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UK bookstores found selling banned US bomb-making handbooks
Three major online retailers in the UK have been listing a number of bomb-making manuals on their websites, according to The Guardian.
Google to 'pause' its Fiber rollout
Google announced on Tuesday that it plans to "pause" the planned expansion of its Fiber high-speed internet service in the 10 cities it had been looking into and will eliminate a number of positions in those cities -- 9 percent of the division's total number of employees, according to Ars Technica.
The sad, frustrating story of crowdfunded products that never ship
When it comes to crowdfunded projects, I have to admit that I'm very lucky. Every project that I've backed -- five in all -- has eventually shipped product. Although some of those products failed to meet my expectations from the Kickstarter or Indiegogo hype, I felt that I paid a fair price for what I eventually received. But what about those projects that you drop your hard-earned bucks on that never make it to your doorstep or desktop? That's the subject of an Ars Technica post by Casey Johnston published yesterday. Johnston highlights some of the more notable crowdfunding disasters, which hopefully none of our astute readers fell victim to. There was MyIDkey (seen above), which nabbed US$473,333 on Kickstarter and a total of $3.5 million of funding. The idea was a USB dongle that stored and displayed login information on a small display. It was even designed to provide voice search for your logins. Instead, the few devices that shipped were buggy and poorly built, and mismanagement resulted in a waste of all $3.5 million of capital on ... nothing. Or how about the Indiegogo project for the Kreyos Smartwatch, a highly-hyped campaign that raised $1.5 million? This project was also a model of mismanagement, mixed with some highly questionable business decisions. A core team of four people was assigned to the project, most of which were part-timers. The company spent the nest egg on a manufacturing relationship with a Chinese company that kept delaying production despite having most of the funding money. The bitter end of the project resulted in a handful of devices actually shipping. Johnston notes that "In the end, the few Kreyos watches that shipped met few of the team's original goals: they were not at all waterproof, they batteries did not last the promised amount of time, and the firmware was buggy." The company ran out of money after a handful of refunds were made, leaving many backers with nothing for their investment. The road to success is littered with a number of ugly carcasses, and Johnston says that although there is no recourse available directly from the crowdfunding sites, the terms and conditions place the final onus on the project creators. Sadly, there are very few cases where disgruntled backers have been able to recoup money from failed projects. The bottom line? If you back a project, go into it with your eyes wide open and with the realization that you may never receive the promised product.
PSA: iOS 8 is going to make your iPhone 4s a good bit slower
When iOS 7 launched, those with an iPhone 4s took issue with the slower application launches and hampered battery life, and at least one of those issues is going to get even worse with an upgrade to iOS 8. Ars Technica put the stopwatch to an iPhone 4s running the gold master of iOS 8 (the version you'll be able to download today), and the numbers aren't pretty. Almost everything tested is significantly slower with the new update, but the Calendar, Mail, and Safari apps are hit the hardest. The iPhone 4s also won't be getting the benefits of the Metal API -- the new graphics framework designed to enhance iOS game performance -- which is going to be a bummer for anyone who uses their phone for gaming. This kind of thing isn't new, and with every new release of iOS 8 the oldest supported device regularly experiences some performance issues. The iPhone 4s is three years old at this point, and while iOS 8 is still a good upgrade for the aging phone (it adds both third party keyboard support and widgets, after all), the price you pay for sticking with old hardware will always be dwindling performance. [Chart via Ars Technica]
Steam sales data shows that you don't play the games you buy
I am not ashamed to admit that I have taken advantage of Steam sales and Humble Bundles to amass a library of roughly 150 games for a fraction of the retail price. I am, however, ashamed to admit that I've only actually played about one-third of them (and that's probably being generous). Apparently, I'm far from alone. According to Ars Technica, just shy of 37 percent of registered titles have never been played. The site figured out a way to measure both the sales and number of hours a game is played through Valve's digital store. That's a huge deal when you're talking about an industry that avoids giving out concrete numbers at all costs. While the method used for collecting the data is Steam-specific and won't work for the entire industry, it still provides valuable insight into one of the largest game retailers in the world.
