Apple Announces iPhone OS v3.0

Apple, struggling amid a rough economy continues to look to the iPhone as its brightest sales star. Today Apple announced the new version of its iPhone OS, version 3.0 at a special presentation to the press.

At the start of the presentation, Apple lauded the iPhone’s performance pointing out that it is now sold in 80 countries. Stated presenter, Greg Joswiak, “Before we shipped our first phone, we set an aggressive goal — we said we’d sell 10 million phones. And we sold 13.7m. We blew it away. We’ve sold 17m altogether, you can see how people have accepted the 3G. But the touch also runs the same OS, and if you look at the time period, we’ve sold over 30m units of iPhones and iPod touch.”

Apple also plugged the development community, saying that it has received 800,000 SDK download requests and has 50,000 companies and individuals working on developing Apps. Apple defended its track record of approvals, which has received a lot of attention of late, saying that it approved 96 percent of submitted Apps, rejecting a mere 4 percent.

Scott Forstall, Apple’s SVP of iPhone software was on hand to demo the new v3.0 OS and new SDK. He started by announcing 1,000 new APIs in the new SDK. He states, “Let me tell you what we’re doing for developers. Our goal was to make devs successful, we gave them the best tools ever. It blew us away what they did. We’ve spent the last year working hard to make the SDK even better.”

In a major announcement he revealed that developers will now have the ability to create Apps with so-called “in App purchases.” This means that subscription Apps like magazines or shareware should now be possible. The purchase is tied to iTunes just like a standard App download and like downloads, Apple gets a 30 percent cut, including fees, and hands the rest to the developer.

More SDK announcements include the addition of Bluetooth and automatic discovery APIs. This should allow multiplayer Apps. Also new, developers will have new APIs to talk to hardware peripherals — like attached speakers. The APIs will likely bring one feature the iPods have long lacked — FM radio — to the iPhone and the iPod Touch via third part hardware, says Apple. Apple also says that medical device makers like blood pressure cuff makers are interested in using the iPhone as a readout for their devices.

Apple is including a Maps API in the new OS/SDK for use with creating turn-by-turn directions.

One of the biggest pieces of news, though, was that Apple has rearchitected its server setup to support push notification, a feature the presenters admitted was “overdue”. Push notifications are a means for non-running Apps like IM clients to receive and display alerts to the user while they’re using another program — say Safari. Apple says in testing push notifications only dropped battery life 20 percents, versus full background (running multiple Apps at once), which dropped batter life 80 percent or more.

EA was on hand to announce The Sims for the iPhone. At the original SDK launch they had announced Spore for the iPhone. In a decidedly different application announcement, Johnson and Johnson announced an iPhone blood sugar reade.

Oh, and after about an hour and five minutes of other stuff, Apple announced that the OS v3.0 is bring cut, copy, and paste, as rumored, to the iPhone. Copy and paste is accomplished by double clicking words to copy them and then sliding your finger to select a block of text. Shaking undoes paste jobs. The feature will work in SMS messages, Safari and more.

Speaking of “more” — Apple announced MMS support as well. Support for landscape email was also announced.

The SDK is available in beta form today, while the new OS will be released to customers in June as a free iPhone update. Disappointing for some is that iPod Touch owners will have to shill out $9.95 for the new OS. Also iPhone first generation customers won’t have access to MMS.

In all Apple has delivered on many rumors — push notifications, copy and paste, turn by turn, FM radio support (via third party), MMS messaging, and landscape email. It has failed to deliver on others, though — Flash, new hardware, tethering, and background applications. As with the iPhone itself, the new OS is still a work in progress, but one with a lot of attractive features at least.

New iPod shuffle requires headphones with an authentication chip

The folks over at iLounge stumbled upon some curious info regarding the new iPod Shuffle that has us scratching our heads. We all know the controls for the new Shuffle are on the headphones, but apparently Cupertino decided to make it even more difficult for headphone makers to get in on some Shuffle action. Control of playback and adjustment of volume will not be permitted unless the headphones used are equipped with an Apple authentication chip. D’oh! To further complicate matters, headphones with this new authentication chip are not yet available. Phooey, you say, I will pair my high-end headphones with a third party remote control device instead. Denied! Third party remotes with this authentication chip are not yet available either. Until these new accessories hit the market, shuffle owners are stuck using the stock headphones for the time being. What is Apple’s reasoning behind the move? We’re not sure, though we imagine it has to do with ensuring Apple can prevent companies from producing Shuffle gear without its blessing. Good job Apple, now it’ll cost less-than-scrupulous manufacturers overseas an extra 7¢ per unit to make compatible headphones. Major fail.

