I want the blue one! Of course, I’m talking about Apple’s just-announced Neo MacBook. After a week of product announcements—starting with the iPhone 17e and a refreshed iPad Air—Apple unveiled a new category in its laptop lineup for the first time in a while: the adorable and capable “Neo.”

Positioned below the MacBook Air as an entry-level machine, this new MacBook is the most affordable laptop the company has ever made, with a starting price of just $599. Analysts point out that this new laptop aims squarely at users of Google-powered Chromebooks and lower-end Windows devices, where Microsoft’s own efforts to shift to more battery-life-friendly chips made with technology from Arm have failed to ignite a sales boom.

Engadget says it’s “fascinating to see the company tackle an entirely new category”—it’s not a premium ultraportable like the MacBook Air, and it’s not a computing powerhouse like the MacBook Pro … it’s simply an affordable laptop.” And after spending some time with it at Apple’s launch event, they’re convinced it’s going to be a huge hit, adding that it “doesn’t look or feel like a budget machine.”

The Verge agrees, saying it feels “denser in its slightly smaller footprint, more like a slab of metal somehow.” In a short test, the keyboard (which isn’t backlit) felt like an Air keyboard, but “the trackpad felt very different. It isn’t haptic like other MacBooks. It clicks!”

The caveat here, of course, is that the MacBook Neo only just launched, and we don't know how it performs in the real world. We don't know how well it'll run demanding software such as Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro, for example, or whether it can handle graphically intensive games at high resolutions. Then again, Mashable reminds us that Apple is extremely good at optimizing software to run on its own hardware, so the results might be surprising. But if you’ve been putting off an upgrade because of the price (like I have), this might be the sign that we can now get a simple machine that will do everything we need, for less.

The GOP-led Senate on Wednesday rejected a war powers resolution aimed at restricting President Donald Trump’s ability to carry out further military action against Iran. The House is expected to vote down a similar war powers resolution later today.

And while the State Department has issued new advisories warning Americans to reconsider traveling to several countries in the region, it’s too late for many U.S. citizens who are currently stranded as Iran retaliates with drone attacks on U.S. facilities. It’s prompted Democratic lawmakers and current and former State Department officials to sharply criticize the Trump administration for failing to plan for what they say was a predictable scenario. U.S. citizens stuck in Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have received conflicting advice from officials. They were told to evacuate as soon as possible in some places even though airports were closed. The State Department also advised people to contact U.S. embassies for assistance, only for them to be met with busy signals or by confused staffers unable to offer help.

The war is likely to further impact people around the world as tensions escalate around the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway on Iran’s southern coast, where traffic has ground to a halt. According to Axios, trade disruptions along this key waterway that handles 25% of the world's maritime oil trade and 20% of liquefied natural gas shipments will likely produce a domino effect across the global economy.

New research has found that scientists studying sea-level rise have been using methods that underestimate how high the water already is. One result is that hundreds of millions more people worldwide are already living dangerously close to the rising ocean than Western scientists had previously estimated.

The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, has found that the vast majority of scientific studies have made this mistake. Coastal sea levels are, on average, eight inches to a foot higher than many maps and models of the world’s coastlines indicate.

To predict how sea level rise will affect coastal communities, scientists often use a model which estimates sea level by looking at the Earth’s gravitational field and rotation. But this doesn’t account for other influencing factors, such as tides, winds, ocean currents, temperature and saltiness. It’s a “methodological blind spot” that has resulted in widespread underestimations of coastal sea levels and people’s exposure to their related hazards, Philip Minderhoud, a study author told CNN. But, he added, more work is needed to reevaluate global sea levels as well as the full implications of the risks posed to coastal communities now and in the future.