MacTech Conference offers TUAW reader pricing
You know how you see TUAW staffers on the ground at various conferences? Well here's another to add to the list: TUAW is once again sponsoring the MacTech Conference, and as in the past, you can find some of us in attendance. If you haven't checked out MacTech Conference 2013, this year's speaker lineup is (as usual) fantastic -- including keynote speaker Jacqui Cheng from Ars Technica, and an incredible cast of IT leaders, as well as developers from around the world. Not to brag, but I've made it on the speaker list too, so you can hear me talk about things in person instead of on a podcast! This year's event has not only a new venue, but also an expanded schedule, a wide array of pre-conference workshops, more sessions, more labs, more certifications and a new Vendor Forum. Here are the two most important things to know about MacTech: You've heard me talk about the "hallway track" at conferences, and particularly for developers and IT folks, this hallway track is second to none. So not only do you get to hang out and chat with awesome attendees, but you also get to do it over some of the finest food available at any conference I've attended. Organizer Neil Ticktin has said on more than one occasion, "You will never walk away hungry from a MacTech event." Truly, if you are hungry at MacTech, you are actively doing it wrong. Not only is the conference full of great material, but also this year, MacTech has added four full-day pre-conference workshops. They are: iOS Development 101 by RayWenderlich.com; Mastering Auto Layout for developers by Rich Warren; The Automation Mindset-Scripting, Command Line, and More by Scott Neal; and iOS Mobility Solutions by Russell Poucher. Pricing for the pre-conference workshops is currently US$299, and includes lunch. Early Bird pricing of $999 for the three-day conference will end Monday, September 30. However, as a TUAW reader, you can save an extra $100 -- but you need to act quick. Discounted hotel guest rooms are selling out fast, and you don't want to miss out!
Your Mac's connection to Harry Potter
The next time you wish to hack into a Mac, it may help to grab your wand and book of spells. At the NoSuchCon security conference this week, security architect Alex Ionescu presented a talk where he revealed that special undocumented code on a Mac's SMC (system management controller) can be invoked by entering a secret spell used in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. That spell is "SpecialisRevelio," the words used by a wizard to "reveal charms and hexes that have been cast onto a target" or "reveal the ingredients of a potion." In an Ars Technica post about the secret spell, blogger Dan Goodin notes, "While most details are far too technical for this article, the gist of the research is that the SMC is a chip that very few people can read, but just about anyone with rudimentary technical skills can 'flash' update." One of the possible attacks that Ionescu pointed out is infecting the SMC with code to pull out the FileVault key used to encrypt a Mac drive, although to implement this, an attacker would have to know details of the Mac like the model, year and screen size in advance. Much more likely attacks provided by the spell backdoor include marking targets. The SMC could be programmed to emit audible or visual alerts through the fans or LED displays, which could point out a specific Mac to an attacker. A Mac could even be programmed to turn off at a certain time and refuse to boot again. There's good news in all of this scary talk: to reflash the firmware an attacker has to have physical access to the Mac. Ionescu also reported that many of the SMC security holes were plugged in OS X Mountain Lion. A full copy of the presentation can be downloaded here (PDF file).
Early iPhone prototype with 5x7-inch display
Most leaked iPhone prototypes have been run-of-the-mill devices that resemble the iPhone we know and love. This latest leak from Ars Technica reveals the tablet roots of our favorite smartphone. These prototype images originated from 2005 and show an iPhone with a 5 x 7-inch display and a variety of tacked-on ports that were used in testing. As you can see in the image above, it's a Frankenstein-like device that looks more like an iPad than an iPhone. You can read more about the prototype device and peruse a few more images on Ars Technica's website.
Does Apple test the loyalty of new engineers with fake projects?
