SAVE $150: The Apple iPad Air (WiFi, 64GB) is just $449 at Amazon, down from the typical price of $599. That’s a 25% discount.
Patience can pay off when it comes to tech. If you don’t need the latest Apple device, waiting a few years before buying comes with the perk of scoring some great sale prices. If your current tablet is feeling slow and sad or you’re simply looking for a much better device to watch your evening shows, the Apple iPad Air could a great fit.
As of March 4, the Apple iPad Air (WiFi, 64GB) is on sale at Amazon for just $449, marked down from the typical MSRP of $599. That’s a savings of $150 or a 25% discount. This sale price applies to the Space Gray, Purple, and Blue colorways. But if you prefer Pink or Starlight, you’ll still be getting a great deal at $449.99.
Rumor has it that the Apple iPad Air will be getting an update this spring. But if you don’t feel like waiting around or paying full price for a new Apple tablet, this 5th gen Apple iPad Air will fit the bill instead.
Like its name suggests, the iPad Air is designed to be lightweight with a thin profile, meaning it’s ideal for tossing in your tote bag or packing in your carry-on luggage for spring break. But just because it’s light doesn’t mean it lacks features. The iPad Air has a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display and an M1 chip processor. The antireflective coating means you’ll be seeing less of the background and more of what’s on screen.
Should you feel like using the iPad Air as a super portable laptop, it’s compatible with Apple’s Magic Keyboard, which is sold separately.
Mashable senior editor Stan Schroeder reviewed the Apple iPad Air in 2022 and wrote, “Apple’s iPad Air is the sweet spot of Apple’s tablets. It’s elegant, powerful, and versatile enough for both casual users and professionals.”
If you’ve been mulling over the idea of getting a new tablet, today’s sale price is worthy of clicking “add to cart.”
On Monday, Apple was hit with a stunning €1.84 billion ($2 billion) fine for violating antitrust laws in Europe. The EU said the company “abused its dominant position” by forcing Spotify and other music streaming apps not to tell customers they could save money if they subscribed outside of the App Store.
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“This is illegal and it has impacted millions of European consumers,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s European Commissioner for Competition, said at a press conference. European users do not have “a free choice as to where, how and at what prices to buy music streaming subscriptions.”
Apple has a competing music service, which makes its policy particularly egregious in the eyes of regulators, but the issue is broader. For years, companies across the digital economy have complained about Apple’s “App Store Tax,” a 30% fee the company charges for purchases made in its App Store. Apps are forbidden from telling users they can avoid the fee if they subscribe using a web browser. As a result, new customers who download apps including Spotify and Netflix won’t find any information about how to subscribe whatsoever. The companies don’t want to charge iPhone users the extra fee and can’t afford to swallow the costs themselves, but if they give you details about where to pay, Apple threatens to ban them.
In a press release, Apple criticized the EU, claiming the app market is competitive and its policies are good for the world. “The decision was reached despite the Commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm,” the company wrote. Apple went on to imply the fine has something to do with the fact that Spotify is a European company. “The primary advocate for this decision — and the biggest beneficiary — is Spotify, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden,” Apple wrote.
“This decision sends a powerful message—no company, not even a monopoly like Apple, can wield power abusively to control how other companies interact with their customers,” Spotify said in a statement. “It is a basic concept of free markets—customers should know what options they have, and customers, not Apple, should decide what to buy, and where, when and how.”
Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, recently lost a court battle over the issue in the United States. The EU has been more friendly to developers, however, and will soon require Apple to let users access alternative app stores. Apple maintains the 30% fee is necessary to pay for safety and security processes that keep users safe.
Researchers studying orcas off the coast of South Africa recently observed one of the whales consuming a great white shark alone, in just two minutes.
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Since 2017, two orcas in particular have been wreaking havoc on the great whites off South Africa’s Mossel Bay. Dubbed Port and Starboard (cute!), the apex predators have developed a taste for the massive sharks’ nutrient-rich livers (less cute). Haunting video of the whales actively feeding on a great white was captured in October 2022, confirming that the cetaceans were responsible for the great white carcasses found half-eaten on the South African shores.
