The History of the Apple II as a Gaming Platform

Matt Barton writes "Gamasutra is running a feature on the venerable Apple II platform, which practically defined the early home computer industry and was home to many of he greatest games and developers of all time. The authors discuss the platform's lifespan and many iterations, struggles with illegal distribution, and legendary Apple II games such as Prince of Persia, John Madden Football, and Ultima. 'How big of a problem was piracy? Although several software authors claim that they stopped developing games because of rampant piracy and the subsequent loss of revenue, piracy did expose more computer owners to more games than they otherwise would have been -- this was at a time before ubiquitous demos made it easier to "try before you buy." Another benefit of this piracy is that much of the software archived today at online repositories are the cracked versions.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Travelocity Comes to the iPhone

Travelocity recently revealed a new Web application for iPhone owners which lets them interact with their travel itineraries. Like other Web applications, it is viewable through the Safari browser. The Travelocity Web application will let users do things like get...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

iPhone Application Key Leaked

HighWizard writes with word from Engadget that the iPhone SDK Key has been leaked early. "We're not exactly sure how this all went down, but we trust Erica Sadun over at TUAW when she says that it appears that the iPhone's SDK key — which will probably be required by all 'official' third-party apps — has been leaked. Two different sites currently have the key posted, but it's all just for show until next month, when the SDK hits for real — and the code is undoubtedly changed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

MacBook Air now shipping; Apple TV Update coming soon

The worlds thinnest notebook is now shipping, Apple announced today. MacBook Air measures an unprecedented 0.16-inches at its thinnest point. And at its maximum height of 0.76-inches, its less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks.Apple also announced that the free Apple TV software update enabling movie rentals is not quite finished and will now be available in another week or two.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Community Activity: January 21,2008

The Mighty MouseHelp With DashboardLiving with 2 MacsSafari RSSWireless Dropping and Reconnecting?Tags: Site NewsRelated postsNo related posts.

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Community Activity: January 28,2008

MacBook AiriPod as an External HDWireless Dropping and Reconnecting?Apple TV Version 2 and HDSteve Jobs - What were you thinking?Tags: Site NewsRelated postsNo related posts.

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Tomb Raider Anniversary [(Intel) Feature]

Lara Croft"s original, groundbreaking adventure comes to life in new ways as Tomb Raider Anniversary retells her first story with enhanced graphics and sound, new moves, plenty of unlockable content, and more. Lara travels to Peru, Greece, Egypt, and the fabled lost city of Atlantis as she seeks the three pieces of the Atlantean Scion, a major artifact that her father sought all his life, until he vanished a few years ago. Join us for a fresh look at familiar territory.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OSX

This week Slashdot (and many, many others) reported that KDE 4.0 has been released for Windows and OS X. KDE (K Desktop Environment) has been a popular GUI for *nix systems and there have been ways of getting it to run (mostly) on OS X prior to this native port if you were willing to [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

iPod Games: Pole Position: Remix [(iPod) Feature]

The classic returns in a version available only on the iPod. Pole Position: Remix takes the best gameplay of the Pole Position and Pole Position II arcade games and adds a new track, Misaki Point, along with plenty of unlockable content, including a futuristic world and cockpit themes based on classic Namco games. It"s time to prepare to qualify.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Turret Wars MP [(universal) Demo]

A fast paced, full multi-player (peer to peer), 3D arcade game, where you battle against other players and/or computer controlled enemy gun turrets, finding and destroying them before they find and destroy you.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Apple's In-Store Service IS Genuis.

Just thought I'd give kudos to the iPhone support I received from Apple this weekend. I've heard people talk about what a hassle the whole iTunes syncing/activating thing is, and some other complaints that just seem whiney. They're not perfect,...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Community Activity: January 28,2008

MacBook AiriPod as an External HDWireless Dropping and Reconnecting?Apple TV Version 2 and HDSteve Jobs - What were you thinking?

Read More...

[Source: The Apple Blog]

An iPhone Tale: Surviving A Semi Encounter

Usually when an iPhone meets a semi the end result is technology road kill. This seems not to be the case though for photographer Mike Beauchamp's iPhone. He delivers to us a tale and photographs of his iPhone-semi experience and...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Fix for Office 2008 SecurityIssue

For those that have installed Office 2008, you may have seen some news floating on the internets about improper permissions that were created by the installer potentially allowing another local user to access your documents. It’s not a remote exploit issue and most folks are probably not vulnerable (you only need to [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

The JAVOedge Shield Case for iPhone

This, to me, is a smart product. Not only am I always looking for conceptual products for iPhone, but I'm really not a fan of a bunch of flaps, snaps, or worst of them... belt clips. This kind of stuff...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Quick Tip of the Week: Using Data Detectors

Data detectorsa new feature in Leopard Maillets you quickly create a new contact in your Address Book, map an address, or create an iCal event. How does it work and how can you take advantage of the data detectors in Mail? Watch the latest Quick Tip of the Week to find out.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Math on iPhones Just Doesn't Add Up?

