Day: 15 July 2019

Apple’s 2019 256GB MacBook Air Includes a Slower SSD Than 2018 Model ⇥ macrumors.com

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

The 2019 MacBook Air, refreshed last week, appears to have a slower SSD than the 2018 MacBook Air, according to testing by French site Consomac. Using testing with the Blackmagic Disk Speed benchmarking test, the site found that the read speeds of the new SSD are lower.

A test of the 2019 MacBook Air with 256GB of storage demonstrated write speeds of 1GB/s and read speeds of 1.3GB/s. An equivalent model released in 2018 featured write speeds of 920MB/s and read speeds of 2GB/s. While write speeds are on par with the older machine (and are even slightly better), read speeds have dropped 35 percent.

As far as compromises go, I think this is a pretty good one: very few people will notice this and, if it’s what allowed Apple to reduce prices, it’s beneficial to anyone who wants a larger internal drive and doesn’t want to remortgage their home.

State DMVs Earn Millions by Selling Personal Data to Brokers and Marketing Firms ⇥ abcactionnews.com

Adam Walser, ABC Tampa Bay:

I-Team Investigator Adam Walser obtained records showing the state sold information on Florida drivers and ID cardholders to more than 30 private companies, including marketing firms, bill collectors, insurance companies and data brokers in the business of reselling information.

The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles raked in more than $77 million for driver and ID cardholder information sales in fiscal 2017.

The I-Team wanted to know how much of that money came from marketing firms, but the agency in charge of driver information estimated it would take 154 hours of research and cost nearly $3,000 for the state to give taxpayers an answer.

TechCrunch reporter Sarah Perez pointed to several similar stories from South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and other states.

It’s no wonder policymakers are loathe to strictly regulate the use and dissemination of private data — they’re in on the grift.