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 It is now mid-August, meaning that Apple's annual iPhone event is just around the corner. Below, we take a look at when the event might be held this year.
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 The base iPhone 18 model that Apple is expected to release by March 2027 will be equipped with 12GB of RAM, up from 8GB in the iPhone 17, according to analyst Jeff Pu.
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Apple is in the process of tweaking its business models to cope with the unyielding memory price and availability crisis. Its response is now emerging across multiple fronts.
Finance or lease
The company's recently-introduced Apple Upgrade scheme in partnership with Klarna is a smart response to the reality that as devices inevitably become more expensive, consumers will shift from outright ownership to flexible lease and financing arrangements. With its partnership, Apple continues to generate revenue while also maximizing the likelihood customers will return the product at EOL, more about which later.
Samsung and Google have introduced similar schemes. "Financing models already dominant in India and Africa are now poised to reshape the US and European markets," said CCS Insight in a presentation exploring the consequences of the memory shortage.
Downgrade
Apple has seen a lot of success with the iPhone 17 this year. That success wasn't entirely because it's such a good smartphone; it also reflects consumers making the decision to purchase lower-specced devices to stay within budget. Apple continues to see
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Be careful what you wish for. That's what Microsoft found out recently when it discovered that AI — rather than making Windows more secure by helping the company close security holes — could help hackers find flaws faster than Microsoft can fix them.
It's put Microsoft in a serious bind. Should the company devote a potentially massive amount of resources to fix every AI-unearthed security issue as fast as it can? Or should it rush to close the most important ones, and clean up the minor ones later at much less cost?
What the company decides could have tremendous implications. For years, Microsoft has faced criticism from many in the US government because of how often its technologies have been hacked, potentially putting the nation's security at risk. Some members of Congress have suggested the government curtail contracts with Microsoft until the company proves it can provide more safety. Billions of dollars in federal contracts could be pulled.
To get a better insight into what could happen, let's look at AI's newfound prodigious ability to find security holes and bugs.
AI-fueled security mavens Mythos and Project Glasswing
Microsoft's AI-related security problems are an outgrowth of the launch of Anthropic's Mythos AI model, designed to handle cybersecurity and biology research. One of its goals is to uncover sec
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