Orcas’ predilection for great white sharks is well-documented; the whales can weigh up to 22,000 pounds (9,980 kilograms) and are great at ganging up on the sharks, which only (in comparison) weigh up to 5,000 pounds. But never before have searchers found a single orca dining on great white; previously, the animals have only been observed hunting and feeding in groups, or pods. The team’s analysis of the recent meal was published in the African Journal of Marine Science.
“Again, as previously in South Africa, the orcas are exhibiting a strong preference for extracting and consuming the lipid-rich livers of white sharks—a specialized feeding behavior,” said Alison Towner, a marine biologist at Rhodes University and lead author of the new research, in a Taylor & Francis release, “This sighting revealed evidence of solitary hunting by at least one killer whale, challenging conventional cooperative hunting behaviors known in the region.”
The solitary hunter (and diner) was Starboard, a male orca with a collapsed dorsal fin. The researchers watched Starboard incapacitate and eat a juvenile great white shark in two minutes. The unfortunate shark was 8.2 feet long (2.5 meters); the team also watched as Starboard carried the shark’s liver in its mouth.
“Over two decades of annual visits to South Africa, I’ve observed the profound impact these killer whales have on the local white shark population,” said study co-author Primo Micarelli, a researcher at the Shark Studies Centre and Siena University, in the same release. “Seeing Starboard carry a white shark’s liver past our vessel is unforgettable.”
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A short video of the encounter was taken by members of the team aboard Shark Warrior, a catamaran about 330 feet (100 meters) from the encounter. The video shows Starboard splashing off Mossel Bay, apparently preying on the shark. The researchers aboard Shark Warrior later snapped a photo of Starboard with the shark liver in his mouth.
“Despite my awe for these predators, I’m increasingly concerned about the coastal marine ecology balance,” Micarelli added. Tagging and sighting data previously taken on the habitat suggested great white sharks stopped visiting certain areas along the coast due to the presence of orcas. In other words, the orca’s hunger seemed to be impacting the food chain in the ecosystem.
Orcas are cunning predators with an evident nasty streak. While they probably won’t evolve to hunt on land anytime soon, their presence could disrupt the hierarchy of the South African coastal ecosystem.
Apple’s new MacBook Air laptops are here as predicted, and while the upgrades are only on the inside, they’re quite notable.
The new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air now both feature Apple’s M3 chip, which the company says is up to 60 percent faster than the model with the M1 chip (Apple doesn’t compare with the M2 chip, likely because the differences aren’t that big).
The M3 chip offers some additional benefits, such as faster Wi-Fi (thanks to support for the Wi-Fi 6E standard), as well as being able to connect the laptop to two external monitors, though only if the lid is closed. The M3 also has a 16-core Neural Engine, which translates into faster performance for AI-related tasks.
The external design of the new MacBook Air hasn’t changed compared to the previous version. Credit: Apple
Other specs of note include 18-hour battery life, up to 24GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of storage for both the 13-inch and the 15-inch variant (none of these have changed compared with the previous models).
On the outside, the new laptops look exactly the same as the previous variants, and have the same dimensions.
The new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air start at $1,099 and $1,299 respectively, and are both available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray. The new laptops go on sale on March 8 in Apple Store locations and at Apple Authorized Resellers.
Notably, you can still buy the M2 version of the MacBook Air from Apple, but only the 13-inch variant, which starts at $999.
When you’re buying a new smartphone, salesmen love pestering you to buy some increased protection — insurance, a case, and, obviously, a screen protector. The screen protector has long been hailed as a necessity, costing anywhere from $10 to $60. These little slips of plastic and glass have ballooned to a $50 billion industry, but there’s a dirty secret underneath it all. Your screen protector may not be essential anymore.
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You wouldn’t be crazy for wanting to protect your screen. Cracking your screen is the number one way to break your phone, followed by water damage and battery issues. However, the glass in your phone has gotten significantly stronger in the last five years. Some experts say you might be able to skip the screen protector, and even warn about some relatively unknown downsides that salespeople aren’t telling you.
“It’s really not particularly useful,” said Raymond Soneira, CEO of DisplayMate Technologies, about screen protectors in an interview with Gizmodo. Soneira’s company researches how to optimize your phone’s display. He doesn’t use a screen protector, just a phone case, but caveats this by noting he is very careful with his phone and rarely ever drops it.
