Apple Changes IPhone Connectors. World Freaks Out

When Steve Jobs launched the iTunes Store more than nine years ago, he also unveiled the third-generation iPod, the first device with a plug design that has become nearly as significant to independent manufacturers as iTunes has to the music industry. The bottom-mounted connector capable of transferring songs and charging the music player is now a standard Apple (AAPL) component. Makers of mobile accessories use the plug’s specifications when designing chargers, cases, speakers, and stands for iPods, iPhones, and iPads.

That $1.3 billion-a-year market will soon be upended by the connector’s first overhaul since April 2003, according to several people familiar with the design of the new iPhone expected this fall. These people, who were not authorized to discuss the change, say the new plug will have only

Google's Chrome tailors itself to Apple's Retina Display

Been wondering when Chrome was going to support Apple's Retina Display? Wonder no more. Also, Google throws a few more features into the latest Chrome release.

Google's Chrome can now serve up Web pages that show off Apple's Retina display in all its glory.

Until now, Google's popular browser did not support the display on Apple's newest MacBook Pro. The Retina screen has a 2880x1800 pixel density (220 pixels per inch). It is the highest pixel density, by far, of any laptop in its class.

Back in June, Google said: "Apple recently announced

German judge: Motorola violates Microsoft's FAT patent

Judge rules that Motorola's Android-based devices are infringing upon a File Allocation Table patent related to the use of "long and short filenames."

A German court has found Motorola Mobility in violation of a Microsoft patent, according to a new report.

Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court today ruled that Motorola's Android-based devices are infringing upon a File Allocation Table (FAT) patent related to "a common name space for long and short filenames," according to FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, who first reported on the case.

According to Mueller, who has aided Microsoft in intellectual property matters in the past, the software giant can enforce an injunction against Motorola's infringing devices after posting a 10 million euro bond. In addition, Judge Voss will allow Microsoft to

Apple reportedly to unveil iPhone 5, iPad Mini on Sept. 12

Both devices will be announced in the middle of September, followed by the release of the new iPhone on September 21, claims blog site iMore.

Apple consumers could perhaps see the debut of both the new iPhone and an iPad Mini come September.

Citing "sources who have proven accurate in the past," blog site iMore says that Apple will announce the two devices at a special event on Wednesday, September 12. The iPhone 5 itself would then go on sale 9 days later on Friday, September 21.

This latest report follows a tidbit last week from French site App4Phone.fr, which pointed to

Android loses ground to Apple in second quarter

Though still in top place, Android shed market share in the second quarter, while Apple's iOS gained ground, according to Strategy Analytics.

Android still owns more than half the U.S. smartphone business, but it declined in both shipments and market share in the second quarter.

Google's mobile OS grabbed a 56 chunk of the the market in the June quarter, down from 61 percent a year ago, according to a report released today by Strategy Analytics. Shipments fell to 13.4 million from 15.3 million in 2011's second quarter.

At the same time, the iPhone saw increased demand. Apple's smartphone market share surged to 33 percent last quarter from 23 percent a year ago. Shipments rose to

Mountain Lion hits 3M downloads on record pace

Apple says Mountain Lion was downloaded over 3 million times in its first four days of availability, "making it the most successful OS X release in Apple's history."

Apple's latest operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, has set a sales record.

The company announced today that Mountain Lion was downloaded over 3 million times in its first four days of availability, "making it the most successful OS X release in Apple's history."

Apple launched Mountain Lion last Wednesday, priced at $19.99. The operating system, which is available in the company's Mac App Store, comes with over 200

Expert claims Google's Nexus 7 display has flaws

Google's Nexus 7 tablet is a great LCD with lousy calibration, according to display expert Raymond Soneira.

Google's popular Nexus 7 tablet has display issues, according to an expert.

First of all, let's be clear: Google seems to have a certifiable hit with the Nexus 7 tablet and reviews have mostly been positive, if not very positive. And there have been no major complaints from review sites about the display.

That said, Raymond Soneira at DisplayMate Technologies says the tablet's display "falls short." Not mincing words, he says in a new blog post that he knew "something was seriously wrong" when he looked at the standard photos that DisplayMate uses to visually evaluate displays.

"Many of the images were noticeably washed out -- they looked like over exposed photographs with missing highlights, reduced image contrast, and weak colors," Soneira wrote.

But I was curious why these shortcomings weren't showing up in reviews -- and why Soneira seemed to be contradicting himself when he told me that the display itself was "high quality." So, I asked him to clarify this.