Tech Dirt is reporting that recently announced numbers by Apple and AT&T suggest that there is a large gap (1.7 million) between the number of iPhones being sold and those being activated. Taking into account factors like the iPhone launching outside the US and a 20% estimate of people buying the iPhone just for the purposes of unlocking, there are still 700,000 iPhones unaccounted for. "[...] suggesting that they're sitting on store shelves, piling up as unsold inventory. That number suggests at least some gap between perceived demand and actual demand -- while also raising questions about how much effort it will take to eat through that inventory."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

1.1.3 Update Bricking iPhones?

iLounge reported yesterday on what may be a headache for iPhone owners trying to upgrade to 1.1.3. It appears there have been widespread reports of serious problems which, in some cases, are bricking the Apple mobile. Problems have been noted...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Using Your Mac Wisely: VideoContent

When it comes to harnessing your Macs power for video encoding, youre left with two choices: digital or physical.DigitalHandbrake is the go to source for creating digital copies of your video. With Handbrake you can pop in a DVD and select the appropriate preset. You can encode straight to iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Handbrake [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

In-Depth Review of the MacBook Air With Photos

Engadget has the first really in-depth review of the MacBook Air that I have seen with plenty of great photos and specifics. They do a great job of highlighting the highs and the lows with plenty of concrete examples to back their claims up. It seems that while the MacBook Air is a great step towards ultra-portable computing, overall the pricepoint is just too high. Which is not surprising from a new Apple gadget I guess.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Iphone Application Key Leaked

HighWizard writes with word from Engadget that the iPhone SDK Key has been leaked early. "We're not exactly sure how this all went down, but we trust Erica Sadun over at TUAW when she says that it appears that the iPhone's SDK key — which will probably be required by all 'official' third-party apps — has been leaked. Two different sites currently have the key posted, but it's all just for show until next month, when the SDK hits for real — and the code is undoubtedly changed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Folding the Mac into Origami

A physicist by trade, Robert J. Lang also has a quite unique claim to fame as one of the worlds foremost origami artists. In fact, he has a Pteranodon with a 14-foot wing span at permanent display at the Redpath Museum of Natural History and a long list of commissions and commercial projects waiting in the wings. And he uses his MacBook Pro, two software programs he authored, and Wolframs Mathematica to help him conceptualize and map out each new creation.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Edward Tufte Weighs In on Apple's iPhone

An anonymous reader writes "Via Daring Fireball, a post from design guru Edward Tufte's site discusses his views on the interface used by the Apple iPhone. The post includes a video presentation by Tufte on the subject of video resolution on the phone. His argument is primarily that while the iPhone does a lot of things very well, Apple hasn't quite realized the platform's full potential by making screen real estate all it could be. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Apple posts 2008 proxy statement online

Apple today made its 2008 proxy statements available online at www.apple.com/investor. The move, complying with the US Securities and Exchange Commissions new Notice and Access rule, allows Apple to significantly reduce the environmental impact of producing and delivering printed materials.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Apple Crippled Its DTrace Port

Linnen writes in to note that one of developers of Sun's open source system tracing tool, DTrace, has discovered that Apple crippled its port of the tool so that software like iTunes could not be traced. From Adam Leventhal's blog: "I let it run for a while, made iTunes do some work, and the result when I stopped the script? Nothing. The expensive DTrace invocation clearly caused iTunes to do a lot more work, but DTrace was giving me no output. Which started me thinking... did they? Surely not. They wouldn't disable DTrace for certain applications. But that's exactly what Apple's done with their DTrace implementation. The notion of true systemic tracing was a bit too egalitarian for their classist sensibilities..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

KDE Goes Cross-Platform, Supports Windows and OS X

klblastone writes "The KDE desktop environment is going cross-platform with support for the Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. In addition to porting the core KDE libraries and applications, developers are also porting popular KDE-based software like the Amarok audio player and the KOffice productivity suite. New KDE binaries for Windows were released yesterday and are now available from KDE mirrors through an automated installer program. The Mac OS X port is made available via BitTorrent in universal binary format."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

The Movies: Stunts & Effects [(universal) Feature]

Hire stuntmen and women who will bring new excitement to your films with the Stunts & Effects expansion pack for The Movies. As they improve their skills, they"ll be able to pull off more difficult stunts, including rappelling from helicopters and being thrown from an explosion. Other new stuff includes blue and green screen sets for filming special effects-heavy scenes, costumes for creating monster movies, a stunt school and a hospital, and more. Let"s go make some big-budget blockbusters.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Apple QuickTime DRM Disables Video Editing Apps

An anonymous reader writes "According to numerous posts on Apple's discussion forums (several threads of which have been deleted by Apple), as well as a number of popular video editing blogs, Apple's recent QT 7.4 update does more than just enable iTunes video rentals — it also disables Adobe's professional After Effects video editing software. Attempting to render video files after the update results in a DRM permissions error. Unfortunately, it is not possible to roll back to a previous version of QT without doing a full OSX reinstall. Previous QT updates have also been known to have severe issues with pro video editing apps."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Nothing ButAir?

