Apple does have an Apple TV box at the moment and there are rumors that there will be some sort of iTV in the future, but it’s become apparent especially today that Apple does not have the same amount of power pushing into the smart TV world as they do the mobile and desktop world – it only stands to reason, of course. As Cook noted today:

“Apple doesn’t do hobbies as a general rule. I can’t live without [my Apple TV] – we’ve always though there was something there, and that if we kept following our intuiting and kept pulling that string, we might find something larger. … Something that could go more main market for it to be a serious category.” – Cook

Does this mean we’re going to continue seeing string pulling through 2012? You can bet on it. Will the iTV be revealed inside the next few months? That’s much more up to debate than the idea that Apple will stay in the smart TV business.

These units are the same except for their ability to hold media – the PenCam HD comes with the ability to hold a microSD card up to 16GB in size while the PenCam 4GB has 4GB of space built-in to the pen. Both pens are able to switch between video and photo at the tap of a button and are able to plug into either Mac or PC for transferring of data to wherever you plan on putting it. Could this be your 007 moment at last?

HD PenCam

This cam will be able to capture video and still images as both pens are, but you’ll be transferring information to your computer with your included card reader of via USB. This PenCam is powered with a fully rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery that’ll last you you up to 45 minutes of uptime after a full charge, and recharges again video the included USB cord. With an additional 16GB microSD card, Swann notes that you’ll be able to capture up to 8 hours of video or 72,000 still images.

PenCam 4G

This version of the PenCam has a simple USB connector coming straight off the lower half of the device, it able to then transfer the information you’ve collected to your computer with great ease. The battery lasts up to 90 minutes of use per charge and will recharge via your computer’s USB port. With the built-in memory of 4GB you’ll be able to capture 18,000 still images or 2 hours of video. This device will cost you $69.99 MSRP while the HD PenCam will cost you $99.99 MSRP and will be available for purchase from many fine retailers soon!

It was in an interview with Digital Spy that Shcafer was speaking about the original Phsychonauts, saying how he’s been wishing he’d be able to create a sequel. Things aren’t so simple as that, of course, as he notes, as it’s not just a developer you need to create a game on such a scale as what Psychonauts 2 would need.

“I mean I get a lot of, on Twitter or whatever, daily questions about Psychonauts 2. And I would love to do Psychonauts 2, I’ve actually pitched that to publishers several times and no-one has taken the bait so far. So it is hard because fans often don’t know how the business works, with the difference between a developer and a publisher, it’s hard to explain that. I’d love to do that game, but I’d have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars, that’s all.” – Schafer

It just so happens that Notch Persson read said article or was informed in advance that Schafer wanted to do such a project – or perhaps it’s all some big conspiracy to make us love the idea of the game in the near future. Notch spoke on Twitter to the effect of Mojang being interested in making a new game happen.

Their conversation has continued to the effect of hey how are yous and so forth thus far, but we must assume that the mix is going to happen at some point in the next week. Look out for magic soon if this all pans out!

This error is also being called the CUI CUI CUI error because of the letters that pop up on your display when an application is opened. A fix has been found in an Apple forums discussion thread by a fellow by the name of nmphotog who notes that he or she has been able to download a COMBO update as located here: OS X Lion Update 10.7.3 (Client Combo). The thing he does not mention is how some of you may have to take odd measures to make this happen.

If you’re absolutely unable to get any windows open, like the web browser window to get to the webpage you’ll need to get the update download, you’ll want to open your computer in FireWire Target mode. You WILL need a FireWire cord, whatever kind that may be for your computer, and connect it to another Mac that’s got a FireWire port as well. You’ll want to then power up your Mac (the one with the problem) while holding down the T key. You’ll then want to download the software you need with the second computer and install it to the first over FireWire. Simple as pie!

[via MacWorld]

Specifically with bug fixes, the updates resolves a WiFi connection issue that has been occurring when Macs with Lion awake from sleep. Compatibility issues with Microsoft Windows file sharing and printing Microsoft Word documents have also been addressed.

The new languages now supported include Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian. RAW image file support now extends to several new cameras, including the latest Olympus PEN cameras, the Nikon J1 and V1, and the latest Sony Alpha and NEX cameras.

