With streaming services bundling up and raising prices, investing in DVDs or 4K Blu-rays is starting to sound like a good idea; it lets you watch the title whenever you’d like and avoid making a recurring purchase.
And if you already collect Blu-rays, have a collection, or are inclined to try them, we have some good news. Thanks to Studio Distribution Services, which handles the physical releases for Universal Pictures and Warner Bros, you’ll soon be able to buy 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVDs at 132 Fred Meyer grocery stores and 170 GameStop stores in the United States, along with GameStop.com.
This means that titles like Dune: Part II will soon be available physically and with potentially higher-quality visuals. This way, you can enjoy the film and get immersed without worrying about buffering, bitrates, or even having an internet connection. The release announcing the partnership notes that titles at Fred Meyer and GameStop will cycle and be feature-length films and TV shows.
Your first disc
Dune: Part II will be the first at Fred Meyer, available at 132 stores on May 14, 2024. However, the partnership will expand with more titles and larger displays. The GameStop rollout will be more prominent from the start, with 20 titles on a main wall at the 170 stores across the United States. You’ll also find a mix of 4K UHD, Blu-rays, and classic DVDs. It also makes a lot of sense, considering the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 feature disc drives with support for playback.
This is a big expansion for both retailers that will get all three types of discs in front of more folks. For those who have previously gone to retailers like BestBuy, which have since discontinued offering the physical media discs, this is a win for the category and for retailers that sell them.
If you’re planning to visit Fred Meyer or GameStop, check out TechRadar’s guide on how to get started with 4K Blu-rays, including the best players to watch them on.
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Apple Vision Pro, Apple’s $3,500 spatial computing device, appears to be following a pattern familiar to the AR/VR headset industry – initial enthusiasm giving way to a significant dip in sustained interest and usage.
Since its debut in the U.S. in February 2024, excitement for the Apple Vision Pro has noticeably cooled, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman reports a marked decline in the demand for retail demos and sales, based on the Apple Stores he has spoken to:
Demand for demos is way down. People who do book appointments often don’t show up, and sales — at least at some locations — have gone from a couple of units a day to just a handful in a whole week. Apple also has had to step up the marketing on its online homepage. There’s a huge promo for the Vision Pro at the top of the website — the most aggressive pitch since the device went on sale in early February.
The trend that Apple Vision Pro appears to be following is less likely to be a retail anomaly, and more indicative of a broader issue that has plagued VR technology from its inception: Maintaining user engagement after the initial novelty wears off.
Gurman offers his personal experience of Apple’s headset as a microcosm of what he suspects is a wider user trend. His own usage has decreased from daily interactions to just once or twice a week. A significant barrier to more frequent use, he says, is a setup that involves attaching batteries, booting up, and navigating a complex interface, which makes traditional devices like laptops and smartphones more appealing for regular tasks.
Gurman also blames the Vision Pro’s lack of a “killer app” and compelling content for further diminishing the headset’s appeal. He notes that it feels better suited to solitary activities – say, on a long flight or while working from home – rather than for use in social situations or around co-workers.
It seems Apple still has a considerable task ahead in evolving the Vision Pro into a device that redefines everyday technology use. In the meantime, several bugs that initially plagued visionOS have been resolved, although many of Apple’s own apps are still not optimized for the device’s operating system.
In the last visionOS update, Apple added Spatial Personas, which make it feel like you are in the same virtual room as another Vision Pro user. Spatial Personas can be used for watching movies and TV shows together, FaceTime and other video calls, using apps like Freeform, playing games, and more. However, the feature needs other Vision Pro owners to appreciate it, and as Gurman notes, they are still few and far between.
Apple is expected to produce fewer than 400,000 Vision Pro headsets in 2024 due to the complexity of manufacturing, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. However, Apple is said to be already working on a new version of the Apple Vision Pro for 2025 that will be priced more affordably. Meanwhile, the first incarnation of the headset is expected to arrive in additional countries later this year.
Amazon published a blog post on Wednesday providing an update about its Just Walk Out technology, which it reportedly pulled from its Fresh grocery stores earlier this month. While extolling Just Walk Out’s virtues as a sales pitch to potential retail partners, the article lists a startlingly minuscule number of (non-Amazon) stores using the tech. There are now “more than 140 third-party locations with Just Walk Out technology in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Canada.”
Mind you, that isn’t the number of companies or retail chains licensing the tech; that’s the total number of locations. Nor is that the tally in one state or even one country. In four countries combined — with a total population of about 465 million — Just Walk Out is being used in “more than 140 third-party locations.”