I think Apple made a few too many assumptions when creating the MacBook Air (MBA), but will that translate to a failed product? I highly doubt it.The Developer AssumptionI think Apple made three assumptions when developing the MBA for the subnotebook demographic:Subnotebook users regularly use WiFi hotspotsSubnotebook users will not use their notebooks at homeSubnotebook users [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Exciting updates make iPhone, iPod touch even more web savvy

This week, reports Katerine Boehret (allthingsd.com), Ive been using an iPhone and iPod touch with the recent Apple updates installed, and I must say that both devices are much more useful and fun with these improvements. In particular, Boehret likes Web clip because they give these gadgets a new sense of instant gratification. And the iPod touch now has the same stellar Mail program that is found in the iPhone, a real plus. The updates, she concludes, are exciting, especially because they make home screens much more useful and individualistic. These tiny devices continue to become truly mobile computers.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Why Mac Security Matters: OS X RootkitHunter

After blogging about the need to use and maintain an anti-virus solution for your OS X systems, an anonymous reply questioning the need to use security tools at all on OS X systems gave me pause. You do not need me to link to the numerous articles flying around the internets that report on how [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Tickled pink over new iPod nano

With Valentines Day around the corner Marc Saltzman (usatoday.com) tells us that it pulled on my heart strings enough to report that Apple has added a pink iPod nano to its line-up, just in time for you to buy it for your sweetie. The new 8GB iPod nano costs $199 and includes free engraving on the back and free shipping when purchased at Apple.coms web store.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Doing extreme business on the Mac

Its easy to ride, its exciting, and its dynamic. Thats Frank Aguilar, waxing enthusiastic about Snowcycle, the snow-shredding board bike his company designed on a Mac. In fact, the Mac performs a pivotal role at the company. Slopecycle depends on virtually every phase of its business, including accounting, marketing, scheduling graphic design, and both audio and video production using Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro. Most of us have never had any formal video training, but Final Cut Pro is so straightforward and powerful that we didnt really need it, says Aguilar.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

iPhone Enterprise Support?... What News?

According to ZDNet Australia, and others, today, IBM is nowhere near ready to release a Lotus Notes version for the iPhone, despite many rumors recently. We reported those rumors to you here, so following up is in order. IBM enjoys...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Apple reports best quarterly revenue and earnings in its history

Announcing financial results for its fiscal 2008 first quarter, which ended December 29, 2007, Apple today posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. In attaining its highest revenue and earnings in company history, Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macs, a 44% unit growth and 47% revenue growth over the year ago quarter; sold 22,121,000 iPods, representing five percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter; and sold 2,315,000 iPhones in the quarter.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

The $20k iPhone Case...Need We Say More?

How much do you love your iPhone? Really, how much? How about $20,000 worth? That's the cost you'll incur when you slide your mobile into this new, limited edition gold and diamond iPhone case from Case-mate. We kid you not...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Pole Position Remix [(iPod) iTunes]

Prepare to qualify! Race to the finish line in Namco"s classic arcade racer, Pole Position, remixed for the iPod. Avoid hitting cars, billboards, and other obstacles and downshift to make hairpin turns without careening off the track.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Apple adds pink iPod nano

Just in time for Valentines Day, a gorgeous new pink iPod nano joins the lineup of the worlds most popular music player. The much-requested pink iPod nano features a stunning two-inch display for watching music videos, TV shows, or movies rented using the brand new iTunes Movie Rentals. Available immediately in an 8GB model for $199, the pink iPod nano can play up to 24 hours of audio or 5 hours of video on a single charge. In addition to pink, 8GB iPod nano models also come in silver, black, blue, green and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Multi-touch on the MacBookPro

A rumor surfaced on the internet this weekend hinting that the next revision of the MacBook Pro will have the same multi-touch abilities as the Air. That’d be logical, after all - the MacBook Pro’s haven’t been updated in a while, and that would be a nice feature, right?The only problem with that is [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Bento: Big On Ease, Style &Stretch

FileMakers new personal database, Bento is big on style and ease. Watch the tutorial movie and in less than five minutes you will be comfortable using Bentos main features.Bento comes with a set of libraries (databases) that relate directly to OS Xs Address Book and iCal. Whatever changes you make in these Bento librariescalled, not [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Community Activity: January 21,2008

The Mighty MouseHelp With DashboardLiving with 2 MacsSafari RSSWireless Dropping and Reconnecting?

Read More...

[Source: The Apple Blog]

NBC's Zucker Hints At Return to iTunes

Bad corporate blood led to the collapse of the NBC/Apple business relationship in the fall of last year. Now, via the Engadget news feed, comes word that things may be thawing out between the two. A for-pay article in the Financial Times had words from NBC Universal's COE Jeff Zucker, saying: "'We've said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple.' He then unexpectedly adds, 'We're great fans of Steve Jobs.' No telling what has caused the turnabout. Perhaps the writers strike gave both parties time to reflect on their mounting lost revenue." The site also notes that NBC signed a deal as part of the recent movie rental announcement, possibly contributing to the thaw. They link to a BusinessWeek article pointing out positive statements from Jobs reciprocating these 'feelings'.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

$100,000 iPhone Heist = Dumb Crooks

It goes without saying that many criminals are just plain dumb. That mold fits with some guys in New York who were just nailed by police for stealing nearly $100,000 in iPhones. The theft, as reported by WCBS, was in...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Firmware 1.1.3 For iPod Touch... What Will It Do?

