News

This is not a formal review. It's not even a quick look review. Rather, it's my first-blush reaction to Firefox 29. My readers know that I have been a big fan of Mozilla's Firefox for a long time. The reason is so eloquently and perfectly summarized by Jack Schofield at ZDNet that I won't even…

______________________ First of all, it's important to realize that the Chitika tablet data that Tim Cook referenced is based on a specific methodology. “All Chitika ad impressions in this study are generated through Web browsing, not mobile or desktop applications.” That means that if an Amazon Kindle Fire HDX user is using an app that…

Use Internet Explorer? There's a security flaw for that. Microsoft described the issue in a security alert saying, The vulnerability exists in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated. The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker…

Kristin Paget's Former Twitter Pic “Is this how you do business?” she asked in the blog post. “Drop a patch for one product that quite literally lists out, in order, the security vulnerabilities in your platform, and then fail to patch those weaknesses on your other range of products for *weeks* afterwards? You really don’t…

Image made with help from Shutterstock. Here's how it works: Like a lot of sites, when you visit Verizon’s site and log in, it sets a cookie on your computer. Verizon’s cookie includes an anonymized identifier (also common in cookies). What's new here is this identifier will now be made available to third-party mobile ad firms…

World's Fair Site I know, the World's Fair isn't Apple related, and normally I'd have made this a Cool Stuff Found entry here at TMO; but, when I went to write it up I had so many cool things I decided to make it an editorial. Sadly what remains on site is minimal and only…

California's smartphone kill switch bill is dead for now The vote was close, according to CNET, with 19 legislators in favor and 17 against. While there were more votes in favor of passing the bill, California requires a minimun of 21 votes, leaving proponents two votes short of the majority they needed. The now defeated…

The new, flexible LED Desk Lamp from Satechi provides five brightness levels and includes a USB port on the base that will charge phones and tablets. It's available in brushed silver color. This desk lamp is adjustable thanks to a flexible neck. It can bend left, right, and up and down which gives users control…

The company bumped up its quarterly dividend for shareholders by about 8 percent with a per share payout of $3.29. The new dividend will be paid on May 15 for shares held on May 12. Apple also said in a statement, “The Company also plans to increase its dividend on an annual basis. With annual…

The bandwidth requirement for a full-fledged 4K video signal, including audio, is enormous — nearly 18 gigabits per second. Therefore, superior compression technology is required to transmit a 4K signal into the home with current Internet technology. Every tech giant is up against extreme limits to make 4K video the Next Big Thing, and compromises…

Hey, Numbers, if my columns could NOT bleed over onto page two, that’d be really nice. Luckily, this is pretty easy to fix on both the old version of Numbers (from iWork ’09) and the new one (for Mavericks), and you won’t have to adjust any column sizes by hand or anything. In the old…

Philip Elmer DeWitt Writes: “With growing competition and the rise of the phablet (mini-tablets that double as phones), nobody is expecting a repeat of Q2 2013, when sales grew 55% year over year. In fact, nearly half of the 34 Apple analysts we've heard from so far — 21 Wall Street professionals and 13 amateurs…

Square has revolutionized the payment industry for small businesses, particularly very small businesses, by making it possible for them to accept credit and debit cards from an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone. The company did so by charging modest fees compared to the traditional credit card industry and offering next-day deposits, a killer feature for…

To be sure, there are many other reasons why one might prefer Android, but for those who want a larger screen, Apple's refusal (so far) to release a larger screen iPhone—let's call it an iPhablet for fun—has been the one objective reason to say that Apple lags behind Android OEMs. iPhone aficionados can say they…

Google Glass had a nifty sci-fi feel to it when the product first came out. Along the way, however, Google apparently failed to fully appreciate both why the product should exist in the chosen form and the social aspects of the device. Calls for Apple to quickly follow Google's lead now look silly. ______________________ The…

Rockstar misses out on moving Google patent counter case to Eastern Texas The patent holding company filed its infringement suit in U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas, and Google countered by filing a patent invalidation suit in California. Rockstar Consortium then petitioned the court to move Google's suit to Texas, but District Court Judge Claudia…

Kelly bends iTunes Radio to her will, and so can you! So here’s how to tune those stations, both on iOS and Mac OS: First, on iOS, here’s where the tuning options live. Launch the Music app and tap the iTunes Radio icon in the lower left: There's iTunes Radio, down in the lower left.…

If your VPN server uses OpenSSL, like OPenVPN, it's a heart bleed target OpenSSL is a system for encrypting communication between your computer and Internet servers. Heartbleed takes advantage of a code flaw in OpenSSL to trick the server into transmitting random parts of its own memory. Since that memory can include the secret keys…

It is my distinct pleasure to have Project Wizards on board this week to sponsor TMO with their awesome project management app, Merlin. Long-time followers of TMO history will note that Project Wizards has been sponsoring our Cirque du Mac party for the past 5 years straight, contributing directly to the benefit of our collective community here. Please join…

Aha, it turns out it's Yahoo!, whose CEO, Marissa Mayer, reportedly has a plan in the works to become the default search engine for Apple's iOS devices. According to Re/code, Ms. Mayer wants to leapfrog Google's choke hold on desktop search by developing a world class mobile and contextual search engine and the goal is…

T-Mobile has ramped up what it calls the Uncarrier initiative, aimed at “freeing Americans from the from the greedy, absurd practices of the old wireless companies.” That's most likely marketing hype, but whatever the case, T-Mobile's Uncarrier policies are good for customers. In the last week there were three days of Uncarrier announcements, and the…

Snap a photo of your idea sketch and make it interactive with Marvel. Even better than the good idea, the whole thing is free and you can sync via Dropbox so your resources are all available everywhere your Dropbox folder resides. If it turns out that you aren’t a designer or even particularly good at…

I recently reviewed the Rapoo Ultra-slim Keyboard for iPad  which is designed specifically for iPad use. This Rapoo keyboard, the E2700, is approximately the same size, but it is made for computers and includes a touchpad. Rapoo E2700 keyboard The keyboard, which is available in black only, measures 3.23 x 10 x 0.23-in (82 x…

Photo Courtesy of Boy Genius Report Those reportedly include a 13 megapixel rear camera, one front facing selfie/video chat camera, and four additional cameras that work in conjunction with sensors to create a glasses-free 3D effects, one of the biggest features that differentiates Amazon’s smartphone from others. These effects are reported to trickle down through the…