Usually, late May is quiet; we’re done with I/O and build, and WWDC hasn’t dropped yet. Instead of catching our breath, we’ve got new a new MacBook, Tesla in trouble, Stack Overflow hacking, and Swift taking over the web – it just doesn’t stop!

Let’s get to it.

There’s A New MacBook Pro (and Keyboard)

WWDC is so close we can feel it (and we’ll be in San Jose for the event!), but Apple decided to launch its latest MacBook Pro two weeks before the shindig. The new eight-core MacBook Pro has an eighth or ninth generation Intel processor, and Apple claims it’s twice as fast as a quad-core, or 40 percent faster than a six-core MacBook Pro. Not bad!

The real groan-inducing moment: it also has a redesigned keyboard. Apple has again redesigned the achilles heel of its new laptops, which we hope will all but eliminate the widespread key-stroke failures many are experiencing on older MacBooks. Apple has also expanded its keyboard replacement program, which is great. Curiously, the replacement program includes this brand new MacBook Pro, so maybe it’s not as solid as we’d like to think.

Also, I was just kidding. The real-real groan-inducing thing about this new MacBook Pro is its price. A specced-out 2019 15-inch MacBook Pro will run you $7,048.98. Ouch.

Tesla Tanking?

Remember how the Model 3 release was supposed to be Tesla’s watershed moment and make the company profitable? Yeah, no, that didn’t quite happen.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says without “hardcore” changes, Tesla will be broke inside of 10 months. An internal email says Musk and new CFO Zach Kirkhorn will review “all expenses of any kind anywhere in the word, including parts, salary, travel expenses, rent, literally every payment that leaves our bank account” while the company exists on a “spartan diet.”

Musk wrote “this is hardcore, but it is the only way for Tesla to become financially sustainable.” Tesla stock tanked on the news, and is below $200 at the time of publication.

Anecdotally, Apple apparently tried to buy Tesla in 2013 for around $240 per share. A few months ago, when Tesla stock was double what it is today, that story would be laughable. Now we’re wondering if Tim Cook is getting “wanna have lunch soon?” emails from Musk.

Stack Overflow Hacked

Uh oh – Stack Overflow was hacked! The company writes “The intrusion originated on May 5 when a build deployed to the development tier for stackoverflow.com contained a bug, which allowed an attacker to log in to our development tier as well as escalate their access on the production version of stackoverflow.com.”

The hack was originally thought to have been benign, but Stack Overflow says it believes the personal info for about 250 accounts – including IP addresses, names, and emails – was compromised. Not a massive breach, but interesting the site which exchanges information on how to avoid such issues was itself breached. #meta

Swift Can Replace JavaScript?!

I mean… sorta.

SwiftWasm is a project that compiles Swift to WebAssembly (Wasm). If you’re not sure what Wasm is, its website describes it as “a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine.”

And if your reaction to that was “lol wut,” just know Wasm is a compilation target for a variety of languages that want to run on the web. Currently, the only real programming language available for the web is JavaScript, but Wasm allows C, C++, and Rust to compile to the web. Now, Swift is making itself available for WebAssembly, too.

It’s still in its infancy, but it’s a big deal. It positions Swift as a future replacement for JavaScript in web applications, which means websites and web apps will be able to take advantage of Swift. Swift already runs natively on iOS and macOS, and has made itself known as a server-side language. Pretty amazing stuff!

Enjoy your weekend!