The New 1.1.3 Firmware update for the iPod Touch has also been made available, and it does very nearly make a Touch, an iPhone with no phone, camera, or bluetooth. The Mail, Maps, Weather, Stocks, and Notes applications are identical...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

IBM plans Lotus release for iPhone

The Associated Press reported today that IBM is officially planning a version of Lotus notes for iPhone, as well as a "Microsoft Office-like software, known as Lotus Symphony". A formal announcement is expected next week at an IBM conference in...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

My Experience with Renting a Movie oniTunes

We received three inches of snow last Thursday, but I wasn’t worried. We had plenty of white supplies (bread, milk, toilet paper) stocked up, so we didn’t have to venture to the grocery store. NetFlix said two DVDs would be delivered that afternoon. So before dinner, I ventured down to the mailbox to retrieve [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

NetBoot and theAir

Since I heard that the MacBook Air didn’t come with an onboard optical drive, but did come, instead, with this magic virtual disk feature, I’ve been having a very interesting wonder - does this also mean that NetBoot now works - at least for the Air - over wireless?And, fresh off the show floor today [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

New Firmware Fixes Previously Bricked iPhones

drcagn writes "Ars Technica reports that Apple's new 1.1.3 firmware update unbricks iPhones damaged from unlocking and updating the firmware months ago. In September, users who hacked their iPhone's firmware to unlock it found their iPhone bricked when they updated to new firmware, creating a massive upset and internet furor. Although Apple claimed this was not an intended effect of the update, it held the stance that it is not their responsibility to ensure that updates work with users' warranty-voiding hacks, and many cried foul. This update, which provides new features Jobs showed off at Macworld, while not officially unbricking the iPhone, has restored iPhones from Gizmodo and a reader of the Unofficial Apple Weblog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

XtremeMac Debuts New iPhone Chargers

XtremeMac wants to make sure you can keep your iPhone charged no matter where you go. To that end the accessories maker was showing off this week at MacWorld two new iPhone charger solutions - the InCharge Home and InCharge...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Paul van Dyk: Digital Spin

DJ cum live music producer, Paul van Dyk weaves his own music on stage in real-time on a pair of 17-inch MacBook Pro computers running Logic Studio and Ableton Live. Ever since I basically began making music, Ive worked with Macs, he says. Theyre in the studio as well as on the road. Ive always had my Macs with me. Theyre an essential part of my music.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

MacBook Air's Battery is Actually Easy to Replace

pizzach noted that the MacBook Air battery is actually fairly easy to replace. "All it requires is a philips screwdriver. Unlike some of Apple's other products, the battery is not so soldered in which should make a lot of people at least a little bit happier." I think I'll have to wait for something with a bigger screen and a faster clock speed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

How Apple Rumors Became Reality

Lucas123 writes "Computerworld has a story on how bloggers, rumormongers and Web sleuths pulled together the story of the MacBook Air several days before Steve Jobs unveiled the laptop on stage on Tuesday, something that is nearly unprecedented in the annals of Apple announcements. 'Remember the sturm und drang that erupted after Think Secret revealed the coming of the Mac Mini, prompting Apple to take legal action to silence Think Secret? Is Apple off its game on keeping secrets now? Why was this year's secret leak different? In a word: teamwork.' This seems to be good case study on how to use information from sites like AppleInsider, 9to5mac.com and Ars Technica get a peek under the covers on future talks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple

An anonymous reader writes "Forbes.com went to MacWorld to ask Apple fans what bugs them about the computer and gadget maker. Turns out the lack of replaceable batteries, need to buy Vista separately, and most of all the stock price bugs people."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Azkend [(universal) Demo]

Puzzle your way across the scenic landscapes of the Far East in this stimulating matching game that"s full of mystery and wonder. The relic your archaeological team uncovered is more powerful than originally thought. For starters, it"s cursed! Now it"s up to you to solve brain-bending puzzles on your quest to reach the Temple of Time and lift the curse.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Reader Feedback: Any suggestions for an app that manages PDFfiles?

