Drones damage three Amazon plants in Middle East, Apple confirms three new Macbooks

Amazon’s cloud computing business says drones have hit three of its facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain following US and Israeli strikes against Iran at the weekend. The incidents occurred on Sunday morning, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) saying at the time that ”objects” had hit a data centre in the UAE, creating ”sparks and fire”. Also on Sunday, AWS said it was investigating power and connectivity issues at a facility in Bahrain. On Monday, the company confirmed that drone strikes had caused the outages. BBC 

The AI model Claude has surged in popularity after being blacklisted by the Pentagon last week over ethics concerns. Claude climbed to the No 1 spot on Apple’s chart of top free apps on Saturday in the US – dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT, just one day after the Pentagon tapped OpenAI to supply AI to classified military networks. The bot’s app climbed the iPhone app charts in the UK but did not beat out ChatGPT. Claude also raced up the Android charts in the US and UK, though ChatGPT reigned supreme, according to data from Sensor Tower. Guardian 

Right on time this afternoon (GMT) Apple has CONFIRMED three new MacBooks and two new Studio Displays. Yup, that’s the awaited MacBook Air with an M5 chip, MacBook Pro M5 Pro and Pro Max models, and the Studio Display 2 and XDR. That adds to yesterday’s double drop of the new budget iPhone 17e – a smartphone that finally has MagSafe (hurrah!), and the next iteration of the iPad (with an M4 chip). Still rumoured is the affordable MacBook A18 Pro, the MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Pro Max, the MacBook Air M5 and the long-awaited Studio Display 2.

Footage from Meta’s AI smart glasses, including people undressing or sitting on the toilet, is allegedly being watched by tech workers thousands of miles away. Clips from its £300 Meta Ray-Bans, which feature built-in cameras and microphones, are being sent for review at contact centres in Nairobi, Kenya. Workers in Kenya have claimed they have seen clips that appear to include people going to the toilet, taking off their clothes or having sex, according to a report by Swedish newspapers Göteborgs-Posten and Svenska Dagbladet. Telegraph 

A product briefly posted on the Canadian Best Buy website this weekend suggests Sonos may soon announce a new portable speaker called the Sonos Play. The speaker offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, AirPlay 2 support, Trueplay to tune the sound based on wherever you’ve placed it and voice controls, according to a page that’s since been removed. Best Buy Canada had it listed for $399.99 CAD (or a little under 300 US dollars), and put the release date at March 31. Engadget 

Europe’s EV battery cost gap with China – currently around 90 percent – could shrink to roughly 30 percent by 2030 if Brussels is willing to pay what campaigners call a “sovereignty premium.” That’s the gist of a new analysis [PDF] from Transport & Environment (T&E), released ahead of the European Commission’s delayed unveiling of the Industrial Accelerator Act, which argues Europe’s battery headache isn’t a lack of chemistry know-how, but rather a simple case of not having built enough yet.  The Register