Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced two new iMacs at the start of an event held this morning (Tuesday 8/7/07) at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

The latest iMacs are a 20 inch and 24 inch model, both made from aluminum and glass and come with the new keyboard featured in my previous post here. The new iMacs along with the new keyboard are much much thinner than the previous versions. Both of these iMacs are now available from the Apple Store.

The specs:
20 Inch Version:

• $1,199
• 20-inch, 1680 x 1050 LCD
• 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1GB RAM
• 250GB SATA
• 8x SuperDrive
• ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT

20 Inch Version Souped Up:

• $1,499
• 20-inch, 1680 x 1050 LCD
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1GB RAM
• 320GB SATA
• 8x SuperDrive
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro

24 Inch Version:

• $1,799
• 24-inch, 1900 x 1200 LCD
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1GB RAM
• 320GB SATA
• 8x SuperDrive
• ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro

The $599.00 80GB Sony PlayStation 3 is now available for sale online in North America. Sony didn’t previously give us a date or anything, but it looks like GameStop / EB Games is stocking the $599 80GB console (bundled with MotorStorm), and claims shipment in 24 hours. Here it is on the EB Games website.

So we’ve all grown to love our nifty lil iPhones.  They can make phone calls, play your music and videos, let you surf the web and allow you to watch Youtube videos, and a whole lot more.  But the question is…will it blend?

Well the curious guys over at WillItBlend.com put it to the test.  Click here to watch the video.

The guys over at Engadget have received images of the rumored new iMac keyoard. It looks pretty slick.

Click here to check out the pics.

So you win a PS2 on eBay, make the payment to the seller, and a few days later a box arrives at your house. But to this kid’s amazement, instead of a PS2 it was a box full of cash…lots of cash! $$$ If this happened to you, what would you do? Stay quiet and keep the cash, living with the fear that someone may show up looking for their 90 grand at your doorstep, or keep the 90k and move out of town!

A British teenager who bought a Sony PlayStation 2 on eBay for £95 ($194) got more than he bargained for when he opened the package. Instead of a shiny, happy gaming console, there was a whole heap of euros – €65,400 ($90,000) to be precise—stacked neatly inside. A spokesman for eBay said that the parcel’s contents were “somewhat unusual,” but that they would help the police in any way they could. When the parcel arrived, on March 20, the boy’s parents contacted the Norfolk Constabulary, who are now holding the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act. If the owner does not come forward by September 22, then the family can apply to have the cash returned to them—unless the police apply to hold onto the money for a longer period.

A couple of weeks after Microsofts announcement to spend $1 Billion to fix defective XBox 360s, the sales of new 360 units have drastically declined.

Microsoft said it shipped 700,000 Xbox 360 units in its latest fiscal quarter, compared to 1.8 million in the same quarter in 2006.
Microsoft’s growing troubles with the Xbox 360 video game console appear to be catching up to the company. Sales of the gaming machine plunged 60% in the fiscal fourth quarter, Microsoft disclosed Thursday.

In its earnings statement for the quarter, Microsoft said it shipped 700,000 Xbox 360 units during the period, compared to 1.8 million in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2006 — a fall off of 61%.

Microsoft’s Xbox operations are housed within the company’s Entertainment and Devices Division. The group saw fourth quarter revenue drop 10% year-over-year to $1.16 billion on an operating loss of $1.20 billion. The group lost $423 million the previous year.

Microsoft blamed the 183% increase in the EDD operating loss on a $1.06 billion charge against earnings that the company incurred to cover the cost of extending the warranty period for the Xbox 360 to three years. The move came following Microsoft’s recent admission that the gaming system was suffering from an “unacceptable” number of general hardware failures. Microsoft has also been hit with two class action lawsuits in the past two weeks claiming that a design flaw in the Xbox 360 causes the system to irreparably scratch game discs. Microsoft has denied the claim.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that Xbox chief Peter Moore was leaving the company “for personal reasons.” It was later disclosed that he had jumped ship to video game publisher Electronic Arts.

In the meantime, rivals Sony and Nintendo have been stepping up competitive efforts. Sony recently announced a $100 price cut on certain PlayStation 3 units while Nintendo continues to enjoy robust sales of its new Wii system.

Microsoft introduced the Xbox 360 in November 2005. It has since shipped 11.6 million of the consoles. The company is doubtless looking forward to the holiday 2007 season and hoping that new game releases like Halo 3 revive the Xbox 360’s flagging fortunes. Microsoft on Thursday said overall profits in the fourth quarter increased 7% to $3 billion, while revenue increased 13% to $13.4 billion.