The update is over 700MB in size and is available for download now. For more details on what improvements the update brings, visit the release notes.

[via TUAW]

This shouldn’t be a surprise; we knew as of late last year that this was going to happen. The company has chosen to focus on its hardware box called the Boxee Box rather than computer clients. Boxee’s VP of marketing Andrew Kippen confirmed on Monday the company was going through with its plans to end support for computer clients despite complaints from some of the early adopters of the service.

Presumably, the company is hoping that some of these early PC adopters will move to the Boxee Box hardware so they can continue to use the service. I would imagine that many of these people would be looking for alternative solutions for their media center software needs. Gigaom predicts that the big winners for those still looking for media center software for their computers will be XBNC and Plex.

This external hard drive will deliver your data to and from it as fast as 2 Gbps (250 MBps), this not quite as speedy as the Thunderbolt technology allows, but certainly as fast as WD’s hard drive technology allows. At that speed though, you’ll still be able to sent a full HD movie to your hard drive in 30 seconds or less. You can’t even get a Jimmy Johns sandwich that fast!

This drive will easily pull the wings off any USB 2.0 drive out there today, and will certainly sit well with video professionals whose job it is to move files back, and forth, and back, and forth all day long. You’ll be able to pick up this still slightly unrevealed beast up in 4TB and 6TB capacities relatively soon – price and release date have still not been released, nor has a press image of the device itself. Instead what you’re seeing is the My Book Live Duo, a device that will certainly look similar to this newest device when it eventually pops up.

The trend isn’t limited to iOS devices either. 8-percent of those surveyed use Macs, Forrester found, and 63-percent of companies surveyed either support or are interested in supporting Mac adoption. Almost half of enterprises questioned issue Macs to at least part of their workforce, with plans for a 52-percent increase in that number this year.

Perhaps the most interesting part is related to age, with Windows use still strong among older staff while younger workers are supposedly twice as likely to use Apple products instead. That’s even the case for those on lower payment rungs; 17-percent of those on under $12k per year opt for Apple, even though cheaper alternatives might be available.

Forrester reckons that trend will eventually “end Windows’s dominance” while also helping to “blunt Android in the enterprise with product consistency and a simpler ecosystem,” and eventually “become the largest tech vendor by revenues in 2012.” Ambitious, but with the PC market apparently doing its level best to shrink to nothing while Apple reports record sales, not entirely difficult to believe.

The deal is apparently on top of any existing promotions, which given Apple already gives employees a 25-percent discount off new Macs adds up to a significant saving. Because of that, the Mac mini is said to be excluded from the $500 cut since it’s only $599 to begin with.

That’s not the only caveat. Only Apple staff who have been employed with the company for at least 90 days will be eligible, and the discount is only available once every three years. The promotion is expected to begin in June.

Even if all Apple’s staff take advantage, the discount scheme shouldn’t make too great a divot in the company’s bank account. Profit alone for the most recent financial quarter amounted to $13.06 billion, on revenues of $46.3 billion.

For the first time, Apple has surpassed HP in both computer unit sales and revenues, making it the largest computer maker. Apple also isn’t fazed by the onslaught of cheaper tablets, such as the Amazon Kindle Fire. Instead, Apple said it would continue to “innovate like crazy” on the iPad, which will continue to threaten PCs.

Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated the company’s belief that tablets will one day overtake PCs, citing IDC’s recent study that showed strong momentum with tablet sales already surpassing PC sales last quarter. Cook also emphasized that although iPad sales were having negative impact on PCs, it has not affected Mac sales.

[via AppleInsider]

Teachers will be able to work with iBooks notes added by students working with the iBooks 2 app, work with full courses complete with videos, documents, apps, and Textbooks from the iBookstore, and more. The best thing about this app is that it’s free, of course. What Apple is doing here is giving the teachers and the students the tools they need to get into the interactive iPad-based world of the future, all of it for free.

