Macworld Everyone wants to talk about AI. Most of them don’t know what it is (artificial intelligence), but they still want to talk about it. Who’s got it and who doesn’t. What industries it’s ripe to disrupt. And the one company that’s not in the middle of that conversation is Apple. Viral images generated by Stable Diffusion, and pathological chatbots from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google are the story of the day. Apple, meanwhile, has nothing. Or perhaps, considering the current state of Siri, less than nothing. Apple’s nowhere when it comes to AI. That’s the narrative. The thing is, it’s not true. At least, not yet. Presenting the Neural Engine It’s hard to imagine that you could portray Apple as…

Apple's digital car key feature for iPhone and Apple Watch is expanding to Mercedes-Benz, with changes to Apple's back-end configuration files for the feature having been updated today with references to the automaker, as noticed by Nicolás Álvarez (via @aaronp613). Only a handful of brands including BMW, BYD, Genesis, Hyundai, and Kia have so far introduced support for the feature on select models, which allows you to add a digital car key to the Wallet app on your ‌iPhone‌ and Apple Watch and then lock, unlock, and start your car without needing a physical key. Just a month ago, Lotus appeared in Apple's configuration files as another upcoming brand that will support the feature. Mercedes-Benz announced last month that the…

Following yesterday's news that an apparent Apple shell company is seeking to trademark the term "xrProOS" ahead of a headset unveiling at WWDC two weeks from today, additional trademark activity seemingly linked to Apple has surfaced around a couple of other terms. Apple headset concept mockup by designer Marcus Kane The first is "realityproOS," which was filed yesterday in New Zealand and noticed by patent attorney Narly Kalupahana. The filing was made by the same Immersive Health Solutions LLC company that filed to protect terms like "Reality One" and "Reality Pro" last year. Those terms have been rumored to be potential names of Apple's upcoming headset devices. The new "realityproOS" filing cites a May 1 filing in Jamaica for establishing…

Macworld It was decades ago when you could first pay for items online using a credit card; debit card payments followed. The security of such payments was often iffy in the commercial internet’s early years. Database breaches of unsecured information made for easy pickings. These days, a combination of factors has improved the safety of paying online. Firms offering online purchases of goods, services, and subscriptions are held to higher levels of compliance by the banks and processors that let them receive electronic payments. Companies like Stripe and PayPal, among many others, manage to receive card or other payment information directly, so those private and easily copied details are never stored, or even seen, by an e-commerce site. Apple Pay,…

Macworld With less than a month to go until the WWDC keynote, there’s even more evidence that Apple is planning to launch its new mixed-reality headset. According to a secret trademark, the company has seemingly confirmed the name of the new device’s operating system: xrOS, with the first two letters standing for “extended reality.” Eagle-eyed Parker Ortolani, who works for the Verge, noticed that Apple last week applied to the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office for a trademark on a logo that is simply the word “xrOS” in the company’s proprietary SF Pro typeface. Back in December Bloomberg reported that Apple had switched from realityOS to xrOS as the name for the software, and this discovery appears to confirm that…

Macworld With less than a month to go until Apple’s WWDC keynote presentation and the expected launch of its mixed-reality headset, the company may have accidentally confirmed the name of the device’s operating system. It looks like the software will indeed be called “xrOS,” with the first two letters standing for “extended reality.” Eagle-eyed Parker Ortolani, who works for the Verge, noticed that Apple last week applied to the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office for a trademark on a logo that is simply the word “xrOS” in the company’s proprietary SF Pro typeface. Back in December Bloomberg reported that Apple had switched from realityOS to xrOS as the name for the software, and this discovery appears to confirm that claim.…