Apple crackdown on Bogus iTunes Gift Cards
Ever seen a $200 iTunes gift card offered for $2.60 on the Internet? Guess what? It's a scam.Not hard to believe, but shoppers have reported to Apple that their iTunes accounts are being disabled and they are are losing all iTunes Store purchases. These deeply discounted gift cards are said to been bought with a stolen or hacked credit card, according to stories on MacNN and The Washington Post's website.
Roadrunner continues to outpace supercomputing field
Despite the Jaguar nipping at its heels, Roadrunner continues to speed past the supercomputing pack.
That's according to the twice yearly Top500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world, which is to be announced Tuesday morning at the 2009 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. The list is released in June and November every year.
Bing mobile application concepts revealed
Microsoft's new Bing 'decision engine' gained a lot of attention and publicity when it was first released not long ago, but now that the excitement has died down, how will the Redmond company work to improve it and make it more accessible? Well, according to Long Zheng's I Started Something blog, they'll be bringing in mobile applications for it, and some concepts have been revealed.
Jobs seen back on Apple campus
Speculation about Steve Jobs' health has reached a fever pitch as at least one eyewitness has claimed Apple's chief executive is back on campus the same day the company itself dropped a possible clue of its own.
Steve Jobs' return to Apple linked to liver transplant
While it was never entirely clear what Apple co-founder Steve Jobs would do to recuperate between January and June, a new report maintains that he's had a liver transplant and that his return to work may be gradual at first.
AT&T using 802.21 for iPhone 3G-Wifi handoffs?
It looks like AT&T might be using the 802.21 protocol to relax the pressure put on their 3G network by the iPhone. The new iPhone 3.0 OS software contains the ability for iPhones to autoswitch from 3G to Wifi when an AT&T Wifi network is in range, without user intervention.
iPhone 3.0 software update
When Apple first announced the iPhone back in 2007, the company said that it planned to continually update the phone with new features and functionality. In July 2008, Apple released iPhone 2.0, which opened up a whole new world of third-party applications, finally converting the iPhone from the latest hot gizmo to a viable platform. With predecessors like that, 2009's iPhone 3.0 has some Wilt Chamberlain-size shoes to fill.
Apple Tells UPS To Hold Your iPhone 3GS Until "Future Delivery Date"
You've ordered the iPhone 3GS, Apple has shipped it, and UPS has picked it up and even taken it to your local branch... but that doesn't mean you will be getting your hands on that 3GS goodness just yet.
AT&T narrows prepaid plan options
Chalk up another win for AT&T’s in the competition to become the world’s Most Unpopular Provider. The wireless company announced, by text message to subscribers and by statement that most of its prepaid customers would no longer be eligible for iPhone service come June 17’s iPhone 3.0 update.
Apple warns Palm Pre users iTunes sync may break
Apple warns that it can't guarantee third-party devices like the Palm Pre will work with iTunes and adds that future updates to the software may break media syncing with third-party devices.
Apple says iPhone 3G S pre-orders will be filled on time
Despite warnings from AT&T that claimed high demand for the new iPhone 3G S would prevent it from shipping pre-orders by the June 19 launch date, Apple is still promising to satisfy all web pre-orders with a Friday delivery.
Apple accuses Psystar of hiding behind bankruptcy
Not quite content to just let Psystar sit in bankruptcy, Apple has filed a motion to have its case against Psystar continue and claims the unauthorized Mac clone maker is using its impoverished state as a shield against having to account for its supposedly illegal activity.
Microsoft reveals plans to ship Windows 7 without IE in Europe
Due to ongoing antitrust issues with the European Union, Microsoft has confirmed it will ship Windows 7 in Europe without its flagship browser, Internet Explorer 8.
Apple's new MacBook Pros can boot from media in SD card slot
Apple's new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros introduced this week feature an SD (Secure Digital) card slot primarily for reading and writing media files to SD cards, but this tiny slot can also serve as a lifesaver, allowing you to boot from an SD card during a state of emergency.
First Driver for USB 3.0
Linux kernel "Geekess" Sarah Sharp announced in her blog of June 7 that the first groundbreaking driver for USB 3.0 devices are now available. The driver supports the Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) for the new USB 3.0 standard.
Greg Kroah-Hartman already queued the patches for Kernel 2.6.31, "so Linux users should have official USB 3.0 support around September 2009. This means that Linux will be the first operating system with official USB 3.0 support" wrote Sharp, who was also active at Open Source Bridge in Portland, OR. The source code mostly under her name is on git.kernel.org.
Just recently NEC Electronics introduced the "world's first" USB 3.0 host controller. Sarah Sharp is looking forward to tests on NEC's device, of which the company "expects rapid adoption."
The basic specifications for USB 3.0 show it to have a transfer rate of 5.0 Gbps. The standard was announced in November 2008 by the USB Implementers Forum, Inc.. Board of directors of the Forum are represented by companies such as NEC, HP, Microsoft and Intel (which has the current chairmanship). xHCI is a specification created by Intel.
How do Apple's designs affect consumers?
Apple has always been a company known for design; not just design, but even the most loathing Apple hater will have to admit at some time that the company does make some pretty well thought out products. Robert Brunner over at Fast Company has written an interesting blog post about Apple's design, and how other companies attempt to replicate it, sometimes producing a bad result for the end user.
Mac OS X 10.6 requirements reveal OpenCL limitations
OpenCL, the open standard framework due to ship with Mac OS X 10.6, has been widely hyped as having the ability to squeeze performance out of often-dormant GPU chips, giving a satisfactory speed boost. Well, almost all GPUs. Seeming to have gone unnoticed in the flurry of news following Apple's WWDC event on Monday, the system requirements for Mac OS X 10.6 hold some interesting pieces of information.
Firstly, Snow Leopard officially requires double the RAM of its predecessor, at 1GB in contrast to 512MB. H.264 hardware acceleration, which QuickTime X will use to improve performance, only works on Macs with an NVIDIA 9400M graphics chip. For those that don't follow Apple, that's the new integrated chip that's been slowly working its way into Apple's product line. OpenCL, however, will not work on all Mac GPUs. The functionality is limited to the following:
- NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130.
- ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870
And a final revelation that may shock some of you: 64-bit support requires a 64-bit processor.
13-inch MacBook Pro teardown reveals "unimaginative" SD Card slot
A dissection of Apple's first 13-inch MacBook Pro shows the company may have run out of real estate to create a slot that would completely conceal SD cards but also points to certain do-it-yourself upgrades being near-trivial jobs for prospective owners.
The undisputed teardown experts at iFixit have just completed their step-by-step illustrated disassembly of the latest member of the MacBook Pro family, in which they note that the system's new SD card slot "is rather unimaginative" given that "half the card hangs out of the side of the computer."
Firefox 3.5 moves to preview phase
Rather than offering a release candidate as had been expected, Mozilla this week released a preview of its upcoming Firefox 3.5 browser, adding fixes to bugs and the browser’s JavaScript engine as well as improvements for video and audio playback.