Apple Updates MacBook Pro and Smart Cover Colors

This morning the MacBook Pro's got updated on Apple's site.  All models processors have increased between .1 and .2 GHz or 1000 and 2000 MHz and hard drives between 180 and 250GB. The 15" and 17" Macs also received upgraded GPUs.  Running Lion, the MacBook is available for shipping now.
iPad Smart Covers colors are now more vibrant and microfiber linings now match.  A darker grey has also been added.  Sadly, with the addition, there comes a loss.  The orange Smart Cover will no longer be available.  The remaining in stock will be sold in Apple stores.

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Microsoft Gets Hacked on Youtube

Yesterday the big news on Youtube was that the Microsoft channel was hacked.  The background, videos, and ads were all deleted.  Videos were added that offered sponsorships.  On the channel you could see text reading, "I DID NOTHING WRONG I SIMPLY SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT THAT I MADE IN 2006 :/"
It seems that someone recovered the password for Microsoft, using the original email of the account in 2006.  What does not make sense is why this happened now and why this security flaw is still open.  Youtube supposedly resets accounts for any companies with copyright behind them.  This has either not been mastered, or this hacker is not as amateur as they make themselves appear. 

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The Experience of chime.in

Chime.in was released to the public in beta form October 18.  We recently created ourselves an account and tried out the new social network.  The first thing I noticed was the beta experience.  The website banner clearly states the site is in beta and the performance is proof.  The second time I posted a 'chime' it asked me to log in, which I had done just seconds before.  This and the lack of options to edit your chimes prove it has a while until it is ready for large use.
The second thing that I think may be a mistake is how much the website relies on 'interests.'  Interests are basically tags for your posts and profile, that replace the need for pages like in Facebook.  Do not get me wrong, I think this interest setup is what will make chime.in successful, but when the search engine only looks for the keywords in the interests, and not the text, it is frustrating.  If I type hello in the body, but do not put hello in the interests, it will not come up when you search hello.
What seems to make chime.in unique is it's organization.  It operates the same way Google+ does.  It relies on tags, but is more evenly based on organizations and friends than Twitter.  One thing that I prefer on chime.in versus Google+ is the ease of adding links, images, etc.  Sure Google+ tries hard to make adding content a main feature, but it is easier to separate the text and the added content on chime.in.  This seems to be the reason I am preferring chime.in in multiple categories.  It's interface is easier to look at and know what you are looking at. 

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Will Amazon's Fire Operating System Be Used on Phones?

The Amazon Fire has high expectations partly due to just how great the operating system looks.  The interface is calm, smooth, and I can imagine it is easy to navigate through.  The media sources that the operating system comes with is what it is all about.  Overall it just looks fashionable and stable.
Why then would Amazon not consider using it in the mobile phone industry?  If their goal is not to earn money on the hardware, but on the media purchases, it would seem their entire philosophy ties into the United States mobile phone industry, which is designed to earn money on the monthly bills, not on the initial price of the phone.

Sadly, judging from the appearance this operating system was designed without any consideration for it to be used on a cell phone in the future.  The entire home screen is book shelves full of movies, books, music, etc.   There does not seem to be any room for phone features.  Unless they redesign the operating system for phone use, we will have to stick with our iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, and dare I say Meego operating systems.  If only we had more operating systems to choose from. 

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Android Ice Cream Sandwiches New Features

Google and Samsung held their Ice Cream Sandwich event last night (morning of October 19 in Hong Kong) to show off the new features in 4.0.  The first change is the lock screen, it has been redesigned with a new look and with the help of Ice Cream Sandwich, can unlock your phone with the use of the front-facing camera (assuming it works better then displayed during the demo) to detect if it is you or not.  The home screen and application layout has changed with the ability to put applications anywhere, including into folders.  Widgets have also been added and can easily be resized from the home screen.  From any location you can now use a touch gesture to activate the multitasking window, which shows you thumbnails of applications currently open.  With the swipe of a thumbnail you can close the application, and with a tap you can reopen it, much like webOS or Playbook OS.  The last major OS change is the camera features.  You can now access the camera through a shortcut from the lock screen, and features like panorama and a new zooming control have been added.

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