My collection of books in PDF form has grown exponentially over the past 6 months or so. The flexibility that PDF offers (especially when it comes to search functionality) just overpowers my desire for a physical copy of a book.Unfortunately using a myriad of folders to organize all of these books is just getting out [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

iPhone 1.1.3 Update... Drag and Drop Media Into The iPhone

Here is a nice feature for iPhone that wasn't in the 1.1.3 "Press Kit". If you update your iTunes to 7.6 you can "Manually Manage Music and Videos" for the iPhone. This means that you can drag and drop music...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Reflections on another Tuesday atMacworld

This is the fifth year I’ve attended Macworld Expo on the day of the keynote, and it definitely wasn’t as exciting as 2007. But after last year’s introduction of the long-rumored iPhone, how could it be?Of course, another big difference is that I didn’t get into the keynote this year. There’s always a disconnect between [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Environmental DVD Wrecks Apple Drives

FST777 writes "The British Mail on Sunday published its latest DVD giveaway on the EcoDisc, a thin and bendable DVD format that is supposed to be more environmentally-friendly than regular DVDs. Despite the clear warning against using them in Apple slot drives, some Mac users decided to give it a go. The result? A brisk trade for repair shops in the UK. 'The EcoDisc's manufacturer, ODS, insists the disc won't break drives. "We've produced over ten million of these discs — we've had less than a dozen phone calls," says managing director, Ray Wheeler. "There are ways to get the discs out." Wheeler says the problem stems from Apple's slot-loading drives. "It uses an ejection system that doesn't get approval from the DVD Forum." He claims the EcoDisc should work in other types of slot-loading drive, although admits that it hasn't been tested in the PlayStation 3.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Netflix and iTunes Rentals Aiming At Different Crowds

Engadget notes an article in the New York Times discussing the substantially different markets that Netflix and Apple's movie rentals are aiming for. The site views the loosening of Netflix streaming restrictions as a reaction motivated entirely by the iTunes movie rental announcement, but beyond that the two services seem to have little connection. From Engadget's observations: "After speaking with Netflix's Reed Hastings, it was found that the vast majority of its streamable content was 'older,' and considering that users of this service can never look forward to brand new releases being available, the cost (i.e. free to most mail-in subscribers) makes sense. As for Apple, it's able to focus on crowds who are looking for a more robust, generally fresher selection, but of course, you'll pay the premium each time you indulge. Furthermore, Netflix has yet to make transferring video to any display / device other than your monitor easy, and while an LG set top box is indeed on the horizon, the differences in content selection are still likely to lure separate eyes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

VBA Going Away, Macs Now, PCs Soon

Nom du Keyboard writes "As Microsoft drops support for older Office file formats, it looks like Visual Basic for Applications is also going soon. Mac Office 2008 has dropped VBA in favor of enhanced support for AppleScript, and Office 2009 is scheduled to lose it in favor of Mac incompatible Visual Studio Tools for Applications (VSTA) or Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO). This sounds like the Mother of All Backwards and Cross-Platform Incompatibilities — especially since there appears to be no transition period where both the old and new scripting languages will be simultaneously supported. And as past experience with Visual Studio .NET has shown, upgrade tools are far less than perfect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

SGreat games available for iPod

Marc Saltzman (usatoday.com) offers another reason to love your iPod: Sgreat games. More than 20 downloadable digital diversions are now offered including Ms. Pac-Man,Sudoku,Texas Hold Em and soon, Pole Position: Remix, based on Namco"s early "80s arcade racing game. In his CyberSpeak column, Saltzman also takes a close look at two of the latest games for iPod, Peggle and SPhase.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Introducing Time Capsulewireless backup for all your Macs

A backup appliance that works seamlessly with Time Machine to automatically and wirelessly back up everything on one or more Macs running Mac OS X Leopard, Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voilall the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day, said Steve Jobs, Apples CEO. When it ships in February, Time Capsule will be available in models featuring 500GB and 1TB hard drives for $299 and $499, respectively.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Apple announces new software for Apple TV; lowers price to $229

Available as a free automatic download later this month, the new software announced today lets movie fans rent movies on the iTunes Store directly from their widescreen TV. With iTunes Movie Rentals and Apple TVand with no computer requiredcustomers can effortlessly rent movies just by clicking a button on their remote. By the end of February, theyll be able to choose from a catalog of more than 1,000 titles, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. DVD-quality iTunes Movie Rentals cost just $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases. High-definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Mac Version of NaturallySpeaking Launched

WirePosted writes "MacSpeech, the leading supplier of speech recognition software for the Mac, has canned its long-running iListen product and has launched a Mac version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the top-selling Windows speech recognition product. MacSpeech had made a licensing agreement with Dragon's developer, Nuance Communications. The new product is said to reach 99% accuracy after 5 minutes of training."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

VMware Virtualizing No-hack LeopardServer

The guys at VMware are supremely dedicated to bringing the best support for Virtualization that they can to the Apple platform. I’ve played with both Parallels and Fusion and the choice of the latter was an easy one for me. But the one sticking point tends to be Apple’s licensing of their operating [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Major software upgrade available for iPod touch

With the installation of this major software upgrade, the best iPod becomes even more: the worlds best Wi-Fi mobile device. The upgradeavailable from iTunes for just $19.99adds five more great mobile applications to iPod touch: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather, and Notes. It also includes such new features as Web Clips, a customizable home screen, and the ability to watch iTunes Movie Rentals on iPod touch.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Introducing iTunes Digital Copy