DisplayMate found that screen protectors make your phone more reflective. This reduces the quality of your display and requires you to increase your phone’s brightness to match the same quality. Over time, he says this will wear down your phone’s battery, and give you a shorter daily battery life.
However, the phone community is mixed on this screen protector issue. iFixit Repairability Engineer, Carsten Fraunheim notes that screen protectors can be useful against scratches, micro-abrasions, and just give you peace of mind. He calls them a “no-brainer” but admits they’re less essential than they used to be.
“As smartphone glass tech becomes more and more shatter resistant, screen protectors will lose their ‘drop protection’ selling feature,” Fraunheim said in an email.
Even the liquid screen protectors have their issues.
“Liquid wipe-on screen protectors are snake oil,” said iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens in an email. He says that this variety of protection actually compromises the structure of your screen, though he had no comment on panel-style protectors.
Trey Barnett, a computer technician at a Manhattan uBreakiFix, has seen a lot of cracked screens in the 14 years he’s been repairing phones. However, he sees fewer iPhones with broken screens than he used to.
“I would say that screens have gotten a bit stronger, but, you know, it hasn’t stopped people from breaking them altogether.”
There is an obvious argument in favor of screen protectors: they cost less than replacing your phone screen. While that’s true, the chances of having to repair your screen are far lower than they used to be. The multi-billion dollar screen protector industry would like to keep that on the down low.
Origins of The Screen Protector
In 2021, Apple’s iPhones started using Ceramic Shield, a new material that claims to be tougher than any previous smartphone glass. It comes from Corning, a glass company that Steve Jobs commissioned to produce the first screen for the iPhone in 2007.
Jobs famously gave Corning a 6-month deadline to produce the iPhone’s screen, which was originally planned to be plastic. Corning got it done, creating an especially strong, thin material called Gorilla Glass. This material would be used in the first decade of iPhones and is still used in most Samsung phones.
Gorilla Glass is stronger than most glass, but it wasn’t great at first. Screen protectors for phones almost immediately popped up, as consumers raced to wrap their phones in protective materials.
Apple forumsin 2008 were full of peoplediscussing early screen protectors. The first iPhone adopters quickly scratched their Gorilla Glass displays. Some users found these early screen protectors were so bad they messed with the iPhone’s touch screen. Screen protectors have gotten much better, but so have screens themselves.
Ceramic Shield was a major leap forward for screen technology. The materials used in Ceramic Shield are much different from typical smartphone glass. Corning describes it as somewhere in between ceramics and glass, and Apple says it’s four times stronger than Gorilla Glass when it comes to drops.
However, these major improvements have flown under the radar. That may have something to do with the growth of the screen protector industry. By 2030, the industry is expected to grow to roughly $85 billion, according to Grand View Research.
Why Screen Protectors Persist
Anyone who has cracked their phone screen will tell you how painful that experience is. Even though phone screens have gotten much better, the replacement process is scarring enough to make anyone just buy the dang screen protector.
It’s totally understandable why you might put your phone in a screen protector still. It is a large investment, but there’s more and more evidence that screens are getting better. A good phone case alone may be sufficient.
So at what point do we ditch the screen protectors? These flimsy films could be degrading the quality of that very expensive screen in your pocket, and they are potentially running through your battery. Screen protectors are slowly becoming a thing of the past.
This week’s puzzle is difficult. Not because it has an exceedingly complicated solution, but because the idea that underlies it is deep and ingenious. I only know of one method to solve it, but I’m curious whether alternative approaches exist. Feel free to spitball half-baked ideas in the comments. You might find working together on solutions an enriching experience. But also, your life depends on it.
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Did you miss last week’s puzzle? Check it out here, and find its solution at the bottom of today’s article. Be careful not to read too far ahead if you haven’t solved last week’s yet!
Puzzle #32: Forehead or Dead
A madman is holding you and nine strangers captive. He subjects you to a twisted mind game to earn your freedom. He has a stack of cards with the numbers 0 through 9 printed on them. He tapes a card to every person’s forehead so everyone can see everybody else’s card but not their own. Assigned numbers may repeat (e.g. eight people could get 7s while the other two get 0s or any other combination). After everyone has had time to observe everyone else’s numbers, your captor counts down and you all must shout a number at the same time. If at least one person guesses the correct number on their forehead, then you all go free. Otherwise you’ll be condemned to solve riddles in his basement forever.
