The Flashback saga has yet to reach its end, as a recent report debunks earlier claims that the number of infected Macs had fallen from 600,000 to 140,000 over a matter of a few days. Apple released a security tool to combat Flashback last week, and Norton Symantec reported that the number of infected machines had fallen to 140,000 shortly after. That number has been proven to be inaccurate.
In an interesting turn of events, the original Flashback whistleblower, Russian security firm Dr. Web, has revealed that around 650,000 Macs are still infected with the notorious trojan. Not only are there many Macs connected to the botnet that were previously unaccounted for, but more OS X computers are added every day.
MBTA's mobile purchases will be fully smartphone-based without NFC
Mobile purchasing systems based on NFC have a way to go before they become ubiquitous, but other types of mobile payments already here. A great example is the Starbucks app that can be used as a virtual reload-able gift card. When you want to pay with the card, a barista scans a code on your iPhone’s screen.
Starbucks may have made this technology a part of every day life for millions of people, but it isn’t the only company to do. Some airlines offer a virtual boarding pass as part of mobile check-in features.
The same iPhone/smartphone screen as digital token approach may soon extend to your commute as well as your morning coffee or air travel. A pilot project in Boston plans to bring the same NFC-less mobile payment technology to the city’s commuter rail service.
Everyone knows that Research In Motion has been on a downward spiral into destruction over the last few years. Sales and profits are plummeting, and the company’s corporate structure is falling apart. The end may be near for the once-popular Blackberry maker.
Recent stats from online trade-in site Gazelle.com reveal that Blackberry trade-ins have increased by 80% over the last month.
Broncos opt for iPad-PlayerLync app combo (photo by Denver Post)
Over the past two years, the iPad has shown up in a wide variety of workplaces. Some of those iPad at work are areas the come immediately to mind like salespeople using iPads to demo solutions and prepare quotes on the fly. Other places are ones that you might never expect like large combines in industrial agriculture.
One of the most recent employers to embrace the iPad is the Denver Broncos. The football team will replace its existing paper playbooks with iPads.
If Kickstarter were a forest, you wouldn’t be able to see it for all the iPhone camera adapter cases littering its leafy, money-begging hummocks. And here we bring you another photo-friendly sapling of an invention, only this one is a little different. It’s called the Magnifi, and it works with pretty much any piece of imaging equipment that ends with “-scope” (or “-lars, as we shall see in a second).
Note:Since posting this article we received the following sound advice from app designer Propellerhead regarding the issue of latency we experienced with this app: “Try re-booting your iPad!” And it worked! The time delay reported herein seemed like a fun dimension intrinsic to the app, but this is not the case. My bad.
Figure is a new music-making app for iOS that allows users with a few minutes to spare to come up with electro / synth-pop grooves quickly while on the go. It’s a load of fun and sounds great, and you will never know what you are going to create next… really.
Everyone is hoping that the next generation iPhone will be unveiled with significant design changes. Maybe an aluminum backing, a bigger screen, or even a haptic home button will make an appearance on a redesigned iPhone. Details are scant on what the “iPhone 5” will look like, but if these newest leaks are to be believed it looks like the next iPhone will still have a home button.
New part leaks were spotted today on TVC Mall that show black and white home buttons for the iPhone 5. At first glance the buttons look like those found on the newest iPhone 4S, but closer inspection shows a few differences.
These fun filters are a great reason to charge some AAs and dig out that old abandoned flash
You have a camera, and maybe you have an old flashgun lying around the place. Problem: while you know what to do with the camera, even in all-manual mode, you are terrified of that flash. Used on top the camera it washes everything out and makes it look like a drunken birthday party photo taken in a bar. Used off the camera… well, in that direction there be dragons.
You really should learn to use off-camera flash. But seeing as you never will, Photojojo’s neat set of flash-filters will at least give that old strobe something to do.
Pop creates a dead simple writing environment on the iPhone and iPad.
Minimalism is a fascinating thing. Our world is getting increasingly loud and busy, yet many are starting to want more minimal and distraction-free experiences. Apps specifically are another way that the minimalism trend can be observed; more and more applications are getting back to the roots by cutting away superfluous effects and features.
Pop is a perfect example of how minimalism manifests itself in a basic iOS app. Unlike other writing apps for the iPhone and iPad, Pop is just a blank pad to jot down text. Nothing else. Nothing at all… But really, that’s all there is.
Sony's latest speaker dock not only looks good, but it also packs some impressive features.
Sony has announced two new all-in-one speaker docks for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod today, which claim to be the world’s first speakers to use magnetic fluid for dampening. Both devices also feature built-in DAB radios and CD players, while one also offers wireless Bluetooth connectivity and your own light show.
Stick-on NFC chips could prove the need for NFC support in iOS
There have been a handful of technologies touted over the past few years that would remove (or dramatically reduce) the need to carry our credit/debit cards, loyalty cards, and even cash. For the past couple of years, NFC has been the technology of choice for turning our phones into digital wallets. Google and RIM have built NFC support into their respective mobile OSes and a handful of manufacturers have built NFC phones, but the technology hasn’t lived up to the hype.
The Blackmagic Cinema Camera is calling itself a “digital film” camera, and with a 2.5K sensor and a 13-stop dynamic range, that description mightn’t be far off the mark. Amazingly, it’s also cheap — in the relative terms of movie cameras, that it. The Blackmagic comes in at “just” $3,000.
This is how we did todo lists in the good old days
Another day, another cool thing you can do with Alfred. This time it’s updating a text file of your choice, without having to leave Alfred’s friendly text input window.
