Month: May 2024

Today, just a month ahead of their annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple held a new event to unveil its new iPad Air and iPad Pro models in a new presentation. The 7th generation of the iPad Pro and the 6th generation of the iPad Air were revealed, making for the first update of the tablets since 2022. As expected, there are plenty of updates to love with the new iPad models, including a new M4 chip, updates to the Apple Pencil, and other features that are sure to boost your iPad experience, if you choose to buy one (or both) of the new tablets. With that being said, let’s go through everything Apple announced today for the iPad Pro 7 and the iPad Air 6.

iPad Pro 7th Generation

Price: Starting at $999 (11-inch) & $1,299 (13-inch) | Release Date: May 7 (Online Orders) & May 15 (In-Store Orders)

Colors

The 7th generation iPad Pro models are available in two colors, silver and space black.

Size

The iPad Pro 7 comes in two sizes, an 11-inch and a 13-inch model. The new iPad Pro will also be Apple’s thinnest product ever. The 11-inch model is just 5.3 mm thin and weighs less than a pound, while the 13-inch model is even thinner at 5.1 mmm and checks in at 1.28 pounds.

The New M4 Chip

With the iPad Pro 7, Apple takes a leap from the M2 chip to the M4 chip. M4 is built on second-generation 3-nanometer technology that’s even more power efficient. The new chip also introduces pioneering technology that serves the precision, color, and brightness of the Ultra Retina XDR display. The new CPU grants up to four performance cores and six efficiency cores, with next-generation machine learning (ML) accelerators, for up 1.5x faster CPU performance compared to the M2 chip in the previous-generation iPad Pro. Other features of M4 include:

• The 10-core GPU includes features like Dynamic Caching and hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing on the iPad for the first time ever.
• Pro rendering apps like Octane will see up to 4x faster performance than M2 thanks to the above and a higher unified memory bandwidth
• According to Apple, M4 also delivers “tremendous gains and industry-leading performance per watt.”
• M4 offers the same performance with half the power compared to M2 and a quarter of the power compared to the latest PC chip in a thin and light laptop
• A new and advanced Media Engine supports AV1 decode and allows for more power-efficient playback of high-resolution video experiences from streaming services

Display Screen

The new iPad Pro 7 debuts the Ultra Retina XDR, heralded by Apple as “the world’s most advanced display.” The Ultra Retina XDR display features “state-of-the-art tandem OLED technology” backed by two OLED panels. The light from both are combined for “phenomenal” full-screen brightness. To get into the specifics, the iPad Pro supports 1000 nits of full-screen brightness for SDR and HDR content, and 1600 nits peak for HDR. The tandem OLED technology allows sub-millisecond control over color and luminance of each pixel, making the XDR even more precise.

Camera

The iPad Pro cameras feature four studio-quality mics that help to make the iPad Pro even more versatile, allowing users to shoot, edit, and share all on the same device. The new iPad Pro’s front camera moves to the landscape edge. Backed by the Ultra Wide 12MP camera with Center Stage, video conference calls or Facetimes with friends or family look better.

AI Capabilities

With help from the new M4 chip, the new iPad Pro features Apple’s most powerful Neural Engine ever. Next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, a high-performance GPU, more memory bandwidth, and intelligent features and powerful developer frameworks in iPadOS make the iPad Pro 7 a powerful device AI as AI-enabled tasks are done even faster. Running powerful diffusion and generative AI models can also be done with ease and great results.

For example, with AI, the new iPad Pro can automatically identify documents in the camera app. If a shadow is in the way, multiple photos are instantly taken with the new adaptive flash and stitched together for a new and improved scan.

Other Features

Apple also introduced a new thinner and lighter Magic Keyword for the iPad Pro 7. The floating designs that Apple users love is still present, and now, there is a function row on the keyboard to control the screen brightness and volume controls. There’s a larger trackpad with haptic feedback, making it feel more like using a MacBook. The Magic Keyboard connects magnetically with a Smart Connect that automatically connects to the iPad without needing Bluetooth. Finally, there is a USB-C connector for charging and the new Magic Keyboard comes in two colors: black with a space black aluminum palm rest, and white with a silver aluminum palm rest.

Logic Pro 2 for the new iPad Pro will be available starting on May 13. It features studio assistant elements like Session Players, which expand on popular Drummer capabilities in Logic to include a new Bass Player and Keyboard Player; ChromaGlow, to instantly add warmth to tracks; and Stem Splitter, to extract and work with individual parts of a single audio recording.

Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 will arrive later this spring. It includes Live Multicam, which transforms an iPad into a mobile production studio and lets users view and control four connected iPhone and iPad devices wirelessly thanks to Final Cut Camera. Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 also allows users to create and open projects from an external storage device.

iPad Air 7th Generation

Price: Starting at $599 (11-inch) & $799 (13-inch) | Release Date: May 7 (Online Orders) & May 15 (In-Store Orders)

Colors

The 6th generation iPad Air models are available in four colors: space gray, starlight, purple, and blue

Size

The iPad Air 6 comes in two sizes — the redesigned 11-inch and the new 13-inch model.

Display Screen

Both models of the iPad feature advanced displays with a Liquid Retina design, an anti-reflective screen coating, True Tone technology, high brightness, and support for P3 wide color which allows for rich and vibrant onscreen content and text that remains that way in all lighting conditions. The 13-inch iPad Air grants 30 percent more screen space than the 11-inch model, allowing users to do more at a time with apps like Freeform and take advantage of Split View in iPadOS.

Cameras

Just like the iPad Pro 7, the iPad Air 6 also comes with landscape front-facing camera. The Ultra Wide 12MP camera features Center Stage makes it optimal for video conference calls and FaceTime with family and friends. The iPad Air also features a 12MP Wide back camera which delivers high-resolution photos and detailed 4K video with support for 240-fps slo-mo, as well as dual microphones that work in unison with the camera.

AI Capabilities

With a more efficient 16-core Neural Engine combined with ML accelerators in the CPU, a powerful GPU, and Apple silicon’s unified memory architecture, the iPad Air 6 promises “exceptional” AI performance. As a result, users can enjoy intelligent iPadOS features such as Visual Look Up, Subject Lift, or Live Text. Core ML taps into the Neural Engine to deliver powerful AI features right on the iPad Air 6. Between the Auto Enhance tool in Photomator, Onform and its motion tracking capabilities, and the ability to tap into apps that take advantage of the creative power of AI, like Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Adobe Firefly, there’s plenty to be done on the iPad Air 6 with help from AI.

Apple Pencil Pro

Lastly, two new features that will be available for both the iPad Pro 7 and the iPad Air 6 is the new Apple Pencil Pro and new Apple Keyboard. The Apple Pencil Pro comes with a new sensor in the barrel that allows a user to squeeze and, for example, bring up a tool palette to quickly switch tools, line weights, and colors without interruption. A custom haptic engine gives a light tap to the user to confirm a user’s squeeze, double tap, or snap have been received. A new gyroscope lets users roll the Apple Pencil Pro for precise control of a selected tool. Rotating the barrel changes the orientation of the pen, pencil, and other brush tools, just like it would on a piece of paper or a canvas. The Apple Pencil Pro also supports Find My allows users to easily find it if it’s misplaced.

50 Cent didn’t appreciate being accused of rape and abuse by his ex Daphne Joy Narvaez, filing suit against her for defamation. The former couple shares a son, Sire, and in court documents 50 filed on Monday according to TMZ, he believes Narvaez made the accusations in order to prevent him from getting sole custody.

50 is notoriously litigious and petty, so it should come as no surprise that he is suing his ex, but according to the filings, he gave her “ample time” to retract her statements. They read, “Despite being given ample opportunity to retract a false and malicious retaliatory accusation, Ms. Narvaez has shamefully chosen to interfere with her 11-year-old son’s relationship with his loving father by falsely calling him a ‘rapist’.”

Naturally, he couldn’t resist getting a shot in at his beleaguered peer Diddy, jabbing, “The motivation behind this appears to be Ms. Narvaez’s unfortunate entanglement and misguided loyalty to Mr. Combs, who we believe to be underwriting this attack and whom Mr. Jackson has been warning Ms. Narvaez and others about for many years.”

50 had been in the midst of a weeks-long mocking of his business rival when Narvaez was mentioned in Lil Rod’s ongoing lawsuit against Diddy. Rod’s suit claimed that Daphne was on retainer with the embattled producer, prompting 50 to call her a “sex worker” in trolling social posts — which he has since deleted.

