Weekly recap

Weekly Tech Recap - № 255 - Bugs and AI, iPhone SE, ARM SoCs for Mac, Blade Stealth 13, Samsung cat house

By Laurent Gloaguen,

April 24, 2020.

Bugs: AI to the rescue

Bugs. © iStock.

At Microsoft, 47,000 developers generate nearly 30 thousand bugs a month. These items get stored across over 100 AzureDevOps and GitHub repositories. Faced with such a volume of data, Microsoft found it difficult to quickly and efficiently rank bugs to prioritize the most serious ones, i.e. the security-related ones. To achieve this, Microsoft developed a process and machine learning model that correctly distinguishes between security and non-security bugs 99 percent of the time and accurately identifies the critical, high priority security bugs, 97 percent of the time. The model was trained using millions of data collected over 20 years. Microsoft has announced that it will be open sourcing its methodology to GitHub. A paper on the classification of security bug reports based solely on their title has already been published.

⇨ Microsoft Security Blog, Scott Christiansen, Mayana Pereira, “Secure the software development lifecycle with machine learning.”

New iPhone SE

iPhone SE, second-generation. © Apple.

Apple has just unveiled an iPhone which, while not ground-breaking, will surely be popular thanks to its excellent value. The new model replaces the iPhone 8, which will soon be pulled from the market. This iPhone SE 2020 version (the SE suffix was used for the entry-level 2016 model) is basically the same as the iPhone 8, with the same size and weight (148g). The main difference between the two is that the SE comes with the A13 SoC, the same processor as the iPhone 11 Pro, i.e. the fastest chip on the market. This means that the iPhone SE 2020 has the same computing power as the higher-end models. And while you don’t get the same OLED large screen or multiple cameras, at that price, it’s still a very attractive proposition (CAD600 for 64Gb, CAD670 for 128Gb, CAD910 for 256Gb). It comes in three colors: white, black and red. The iPhone SE 2020 is available for pre-order now, with shipping in two weeks.

⇨ YouTube, “iPhone SE (2020) Review: everything you need.”

⇨ The Verge, Dieter Bohn, “Apple Iphone SE review: everything you need.”

Future ARM SoCs for Mac

Apple Store in Guangzhou. © iStock.

Following up on Ming-Chi Kuo’s report in February about the release, in 2021, of an ARM-equipped Macintosh, Bloomberg states that, “according to people familiar with the matter”, Apple is working on a line of ARM-based SoCs for its Macs. These processors are based on the future A14, which will power the next iPhones and iPads, and are built by TSMC based on a 5nm process. The initial wave of Mac chips will have eight high-performance Firestorm cores and four energy-efficient Icestorm ones, or 12 in all. The A12Z chip used in the current iPad Pro has eight cores: four high performance and four energy efficient. Bloomberg speculates that Apple’s first ARM-based machines will be lower-powered MacBooks because its own chips won’t be able to match Intel’s performance in its higher-end MacBook Pros, iMacs, and Mac Pro computers.

⇨ Ars Technica, Samuel Axon, “Report: Apple will begin selling Macs with its own processors in 2021.”

⇨ The Verge, Jon Porter, “Apple will reportedly use 12-core 5nm ARM processor in a 2021 Mac.”

New Razer Blade Stealth 13

Razer has unveiled two new Blade Stealth 13 GTX Ultrabooks, one for gamers and one for content creators. Both come with the same 10th generation Intel CPU (Core i7-1065G7) and GPU (GeForce GTX 1650 Ti). The only difference between them is in the 13.3-inch display: the gamers model has a 1080p screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, while the creators model has a 4K touchscreen at 60Hz. High-refresh-rate displays are ideal for gamers, as they provide more fluid images, while 4K is more suited for things like video editing. Prices start at USD1,800 for the GTX FHD and USD2,000 for the GTX 4K. Both models are available as of Tuesday on Razer’s Web site and at some American and Canadian retail stores. We can’t wait to see the reports on their performance, to know if we need to break out the Visa card.

⇨ AnandTech, Gavin Bonshor, “Two New Razer Blade Steath 13 Notebooks: With Intel 10th Gen Ice Lake & GTX 1650 Ti.”

Samsung branches out into cat houses

New TVs always come with outrageous amounts of packaging to protect them, all of which ends up on the curb. Samsung came up with the bright idea of helping its clients turn all the cardboard that comes with its Serif, Frame and Sero TVs into useful objects, including a cat house. A QR code printed on the boxes grants access to instructions manuals that show you where to cut and fold. The only issue cat owners will have (or those who are possessed by a cat, more like) is that the cat house quickly turns into shredded cardboard.

⇨ Gizmodo, Andrew Liszewski, “Samsung redesigned its TV boxes to be easily converted into cat houses and entertainment centers.”