Hackers have found a way to hack into the iPhone using exploits via the built in Safari browser:

Source: New York Times

A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in Apple’s wildly popular iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.

The researchers, working for Independent Security Evaluators, a company that tests its clients’ computer security by hacking it, said that they could take control of iPhones through a WiFi connection or by tricking users into going to a Web site that contains malicious code. The hack, the first reported, allowed them to tap the wealth of personal information the phones contain.

Although Apple built considerable security measures into its device, said Charles A. Miller, the principal security analyst for the firm, “Once you did manage to find a hole, you were in complete control.” The firm, based in Baltimore, alerted Apple about the vulnerability this week and recommended a software patch that could solve the problem.

A spokeswoman for Apple, Lynn Fox, said, “Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users.”

“We’re looking into the report submitted by I.S.E. and always welcome feedback on how to improve our security,” she said.

There is no evidence that this flaw had been exploited or that users had been affected.

Dr. Miller, a former employee of the National Security Agency who has a doctorate in computer science, demonstrated the hack to a reporter by using his iPhone’s Web browser to visit a Web site of his own design.

Once he was there, the site injected a bit of code into the iPhone that then took over the phone. The phone promptly followed instructions to transmit a set of files to the attacking computer that included recent text messages — including one that had been sent to the reporter’s cellphone moments before — as well as telephone contacts and e-mail addresses.

“We can get any file we want,” he said. Potentially, he added, the attack could be used to program the phone to make calls, running up large bills or even turning it into a portable bugging device.

Steven M. Bellovin, a professor of computer science at Columbia University, said, “This looks like a very genuine hack.” Mr. Bellovin, who was for many years a computer security expert at AT&T Labs Research, said the vulnerability of the iPhone was an inevitable result of the long-anticipated convergence of computing and telephony.

“We’ve been hearing for a few years now that viruses and worms were going to be a problem on cellphones as they became a little more powerful, and we’re there,” he said. The iPhone is a full-fledged computer, he noted, “and sure enough, it’s got computer-grade problems.”

He said he suspected that phones based on the Windows mobile operating system would be similarly “attackable,” though he had not yet heard of any attacks.

“It’s not the end of the world; it’s not the end of the iPhone,” he said, any more than the regular revelations of vulnerabilities in computer browser software have killed off computing. “It is a sign that you cannot let down your guard. It is a sign that we need to build software and systems better.”

Details on the vulnerability, but not a step-by-step guide to hacking the phone, can be found at www.exploitingiphone.com, which the researchers said would be unveiled today.

Hackers around the world have been trying to unveil the secrets of the iPhone since its release last month; most have focused their efforts on unlocking the phone from its sole wireless provider, AT&T, and getting unauthorized programs to run on it. The iPhone is a closed system that cannot accept outside programs and can be used only with the AT&T wireless network.

Some of those hackers have posted bulletins of their progress on the Web. A posting went up on Friday that a hacker going by the name of “Nightwatch” had created and started an independent program on the phone.

The Independent Security Evaluators researchers were able to crack the phone’s software in a week, said Aviel D. Rubin, the firm’s founder and the technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Rubin, who bought an iPhone the day after the cellphone was released, said in an interview that he had approached three colleagues, Dr. Miller, Joshua Mason and Jake Honoroff, and offered them an enticing prize if they would try to crack the iPhone. “I told the guys I would buy them iPhones.”

Dr. Miller had already been exploring weaknesses in the computer versions of Safari, Apple’s Web browser, and was planning to reveal that vulnerability, a relatively common kind of flaw known as a buffer overflow, at the Black Hat computer security conference next month. Dr. Miller instantly thought to see whether the phone, which uses a version of Safari, would be as vulnerable.

Mr. Rubin said the research was not intended to show that the iPhone was necessarily more vulnerable to hacking than other phones, or that Apple products were less secure than those from other companies. “Anything as complex as a computer — which is what this phone is — is going to have vulnerabilities,” he said.

There are far more viruses, worms and other malicious software affecting Windows systems than Apple systems. But Mr. Rubin said that Apple products have drawn fewer attacks because the computers have fewer users, and hackers reach for the greatest impact.

“Windows gets hacked all the time not because it is more insecure than Apple, but because 95 percent of computer users are on Windows,” he said. “The other 5 percent have enjoyed a honeymoon that will eventually come to an end.”

The iPhone is becoming a victim of its own success, he said. “The irony is that the more popular something is, the more insecure it becomes, because popularity paints a large target on its back.”

Mr. Rubin said his goal was to discover vulnerabilities and warn of them so that companies would strengthen their products and consumers would not be lulled into thinking that the technology they use was completely secure.