She responded with a laundry list of accusations, writing, “Let’s put the real focus on your true evil actions of raping me and physically abusing me,” and alleging that he never even sees Sire, despite her living a mile away. “You are no longer my oppressor and my God will handle you from this point on,” she wrote. “You have permanently damaged the last hope I had for you as a father to preserve our family with these last and final false claims made against me. You have broken our hearts for the last and final time.

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Apple has been scoring well in the streaming TV realm with several hit series and films (including a Godzilla-focused show and a Scorsese movie), but the promotional approach for their latest hardware innovation isn’t gaining many points. Actually, many responses to the ad are downright negative because people seem to grasp what Apple was aiming to communicate, but they are taking umbrage with the mechanisms (and probably unintentional symbolism) used to deliver that message.

To get right to the point here: Apple will soon (next week) begin shipping its newest iPad Pro model. CEO Tim Cook thusly tweeted an ad, in which he promises, “[T]he thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip.” He then added, “Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create.”

The intent here, presumably, was to suggest that the results of these creative mechanisms and instruments could fit into an extremely thin iPad Pro and into the storage capacities involved with the M4 chip. Yet visually speaking, this happens in the ad at the expense of these tools of creativity. The “Crush” title of the ad is meant literally, which means using an industrial crusher to flatten and destroy instruments, books, cameras, and other beloved creative symbols. Not to mention what happened to this poor little critter:

The iPad itself is a groundbreaking innovation and useful to millions of people (myself included) on a daily basis. However, let’s just say that even loyal Apple users are not impressed with “a heartbreaking, uncomfortable, and egotistic advertisement.” The term “demonic inversion” has also popped into the mix as well as a response directly to Tim Cook: “Your predecessors showed us their dreams, you showed us our nightmares.”

However, this ad is racking up views on YouTube like wildfire, so the product visibility is certainly there. We’ll see what people think when the model is released into the world.

Legendary producer Steve Albini is dead at 61 years old, Pitchfork confirmed today, May 8. The publication reports that per staff at Albini’s Electric Audio recording studio, Albini died of a heart attack.

While studying journalism at Northwestern University, Albini started the punk band Big Black and was later also a member of the groups Rapeman, Flour, and Shellac. He also started working as a producer in the mid-1980s and contributed to some classic albums by artists like Nirvana, Pixies, PJ Harvey, and many others.

A new Shellac album, To All Trains, is set for release on May 17. The band was also preparing to go on tour this summer.

In a 2023 NME interview, Albini was humble when discussing his impact, saying, “I feel weird when somebody says I had a massive influence on anything. It’s like, if you’re in a stadium during a sporting event, you have no influence on the outcome, really. It was an experience for me. I was there when it happened, but I wasn’t on the field. I feel like I get a lot of undue attention for records that I worked on where the record was going to be good no matter who was sitting in the chair.”

In an August 2023 interview with The Guardian, Albini was asked if he has ever thought about his legacy. He responded, “I don’t give a sh*t. I’m doing it, and that’s what matters to me — the fact that I get to keep doing it. That’s the whole basis of it. I was doing it yesterday, and I’m gonna do it tomorrow, and I’m gonna carry on doing it.”

As the Las Vegas Aces got set to begin training camp with eyes on a three-peat, one of their veteran stars made the announcement that she would be calling it a career. Candace Parker announced her retirement from the league after a Hall of Fame career that saw her win three championships on three different teams.

Parker is one of the greatest players to ever grace the WNBA court, and she made clear that her ambitions are to now conquer the business world, similarly to how she did the basketball world. Parker has her eyes on NBA and WNBA team ownership and still has a budding media career, but she’ll also take a big step into the business space with her new position at adidas.

The sneaker and apparel giant announced on Wednesday that Parker would be the brand’s new President of Women’s Basketball.

“Stepping into this new leadership role is a deeply personal next step in my journey with adidas,” said Parker. “From high school to college to playing pro to now, this appointment by adidas symbolizes a shared commitment to making impactful change and setting new benchmarks for the future of women’s sports. It’s not just about products; it’s about fostering a movement focused on innovation, representation, and access.”

Parker has been with adidas throughout her career, and had her own signature shoe with the brand. Now she’ll look to build their presence in the women’s hoops space further, guiding the brand’s vision for how they want to promote and grow that segment of the business. Adidas’ current roster of players includes Aliyah Boston, Kahleah Copper, Aaliyah Edwards, and Nneka Ogwumike, among others.