In this way, this is the same model that’s been being used by video game console manufacturers, for example, for many years, where the actual tool is cheap, but the games cost a bit more. On the other hand, the iBooks Textbooks spoken about here and earlier today are only $14.99 apiece, tops. So let’s get into the future of education on the iPad, shall we? As Apple’s Phil Schiller says,

“We’re really proud of what the teams have done. They’ve worked so hard on this. They do it because all of us here at Apple know you can empower people through learning. And tech has a role to play in that, that’s one of the best things that’s built into the culture.” – Schiller

We’ll be checking out each of the applications that have been shown off at Apple’s NYC eduction event this week in turn, but note this: all of them are also available for you to download from iTunes or the Mac App Store today, most of this content completely for free – so have at it!

Books at every level of education have been revealed in the iBookstore this week, Textbooks with full interactive abilities and workings for the iPad specifically. What Apple is attempting to do here is to take the “dark ages” of education and turn them into a full future-headed world where interactive elements are the norm and you only need one device in the classroom: the iPad. There’s even exclusive books that are made to bring in the average student such as E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth, of which the first two chapters will be made free at first.

This is all part of a grander scheme, of course, to bring the classroom further into the tech-minded fold, a great thing for generations in the future where textbooks have, perhaps, become outmoded to the point of extinction. We’ll see how that all pans out in the coming months! Follow along with us for the rest of this event at http://live.slashgear.com/ – still going on now!

You begin with a template, creating a new document that will eventually turn into a book. You’re able to add elements by dragging and dropping pieces of content into the pages that make up the bulk of the book. Galleries, media, reviews, keynotes, interactive images, 3D images, and straight up HTML code are allowed here, you able to switch from Layout mode or Interaction mode to Preview to check out how your pages are turning out as you go. Auto-formatting on the fly keeps the pages uniform, but completely customizable if you’d like with Javascript and HTML5.

You, the author of these fine books made with iBooks Author, are able to add a glossary, check your work at any time, bring forth the content you wish at a snap, and publish these books directly to the store. Anyone can create stunning, interactive books, they say, and with multi-touch widgets, photos, videos, and instant publishing to iBookstore, why not? This application is available today in the Mac App Store for free!

Follow along with the rest of our by-the-second updates to this event at http://live.slashgear.com/.

The Das Keyboard Model S Professional keyboard for Mac is built using gold-plated mechanical key switches designed to withstand 50 million strokes. There are 104 keys with special shortcut keys for media controls as well as Mac’s Command and Option keys. It also offers 6-key rollover, which allows the keyboard to recognize 6 keys pressed simultaneously.

The keyboard offers two USB 2.0 ports for syncing and charging devices such as your iPhone, iPad, or iPod five times faster than you would with other keyboards. It’s also KVM switch compatible, meaning you’ll be able to control more than one computer, be it Mac or PC, via the keyboard.

Pre-orders for the keyboard have already begun with shipments expected to start April 15. Retail prices is $133, but a 15 percent discount is available on all pre-orders. For another option in mechanical keyboards for Macs, make sure to check out the Matias Tactile One Keyboard.

[via Engadget]

These batteries are able to power up your MacBook, your iPad, your iPhone, and whatever other USB-powered devices you’ve got on hand. They’re made specifically for every different Apple mobile product under the sun, again moving in a way so very similar to the design language of the Mac that they’re using the same white font for the device itself. This name in batteries has been around long enough to be winning awards for best-in-show back in 2010, and with “military grade” lithium ion batteries on the inside with 1,000 charges in the barrel and a built-in short circuit, temperature, and overcharging set of protections, why not?

Inside each box you’re going to get the battery itself, a 12-15V DC auto/airline adapter to connect to Apple’s unit, and an AC power supply 100-240V to charge the battery itself. You get some printed documentation as well, and the only drawback here seems to be that you’ll need your own MacBook MagSafe cord to actually connect to your MacBook – but you’ve got that, right? Of course you do! All four HyperJuice external batteries are currently available straight from their site for between $169.95 and $449.95 – buy em up!

The Matias Tactile One Keyboard is built unlike other keyboards made today. Each of its keys use an individual Alps Mechanical Switch for better and faster typing with the feel of Apple’s legendary Extended and Extended II keyboards. The keys are also flat, wide, and sculpted to fit the curves of your fingertips.

And for those who type really fast and experience ghosting, such as when letters are missing from what you actually typed or additional ones show up, the Tactile One offers anti-ghosting circuitry or n-key rollover. This way you can type as fast as you’d like and the keyboard will keep up.

