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512 Pixels

512 Pixels is a blog covering Apple, computer history, design, and other fine nerdery, written by Stephen Hackett.

All Episodes

Connected 553: We Have Jony Ive at Home

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/21

This week on the podcast: The guys discuss Fortnite’s return to the App Store, cover Google IO, and are interrupted by huge news from Sam Altman and Jony Ive. They then talk about feelings.

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Jony Ive’s Startup io Purchased by OpenAI

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/21

Wild news just broke: the company Sam Altman and Jony Ive started to build AI-based hardware has been purchased for a cool $6.5 billion, as Mike Isaac and Cade Metz report: The deal, which is OpenAI’s biggest acquisition, will bring in Mr. Ive and his team of roughly 55 engineers, designers and researchers. They will […]

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ITXPlus Project Aims to Recreate the Mac Plus Logicboard

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/21

Jenny List: The Macintosh Plus was Apple’s third version on the all-in-one Mac, and for its time it was a veritable powerhouse. If you don’t have one here in 2025 there are a variety of ways to emulate it, but should you wish for something closer to the silicon there’s now [max1zzz]’s all-new Mac Plus motherboard […]

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Musk Confirms Second Memphis xAI Site Could Use One...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/20

Yesterday, in a late-night post on X, the billionaire wrote: Colossus 2 will be the first Gigawatt AI training supercluster Samuel Hardiman, at The Daily Memphian earlier today: MLGW’s maximum electricity demand of all time is about 3,500 megawatts, or three-and-a-half gigawatts. Its power use is weather dependent: In the summer, MLGW uses 2,800 to […]

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How Much Longer Will New macOS Versions Support Intel...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/20

macOS Sequoia supports these Intel-based Macs: 2017 iMac Pro 2018 Mac mini 2018–2020 MacBook Pro models 2019 Mac Pro 2019–2020 iMac models 2020 MacBook Air What’s more important than the model year is when these Macs stopped being sold: Model: Removed from Sale: 2017 iMac Pro March 2021 2018 Mac mini January 2023 2019 Mac […]

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‘Our Health Was Never Considered’

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/20

Laura Paddison and Rene Marsh for CNN: Last summer, an abandoned factory in southwest Memphis got a new life courtesy of the world’s richest man. Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI moved in to transform this unprepossessing building into the “world’s largest supercomputer.” Musk named it Colossus and said it was the “most powerful AI training […]

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Sponsor: Magic Lasso Adblock: 2.0x Faster Web...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/19

Want to experience twice as fast load times in Safari on your iPhone, iPad and Mac? Then download Magic Lasso Adblock – the ad blocker designed for you. As an efficient, high performance and native Safari ad blocker, Magic Lasso blocks all intrusive ads, trackers and annoyances – delivering a faster, cleaner and more secure […]

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xAI Reports ‘An Unauthorized Modification’ Leading to...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/16

Kyle Orland, writing at Ars: On Wednesday, the world was a bit perplexed by the Grok LLM’s sudden insistence on turning practically every response toward the topic of alleged “white genocide” in South Africa. xAI now says that odd behavior was the result of “an unauthorized modification” to the Grok system prompt—the core set of directions […]

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Shelby County Health Department to Address xAI...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/16

As I’ve previously written, xAI has a permit to run 15 gas turbines at its first site, but more than 30 have been spotted running. Those additional turbines are operating under an emergency-use exemption that is good for one year, and were initially slated to provide backup power when the utility company couldn’t keep up. […]

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Shelby County Commission Proposes Monthly Air Quality...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/16

Desmond Nugent at ABC24: In response to growing environmental concerns in South Memphis, the Shelby County Commission has proposed a resolution that would require the Shelby County Health Department to provide monthly — rather than quarterly — updates on local air quality in South Memphis. The proposal stems from rising tensions surrounding emissions linked to […]

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Apollo 13 Hero Ed Smylie Dies at 95

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/16

If you’ve seen Tom Hanks’ Apollo 13, you surely remember the scene where a group of guys dump a bunch of junk onto a table to figure out how to adapt air-scrubbing canisters meant for the command module to work in the lunar module that was keeping the crew alive. Ed Smylie lead the work […]

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xAI May Turn to North Mississippi for Powering Second...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/16

Once again, Samuel Hardiman for The Daily Memphian, writing about xAI’s power needs: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, appears to be exploring how to generate electricity for its second data center in Memphis. And those plans could cross the Tennessee-Mississippi border. The plans could involve a former natural gas plant in Southaven, Mississippi, just […]

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CarPlay Ultra Crosses the Start Line

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/15

Apple: Starting today, CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, is available with new Aston Martin vehicle orders in the U.S. and Canada, and will be available for existing models that feature the brand’s next-generation infotainment system through a software update in the coming weeks. CarPlay Ultra builds on the capabilities of CarPlay and provides the ultimate […]

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Connected 552: Stage Manager Could Never

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/14

This week on the podcast, Myke hosts The Quizzies, Apple announces new accessibility features, Federico explains vibe coding, Google makes announcements ahead of IO, and I take on xAI.

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AFP Deprecated

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/14

Rich Trouton spotted something in the release notes for macOS Sequoia 15.5, released earlier this week: that AFP is now deprecated and will be removed in a future version of the operating system. He writes: This announcement is providing a end-of-the-road notification for AFP, which has been included in Apple’s operating systems for the Mac since System […]

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xAI Has Failed to Publish Final Version of Its Safety...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/13

Kyle Wiggers, writing at TechCrunch: Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project. xAI isn’t exactly known for its strong commitments to AI safety as it’s commonly understood. A recent report found that the company’s AI chatbot, Grok, would undress photos of women […]

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Apple Marks Global Accessibility Awareness Day with...

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/13

In a timeline where a lot of folks have …complicated… feelings about Apple, seeing the company to continue improve access to technology for everyone is still great.

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Sponsor: MarsEdit 5

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/12

MarsEdit 5 is a major upgrade to the preeminent Mac app for editing WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, and many other types of blogs. The new microposting feature makes it as easy to post to your own blog as it is to post to social media. When MarsEdit 5 is running on your Mac, just press a […]

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Mac Power Users 796: The Alfred Field Guide

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/11

Known as an app launcher and Spotlight replacement, Alfred can supercharge a wide range of tasks across macOS. This week on MPU, we discuss David’s new Field Guide on Alfred and our use of the application.

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The Mortal Sin

512 Pixels ·

2025/05/09

John Siracusa, writing at Hypercritical: As far as I’m concerned, the only truly mortal sin for Apple’s leadership is losing sight of the proper relationship between product virtue and financial success—and not just momentarily, but constitutionally, intransigently, for years. Sadly, I believe this has happened. The preponderance of the evidence is undeniable. Too many times, in too many ways, […]

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