Month: January 2025
Docking stations for the Mac Mini M4, now that’s something Apple may wholeheartedly appreciate (or not)
ORICO’s docking stations boost Mac Mini’s versatility, offering connectivity, storage upgrades, and sleek integration.
Orico announces MiniLink, “a one-stop storage and dock”, for the Mac Mini M4
It adds up to nine ports as well as an SSD
The taller, cheaper MiniDock allows you to store the Mini vertically
The Mac Mini M4 is known for its compact size and sleek design, but could always do with more ports.
ORICO aims to solve this issue with two distinct products, the MiniLink and the MiniDock.
Each will expand port availability, with the Mini Dock offering up to 10 ports, while also providing SSD storage options.
ORICO MiniLink and MiniDock for the Mac Mini M4
ORICO’s MiniLink is the brand’s latest offering, marketed as a “one-stop storage and dock” solution. It comes with nine additional ports and also includes an SSD slot giving users the option of a built-in SSD for immediate use or the option for a DIY installation.
The ports in this dock include USB-A and USB-C options, an HDMI port for external displays, and both SD and microSD card slots.
Furthermore, the MiniLink’s removable base reveals the SSD mount; likely compatible with M.2 or SATA drives. With ultra-fast 40G SSD speeds, expect quick file transfers and smooth performance, even with large quantities of data.
MiniLink has two models, the M47P model (7-in-1) is listed for $84.99 while the M49P model (9-in-1) sells for $169.99.
Orico is also launching a budget-friendly MiniDock that allows you to store your Mac Mini vertically, saving valuable desk space.
The MiniDock is designed to maintain the Mac Mini’s cooling efficiency with a ventilation system that aligns with the Mini’s own cooling fan to enhance airflow.
The 10-in-1 hub adds essential ports like USB-A, USB-C, HDMI, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The MiniDock also supports built-in or DIY SSD storage, giving users the option to increase their Mac Mini’s storage capacity.
The Orico MiniDock has five models, offering anywhere from no-built-in storage up to 4TB. The SSD-less option costs $69.99 while the 512GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB models cost $129.99, $169.99, $219.99 and $319.99 respectively.
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Tesla’s Model Y Redesign has Arrived, but Maybe Not Where You Are
The updated Model Y appeared on Tesla’s websites in China and elsewhere with no announcement.
The updated Model Y appeared on Tesla’s websites in China and elsewhere with no announcement.
Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 11, #580
Here are some hints — and the answers — for Connections No. 580 for Saturday, Jan. 11.
Here are some hints — and the answers — for Connections No. 580 for Saturday, Jan. 11.
Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Jan. 11, #1302
Here are some hints and the answer for Wordle No. 1302 for Saturday, Jan. 11.
Here are some hints and the answer for Wordle No. 1302 for Saturday, Jan. 11.
Best Internet Providers in Auburn, Alabama
Need internet in Auburn? We’ve found the best broadband options in the city, from low-cost plans to super fast speeds.
Need internet in Auburn? We’ve found the best broadband options in the city, from low-cost plans to super fast speeds.
AMD exec drops hints on RX 9070 pricing and some PC gamers are panicking – but this sounds like good news to me
An interview with an AMD exec tells us that a full RX 9070 launch event is coming, and that pricing will be in line with the excellent RX 7900 GRE.
AMD’s Frank Azor was interviewed by a Spanish YouTuber about RDNA 4
The exec told us that the RX 9070 will be a ‘very competitive product’
Pricing was also mentioned, in a vague way, and some gamers are taking it as a bad sign – but that’s jumping the GPU gun
AMD has given us some clues as to the price points RDNA 4 graphics cards will land at, albeit some very vague hints, courtesy of one of Team Red’s execs – and a good deal more interesting info on the next-gen GPUs besides.
All this comes from Frank Azor, AMD’s head of consumer and gaming marketing, who has been busy this week, firing some weighty flak at Intel’s Arrow Lake in the CPU world, and then sharing these fresh GPU details in another interview.
This chat was with Michael Quesada, a Spanish YouTuber who has a PC gaming channel. We should note that the conversation is in Spanish, and so the quotes we have here (courtesy of VideoCardz) are a translation (made with help from Spanish tech site El Chapuzas Informatico).
Quesada kicked off by questioning Azor on the flimsy RDNA 4 announcement at CES 2025, which provided very scant details, besides the names and existence of the RX 9070 and 9070 XT – why was this so light on information?
Azor repeated the assertion already made by AMD that there simply wasn’t time in the 45-minute CES 2025 keynote to fit in RDNA 4 and properly do it justice.