On average, that means there’s one third-party Just Walk Out store for every 3.3 million people in those four countries. (They must be busy!) By contrast, there are over one million retail locations in the US, and, as of 2019, Starbucks had 241 locations in New York City alone, and there are over one million
Amazon had reportedly already planned to remove Just Walk Out tech from its Fresh grocery stores for roughly a year because it was too expensive and complicated for larger retail spaces to run and maintain. The company now pitches its tech as ideal for smaller convenience stores with fewer customers and products — like its own Amazon Go stores, which it has been busy shutting down over the last couple of years.
Amazon
The company reportedly gutted the team of developers working on Just Walk Out tech earlier this month. (You get one guess as to how the laid-off workers were instructed to leave the office.) As part of recent layoffs from Amazon’s AWS unit and Physical Stores Team, the company allegedly left only “a skeleton crew” to work on the tech moving forward. A skeleton crew to maintain a skeleton sounds about right.
In fairness, some of those locations are at high-traffic venues. That includes nine merch stores at Seattle’s Lumen Field (home to the Seahawks and Sounders), near Amazon’s headquarters. Delaware North, a large hospitality and entertainment company, has opened “more than a dozen” stores using the tech. Amazon says stores adopting Just Walk Out have reported increased transactions, sales and customer satisfaction.
Despite the reported gutting of Just Walk Out’s development team, Amazon says it “continues to invent the next generation of this technology to improve the checkout experience for large-format stores.” Its next steps include improving latency for “faster and more reliable receipts,” new algorithms to recognize customer actions and new sensors better.
If the reports about layoffs are accurate, the handful of remaining Just Walk Out developers will have their work cut out for them.
April 3, 2010: The first iPad hits store shelves after months of anticipation. The tablet Apple CEO Steve Jobs called “magical and revolutionary” at its unveiling earlier in the year quickly becomes a major success.
Jobs initially showed off Apple’s first tablet on January 27, 2010. And there had been rumors long before then. But the wait for the iPad is finally over … at least for people in the United States. (The iPad’s international debut won’t happen until May.)
First iPad release date: April 3, 2010
Arriving nearly three years after the original iPhone launch, the iPad boasted a supersized touchscreen that made it perfect for consuming content. It seemed purpose-built for watching movies, reading long-form content like books and magazines, and listening to music. Plus, iPad owners could handle email and browse the web, just like on iPhone, only with a much larger canvas.
That very first iPad boasted a 9.7-inch multitouch display and a 1GHz Apple A4 processor. Storage options ranged from 16GB to 64GB of flash memory. It didn’t come with a camera. The first iPad with 3G cellular connectivity came out a few weeks later.
Apple’s first tablet benefited from a lot of prerelease excitement, but it faced a certain amount of skepticism, too. After Jobs announced the device, Dan Lyons at Newsweek wrote, “Jobs and his team kept using words like ‘breakthrough’ and ‘magical,’ but the iPad is neither, at least not right now.”
Jeremy A. Kaplan at Fox News unleashed an even more scathing evaluation. “Call it the iPad or the iPlod, but the message seems clear: Apple may have lost its mojo,” he wrote. And John C. Dvorak at MarketWatch dismissed the original iPad as “a giant iPod Touch.”
To use it is to love it: Apple tablet becomes an instant success
But those comments came from people who had never actually used the device. After Apple sent out review units, Walt Mossberg at All Things D called the iPad a “pleasure to use,” and said it made him less interested in using his laptop. And David Pogue at The New York Times said anybody interested in a tablet would “love the machine.”
Cult of Mac’s in-depth review by publisher Leander Kahney called the first Apple tablet “perfect for relaxing at home or on a plane.”
Consumers knew what they wanted. Apple sold 300,000 iPads on launch day and a million units in less than a month. By the end of the breakthrough tablet’s first year, Apple sold around 25 million of them. That made the iPad the most successful new product category launch in Apple history.
Apple is set to roll out a new system that allows retail store staff to wirelessly update the software on iPhones prior to sale, without having to take them out of their packaging.
Writing in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said the new proprietary system, called “Presto,” relies on MagSafe and other wireless technologies, and “looks a bit like a metal cubby for shoes.” It will begin rolling out widely across the U.S. in April, with Apple’s intention to have the technology in all U.S. retail stores by early summer, he added.
