A more exciting MacBook Pro is waiting in the wings, but the M5 Max shows the continued success of Apple Silicon. The M5 Max is a monster performer. Gaming is surprisingly smooth, and on-device AI speeds up. The display, keyboard, ports, and speakers remain top-of-class. The MacBook Pro is in its awkward era.

It's not as exciting as it once was, but the M5 MacBook Pro offers yet another breakthrough in performance. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. M5 is a beast, especially in graphics and AI. New GPU is surprisingly good at gaming. Battery life, speakers, build quality, keyboard, and trackpad are all still world-class.

The Mac Studio is Apple's ultimate performance computer, but this year's model came with a twist: It's equipped with either an M4 Max or an M3 Ultra processor. The latter might seem like a step backward, since nearly all Macs (except the Mac Pro) are now equipped with M4 chips. However, the M3 Ultra is indeed Apple's best-performing processor, which makes the new Mac Studio its fastest computer ever. While the M3 Ultra model appears highly capable for creative pros and engineers, it starts at 4,000 and goes way up from there. I'm intrigued by that model based on benchmarks I saw elsewhere, of course.

Apple's upgraded MacBook Pro for 2024 gets a significant power boost with the M4 chip, double the memory as standard, even longer battery life and a price cut, ending the year on a high. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. The longstanding laptop line now starts at 1,599 ( 1,899/ 1,599/A 2,499), making it 100 or so cheaper than last year's M3 models. Though still an expensive, premium laptop, it comes with at least 16GB of RAM rather than 8GB, which was an upgrade worth paying extra for on previous models. The outside hasn't changed from its predecessor.

On Monday, Apple hosts a virtual event where it is widely expected to reveal a new generation of MacBooks, and possibly a new set of AirPods. Then on Tuesday, Google hosts its own virtual stream focused on its Pixel smartphone. On Wednesday, Samsung will host an event called Unpacked Part 2, where the company said it will show how it is "opening up new experiences for self-expression through technology." Last month, we saw Apple roll out new iPhones, a fresh Apple Watch and new iPads. Microsoft unveiled its latest Surface laptops and tablets ahead of the Oct. 5 release of Windows 11. Then Amazon showed off several new devices including a personal robot.

A bunch of the newest laptops, tablets and other gadgets are discounted this week. Amazon slashed the prices of its latest Fire tablets to all-time lows and you can still grab a few of Apple's latest MacBook Pros while they're hundreds of dollars off. You can also get a free Echo Show 5 and Philips Hue light bulb from Best Buy when you buy Amazon's Echo Studio smart speaker. Here are the best deals from the week that you can still buy today. Amazon's newest Fire tablets are back down to their lowest prices ever.

The latest MacBook Pro, just released, means the entire Apple laptop range has now been refreshed with newer processors and, most importantly, the new Magic Keyboard. Apple's complete range of laptops offer striking design, sumptuous trackpads, excellent performance and gorgeous screens. The MacBook Air was the last to gain a Retina Display in late 2018. But there was one key ingredient which wasn't working quite as well as it should have been for many users: the keyboard. A few years back, Apple switched its keyboard mechanism from scissor-switch to butterfly.

Researchers at China's Zhejiang University published a study last year that showed many of the most popular smart speakers and smartphones, equipped with digital assistants, could be easily tricked into being controlled by hackers. They used a technique called DolphinAttack, which translates voice commands into ultrasonic frequencies that are too high for the human ear to recognize. While the commands may go unheard by humans, the low-frequency audio commands can be picked up, recovered and then interpreted by speech recognition systems. The team were able to launch attacks, which are higher than 20kHz, by using less than £2.20 ($3) of equipment which was attached to a Galaxy S6 Edge. They used an external battery, an amplifier, and an ultrasonic transducer.

The AI processor market is set to be worth US$43.3 billion in 2023, whereas it was worth $8.6 billion last year. This growth will proceed at an estimated annual compound rate (or CAGR) of 33.9% over the next five years. It is thought to be driven by consumer-grade electronics and the services that are provided by them - or that exist to provide them. For example, AI is thought to be a necessary component in processing the mountains of data generated by social media in the future. In addition, e-retailers may also need AI to process their ever-mounting data burden.

A group of security researchers have exposed a flaw in the Amazon Echo that allows hackers to secretly listen to unsuspecting users' conversations - but only if they're savvy enough to be able to carry out the attack. In a presentation dubbed'Breaking Smart Speakers: We are Listening to You,' researchers from Chinese tech giant Tencent explained how they were able to build a doctored Echo speaker and use that to gain access to other Echo devices. The researchers have since notified Amazon of the vulnerability, and the company issued a patch in July. Hackers from Tencent's Blade security research team exposed a flaw in Amazon's Echo smart speaker that would allow someone to secretly spy on others and play random sounds'After several months of research, we successfully break the Amazon Echo by using multiple vulnerabilities in the Amazon Echo system, and [achieve] remote eavesdropping,' the researchers said in the presentation, which was given at the DEF CON security conference, according to Wired. 'When the attack [succeeds], we can control Amazon Echo for eavesdropping and send the voice data through network to the attacker.'