Posts in news

Apple Has Plenty of ‘TIME’ for Great Gadgets

TIME magazine has listed 50 Top 10 lists on their web site this year - 50! Surely an Apple product made it into at least one of these lists, right? Of course, we wouldn’t have posted this unless there was. Silly question.

Time’s Top 10 Gadgets (for 2010) listed not one, but four, Apple products in this category. The iPad took top honors (of course!), the newly-revamped 11-in. MacBook Air took third place, the iPhone 4 took sixth place and the new Apple TV took seventh (with a much improved form factor, capacity and functions). That’s much respect to Apple, and well deserved. You can see the entire list below. Read more

New “antid0te” Jailbreak Hack to Bring ASLR to iOS Devices

While iOS devices are hardened with DEP (Data Execution Prevention) and application sandboxing to aid in preventing malicious code from touching running processes, you find it combination with ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) which makes it difficult for attackers to find where processes are located in the first place. ASLR isn’t currently implemented in iOS devices, but a German hacker has developed a new Jailbreaking method which may provide Jailbreakers with some additional peace of mind.

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Apple Engineer Re-Builds 2,000 Year Old Computer With Lego

If you’re looking for the perfect way to begin your geek weekend, look no further than the video below. If the screenshot we posted above doesn’t tell you much about what you’re going to see, here’s the gist: an Apple engineer, Andrew Carol, has recreated a 2,000 year old Greek mechanism – widely regarded as the world’s first “computer” – using his 1,500 Lego Technic blocks.

The computer goes by the name of Antikythera Mechanism, and it’s an ancient computer made of mechanical parts Greeks used to calculate “with unprecedented accuracy” astronomical positions and celestial events. Now the Antikythera Mechanism is working again, only in Lego pieces.

If you want the full details on how the mechanism works arithmetically, or you simply want to geek out over the Lego heaven Carol has built, the video is embedded right after the break.

Amazing. [via Engadget] Read more

Apple and Costco: It’s (Officially) Over

You may remember there was a time when retail chain Costco was selling iPods. Everything was fine and cool back then, until the day Apple got bigger and started giving iPads away to other retail chains such as Target, WalMart and Sam’s Club – cutting out the old partner Costco. The iPad started appearing everywhere, but not at Costco.

Soon after that, and we’re talking October 2010, Costco started dropping the iPods they had because they were left out of the iPad distribution game. Several reports pointed out that Apple products had gone missing at Costco. Today, the end of the relationship between Apple and Costco is official. Read more

Apple Patents A Way To Easily Share iOS Apps & Demos

What’s great about the App Store is that it allows for a one-click purchase experience that makes it easy to download apps. Users can browse the App Store on their Macs, PCs, iPhones and iPads, check on new releases and apps they’ve been keeping an eye on, tap a button and download an app. For free apps and those sold at $.99 , it can become quite an addiction.

The App Store, though, doesn’t allow you to share apps with your friends as easily as it lets you buy them. Sure, there’s the possibility to share apps on Twitter and Facebook from iTunes – but that’s not really the best way to let your friends know about a specific app sold in the App Store, nor does it enable you to provide one of your friends an actual copy of the app.

Apps can’t be shared, and a new patent Apple has been granted, published by Patently Apple, is aimed at fixing that. Read more

Apple Also Confirms What The App Store Has Become

Did you check out the iTunes Rewind 2010 section Apple posted this morning in the iTunes Store homepage? It features the best music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks and podcasts of 2010. It also features the best & top selling iPhone and iPad apps of this year.

I’d like to take a second look at the top apps charts, because something interesting lies in there. Something that confirms an idea that has been floating around in our minds for months. Read more

iTunes Rolling Out 90 Second Song Previews

Back in November we reported that Apple sent notifications out to music labels to tell them that Apple is getting ready to extend iTunes Music previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds for songs that are at least 2 minutes and 30 seconds long.

Today, still unofficially unannounced, Apple has begun to roll out the extended song previews in the iTunes Store. All of iTunes’ current top albums have the 90 second previews, but most songs still have the original 30 second previews. Apple has yet to issue a press release announcing the feature but we can expect one before the week’s end. Keep checking Apple’s PR page or just keep watching on our site.

Apple Posts The Best iPhone & iPad Apps of 2010

Just like every year, the iTunes Rewind section in the iTunes Store lists the best music, movies, TV shows, podcasts and audiobooks of 2010. This year’s iTunes Rewind is available here, and it includes a huge selection of apps, too.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Apple is showcasing Hipstamatic, Angry Birds, Flipboard and Plants Vs. Zombies in the iTunes Rewind 2010 main page. As you click through, you can check out the “Hot Trends” in iPhone and iPad apps in 2010 – and many more apps are listed there.

The “Hot Trends” contains other sub-sections, such as “Shoot, Edit, Share” (iTunes) which features apps like Instagram and Path. Read more