Gurman first reported on the wireless system in October, describing it as a “proprietary pad-like device” on which retail store staff can place a sealed iPhone box. The system wirelessly turns on the iPhone inside, updates its software to the latest version available, and then powers it off.
Apple developed “Presto” as a way to avoid selling iPhones in retail stores with outdated software. For example, the iPhone 15 series shipped with iOS 17, but Apple subsequently released iOS 17.0.1 before the devices launched. The point update was required to fix an issue that prevented the transfer of data directly from another iPhone during the initial setup process.
That meant new iPhone 15 owners had to update the devices themselves as part of the setup process, or manually via the Settings app under General → Software Update if they opted to set up the device as new and transfer data later. Following the rollout of “Presto,” such a scenario will be avoidable, making the setup process more straightforward for end users.
Apple today released iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1, minor updates to the iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 operating systems. The new software comes a couple of weeks after Apple released iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 with app changes in the European Union, new emoji, and more. iOS 17.4.1 and iPadOS 17.4.1 can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software…
Apple’s iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models concurrently, which is why we sometimes get rumored feature leaks so far ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and already we have some idea of what to expect from Apple’s 2025 smartphone lineup. If you plan to skip…
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Two devices conspicuously missing from Microsoft’s Surface and AI event last fall are finally here — and they’re both what we expected and a bit surprising. Today, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6, sporting the same designs as the previous models but now with the AI smarts of Intel’s new Core Ultra CPUs. You won’t be able to buy them at Best Buy, Target or any other retailer selling Surface Devices, though. Both of these computers have the foreboding words “for business” attached to their names, so you’ll only be able to buy them from the Microsoft’s website or commercial resellers.
If you’re a bit baffled by this, you’re not alone. It almost seems like Microsoft is gearing up to leave the consumer PC market, but a spokesperson tells us that’s not the case. “We absolutely remain committed to consumer devices,” they said in a statement. “Building great devices that people love to use aligns closely with our company mission to empower individuals as well as organizations. We are excited to be bringing devices to market that deliver great AI experiences to our customers. This commercial announcement is only the first part of this effort.”
Microsoft
It sounds like new consumer hardware is on the way eventually, but keeping two long-awaited devices out of retailers doesn’t inspire confidence. Alongside the Surface Laptop Studio 2 and Laptop Go 3 last year, Microsoft also quietly revealed the Surface Go 4 for business, aiming that budget tablet towards enterprise and education customers. That wasn’t exactly a death sentence for that machine, but it did kill much of the buzz we typically see when new Surface hardware arrives.
So what does all of this mean for the Surface Pro 10 for business and the Surface Laptop 6 for business? For diehard fans of Microsoft’s PCs, they offer some notable upgrades alongside those new Intel Core Ultra chips, but they’ll be a bit harder to buy than before. The average consumer likely won’t even realize they exist, especially since older Surface hardware will still be at Best Buy and other retailers.
Let’s dive into what’s new: The Surface Pro 10 comes with the Core Ultra 5 135U or Ultra 7 165U CPU, and it can be equipped with up to 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM and 1TB of SSD storage. While its tablet case is the same as before, Microsoft also shoved in a new 1,440p webcam with an incredibly wide 114-degree field of view. Microsoft calls this an AI enhanced camera, but that just means it can tap into Windows Studio effects using the Core Ultra’s NPU for AI workloads.
The Surface Pro 10’s 1,440p webcam. (Microsoft)
The Surface Laptop 6, once again, comes in 13.5-inch and 15-inch models and can be equipped with the Intel Core Ultra 5 135H and Ultra 7 165H CPUs. Those chips are far more powerful than the U-variant options in the Surface Pro 6, so they’re better options for more demanding tasks. (The 14-inch Surface Laptop Studio 2 remains the most powerful Microsoft laptop, but its not an AI PC since its 13th-gen Intel CPU doesn’t have an NPU.) The Laptop 6 can also be configured with up to 64GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It offers more graphics options than its tablet sibling: The 8GB RAM model has plain Intel graphics, but if you go for more memory you’ll get Intel’s more powerful Arc graphics.
Oddly, the Surface Laptop 6 doesn’t share the Pro 10’s sharp new camera, it’s stuck with a 1080p HD option instead. If, for some reason, you need to use smart cards regularly, you can also configure the Laptop 6 with a built-in smart card reader. (But still no SD card slot? Come on, Microsoft.)