Twentieth Century Fox and Apple today announced iTunes Digital Copy for iTunes, which provides customers who purchase a DVD of a Fox movie title with an additional Digital Copy of the movie. The iTunes Digital Copy can be transferred effortlessly to iTunes and then viewed on a PC or Mac, iPod with video, iPhone or on Apple TVjust like a movie purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store. In fact, the first DVD to debut with iTunes Digital Copy is being released in stores today. Its the Special Edition DVD premiere of the Family Guy Star Wars parody, Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest, and the first of many more to come.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Drop Point Alaska [(Intel) Feature]

From ten different drop-off points, snowboard down one of the biggest virtual mountains found in a videogame. Complete challenges and unlock control of the helicopter so you can bail out anywhere and explore this pristine wilderness setting. Compete against other players across the Internet in Stick a Trick and Trick or Die challenges. See if you can unlock the Darkwalker snowboard.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Spore for Mac releasing simultaneously with PCversion

Spore, the game of origin, evolution, and life, is now officially slated to released simultaneously with its PC counterpart.Spore has had a number of release date delays and its future with the Mac platform was initially uncertain. It being one of the most anticipated games of the decade makes this a huge announcement for Mac [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

New ProClip Car Mounts Keep iPhone Handy

iPhone owners hoping for a way to better mount their Apple phones inside their vehicles will be interested to note ProClip USA is introducing at MacWorld some easy to install solutions to this problem. It consists of a two-part system...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

iPod Games: Bomberman [(iPod) Feature]

This classic game comes to the iPod with an exclusive final boss confrontation, along with 20 levels of bomb-planting mayhem and three mini-games: Bowling for Bombs, Bomb Buster, and Bomb Rollin". Power-ups give you an edge as our eponymous hero seeks to escape from an underground bomb-making factory.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

Macworld Keynote Highlights... Where's My 3G iPhone?

Well first, let's give it up to GearLive for their preview of 1.1.3 software for iPhone... those are the updates Steve just got through talking about... SMS multiple people at once... Up to 9 total home screens that you can...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Apple introduces MacBook Airthe worlds thinnest notebook

Apple today introduced the worlds thinnest notebook: MacBook Air. It measures an unprecedented 0.16 inches at its thinnest point while its maximum height of 0.76 inches is less than the thinnest point on competing notebooks. In addition to a stunning 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display, MacBook Air offers a full-size and backlit keyboard, a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support, letting users pinch, rotate and swipe. The new notebook is powered by a 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 cache, and it includes as standard features 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive, and the latest 802.11n Wi-Fi technology and Bluetooth 2.1. Starting at just $1,799, MacBook Air begins shipping in two weeks.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

QuickTate Texts You iPhone Voicemail

A tech start up has unveiled at MacWorld a rather interesting speech-to-text service for the iPhone which lets you have your voicemail dictated to text and then sent to you. The service is called QuickTate and it's currently in free...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Macally Brings New iPhone Accessories to MacWorld

Macally is happily showing off at MacWorld right now a menagerie of new iPhone accessories. This expanded line up includes new speaker systems, a Bluetooth FM transmitter and a USB adaptor for charging/storing/syncing your iPhone. The product pictured above is...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Spore, Call of Duty 4 Confirmed for OSX

1up is reporting that, along with the big announcements from yesterday's MacWorld event, the welcome news trickles down that OSX will be getting some more games. The much-delayed Spore has been confirmed for the platform, as has the hit FPS title Call of Duty 4. "In Spore's case, the magic of cross-platform portability is achieved through the use of a special software layer supplied by Toronto-based TransGaming Technologies. This software is capable of interpreting hardware calls to Windows DirectX into Mac-capable instructions. Through use of this technology, Electronic Arts (and others) seem hopeful about bringing even more games to mac in the coming months."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Pocket Express Travel Now Supports iPhone

If you seek an easier way to get at travel information through your iPhone you'll be interested to know Handmark is giving away a free version of its Pocket Express travel services to Apple mobile users. You can get at...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

iPod: Block Breaker Deluxe [(iPod) iTunes]

A classic, arcade brick-breaker game reinvented with hot graphics. Play the game and interact with cool characters in their jet-set nightlife settings: bar, dance club, beach, restaurant, casino, and more.

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[Source: Apple Games - What's New]

First Scareware For the Mac

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property sends us news from F-Secure of what they claim is the first rogue cleaning tool for the Mac. MacSweeper is a Mac version of Cleanator, hosted from a colo somewhere in the Ukraine. The article points out that the company's About page is lifted verbatim from Symantec's site. With the Mac's market share closing in on double digits, perhaps it's not surprising to see the platform targeted with crapware as PCs have been for years. The F-Secure author adds as a footnote that a journalist said to him something you don't hear every day: "I visited the macsweeper.com website. I know I probably shouldn't have but I used a Windows PC so I knew I wouldn't get infected."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Create Snazzy WebClipIcons

The iPhone 1.1.3 firmware update added some great stuff, including Safari WebClips. I’ve literally added a dozen or more to my home screen in the last 12 hours or so. But the icons for the clips leave something to be desired. Even though I’ve done my best to zoom in as tightly as I can [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

