• Apple unveiled its first-ever MacBook Pro with a touchscreen.
• It starts at $2,899 for the 14-inch model.
• The price of personal computers has risen due, in part, to a memory and storage shortage.

Apple's MacBook Pro is entering its iPad era.

Apple announced its first MacBook Pro with a touchscreen on Wednesday during its "Pro and Tell" event in Los Angeles. The touchscreen models mark a major evolution of Apple's traditional MacBooks that rely on keyboards, computer mouses, or trackpads for input.

The laptop, featuring what Apple calls its "PROLED XDR display," is powered by the company's M5 Pro and M5 Max chips and includes a Dynamic Island cutout in the screen, similar to recent iPhones.

Touching your MacBook Pro won't come cheap

The touchscreen MacBook Pros are available for preorder on Wednesday and will officially launch on November 6. Prices for the 14-inch model start at $2,899, and the 16-inch model starts at $3,399.

That's a notable price jump from the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6, which Apple announced on Tuesday. That model starts at $1,999 and has a Liquid Retina XDR display.

Apple's price hikes come as the tech industry weathers a global memory shortage driven by the expansion of AI and cloud infrastructure. With other PC makers also boosting prices, consumer demand across the industry has wavered, according to Counterpoint Research. The tech market research firm said global PC shipments have fallen 21% year-to-year from July to September.

Apple has raised prices for its products several times in recent months, including in June when the company raised the cost of some Mac and iPad models by as much as $300.

The touchscreen MacBook Pros are the latest product drop from Apple. The company announced a new iPad Mini with an OLED screen on Monday and a new iMac with its M6 chip on Tuesday.

• You don't need to live by a data center to hear the noise they emit.
• There's a plushie that emits the hum of a real-life data center in Virginia when it's hugged.
• The doll is part of a satirical art project called "Adopt a Data Center."

Plushies are getting weirder every day.

Bezzy is a gray handmade plushie with round eyes, a disarming smile, and a server-rack abdomen that plays the grating, mind-numbing hum of a data center when you squeeze it.

The sound is actually a recording made outside a real-life data center in Virginia.

"We actually got quite a few different recordings. It's a weird process to have to go through," Rajeev Basu, the artist behind the toy, told Business Insider. "I had to sit there listening to various screeching sounds on my computer, and we picked the one that would be most well-suited for the toy."

"It's terrifying. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone," he added.

Basu is the founder of New York-based creative studio, Basura. The studio worked alongside Big Data, a musical project by Alan Wilkis, to create a satirical art project called "Adopt a Data Center." The project highlights the realities of living near one.

"We're both inspired by this relationship between humans and machines," Basu said.

After OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, major players and new startups in the tech industry entered a global race to develop advanced AI systems. Companies like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Anthropic need massive new data centers to power their ambitious products.

As they began to sprout all over the country, Americans living near them began to bristle.

Critics say the benefits — like the potential for economic growth and new jobs — don't outweigh the risks. They worry data centers can worsen the environment, strain electrical grids, deplete water resources, and disrupt daily life. It's led to nationwide protests against them and to some towns and cities banning them altogether.

Americans living near data centers have also complained that the facilities can emit a constant hum akin to a loud drone or an airplane engine. Basu said data centers have become a regular topic in the news, but reading reports about the facilities is much different from having one in your backyard.

"You might not have a data center in your backyard right now, but with what some of these maps show with proposed plans, one could be in your backyard sooner than you think," Basu said.

Basura interviewed dozens of people across the US who live near data centers for the project, which took about six months to complete.

"Although our project is satirical, we wanted to make sure that everything was rooted in true research," Basu said.

In addition to the Bezzy dolls, the artists made stickers featuring phrases such as "Open your heart and your power grid" and "Please adopt me, I love GPU." A series of bumper stickers features tongue-in-cheek messages such as "Honk if you love computational infrastructure."

Basu said they wanted "Adopt a Data Center" to have an educational aspect, so the campaign's website has hyperlinks to research and reporting about AI and data centers.

"With a lot of my work over the years, it often uses human irreverence as a hook to invite people who might not necessarily be paying attention or have given it a second look to try and learn a bit more," Basu said.

Launched in September, the 20 limited-edition Bezzy dolls are already sold out.

Although the toy industry has struggled in recent years, millennials and zoomers have been softening the blow by driving up plushie sales. Market research company Circana said that people 18 and older accounted for over $1.5 billion in toy sales during the last three months of 2024.

"It's something that is so timely," Basu said. "It's quite a heavy and serious subject, so we're trying to find a way to help more folks learn about it."