Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might have made TIME Magazine’s title of “Person of the Year,” but the austere Financial Times has a much different take, and they’re giving the title to none other than Steve Jobs… and while there’s many reasons the Financial Times think Jobs qualifies, most of it boils down to the iPad.
It’s Christmas Eve, and if you don’t have today off, you’re probably just counting down the hours, so why not count down a third of one with this: a recent Defcon talk hosted by a hacker named Zoz, whose Quicksilver G4 was stolen over two years ago by a burglar named Melvin Guzman.
How did Zoz know Guzman was the perp? Easy: he had OpenDNS installed so when Guzman brought the Mac on line — two years later — he was able to SSH in. He also had VNC installed, which allowed him to see what the thief was doing on his machine.
And what was he doing? Mostly browsing countless porn sites with names like “elephantasses.com” as well as taking pictures of himself naked for online dating sites. Ultimately, Zoz was able to send the cops to the precise address of the guy who had stolen his G4 an entire country away, and recover it… but not before he consigned Guzman once and forever to the pantheon of stupid, stupid thieves.
Even if Apple thought Antennagate was overblown, let’s face it: their last attempt to put the iPhone’s antenna into the exposed edges of the device didn’t work out so well, prompting a PR catastrophe so bad that Apple was actually forced to hold an emergency press conference… something they never do.
That in and of itself suggests pretty strongly that Apple’s going to try something new for the iPhone antenna in future handsets, and if a new patent is any indication, that new approach to hiding the iPhone’s antenna may be by hiding it under the iconic Apple logo.
When you try to open a file that your Mac doesn’t already have a default app registered to, it doesn’t know what to do, so it either asks you to choose the application you want to use, or it will — if you so desire it — unceremoniously dump you back to Finder.
That’s actually not a very elegant way to handle unrecognized file extensions. Windows has a better system, for goodness’ sake: it will automatically search the web for applications that can open the file.
Luckily, with the arrival of the Mac App Store in January as well as the release of Mac OS X 10.6.6, that’s all slated to change. As it turns out, Apple has very cleverly deigned to integrate the App Store into the prompt you get when OS X doesn’t know what to do with a file: you can now search the Mac App Store for one that’ll work to open it. Keen!
Check out this 800-horsepower Mercedes S600 outfitted with a bunch of Apple gear. There’s Macs, iPads and iPhones galore. The car is a custom job by Brabus, the famous German aftermarket customizers.
Thanks Gustav.
Hiphop star Dr Dre is suing a headphone rival for allegedly knocking off his designs.
In a lawsuit, Dr Dre charges Fanny Wang’s new headphones with knocking off the Beats Solo and Studio models. Dr Dre’s headphones are made by Monster and sold under the “Beats by Dr Dre” brand.
“Fanny Wang’s headphones, color scheme, packaging, and overall advertising campaign directly infringes Beats’ trademark and patent rights,” says a legal letter sent to Fanny Wang, which launched its new ‘phones earlier this month.
“I can honestly say the tactics they are pulling are clearly intended to squash competition,” said Tim Hickman, Fanny Wang’s CEO, in an email.
What do you think? Look at the picture above. On the left is Dr Dre’s Solo; on the right is one of Fanny Wang’s new models. Both are folding headphone designs. Here they are in more detial:
The upcoming Jack Black comedy, Gulliver’s Travels, which opens Christmas Day, will be one giant Apple ad.
When Gulliver travels to Lilliput, he brings his iPhone, which when used by the Lilliputians appears gigantic.
The movie has multiple MacBooks and other Apple products, and Apple logos galore.
Apple is easily the most successful company ever in getting its products into movies and TV shows. Some 41% of the movies that hit number-one at the box office featured Apple products.
Part of the reason for this success is that Hollywood is Apple-obsessed. Another is that Apple works at it. The company proudly boasts that it never pays for product placement. But it’s likely that there is some string pulling, proactive offers of devices to use and other actions that are kept secret by the company.
Whatever Apple is doing, it’s working.
