In the 1984 novel Neuromancer, author William Gibson described a future in which “implants, nerve-splicing, and micro bionics” could turn people into internet-connected cyborgs.

If you like that idea, you’ll be happy to know that Google is working on it.

The company’s “Project Glass” augmented reality glasses is the first step toward Gibson’s cyborg vision. The glasses project images into one eye, enabling real life (what you see with your actual eyes) to acquire menu items, contextual information, turn-by-turn directions and more. You can take a picture by blinking your eye.

If the idea that augmented reality glasses are a first step toward being assimilated into the Borg, you should know that the head of the project in Google’s “Google X” labs, Babak Parviz, has already developed an electronic contact lens that can display data to the wearer’s eye.

The first step is glasses. The second is contact lenses. And the third is internet-connected eye implants.

Google isn’t the only organization taking these steps. Such technologies will soon become generally available. But will they come from Apple, too?

Adam Kazwell asked the question on Forbes.com: “How Will Apple Respond To Google’s Project Glass?”

In a nutshell, Kazwell says Apple will wait and see how the market responds to Google’s Project Glass and he implies that Apple will follow Google into the cyborgification of mankind.

I think he’s wrong. I think Apple will never cross that line. Here’s why. 

When Apple announced that it was bringing movies and TV shows purchased in the iTunes Store to iCloud, every major production house was onboard except Universal and Fox. Due to licensing conflicts with HBO, Universal and Fox were not able to offer video content in iCloud initially. HBO later said that it would be loosening its grip on the studios to allow for licensing agreements with Apple.

It now appears that Universal Studios has been able to start offering its movies in the iTunes Store for re-download in iCloud.

Do you wear polarized sunglasses? If so, you can go ahead and forget trying to use your iPad in portrait mode while wearing them. You think we’re kidding? No.. when wearing polarized sunglasses the iPad’s screen turns black when using it in portait mode — rendering it useless until you flip it over in landscape. Devastating, we know.

Don’t believe us? Check it out on video:

Last week, I published an opinion piece proposing that Apple open a corporate museum. It was also published on Forbes.com. The story started trending by Sunday evening. Then somewhat amusingly, it got buried first thing Monday morning by the wall-to-wall coverage of Ashton Kutcher, who’s to play Steve Jobs in an upcoming indie film. To be honest, I really wasn’t all that amused.

Celebrity physicist Brian Cox is famous in the U.K. for making physics accessible to the public through bestselling books and several popular TV series. Now he brings elements of both to a gorgeous new iPad app: Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe ($6.99).

Featuring amazing animations and lush, high-production video, the app will sweep you back in time to witness the Big Bang, and then look ahead to the universe’s end, when the last black dwarfs will fizzle away to entropy.

As Prof. Cox points out: while the universe evolves momentarily from order to chaos, now is a precious window of time when life is briefly possible, for us to be able to contemplate the universe…

We’re huge fans of Tapbot’s great alternative to the official Twitter app, Tweetbot. This evening a very cool update for Tweetbot has been released, which adds iCloud sync for user’s timelines, direct messages, and mute filters. This update is a must have.

There’s also a ton of other fixes and features in version 2.2:

This Ruby on Rails tutorial for beginners is the perfect comprehensive video guided tour of modern Rails web development. With this course you’ll get a grasp on the newest, most effective approach to web development as Micheal Hartl walks you through the entire Rails development process: installing and setting up Rails, designing Rails applications with MVC and REST, building dynamic pages, coding effectively in Ruby, implementing registration and authentication, adding social features, even testing and deployment.

This course — usually $129 — is now available for a limited time for
…courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals!

As a Mac user, I’ve always been a fan of Activity Monitor. It keeps track of RAM and hard disk memory, CPU and Disk usage, and Network activity. It’s a handy app to have, on my Mac.

But what about the iPhone? Doesn’t it deserve some sort of activity monitor of it’s own? Well, todays’ tip offers one such app, called Activity Monitor Touch.

Those of you who have purchased your iPhone off-contract, aka for the full price, will be happy to hear that AT&T will begin unlocking iPhones at customers’ request this Sunday. Carrier unlocking will allow customers “in good standing” to switch out the AT&T SIM for a SIM on another network, as long as the bands are supported. This is great for customers who want to travel with their AT&T iPhone internationally. 

The Mothership; Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, is one of the more exclusive corporate buildings in the world. Apple employees can’t even walk some cooridoors without permission, so your chances of getting inside Apple’s compound and exploring the secrets of the building are pretty slim unless your name is Barack Obama. Even then, Apple will probably call security as soon as you try to get past the Atrium. I’ve never had the good fortune to go inside the Apple campus like a few lucky souls have, but thanks to magical powers of the internet, peons like you and I can now glimpse inside One Infinite Loop to see how the Apple Elite work.

Want to know what Apple HQ looks like from the inside? Take a look at this gallery to see where the magic happens.