Here's what he said.

Anonymous begins dump of stolen ISP data

Anonymous has begun dumping details from its 40GB cache of what it is claiming to be AAPT's customer data.

Anonymous Australia has followed through with its promise to dump of what appears to be AAPT's customer data, releasing a sample of the stolen data.

The data was posted in several parts; six on Pastebin (one, two, three, four, five, and six), and four dump files. The information in these dumps appears to be about AAPT's business accounts and the contacts for these agreements.

The data appears to contain information about AAPT business customers and staff, including the names, numbers, titles and email addresses of a contact for each business agreement and how much the company spends (presumably with AAPT) each month. AAPT confirmed earlier this week that

Apple and Microsoft to team up for Kodak's patents?

The fierce competitors could once again pool their resources to snatch up a collection of high-value patents from Kodak.

Apple and Microsoft could once again join forces to bid on a collection of patents from a beleaguered technology giant, says a new report.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the two companies -- along with Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures -- plan to band together to snatch up some or all of Kodak's patent portfolio. Initial bids for that collection of 1,100 patents are due at the beginning of next week.

The companies could face an opposing team made up of other rivals including Google, Samsung, HTC, and LG, along with San Francisco-based patent buyer and licensor RPX, the report says.

In Apple and Microsoft's case, the collaboration would be a reprisal of sorts. In June of last year, Apple, along with EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft,

Apple working on Google Glass rival?

Oh sure, you want to know about the latest iPhone 5 rumor or if Apple really going to come out with an Apple TV that's not just a little black box, but what's more exciting still is that Apple's taking out patents on wearable computers, aka Google Glass.

According to Patently Apple, a site that tracks Apple's patents, Apple has been toying with the idea of wearable computers since at least 2006. Indeed, wearable computers are far from a new idea. I first played with them in the 90s. But those were niche devices. It wasn't until Google showed off with Google Glass in June 2012 at Google I/O that the idea of a heads-up computer display in your

How much is Marissa Mayer paid for her new job?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Yahoo coughed up a lot of cash to land its hotshot new CEO.

Marissa Mayer’s compensation package could be worth an eye-popping $71 million over the next five years, according to regulatory documents Yahoo filed on Thursday.

Mayer’s pay package is by far the most lavish that the company has offered to its recent string of CEOs. On top of a $1 million annual salary and $2 million target bonus, the deal includes a rich combination of stock grants and options.

Mayer is getting a stock grant valued at

Microsoft Surface Tablet: 5 Questions

Microsoft's new Surface tablet looked good at its introduction, but questions about pricing, arrival, connectivity, and more remain unanswered.

Microsoft left a lot of unanswered questions after following Apple into the tablet hardware business Monday with its new Windows 8-based Surface PCs/tablets. The software maker introduced the new family of devices during an event in Los Angeles.

Microsoft said the new Surface tablets are meant as companion hardware for Windows 8--the most dramatic overhaul of the OS since Windows 95. Company CEO Steve Ballmer said: "We wanted to give Windows 8 its own companion hardware innovation." Windows 8 is expected to be available in the fall.

The Surface brand was originally used for a tabletop touchscreen computer Microsoft launched in 2007.

Windows 8's delivery date: October 26

The latest tidbit is Windows 8's exact availability date is going to be October 26. (The last we heard at the Microsoft Partner Conference a week ago is it would be in "late October.")

October 26 will be the date Windows 8 will be available preloaded on new PCs and also to those purchasing it through one of the upgrade programs Microsoft has announced recently. Based on previous Microsoft statements, it also seems October 26 will be the date that Windows RT-based Surface PCs/tablets from Microsoft will be available via the Microsoft Stores and select online outlets.

Microsoft officials shared the exact date

YouTube lets people blur faces in videos

SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube on Wednesday began letting people blur faces in videos they upload to the website, which has become a major platform for sharing clips of dramatic news events.

"Today we're launching face blurring -- a new tool that allows you to obscure faces within videos with the click of a button," said Amanda Conway, policy associate at the Google-owned video-sharing service.

"As citizens continue to play a critical role in supplying news and human rights footage from around the world, YouTube is committed to creating

Apple has to publish notice that Samsung didn't copy the iPad

A UK judge ordered the iPad maker to put a notice on its website and in the British newspapers informing folks that Samsung did not rip off the tablet's design.

