He is the Messiah
Still waiting for Apple to deliver something new in the iMac department? You might not have to wait for much longer if Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has anything to say about it. And say about it he does, over in his weekly Power On newsletter, making some bold claims that suddenly has our hopes up for a surprise end-of-October iMac release.
When Gurman speaks, you listen. Even if the next-biggest Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, reckons that the same refreshed model is only landing in 2024.
The last time Apple got around to updating the iMac was back in 2021 with the M1 chip shoved in, more than 900 days ago, Gurman notes. That’ll be changing soon if Gurman’s sources claiming that 24in iMac refresh, complete with a… well, we’re not sure… are correct. Gurman avoided any specifics of the new Mac, but he’s gone on record before with an M3 processor prediction.
As for when we could see the reveal, Gurman’s got his fingers crossed for a 30-31 October unveiling. He cites Apple’s 2 November earnings as a sure sign that something is coming in these earlier days with Apple usually sticking to a late October date for that. The last time Apple moved earnings up to November preceded a 30 October iPad and Mac event.
That’s good enough for us.
Load shedding is kept at bay. Again
After pulling off an unheard-of weekend on no load shedding, Eskom is keeping that streak alive with the publishing of a new schedule – one that’ll only see load shedding return on Tuesday. Really.
That’s according to a tweet post from the state-owned utility on Sunday morning, confirming that Stage 1 is making a return on Tuesday at 16:00 and will be suspended at 05:00 the following Wednesday. Expect that pattern to repeat daily until Eskom says otherwise.
You can thank the “continued improved generation fleet performance” and the recovery of Eskom’s emergency reserves for the delayed return to rolling blackouts, with that additional 800MW from Kusile’s generating unit 1 that came back online at the beginning of October.
Eskom’s statement mentioned that the total breakdowns amount to 13,559MW of energy, with a further 4,765MW of power being unavailable due to maintenance.
Alienware’s spicing up the OLED monitor market
Even in 2023, OLED monitors are few and far between. They’re beautiful and very, very expensive. Good luck getting hold of Asus’ latest piece of wizardry from that department. Even if you do manage to find one, it’ll require the forking over of R35,000 for the privilege of taking it home. Now, Alienware is looking to one-up Asus’ efforts.
It’ll do that by releasing two QD-OLED monitors this coming January, both of which were briefly shown off during a TwitchCon livestream. Other than that, Alienware is keeping things quiet on the specs front. The first is a 32in 4K QD-OLED panel that’ll probably match Asus with a 240Hz refresh rate and matches other OLED monitors in the market.
The other is worth getting a little more excited about. It’s also rocking a QD-OLED panel, with the only confirmed spec being the monitor’s 360Hz refresh rate. Don’t expect anything higher than a 1440p panel – though we can’t make any promises on that front.
Alienware will clear all that up, along with the monitors’ prices, hopefully at CES 2024, which will open its doors on Tuesday, 9 January, and close on Friday, 12 January. Hopefully, we’ll get some idea of local availability around then, too.
Diablo IV’s marketing is unhinged
“Something was pouring from his mouth. He examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood.” We imagine that’s how Blizzard’s PR team kicked off its latest meeting, where it cooked up one of the strangest giveaways we’ve ever seen; a Diablo IV-themed gaming PC that’s infused with blood. Human blood.
That’s not a joke, either. To celebrate Diablo IV’s incoming Season of Blood, uh, season, and the ongoing Blood Harvest events, Blizzard is launching a month-long mass blood harvest drive in the US as part of a push to get enough blood to make the PC a reality. Once donations cross the 666-quart goal, sweepstakes for “a custom liquid-cooled PC infused with real human blood,” will open.
It’s odd, yeah, but you’ve got to admit that it’s also rather… rad. How many people can say that they’ve got the blood of who knows how many people cooling down their PC? A PC that’s sporting an RTX 4090, Intel Core i9 CPU, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and 3TB of SSD storage. And you won’t even have to donate to enter. Anyone over the age of 18 in the US can enter and donate at whichever blood bank they’d prefer.
It’s not all bad for those outside the US. When Blizzard’s got enough proof that 33% of the goal has been reached, it’ll unlock five new weapon cosmetics in-game. Get that up to 66% and you’ll get hold of the Loch Raeth Maor Barbarian armour cosmetic.
If a blood-infused PC isn’t your style, Xbox is currently running a Diablo-themed Xbox giveaway that might be more your speed. Give it a look.