Welcome to the TechMainRide home for Tuesday, September 12, 2023. I'm Brian McCullough today, all the headlines from the iPhone event today at Apple HQ. Why is Meta blocking some basic terms on their new threads search feature? TikTok Shop is rolling out broadly, and the US copyright office keeps knocking down copyright claims for AI-generated art. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. iPhone 15 event today. You gotta do it a bit differently.
Let's just get right into it with what's new and not messed around. They started with the Apple Watch first, new generation series 9. Looks basically the same as the previous generation in terms of design and chassis. It's got a new Apple Silicon chip though. It's called the S9 Sip. The CPU has 5.6 billion transistors, 60% more than the Series 8. The GPU is 30% faster. It's got a four core neural engine now that allows Siri requests to happen on the watch itself.
All this gives you 18 hours of battery life, which I think was what the previous version got. The display can now get up to 2000 nits, double the brightness of the Series 8 watches. There's a new gesture called double tap. If you tap your index finger and thumb together twice with the hand that has the watch on it, you can do things like answer and hang up calls. It's basically the primary button on any app that actually looks pretty useful.
Double tapping feels like it was inspired by the Vision Pro's hand gestures. What else? There's some new pinkish colors. The new Apple Watch is apparently Apple's first entirely carbon neutral product. Then it was on to the Apple Watch Ultra. There's a new watch face called modular ultra, which uses the outer edge of the display. The screen can now hit 3000 nits, which is pretty nuts. It gets the same 36 hours of battery life. That was about it. Pretty much incremental updates for both watches.
You can order both today, shipping September 22nd. Then it was on to the iPhone. The iPhone 15 to be exact. This is the low end, the one with the two cameras, which is the easiest way to differentiate them by sight. The dynamic island has come to the iPhone 15. It's got an OLED Super Retina XDR display. It supports Dolby Vision with 1600-knit brightness. Peak brightness is 2000 nits in sunlight. There are two sizes, 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches for a 15 plus.
The colors are pink, yellow, green, blue, and black. The main camera is 48 megapixels. That's an upgrade, right? The new 12 megapixel optical zoom is there. There's a next-gen portrait mode. You don't have to switch to portrait mode ahead of time now. You can make portraits afterwards in the photo app, which is nice. You don't have to decide in the moment if you want a portrait picture. I'm pretty sure the front selfie camera is unchanged. The 15s now have an A16 Bionic chip, same as the 14 Pro.
Basically, we're seeing the trickle down from the Pro models as expected year over year. Though the 15s now have a new ultra-wide-band chip that will help you find your friends with the same precision that you use to find air tags. Roadside assistance is now available via satellite, partnered with Triple A. Triple A members get it free for unlimited amount of time, I guess. But anyone can get it for two years for free just for buying a iPhone 15.
But they really made folks like me writing headlines about this wait for so long to announce the big news. Yes, USB-C. Airpods are now USB-C as well. You can also charge your AirPods from your phone now. The iPhone 15 is starting at $799. The iPhone 15 Plus starts at $899. And then it was on to the iPhone 15 Pros. They claim that these are the lightest pros ever because they're using titanium now. They also have the thinnest borders ever on the iPhone.
6.1 inches in screen size for the Pro, 6.7 inches for the Pro Max. The four colors for the Pros look basically the same. Apple claims that a new internal architecture makes the iPhone more repairable and the inside is 100% recycled aluminum. The real new thing for these high-end phones is the action button. What do it do? By default, it's still a basic ring-slash silence switch. You just hold it down to do that.
You can also reassign things like camera launch, voice recorder launch, or even launch a shortcut. The screen is a super retina XDR display with ProMotion, Extreme Dynamic Range, and the Always On Display. But the chip is now an A17 Pro. It's the first three-nanometer chip in a smartphone, Apple says. 12 Silicon Adams-wide, 19 billion transistors, 6 core GPUs, two high performance cores, four high efficiency cores. The neural engine is twice as fast, they say.
Dedicated engines for ProRes, the Always On Display, and AV-1 video decoders for streaming services. Also, hardware accelerated ray tracing for the first time. USB-C speeds of 10 GPS for the Pros, which again, only the Pro models get also 20X faster than USB-2 data transfer, I guess. Side note here, why does Apple spend every iPhone event talking so much about mobile gaming when like aside from casual games, who games heavily on their iPhones, even after all these years?
As for the camera on the Pros, again, this is the high end, the three camera iPhones. Main camera is what they're calling a more advanced 48 megapixel sensor, 24 millimeters, 28 millimeters, and 35 millimeter focal lengths with the main camera. You can set one of those as the default now. There's a 3X telephoto camera, but the new thing is their biggest optical zoom yet.
