, is optimistic about the market. So much so that he has offered to buy Elon Musk’s first tweet for $44 million. What do you think of the NFT craze? Let us know in the comments.

Speaking of Elon Musk though, he is giving Twitter a tough time. The company has reportedly decided to give Musk full access to firehose, a stream of all tweets on the platform. Roughly 500 million tweets go through firehose every day, and it is the source where Musk can how Twitter separates bots from real people.

Racist AI and taser drones

Two things that should scare you mentally and physically respectively. A YouTuber recently created the worst AI ever using 4chan. He fed the AI tons of data from the 4chan forum, which is known for its ill-mannered anonymous users. As a result, the AI chatbot posted hundreds of offensive comments on the forum.

If you’re not worried about the racial AI, you should be worried about taser drones. Axon, the company that created the original taser, decided to make a taser-equipped drone to guard schools against incidents like the one in Texas. However, the company’s fighting-fire-with-fire approach was short-lived as multiple members of its ethics board threatened to resign if it went ahead with the taser drone.

Unreleased gadgets go for sale

What if I told you that you can buy the unreleased Google Pixel 6a online right now. And if you’re in the Apple camp, you can buy the yet unreleased Mac Mini from the B&H Store online. Please don’t really try to buy these from the stores as the listings are either just leaks or fakes.

However, as realistic as they look, if you check them out you can see what the Pixel 6a will look like. The same applies to the next-gen Mac Mini. And if you’re interested in rumors, you should also check out the Nothing Phone (1) specifications.

Samsung’s steroid phones and Qualcomm’s powerhouses

Hot topic time! Smartphones! After it pulled off the folding and flipping phones, fans have been expecting more and more from Samsung. The latest developments say the Korean phone maker is busy working on a 1TB storage foldable phone.

While that’s the storage upgrade for the foldable, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra can pack a sick 200MP camera. Imagine all the image-processing prowess meeting the sheer muscle of a 200MP sensor. It could change smartphone photography, and the phone camera bump forever.

Many flagships, including Samsung’s, use Qualcomm’s chips to power them. So to catch up with the quickly accelerating smartphone scene, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is expected to come with a revised architecture. Qualcomm is reportedly going with a 1+2+2+3 CPU configuration, which is completely different from the current design.

The tenth weekly tech news roundup: What else?

Tesla popularized electric as well as self-driving cars, but its own autopilot is now under scrutiny. U.S. regulators are investigating Tesla autopilot as a reason for 16 crashes in the past. If the investigation goes sideways for Tesla, the company may have to recall or even roll back its autopilot system.

In other news, a recent report says that ransomware attacks on healthcare sector have gone up by 94% in the past year. However, the sector seems to be catching up with hackers by deploying better privacy measures and keeping its shields up.

Lastly, two new stories from Meta, formerly Facebook. First, it now trading with the Meta ticker, and second, Zuckerberg’s social media team decided to get back at Apple. Mark Zuckerberg recently posted a picture on Facebook, and it had his MacBook’s Apple logo photoshopped out of it.

That’s all for this weekly tech news roundup. Do let us know which story caught your attention and what else you think we should cover here. Happy weekend!