Google is in the midst of rewriting the rules for mobile applications, spurred by ongoing legal cases and an apparent desire to clamp down on perceived security weaknesses. Late last year, Google and Epic concocted a settlement that would end the long-running antitrust dispute that stemmed from Fortnite fees. The sides have now announced an updated version of the agreement with new changes aimed at placating US courts and putting…

NEW YORK CITY—Whether you’re talking about the iBook, MacBook, or MacBook Air, Apple’s most basic laptops have started at or within $100 of the $1,000 price point for over 20 years. Sure, the company had quietly been testing the waters with a Walmart-exclusive M1 MacBook Air configuration for several years, first at $699 and then at $599. But as far as what Apple would actively advertise and offer on its…

IT consultant and services provider Accenture has agreed to buy Speedtest and Downdetector owner Ookla from Ziff Davis for $1.2 billion in cash. Accenture plans to integrate Ookla’s data products into its own offerings that are targeted at helping communications service providers, hyperscalers, government entities, and other types of customers “optimize … mission-critical Wi-Fi and 5G networks,” Accenture’s announcement today said. Ookla’s platform also includes Ekahau, which offers tools for…

As part of today’s MacBook Pro update, Apple has also unveiled the M5 Pro and M5 Max, the newest members of the M5 chip family. Normally, the Pro and Max chips take the same basic building blocks from the basic chip and just scale them up—more CPU cores, more GPU cores, and more memory bandwidth. But the M5 chips are a surprisingly large departure from past generations, both in terms…

Most of Apple’s laptop lineup is getting refreshed today—the high-end MacBook Pros are getting M5 Pro and M5 Max chip refreshes, and the MacBook Air is getting upgraded with an M5. The more significant update might be the storage, though: Apple is bumping the Air’s base storage from 256GB up to 512GB, and Apple says the storage will be up to twice as fast as the M4 MacBook Air. But…

Burner accounts on social media sites can increasingly be analyzed to identify the pseudonymous users who post to them using AI in research that has far-reaching consequences for privacy on the Internet, researchers said. The finding, from a recently published research paper, is based on results of experiments correlating specific individuals with accounts or posts across more than one social media platform. The success rate was far greater than existing…

As expected, Apple has announced a mild update for the iPad family’s middle child today. The new iPad Air is a lot like the old one, but it replaces the Apple M3 chip with an M4. That M4 also comes with a less-expected upgrade: a jump from 8GB of RAM to 12GB, which should be helpful for those using iPadOS 26’s multi-window multitasking features. The iPad Air still comes in…

Apple’s biggest iPhone announcements usually happen in September, but for the second year in a row, the company is also introducing a new iPhone in March. The iPhone 17e is a new version of Apple’s basic no-frills iPhone, replacing last year’s iPhone 16e. The phone will be available to preorder on March 4 and will be available on March 11, starting at $599. The new iPhone includes an Apple A19…

Google on Friday unveiled its plan for its Chrome browser to secure HTTPS certificates against quantum computer attacks without breaking the Internet. The objective is a tall order. The quantum-resistant cryptographic data needed to transparently publish TLS certificates is roughly 40 times bigger than the classical cryptographic material used today. Today’s X.509 certificates are about 64 bytes in size, and comprise six elliptic curve signatures and two EC public keys….

Netflix has dropped out of the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), making Paramount Skydance the expected owner of WBD. A Paramount-WBD merger remains subject to regulatory approval, but it’s likely that we will see a Paramount-Skydance-Warner-Bros.-Discovery media giant. Such a conglomerate would unite two legacy media companies that have struggled with profitability for years and have strongly invested in streaming and cable. With Paramount inching closer to WBD…