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Walmart Begins Selling MacBook Air With M1 Chip for $699 in U.S.

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Walmart today announced that it has started selling the MacBook Air with the M1 chip in the U.S., with pricing set at a very reasonable $699. The laptop can be ordered now on Walmart.com, and it will be available soon at select Walmart stores.

Walmart MacBook Air M1
This is the first time that customers can purchase a Mac that is sold directly by Walmart, the company said in a press release. Some other retailers like Amazon and Best Buy have previously offered this model for as low as $749.99.

Apple first released the MacBook Air with the M1 chip in November 2020, as one of the first Macs with an Apple silicon chip instead of an Intel processor. The configuration being sold for $699 includes the M1 chip, 256GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM/unified memory, with Gold, Silver, and Space Gray color options available. Walmart’s product listing says the MacBook Air is in brand new condition, so this is not a used/refurbished model.

Apple discontinued the MacBook Air with the M1 chip earlier this month, following the launch of new MacBook Air models with its latest-generation M3 chip. Prior to being discontinued, the model was being sold for $999 brand new. Apple continues to sell refurbished MacBook Air models with the M1 chip, with pricing starting at $759.

Model Starting Price Condition Retailer

M3 MacBook Air (15″)

$1,299

New

Apple

M3 MacBook Air (13″)

$1,099

New

Apple

M2 MacBook Air (13″)

$999

New

Apple

M1 MacBook Air (13″)

$759

Refurbished

Apple

M1 MacBook Air (13″)

$699

New

Walmart

While the MacBook Air with the M1 chip is around three and a half years old, it is still a very capable machine for many average day-to-day tasks. However, it has an older design and has fewer remaining years of macOS compatibility than the latest MacBook Air models, so those aspects should be factored into your purchasing decision.

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Apple Said iPhone Driver’s Licenses Would Expand to These 8 U.S. States… Two Years Ago

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In just four U.S. states, residents can add their driver’s license or ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports, businesses, and venues.

apple wallet drivers license feature
Adoption of the feature has been slow since Apple first announced it in September 2021, with IDs in the Wallet app only available in Arizona, Maryland, Colorado, and Georgia so far. Two years ago, Apple shared a list of additional states committed to supporting the feature in the future, but none of them have revealed any plans yet.

Participating States

Committed States

In March 2022, Apple said the additional eight states listed below would “soon” allow residents to add their driver’s license or state ID to the Wallet app, but it is now two years later and none of these states support the feature yet.

  • Connecticut
  • Hawaii
  • Iowa
  • Kentucky
  • Mississippi
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Utah

Apple said the feature would also be supported in Puerto Rico.

In 2021, Apple said it was “already in discussions with many more states” and hoped to offer the feature nationwide in the future.

It is unclear if Apple plans to expand the feature to other countries.

Participating Locations

Apple Wallet ID TSA
Apple Wallet app IDs can be used at select TSA checkpoints within select U.S. airports:

  • Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI)
  • Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)
  • Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)
  • Denver International Airport (DEN)
  • Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)

Apple says travelers should refer to TSA checkpoint signage to confirm availability of the feature.

Apple’s website says IDs in the Wallet app can also be used to show proof of age or identity at “select businesses and venues,” but adoption is limited.

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TikTok Closer to Potential U.S. Ban as House Passes Bill Requiring Sale

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The U.S. House of Representatives today approved legislation that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media network or face a ban in the United States. The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act will now go to the Senate, where its fate is unclear.

tiktok logo
U.S. lawmakers want TikTok to be sold to a company outside of China due to concerns that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to hand over data from users located in the United States. If China made the request, ByteDance would not be able to refuse. There have also been suggestions that China could use TikTok to spread political propaganda.

ByteDance has attempted to alleviate these fears by storing data from U.S. users on servers owned by Oracle, but the White House and lawmakers do not believe that is enough.

If passed, the bill would require ByteDance to sell TikTok within six months to a company approved by the U.S. government. Should ByteDance not sell the company, U.S. app stores would not be able to distribute the app without breaking the law, effectively leading to a ban. China would also need to approve the sale, and the Chinese government made it clear last year that it would “firmly oppose” a forced sale.