RIM exec publicly attacks developer for dropping BlackBerry support
Over the past few months, we’ve heard some delusional things from RIM executives, some sober assessments of its dire straights, and even the story of RIM execs being kicked off a plane for being too drunk and unruly. With that gamut of events, it shouldn’t be too shocking that RIM’s VP of developer relations Alec Saunders recently resorted to a public temper tantrum, complete with condescending personal insults, when the development team behind YouMail announced plans to abandon the BlackBerry platform.
The ability to share my documents across all of my devices and have them with me wherever I go is indispensable to me, and so Dropbox is one service I couldn’t be without. However, one of its biggest flaws has always been the difficulty in sharing documents.
That’s no longer the case with Dropbox’s latest update, which makes it super simple to share your files with your friends, family, and colleagues.
AT&T is finally unlocking iPhones at the end of a completed contract, but if you bought the new iPhone 4S you’re going to be waiting another 18 months or so until your phone is eligible for an official carrier unlock. What if you want to use your iPhone on T-Mobile, or maybe go overseas and use a local carrier rather than pay for some crazy out of coverage fees? Fortunately, hacker Loktar_Sun has discovered an incredibly easy way to unlock your iPhone 4S or any other iPhone. The process is super easy – all you need is a jailbroken iPhone, and these 13 easy-to-follow steps.
Time Warner recently added the ability to live stream national and regional sports networks from the TWC TV app for the iPad, iPhone, Android 4.0 smartphones and tablets, and TWCTV.com. Any Time Warner Cable video subscriber living in New York, Dallas, or Charlotte will now have the ability to live stream their favorite sports channels at no extra cost by using the TWC TV app.
This will be the chip that features in your next Mac.
Just as expected, Intel launched its first crop of quad-core Ivy Bridge processors today. This is the chip that will replace the company’s Sandy Bridge CPUs in Apple’s next-generation of Macs. They’re the world’s first processors to use a 22-nanometer manufacturing process and feature Intel’s “Tri-Gate” 3D transistor technology.
Microsoft pulls Office for Mac 2011 SP 2 update in response to problems
Late last week, Microsoft pulled the Service Pack 2 update to Office for Mac 2011 from its upgrade servers after users complained that the update created problems with the Outlook email and calendar application. The move also coincided with reports that Office vulnerabilities could lead to additional malware infection risks.
Microsoft had released the update the previous week (April 12). After initial reports that users were getting an error messages related to Office 2011 database, the company posted advice for users to follow before attempting to install the update and a work around for some of the problems that users experienced. A few days lated Microsoft pulled the update completely.
New technologies could make the next iPhone significantly thinner than its predecessor.
The iPhone 4S is hardly a fatty, but it is thicker than many of its Android-powered rivals. However, thanks to in-cell touch technology and other improvements Apple is expected to make to the sixth-generation iPhone, the handset could measure in at just 7.9mm thick — 1.4mm thinner than the iPhone 4S.
Could Apple replace the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro with one MacBook that has it all?
We’ve heard plenty of speculation surrounding the future of Apple’s 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros in recent months, which are soon expected to adopt a new form factor and Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors. However, according to one analyst, there may no longer be a MacBook Pro… or a MacBook Air.
Instead, Apple will release an all-new MacBook that combines the qualities of both, while the 17-inch MacBook Pro will be discontinued completely.
It’s a big day for Adobe, with the announcement of two new products: Creative Suite 6, and a new subscription service called Creative Cloud, which it describes as “a hub for making, sharing, and delivering creative work, and a radical new way of providing tools and services that will change the game for creatives worldwide.”
Clear, the hugely popular to-do list management app from Realmac Software, has received its first major update since hitting the App Store back in February. Version 1.1 brings new themes, new gestures and new features, in addition to a whole host of tweaks and fixes that make Clear even more of a joy to use.
National Geographic streaming live on the iPad for free
Update:It appears that the app’s developer has started replacing the channels with ads for “Futubox.” A classic scam. The app did work at one point, but we no longer recommended buying it now.
Update 2: It looks like Apple has yanked it from the App Store.
A $0.99 iOS app has surfaced over the weekend in the App Store called “TV English Premium.” The universal app allows anyone to stream 55 premium TV channels live without paying for a subscription. An iPhone or iPad also does not need to be jailbroken to stream for free. For only $0.99, you can have access to many BBC and premium U.S. TV channels in HD on your iOS device.
We’ve seen quite a few hardware/app combinations that promise to turn your iPhone into a beautifully simplistic remote control for your TV, but most of them fall short with a level of complexity that always brings us back to our old remote control setup. The VooMote is different. Not only is it ridiculously easy to use, but it looks great, has a minimal footprint, and is completely customizable so it adapts to whatever configuration you might need. Just plug in the Zapper to your 30pin connector and that’s it. Boom! You’re ready to go.
Its light-weight design is the size of a paperclip which maximizes the convience factor as it effortlessly converts any iOS device into a smart universal remote that controls virtually all your A/V gear. Within the app you can customize the layout and look of your remote screen so you don’t have a bunch of buttons bothering you that you never use. You can even create macros to execute a series of functions with only one touch. There’s no extra hardware to setup. No messy menus. Just a simple accessory to rule your television dominion. It’s available in a multitude of vibrant colors including, Red, Pink, Blue, Green, White and Black. The VooMate Zapper is awesome, and at $69.99 it’s cheaper than most universal remotes on the market.
Today we’ve teamed up with VooMote to giveaway two brand new VooMote Zappers to two of our lucky readers. Entering the giveaway takes less than a minute and you’ll be that much closer to having the best universal remote on the market.