5X zoom at 120 millimeter focal length, 25% larger sensor than the 14 Pro Max, 2.8 aperture, 100% focus pixels, basically a 5X telephoto lens. They still have that 12 megapixel ultra-wide lens. You can now do ProRes 4K 60 frames per second video. And yeah, the Pro gets USB-C charging as well, of course, but this is something that I predicted with the announcement of the Vision Pro.
You can now also turn your Pro iPhone sideways and can record 3D spatial video, though that requires you to view such video on your Vision Pro, if you have one eventually. And capturing it only begins later this year as a software update. 15 Pro comes with 128 gigabytes of storage, starting at $999. The Pro Max is 1199 at 256 gigabytes of storage, starting pre-order on Friday, available September 22nd. Interesting little addendum here. iCloud Plus now gets new 6 and 12 gigabytes storage tiers.
I might have missed it though. I assume these would cost more. I don't know what that cost would be yet. This is Apple News adjacent as this will come to Max someday, I assume. Intel has announced Thunderbolt 5, offering up to 120 GBPS bandwidth and support for DisplayPort 2.1, USB version 4, USB 320G, and PCIe Gen 4, and up to 240 watts charging, hoodingvideocards.com.
The most recent advancement Thunderbolt 4 introduced enhanced display capabilities, allowing for dual 4K monitor support or a single 8K monitor. Additionally, Thunderbolt 4 mandated support for USB 4 specifications, provided up to 100 watts of charging, and offered a minimum data transfer rate of 32 GBPS. However, despite these improvements, Thunderbolt 3 and 4 both maintained the same total bandwidth of 40 GBPS and compatibility with a PCIe Gen 3 standard.
The updated version raised the minimum PCIe data transfer requirement to 32 GBPS, although Thunderbolt 3 also supported the speed, albeit not as a mandatory requirement. Consequently, gamers utilizing external graphics typically wouldn't recognize any distinction between Thunderbolt 3 and 4 enclosures. In October of the previous year, Intel unveiled its plans for a new generation of Thunderbolt technology, and today, they officially introduced it as Thunderbolt 5.
This standard offers a total bandwidth potential of up to 120 GBPS, hinging on the utilization of bandwidth boost technology. Thunderbolt 5 and its default configuration supplies an 80 GBPS by-directional connection. However, when the need arises for high-resolution displays with increased refresh rates, or for accommodating multiple displays, devices can harness the full 120 GBPS speed. In such scenarios, the receiving speed can be flexibly adjusted, ranging from 80 down to 40 GBPS.
A noteworthy feature of Thunderbolt 5 is compatibility with DisplayPort 2.1. USB version 4, USB 320G and PCIe Gen 4. This standard also includes charging support of up to 240 watts, eliminating the necessity for separate charging cables for some laptops. The inclusion of PCIe Gen 4 compatibility implies that Thunderbolt 5 will unlock a greater bandwidth potential for external GPUs, potentially addressing one of the principal limitations of Thunderbolt 3 and 4 standards.
However, for this to be fully supported, systems must be equipped with PCIe compatible links, operating at 64 GBPS speeds. It is anticipated that upcoming laptops, potentially those based on the meteor-like architecture, might be among the pioneering systems to incorporate Thunderbolt 5, officially the first systems featuring this technology are to launch in 2024. Archie the podcast puppy is a member of our family. That's why we don't feed him a sub-part dog food. Archie gets nom nom.
Nom nom delivers fresh dog food with every portion personalized to your dog's needs, so you can bring out their best. Nom nom is made with real whole food. You can see and recognize without any additives or fillers that contribute to bloating and low energy. That's because nom nom uses the latest science and insights to make real good food for dogs. Their nutrient-packed recipes are crafted by board-certified veterinary nutritionists, made fresh and shipped free to your door.
Nom nom already delivered over 40 million meals to good dogs like yours and mine, inspiring millions of clean bowls and tailwags, plus nom nom comes with a money back guarantee. If your dog's tail isn't wagging within 30 days, nom nom will refund your first order. No fillers, no nonsense, just nom nom. Go right now for 50% off your no-risk, two-week trial at trinom.com-slashride. The NFL is back, baby.
Draft King Sportsbook, which is an official sports betting partner of the NFL, is giving you a can't miss offer for week one. This week, new customers can get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just $5 on any NFL game. Draft Kings is hooking everyone up with game day greatness. All customers can take advantage of two new offers every single game day this September. Download now and use code techmeme to sign up. New customers can take home $200 in bonus bets instantly just for betting $5.
