Christian Davenport, The Washington Post:

> Lockheed Martin, which is building the Orion spacecraft that NASA hopes will fly astronauts to the moon within a couple of years, is partnering with Amazon to put an Alexa on the capsule.
>
> The device would give astronauts real-time information on telemetry, the health of the spacecraft and its speed.

And:

> Astronauts would be able to get information about their water supply or battery levels, even change the temperature or color of the lights in the crew module.

And:

> The onboard space Alexa would not be connected to the Internet but instead connect directly to Orion’s computer and its own onboard cloud, which would allow it to monitor the health of the spacecraft.

This feels like a real coup for Amazon. This isn’t a simple problem, like bringing an Echo device and giving it internet access. This is a specialized domain, fitted to a demanding environment.

Have to wonder if anyone at Apple is thinking about ways to do something similar with Siri.

Christian Zibreg, iDownloadBlog:

> You’re familiar with low power mode on iPhone (and iPad and Mac), which temporarily disables some features to save battery life. But did you know about high power mode, the polar opposite to low power mode?

And:

> To help you squeeze the last drop of power from your Mac’s Apple CPU, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro provides a new feature, dubbed High Power Mode. When you put your Mac into high power mode, the operating system will maximize performance during very intensive workloads by permitting the fans to run at higher speeds to keep the CPU cool.

From Apple’s official support document:

> Your MacBook Pro has multiple energy modes you can switch between. By default, your Mac is set to Automatic mode to balance energy use and performance. Low Power Mode reduces energy use to increase battery life. On the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max, High Power Mode allows the fans to run at higher speeds. The additional cooling capacity may allow the system to deliver higher performance in very intensive workloads.

Check out the images in the Apple Support document to see how to turn High Power Mode on and how to tell if it is on from the menu bar.

Yes, this feature is limited to the 16″ MacBook Pro M1 Max, but I suspect it’ll become more mainstream as Apple expands it’s M1 product line. Good to know about.

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

> Intel today unveiled new 12th-generation Core processors suitable for laptops, and as part of the announcement, it claimed that the new Core i9 is not only faster than Apple’s M1 Max chip in the 16-inch MacBook Pro, but is the fastest mobile processor ever.

Importantly:

> The high-end Intel chip has a max Turbo Boost frequency of 5.0GHz, but power draw can reach up to 115 watts, which is significantly more power than the M1 Max chip ever uses and not ideal for the thermal envelope of devices like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

From the Intel press release, touting the Fastest Mobile Processor Ever:

> Intel announces the 12th Gen Intel® Core™ family of mobile processors led by the launch of new H-series mobile processors featuring the flagship Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK – the fastest mobile processor ever and the world’s best mobile gaming platform – built on the Intel 7 process.

I won’t argue “world’s best mobile gaming platform”. Besides the PC being dominant in desktop gaming and high end Intel laptops drafting on that platform, Apple has not made gaming a priority.

But here’s the footnote Intel attached to “Fastest mobile processor ever”:

> Based on superior performance of 12th Gen Intel Core i9 12900HK against Intel Core i9 11980HK, AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, and Apple M1 Max.

Read the press release for details on the benchmarks they ran.

It’ll be interesting to see real world benchmarks once laptops with these processors actually ship. More importantly, I look forward to seeing the real life battery performance of those laptops. If you look at the second image in the headline linked MacRumors post, you’ll see the Apple M1 Max topping out (in terms of SoC Power, the left-to-right part of the chart) about where the new Intel chip begins.

Once these laptops hit the streets, I expect the power consumption to be the real story here, with the Intel chip sucking power as the M1 Max sips. If so, no way to hide that.

Jack Suntrup, St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

> A Post-Dispatch reporter in October alerted the state to a data issue contained on a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website that left Social Security numbers of educators vulnerable to public disclosure.
>
> After alerting the state, the newspaper didn’t publish its report until after the officials moved to protect the vulnerable information. The newspaper did not disclose any personal information.

The reporter simply did a “view source” on a public facing web page, saw that student social security numbers were embedded in the source. The reporter did the absolute right thing. They alerted officials, did not report on the issue until the vulnerability was fixed.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson:

> “If somebody picks your lock on your house — for whatever reason, it’s not a good lock, it’s a cheap lock or whatever problem you might have — they do not have the right to go into your house and take anything that belongs to you,” Parson said.

Also:

> Capt. John Hotz, spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol, said Monday the agency had finished its probe of the Post-Dispatch and had turned the case over the Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson.

This is chilling. So very misguided. Can’t imagine this going very far, but if it does, a terrible precedent will have been set.