Ars Technica

A year ago, we called the M3 version of the MacBook Air "just about as good as laptops get."

The "as good as laptops get" part was about the qualitative experience of using the laptop, which was (and is) good-enough-to-great at just about everything a general-purpose laptop needs to be able to do. The "just about" part was mainly about the cost because to be happy with it long-term, it was a good idea for just about everybody to spend an extra $200 upgrading it from 8GB to 16GB of RAM. Apple also kept the M2 version of the Air in the lineup to hit its $999 entry-level price point; the M3 cost $100 extra.

Apple fixed the RAM problem last fall when it increased the minimum amount of RAM across the entire Mac lineup from 8GB to 16GB without increasing prices. Though Apple probably did it to help enable additional Apple Intelligence features down the line, nearly anything you do with your Mac will eventually benefit from extra memory, whether you're trying to use Photoshop or Logic Pro or even if you're just opening more than a couple of dozen browser tabs at once.

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Even three years later, AMD's high-end X3D-series processors still aren't a thing that most people need to spend extra money on—under all but a handful of circumstances, your GPU will be the limiting factor when you're running games, and few non-game apps benefit from the extra 64MB chunk of L3 cache that is the processors' calling card. They've been a reasonably popular way for people with old AM4 motherboards to extend the life of their gaming PCs, but for AM5 builds, a regular Zen 4 or Zen 5 CPU will not bottleneck modern graphics cards most of the time.

But high-end PC building isn't always about what's rational, and people spending $2,000 or more to stick a GeForce RTX 5090 into their systems probably won't worry that much about spending a couple hundred extra dollars to get the fastest CPU they can get. That's the audience for the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D, a 16-core, Zen 5-based, $699 monster of a processor that AMD begins selling tomorrow.

If you're only worried about game performance (and if you can find one), the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the superior choice, for reasons that will become apparent once we start looking at charts. But if you want fast game performance and you need as many CPU cores as you can get for other streaming or video production or rendering work, the 9950X3D is there for you. (It's a little funny to me that this a chip made almost precisely for the workload of the PC building tech YouTubers who will be reviewing it.)  It's also a processor that Intel doesn't have any kind of answer to.

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Apple is giving its high-end Mac Studio desktops a refresh this month, their first spec bump in almost two years. Considered on the time scale of, say, new Mac Pro updates, two years is barely any time at all. But Apple often delivers big performance increases for its Pro, Max, and Ultra chips from generation to generation, so any update—particularly one where you leapfrog two generations in a single refresh—can bring a major increase to performance that's worth waiting for.

It's the magnitude of Apple's generation-over-generation updates that makes this Studio refresh feel odd, though. The lower-end Studio gets an M4 Max processor like you'd expect—the same chip Apple sells in its high-end MacBook Pros but fit into a desktop enclosure instead of a laptop. But the top-end Studio gets an M3 Ultra instead of an M4 Ultra. That's still a huge increase in CPU and GPU cores (and there are other Ultra-specific benefits, too), but it makes the expensive Studio feel like less of a step up over the regular one.

How do these chips stack up to each other, and how big a deal is the lack of an M4 Ultra? How much does the Studio overlap with the refreshed M4 Pro Mac mini from last fall? And how do Apple's fastest chips compare to what Intel and AMD are doing in high-end PCs?

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For years, businesses, governments, and researchers have struggled with a persistent problem: How to extract usable data from Portable Document Format (PDF) files. These digital documents serve as containers for everything from scientific research to government records, but their rigid formats often trap the data inside, making it difficult for machines to read and analyze.

"Part of the problem is that PDFs are a creature of a time when print layout was a big influence on publishing software, and PDFs are more of a 'print' product than a digital one," Derek Willis, a lecturer in Data and Computational Journalism at the University of Maryland, wrote in an email to Ars Technica. "The main issue is that many PDFs are simply pictures of information, which means you need Optical Character Recognition software to turn those pictures into data, especially when the original is old or includes handwriting."