There are a limited number of companies with enough capital to be able to afford TikTok, and the obvious choices, such as Google or Meta, would likely be barred from acquiring it due to antitrust concerns.

Should the bill make it through the Senate, U.S. President Joe Biden confirmed that he would sign it into law. A number of senators have expressed worries about the wording of the act, and it does not have universal support at this time.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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The most significant hazard to the U.S. electrical grid is not what you think.

Renewables are not the problem that is putting the power grid in danger.
The Biden administration keeps hitting the snooze button even though electric officials and companies across the country are sounding the alarm about the stability of the grid.

The latest warning comes from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) annual “Reliability Risk Priorities Report.” For the first time, energy policy is one of the five key risk profiles. It joins grid change, security risks, extreme events, and the interdependencies of important infrastructure. This is important because it shows that bad energy strategy is one of the biggest dangers to the grid.

The news is not unexpected. Even with our “all of the above” method, grid stability kept me up at night when I was secretary of energy. But those times are over. In the name of climate change, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency are handing out money as fast as they can. However, some officials know that our grid is not as safe as it could be.

At a meeting on Capitol Hill in May, Willie Phillips, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), said, “We face challenges to the reliability of our nation’s electric system that have never been seen before.”
Traditional power sources are leaving the grid faster than we’re putting in place better energy. This puts us on a path to “a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability,” as Commissioner Mark Christie said. These threats aren’t new, but at least FERC seems ready to do something about them now.

Renewable funding and rules are making energy markets even less stable, which hurts the supply of steady baseload power. All of the green energy that Democrats promised isn’t coming true because stable power sources are being shut down too soon. At the same time, the push to make everything electric, from cars to stoves, adds to the pressure on supply.

To be clear, the problem is not energy but the policies of the Democrats. In their new study, NERC tried to get this point across. The biggest threat to our grid is bad policy, and the Biden government has made sure that all Americans have to deal with the effects of the bad policies we’ve seen in blue states.

Just look at New York as an example. Even though the state is required to have 70% of its energy come from green sources by 2030, solar and wind only provided 1% and 3.6% of the state’s power in 2021. The state’s grid operator says that by 2040, the state will need to have about three times as much power as it does now. To do this, the state will need to replace fossil fuels with zero-emission technology that is “not yet available on a commercial scale.”
And a few years ago, it was ignorant to give in to pressure from then-Governor Andrew Cuomo and so-called activists to shut down both nuclear units at Indian Point Power Plant. Because of this, the state’s power sector’s carbon pollution went up by 35%.

On the other hand, look at what’s going on in Virginia, where Governor Glenn Youngkin has made a “all-of-the-above” energy plan for the state. He has already made a plan to bring in small modular nuclear plants to meet the growing demand for clean baseload power. This is in addition to picking away at unfair rules from the previous governor’s office.

Tech companies are building data centers all over the state because they trust his plan to keep energy cheap and stable. And people in Virginia agree.

In the 2000s, when I brought wind power to Texas, I saw it as a chance to expand our energy sources. But I never thought it would lead to the dogmatism we see now on the political left, where keeping the lights on is less important than putting up renewables quickly.

Entrepreneurs, not government managers, are the ones who keep trying to change the market in revolutionary ways. We don’t know what new technologies will come out or grow in the next few years. As governor of Texas and U.S. secretary of Energy, I didn’t know either, and neither do the Democrats.

I urge my fellow Republicans in all levels of government to make grid stability a policy goal. A recent Heatmap study found that 63% of Americans have heard “nothing” or “not much” about what’s in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Wood McKenzie says could cost taxpayers up to $2.8 trillion.
But it still has a lot of fans, which shows that the public and the people in charge of their tax dollars have dangerously different levels of knowledge.

When I was the U.S. secretary of energy, safe, efficient, and cheap energy came first. I accepted the right of states to decide how to use natural resources for energy in the best way. But if NERC came and said that keeping the lights on was dangerous, I would at least listen.

Chairman Phillips put it well when he said that being reliable “is and must always be job No. 1.”