A U.K. judge ordered Apple to publish a notice on its UK website and in British newspapers informing the public that Samsung did not copy the iPad's design, Bloomberg reported today.

Judge Colin Birss said the notice should explain the court's July 9 decision that Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablets do not infringe on Apple's design.

The notice is to be posted for six months and published in several newspapers and magazines to save Samsung's image. Apple's lawyer tried to argue that

Has Intel found the Ultrabook pricing sweet spot at $699?

Intel might have finally pinpointed a lower and sufficient price tag for its Ultrabooks that could lure customers away from the primary competitor in this market: Apple's MacBook Air.

During the second quarter earnings call with investors on Tuesday, CEO Paul Otellini said that "we are very confident that we'll see $699 systems at retail this fall."

When the Ultrabook concept was first introduced with the promise of more than 60 designs in the pipeline, the general average price was

Firefox 14 unleashed with focus on security

Mozilla has released Firefox 14, the latest version of its desktop web browser, which brings new features such as safer web searches, new API support and full-screen compatibility on OS X 10.7 Lion.

The open-source browser update arrived for download on Tuesday, building on a beta put out at the beginning of June. A beta of the next iteration, Firefox 15, is already available for public testing and is scheduled for full release on 28 August.

The key change in Firefox 14 is a focus on making browsing more secure; for example, it uses secure Google searches by default to protect user data when a computer is connected to a shared Wi-Fi network. Mozilla said it will extend this feature to include other

Windows 8 moves to IPv6 Internet

Summary: It went largely unnoticed at the time but Microsoft has announced that Windows 8 will default to using IPv6 given a choice of network protocols. Here's how it will work.

Like it or lump it, we're moving to IPv6 for our Internet connections. For now, less than 2% of the world's Internet population is using IPv6, but as the last IPv4 addresses grains of sands run out, Microsoft knows that its Windows users need to start switching over. That's why, starting in Windows 8, “Windows prefers native IPv6 connectivity over IPv4 connectivity, if both connection modes are available.”

In a blog posting, Steve Sinofsky, Microsoft's president of Windows, explained the basics of why we have no choice but to move from IPv4 to IPv6:

Windows 8 PCs, Tablets Arrive In October

Microsoft makes it official after months of speculation--computers running its new OS will be in stores in time for the holiday shopping season.

Microsoft on Monday for the first time revealed a shipping schedule for its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system.

The OS will be released to manufacturing in the first week of August, and new systems running the software will be generally available to the public by the end of October. The news was announced by Tami Reller, CFO for Microsoft's Windows group, at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto.

Enterprises will be able to start downloading final Windows 8 bits "as early as August," said Reller, who added that more than

5 things Marissa Mayer will change about Yahoo

Google's main products were driven by data, not art. Can the new Yahoo boss adapt that mindset from Google?

Now we know why Yahoo chose not to appoint interim CEO Ross Levinsohn as its full-time leader: the company got Marissa Mayer instead. Mayer, the head of the Google Search group and the 20th employee at the search company, will start immediately at Yahoo.

Google and Yahoo started as similar companies. Both were search giants, but at different points in their respective histories they diverged. The subsequent tale of the tape shows that Google's direction -- guided by strong leaders -- was the more successful path.

Here's what we can expect Mayer will bring to Yahoo.

Microsoft takes steps to drown Google Apps before it's too late

According to a new report, the company is doing everything from cutting prices to increasing commissions to resellers to stop enterprise customers from using Google Apps.

Microsoft might be a little more scared of Google Apps for Business than it's publicly letting on, according to a new report.

The software giant has, over the last several months, made several moves to stop enterprise customers from adopting Google Apps, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported on those decisions today. Microsoft has cut pricing on its cloud-based alternative, Office 365, as well as increased commissions it pays to resellers to make the prospect of switching to Google's service less palatable.

According to the Journal, Microsoft has established a "Google Compete" team designed

Signs point to OS X Mountain Lion launch on July 25

Apple will be holding "overnights" in its stores on July 24 to prepare for a July 25 launch of Mountain Lion, according to a new report.

Apple could be planning to launch OS X Mountain Lion on July 25, according to a new report.