That's code techmeme. Only on Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. The crown is yours. For more information, visit www.1800gambler.net in New York, call 8778HOP NY or TEXT HOPE NY 467369. In Connecticut, help us for problems gambling call 888-789-77777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort, KS21 plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario.
dkng.co slash football for eligibility terms and responsible gaming resources bonus bets expire seven days after issuance eligibility and deposit restrictions apply Meta's Twitter competitor Threads recently got a search function and what that
tells us about how Meta sees this new social platform is interesting because testing shows that it has some serious guardrails including the blocking of words like sex, Gore, vaccines, Meta admits that COVID is a blocked term but has declined to disclose others. quoting the Washington Post met a acknowledged in a statement to the Washington Post that Threads is intentionally blocking the search terms and said that other terms are being blocked but the company declined to provide a list of
them. A search by the post discovered that the word sex, nude, Gore, porn, coronavirus vaccines and vaccination are also among the blocked words. The search functionality temporarily doesn't provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content. The statement said adding that the company will add search functionality for terms only quote once we are
confident in the quality of the results end quote. Lucky Tran, director of science communication at Columbia University discovered this himself when he attempted to use threads to seek out research related to COVID, something he says he does every day. I was excited by search on threads he said when I typed in COVID I came up with no search results. Other public health workers criticized the company's decision and said its timing was especially poor
given the current coronavirus uptick. Hospitalizations jumped nearly 16% in the United States last week and have been rising steadily since July. According to CDC data though they remain less than what they were for the
comparable week a year ago. Deaths are less than a quarter of what they were year to year CDC statistics show Emily Vraga an associate professor at the University of Minnesota's Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication said the decision to block search results for important keywords quote does not situate threads as a replacement for the Twitter that once existed end quote. The decision Vraga said was indicative of met as a parent inability
to meaningfully moderate content at scale. Meta and all of its products have long had a hands-off approach she said they really don't want to be seen as deciding truth versus not truth and I think this is a continuation of that. They are often side stepping the really complicated and very difficult
moderation decisions and quote. Haney Farad a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in technology and disinformation said that blocking search results for certain terms does at least show that meta is thinking about disinformation though he called blocking search terms and imprecise moderation method and quote.
Years from now this might end up being the biggest news of the day historically speaking tiktok has begun rolling out tiktok shop to all US users adding a home screen shop button that sends users to a marketplace and already has more than 200,000 sellers on that marketplace. Goatting the times after nearly a year of testing speculation and some internal upheaval tiktok this week is rolling out tiktok shop for all users
in the United States. The company will expand the rollout of a shop button on the apps home screen which sends people to a marketplace and drive traffic to videos that contain shop buttons for specific products. Both enable users to buy products and a few clicks without leaving the app. Ecommerce is a significant bet for the company which is hoping to translate the apps power as
a cultural trend center into another big new revenue stream. But it is a venture that other popular social platforms including Instagram have not succeeded with in the US to make it a hit tiktok said it is actively driving videos with shopping buttons into users feeds. The company is also for the time being giving generous discounts and coupons to users who shop and forego commissions from
many sellers. Tiktok said that it had already signed up 200,000 sellers to tiktok shop and that more than 100,000 creators could make videos and live stream with shopping buttons. Or maybe this will be the headline that history remembers. The US copyright office has denied protection for an AI-made image that won an art competition despite Adobe Photoshop alterations and more than 624 text prompt revisions.
Quoting Reuters. The US copyright office has again rejected copyright protection for art created using artificial intelligence denying a request by artists Jason M. Allen for a copyright covering an award-winning image he created with the generative AI system mid-journey. The office said on Tuesday that Allen's science fiction themed image theater de opera spatial was not entitled to copyright protection because it was not the product of human
authorship. The copyright office in February rescinded copyrights for images that artist Chris Castanova created using mid-journey for a graphic novel called Zarya of the Dawn dismissing the argument that the images showed Castanova's own creative expression. It has also rejected a copyright for an image that computer scientist Stephen Taller said his AI system created
autonomously. Allen applied last September to register a copyright in theater de opera spatial an image of oaking a futuristic royal court that won the Colorado State Fair's art competition in 2022. A copyright office examiner requested more information about mid-journey's role in creating the image which had received national attention as the first AI generated work to
win the contest. Allen told the office that he quote input numerous revisions and text prompts at least 624 times to arrive at the initial version of the image using mid-journey and altered it with a Adobe Photoshop. The office asked Allen to disclaim the parts of the image that mid-journey generated in order to receive copyright protection. It rejected Allen's application after he
declined. The office's copyright review board affirmed the decision on Tuesday finding the image as a whole was not copyrightable because it contained more than a minimal amount of AI-created material. Allen said on Wednesday that the office's decision on his work was expected but he was quote certain we will win in the end and quote. Getting this out to you as soon as humanly possible, talk to you tomorrow.