Pop-soul singer Raveena returns with a dreamy video for her latest throwback single, “Pluto.” In the video, Raveena rides butterflies, through both sunny and stormy skies. The now-30-year-old singer’s love of nature is present throughout, and even when the video gets a little dark, the new song remains upbeat and perky, guided by Raveena’s gentle vocals and hinted throughout with some late-90s funk-pop, right down the turntablism hidden in the beat.

“Pluto” is the singer’s first new single in two years. When we last heard from her in February 2022, she’d just released her second studio, Asha’s Awakening, a high-concept album infused with spirituality taken from Raveena’s Indian heritage. Now, she’s an independent artist — as befits her free spirit — and used her time away from the spotlight to get back to her musical influences, like the dreamy pop-soul of acts like Corinne Bailey Rae.

“This record is so inner child for me,” she explains of “Pluto.” “It’s a song about loss, but woven into the most joyful soundbed. When making it, I was remembering the feeling of having my little walkman and listening to the most euphoric pop songs, dancing around the yard or looking out the window on a long drive at ten years old. I want to bring back the sweetness that feels like it’s suspended in that time of the early 2000s and 90s.”

Now that she’s partnered with Empire, she’s got full creative control of her music and its release schedule, so don’t be surprised to see an album announcement sometime soon.

Watch Raveena’s “Pluto” video above.

Here comes Fresh Pair with a new drop. This time, legendary Hip-hop maestro Just Blaze and sneaker-customizer-to-the-GOATs, Katty Customs welcome one of Brooklyn’s finest, Memphis Bleek, to the chair. And once again, Katty and Just knock it out of the park, with Bleek pledging to wear these super clean custom AF-1s come Florida summertime.

The latest episode is a bit special, aside from Bleek being an absolute legend, him and Just have a storied history that goes way back, and you can feel the chemistry between the two as they touch on their friendship, and early collaborations like “Round Here,” a beat that Just was initially skeptical of that ended up being a big moment in the early days of Roc-A-Fella. The interview serves as a celebration of how far he’s come.

Throughout, Bleek speaks on the Just Blaze beats he regrettably passed on, working with a young Rihanna on “The One,” how State Property started out as a Beans (Beanie Sigel) and Bleek album, and reveals why “Yes,” never appeared on an album and why Jay-Z gave him “Murda Murda.”
It’s an insightful dive full of deep-cut discussions as two long-time friends chop it up. But our favorite moment has to be when Bleek explains how he discovered air conditioning through Jay-Z back when the legend was in his dope boy days.

Check out the latest Fresh Pair above.

The Los Angeles Lakers saw their season end at the hands of the Denver Nuggets for the second straight year, this time in the first round rather than the Conference Finals. In the 2024 edition, the Lakers lost in five games, with two of their losses coming on Jamal Murray game-winners in the final seconds.

L.A. led for the vast majority of the series, holding double-digit leads in all five games, but could not execute well enough down the stretch to take down the defending champs. The Timberwolves are currently showing what is required to beat the Nuggets, as they’ve mown down the champs in back-to-back impressive performances, and look to be on the precipice of bouncing Denver from the second round.

That effort only adds to the frustration for the Lakers, as it’s very apparent this year’s Nuggets team is more gettable — if you can put together a full 48. That was something Los Angeles just could not manage to do, and now they enter an offseason with some fascinating decisions to make, starting with a head coaching change.

LeBron James also has a decision to make, as he can test the free agency waters, and the 39-year-old knows chances to get one more ring are running low. With that in mind, James spoke about the Lakers loss on this week’s “Mind the Game” podcast with noted Lakers coaching candidate JJ Redick, saying “sh*t hurts” but also admitting “the better team won” even with the opportunities L.A. had.

What will be interesting is how the Lakers go about trying to be the better team next year. They got a lot of healthy games from LeBron and Anthony Davis this year, but the supporting cast continued to lag behind what they needed. Given the incredible depth of the top contenders in the West, particularly Minnesota and Oklahoma City, the Lakers need to figure out how to increase their talent level around James and AD at numerous spots. That’s not going to be easy, and even though they came close to beating Denver (even in a five-game series), it’s pretty clear there’s more work to do than just making marginal improvements if they want to be in title contention again.

An 8th grader in Wisconsin is being called a hero by the community for taking control of the school bus after the driver suffered a medical emergency. The trip started as a routine ride home from school on April 24. The bus driver joked with students as they loaded up on the bus, but things took a turn for the worse shortly after.