Mr. Rubin said, “I will think twice before getting on a random public WiFi network now,” but his overall opinion of the phone has not changed.

“You’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands to get it away from me,” he said.

So if you’ve been holding off or waiting to get in on the $100 price cut for the 60GB Sony Play Station 3, you need to act fast. Reports are coming in that it’s going to be a case of once they’re gone they’re gone. Meaning, whatever the retailiers have in stock right now of the 60GBs PS3’s is all that they will get.

That’s according to SCEE President David Reeves, who told GamesIndustry.biz that Sony would no longer be offering the 60GB PS3 in the US once the existing stock runs out — something he expects to happen “by the end of July.” What’s more, Sony also revealed that the 60GB PS3 would not be getting a price cut in Europe, but would be getting a new bundle with two games and two controllers for no added cost — still no word on an 80GB PS3 for Europe though.

Looking to add custom ringtones to your new iPhone. Here’s a step by step guide on how to do it. The instructions make use of both the iPhoneInterface and jailbreak hacks which opened up full access to the iPhone’s UI and filesystem. Unfortunately, the former only works on the Intel-based Macs at the moment.

The instructions (23 steps) can be found here: http://www.hacktheiphone.com/iphone_ringtone_installation.html

Becareful with your iPods while out in a thunderstorm during lightning!! Read….

Lightning Strikes Reported by iPod Users

By LINDA A. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer 

Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player’s wires.

Last summer, a Colorado teen ended up with similar injuries when lightning struck nearby as he was listening to his iPod while mowing the lawn.

Emergency physicians report treating other patients with burns from freak accidents while using personal electronic devices such as beepers, Walkman players and laptop computers outdoors during storms.

Michael Utley, a former stockbroker from West Yarmouth, Mass., who survived being struck by lightning while golfing, has tracked 13 cases since 2004 of people hit while talking on cell phones. They are described on his Web site, http://www.struckbylightning.org .

Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don’t attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.

“It’s going to hit where it’s going to hit, but once it contacts metal, the metal conducts the electricity,” said Dr. Mary Ann Cooper of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an ER doctor at University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago.

When lightning jumps from a nearby object to a person, it often flashes over the skin. But metal in electronic devices – or metal jewelry or coins in a pocket – can cause contact burns and exacerbate the damage.

A spokeswoman for Apple Inc., the maker of iPods, declined to comment. Packaging for iPods and some other music players do include warnings against using them in the rain.

Lightning strikes can occur even if a storm is many miles away, so lightning safety experts have been pushing the slogan “When thunder roars, go indoors,” said Cooper.

Jason Bunch, 18, says it wasn’t even raining last July, but there was a storm off in the distance. Lightning struck a nearby tree, shot off and hit him.

Bunch, who was listening to Metallica while mowing the grass at his home in Castle Rock, Colo., still has mild hearing damage in both ears, despite two reconstructive surgeries to repair ruptured eardrums. He had burns from the earphone wires on the sides of his face, a nasty burn on his hip where the iPod had been in a pocket and “a bad line up the side of my body,” even though the iPod cord was outside his shirt.

“It was a real miracle” he survived, said his mother, Kelly Risheill.

The Canadian jogger suffered worse injuries, according to a report in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

The man, a 39-year-old dentist from the Vancouver area, was listening to an iPod while jogging in a thunderstorm when, according to witnesses, lightning hit a tree a couple of feet away and jumped to his body. The strike threw the man about eight feet and caused second-degree burns on his chest and left leg.

The electric current left red burn lines running from where the iPod had been strapped to his chest up the sides of his neck. It ruptured both ear drums, dislocated tiny ear bones that transmit sound waves, and broke the man’s jaw in four places, said Dr. Eric Heffernan, an imaging specialist at Vancouver General Hospital.

The injury happened two summers ago and despite treatment, the man still has less than 50 percent of normal hearing on each side, must wear hearing aids and can’t hear high-pitched sounds.

“He’s a part-time musician, so that’s kind of messed up his hobby as well,” Heffernan said.

Like the Colorado teen, the Canadian patient, who declined to be interviewed or identified, has no memory of the lightning strike.

In another case a few years ago, electric current from a lightning strike ran through a man’s pager, burning both him and his girlfriend who was leaning against him, said Dr. Vince Mosesso, an emergency doctor at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Eardrum ruptures are considered the most common ear injury in lightning-strike victims, occurring in 5 percent to 50 percent of patients, according to various estimates – whether or not an electronic device is involved. A broken jaw is rare, doctors say.