Microsoft
Both the Surface Pro 10 and Laptop 6 also come with a new Copilot key, which we’ve also seen on Dell’s new XPS laptops and a few other AI PCs. I haven’t found the key particularly useful on other systems, but at this point Microsoft is so committed to putting its Copilot AI everywhere that it would be embarrassing not to have it on new Surface machines.
Microsoft claims the Surface Pro 10 is 53 percent faster than the Pro 9 in the 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark, while the Surface Laptop 6 is twice as fast as the previous model. (That’s mostly due to Intel’s beefier Arc graphics.) These aren’t machines you’d want to rush out to buy if you have a Pro 9 or Laptop 5, but thanks to the AI-powered Intel CPU and refined webcam, the Surface Pro 10 could be a compelling leap forward if you have an older Surface tablet.
While it’s unclear if focusing on business users will actually pay off for Microsoft, the Surface Laptop 6 and Pro 10 are a sign that the company is still trying to make a mark in the PC market. If anything, though, we’re more intrigued by what Microsoft has cooking next for consumers. By shoving its aging tablet and laptop design towards corporate users, the company may have room to innovate a bit more. Perhaps we’ll actually see a Surface foldable PC this year?
The Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for Business are available for pre-order today starting at $1,200 each. They’ll begin shipping out to customers on April 9th.
Catch up on all the news from the Microsoft Surface and AI event right here!
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March 19, 1990: The ultra-fast Macintosh IIfx makes its debut, sporting a hefty price tag appropriate for such a speedy machine.
The fastest Macintosh of its day, it boasts a CPU running at a “wicked fast” 40 MHz. It gains an additional speed bump from a pair of Apple-designed, application-specific integrated circuits. Prices start at $9,870 and run up to $12,000 — the equivalent of $23,434 to $28,492 in 2024 money!
Macintosh IIfx: A powerhouse Mac
The 16th Mac model released, the Macintosh IIfx revealed just how drastically personal computing power had increased in the few short years since the original Mac’s launch in 1984.
In addition to the CPU, the IIfx got a speed boost from its two dedicated I/O processors, referred to as “peripheral interface controllers.” These were a pair of 10 MHz 6502 CPUs, the same CPU family used in the Apple II. They managed the low-level I/O tasks on the Apple bus, floppy disk drive and serial ports that the 68030 microprocessor previously handled.
The IIfx’s high speed made it the fastest Mac available until Apple released the Quadra 900 in October 1991.
With Macintosh IIfx, Apple says goodbye to Snow White design language
Designer Hartmut Esslinger of Frog Design came up with the Snow White look. He utilized design flourishes such as vertical and horizontal stripes to create the illusion that the computer was smaller than it really was.
Mac IIfx is not enough to crack big business
Despite its power, the Macintosh IIfx did not break into the professional workstation world the way Apple hoped. Cupertino envisioned the computer finding a place in the engineering and medical imaging world. Apple even dreamed of winning over power users on Wall Street.
This didn’t exactly happen. A September 10, 1990, article in Computerworld observed, “Mac IIfx: Not yet to be feared.” It described how, months after the computer’s release, the IIfx still struggled to become a serious contender in the workplace.
The main reason? Apple “underestimated the ferocity of the workstation market.”
While undeniably powerful, the IIfx lagged behind top-of-the-line workstations made by IBM and Digital Equipment Corp. Still, it found favor with its core audience of power Macintosh users. It particularly appealed to people working in creative fields who required serious graphics firepower.
If you used a Mac in 1990, it didn’t get much better than this! Apple sold the Macintosh IIfx through April 1992.
You can now get the M3 MacBook Air from your nearest Apple store. Photo: Apple
Apple’s new M3 MacBook Airs, announced earlier this week, are now on sale. The 13-inch and 15-inch models feature upgraded internals and faster Wi-Fi.
Pre-orders for the new Airs went live right after Apple’s announcement on March 4.
2024 MacBook Air is all about the M3 chip
From the outside, the M3 MacBook Air(s) look the same as their predecessors. But internally, they pack two key changes. The first is the switch to a faster and more efficient M3 chip. Apple claims a performance boost of up to 60 percent than the M1 chip and “up to 13x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air.”
The M3 SoC debuted on the M3 MacBook Pro last fall. It also features a revamped GPU with mesh shading and ray tracing for better performance and higher-quality graphics. While there are no new AI features on the M3 MacBook Airs, Apple claims they are “the world’s best consumer laptop for AI,” thanks to the faster 16-core Neural Engine.