“As we got about 20 feet down Villard, I was looking at my phone and I looked back up and I felt the bus accelerate,” Acie Holland III, 14, told TMJ4. “And I looked at the bus driver because she went past my stop and I looked and I seen her head just go down.”

Acie quickly sprung into action, removing the driver’s foot from the gas pedal and taking control of the wheel. “I grabbed the steering wheel, then I get us to the curb and I hit the brakes close and then when we hit the curb, I turned the wheel all the way because I didn’t know where the parking brake was,” Acie told WISN.

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After Acie was able to park the bus securely, he called 911. His grandmother, a registered nurse, told all the kids on the bus to call their parents. “Everybody was just like, ‘thank you’ because I saved their life,” Acie told CNN.

According to WISN, Acie saved the lives of 20 students and the bus driver.

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

“I took the wheel and straightened out the bus, then I moved her foot off the gas pedal,” said Wisconsin eighth-grader Acie Holland III. https://t.co/l86p1yix0s

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 3, 2024

The driver regained consciousness shortly after and contacted the bus’s dispatch service. A safety team and an alternate driver were sent out to the location.

A big reason why Acie was so calm is even though he’s a teenager, he has had a lot of experience with cars. His father, Acie Holland II, is a certified auto technician. “It was like he was in the right place at the right time. So it was, it was meant to be for a variety of reasons, the most important being for the safety of others,” Glen Hills Middle School principal Anna Young said according to CNN.

Person of the Week: Acie Holland

After the incident, Young sent a letter to the families of the Glendale-River Hills School District, praising Acie for his heroic actions. “The Glen Hills school community could not be any prouder of Acie,” Young wrote. “The compassion and leadership that we see him exhibit daily was taken to the next level on his bus ride home yesterday. We are grateful that all of our Glen Hills students are safe and are wishing their driver a healthy recovery.”

When school let out the next day, the students chanted “AC-Hero” to celebrate the 14-year-old’s heroism. His father is proud of him as well. “He’s always been a person where he’s real quick on his feet. That’s one of my things that I know he’s capable of, not on the school bus, but just in general, being able to help someone in need,” Holland’s father told CNN. “But I am proud of what he did.”

Acie has also been celebrated by local community leaders for his actions. The mayor of Glendale recognized him in a proclamation and the Milwaukee Fire Department and the Glendale Police Department praised him for his heroics as well.

Picture this: A happy family playing together in the backyard, smiling and laughing in slow motion while a soothing voice goes on and on about enjoying life. You feel moved and inspired somehow, but you’re not sure why.

Then you’re suddenly bombarded with a litany of terrible things that could happen before the soothing voice returns. “Ask your doctor if Gonofixia is right for you,” it says. You have no idea what condition “Gonifixia” is even meant to treat and but it sounds like taking it might be worse than whatever it is.

Welcome to the modern American pharmaceutical drug commercial, which the incomparable Elle Cordova has hilariously parodied on TikTok.

Cordova has gained a huge loyal following with her brilliant poems and videos personifying everything from planets to inventions to fonts on social media. Her “RX Side Effects Redux” video takes on pharmaceutical ad side effect disclaimers with a list of potential reactions that have people cracking up.

Cordova started off with a funny rhyming list of potential prescription drug side effects, which includes traditional reactions such as “sneezing, wheezing, labored breathing, trouble speaking, sleeping, eating, hemorrhages, internal bleeding…” and non-traditional ones such as “masochism, vampirism, sudden necromanticism, phantom limbs, fanaticism.”

Then someone challenged her to put a beat to it and with the help of a bass-playing friend, she did. Behold the result:

@elle.cordova

Replying to @the_lonelyest_pickle dare accepted. RX Side Effects Redux! (Deja vu now also makes a recurring appearance per commenter requests) #rx

People are loving it and even requesting she make it into a real song:

“if you made this an official song I would listen to this religiously 😭😭,” wrote one person.

“The second ‘chronic deja vu’ i almost screamed, this is art 😭,” wrote another.

“I would actually listen to this ironically,” added another.

“So there’s a small chance i can become a vampire or a necromancer 🤔,” joked another.

This is the kind of thing that makes social media tolerable—smart people entertaining us with clever commentary on contemporary reality. And Ella Cordova is a master at it.

If you enjoyed Cordova’s video, you can drop her a tip here or join her Patreon here, and follow her for more on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.