1.1.3 Upgrade: Effortless

Each time we do this, Apple makes the firmware upgrade process easier and faster. As with my last upgrade, 1.1.3 came down like Willy Wonka's river of molten chocolate -- sweet and fast. I barely had time to turn the...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Apple Announces MacBook Air

Apple made four announcements at MacWorld Expo: the new MacBook Air, new features for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and movie rentals via iTunes from a TV without a computer involved. The new portable gets most of the attention. It is 0.76" thick at the thickest part, tapering to 0.16". It weighs 3 pounds and has a 13.3" screen and full-size, backlit keyboard. Its Intel chip is the diameter of a dime and the thickness of a nickel. The MacBook Air will cost $1799 and up. Its storage is either 80 GB disk or 64 GB solid-state drive. 2 GB of memory. It has no optical drive (an external one is available for $99) and features a way to wirelessly use the optical drive of any nearby Mac or PC with the proper software installed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

JiWire Gives iPhone Owners Free Hotspots

You now have more places to wirelessly connect your iPhone for free to the Internet, Wi-Fi company JiWire announced at MacWorld today. That's because the company, which works with members of its network to operate over 100,000 hotspots, will let...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

MacBook 13-inch Toffee leathersleeve

I recently got the red leather sleeve for the 13″ MacBook from Toffee. Toffee is an Australian company whom I hadn’t heard of until I saw this product. They make a whole array of sleeves like this one, even for the larger MacBook Pro.Material/Build qualityThere’s only so much you can say about leather - it’s [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Introducing iTunes Movie Rentals

Available today with the free download of iTunes 7.6, iTunes Movie Rentals allows customers to rent movies for as little as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV. Featuring movies from all the major movie studios20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line CinemaiTunes Movie Rentals is expected to offer more than 1,000 movie titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles featuring stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. Movies can be rented directly from a widescreen TV using Apple TV.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

iPhone Trojan Sign of Things to Come?

climber writes "Just days after the first scareware for OSX, researchers are pondering the problems of an iPhone exploit that could lead to larger issues. The Trojan pulls legitimate apps off the phone if you try to remove it, but it only infects iPhones that have 'been modified or opened through a security hole in the system.' Though this worm is more of an annoyance than anything else, it could be a proof of concept for a more serious attack. 'The fear is hackers may be experimenting and gathering research that will increase the dangers of a more malicious attack in the near future. It is clear at least one writer -- the author of this piece at Web Worker Daily -- thinks that the iPhone should be left on the dresser in the morning. She offers several reasons that the device isn't a good corporate tool.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

CoverSutra

I love iTunes (and my massive music library); if my MBP is open, there’s a 98% chance that it’s got music coming out. Using it all day long like this, I wanted some hot keys for it.Man oh man, did I find some. After trying a host of options - including Quicksilver - [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

New software update enhances revolutionary iPhone

iPhone Software Update 1.1.3, a free software update available today via iTunes 7.5 or later, brings significant new features to iPhone. After installing the update, iPhone customers will be able to automatically find their location using the redesigned Maps application; text message multiple people in one message; create Web Clips for their favorite websites; customize their home screen; and watch movies rented from the new iTunes Movie Rentals right on their iPhone.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

iPhone 1.1.3 Update FirstImpressions

Apple posted the 1.1.3 iPhone update shortly after the keynote (as promised) and I managed to slowly grab it via AT&T’s 3G ExpressCard (~161MB…full firmware load). The upgrade behaves like a standard iPhone firmware update and upon restart, you are greeted with a dialog explaining how to move icons around.NOTE: This is the first time [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

MacSweeper: Keep This Rogue Mac Application In The BroomCloset

F-Secure is reporting on the first, widespread rogue Mac application that comes in the guise of security software: MacSweeper. It is hosted at www.macsweeper.com, but I do not recommend visiting that site. I’m not convinced this is the first rogue Mac application ever to hit the internets, but the F-Secure folks are top-notch researchers who [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

New Marware Cases Target Business Professionals

You can never have enough new iPhone cases it seems like. This time around Marware is showing off two new cases designed for the business professional. They are known as the C.E.O. Flip Vue and C.E.O. Cover Vue and they...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Google Improves Integrated iPhone Experience

As MacWorld kicked off today one of the first major iPhone related announcements was Google revealing some new improvements to its integrated iPhone experience. The search engine company said these improvements give more of a "desktop-like" Google web application experience....