The marketing chief told us: “What are we announcing here? With the announcements of RDNA 2 and RDNA 3, we had dedicated events to present the architecture and performance improvements. We can’t cover that in five minutes. If we had, everyone would be angry with us for not giving the new graphics cards the attention they deserve.
“That’s why we decided to reserve the announcement of the new graphics cards for a separate event where we can give them proper focus.”
Azor also poured cold water on any idea that the next-gen Radeon graphics cards might be delayed (as some theorized as to why AMD kept its 9070 revelations very bare).
Everything remains on track, we’re assured, and here’s where Azor made a very interesting statement. The translation in this case is direct from YouTube (and what I could make of it), so take this with a large dollop of caution, but the AMD exec appears to admit that the other reason Team Red didn’t reveal specs and pricing for the RX 9070 is that the firm wanted to look at what Nvidia was announcing and react to that.
In other words, AMD needed to ensure that RDNA 4 is competitive with what Nvidia was doing with RTX 5000, a theory I put forward earlier this week. (Not just me of course – it’s an obvious enough thought, really, but Azor is, translation wobbles aside, saying this was indeed what AMD was up to).
The most interesting part of the interview, though, is the clues about pricing I mentioned at the outset, which cropped up later.
Azor observed: “We’re going to bring a very competitive product [with RDNA 4]. Everyone will benefit from this launch. It will be worth the wait.
“The Radeon RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 GRE offered aggressive pricing for their performance. The market responded well, especially in a landscape where prices are constantly rising.”
“AMD remains focused on delivering value for money. When we announce RDNA 4, we’ll introduce a powerful graphics card – not a $300 card, but also not a $1,000 card.”
(Image credit: YouTube / Michael Quesada)
Analysis: Careful with that pitchfork, Eugene
There’s some refreshing plain speaking here, then, from Azor, regarding why AMD’s reveal was tissue-thin for details on the RX 9070 models, and the lack of any pricing. It was to better pitch RDNA 4 to be competitive with what Nvidia has cooked up with the RTX 5000 series.
The part of the interview relating to RDNA 4 pricing has predictably got every forum and social media outlet buzzing. Does this mean AMD is thinking about a $650 price tag for the RX 9070 XT, some folks are asking – as that’s the average of the two mentioned low and high prices (a total $1,300, divided by two).
Of course, it’s never going to be as simple as that. But whatever the RX 9070 XT and its vanilla sibling end up costing, AMD is going to make the price to performance ratio stand up and compete with Nvidia’s RTX 5070 in the mid-range.
Simply given AMD’s chosen name change – to the RX 9070, versus the RTX 5070 – the pricing has to make sense in terms of that showdown. The MSRPs will be “very competitive” as Azor puts it, based on the relative performance provided by RDNA 4 – and as we don’t know how peppy the RX 9070 XT will be yet, trying to work out pricing averages doesn’t make any sense. Neither does running down to cellars, looking for pitchforks and torches, while muttering about a $650 Radeon flagship being a rip-off based on past performance rumors for Navi 48.
Let’s not engage with that kind of nonsense. The main point to focus on here is not the dollar amounts Azor chose to mention – and the exec used such a huge spread, of course, to make them kind of meaningless – but what he said about the RX 9070 GPUs being very competitive with Nvidia. And that these next-gen offerings will match the RX 7900 GRE for price/performance, this is the other key point to home in on. That’s an excellent value graphics card and one that remains top of our list of best GPUs, in fact, where it has sat for some time.
AMD could well be waiting to test the RTX 5070 and 5070 Ti itself before finalizing pricing for RDNA 4 here. If I had to call a most likely price point, the recently aired rumor of $479, or around the $500 mark, seems more likely than anything higher than the RTX 5070’s MSRP ($549). But again, whatever it turns out to be, that price needs to be viewed through the lens of the card’s performance.
Roll on that incoming full RX 9070 launch event, then, so we can finally find out where price and performance will shake out. The rumor mill believes that an announcement is likely coming in just a couple of weeks (RDNA 4 pre-orders might kick off on January 23 based on one retailer leak). If true, that means the RX 9070 variants could be on sale at the end of January, ahead of the RTX 5070 models which aren’t out until February.
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Meta’s right-wing reinvention also includes an end to DEI programs and trans Messenger themes
Meta isn’t stopping at moderation changes. According to both Axios and The New York Times, the company is also pulling the plug on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. That includes removing diversity hiring goals, eliminating the chief diversity officer position and no longer prioritizing minority-owned businesses as vendors, per The Times’ reporting.
When asked to comment on ending DEI initiatives, Meta confirmed the reporting was accurate.