The Tactile One is powered through a USB cable, no need for batteries. It offers three USB 2.0 ports, although it doesn’t charge your iPhone. The keyboard comes in either a Mac or PC version for $199.95 with pre-orders starting now to ship in May.

Focused on photo editing, Snapseed Desktop includes various editing, filtering and general mangling tools. Intelligent highlighting allows for Photoshop-style selections, with real-time tweaks for white balance, saturation and contrast (with an auto-correct mode), selective editing, artificial Tilt Shift creation, sharpening, cropping and straightening.

As for more artistic filters, there’s “Grunge” and “Drama” along with various retro-styled effects and a set of different borders and frames to use. AirPrint printing is supported, along with easy uploads to Facebook and Flickr.

You can buy Snapdseed for OS X in the Mac App Store here [iTunes link].

HP experienced the greatest decline in US PC shipments, dropping 26.1 percent, followed by Acer with an 11.4 percent drop, Dell with 4.5 percent, and Toshiba with 2.2 percent. Overall, the US saw negative 5.9 percent growth based on data taken from the fourth quarters of 2010 and 2011. Despite this, HP maintained its number one spot with over 4 million in shipments followed by Dell and then Apple in third.

The worldwide PC shipment drop of 1.4 percent included a 16.2 percent decline from HP and an 18.4 percent decline from Acer. Lenovo and Asus rose with 23 percent and 20.5 percent, respectively, while Dell managed a 7.8 percent increase. Once again, HP retained the top spot.

Ultrabooks quietly crept in during the fourth quarter of 2011, but didn’t make much of an impact on PC sales. However, with the abundance of new ultrabooks popping up at this weeks CES show, 2012 will likely be a big year for this new crop of MacBook Air-inspired notebooks. However, Gartner expects PC shipments to be temporarily lowered in the first half of 2012 due to HDD shortages caused by the October 2011 floods in Thailand.

The 2big Thunderbolt Series features speeds up to three times faster than FireWire 800, RAID security, disks that can be hot-swapped, and the ability to daisy chain multiple units, which can even increase performance overall. With up to 8TB of storage capacity and a transfer rate of up to 311MB/s, the 2big series is perfect for videographers or other professionals having to backup frequently and stream multiple HD videos.

The eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series allows two existing eSATA drives to connect to a new Mac via the Thunderbolt port. The hub itself also features a Thunderbolt port that allows users to connect other Thunderbolt peripherals even while two eSATA drives are hooked up. Users can also daisy chain up to 6 hubs, meaning up to 12 eSATA drives can be connected to a Mac via a single Thunderbolt port. Both series will be available in the first quarter of 2012.

Apple moves in on corporate hardware

Forrester notes in their analysis that for years the computer equipment market for governments as well as businesses has been commanded by the likes of, as they list them, “Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Lenovo, NEC, Sun (now part of Oracle), and Unisys.” What they show now is that even though Apple has thus far been a marginal factor, it’s making a move in on the rest with such relatively new gems as the iPad and factors like an “increasing preference” amongst business and government professionals to own and use Macs.

Because of what’s become an obvious trend of a consumerization Information Technology (IT), Apple is inching in on the PC/tablet market currently still held by Microsoft Windows and such hardware partners of Microsoft as HP, Lenovo, and Dell. Everyone from Fortune 500 companies to small business owners have found themselves not immune to Apple’s attractive products and preferred ambiance surrounding the iPad. These they break up into the following:

Corporate IT departments picking up “tens of thousands” of iPads for employees for one reason or another, but not Macs.

Small business owners purchasing both Macs and iPads which are able to be used for both personal and business use, charging units to their business as a business expense.

Professionals dropping cash on Macs and iPads then attempting to get support for reimbursement from the company they work for, using the products then either for work in the office or simply at on-the-go events like conferences.

