Technology

Knowing how to use credit-building cards responsibly is just as important as choosing the right one.

Using a VPN on your Apple TV can keep your streaming activity private from your ISP and unlock a world of entertainment from wherever you are.

Despite dwindling PC sales in the country, China is on track for some healthy growth in the sector as it scales up production in 2025 to get AI PCs into the hands of consumers and businesses, new figures have claimed.

The latest Canalys reports have said PC shipments fell 6% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2024, however 2025 is set to see a 12% growth in PC sales – considerably more than the 1% anticipated for tablets.

The boost is backed by China’s commitment to AI – the nation has declared ambitions to increase its compute capacity by 30% before 2025 in preparation for widespread adoption of advanced technologies like generative AI.

Chinese PC shipments are set for a boost

Canalys Analyst Emma Xu explained that AI engagement in mainland China is more pronounced than in many Western markets, and while AI regulations have prevented many companies from benefitting from certain Western tools like Microsoft Copilot, local companies have responded with strength.

“This is pushing vendors toward localized strategies to develop AI PCs, either by integrating in-house AI assistants or by building their own AI application ecosystems through collaboration with developers," Xu added.

Nearly half (47%) of Chinese companies have a clearly defined AI strategy, with the technology encourage and incorporated into workflows. Only 21% of enterprises in the US and UK respectively mirror this.

While the productivity benefits of AI PCs are evident across the board, they’re more apparent among business users who require the additional processing power to handle heavier workloads. AI PC market share within the entire PC sector is indicative of business uptake – AI PCs are predicted to take up just 13% of the market in 2024, however by 2025 this could have nearly tripled to 37%. By 2027, Canalys expects AI PCs to account for three in five (62%) new PC shipments.

“To drive stronger business outcomes, vendors must focus on market expansion and differentiation to enhance user experiences and outcomes," noted Xu. "Leveraging on-device AI models will be particularly beneficial in this regard.”

More from TechRadar Pro

• PC shipments are now back above pre-pandemic levels — but you might still want to hold off buying one
• Need an upgrade? Here are the best business laptops and mobile workstations
• For something a bit bigger, consider the best workstations

Whether you’re looking to boost your productivity or your Fortnite stats, these are the top typing peripherals for the job.

You can now vote in the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024, where your choices will help us to crown the best tech released in the last year. Here, you can vote for your favorites from our wearables, fitness tech, appliances and smart home categories.

There are 90 categories in this year's awards to vote on from all areas – including phones, cameras, computing, gaming, TV, audio, fitness and home tech – so if you want to vote in every area, you can do that right here. Otherwise, you can focus on the just the fitness and home tech shortlists below.

As ever, the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 winners will come from a combination of your votes and the rankings of our expert judges, to give a broader range of views. However, there's also our Readers' Choice Award, where the winner is chosen 100% by you.

You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Friday October 11th 2024 for it to be counted.

(function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgd0G5z5jU9zuUJizZR6vo5ir71DHY8VmPz1wRlYa_2FvJTm.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk");

The shortlists were created by TechRadar's editors based on our testing and reviews of the products. Once the deadline has passed at 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on October 11th 2024, we'll download your votes and then combine your rankings with the rankings of our expert judges to get the final winners.

We'll announce all the winners in our big TechRadar Choice Awards Week, starting Monday October 28th. This is your chance to help make sure that the products you really love and the companies that you think really deserve recognition this year will get their honors – get your votes in today!

• Vote in all categories
• Phones & Cameras
• Computing & Gaming
• TV & Audio

Voting is now open for the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024, where you can help us to honor the top tech releases of the last year by voting for your winners from our shortlist. On this page, you can vote for the TVs, headphones, audio tech and streaming services you think deserve some love.

The winners of the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 are based on a 50/50 combination of your votes with our expert judges' rankings, to represent the thoughts of people in the real world as well as our testers. The winner of our Readers' Choice Award is chosen 100% by you, however.

There are 90 reader-voted categories in total across all categories, including phones, cameras, computing, gaming, TV, audio, fitness and home tech – if you want to vote for every category, you can do that right here .