According to 9 to 5 Mac, citing sources, Apple has informed some employees at its retail stores that they'll need to plan for an "overnight" on July 24. Overnights have become a key indicator that something new is coming to Apple's retail stores. Overnights allow employees to work outside their stores' open hours to prepare their location for the next day's new sale. Sometimes, that means Macs and iPhones. Other times, it's Apple's many other products.
If 9 to 5 Mac's sources are to be believed, this time around, it means OS X Mountain Lion.
Apple has publicly said that

iOS 6 Jailbreak: How to Hack 3D Maps and Enable 3D Flyover Mode on iPhone 4 [VIDEO]

Apple's newest mobile operating system - iOS 6 - gets its biggest update. THe Maps application has been equipped with turn-by-turn navigation capability besides getting the added benefit of 3D Flyover mode. On the downside, the Flyover mode and navigation features are limited to the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2 or later.

Meanwhile, the latest update to Redsn0w has enabled Russian hacker Anton Titkov (iTony) to hack iOS 6 Maps, besides finding an exploit to run 3D Flyover mode on the iPhone 4. The exploit or tweak is better known as 3DEnabler to support the Flyover mode feature in 3D on older devices.

Check out the complete video depicting the Flyover in action on the iPhone 4...

Russian Developer Hacks iOS To Get Free In-App Content

Piracy isn’t that big of a problem on iOS. The amount of work required to circumvent the App Store and get free stuff just doesn’t seem worth it when most apps give you a way of obtaining in-game content through regular gameplay instead of buying it. Would you use software to get free in-app content if you didn’t have to jailbreak your phone?

A Russian developer going by the handle of ZonD80 has effectively hacked iOS to allow him free access to in-app purchases. The hack works on all devices running iOS 3.0 all the way to the newest version, 6.0. What’s even more fascinating

Guess Who’s Back? SOPA And ACTA Are Sneaking Into Law Behind Your Back

The Internet has won the fight. SOPA and ACTA are both dead after having been eviscerated by the combined powers of the world coming together to fight for what they believe in – basic digital human rights. We can now rest easy knowing that the war has come to an end. Politicians would never think to bring them back, even under the guise of innocuous trade agreements and IP bills, right? Right?

Unfortunately, the war is not won and it’s looking like the war will never end. SOPA and ACTA are both back in new forms that are even harder to kill than before. I can understand SOPA being back as it’s been dead for a while, but are they really trying to push through ACTA right after it was defeated in the European Parliament? The answer is an astounding yes and the tactics that politicians are employing to regulate the Internet are pretty terrifying.

Does the return of SOPA and ACTA

Malware went undiscovered for weeks on Google Play

Breaking the malware into separate, staged payloads allowed the Trojan's authors to avoid detection by Google's automated screening process.

Security researchers have discovered malware hosted on the Google Play marketplace that went weeks undetected masquerading as games.

Android.Dropdialer, a Trojan that sends costly text messages to premium-rate phone numbers in Eastern Europe, had gone undiscovered for two weeks in the form of two game titles, Symantec researcher Irfan Asrar wrote in a blog post yesterday. The two games -- "Super Mario Bros." and "GTA 3 - Moscow city" -- were uploaded to Google Play on June 24 and generated 50,000 to 100,000 downloads, Asrar said.

"What is most interesting about this Trojan is the fact that the

How to Maximize Battery-Life While Traveling

If you take an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook along when you travel, you know how much of a challenge it can be to keep your device powered up. Here are a few tips.

Admit it: Your carry-on bag is stuffed full of digital gear you can’t bear to leave at home. Not only will your iPhone, iPad, or MacBook keep you entertained while en route, they’ll make great navigation, research, and photo tools once you’ve reached your destination. But keeping these devices charged up when you’re constantly on-the-go or stuck in the air can be a challenge. But there are a few things you can do to extend battery life and save power.

Battery cases

A battery case for your iPhone is a great accessory to keep in your carry-on. These cases add extra battery life to your iPhone while also keeping it safe from the occasional drop and bump. Most of these cases sport dock-connector plugs that pair up with the iPhone’s 30-pin port, which is how they deliver the juice to your iPhone. The only downside is that you can't use any dock-cradle accessories without removing the iPhone from the case.

One of our favorite battery charging cases is the Mophie Juice Pack Plus (). It just about doubles your iPhone’s battery life, doesn’t add too much extra weight, and you can still sync your iPhone using the included USB-to-Micro-USB cable. Plus, it has an on/off switch, which lets you control when the case sends juice to your phone.

Sol’s Solar-Powered Charging Case () is another solid option which provides a few different charging options: you can charge your phone using the sun’s rays, bright indoor lighting, or

Microsoft Urges Users to Shut Down Windows Gadgets or Risk Attack

Rather than fix vulnerabilities with Gadgets and the Sidebar in Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft is advising users to disable the features altogether.