The Results for Apple

Though Apple doesn’t report their sales numbers on what they’ve gotten back from corporations and governments, Forrester has essentially figured it all out using a couple of factors. First, their “Forrsights” data on both the number of PCs using Apple iOS, then the total number of tablets companies have reported supporting inside a given timeframe (2010-11 here). From this they’re able to get projections on both Apple’s sales of iPads and Macs to the corporate market in 2012 and 2013. They like up like this:

2011 $6 billion in Macs, $6 billion in iPads
2012 $9 billion in Macs, $10 billion in iPads
2013 $12 billion in Macs, $16 billion in iPads

The Results for Microsoft

The total number of what Forrester classifies as Wintel PCs and tablets are combined in their projections, likely because a breakdown of each different manufacturer selling Windows / Intel toting devices would be massively fruitless and would, of course, miss the point entirely. The point here is that the whole group is losing its share collectively, bit by bit. The industry continues to expand, so as it moves from $84 billion to $88 billion to $96 billion in 2011, 2012, and 2013 respectively, Wintel’s total each year goes down. Remember, again, that this is a projection of the Global Business and Government Purchases of Personal Computers measured in USD:

2011 $71 billion in PCs and tablets
2012 $69 billion in PCs and tablets
2013 $68 billion in PCs and tablets

Wrap-up

It’s clear that Apple is taking steps into a traditionally Windows-dominated sector here if what Forrester projects comes true. It’s only Apple’s ability to appeal to people in both the business and government sectors in a consumer-friendly way that’s shown to have a major effect here, so we must assume that they’ve not yet made big strides to take the business away from Microsoft and associated manufacturers in these sectors. What’ll happen when Apple decides it wants to jump in on the business world? Will they?

Perhaps it’s Apple’s way to attach to everyone by, again, attaching to the consumer in them – the individuals, not the businesses or governments they work for. We’ll see starting this year if Forrester’s projections turn true, and if they do, how truly affected Microsoft becomes.

[via Forrester Research]

Apple’s virtually 33 percent market share of all-in-one desktops puts it squarely ahead of the second place company, Lenovo. In third place, with a not-to-shrug-at 21.4 percent was Hewlett-Packard. Together, these three companies account for more than three-fourths of the entire all-in-one PC consumer market.

Though 33 percent of the all-in-one market may feel like a surprisingly lower than expected estimate for Apple, it’s a much higher proportion than its market share of the computer industry in general, and leave us to believe that that Windows PC makers haven’t been successful with the desktop form factor as, well, Apple has.

Apple Insider

[via Apple Insider]

Skype will be partnering with Towerstream, which operates a network that covers Time Square, West Village, East Village, South Village, Greenwich Village, NoHo, SoHo, Lowe East Side, Clinton, Chelsea, Union Square, Midtown, Midtown South, Murray Hill, Stuyvesant Park, and Turtle Bay.

To connect, make sure you have the latest Skype version installed on your Windows or Mac device. You can also use the Skype WiFi app on your iOS device. Follow the prompts and once you’re connected, you can make Skype video or voice calls, send emails, and surf the web. You can thank Skype by tweeting with the hashtag #freeskypewifi.

[via Skype Blog]

The app is called Air Dictate and Avatron developed some sort of method to harness Siri’s voice capturing abilities to transfer the text that Siri pieces together from your speech over to a Mac. The Mac computer needs to be on OS X 10.6.8 or higher and running the Mac portion of the Air Dictate Receiver App.

Once all the software is set up, you can then just talk to Siri for email, Word, Pages and all the other software that needs text input. I can see this being an interesting way to perform dictation for those that already have the iPhone and want to use it rather than a microphone.

[via CNET]

Photo credit for the shot above goes to Laszlo Balogh who took the photo for Rueter’s original story straight out of Budapest. The group spoke with Graphisoft Chairman Gabor Bojar who mentioned the work by Toth to be a dedication to the man who represented a revolution which, as he said in so many words, “can only be compared to the discovery of writing.” Bojar spoke highly of Jobs for his contributions to a then tiny firm in communist Hungary in the 1980s:

“He was one of the greatest (personalities) in our era, that’s what we wanted to express with this sculpture here. … In some ways, Apple was a religion. We have felt his spirit every day and now it is embodied. We hope that we can deserve with our entrepreneurial culture in Hungary what this sculpture expresses as a message.” – Bojar

What do you think, ladies and gentlemen? Look like a nice enough statue to encapsulate the epic nature of the man who was essentially responsible for bringing the personal computer to the market at large? What would a statue of Steve Jobs look like if you made one yourself? Would it include an iPhone or two?

