There is perhaps no name in the world of hacking as legendary as Geohot. George Hotz was the first person to unlock the original iPhone back in 2007. He was 17 years old at the time. He also released multiple jailbreaks, including “purplera1n” for the iPhone 3GS. Hotz later went on to hack the PlayStation 3 and battle Sony in a high-profile lawsuit.

In a recent profile by The New Yorker, we get a fascinating look at Hotz and several stories from his career as a prolific, self-taught hacker.

Steve Jobs’ career is usually discussed in two major segments – his early years when he co-founded Apple with Woz, and then the latter end of his life when he returned to Apple and resurrected the company with one hit product after another. But 11 years passed between the time that Steve was kicked out of Apple and the time he returned to save the company. Many people call those his “Wilderness Years” as he struggled to cope with getting kicked out of Apple.

What many view as a dark period of exile, Brent Schlender claims it was actually one of the happiest periods in Jobs’ life. Writing a new article for Fast Company about Steve Jobs time in exile, Schlender rediscovered his trove of lost interview tapes he recorded with Jobs during those “Wilderness Years.”

The entire article is riddled with new Steve Jobs quotes and ideas that haven’t been heard before, but here are the eight best:

It seems Ashton Kutcher is delighted to be playing Steve Jobs in Mark Hulme’s upcoming movie, so much so that he has canceled all of his other projects and has already begun meeting with Steve’s friends to “get inside the voice.” Hulme reports that Kutcher has “poured himself” into the role that was “meant for him.”

The “Two and a Half Men” star Ashton Kutcher is set to play Steve Jobs in a new indie film, chronicling the earlier years of the Apple co-founder. The new film is set to start filming in May, when Kutcher takes a break from filming “Two and a Half Men.” It looks like the former “Punk’d” host might have to grow out his hair and grow a beard in the mean time, too. 

I live on the east coast, but I have been to Silicon Valley twice; visiting Apple’s mothership was a must-do for me.

Perhaps you feel the same way. It’s exciting for us fans, though all you can really do is park, take pictures out in front of the main 1 Infinite Loop building, and the Apple sign near the street, then visit The Company Store. It’s a special treat as they don’t sell Apple devices, they sell logoed items not found anywhere else. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call my visit a pilgrimage, but it was a top priority for me, if I was going to be anywhere near Silicon Valley.

Mike Daisey, the man behind the hugely popular show that highlights Apple’s manufacturing environment at Foxconn, has received heavy media criticism since This American Life revealed that he had lied and given inaccurate information about his trip to China. Daisey continues to perform his show at theaters in the United States, and he says he still stands by his work.

Since the Retraction episode of The American Life aired, Daisey has elaborated further on the issue surrounding Chinese manufacturing and his public scandal.

This American Life‘s January episode “Mr. Daisey Goes To The Apple Factory” was the show’s most popular episode in history, racking up over one million downloads and setting off a chain reaction of reports that eventually resulted in Apple ordering an independent audit of working conditions in its supply change.

The titular Mr. Daisey has been covered exhaustively by Cult of Mac. He is probably best known outside of his NPR appearance as the man behind the one-man show “The Agony & Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”, which Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wept at.

Unfortunately, Daisey’s integrity and honesty are being called into question after This American Life took the unprecedented step of retracting the episode earlier today,

For the first time ever, Apple stock briefly touched, then dropped below, the price of $600 per share. Making that milestone even more impressive is the fact that AAPL just reached $500 per share for the first time a month ago.

Mark my words, Woz is right: Apple’s going to reach $1000 per share become the world’s first trillion dollar company.

[via MacRumors]

Before Apple unveiled the new iPad on Wednesday, no one was quite positive what Apple would announce. It seemed pretty sure that the iPad 3 (as it was being called then) would have a Retina Display, but would it have an A5X processor or an A6 processor? 3G or LTE? 512MB of RAM or 1GB of RAM. Would it be thinner or thicker? And what would it be called: the iPad 3 or iPad HD? (Everyone got the name wrong: it’s just called the “new iPad” now.)

One thing few people had any doubt about was that Siri would be making her way to iPad this year… which is why Siri’s absence on the new iPad counted as probably the biggest disappointment of the entire event.

Why would Apple leave Siri out of the new iPad?

This is a guest post by Mike Daisey, who’s latest monologue, The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs, is at New York’s Public Theater through March 4. We highly recommend you go see it. It made Steve Wozniak cry. The post originally appeared here.

Stephen Fry, brilliant comedian, wonderful actor, and bon vivant just posted this in his Twitter feed:

As a fellow raconteur it’s painful to have to confront Mr. Fry with this fact, but he’s being a total idiot.

He’s in good company—most of the Mac universe is in the midst of a massive propaganda campaign, trying to convince itself and the universe that the cognitive dissonance they are feeling at this moment isn’t real.

So you’re going to see some good people, like Mr. Fry, who happen to love their Apple products very much, say some horrible things because they don’t actually understand how to reconcile the beauty and grace of their wonderful Apple products with the unvarnished, verified truth of how they are produced.