Computational journalism is a field where traditional reporting techniques merge with data analysis, coding, and algorithmic thinking to uncover stories that might otherwise remain hidden in large datasets, which makes unlocking that data a particular interest for Willis.

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This story was originally published by ProPublica.

Employees at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, received internal guidance last week to flag manuscripts, presentations or other communications for scrutiny if they addressed “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” topics. Among the 23 hot-button issues, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica: vaccines, fluoride, peanut allergies, autism.

While it’s not uncommon for the cancer institute to outline a couple of administration priorities, the scope and scale of the list is unprecedented and highly unusual, said six employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. All materials must be reviewed by an institute “clearance team,” according to the records, and could be examined by officials at the NIH or its umbrella agency, the US Department of Health and Human Services.

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A document that was first issued in 2009 would seem an unlikely candidate for making news in 2025. Yet the past few weeks have seen a steady stream of articles about an analysis first issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early years of Obama's first term: the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases.

The basics of the document are almost mundane: Greenhouse gases are warming the climate, and this will have negative consequences for US citizens. But it took a Supreme Court decision to get written in the first place, and it has played a role in every attempt by the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions across multiple administrations. And, while the first Trump administration left it in place, the press reports we're seeing suggest that an attempt will be made to eliminate it in the near future.

The only problem: The science in which the endangerment finding is based on is so solid that any ensuing court case will likely leave its opponents worse off in the long run, which is likely why the earlier Trump administration didn't challenge it.

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Another Silicon Valley investor is getting into the rocket business.

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has taken a controlling interest in the Long Beach, California-based Relativity Space. The New York Times first reported the change becoming official, after Schmidt told employees in an all-hands meeting on Monday.

Schmidt's involvement with Relativity has been quietly discussed among space industry insiders for a few months. Multiple sources told Ars that he has largely been bankrolling the company since the end of October, when the company's previous fundraising dried up.

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Google has a new mission in the AI era: to add Gemini to as many of the company's products as possible. We've already seen Gemini appear in search results, text messages, and more. In Google's latest update to Workspace, Gemini will be able to add calendar appointments from Gmail with a single click. Well, assuming Gemini gets it right the first time, which is far from certain.

The new calendar button will appear at the top of emails, right next to the summarize button that arrived last year. The calendar option will show up in Gmail threads with actionable meeting chit-chat, allowing you to mash that button to create an appointment in one step. The Gemini sidebar will open to confirm the appointment was made, which is a good opportunity to double-check the robot. There will be a handy edit button in the Gemini window in the event it makes a mistake. However, the robot can't invite people to these events yet.

The effect of using the button is the same as opening the Gemini panel and asking it to create an appointment. The new functionality is simply detecting events and offering the button as a shortcut of sorts. You should not expect to see this button appear on messages that already have calendar integration, like dining reservations and flights. Those already pop up in Google Calendar without AI.

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HP, along with other printer brands, is infamous for issuing firmware updates that brick already-purchased printers that have tried to use third-party ink. In a new form of frustration, HP is now being accused of issuing a firmware update that broke customers’ laser printers—even though the devices are loaded with HP-brand toner.

The firmware update in question is version 20250209, which HP issued on March 4 for its LaserJet MFP M232-M237 models. Per HP, the update includes “security updates,” a “regulatory requirement update,” “general improvements and bug fixes,” and fixes for IPP Everywhere. Looking back to older updates’ fixes and changes, which the new update includes, doesn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. The older updates mention things like “fixed print quality to ensure borders are not cropped for certain document types,” and “improved firmware update and cartridge rejection experiences.” But there’s no mention of changes to how the printers use or read toner.

However, users have been reporting sudden problems using HP-brand toner in their M232–M237 series printers since their devices updated to 20250209. Users on HP’s support forum say they see Error Code 11 and the hardware’s toner light flashing when trying to print. Some said they’ve cleaned the contacts and reinstalled their toner but still can't print.