[via Rueters]

The last update to iTunes 10.5.1 brought the iTunes Match feature, which lets you store your entire music collection in the iCloud, whether or not all the music was purchased through iTunes. Songs that matched those already in Apple’s libraries are streamed from 256kbps master copies, while songs that cannot be matched are uploaded for streaming.

iTunes 10.5.2 brings some improvements to iTunes Match, but mainly addresses the audio distortion problem that several users have experienced while trying to play or import certain CDs. The update for Mac computers requires OS X 10.5 or above, while the Windows version of the update comes in either 32-bit or 64-bit.

[via 9to5Mac]

What we’ve got here is the first look for the public at everything Spotify and partners showed off last month in their presentation on what they call their Spotify Music Platform, in other words apps inside the Spotify environment. What’s been released today is a beta download that anyone can access but whose full set of features only premium users can use. This will be true of the whole apps bit of the future of Spotify as far as we’ve heard, and it does remain true here today. Have a peek at what this beta is packing here:

As you can see we are currently limited to the first set of apps as no other developers have been allowed in during this pre-release timeframe, but we can expect cool bits in the near future. In the video you’ll find everything working beyond slick, seeming to almost be pre-integrated before the download of each app occurs. We’ll see how this all plays out once we see developers releasing their own non-major-label apps into the Spotify wild soon.

UPDATE: this platform is officially going to be referred to as “Spotify Platform” – per Spotify.

You can download this beta version of Spotify for desktop by heading over to Spotify’s download page, clicking the links you need to make the business occur: [download/preview]. You can currently get this build for Mac or PC, the version we’ve demoed above working on a Mac. Other than that, here’s what Spotify has presented thus far:

Construction workers were apparently the ones who revealed to sources that had the store been planned for opening on Black Friday, they certainly weren’t aware of it, and that any way you look at it, there was simply too much to be done as far as actual construction work for a launch last week. So add this to your list of things we’ve got to wait just a LITTLE bit longer for before the holiday season is truly upon us, and head down there if you dare not this weekend, but next. As of yet there are no signs of any special edition hardware in the space, but you never know.

Meanwhile the New York state comptroller’s office is apparently launching an investigation into the MTA’s handling of Apple’s lease of the space. It’s said that the lease favors Apple at the expense of taxpayers, this evidenced (again, supposedly) by an unusually low price payed per square foot in the space. Note also that Apple is paying for some upgrades to the space, but also appears to be exempt from an otherwise nearly universal GCT revenue sharing policy. So we’ll just see how that all pans out – meanwhile, shop the weekend away!

[via MacNN]

This delta update comes in at 633MB and currently has no known issues. Developers are warned as usual that once the update is installed that they will not be able to revert back to a previous version. Systems used for the installation should be ready to be erased if needed.

An OS X Server 10.7.3 update was also issued today with the same build number and focus area of iCloud storage, AddressBook, iCal, and Mail. If you haven’t updated to OS X Lion yet and would like to find out more, be sure to check out our full review.

[via 9to5 Mac]

The eGo Mac Edition features secure 256-bit AES encryption and comes with Iomega’s Protection Suite to ensure your data stays safe. It has two FireWire 800 ports and one USB 2.0 port and even comes with three cables, one for each port, giving you fast and versatile connections. The device also doesn’t require an external power supply.

In addition to the eGo, Iomega will be offering the Helium Portable Hard Drive that will also come in 500GB and 1TB capacities, but features one USB 2.0 port and is housed in an aluminum case. A desktop hard drive alternative would be Iomega’s Mac Companion Hard Drive, which comes in 2TB and 3TB capacities and packs a fast 7200RPM 3.5-inch hard drive.

The Helium Portable Hard Drive and the Mac Companion Hard Drive are already available at Apple stores, but the eGo Mac Edition Portable Hard Drive will not be available until later this month. The 500GB model is priced at $179.99 and the 1TB model is $229.99.

[via Iomega]

The AirGo Outdoor Sound Station can be used as a permanent outdoor speaker system unlike other shiny AirPlay-equipped systems we’re used to seeing that are meant to sit pretty indoors. The AirGo provides a powerful amplifier and wide soundstage perfect for your deck, patio, lawn, or driveway. You can stream music from your iTunes collection on your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac or PC.