Besides the faster performance, the new M3 Airs support dual external displays — a first in the lineup. But there’s a catch: you can only use the second monitor with the laptop’s lid closed.
Lastly, Apple’s 2024 MacBook Air lineup has Wi-Fi 6E support, allowing for faster wireless transfer speeds. You can read our M2 vs. M3 MacBook Air comparison to learn more about their differences.
Despite the big performance boost, Apple claims the new M3 Air can last up to 18 hours on a charge.
Same starting price as their M2 predecessors
The new 13-inch MacBook Air and 15-inch Air with M3 chip have the same starting price as their predecessors: $1,099 and $1,299, respectively. Education customers can get an additional $100 off this price.
If you pre-ordered the laptop, you should receive it today. If not, you can buy one from the Apple store nearest to you.
In 2018, Samsung opened the company’s first Premium Experience Store in Bengaluru, India, the Samsung Opera House, which is also the company’s flagship store in the country. Today, Samsung has opened the second Premium Experience Store in Bengaluru. This one is located in the Mall of Asia, which is situated in the Northern part of the city.
The new store is spread across 1,200 square feet of area. It has a “SmartThings station, Gaming zone, an audio-visual zone, and a smartphone and wearables section.” Samsung says that it will host a variety of events at the store, including the ‘Learn@Samsung’ program, which is designed for “tech-savvy consumers, especially Gen Z and millennials.” It will include “workshops around AI education focusing on consumer passion points.”
Inaugural offers
Samsung says that people coming to the store will get assured gifts, 2x loyalty points on all transactions above INR 15,000, and Galaxy Buds FE at INR 2,999 with select Galaxy devices for a limited period. The first 200 customers will also get early bird giveaways on the purchase of Samsung products worth INR 20,000 or more. Along with these offers, people can available a 10% student discount on smartphones, laptops, and smartwatches, “up to 22.5% cashback, and INR 22,000 in additional benefits on select items.”
In the press release, the Vice President of Samsung India’s D2C Business, Sumit Walia, says “Following six years of fantastic response to our flagship experience center in the city, the Samsung Opera House, we are delighted to introduce another Premium Experience Store in the Mall of Asia, Bengaluru. We aim to captivate local shoppers with immersive and uniquely tailored premium product experiences.”
“Our newest store is dedicated to engaging Bengaluru’s diverse consumer base by hosting ‘Learn @ Samsung’ workshops including productivity masterclass, portrait photography, nightography, and photo editing sessions that cater to various passion points. The dynamic retail market of the city provides an ideal backdrop for us to connect with our consumers and create memorable engagements,” he further added.
Apple has announced that it will allow alternative app stores in Europe with the release of their iOS 17.4 software, this is to comply with new European rules which will come into place in March with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Apple has said that these new options open new possibilities for scammers, malware, fraud, and much more, of course, Apple wants to keep everything through its own app store, as it can monitor all apps through there and also earn revenue from them. You can see part of their official statement below.
The new options for processing payments and downloading apps on iOS open new avenues for malware, fraud and scams, illicit and harmful content, and other privacy and security threats. That’s why Apple is introducing protections — including Notarization for iOS apps, an authorisation for marketplace developers, and disclosures on alternative payments — to reduce risks and deliver the best, most secure experience possible for users in the EU. Even with these safeguards in place, many risks remain.
“The changes we’re announcing today comply with the Digital Markets Act’s requirements in the European Union, while helping to protect EU users from the unavoidable increased privacy and security threats this regulation brings. Our priority remains creating the best, most secure possible experience for our users in the EU and around the world,” said Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow. “Developers can now learn about the new tools and terms available for alternative app distribution and alternative payment processing, new capabilities for alternative browser engines and contactless payments, and more. Importantly, developers can choose to remain on the same business terms in place today if they prefer.”
You can find out more details about the changes coming to the Apple App Store and alternative app stores in Europe over at Apple at the link below, this will only apply to 27 European countries, it will not apply to the USA, the UK, and other countries.
Source Apple
Image Credit: James Yarema
Filed Under: Apple, Technology News, Top News
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April 3, 2010: The first iPad hits store shelves after months of anticipation. The tablet Apple CEO Steve Jobs called “magical and revolutionary” at its unveiling earlier in the year quickly becomes a major success.
March 19, 1990: The ultra-fast Macintosh IIfx makes its debut, sporting a hefty price tag appropriate for such a speedy machine.