You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Friday October 11th 2024 for it to be counted.

(function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgd0G5z5jU9zuUJizZR6vo5ioAolczwk5aezIFSir8znFB.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk");

The shortlists were created by TechRadar's editors based on our testing and reviews of the products. Once the deadline has passed at 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on October 11th 2024, we'll download your votes and then combine your rankings with the rankings of our expert judges to get the final winners.

We'll announce all the winners in our big TechRadar Choice Awards Week, starting Monday October 28th. This is your chance to help make sure that the products you really love and the companies that you think really deserve recognition this year will get their honors – get your votes in today! 

• Vote in all categories
• Phones & Cameras
• Computing & Gaming
• Fitness & Home Tech

You can now vote in the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 to help us celebrate the top technology innovations and gadgets from the last year – and on this page you can vote for the computing and gaming awards.

The TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 winners are chosen in large part by your votes, though the winner of our Readers' Choice Award is chosen 100% by you. For the other awards, your votes are combined with the rankings of our expert judges to reach the final verdict.

There are 90 reader-voted categories in total across phones, cameras, computing, gaming, TV, audio, fitness and home tech – you can put your votes in for all categories right here if you want to, or you can just focus on the awards below.

You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Friday October 11th 2024 for it to be counted.

(function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgd0G5z5jU9zuUJizZR6vo5iob8HGZaSlfLdcW3WxNbnay.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk");

The shortlists were created by TechRadar's editors based on our testing and reviews of the products. Once the deadline has passed at 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on October 11th 2024, we'll download your votes and then combine your rankings with the rankings of our expert judges to get the final winners.

We'll announce all the winners in our big TechRadar Choice Awards Week, starting Monday October 28th. This is your chance to help make sure that the products you really love and the companies that you think really deserve recognition this year will get their honors – get your votes in today!

• Vote in all categories
• Phones & Cameras
• TV & Audio
• Fitness & Home Tech

Voting for the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 is now live, where we honor the best tech released in the last year, with help from your votes!

As ever, the TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 winners will be chosen by a 50/50 combination of your votes, and rankings from our expert judges – with the exception of our Readers' Choice Award, which is chosen 100% by your votes. 

Our full list of categories this year has 90 reader-voted awards across phones, cameras, computing, gaming, TV, audio, fitness and home tech – if you want to have your say in every category, you can do that right here.

On this page, though, you can vote just for the phones and cameras awards. You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Friday October 11th 2024 for it to be counted.

(function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgdxQH4LNlYkhHZJyOIp4jpoSdVUA5hriHxbcQy_2Fv0fFjd.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk");

The shortlists were created by TechRadar's editors based on our testing and reviews of the products. Once the deadline has passed at 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on October 11th 2024, we'll download your votes and then combine your rankings with the rankings of our expert judges to get the final winners.

We'll announce all the winners in our big TechRadar Choice Awards Week, starting Monday October 28th. This is your chance to help make sure that the products you really love and the companies that you think really deserve recognition this year will get their honors – get your votes in today!

• Vote in all categories
• Computing & Gaming
• TV & Audio
• Fitness & Home Tech

The TechRadar Choice Awards 2024 are where we celebrate the year's best and most-loved technology and gadgets – and as always, we're asking for your help to choose them.

Just below, you can vote in a record 90 categories, split among the following sections: Phones, Cameras, Computing, Gaming, TV, Audio, Fitness and Home Tech. And don't worry if you don't want to do them all, you can vote in just specific categories here:

• Phones & Cameras
• Computing & Gaming
• TV & Audio
• Fitness & Home Tech

The shortlists were created by TechRadar's editors based on our testing and reviews of the products, and you can help to decide which products will be this year's winner in our awards by voting below!

You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Friday October 11th 2024 for it to be counted.