As a madman with a passion for problem-solving, he allows the group to confer before he distributes the cards. Once cards are revealed no communication (including nonverbal) is allowed other than shouting a number on cue. The villain may listen in on the group strategy and adapt his choices accordingly! Devise a strategy that guarantees your freedom.
I recommend solving this for two or three people first and then trying to generalize the approach. Note that in the two person case, the cards only say 0 or 1, and in the three person version they say 0, 1, or 2.
I’ll be back next Monday with the solution. I hope it’s not too late for you.
Do you know a cool puzzle that you think should be featured here? Message me on X @JackPMurtagh or email me at [email protected]
Solution to puzzle #31: HIPE Me Up
Did last week’s word puzzles live up to the hype? Shout-out to Skylar Ruprecht for proposing a really good original HIPE in the comments: EAUC. Try it out. Meanwhile, here are the answers to last week’s HIPES:
If you haven’t spent a lot of time inside Google Maps—besides getting from A to B and finding the nearest restaurant or bar—then you might not know about all the various features stuffed into the app since it first launched in 2005.
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One of those features is lists: They’re not hugely prominent inside the app, but they let you gather together curated lists of places on the map, giving you a way to plan our a road trip, shortlist a selection of museums, or remember favorite spots that you want to get back to. You can even share your lists with others.
Lists can come in handy in all kinds of ways, and their simplicity also makes them very flexible—see if you can find a use for them the next time you open up Google Maps. Here, we’re going to focus on the web version of Google Maps, but the same features are easy to find in the apps for Android and iOS, too.
Starting a list
To start a list, pick out a place that you’d like to be on the list. If you click on it on the map, it’ll get a pin on top of it, and an info panel pops up on the left. Click the Save button, and congratulations—you’ve started making lists on Google Maps.
You’ll see that Google Maps has created some lists for you, with Starred places as the default. There are also Favorites, Want to go, and Travel plans, but if you don’t like any of those suggestions, you can begin building your own list by clicking New list.
Lists can be compiled quickly.Screenshot: Google Maps
You’ll be asked to give your new list a name and click Create, and that’s all there is to it. The new list should pop up in the panel on the far left. To add more places to the same list, click somewhere else on the map, then click Save, then choose your new list.
As you keep on adding places, you’ll notice that your listed spots are marked on the map, making them easier to find as you zoom out. Custom lists are all shown with blue and white circles as markers—you can’t create your own custom markers, such as the yellow stars used for the Starred places list, which is a bit of a shame.
Names and descriptions can be added to lists.Screenshot: Google Maps
You can also add places to a list by choosing Saved in the navigation pane on the left. Click Lists, then one of your lists, then the three dots (to the right), and Edit list. To begin with, you can add a 400-character description of the list if you think it needs more explanation (handy if you’re sharing it with someone else).
Click Add a place, and you can search for a particular spot to add to the list—this might save you some time in terms of panning across the map and zooming in and out. Click the small X next to it to remove a place from one of your lists. All the changes you make are automatically saved as you go.
Managing your lists
Once you’ve started creating a few lists, you can get to them via the Saved link on the left of the interface. Another way to get to them is to type the list name into the main Google Maps search box. When you select a list, the map view changes, so you get an overview of all the places that have been saved to it.
Click the three dots next to a list on the Lists view, and you can hide the markers from the map if the view is getting too cluttered. You can also select Edit list, which takes you to the screen we saw before. You can add and remove list items and even add notes about each place. You can’t, however, change the order.
List entries get marked on the map.Screenshot: Google Maps
On the Lists view, click the three dots next to a list, and you’ll see various options for sharing the list with others. Choose Send link to view if you want other people to be able to see your list of places but not make changes—this automatically makes the list public, too, if it isn’t already.
Choose Invite to edit if you want other people to be able to see the list and make changes to it—again; the list will be made public if it’s currently set to private. This is helpful if you’re working on travel plans with others who want to contribute.
It’s simple to share lists with other people.Screenshot: Google Maps
If you select Sharing options, you can switch the list between being Private and being Shared. Obviously, if you make a shared list private, everyone else besides you is going to lose access to it. If you then later need to share the list again, you can do so from here.
While you don’t get a huge number of options with your lists, they have their uses—from sharing a list of checkpoints with a walking club to making sure you get to see everywhere you want to see on your next city break—and everything syncs seamlessly across all the devices where you’ve got Google Maps installed of course.
The professional network LinkedIn allows its users to see who viewed their profile so they can find out which people or companies are taking notice.
When you see a notification that someone has viewed your profile — on LinkedIn or otherwise — it’s only natural to want to know who. But how do you do that, exactly? It just takes a couple clicks through the site. Then, you’ll be able to see who’s noticing you, to an extent.
If you use the free version of LinkedIn, the site will only show you a small group of profile viewers. If you pay for a LinkedIn Premium plan, you can unlock the rest.
You should also know that you can’t access your profile views if you’re in private mode. Be sure to check your “visibility” in your privacy settings before following these steps.
How to see who viewed your LinkedIn profile
What You Need
Smartphone or laptop
LinkedIn account
Step 1:
On your LinkedIn timeline, find the menu under your profile name to the left.
Step 2:
Select “Who viewed your profile”.
Credit: Mashable
Step 3:
The next page will show you the people who have viewed your profile in the past week, along with some metrics.
Credit: Mashable
Step 4:
To see the rest of your profile viewers, you’ll have to pay for a LinkedIn Premium plan.
You do get a 1-month free trial, though. To find a LinkedIn Premium plan, select “Try Free for 1 month” at the bottom of your profile viewers page.
Step 5:
If you want to just see all plans, select “See all plans”.
Check whichever options you want and LinkedIn will recommend a plan for you. Somebody actively looking to grow their network and find a job might want the “Career” plan, for example.
Credit: Mashable
Step 6:
Sign up for the plan you want, and then repeat steps 1 to 3 above to see everybody who viewed your profile.
“It is pretty clear that something has to change at Boeing and it has to be at the top of that company,” says Oliver at the end of the clip, after outlining ongoing issues with Boeing’s Max aircrafts. “Because if you are truly too big to fail, that should mean you are big enough to spend the time and resources required to fix the culture that you have destroyed. And in the meantime, the very least you can do is advertise the kind of company you are in a much more accurate way.”
Cue a parody ad staring Rose Byrne, David Costabile, Adam Pally and Roy Wood, Jr.
Yes, you can be anonymous on LinkedIn. Also, if you didn’t know, other users may be able to see when you viewed their profile. Kinda creepy, right?
But going anonymous is a perfect feature for checking out other profiles who may have reached out to you. Using this feature, LinkedIn won’t let them know that you viewed them. And if anyone finds your profile while you’re browsing LinkedIn as anonymous, they won’t be able to see your profile picture or other personal information.
However, if you browse in private mode you also won’t be able to see who has viewed your profile, unless you upgrade to Premium.
So how do you do you go full anonymous mode on LinkedIn? Follow these steps.
How to switch to anonymous browsing on LinkedIn
What You Need
Smartphone or laptop
LinkedIn account
Step 1:
Log in to your LinkedIn profile.
Step 2:
Find where it says “Me” at the very top and click the dropdown arrow.
Find “Me” at the top of the page Credit: linkedin
Step 3:
Select “Settings & Privacy” under “Account.”
Select “Settings and privacy” in the dropdown menu Credit: linkedin
Step 4:
In the menu on the left, select “Visibility.”
These settings will allow you to have control over who can see your profile and personal info.
Select “Visibility” on the left Credit: linkedin
Step 5:
Select “Profile viewing options.”
After clicking “Visibility” in the menu on the left, select your LinkedIn profile viewing options Credit: linkedin
Step 6:
At the bottom, select “Private Mode.”
LinkedIn “Private Mode” setting Credit: linkedin
You’ll now only be seen as an “Anonymous LinkedIn Member.” View other profiles without them knowing you viewed them. Your profile, along with your contact info, won’t be visible to others.
You can also select “Private Mode” in your “Story viewing options,” which lets you view LinkedIn members’ stories anonymously.
There are plenty of other privacy settings you can adjust to limit your LinkedIn visibility without going completely anonymous. Choose who can see your connections, who can see your last name and email address, whether approved apps and partners can display information from your profile, and more.
Obviously, visibility (and more specifically, discoverability) is a large part of being active on LinkedIn and networking with other professionals, but for those moments you want to be less visible, LinkedIn allows you to be.