Let's get the answer to this question out of the way quickly -- no, Apple does not test the loyalty of new engineers with fake projects. Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica looked into the veracity of a rumor that was given life by author Adam Lishinsky's book Inside Apple, which posited that some employees were "hired into so-called dummy positions, roles that aren't explained in detail until after they join the company." Later on, Lashinsky spoke about the book during a presentation at LinkedIn, and an audience member claimed that a friend had worked for nine months on "fake products" at Apple before moving to a "real" project. This claim, which was captured on video and widely reported by the Apple media, took on a life as a fact. Cheng said that several of her friends who are Apple employees were dubious about the claim, so she interviewed current and former Apple engineers and found that none of them had ever been assigned to a faux project. One engineer came right out and told Cheng "I find it suspect that they'd ever waste their own and the employee's time on something that didn't directly contribute to their bottom line somehow." An employee currently working at Apple told Cheng that "It's a lot easier to have someone sign an NDA and then fire them if they violate it." So Cheng went to the source, Adam Lashinsky, who said that he never meant to imply that he was talking about fake projects. "The concept I was trying to describe might best be worded as 'placeholder' positions or 'unspecified' projects," explained Lashinsky. As for the audience member at LinkedIn, it was more likely that his friend was assigned to an experimental project that never worked out and was eventually canceled. With Cheng's post, we can hopefully put yet another stupid Apple rumor to rest.
Ars publishes old-school iTunes image gallery
In honor of the 12th birthday of iTunes, Ars Technica Senior Apple Editor Jacqui Cheng has published a photographic family tree of sorts showing the app (and its predecessor SoundJam) through its various incarnations. It's an amazing trip down memory lane and demonstrates how even how the iTunes 11 MiniPlayer owes a bit of its design to the SoundJam app of pre-OS X days. What was the first version of iTunes you remember using? I managed to hold out until iTunes 2, which I used with my first iPod. Leave your favorite (or least-favorite) iTunes memory in the comments.
Ars Technica chronicles the history of iTunes
Provided that Apple doesn't decide to delay the release of iTunes 11 until December, the newest iteration of the music/video player/sync tool/store application should be popping out of Cupertino by Friday. iTunes has been around since January 2001, and Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica has done a wonderful job of chronicling the history of the iTunes app since that time. Cheng notes that when iTunes 1.0 first hit Macs, Apple hadn't even released the first iPod. At the time, the app was used to rip CDs, let you create your own playlists, and then burn mix CDs of your own. Ten months after the first release of iTunes, version 2.0 shipped along with the iPod. It wasn't until iTunes 4.0 that we had our first chance at purchasing music with the app, and music videos didn't arrive on the scene until iTunes 6.0 in October of 2005. Movies showed up with 7.0, the iTunes Genius with 8.0, and home sharing with 9.0. Do any of us remember what the big marquee feature of iTunes 10.0 was? Ping, the social network that nobody used. Cheng finishes off her history of iTunes with a peek at what to expect this week (or next month) when iTunes 11 finally appears. "So what makes the next version of iTunes so great? For one, it has a revamped UI meant to provide a more themed experience when listening to albums. It also has better integration with iCloud, which now automatically downloads your iOS device purchases directly to your iTunes library on the computer. And finally, iTunes can pick up on a movie where you left off on your iPhone or iPad. Oh, and did we mention the redesigned Mini Player?" We'll let you know when iTunes 11 gets here, so visit TUAW frequently this week until you get the word.
Ars reviews the new iPad: "power to spare"
While there has been plenty of press about the iPad mini, not many blogs seems to be paying attention to the faster, full-sized fourth-generation iPad that was announced at the same time. Chris Foresman at Ars Technica took on the challenge of running the new iPad through its paces, and found that although the device has "processing power to spare," not many apps currently take advantage of the speedy A6X processor's capabilities. The review found that the exterior design is virtually identical to its predecessor, with the sole change being the replacement of the 30-pin Dock connector with the new Lightning connector. But it's the interior components that make the new iPad the powerful top-of-the-line beast that it is. As noted in the post, the front-facing camera now shoots 1.2 MP still images (720p video) and the LTE radios in the cellular-capable models now work in most countries with LTE service. Foresman notes the GPU in the device's A6X system-on-a-chip has been supercharged by using four Imagination Technologies SGX543 GPU cores running at a faster clock speed. Ars used Geekbench 2.3.6 to compare the fourth-generation iPad with its predecessor, and found that the score more than doubled from 758 for the third-generation to 1,770 for the fourth-gen device. Not many games or other GPU-intensive apps are optimized for the A6X, however, and the bottom line from Ars is "we feel most current iPad 3 owners don't need to rush out and upgrade to an iPad 4." What's your take on the "need for speed"? Do you plan on waiting for the next generation iPad, or have you already purchased or ordered a fourth-generation device?