And since the AirGo uses an AirPort Express for its AirPlay connectivity it can also help extend your home WiFi network and act as a portable WiFi hotspot. This specialized speaker system, however, doesn’t run cheap and is priced at $399.

[via Wired]

Apple is very serious about keeping the amount of malware, viruses and other attacks on the Mac machines as low as possible. With the new Mac App Store, the chances of a nefarious user opening up a users Mac to attacks using apps thought to be legitimate are increasing. To help prevent attacks Apple is set to start forcing all devs submitting apps to the Mac App Store to use Sandboxing.

Devs have some time to get used the idea and work it into their creations. All Mac App Store submissions have to implement Sandboxing by March 1, 2012. Sandboxing the app will limit the resources the app has access to and makes it more difficult for a malicious app to compromise the computer.

[thanks Antony]

The iMessage app would allow the Mac computer user to message for free to users of the iPad and iPhone. The more interesting of the two is AirPlay Mirroring. This feature would allow the user to mirror the Mac desktop onto another screen wirelessly. This would be a great way to shoot a presentation from a Mac over to a projector or big screen for the business user.

The feature would also presumably allow the Mac user to toss content from the MacBook over to the Apple TV to watching in the living room. AirPlay Video streaming is also said to be integrated into QuickTime X. Apple has offered no official confirmation of the features.

[via 9to5Mac]

The refreshed MacBook Pro is expected to look the same externally but it will sport faster processors with the latest Intel Sandy Bridge chips. Intel recently refreshed with a new Core i7 line that’s been clocked much higher than current processors. The latest 2.4GHz, 2.5GHz, and 2.7GHz could replace the 2.0GHz, 2.2GHz, and 2.3GHz processors in the current 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros.

This MacBook Pro refresh is also expected to include Bluetooth 4.0, which has much lower power requirements. The current MacBook Air and Mac mini already come with Bluetooth 4.0 as does the recently launched iPhone 4S. Overall changes should be minor and this late 2011 update will bridge the gap until Intel launches it’s next-gen 22-nm process Ivy Bridge chips sometime in the first half of 2012.

[via AppleInsider]

The virus first decrypts the paths of the XProtectUpdater plist files and unloads the XProtectUpdater daemon. It then overwrites the XProtectUpdater files with a blank character and also overwrites the plist and binary for the XProtectUpdater.

This process wipes out certain files and prevents XProtect from automatically receiving updates in the future. This makes your computer vulnerable to future attacks since definitions cannot be updated. Although it’s common for viruses to attempt to disable anti-malware safeguards, this may be the first Mac-oriented malware that targets XProtect.

[via MacNN]

The portable scanner isn’t completely wireless, as you can’t wirelessly transfer a scanned document directly from the scanner to your computer or smartphone. But, it’s still pretty handy for road warriors that need reliable scanning while on the go and can scan a full color page in less than 8 seconds. It can store up to 600 scanned pages before you have to transfer the scans to your PC or Mac via a USB cable, USB flash drive, or an SD card.

The Doxie Go is priced at $199 and will be available sometime in November. It will be getting an optional $39 accessory in December that will allow it to scan directly to your iPhone or iPad. The Doxie 2.0 software it comes with can create OCR searchable PDF scans as well as sync to Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Docs, among other cloud services.

[via TUAW]

This information comes from Japanese Apple blog Macotakara who say they’ve got a “reliable source” that says OS X Lion Update 10.7.2 as well as iTunes 10.5 will be out early this next week. From what we understand, iTunes 10.5 is still in Beta mode for testers while developers have been given the Gold Master copy of Mac OS X 10.7.2, this meaning that the release is RIGHT around the corner.

NOTE: for all the information you could possibly need at this point on iCloud, head to our SlashGear 101: What is iCloud? post and get educated!

October 12th will be the release of both iOS 5 with iCloud support AND the iPhone 4S (plus the other newly price-adjusted iPhone collection) in stores. The three biggest mobile carriers in the USA and Apple have reported that iPhone 4S pre-order stock is sold out, so if you’re going to be amongst those getting one on October 12th, you’re going to have to head to the front-door camp. Meanwhile we expect iOS 5 to be pushed to all other compatible Apple devices sometime this week – hopefully, again, the 12th!