You knew it was coming. Currently VaporWare – and possibly HumorWare – Golden Cow Brands has announced the iToiletStand (aka Angled Stand), a waist high, foldable stand for iPads and other tablets which does just what you think:
Where can I use it? by the bath, couch, bed, in the kitchen or garage, by the toilet (yep, take a bit more time for yourself), next to your chair while playing a musical instrument, in hospitals, next to wheelchairs, somewhat near your barbecue grill, next to your lounge or lawn chair, next to your office desk, use it while giving presentations at school, during meetings or conferences, and the list goes on…
The implied cautionary warning of somewhat near your barbecue grill applies equally to anticipated bathroom usage. The company says cost will be cheap enough for you to purchase several for use around the house, and shipping is anticipated to begin in early 2011
Too bad they missed the 2010 Holiday Shopping Season…
[via BornRich]
Need a last-minute stocking stuffer, or wondering how to keep that New Year’s resolution? Digifit is giving away its $80 ANT+ Digifit Connect — just download their free Digifit app, then pop for the $15 in-app upgrade (which allows the app to connect with the dongle).
The idea is pretty much the same as with the Wahoo Fisica dongle (also $80): Attach the Digifit Connect to an iPhone (or iPad or iPod) and it’ll communicate with any ANT+ heart-rate monitor, footpod, bicycle cadence or speed sensor; then workout data can be tracked and analyzed through the Digifit app, or download the data to one of several websites, like New Leaf Fitness.
As Christmas draws ever nearer, we have a trio of app deals for your favorite Apple device. First up is a new crop of price cuts on iPad applications from the iPad App Store, including “SuperBadminton 2010” for just $0.99 – a $4 price reduction. We also have new freebies from the iPhone App Store, including the seasonally-themed “Snowing Screensaver.” We wrap up our deal spotlight with “SoundHound,” a free music-recognition application for your iPhone.
Along the way, we’ll also check out some hardware deals, such as various iPads reduced by $100, and a 2.53GHz Core 2 Dup Mac mini for just $589. Also on tap is a variety of cases, screensavers and other items perfect for your i-product. As always, details on these and much more can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQmy3ZbqTY8
You may remember seeing the iGlo LED set from my review a couple of weeks ago. Bruce Seymour, one of MEA’s directors has posted a video showing us how to use the lighting set on your Christmas tree. It’s a fun video and well worth checking out!
Apple and Android have consumed much of the ink used to describe the tablet wars. Now HP is attempting to grab some of the spotlight; it’s first move, an interview dissing Google’s mobile operating system as “backward looking” and preparing to take on Apple’s iPad with a Franken-tablet: part Palm and part revamped Slate.
HP’s Jon Rubinstein, who helped create the iMac and iPod when at Apple, has gone onto an executive position at Palm, which was then acquired by HP. Rubinstein, in a Wall Street Journal interview, talks about competition and the remade Slate tablet, now named the PalmPad, ahead of the upcoming CES.
If you want to watch Flash on your iPad despite Steve Jobs’ own cogent arguments against doing just that, you haven’t had a lot of options until now… but SkyFire — the neat Flash-to-HTML5 iOS conversion service — has just launched Skyfire for iPad, a neat native client that gives even more bang for the buck than the iPhone version. It’s available for download now for just $4.99.
You might not be able to watch a Blu-Ray DVD on your Mac, but Pioneer’s just unveiled a new line of 3D Blu-Ray players which not only feature DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD surround as well as 1080p video upscaling… but come with a new app called iControlAV that will allow you to control your new Pioneer player from the comfort of your iDevice. If you want one, it’ll cost you somewhere between $299 and $499.
What’s better than that horrific, buck-toothed, Tiny-Tim-loving Porifera Spongebob SquarePants perched atop a birthday cake lovingly baked and frosted in the shape of an iPhone? That horrific, buck-toothed, Tiny-Tim-loving Porifera Spongebob SquarePants perched atop a birthday cake containing a real-life iPhone.
Meanwhile, for my last birthday, I got a pie that contained nothing but rhubarb, and I was damn lucky to get it.