Resident Evil 5 Clinches 4 Million Shipped

Query: What’s the “resident” in Resident Evil mean, anyway? Living at a school or institution? Having quarters on the premises of one’s work? A medical graduate? Immediately available in computer memory? Nonmigratory?

It’s surprising what Wikipedia won’t tell you. Capcom’s 13-year-old survival horror series is actually known in Japan as Biohazard, which, when you think about it, more aptly summarizes what it’s about, i.e. science fictive horror, not to be confused with the supernatural variety.

In any event, Capcom is today boasting it sold four million copies of Resident Evil 5 worldwide since it launched last Friday. That’s four million copies shipped to retailers, not sold-through to consumers. The upside of that number is that it’s not just an estimate of what’s changed hands at the distribution level. We’ll have a better (but conversely less deterministic) sense of how many copies were in fact purchased by consumers when the retail analyst firms release their projections in the coming weeks and months.

Sharing the four million club (four million downloads, that is): The Resident Evil 5 demo.

One Third of People use One Password for Every Site They Visit

Password. Letmein. Asdf. Blahblah. Monkey. 1234. These are just some of the most commonly used passwords being used around the web, but even worse than using a boneheaded password is using the same one for every registered website. Nothing new, right?

Apparently it is, at least for one-third of respondents who participated in an online survey conducted by security outfit Sophos. According to Sophos, only 19 percent of respondents said they never use the same password for multiple websites. Almost half admitted to using a few different passwords, and 33 percent fessed up to using the same password all the time.

To state the obvious, using a single password for multiple websites makes it easy for hackers to wreak more havoc should the password become compromised. But obvious as basic security may seem, it’s not being practiced by many. Recent examples include high profile Twitter account hijackings, including the ones belonging to President Barack Obama, Britney Spears, and Fox News, and the discovery that the population at large continues to use unimaginative passwords, such as selecting their first name.

Top 20 Best-Selling PC Games of February: Want Some Dawn of War II with Your F.E.A.R. 2?

Big-name sequels charting well in their first month of sales? No way. Also clown-in-your-cake surprising is Fallout 3’s staying power (the game first launched in October!), for which we use the only portion of Left 4 Dead that didn’t also claw its way into the top 20 to give a hearty thumb-up.

Check out the full list:

World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard / $38 (Average)
The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / EA Maxis / $19 (Average)
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II / Relic / $49 (Average)
World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard / $37 (Average)
F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin / Monolith / $50 (Average)
Spore / EA Maxis / $45 (Average)
World Of Warcraft / Blizzard / $18 (Average)
The Sims 2 Apartment Life Exp. Pack / EA Maxis / $20 (Average)
Fallout 3 / Bethesda / $47 (Average)
World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack / Blizzard / $28 (Average)
Call Of Duty: World At War / Treyarch / $46 (Average)
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 / EA LA / $30 (Average)
Left 4 Dead / Valve / $46 (Average)
The Sims 2 Deluxe / EA Maxis / $3 (Averge)
Civilization IV / Firaxis / $21 (Average)
The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff Exp. / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
StarCraft Battle Chest / Blizzard / $20 (Average)
Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack / EA Maxis / $18 (Average)
Diablo Battle Chest / Blizzard / $34 (Average)
The Sims 2 Pets Exp. / EA Maxis / $19 (Average)
As usual, these sales pertain only to retail stores and probably just pull up next to the Internet playing their loud music in a sad attempt to make online retailers feel jealous.

So, what’d you buy last month?

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 Now Available

For those that are looking to help the folks at Mozilla test out the latest version of their popular Firefox browser, you’re in luck! At long last, Beta 3 of Firefox 3.1 is up for download, and you can get it here.

The new version is, as usual, a free download and is available for Windows and Linux. So, be sure to give this a test and let us (and Mozilla) know what you think!

