The infamous Flashback trojan has now infected more than 600,000 Macs worldwide. Apple has issues two Java updates in an effort to patch the vulnerability in Mac OS X, but unfortunately for some, it was just too late.
We’ve already published instructions on how to see if you’re Mac’s infected by using Terminal commands, but there is an easier way. FlashbackChecker is a simple piece of software that will quickly tell you whether or not your Mac is infected.
What. A. Day. The single most important mobile app acquisition to date has sent the internet into a flurry of disarray. In case you haven’t heard from everyone except your aged grandmother, Facebook has bought Instagram for a mouth-dropping $1 billion.
There will be (and already have been) thousands of articles written on the internet about this news today, and for good reason — it deserves discussion. But what exactly does this all mean for our beloved Instagram?
Now that Mark Zuckerberg controls your hipster, vintage-inspired photos that you took with Instagram, you might be feeling weighed down with the fear that your favorite photography app will see some major changes. I cried for a few minutes, then I realized that I never used Instagram to edit photos because its filters were actually very limited and pretty crappy. There’s tons of better apps out there. If for whatever reason you’re scared to stick with the new Instagram controlled by Facebook, there are plenty of alternatives to Instagram… and in many ways most of them are better. Take a look at these five awesome Instagram alternatives.
Facebook just announced on its blog that the company has purchased the popular photo sharing app Instagram for a cool $1 billion. The news comes shortly after Instagram just launched its popular Android app, which has seen great success.
But the real success of Instagram is over on iOS, where the app has exploded to be one of the top apps on the iTunes App Store. Before its release on Android, Instagram boasted over 30 million users and added 1 million the day Instagram launched on Android. Check out Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerburg’s announcement:
Apple is expected to announce its new iPhone later this year, most likely sometime this fall. Some expect it to be a drastic redesign compared to the iPhone 4/4S, with a larger screen and new unibody design.
Analyst Brian White from Topeka Capital Markets has dropped a note this morning, confirming these reports based upon a recent trip to China and saying that the iPhone 5 will be “the most significant iPhone upgrade” yet. He also expects that with the excitement it will bring, the iPhone 5 will push Apple’s stock to a crazy price $1,001 per-share by year’s end.
Cult of Mac’s delicious new podcast is back with a new episode this week. CultCast episode 7 dives into rumors of Apple’s new TV being called the “iPanel,” along with some commentary of high school iPhone users and whether or not we’d let our kids get an iPhone.
And what about Ashton Kutcher playing Steve Jobs in that upcoming indie film? Bad casting decision? Or does Ashton have the dramatic chops it would take to convey the complexities of El Jobso? The CultCast dives into those topics and much more which a heavy serving of comedy to help satisfy your Apple cravings.
Episode 7 of The CultCast is now ready for your listening pleasure.
Once you’ve heard our take on things, comeback and leave a comment telling us your opinion and we just might read your thoughts on the next CultCast episode.
Papermill launched on Android several weeks ago. Developed by Ryan Bateman and designed with the help of Matt Legaspi, the app is a beautiful Instapaper client for Android devices. Papermill received high praise from the community and widespread media coverage when it launched, and the developer has since broken down its success based on sales. The conclusions he draws about Android users in general are particularly interesting.
Bateman says that, “Android users not being willing to pay for an apps whose focus is quality and whose price reflects this.” Is this true only for the average Android user, or should the average iPhone user be considered as well? How can one make the blanket argument that people don’t want to pay for quality apps? I think it comes down to the basic issue of supply and demand.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Popular belief is that if Apple does end up releasing their long-rumored smart TV, they’ll call it the iTV… but there’s problems with that, not least of which is that there are at least two companies out there called iTV who are threatening to sue if Apple does so.
So what will they call it? Analyst Peter Misek — who believes the Apple TV is imminent — thinks it’ll be called the iPanel, and Apple will be building up to 5M of them starting in May.
When the App Store first launched on iOS, the need for an alternative marketplace quickly arose. Jailbreakers and power-users wanted a way to download and install apps that gave them more control over their devices than what Apple would allow.
That was how Cydia was born. Created by Jay ‘saurik‘ Freeman, the Cydia app store allows users with jailbroken devices to not only install apps that bypass a number of iOS’s built-in restrictions, but to more easily discover them.