Gadgets and Sidebar allow users to add visual information and small programs to the Windows desktop, including clock faces, music players and RSS feed readers.

Now, Microsoft has issued a Fix It solution to disable Gadgets and the Sidebar. These features, if left enabled, may allow the execution of arbitrary code, and could allow attackers to take complete control

Google Launches Gay Rights Campaign

Google officials announced this weekend the launch of a new worldwide gay rights campaign that will support workers in countries that criminalize homosexuality, CNN reported.

The "Legalize Love" campaign will be put into motion in countries such as Singapore, which has outlawed same-sex activity; and Poland, which does not recognize marriage equality and has oppressed Pride demonstrations.

"We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office," Google executive Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe said. "It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work."

The worldwide campaign will work on creating partnerships with

Some Lion-powered Macs can't upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion

Apple sets final list of OS X Mountain Lion-capable machines

Apple's new OS X, dubbed Mountain Lion, will exclude some older Macs that can run 2011's Lion, the company's website said.

The system requirements for OS X 10.8, slated to ship this month, ban older machines including the plastic-encased iMacs introduced in January 2006, MacBooks prior to the first all-aluminum model rolled out in late 2008, MacBook Pros older than those introduced in June 2007, and the first-generation MacBook Air, which debuted in January 2008.

Apple's list of no-Mountain-Lion-for-you now on its site is identical to the one it introduced last February when it started distributing OS X previews to developers.

Mountain Lion's requirements are more stringent than its predecessor, OS X 10.7, or Lion, which only demanded that the machine have 2GB of memory and an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 or Xeon processor.

But that won't cut it this time.

For example, some Core 2 Duo-powered Macs can run Mountain Lion, but

Apple Kicks Google Maps Off iOS

As expected, Apple has announced its own mapping solution for iOS 6, featuring real-time traffic conditions, turn-by-turn navigation, Yelp integration, vector graphics, and 3D flyovers. The new Maps app, due out this fall with iOS 6, means the end of the Google Maps-powered app that iOS devices have used since 2007.

For iOS users, this news comes not a moment too soon--many of the features Apple announced Monday have been available on Google Maps for Android for years. Apple's break with Google means the iPhone maker can finally offer significant improvements to Maps on iOS instead of relying on a reluctant partner/competitor to bring new maps features to Apple devices.

If you have an iOS device, chances are the new Maps app will be arriving on your handset, since nearly every popular iOS device in use today (with the exception of the original iPad) is getting iOS 6. Apple introduced the new Maps app during the

Windows 8 will boot in 8 seconds!

Yeah, a very awaited feature or we can say improvement will be coming in Windows 8. Microsoft has officially confirmed that Windows 8 will come with hybrid boost (Boot in 8 seconds, faster than previous Windows Versions). You can read official announcement here:


We designed Windows 8 so that you shouldn't have to boot all that often (and we are always going to work on reducing the number of required restarts due to patching running code). But when you do boot we want it to be as fast as possible.
Qualitatively, people say they prefer to shut down because they want to have their PC

Asus released a gaming laptop Lamborghini VX7 based on Sandy Bridge platform.

I love everything that makes the company Asus, probably because of the fact that, for no matter what the company was taken, all obtained high-quality stylish and popular. Recently the company produced the powerful Lamborghini VX7 laptop with an unusual design and impressive features. This miracle comes in two colors: orange, and carbon. The laptop runs on the CPU Core i7-2630QM, a record amount of RAM - 16 GB of standard DDR3, 1,5 TB available to the user by means of two Hdd.

Lamborghini VX7 has a 15.6-inch monitor with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels with the coolest

Google Chrome bypassed Microsoft Internet Explorer.

It happened irrevocably and definitively. After eighteen years of global leadership in the market among the browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer lost the title of the most popular browser in the world. It was replaced by Google Chrome, which is the youngest competitor of the "heavyweights". The report of the research firm Statcounter says that a significant event occurred in the period from 14 to 20 May 2012. This week the result of Internet Explorer marked 31, 94%, while Google Chrome has received 32, 76% of the world's browser market.

Google Chrome bypassed Internet Explorer
As you know, the first alarm bell was still eighteenth of March this year when Google Chrome was able to get around his rival for just one day. Between these two browsers statistical gap is rapidly shrinking, and in the second half of May,