Adobe Patches Zero-Day Vulnerability

If you haven’t done so already, make sure your Adobe reader has checked for, and downloaded the latest updates. Adobe has finally released a patch for the zero day scripting vulnerability in its PDF software. The patch for version 9 hit the net a bit earlier than expected, but not a moment too soon to combat this now critically exploited weakness which has been in the wild now since December 2008. The patches for Version 7 & 8 are still planned for March 18th and users of this version would be advised to either upgrade to 9.1 or consider Foxit Reader.

The news was posted by Adobe blogger David Lenoe. “Today, we posted the Adobe Reader 9.1 and Acrobat 9.1 update, which resolves the recent JBIG2 security issue (CVE-2009-0658), including the ‘no-click’ variant of the vulnerability.” “We encourage all Adobe Reader users to download and install the free Adobe Reader 9.1.”

For those that haven’t been following the details of the exploit, the vulnerability is a result of an array indexing error in the processing of JBIG2 streams. Hackers have found a way to corrupt arbitrary memory using the PDF format and take control of compromised systems. The lesson learned here if we didn’t know it already, don’t take candy, or PDF’s from strangers.

Man Uses PlayStation Network to Persuade Minor to Send Illicit Images

A Kentucky man has been accused of convincing an 11-year old girl to send nude photographs of herself to him while the two of them played video games online together. Specifically, they both were Sony PlayStation 3 gamers playing online using the PlayStation Network to play Warhawk sometime last year, media reports indicate.

Anthony Scott O’Shea, 24, allegedly received nude photos of the unnamed girl over a several week period before she began feeling shameful about the incidents. The girl also “performed” for O’Shea via live web camera from her home.

He now faces charges ranging from promotion of child pornography, online solicitation of a minor and sexual performance of a child, according to the Houston Chronicle.

“This is another venue these guys are getting to use now that hasn’t been seen before,” Sgt. Gary Spurger of the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office said in a statement. “They’re on PlayStation or Xbox playing online games.”

It’s possible O’Shea spoke with the girl about possibly meeting in real life so they could “engage in sexual activity,” though exact details about the topic are unknown. He also “kept pressuring her for more pictures” over the couple of weeks they communicated online with one another.

O’Shea admitted to contacting the girl and receiving images, which he apparently shared with other people online, police authorities indicate. He will now be transported to Houston, Texas, to face the charges.

Predators are using social networks and online video games to target children, which has forced police authorities and the F.B.I. to launch online anti-predator operations.

Researchers Create Battery That Recharges in Seconds

A new battery material created by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) could lead to much faster recharge times for batteries.

MIT professor Gerbrand Ceder and researcher Byoungwoo Kang said the material can discharge energy and recharge nearly 100 times faster than batteries currently used in mobile phones. Lithium-ion batteries are widely used in laptops as well, and could allow longer battery life and faster recharge time if a user is away from a power source for long durations of time.

“The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes,” Ceder and Kang sad in the latest edition of Nature.

The duo created a small battery that normally takes six minutes to charge, but used their new traffic flow to recharge the same battery in just 10 to 20 seconds.

It was widely believed the ions and electrons inside the battery moved too slowly, but the researchers noticed that wasn’t the case. They focused on how ions enter nano-scale tunnels aimed at moving electrons around the battery, and eventually created a lithium phosphate coating that helps push ions to the nano-scale tunnels.

Rechargeable lithium batteries used today have the ability to store high amounts of energy, but don’t normally release that power, so they discharge very slowly.

The battery has been supported with federal research money, and two companies have already licensed the technology, MIT announced. It’d be possible to start mass producing the batteries in two to three years, the MIT researchers said.

Call of Duty: World at War DLC pinned to March 19

We’ve known since last month that Call of Duty: World at War would be getting scads of new content sometime this month, but Gamespot has just pinned that to a much more concrete March 19. As you might remember, the pack includes three new maps for the living, Nightfire, Station, and Knee Deep, and one new area in which to battle the zombie hordes: Zombie Verruckt, which you can read all about here.

The only thing we still haven’t heard about is a price, but we’d bet our (as yet) uneaten brains that you’ll be ponying up $10.