In defiance of Apple’s will, you can already stream AirPlay media to your Mac and Ubuntu… and now, if you’re on a Windows machine, the trifecta is complete.
We haven’t played it yet, but we look forward to, because Papa Sangre for iOS devices has one of the most intriguing central conceits of any app we’ve seen to date: it’s a video game with no video.
I love my new MacBook Air, but I’m terrified of it being stolen. I’ve been bitten on this before with a top-of-the-line, 15-inch MacBook Pro that was stolen (as I discovered later, by a drug-addicted friend) a mere two months after I bought it. The new MacBook Air’s an even bigger worry, since it’s light weight and small form factor make it all the more a target for a quick snatch-and-run.
Apple doesn’t have a Mac-centric version of their “Find my iPhone” app, but I’ve been looking into Hidden, an OS X application that hides in the background processes of your Mac and only broadcasts your Mac’s location when you go to the official website and tell it to ping your laptop.
If that sounds up your alley, there’s now officially no reason to give Hidden a download: usually $20, the application is now free for the rest of the month. Just go here to sign up.
David Hocknet is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century and an important contributor to the 1960s’ Pop Art movement. He’s now doing paintings on his iPad. The only problem? Many commenters think they’re junk.
Steve Jobs has a number one fan in the most powerful man in the world. In a recent interview, President Obama cited the Apple CEO as a laudable example of wealth that Americans should be proud to call one of their own.
In response to a reporter’s question, President Obama referred to Jobs as an example of the “American dream” and said his success should be celebrated, not derided.
When we talk about the iPad 2, we already know at least some of what to expect when Apple officially unveils their newest tablet in April: FaceTime support, an iPhone 4 like gyroscope and maybe a higher-resolution (but not Retina) display. Those are all pretty much lock-ins.
When it comes to iOS devices, though, Apple has a tendency to rejigger the device’s physical design in the second gen — consider the aesthetic difference between the iPhone and the iPhone 3G, for example — so what does Ive and Co. plan to tweak in the iPad 2’s casing? A Japanese blog citing anonymous Chinese sources claims to have the answer, if we’re willing to believe them.
The one guy at Apple who programs their fantastic iOS Remote.app seems to have been busy before Christmas break: a new update was pushed live yesterday, adding AirPlay control on the AppleTV to the app’s already great list of features.
The new Remote.app is now at version 2.1 and, as usual, is available on the App Store as a free download. You can now use it to control iTunes on your Mac to stream videos directly to your new AppleTV, as well as play rented Movies and TV shows on your Mac without ever getting up from a supine position.
Internet Radio support is also new, and there are a slew of new stability and performance improvements as well, as well as some bug fixes for issues connecting to an iTunes library or Apple TV.
Grab the new Remote.app here
Earlier this year, Sanho — makers of the super useful Hypermac line of batteries — found themselves in a pot of hot water boiled by Apple’s legal team, who objected to Hypermac’s use of repurposed (and patented) MagSafe cable connectors to juice up hungry MacBooks.
You can’t keep a good product down, though. HyperMac has just relaunched the HyperMac line, this time working around their reliance upon old MagSafe cables so as not to draw Cupertino’s ire once more.
We start the day with more application for your iPhone and iPod touch. First up is “Gangstar,” the third-person sandbox game from Gameloft. Usually, the application is $5, but fans can now get the game for free. Also, we have a new crop of free iPhone apps, including “0.03 Seconds Pro,” the reaction time-based game. We close out our deal spotlight with “Dora’s Christmas Carol.” This educational children’s game is usually $1.99, but the application is now available for just $0.99.
Along the way, we’ll take a look at hardware deals (like Mac Pro Xeon workstations), cases for your iPad and iPhone, along with other hardware and software bargains. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Boy those social networks are sticky: a pair of iPhone thieves were caught thanks to Facebook.
Brittany Busby, 19, and Todd Beede, 28, strolled into an AT&T store in downtown Montpelier, Vermont at around 2 p.m. and started checking out the phones.
They grabbed a $700 iPhone and ran off – but were caught because they couldn’t resist logging into Facebook on another phone in the store but forgot to sign off.