[via AppleInsider]

The news came from Cupertino California today that “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives.” Of course we need no reminder of this, having sat on the edge of our seats at his every word over the past decade and more. “The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”

The announcement of Jobs’ passing went on to note:

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

Apple CEO Tim Cook today sent the following email to all Apple employees:

Team,

I have some very sad news to share with all of you. Steve passed away earlier today.

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

We are planning a celebration of Steve’s extraordinary life for Apple employees that will take place soon. If you would like to share your thoughts, memories and condolences in the interim, you can simply email rememberingsteve@apple.com.

No words can adequately express our sadness at Steve’s death or our gratitude for the opportunity to work with him. We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.

Tim

An undeniably sad day for the world at large, but also a time to reflect on the undeniably massive impact this modern marvel has had on the earth.

Winarsky goes into a little bit of detail on what the iOS 5-standard Assistant app will be holding, and notes that although the original software from Siri does work on handsets as old as the iPhone 3GS, “all kinds of optimizations and shortcuts” had to be made to make it work correctly back then. This newest version, Winarsky says, will run “much better” on the newest-generation iPhone device. “World-Changing” is what Winarsky is saying this newest technology will be, certainly not holding back any punches about what he thinks it’ll mean for technology and computing:

“Make no mistake: Apple’s ‘mainstreaming’ Artificial Intelligence in the form of a Virtual Personal Assistant is a groundbreaking event. I’d go so far as to say it is a World-Changing event. Right now a few people dabble in partial AI enabled apps like Google Voice Actions, Vlingo or Nuance Go. Siri was many iterations ahead of these technologies, or at least it was two years ago. This is REAL AI with REAL market use. If the rumors are true, Apple will enable millions upon millions of people to interact with machines with natural language. The PAL will get things done and this is only the tip of the iceberg. We’re talking another technology revolution. A new computing paradigm shift.” – Winarsky

The video that follows is of the original Siri app, certainly a window into what will be and MORE come the full Apple-centric version this week:

This Virtual Personal Assistant will almost certainly be a main point at tomorrow’s big iPhone event, and you can be sure you’ll get the whole scoop here on SlashGear in the main news feed as well as in our Livecast: Apple “Let’s Talk iPhone” Event – Oct 4th, 2011, starting at 10AM PT. Be there or be square!

[via 9to5mac]

That could well go further in revealing who – if anyone – Psystar’s mysterious backers were. At one point, Apple alleged that it believed the company was being used as a type of front, by a potentially high-profile rival who wanted to see the Cupertino firm’s OS X restrictions lifted. The identity of that backer is yet to be revealed, and Apple hasn’t made public any suspicions it may have.

“Psystar’s principal argument on appeal is that the district court should have held that the license agreement is an unlawful attempt to extend copyright protection to products that are not copyrightable. The heart of Psystar’s argument is that the Copyright Act affords Apple protection only against unauthorized copying and distribution of the operating software, but not on its use once it is purchased. Thus, because Psystar purchased unopened copies of Mac OS X and included these copies when it sold its computers, Psystar argues the Copyright Act is inapplicable and its alterations permissible” Appeals Court text

The judge agreed with Apple that Psystar infringed its “exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works” as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for modifying OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. The full text of the Appeals Court’s findings is here [pdf link].

[via CNET]

The first is the trojan dropper that installs a downloader component while disguising the action by opening up a PDF file. The PDF file contains Chinese characters and is mainly to distract the user as a backdoor program is downloaded and installed on the system. When this happens, it will create a launch agent that keeps the malware active to send the system’s current username and MAC address to a remote server. The server will then instruct it to archive files for upload or to upload screenshots.

At the moment, F-Secure says that the malware doesn’t work very well and appears quite crude. It’s possibly still in the testing phase and could become more advanced. It’s not known yet how the malware is being distributed, but it’s likely through e-mails and underground web sites. Therefore, it’s best to avoid downloading any PDF files from unknown sources.

If you suspect that your Mac may be infected and you do not have a malware scanner, then you should check your Activity Monitor for any processes called “checkvir.” If so, click the red button to stop the activity, quit your Activity Monitor, and proceed to remove the files “checkvir” and “checkflr.plist” from this directory: /username/Library/LaunchAgents/

[via CNET]