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HBO released a one-minute teaser of the hotly anticipated second season of The Last of Us—based on Naughty Dog's hugely popular video game franchise—during CES in January. We now have a full trailer, unveiled at SXSW after the footage leaked over the weekend, chock-full of Easter eggs for gaming fans of The Last of Us Part II.

(Spoilers for S1 below.)

The series takes place in the 20-year aftermath of a deadly outbreak of mutant fungus (Cordyceps) that turns humans into monstrous zombie-like creatures (the Infected, or Clickers). The world has become a series of separate totalitarian quarantine zones and independent settlements, with a thriving black market and a rebel militia known as the Fireflies making life complicated for the survivors. Joel (Pedro Pascal) is a hardened smuggler tasked with escorting the teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsay) across the devastated US, battling hostile forces and hordes of zombies, to a Fireflies unit outside the quarantine zone. Ellie is special: She is immune to the deadly fungus, and the hope is that her immunity holds the key to beating the disease.

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Like life itself, BMWs seemed less complicated last century. You didn't need a crib sheet to understand the badge, and body styles were mostly just sedans, with a smattering of station wagons, two-door coupes, and convertibles. That was before it helped kickstart the SUV craze; now instead of 3, 5, 7, the series run 2–8 and X1 through X7. And don't get me started on individual model names. Like the 2025 430i xDrive Gran Coupe.

At first glance, if you're middle-aged like the average Ars reader, your brain probably says "this is a 3 Series sedan." After all, it has a pair of doors on either side. But there is no requirement for a coupe to only have two doors: the name is derived from the French "couper," meaning cut. And indeed, the roofline is cut down more than 2 inches lower than the actual 3 Series.

There's also a hatch at the rear, rather than a trunk lid. So, technically it's a fastback body style, which BMW has decided to call Gran Coupe the way it calls station wagons Tourings. Pedantic pigeonholing of body style will probably take a back seat to discussion of the front grille, though.

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A 55-year-old software developer faces up to 10 years in prison for deploying malicious code that sabotaged his former employer's network, allegedly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

The US Department of Justice announced Friday that Davis Lu was convicted by a jury after "causing intentional damage to protected computers" reportedly owned by the Ohio- and Dublin-based power management company Eaton Corp.

Lu had worked at Eaton Corp. for about 11 years when he apparently became disgruntled by a corporate "realignment" in 2018 that "reduced his responsibilities," the DOJ said.

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It has been an uncharacteristically messy start to the year for the world's leading spaceflight company, SpaceX.

Let's start with the company's most recent delay. The latest launch date for a NASA mission to survey the sky and better understand the early evolution of the Universe comes Monday night. The launch window for this SPHEREx mission opened on February 28, but a series of problems with integrating the rocket and payloads have delayed the mission nearly two weeks.

Then there are the Falcon 9 first stage issues. Last week, a Falcon 9 rocket launched nearly two dozen Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. However, one of the rocket's nine engines suffered a fuel leak during ascent. Due to a lack of oxygen in the thinning atmosphere, the fuel leak did not preclude the satellites from reaching orbit. But when the first stage returned to Earth, it caught fire after landing on a droneship, toppling over. This followed a similar issue in August, when there was a fire in the engine compartment. After nearly three years without a Falcon 9 landing failure, SpaceX had two in six months.

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Google didn't explain exactly why it shipped a mandatory software update to the Pixel 4a, an Android phone from 2020, earlier this year. The nature of that update, which gave some models all but unusable battery life, provided some clues, as did later software analysis. But now, Australian authorities have provided a more concrete answer: battery overheating and fire risk.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) Product Safety arm issued a recall for the Pixel 4a late last week. The reason, the commission said, is that Google's firmware update and battery changes served to "mitigate the risk of overheating" because "an overheating battery could pose a risk of fire and/or burns to a user."

In the US and elsewhere, Google's messaging did not use the term "recall." Google stated on its "Pixel 4a Battery Performance Program" page that "certain" Pixel 4a models "require a software update to improve the stability of their battery’s performance," which also "reduces available battery capacity and impacts charging performance." Google said it is still safe to charge a Pixel 4a.

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Google has gotten its first taste of remedies that Donald Trump’s Department of Justice plans to pursue to break up the tech giant’s monopoly in search. In the first filing since Trump allies took over the department, government lawyers backed off a key proposal submitted by the Biden DOJ. The government won't ask the court to force Google to sell off its AI investments, and the way it intends to handle Android is changing. However, the most serious penalty is intact—Google's popular Chrome browser is still on the chopping block.

"Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that—no matter what occurs—Google always wins," the DOJ filing says. To that end, the government maintains that Chrome must go if the playing field is to be made level again.

The DOJ is asking the court to force Google to promptly and fully divest itself of Chrome, along with any data or other assets required for its continued operation. It is essentially aiming to take the Chrome user base—consisting of some 3.4 billion people—away from Google and hand it to a competitor. The government will vet any potential buyers to ensure the sale does not pose a national security threat. During the term of the judgment, Google would not be allowed to release any new browsers. However, it may continue to contribute to the open source Chromium project.

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The Spark 2 from Positive Grid looks like a miniature old-school amp, but it is, essentially, a computer with some knobs and a speaker. It has Bluetooth, USB-C, and an associated smartphone app. It needs firmware updates, which can brick the device—ask me how I found this out—and it runs code on DSP chips. New guitar tones can be downloaded into the device, where they run as software rather than as analog electrical circuits in an amp or foot pedal.

In other words, the Spark 2 is the latest example of the "software-ization" of music.

Forget the old image of a studio filled with a million-dollar, 48-track mixing board from SSL or API and bursting with analog amps, vintage mics, and ginormous plate reverbs. Studios today are far more likely to be digital, where people record "in the box" (i.e., they track and mix on a computer running software like Pro Tools or Logic Pro) using digital models of classic (and expensive) amplifiers, coded by companies like NeuralDSP and IK Multimedia. These modeled amp sounds are then run through convolution software that relies on digital impulse responses captured from different speakers and speaker cabinets. They are modified with effects like chorus and distortion, which are all modeled, too. The results can be world-class, and they're increasingly showing up on records.

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The giant extinct shark species known as the megalodon has captured the interest of scientists and the general public alike, even inspiring the 2018 blockbuster film The Meg. The species lived some 3.6 million years ago, and no complete skeleton has yet been found. So there has been considerable debate among paleobiologists about megalodon's size, body shape, and swimming speed, among other characteristics.

While some researchers have compared megalodon to a gigantic version of the stocky great white shark, others believe the species had a more slender body shape. A new paper published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica bolsters the latter viewpoint, also drawing conclusions about the megalodon's body mass, swimming speed (based on hydrodynamic principles), and growth patterns.

As previously reported, the largest shark alive today, reaching up to 20 meters long, is the whale shark, a sedate filter feeder. As recently as 4 million years ago, however, sharks of that scale likely included the fast-moving predator megalodon (formally Otodus megalodon). Due to incomplete fossil data, we're not entirely sure how large megalodon were and can only make inferences based on some of their living relatives.

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Listen carefully to a spoken conversation and you’ll notice that the speakers use a lot of little quasi-words—mm-hmm, um, huh? and the like—that don’t convey any information about the topic of the conversation itself. For many decades, linguists regarded such utterances as largely irrelevant noise, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulate on the margins of language when speakers aren’t as articulate as they’d like to be.

But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be crucial traffic signals to regulate the flow of conversation as well as tools to negotiate mutual understanding. That puts them at the heart of language itself—and they may be the hardest part of language for artificial intelligence to master.

“Here is this phenomenon that lives right under our nose, that we barely noticed,” says Mark Dingemanse, a linguist at Radboud University in the Netherlands, “that turns out to upend our ideas of what makes complex language even possible in the first place.”

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