Internally, the company is apparently pinning the decision on a shifting “legal and policy landscape,” according to a memo to employees Axios acquired.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s VP of Human Resources says in the memo. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
The current Supreme Court is not exactly friendly towards systemic attempts to address issues of race, gender and sexuality, but in the context of Meta’s other recent changes, it seems like there’s more going on than the company being afraid of a possible lawsuit.
At the same time that Mark Zuckerberg was announcing that Meta was abandoning third-party fact checking and changing what kind of speech it allows on its platform, 404 Media reports that the company removed the Trans and Non-binary themes from Messenger, and posts it made announcing them. The company also added Trump supporter and UFC CEO Dana White to its board this week, a confirmation of Zuckerberg’s continuing UFC fandom but also a signal that it’s eager to listen to conservative voices. It all seems to add up to less of a reaction to the current climate and more like the way people in charge want to be doing business going forward.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/metas-right-wing-reinvention-also-includes-an-end-to-dei-programs-and-trans-messenger-themes-204031848.html?src=rss
Meta isn’t stopping at moderation changes. According to both Axios and The New York Times, the company is also pulling the plug on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. That includes removing diversity hiring goals, eliminating the chief diversity officer position and no longer prioritizing minority-owned businesses as vendors, per The Times‘ reporting.
When asked to comment on ending DEI initiatives, Meta confirmed the reporting was accurate.
Internally, the company is apparently pinning the decision on a shifting “legal and policy landscape,” according to a memo to employees Axios acquired.
“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” Janelle Gale, Meta’s VP of Human Resources says in the memo. “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
The current Supreme Court is not exactly friendly towards systemic attempts to address issues of race, gender and sexuality, but in the context of Meta’s other recent changes, it seems like there’s more going on than the company being afraid of a possible lawsuit.
At the same time that Mark Zuckerberg was announcing that Meta was abandoning third-party fact checking and changing what kind of speech it allows on its platform, 404 Media reports that the company removed the Trans and Non-binary themes from Messenger, and posts it made announcing them. The company also added Trump supporter and UFC CEO Dana White to its board this week, a confirmation of Zuckerberg’s continuing UFC fandom but also a signal that it’s eager to listen to conservative voices. It all seems to add up to less of a reaction to the current climate and more like the way people in charge want to be doing business going forward.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/metas-right-wing-reinvention-also-includes-an-end-to-dei-programs-and-trans-messenger-themes-204031848.html?src=rss
JPMorgan Chase Requires All Workers To Return To Office Five Days a Week
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: JPMorgan Chase is summoning all staff back to the office, becoming the latest corporate giant to call time on era of remote and hybrid working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The US’s largest bank, which has some 316,000 employees worldwide, announced on Friday that all workers on hybrid work schedules will be required to return to the office five days a week from March. […] Few top executives have been more vocal in making the case for working from the office than Jamie Dimon, the veteran CEO of JPMorgan, who — as early as 2021 — sought to restore pre-pandemic working habits. “And everyone is going to be happy with it,” he told a Wall Street Journal event that year. “And yes, the commute — you know, people don’t like commuting. But so what?”
Even before Friday’s announcement, more than half of employees at JPMorgan had already been required to work from the office full-time. In an internal memo to staff, seen by the Guardian, Dimon and other executives acknowledged that “some of you prefer a hybrid schedule” and said they “respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision.” “We are now a few years out of the pandemic and have had the time to evaluate the benefits and challenges of remote and hybrid working,” they wrote. “We feel that now is the right time to solidify our full-time in-office approach. “We think it is the best way to run the company. As we’ve discussed before, the benefits of working together in person are substantial and irreplaceable, and as we spend more time together, the more advantages we gain.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: JPMorgan Chase is summoning all staff back to the office, becoming the latest corporate giant to call time on era of remote and hybrid working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The US’s largest bank, which has some 316,000 employees worldwide, announced on Friday that all workers on hybrid work schedules will be required to return to the office five days a week from March. […] Few top executives have been more vocal in making the case for working from the office than Jamie Dimon, the veteran CEO of JPMorgan, who — as early as 2021 — sought to restore pre-pandemic working habits. “And everyone is going to be happy with it,” he told a Wall Street Journal event that year. “And yes, the commute — you know, people don’t like commuting. But so what?”
Even before Friday’s announcement, more than half of employees at JPMorgan had already been required to work from the office full-time. In an internal memo to staff, seen by the Guardian, Dimon and other executives acknowledged that “some of you prefer a hybrid schedule” and said they “respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision.” “We are now a few years out of the pandemic and have had the time to evaluate the benefits and challenges of remote and hybrid working,” they wrote. “We feel that now is the right time to solidify our full-time in-office approach. “We think it is the best way to run the company. As we’ve discussed before, the benefits of working together in person are substantial and irreplaceable, and as we spend more time together, the more advantages we gain.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.