BrianKrebsAttention Mac laptop users: It might be time to update your magsafe charger. Seriously, WTF:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/02/14/apple-issues-firmware-update-for-magsafe-3-charging-cable
fahru@briankrebs uhhh, what 💀
bluesonicboy@briankrebs I have lost all respect for Apple since their slave labour phones. But there laptops seem to be a case of form over function as well...
Rhys Morgan@bluesonicboy @briankrebs Absolutely not the case since 2019 lol
@bluesonicboy I have to say their latest Pro Max line is insane. It runs several operating systems at once, and I haven't heard a peep from the computer yet. No fan noise, no "you want me to do what?"
@briankrebs Mac OS always seemed to be ahead of it's competition, aided by the fact it only had to run on a known set of hardware. No doubt Apple Mac's are impressive. When they dropped RJ45 just for a slimmer machine, makes me say why? Is an RJ45 connector so tall? do you really have a need for a machine to be so slim? That siad I still lug about an old Dell extreme which is built like a tank, and feels as heavy when you've walked with it for a while...
Russell Devine 
@briankrebs I still don’t understand how they went MagSafe -> USB C -> MagSafe for charging
Sören@rjmd @briankrebs MagSafe 3 *is* USB (unlike 1 and 2), just with a magnetic plug.
Mike Welch@chucker @rjmd @briankrebs yes, and they contributed the magnetic technology to the USB standard, so it will be open to all device makers.
@rjmd @briankrebs Why not! Magsafe is great and was dearly missed. If you don’t like it or are stuck somewhere without Magsafe you can still use USB-C to charge. Macbooks can use both ports for charging.
Binder🅅@briankrebs If your cable has firmware... you might want to reevaluate your life decisions.
Charlie Stross@binder @briankrebs Every Thunderbolt 3 or 4 cable (the USB-C connector ones) has an ARM microcontroller at each end. (Not entirely sure but I think regular USB-C cables also have some variety of microcontroller to handle protocol negotiation.)
LisPi@cstross @binder @briankrebs Aren't there relatively simple resistor-based interfaces for advertising safe cable capacities without said microcontrollers?
@lispi314 USB-C does some really fancy negotiation (latest spec can deliver up to 240 watts, IIRC) and also tunnels various other protocols, eg. DisplayPort, HDMI, USB, by reassigning pins. Thunderbolt adds full-blown PCIe to the mix—it exposes a parallel bus direct to the CPU. That's in no way amenable to "simple resistor-based" negotiation.
@cstross Ah, so I must've confused it with the older USB-PD standard.
@cstross Right, those are newer additions I'll need to familiarize myself with (EPR is 2021 stuff).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Delivery
From the sound of it those are mostly static marker chips with most of the complex negotiation still happening between the USB controllers the cable plugs into.
waldi@briankrebs A firmware update for a **cable**
vandorb12@waldi @briankrebs *looks at O.MG cable on desk* I meeeeaaaannnn...... 🤷♂️
cowvin@briankrebs Uhh, I wasn't even aware cables had firmware. I'm like a technology dinosaur at this point.
Johnny Wheels @briankrebs eh, I don’t even use the MagSafe charger… it still charges via USB-C just fine.
Adam Shostack 
@briankrebs And here I thought teaching sand to think was a mistake. Hadn't even realized we'd taught copper, too.
Bouriquet@briankrebs I think I need to contact my electricity utility for a firmware update to my outlet plug.
Andrew 🌻 Brandt 🐇@briankrebs Thanks for the reminder - I'll get to that after I finish updating the firmware on my Switch controllers, in the dock for my Analogue Pocket, and for my Atari Joystick
Gary McGraw@briankrebs It apparently just does it itself
FRANK.MCCONNEL@briankrebs (cycles shotgun) Power cable's got firmware.
Garth Kidd↑ Boosting more for the PSA than the WTF
Scott Small 🇨🇦@briankrebs I didn't know USB-C cables could even require firmware updates. Just what is that cable doing that makes it so special? Has anyone opened one up?
Zac@smallsco @briankrebs I think the firmware upgrade is for the Macs.
Josh (like the wine)@briankrebs @krzyzanowskim I just updated the firmware for one of my rings a few days ago. 🤷♂️
Abazigal@briankrebs Apple has issued an update for one of their adapters as well, so I am hardly surprised.
That Anonymous CowardThe cartoon where every appliance in a kitchen is demanding a ransomware payment dot gif
Trojan Duck@briankrebs A charging cable that needs firmware? JFC. Lol
GuyWithLag@briankrebs Welp, we're officially living in the future; even the _cables_ need a firmware update...
@briankrebs @cstross I don’t understand the incredulity. There are a lot of cables that have hardware in them. AV cables for instance. IIRC crossover ethernet cables do as well.
@lolzac @briankrebs @cstross I've never terminated a single ethernet cable with anything more complicated than grounding & shielding wrappers around electrical connections.
Crossover vs straight-through is just a pinout difference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI/TIA-568#T568A_and_T568B_termination
@lolzac @briankrebs @cstross Possibly.
Most smarts in AV cables that I can recall also involve little more than relays (although those do sometimes involve conversion to & from optical to support longer runs).
@lispi314 @briankrebs @cstross When I had two Macs I had a single ethernet cable that I would use to connect the Macs and also connect to the printer when I needed it.
@lolzac @briankrebs @cstross Yeah, back in the old days (but not that old, #ethernet was around before RJ45 & 4 twisted-pair ethernet) you'd have needed different cables depending on whether you connecting uplinks/downlinks or peers.
Thankfully eventually we collectively realized that was /incredibly/ obnoxious so we fixed that problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-dependent_interface#Auto_MDI-X
mathew@briankrebs @lispi314 @cstross @lolzac The $9 Apple Lightning to audio cable contains an A/D, D/A and amplifier.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown
@mathew @briankrebs @cstross @lolzac Right, you can do that kind of stuff. But then that's not just a cable, that's a converter/adapter. It's roughly analogous to cheap USB audio interfaces.
I can't read German so I don't know if the article is missing important details. I know such interfaces often have problems with frequency muddling (very noticeable when it affects voices, humans don't usually react equally to all frequencies).
@mathew @briankrebs @lispi314 @lolzac Trying to remember who it was who discovered, to their horror, that Apple's Lightning Digital AV adapter not only has an ARM cpu with 256MB of RAM but *has to download a binary object that unpacks to a full XNU operating system* in order to decrypt and re-encode as video files from the iPhone or iPad it's plugged into. And it went on sale in 2012.
@cstross @mathew @briankrebs @lolzac That sounds like there's similar horror to HDCP? Are my suspicions correct?
sleepy@briankrebs @cstross not the charger, the cable.
Polycrastinator@briankrebs What’s interesting here is that it means the power end on that cable is capable of passing data in some capacity.
The Doctor@briankrebs Firmware for a cable? I hate the twenty-first century.
@briankrebs interesting. My M1Pro MacBook Pro 16” stopped charging via the MagSafe cable about six weeks ago, following a low battery incident. When connected the MagSafe connector LED flashes amber and doesn’t charge. The same PSU will charge the MacBook over a USB C cable so it’s definitely the cable which is not working.
I just reconnected the cable to the MacBook Pro and rebooted. So far no change.
Glenn Rempe ✅For those readers who have a snarky reply:
a) PSA - Every cable you connect to your Mac/PC, for years, likely has a PCB and chips embedded in both ends of the cable.
b) Its a positive thing that Apple designs into their cables a firmware update mechanism for them.
c) No action is required of the user, nor are they likely even aware of the update.
d) These updates are done to provide you with the best/safest experience.
e) You need to find better things to be snarky about.