Want to Roll-Your-Own Fusion drive? It's not for the faint of heart
If you've been lusting after a Fusion Drive but own an older Mac, a Fusion-like solution may not be entirely out of your reach. Posts at the jollyjinx tumblr detail how the eponymous hacker built his own Fusion-style SSD/Hard Drive hybrid using features built directly into OS X. Lee Hutchinson over at Ars Technica explains the technology behind this, discussing how Core Storage (first introduced in Lion) can tie two devices together into a single logical volume. If you're interested in the fundamentals that power Fusion, both Hutchinson's post and jollyjinx's write-ups (Fusion drive on older Macs, More on BYO Fusion Drive, Fusion Drive Loose Ends) offer absolutely fascinating reads. As for me, I'm just going to use the Apple-built version that should arrive on November 6, according to my shipping statement. If you have a spare Mac with an internal SSD and end up trying this all out, please let us know how it worked for you.
Daily Update for May 31, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Ars looks at 25 years of HyperCard
Ars Technica has a wonderful writeup today about Apple's HyperCard, which would soon be celebrating its 25th birthday if it was still around. HyperCard was a wonderful tool; it provided a way for non-programmers to link "cards" of information with simple scripts and a variety of common Mac user interface elements. A button could play a sound, link to another card, or even perform calculations, so it was everyman's way of creating "stacks" of cards that could do amazing things. How important was HyperCard to the world? Although we don't hear much about it today, it was the first implementation of what Ted Nelson proposed as early as 1960 as "hypertext." Many of the early Web browsers borrowed heavily from the design and functionality of HyperCard, with Mosaic and Netscape being the progenitors of today's modern browsers. HyperCard was developed by original Mac team member Bill Atkinson and made it to market in 1987. Reading blogger Matthew Lasar's writeup on HyperCard brought back many memories for me. I can recall attending a seminar at an Apple office in Denver about HyperCard and its core scripting language, HyperTalk, shortly after its release. Author Danny Goodman ran the seminar and copies of his "Complete HyperCard Handbook" were handed out to everyone in attendance. That quickly became my favorite reference, and I began to create HyperCard stacks by the dozen. I actually made money selling HyperCard stacks through Heizer Software's "Stack Exchange," where I sold a variety of reference stacks I had created. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, I gave a number of talks at the Institute of Gas Technology's annual Chicago IT conference talking about the use of hypertext and HyperCard in business. While HyperCard hasn't been included with Macs for quite a long time (it used to come on a set of three floppies with every new machine), its descendants live on. The World Wide Web, SuperCard, and RunRev all owe a lot to Bill Atkinson's brainchild.
Ars explores music "mastered for iTunes"
Ars Technica's Infinite Loop blogger Chris Foresman took a detailed look into the world of modern sound engineering to determine if Apple's Mastered for iTunes program really does improve sound quality of songs that are remastered. The answer to the question of what sounds better ends up being as varied as the opinions of the sound engineers Foresman talked to. Recording engineer Ian Shepard told CE Pro that the process of mastering audio files for iTunes to make them sound more CD-like was "BS" and that Mastered for iTunes is just "marketing hype." Foresman enlisted the assistance of two engineers from Chicago Mastering Service who were initially skeptical about improving the sound quality of the digital files, but came away with the conclusion that "it absolutely is possible to improve the quality of compressed iTunes Plus tracks with a little bit of work, that Apple's improved compression process does result in a better sound, and that 24/96 files aren't a good format for consumers." We won't divulge all of the processes that Foresman and the sound engineers went through, but the results were fascinating. In the end, though, it all boils down to how the iTunes listener hears the music. To quote Scott Hull, the CEO of sound studio Masterdisk, "The end consumer doesn't listen like an objective scientist or robot; the end consumer listens one hundred percent emotionally."