(function(t,e,s,n){var o,a,c;t.SMCX=t.SMCX||[],e.getElementById(n)||(o=e.getElementsByTagName(s),a=o[o.length-1],c=e.createElement(s),c.type="text/javascript",c.async=!0,c.id=n,c.src=["https:"===location.protocol?"https://":"http://","widget.surveymonkey.com/collect/website/js/tRaiETqnLgj758hTBazgd0G5z5jU9zuUJizZR6vo5iozP_2FKqhJa2omSH7Xm15_2F1K.js"].join(""),a.parentNode.insertBefore(c,a))})(window,document,"script","smcx-sdk");

Once the deadline has passed at 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Friday October 11th 2024, we'll download your votes and then combine your rankings with the rankings of our expert judges to get the final winners – with one exception. The "Readers' Choice Award" is 100% voted by you, with the most popular tech of the year from across the categories available to choose from.

We'll announce all the winners in our big TechRadar Choice Awards Week, starting Monday October 28th. This is your chance to help make sure that the products you really love and the companies that you think really deserve recognition this year will get their honors – get your votes in today!

Save hundreds by opting for this refurbished first-gen model with six extra bands and a charging stand thrown in.

The US Department of Justice has announced criminal charges for three Iranian hackers involved in a ‘wide ranging hacking campaign’ primarily targeting former President Trump’s campaign documents, which were then leaked to the press.

Court documents outlined that hackers used spear phishing and social engineering techniques in order to compromise accounts belonging to members of the media, US government officials, and campaign staffers.

The individuals accused were named as Masoud Jalili, Seyyed Ali Aghamiri, and Yasar Balaghi, each facing charges for identity theft, conspiracy to provide material to support a terrorist organization, and more. The DOJ’s indictment attributes the hack to a wider vow for revenge from the Iranian government after the Trump administration killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

Election interference

The 2024 US election cycle has been the target of repeated attempts by foreign actors to influence voters and spread divisive rhetoric, with both Chinese and Russian state actors found to be spreading online propaganda.

The DOJ says this Iranian campaign is no different, with Attorney General Merrick Garland noting, "we know that Iran is continuing its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and advance its malign activities to the IRGC, a designated foreign terrorist organization."

“The American people and the American people alone will decide the outcome of our country’s elections.”

It was recently revealed that although multiple news organizations were sent the leaked materials from the campaign, all chose not to publish the details. The Biden campaign team was also sent the files, but ignored them.

The State Department offered a $10 million reward for information on the three Iranian men involved, who are yet to be apprehended by US officials.

Via The Register

More from TechRadar Pro

• Take a look at our pick of the best firewalls around
• ChatGPT accounts suspected of being Iranian influence operation shut down by OpenAI
• Check out our pick of the best identity theft protections

It has some flaws, but this Asus detachable 2-in-1 laptop is a much cheaper version of Microsoft’s Surface Pro.

I wanted help capturing the themes discussed in a virtual interview. Bluedot pleasantly surprised me.

Get up to speed on the rapidly evolving world of AI with our roundup of the week's developments.

These tips can come in handy, whether you want a quicker way to launch a Google search or are looking to touch up your photos.

Skip Kinetic’s DSL offerings and go straight to its fast fiber internet. Here are all the details you need about Kinetic internet by Windstream.

It's important to continue using sunscreen in both the fall and winter seasons. After testing over 50 SPF products, we found the best facial sunscreens.

Dolby Vision HDR support is finally coming to Disney's future 4K Blu-ray releases, as reported by Forbes – and the first two releases to include this are both summer blockbusters.

Disney has announced that Deadpool & Wolverine, set for release October 22, and Alien Romulus, set for release on December 3, will both support Dolby Vision HDR, marking the first Disney releases (other than some James Cameron titles) since Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which was released in 2018, to support Dolby Vision.

Dolby Vision is a popular HDR format that is seeing increasing support in the best TVs available – even budget models such as the Amazon Fire TV Omni QLED support it. Dolby Vision improves picture quality on Dolby Vision compatible displays by improving color, contrast and brightness to give a wider dynamic image and better handling of highlights and dark tones in difficult scenes depending on what your TV's capable of.