Grand Theft Auto III for iOS and Android was introduced earlier this year for $2.99 with much fanfare. Today, we have more exciting news from game maker Rockstar, who has announced that Max Payne Mobile is launching for iOS on April 12th and Android April 26th.

One of the mobile news items this week was the discovery by developer Gareth Wright of a vulnerability in the Facebook apps for both iOS and Android. At issue in the iOS version of the Facebook app is the fact that a user’s login data is stored in a clear text .plist file. Copying that file to another device will allow full access to a person’s Facebook account.

Facebook was quick to point out that this file could only be copied directly from an iOS device if the device had previously been jailbroken. Wright responded by saying that the portion of the iOS file system where the data is located can be accessed by connecting any iOS device (jailbroken or not) to a Mac or PC running iTunes and creating a backup. With the right tools, its fairly easy to search an iOS device backup or even the filesystem on a connected device.

This brings up an important issue for businesses deploying iOS devices or operating a BYOD program – iOS backups made through iTunes can be an attack vector to retrieve business data.

If it isn’t a slightly warm rear end or an inability to find a Wi-Fi network, then the new iPad may be suffering from 3G connection issues instead. That’s according to the latest complaints on Apple’s Support Communities forum, which claim the device is dropping its 3G connection at random and not reconnecting.

Five people in southern China have been charged with intentional injury after a Chinese teenager sold his kidney to purchase an iPhone and an iPad last April. The group includes the surgeon who removed the kidney from the 17-year-old, who now suffers from renal deficiency.

A security researcher has discovered a serious flaw with the Facebook and Dropbox apps for both Android and iOS that puts all of your sensitive personal data at risk.

Anyone with access to your device can use a free piece of software that’s easily available on the internet to retrieve an unencrypted, plain text file from your device that provides access to your entire account — without requiring a jailbreak.

After the FLA found wide scale violations at Apple’s main manufacturing plant, Foxconn, both Foxconn and Apple promised to fix the issues by 2013. Issues that were found include the amount of overtime worked, compensation workers receive for their overtime, and numerous health and safety risks. In what looks to be the first of changes, Foxconn and Apple will be raising workers’ wages in July.

Keeping track of vital Mac stats is both important and fun. Not only does today’s tip app show you a ton of useful information about your computer, it promises to do so in a super stylish way. From what we’ve seen of it (not a review!), we agree.

MyWi is widely regarded as one of the best jailbreak utilities for the iPhone, allowing users to turn their smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot and share its data connection with other devices without paying additional carrier charges. Its latest 5.5 update brings iOS 5 compatibility (finally!), faster speeds, Wi-Fi sharing, and more.

Apple has issued a second update to Java in just two days this week as the company works to patch vulnerabilities that have led to the infection of over 600,000 Macs. The Java for OS 2012-002 update is now available to download via Software Update, and it’s recommended that you update.

You can add another name to the list of companies dropping Google Maps in favor of OpenStreetMap. When Wikipedia announced its new app for iOS today, they also announced that they would be using OpenStreetMap exclusively for the nearby view in both their iOS and Android mobile apps. Wikipedia feels this change will be a better fit for their goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone.

This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.

While many federal agencies have been defecting from RIM’s BlackBerry to iOS devices, the Department of Veterans Affairs seems poised to make a much more dramatic transition. The agency recently canceled its participation in Microsoft’s Software Assurance program. While the move isn’t likely to mean the VA is replacing all of its PCs with Macs, it may signal a significant transition to non-Microsoft mobile devices like the iPad.

It looks like Apple is finally starting to swap out old iPad 2 billboards around the country for new iPad ads. We highlighted the odd fact that Apple hasn’t updated its signage for the new iPad yesterday, although a new billboard was spotted in sunny Hollywood, California.

In less than 24 hours, Apple has replaced the iPad 2 billboard hanging above one of its larger stores in New York’s Meatpacking district. Dan Frommer snapped a pic of the above billboard today in front of Apple’s 14th Street store in New York City.

If you spot a new iPad billboard, let us know by tweeting to @cultofmac on Twitter.

About.me has been creating significant buzz as a popular web service for creating personality profiles. You can create a free, one-page website with About.me to share your bio, social network activity, work links, photos and more.

Today, the folks at About.me are announcing their official iPhone app for free in the App Store.

Tired of using USB and Bluetooth dongles to power your presentations? Sick of dealing with device drivers for remote mice and remote controls that never seem to be there when you need them? How about an app for controlling presentations from anywhere in the room? Here’s a tip for you, then.

One disadvantage of using an iPhone or iPad as a camera is that you’re stuck with a single, fixed focal-length lens. Optical zoom can work only so far before even Instagram photos start to look bad, and phones with built in optical zooms tend to resemble actual cameras.

The solution? Add-on lenses. Today, we’ll take a look at Photojojo’s four-in-one set of fisheye, macro, wide angle and telephoto lenses. These accessory lenses stick magnetically over the iDevice’s camera, changing the point of view.