Stefan Magdalinski is now the front-runner in the “Guy of the Year” award for buying his wife a chocolate-covered iPad for her birthday, which he managed to get sent to South Africa.
Knowing that his beloved, @kerrching, really wanted an iPad for her birthday, Magdalinski reached out to some friends in London who were not only able to get him an iPad (it’s not yet available in South Africa), but were also able to coat it and freeze it in chocolate.
The results, we think, speak for themselves. The iPad is still in perfect condition and the chocolate coating is an extra layer of thoughtful kindness — and sweetness.
Graffiti wasn’t always recognized as an art form, nor were its practitioners recognized as artists. What once began as a criminalized and illicit activity is now gaining traction as an art form, and with that comes the inevitable shift to the virtual realm.
Graffiti artist Phetus recently created a spray can app for the iPad, which went on to garner over a million downloads in less than a month, and hit number one in the “entertainment” category on iTunes in numerous countries.
What is it about graffiti that’s causing a buzz in the virtual realm? Is it safer to do it online? Has it become more acceptable if it isn’t in your face?
Earlier this week, police arrested two men in Arizona for attempting to trade a third generation iPod touch and about seven grams worth of marijuana for a 32G iPad via an ad on Craiglist, a local ABC station reports.
After receiving a tip about the ad, which included photos of both the iPod touch and marijuana (see below), police officers sent an e-mail purporting to be interested in the exchange. When the police met up under the pretense of completing the trade, 20-year-olds Jacob Walker and Jacob Veldare were instead arrested when Walker offered up the marijuana. Both now face charges for possession and the attempted sale of an illegal substance.
Not only were the two unwise enough to post pictures of marijuana on Craiglist, but they were also gullible enough to believe that anyone would trade a 32G iPad, which costs $599 for the Wi-Fi version and $729.00 for the 3G version, for a $299 32G iPod touch and a quarter ounce of marijuana of dubious quality.
According to Reddit’s blog, the site’s official Gmail account – reddit@gmail.com – has been broken into. Luckily, it’s just an account for feedback email, so no user data or confidential information has been compromised. Following the security breach, Reddit has changed the feedback email to reddit@reddit.com.
From the blog: “We’re in contact with both google’s and twitter’s security team, and the site has not been broken into. All he’s done at this point is ruined everyone’s night. We don’t recycle passwords, and we don’t store passwords in the reddit email. No one’s account has been compromised. We don’t store any confidential information in that account; it is just for feedback email.”
Notice the part where it says that Reddit contacted Twitter’s security team? Yup, Reddit’s Twitter account was linked to the Gmail account, and it also got compromised, but Reddit has recovered it and deleted the tweets posted by the hacker(s).
Of course, the story about the breach reached the top of Reddit, as well, and one commenter asks an interesting question: Why does Reddit use a Gmail account for this purpose, anyway? One of the site’s moderators answers: “When we were much, much smaller (no mail server, etc) it was the easiest way for several people to get to the feedback account at the same time, and it stuck.”
So there you have it: as the company grows, it should continually update its security practices, otherwise it might find that certain solutions, that were good enough a couple of years ago, simply don’t cut it anymore.
One of the most exciting announcements from WWDC today was iOS 4, the iPhone’s new operating system.
The OS, which contains around 100 new and upgraded features, will be rolled out with the new iPhone 4 next month, and it will also be available as a free software update on earlier devices, including the iPad, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and second and third generation iPod touch with 32GB or 64GB storage.
In his keynote address, Steve Jobs chose to highlight a select few of the iOS’s new features, including multitasking, iBooks, advertising and file management. But there wasn’t enough time to cover all the upgrades and improvements. Some of iOS 4’s features that slipped under the radar include app gifting, wireless keyboard support and many others.
We first learned about iOS 4 back in April. At that point, we knew multitasking would be coming to the iPhone “in a way that doesn’t hinder performance or battery life.” Today, Jobs confirmed and demonstrated services such as Pandora (Pandora) and navigation running in the background while other apps were also running in the foreground.
Two other hotly anticipated upgrades for iOS 4 are the Mail app’s major facelift and the all-new app organization functionality.
Now, users can organize their iPhone apps into separate folders for better organization and easy access. iOS 4 will be able to manage up to 2160 applications on a device. Folders will feature the familiar drag-and-drop functionality that Apple device users know and love.
Email on the iPhone is also getting a major overhaul in iOS 4. You’ll be able to view messages from all your accounts in a single, integrated inbox. Messages will be threaded, and you’ll be able to open attachments using third-party apps, as well.
Apple made some significant announcements for multimedia functionality, too. iOS 4 will support custom playlist creation for iTunes, tap-to-focus video, 5x zoom for camera functions, and a Photos feature called “Faces and Places,” which allows users to sort and view photos based on where they were taken and who appears in them.
Finally, applications can now be gifted to friends and family, the background wallpaper on your home screen can be easily changed, a spell-checker has been built into Mail and other apps, and Bluetooth (Bluetooth)-enabled wireless keyboards will now play nicely with the operating system.
After recent rumors that Google is internally abandoning Windows and switching to Linux because of security concerns, Microsoft fires back at critics, claiming it’s doing more than its competitors when it comes to security.
“When it comes to security, even hackers admit we’re doing a better job making our products more secure than anyone else. And it’s not just the hackers; third party influentials and industry leaders like Cisco tell us regularly that our focus and investment continues to surpass others,” Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc says in a blog post.
He also lists some facts to support his claim, citing several security improvements in Windows (Windows) 7, like Parental Controls, Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), BitLocker disc encryption and an enhanced Windows Firewall. Furthermore, Microsoft ships software and security updates “as soon as possible through Windows Update and Microsoft Update to keep our customers safe,” he says.
LeBlanc is, however, careful not to say (at least not outright) that Windows 7 is the most secure OS out there. The reason is simple: Microsoft’s Windows operating systems have historically had far more security-related issues than, say, Mac OS.
It all boils down to the old question: Are hackers and malware writers targeting Windows because it’s not secure enough, or because it’s the biggest target out there? It’s a very tough question to answer, and while Microsoft’s attitude towards security has improved tremendously in recent years, critics will continue to use this argument against it. Who would have thought that having a 91% share of the OS market has its downsides?
After two years and multiple iterations, Bing Cashback is being shut down due to a lack of adoption.
Cashback first launched in May 2008 as Live Search CashBack. The program was simple: search for deals using Microsoft’s search engine. Buy products from search results with the coin icon and you received a bit of cash back from your purchase. It gained some traction after it launched, enough that Microsoft brought the program to Bing.
However, Cashback hasn’t picked up in popularity like Microsoft hoped. In a blog post earlier today, the company announced that it is nixing the program:
“In lots of ways, this was a great feature – we had over a thousand merchant partners delivering great offers to customers and seeing great ROI on their campaigns, and we were taking some of the advertising revenue and giving it back to customers. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for.
So we are taking all the learning from the effort and putting it into some new programs for you and our advertisers designed to provide amazing shopping experiences for consumers and great opportunities for advertisers. ”
Bing Cashback will remain operational until July 30th. After that, the program will be shut down, although Cashback users will have a full year to redeem their rewards.
The idea was solid one — offer incentives for searchers to buy through Bing’s (Bing) partners — but it just never picked up steam. As some have pointed out, things could have been different if Microsoft had tried something like group buying, which has become a multi-billion-dollar trend.
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