Disney initially only used the standard HDR10 format on its Blu-rays, and it's not entirely clear why it has now decided to support Dolby Vision (considering it supports it on the Disney Plus streaming platform already) – although it's possible that Sony's acquisition of Disney's physical media production may have something to do with it, as Sony itself is a big user of Dolby Vision in its TVs, including the Sony Bravia 9, and some of the best 4K Blu-ray players.

Whatever the reason why, it's great news for home theater fans.

More 4K Blu-ray good news

(Image credit: Future)

It's no secret that the state of 4K Blu-ray and physical media has been looking bleak in recent years, with Disney all-but-signaling a shift away from it when it announced it would no longer sell 4K Blu-ray in Australia last year. It came down to the efforts of publishing houses such as Arrow Video, Criterion Collection and more to keep 4K Blu-ray from dying.

However, earlier this year, 2 big stores in the US announced they would stock discs and in the UK, HMV, a major AV retailer, announced that its physical media sales were on the rise.

With the arrival of Dolby Vision on Disney's 4K Blu-rays, it hopefully signals even more investment into the field that seemed to be in its 'dying days' not too long ago. Starting with a major Marvel release in Deadpool & Wolverine could bring more exposure into the benefits of Dolby Vision in home media, and in turn lead to a further resurgence in the physical media sector – showing streaming sites such as Netflix, Prime Video or Disney Plus and Hulu, both of which recently announced further price hikes, that making streaming platforms more expensive is not a good look.

You might also like

• I test 4K Blu-ray players for a living and here's the difference between premium and budget
• Want to get into 4K Blu-ray? Here are 2 players and 5 movies to get you started
• I tested Blu-ray vs Netflix and Disney Plus on the same movies, and the biggest difference surprised me

Apple’s MacBook Pro with M4 chip is expected to be unveiled next month, if rumors are right, and a fresh leak backs up that the devices are imminent, coming in the form of a photo of a purported retail box for the next-gen laptop.

This was posted by a regular leaker on X, ShrimpApplePro (hat tip to Wccftech), although it comes laden with some weighty caveats.

M4 14” Macbook Pro ? Not confirmed, take it with a pin of salt. I got sent this. pic.twitter.com/kbIRYurndwSeptember 29, 2024

As you can see in the post, this isn’t an image from the leaker directly, but one that was sent to them, so they can’t vouch for whether it’s genuine or not, and we need to take ShrimpApplePro’s advice of adding a pinch of salt.

Actually, we’d grab something more generous in the way of seasoning here, as there are certainly some points of contention about the leaked pic. Let’s dive in and discuss those next…

Analysis: The case of the MacBook Pro and the optical illusion

First up, we have to bear in mind that the leaker admits we must be cautious with this one, and also that these kinds of images can be faked and Photoshopped, without a doubt. It’s not especially helpful that the pic is blurred, plus the light glare and reflections compound the inability to read the small print blurb easily – that in itself might make you suspicious.

Given the pic quality, you may think – why didn’t the originator just take another shot, and make sure they had a decent photo of the purported MacBook Pro box? Well, it’s possible whoever took the photo didn’t have long to do so, or rather, wasn’t supposed to be doing so – and they grabbed a quick phone snap while no one was looking.

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

The mentioned bones of contention are first, as raised in that X thread, the box blurb still mentions an ‘Apple ID’ rather than its new name, the ‘Apple Account’ – but as ShrimpApplePro points out, it’s actually the case that the iPhone 16 tech specs still talk about the Apple ID.

This box also has a QR code on it (iPhone-style), which isn’t on the current packaging for MacBook Pro laptops – this could be a fresh addition to the notebook range from Apple, of course.

There’s also a real oddity in the descriptive blurb whereby the box looks like it says “Includes 16-inch MacBook Pro” in some lights, though if you look a bit harder, and zoom in, you can see it possibly says 14-inch. We can kind of see both, actually, depending on which we’re looking for – a bit like one of those weird optical illusions. Still, it could state 16-inch, we’ve got to admit, which obviously would mark it as a fake (Apple wouldn’t have a mistake like that on a retail box).