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Live Chat TheStevenote

While we here at The Apple Blog will be offering our 2 cents (not that you asked…) on tomorrow’s announcements during and following the Macworld Expo Keynote, you may be looking for the straight dirt as it drops. Well whether you’re at a computer, or sporting your iPhone (ok, or any other mobile with [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Macworld 2008 Pre-Relevance

OK... let's do this thing!... First, a lineup of everything we know about Steve's keynote tomorrow... (wind, faint dog barking... and, of course... crickets) "There's Something In The Air" is the tease... on banners and press materials everywhere tonight in...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Kensington Adds AUX Port iPhone Products

Kensington, a maker of computing accessories, is adding some new iPhone accessories to the marketplace which are car audio kits which use the AUX port to bring your iPhone music to your car stereo. Kingston is calling this line the...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Monitor ARP Traffic on OS X withArpSpyX

ArpSpyX has just been updated to version 1.2 which adds full support for Intel Macs. If you’re not familiar with ArpSpyX you should give this utility at least a quick look if you care at all about the security or contents of your local network.The program works by either monitoring ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) traffic [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

My first Apple User Group:MetroMac

I recently attended a workshop about Final Cut Pro at the Apple Store SoHo. To my surprise, immediately following the workshop was a meeting of a a local Apple User Group called the Metropolitan New York Macintosh Alliance or “MetroMac” for short. I stuck around for the meeting since I had never been to [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

ZFS For Mac OS X Source Code Available

nezmar writes "Noel Dellofano, who is part of the ZFS development team at Apple, has a post on Mac OS Forge announcing a late Christmas gift: he is making available binaries and source code, plus instructions, of the ZFS filesystem for Mac OS X."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

Safari losing yourcookies?

Since upgrading to Leopard (and thus upgrading to the newest version of Safari), I’ve had the unfortunate problem of Safari throwing all my cookies right out the window.Every 4-6 weeks I’d fire up Safari only to realize that all logins to various sites were lost, making me either go through each site’s password-retrieval system or [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Drew Wharton: A Day in A Seals Life

Together with his intrepid film crew, documentary filmmaker Drew Wharton often found himself within feet of enormous bellowing 4,500 pound alpha males clashing mightily over females in estrus. It is A Seals Life, after all. The film (which debuted at the Monterey Bay Aquarium) tells the story of the worlds largest seal speciesthe northern Elephant Sealbehemoths that come ashore once a year to give birth, molt, and mate. Apple technology saves me a ton of time and money, notes Wharton, who edited the film in Final Cut Studio. Our whole workflow is based on Macs, from field acquisition to post production. A Seals Life was made on a Mac from start to finishfor me, it didnt make sense to do it any other way.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

Zero Day Exploit For QuickTimeFlaw

InformationWeek isreportingthat an Italian security researcher has posted a exploit for a zero-day vulnerabilityin QuickTime 7.3.1 that impacts both OS X and Windows versions of the software. This exploit will allow an attacker to execute malicious code on the target system.The “researcher”, Luigi Auriemma, describes the exploit as being based on a flaw in QuickTime’s [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Articulating the Wisconsin Idea

From iTunes U, which lets students take educational podcasts on the road; to the computational tools running on Xserves, which allow students to see and explore the structure, function, and behavior of molecules; to the Digital Academic Television Network, which delivers live TV via a network connection using QuickTime as a client), Macintosh computers, servers, and software help educators articulate the Wisconsin Idea. Erasing completely the borders of learning, they depend on the Mac to let learning go onfor students and teachers alikeanywhere and at anytime.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

mStation Shows Off New iPhone Cases

Probably one of the best things about MacWorld being just around the corner is the large number of new iPhone accessories we hope will be released. Pre-show announcements have already revealed a few cases and now mStation is debuting a...

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[Source: iPhoneFreak]

Great games available for iPod

Marc Saltzman (usatoday.com) offers another reason to love your iPod: great games. More than 20 downloadable digital diversions are now offered including Ms. Pac-Man,Sudoku,Texas Hold Em and soon, Pole Position: Remix, based on Namcos early 80s arcade racing game. In his CyberSpeak column, Saltzman also takes a close look at two of the latest games for iPod, Peggle and Phase.

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[Source: Apple Hot News]

1PasswordReview

For those of you who have far too many sites to log into and far too short of a memory to remember them all, this program will save your life. 1Password is a simple, elegant system that incorporates itself into most browsers and like Keychain, will save and place your information accordingly.?Browser CompatibilityFor a full list [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

Origin of the iPhone

rambilly brings us a story from Wired about the origin and development of the iPhone. From the article: "Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple's top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple's boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn't just buggy, it flat-out didn't work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, 'We don't have a product yet.' The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. 'It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,' says someone who was in the meeting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]

A Mean Clean For A GlossyScreen

I have a two-year-old grandson who loves to touch my MacBook screen. And he is NOT into washing his hands (okay with me, hes my grandson, he can do anything).So I had to find a non-abrasive but effective way to clean my screen. The best product Ive foundand believe me, Ive tried everythingis a [...]

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[Source: The Apple Blog]

iPhone Forcing Open Wireless Networks?

fermion writes "Wired asserts that the iPhone blew up the wireless industry. This article argues that because Apple demanded the opportunity to control their own phone, and ATT née Cingular agreed, other companies are opening up the networks, and Google now has the opportunity to make Android a reality. There are other tidbits. Allegedly Verizon turned Jobs down without even listening to his pitch, a decision they may well regret now that they are hemorrhaging customers. Also, that Motorola and the networks were responsible for the fiasco dubbed the ROKR, something which I believe given how damaged the American version of the RAZR was compared to international version. It also estimates that the iPhone cost upward of $150 million to design, and earns Apple about $200 profit per phone."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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[Source: Slashdot: Apple]