• Apple Death Watch: Apple reported only $84 billion in sales for the first quarter of their 2019 fiscal year (whenever that is), short of their guidance of $89 to $93 billion.  (Six Colors)
  
  Apple stock actually halted trading temporarily.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Even given Apple's cash reserves, they can only withstand...  Wait, they still made how much profit?  Never mind.
  
  Tim Cook blames the trade war with China.  Customers blame the fact that the A$2389 iPhone XS Max lacks features found in a A$159 Android blue-light special.
  
  On the other hand, the iPhone XR, the cheapest of the new models, is selling very well in the US.  (ZDNet)
  
  On the third hand, the news that their cheapest model is selling well is less than ideal for Apple.  With unit shipments stagnating, they need to push up either pricing or margins (or better yet, both) to get any growth.  Or create a new product...
  
  
• AMD's 2019 CPU lineup has leaked again.  (VideoCardz)
  
  Though frankly this looks like someone took the earlier leak and entered into their website database and that's now being treated as confirmation of the original leak.  Washington DC political analysis comes to the tech world.
  
  
• Star Control: Origins is half price on Stardock.  Or if you prefer, you can pick up the Stardock Humble Bundle (GalCiv I, II, and III, Sins of a Solar Empire, Ashes of the Singularity, and Offworld Trading Company) and get a 33% discount coupon for Star Control: Origins on the Humble Store.
  
  Either way you get a Steam key.  Although the game is not currently listed for sale on Steam due to the DMCA nonsense, keys activate fine.
  
  Reviews are mixed, there is that DMCA nonsense going on, and I haven't played it yet myself, so please take this as a news item and not a personal recommendation.  I did buy it myself though.

Social Media News

• Is Obama's blatantly unconstitutional Operation Choke Point responsible for the recent rash of payment deplatforming?  (One Angry Gamer)
  
  Originally aimed at illegally stamping out the Second Amendment, claims are that it is still alive and being used to target the First.
  
  I'm skeptical, but Operation Choke Point was real, has not so far as I know been verified as having been dismantled, and worked in precisely this way, so I'm not dismissing this either.
  
  (Remember Rule One.)
  
  

Tech News

• California could soon have its own version of the internet.  (Wired)
  
  That is to say, the internet, only fucked it gives you cancer.
  
  
• DBS Bank in Singapore is using AI and big data in a way that is NOT AT ALL CREEPY.  (ZDNet)
  
  The way AI personal assistants work at the moment is completely messed up and counterproductive.
  
  
• Ten predictions about the media for 2019.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Summary: Everyone will be trying to buy everyone else and/or stab everyone else in the back, while violating customer privacy and making a whole lot of crap.  Also blockchain.
  
  
• Ultima Thule is shaped like a peanut.  The first high-resolution images should be received tomorrow, but it will take until September 2020 for all the flyby data to be received.
  
  I know how that feels, New Horizons.  I've been waiting for my fibre internet connection nearly as long as you've been alive.
  
  Update: I looked up Ultima Thule on Twitter to see if the first high-res images have come in yet and instead I find idiots bitching about Space Nazis. (Newsweek)
  
  Update: Had better luck on Ars Technica.
  
  
  
  
  

Social Media News

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, January 02 2019 05:17 PM (Iwkd4)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, January 03 2019 02:01 AM (Q/JG2)

Posted by: Ed Hering at Thursday, January 03 2019 04:54 AM (/cXdK)

Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, January 04 2019 09:37 AM (LMsTt)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, January 04 2019 07:23 PM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

• Star Control: Origins has been removed from Steam because - as far as I can tell - the designers of Star Control II are jerks.  (OC3D)
  
  Those same jerks are why you can't get Star Control I and II on GOG at the moment, even though they were earning royalties on the sales.
  
  Right now Star Control: Origins is still available on GOG though that may change at any moment.  Oh, and also on Stardock's own site, which is less likely to change, since Stardock has already countersued over the DMCA notices.
  
  
• Netflix has told Apple to go bite itself.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Apple made around $250 million as its cut of Netflix purchases through Netflix's iOS app in 2018 alone.  
  
  
• Swarm has been fined nearly a million dollars by the FCC for launching unlicensed space bees.  (MIT Technology Review)
  
  What it says.
  
  
• First leak of 2019 looks like Nvidia's RTX 2060.  (PC Perspective)
  
  I'm not sure what the point of a low-end RTX card is, exactly.  The big new feature is ray tracing, and even the 2080 Ti is too slow to do that usefully.  But now might be a good time to grab a GTX 1070 or 1070 Ti.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  
• Five tech stories you're already sick of hearing about.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  
• China's Chang'e 4 probe is set to land on the far side of the moon in the next couple of days.  (South China Morning Post)
  
  Despite the fact that the Soviet probe Luna 2 first landed - rather hard - on the Moon all the way back in 1959, this will be the first probe to make a landing on the far side.  
  
  The Chang'e rover - China's second Moon rover after 2013's Jade Rabbit - will communicate with Earth via a dedicated satellite called Queqiao, or Magpie Bridge.
  
  This being a Chinese mission, many details remain undisclosed, but it has been confirmed that yes, there are silkworms aboard.
  
  
  

Video of the Day

Pictures of the Day

Posted by: cxt217 at Wednesday, January 02 2019 01:04 PM (LMsTt)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, January 02 2019 02:55 PM (PiXy!)

Hide Comments | Add Comment