Ultimately, the image looks somewhat convincing at first glance, but due to the points raised, and the glare and blurriness, there are definite doubts, and we have to remain pretty skeptical here – but still, we can be hopeful. Speaking of which, the spec on the box marks this as a MacBook Pro M4 with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, which aligns with the M4 chip in high-end iPad Pros currently, and rumors that this will be one of the CPUs used with the next-gen MacBook Pro.

More excitingly, this is a MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 shown with 16GB of RAM, and as also pointed out on X, custom configurations of MacBooks (where the RAM or storage has been upgraded) don’t show the memory loadout on the box. So, with 16GB printed on the box, this could be the base model, and represents another hint that maybe – just maybe – Apple is going to have the entry-level MacBook Pro 14-inch with M4 equipped with 16GB of Unified Memory.

Of all the rumors flying around about the MacBook Pro M4, this one makes the most sense to us – as it really is about time that a professional-targeted notebook was shipped with 16GB as an absolute minimum. Particularly with Apple putting a lot of eggs in the AI basket with Apple Intelligence going forward on Macs and iOS devices alike.

You might also like

• There’s more evidence that Apple’s folding-screen MacBook has been delayed
• These are the top MacBook deals right now
• I used to laugh at the Mac Mini but today I bought one

After an apparent back and forth on the issue, it looks like Microsoft will allow Copilot+ PC owners to uninstall the controversial Recall feature from their Windows 11 devices.

In fact, the choice to remove Recall was recently flagged up by keen-eyed observers of Windows 11 preview builds, but Microsoft was quick to clarify that this capability was in fact a mistake or bug of sorts.

Confusingly, it turns out that this wasn’t a mistake after all, and that as part of Microsoft’s announcement about Recall coming to Copilot+ PCs in November, the company noted that as well as the feature being strictly opt-in (rather than being on by default), it will also be fully removable.

Microsoft wrote that: “Users can also remove Recall entirely by using the optional features settings in Windows.”

Windows Central reports that Microsoft clarified that the option to remove Recall being a bug only referred to it mistakenly being included in the specific preview build it was spotted in - and that the company did not mean upcoming builds wouldn’t have the uninstall Recall choice. (Although for what it’s worth, Microsoft’s wording at the time hardly suggested this). 

(Image credit: Microsoft) Recall removal - how to banish the AI-powered search for good

How do you remove Recall, then? Well, for those who have a Copilot+ PC - which are the only devices Recall will be on (at least initially) - you’ll find the option present in the ‘Turn Windows features on and off’ menu (locate that via the taskbar search box). And yes, that’s exactly where it was seen in testing.

Once you locate the ‘Recall’ ability in that menu you can uncheck it and click OK - your system will prompt for a reboot, after which Recall and all processes relating to it will be removed from your PC. That’ll go a long way towards pleasing those who are particularly paranoid about privacy, and don’t even want Recall on their system at all, even if it’s disabled.

Windows Recall, for those not familiar with it, is an upcoming AI-powered Windows 11 feature that takes regular snapshots (screenshots) of your device activity and makes these searchable.

When first revealed, Recall wasn’t received well at all, with both Windows 11 users and security experts alike quite rightly raising some major security and privacy concerns. That led to Microsoft putting the deployment of Recall on hold, and it’s only just recently revealed that the feature will be put back into testing next month - following a rollout to Copilot+ PCs in November, as mentioned (or that’s the current plan).

Microsoft has promised that it’s made some big changes to Recall, and outlined a host of various security and encryption-related improvements, which collectively represent a big stride forward to be fair to the company. 

All in all, Microsoft appears to be giving users total control over Recall in terms of not just disabling it, but totally stripping the feature out of Windows 11. Especially given the frosty reception Recall has received so far, Microsoft has a lot to prove when it comes to how useful and helpful it is, and how secure Recall is when it comes to keeping user data safe. 

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE...

• Microsoft reveals AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature to transform Windows 11’s searchability, while confirming hardware requirements
• Don’t make these 5 big mistakes when using Windows 11
• Windows 11 users could get a shiny new ‘Soundscape’ Settings page