The iPad as an IT professional's tool
John Welch over at Ars Technica wrote a wonderful post about using an iPad as a system administrator's tool, noting that Apple's tablet is "an addition, not a replacement" to the many tools that IT pros currently use to complete their daily tasks. Welch brings up points that I discovered when I first started taking my iPad along on client visits -- the size is right, the battery life is wonderful, and it's much more handy than a laptop or an iPhone. Note-taking, for example, is much easier to accomplish on the iPad, and it's possible to prop up the iPad for easy reading at a distance instead of squinting at a small screen. Welch notes that he's able to easily analyze data from Cacti or Nagios with just a glance, keeping an eye on how things are doing. With Welch's iPad, there's no waiting for a laptop to start up every morning. Most devices can be monitored in the aforementioned Web-based systems, he has email to catch messages about systems going down, and once a problem is found, he can "get a lot done over SSH." Welch uses Prompt (US$7.99) as his SSH client of choice, perfect for logging into Mac or Linux servers and desktop machines. For other sysadmin tasks, Welch has some concerns. There's no iPad analogue to Apple Remote Desktop, for example, although Windows network admins have a wonderful tool available in WinAdmin ($7.99). Apple hasn't released any management tools for Mac OS X Server that run on the iPad, but there are some limited third-party tools available such as Server Admin Remote ($9.99). Still, there's a good-sized market for sysadmin tools for the iPad, and if Apple doesn't step up to the plate to deliver them, Welch hopes that third-party developers will. If you're a system administrator who uses an iPad regularly at work, let us know in the comments what tools you use or would like to see.
Macs are being spied on just like Windows machines
Any tech savvy Windows user is familiar with the term backdoor trojan; either they've been infected with one themselves or know someone who has. Now, it's time for Mac users, especially those who work for entities that are targets for corporate or military espionage, to become more aware of this threat says a report in Ars Technica. According to Ars who spoke to Jaime Blasco of security firm Alien Vault, two backdoor trojans that infect Mac computers have been discovered in the wild. These trojans target the employees of several non-governmental, pro-Tibetan organizations and exploit a security hole in Microsoft Office and Oracle's Java framework. The holes have been patched, but apparently the security fixes closing them were not applied in this infection. Once installed, the trojans send user and domain information to a central server owned by the people who created the malware. The trojans then sit in the background awaiting instructions. This is only one report of such targeted attacks, but Blasco believes this won't be last. As companies and governments move from Windows to Macs to avoid security problems with Windows, it only makes sense that Macs will become the next target.
Apple keeps your iCloud data safe
Now that Apple is asking us to entrust our address books, calendars, files, photos, music and more to iCloud, many Mac and iOS users might be asking the question: "Is it safe?" Chris Foresman over at Ars Technica looked into the security of iCloud and concluded that "The simple answer is that your data is at least as safe as it is when stored on any remote server, if not more so." All of your data is transmitted to and from Apple's servers in an encrypted format, using secure sockets layer (SSL) via WebDav, IMAP, and HTTP. And all of the data is encrypted on disk on Apple's servers -- except for email and notes. Email isn't encrypted, according to Foresman, for performance reasons that include features like searching messages on the server. That's something that Mail.app and Apple's servers do very well. Notes are currently synced on Mac OS X via Mail, but with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion adding a separate Notes app, encryption may finally come to your private Notes. Apple didn't tell Ars exactly what methods they use to encrypt data on disk, but believes that they're using "some type of file-system encryption that is decrypted on the fly when requested from an authenticated device or computer." OS X may be using the PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function) standard recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and if this is also being used to generate the secure tokens for accessing iCloud, then your data is very safe. How safe? Foresman notes that "Assuming Apple is generating keys that are more than 64 bits in length, the chances of someone brute-forcing the key and decrypting the data within a lifetime are slim to none." While Apple's email service is currently not as secure as the rest of the iCloud services, Foresman does mention that you can use standard S/MIME encryption like PGP to insure secure email service.
Daily Update for March 2, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