On the Mac, there’s obviously no jailbreaking, but given the sandboxing restrictions placed upon App Store developers, there’s still a need for a Cydia-like alternative: an easy-to-use, curated catalog for apps that give power-users too much control over their systems for Apple’s comfort.
Enter the HackStore, which hopes one day to be as synonymous with user-empowered Macs as Cydia is with jailbroken iOS devices.
A Mac infected by a virus used to be something of a rarity, and it was the best argument you could bring to a Mac versus PC debate. But with Mac adoption surging in recent years, it was inevitable that Apple’s operating system would become a target for hackers.
Variations of one Flashback trojan, which first surfaced back in 2007, are now affecting more than 600,000 Macs around the world. Here’s how to find out whether your machine’s affected and kill the malware.
Following comments made by Google co-founder Larry Page yesterday, which suggested Steve Jobs’s thermonuclear war against Android was simply “for show” to rally the troops, Walter Isaacson has confirmed that Page is wrong, and he has insisted that Steve’s war against Android was real.
Following reports that the new iPad may be experiencing Wi-Fi issues that lead to unreliable connectivity and slow connections, a leaked AppleCare document confirms that Apple is investigating the issue, and will replace units that are affected… in the U.S., at least.
Rumors of a smaller iPad just won’t die. After months and months of speculation followed by debunking, the idea that Apple release a 7-8-inch iPad still persists.
Well-informed and long-time Apple pundit John Gruber recently dished on the possibility of a 7.85-inch iPad being testing in Apple’s super secret Cupertino labs.
Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously said that he intended to wage “thermonuclear war” on Android. The rift between Apple and Google has been growing wider over the years, and the two companies have essentially become sworn enemies in most areas of business.
In an interesting profile by Bloomberg Businessweek, current Google CEO Larry Page says that Steve Jobs’ public defamation of Android was “for show” to rally Apple around its obvious enemy. Page also talks about topics like the current state of Google, the Motorola acquisition, and more.
Last week, we stirred up a maelstrom of controversy when we posted about Girls Around Me, an iOS app that allowed you to locate and view publicly available information on women in any area.
Since we posted the story, over half a million people have come to our site to read about the app, over 65,000 people have shared it on Facebook, and leading publications at home and abroad have followed our lead in reporting on the app, which we described as not just as a potential tool for rapists and stalkers that was putting thousands of women at risk without their knowledge, but a wake-up called about privacy.
Girls Around Me has since been pulled from the iTunes App Store, but considering we were the ones who stirred up so much trouble for the app’s Russian-based developer, i-Free, I thought we would reach out and give them the opportunity to set the record straight. What was i-Free thinking when they released this app? What do they make of the controversy surrounding it? Do they have any regrets? And will Girls Around Me come back?
i-Free’s responses to these questions might prove to be just as controversial as the app itself. The company denies having done anything wrong. They say it is “impossible” to stalk or track someone with their app. They say that the point of the app is just as much about avoiding ugly women on a night out as it is about looking for love. And they’re not sorry.
The latest iMac refresh is now just three or four months away, according to a “reliable tipster,” and they’ll introduce Intel’s next-generation Core i5 and Core i7 Ivy Bridge processors to Apple’s all-in-one desktop line.
Walter Isaacson took to the stage in Amsterdam for the John Adams Institute recently to talk about his biography based on Steve Jobs. During the 90-minute clip, Isaacson talks at length about Steve’s character and his management style, and he recounts a number of his favorite stories about Apple’s co-founder and former CEO.
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.”
If you didn’t hear the news, Android got a slick new Instagram app this morning that has brought salvation to millions of smartphone users across the globe. Finally, we can all take pretty ugly pictures of nature and cats and food and post them with the loving assurance that they are viewable to 80% of of the world’s smartphone users. Horray! Instagram is finally a really awesome global party!
Well stop right there with the happiness, because a lot of iPhone users are pissed that Instagram came out with an Android app. Twitter has been flooded all day with elitest iPhone owners bemoaning the flood of “ghetto” “poor” Android toting riff raff smashing into their beautiful walled zen garden. The sheer abundance of snooty pretentiousness is enough to give a sensible person a lethal dose of dysentery.
Here’s some of the most ridiculous anti-Android Instagram posts we’ve seen so far: