### Issue 1767 - Wednesday 18th January, 2023

## In Today's Issue

- Mac Mini and MacBook Pro get M2 upgrades and price bumps
- Tesla faked 2016 Autopilot video & Elon's investor fraud trial starts tomorrow
- UK adds jail time for bosses not adhering to Online Safety Bill
- The sad and sorry story of Elon's Twitter takeover (so far)
- Cheap 14" M1 MBP, Apple Watch Ultra, refurb Dell micro PC, Mac Studio & monitor combo, Douk Audio U2, bonus AirPods with Mac/iPad purchase, refurb ThinkPad L380, Microsoft wireless kb/mouse, Intel Arc GPU, Samsung foldable phone, TCL smart glasses, refurb M1 Macs

## The News

### Mac Mini and MacBook Pro get M2 upgrades and price bumps

Apple has blessed the Mac Mini and MacBook Pro with M2 SoCs. The Mini now has the choice of an M2 or M2 Pro SoC (which brings 8K display support and four Thunderbolt 4 ports), up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM, plus Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. The 14" and 16" MBP come with either the M2 Pro or M2 Max. The Max supports up to 96GB of DDR5 wRAM - at obscene prices of course. No direct comparisons to the previous generation SoCs (just the Intel CPUs, which is odd) but I'm sure they're very fast, but how much faster than the M1 range, dunno. Interestingly, they're not based on TSMC's latest 3nm node. Prices have also gone up for the new Macs, as is usual for Apple.

### Tesla faked 2016 Autopilot video & Elon's investor fraud trial starts tomorrow

In a deposition regarding the fatal crash of Apple engineer Walter Huang in 2018, Tesla's director of Autopilot software, Ashok Elluswamy, admitted under oath that the Autopilot demonstration video (still on Tesla's website) published in 2016 was nothing but a marketing stunt and not representative of Autopilot's abilities then and likely not representative now either. During the creation of the video "3D maps were used to pre-program the route, including where to stop, and during the self-parking demo a Tesla crashed into a fence". Meanwhile, Elon Musk's trial over that infamous "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured" tweet starts tomorrow. Can't wait to see how he wriggles out of this one.

### UK adds jail time for bosses not adhering to Online Safety Bill

The UK is upping the ante on their Online Safety Bill, with the government agreeing to a group of its own MPs to add "two-year sentences for managers who fail to stop children seeing harmful material" according to the BBC. That means if the owners of a website or app don't add stuff like age verification, parental controls or quick content removal and the regulator Ofcom tells them to, the "bosses" could end up in prison. The logic is that such penalties are in the construction and finance industries so it should apply to the internet too. What I imagine will happen is businesses will block the UK from access and UK businesses will relocate overseas because it's too hard to comply with the law and UK users will just use a VPN.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### The sad and sorry story of Elon's Twitter takeover (so far)

If you've kept yourself blissfully unaware of Elon Musk's Twitter antics since he purchased it in October 2022, The Verge has a great article outlining the last few months. The "Elon net worth-o-meter" on the side that falls as you scroll through the piece is a nice touch. There's no doubt Twitter is a shadow of its former self now that Elon's in charge despite not that much actually changing on the platform. So many of the interesting people I follow and interacted with on Twitter either left entirely or have substantially scaled back their use. Mastodon is great and I like it, but there's still people that I like using Twitter so I use both and it's very annoying. I'll miss those who just vanished from social media entirely. Thanks Elon.

## Bargains

- 14" MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $2548 from Amazon
- Apple Watch Ultra - $1189 + delivery from Centrecom
- Refurb Dell Optiplex 7060 Micro (i5-8500T, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $248.82 from Bneacttrader's eBay store
- Apple Mac Studio (M1 Ultra, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD) & bonus Dell UltraSharp U2722DE 27" monitor - $5790.25 from digiDirect
- Douk Audio U2 USB to Digital Audio Converter - $53.81 from doukshop's eBay store
- Buy an "eligible" Mac or iPad from the Apple online store and get a pair of 2nd-gen AirPods for free
- Refurb Lenovo ThinkPad L380 (13.3" 1080p touch display, i5-8350U CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) - $292.50 from Maxtradinggroup's eBay store
- Microsoft Wireless Desktop 900 - $26.95 from Amazon
- Intel Arc A750 Graphics Limited Edition graphics card & bonus copy of CoD Modern Warfare 2 - $389 + delivery from PLE
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G 256GB - $1248 from Mobileciti
- TCL NXTWEAR S XR Smart Glasses - $638.40 from Mobileciti
- Refurb Apple Mac Studio (M1 Max, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $2789 from Apple's refurb store
- Refurb 14" MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) - $2299 from Apple's refurb store

## Image Of The Day

The Pocket Operator family is once again breaking boundaries. The small battery powered and affordable synthesizers are now expanding into the modular analog universe with the Pocket Operator Modular series. To explore the fun of modular synthesis in an effortless way, Teenage Engineering has developed a total of three DIY kits that include everything needed to get started. Just bend assemble and patch. It's never been easier to get started with modular music making. (Teenage Engineering)

## The End

📻 Blue Jeans - Lana Del Ray

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