According to new data compiled by Akamai, a cloud and Internet security services firm, the United States ranks seventh in the world in the amount of Internet connections rated at 10MBps or higher that are installed, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Akamai says that the U.S. weighs in with 36 percent of connections that are 10MBps or higher. That’s right behind Latvia: 37 percent of that nation’s connections are 10Mbps or faster. The U.S. is barely ahead of both Denmark and Belgium. In both of those cases, 35 percent of their connections are 10MBps or more.
Tops on the list is South Korea. 77 percent of their Internet connections are 10Mbps or speedier. Behind them is Japan, with a 10MBps connection percentage of 54.
It’s worth noting that simply from a geographical standpoint, all of the nations that are ahead (and directly behind) the United States in this area are significantly smaller. According to worldatlas.com, the American land mass consists of over 3.5 million square miles. South Korea, on the other hand, only covers over 37,000 square miles.
Considering how physically small Americas competition is when it comes to building and adopting Internet connections of 10MBps or higher, it’s no wonder that all of the nations ahead of the U.S. in this area are significantly more diminutive. After all, it’s much easier to wire up a small country where the population is located in a more compact area, than it is to do so here, where massive populations are spread out across a country as vast as this one.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.