Several rumors surfaced recently that detail more possible changes in the expected iPad hardware refresh, including possible NFC-equipped accessories that can interface wirelessly with NFC-equipped iPads as well as a new "carbon fiber-like" casing material. Also, one analyst believes Apple will be pushing 3G-equipped iPads harder in the coming year, and, iOS 4.3 is expected to be available to end users on February 14.iLounge cites a "previously accurate source" that claims Apple is developing accessories that can interface with next-generation iPads using rumored near field communication hardware built in to the device. Using NFC, accessories could connect to and communicate with an iPad (or future iPhone) without the need for Bluetooth pairing or other set up.
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Reverse class-action? It's the latest tactic in the P2P wars
Imagine yourself as a lawyer who would like nothing better than to sue a few thousand people for some of the raunchiest pornography ever inflicted upon the world. You face a problem: when you sue individuals in federal court, where copyright suits are brought, you have to file suit in whichever District Court the defendant resides in. Who has the time and money to bring cases all over the country?So you try your luck anyway, only to have federal judges smack you down and force the dismissal of most of your cases on "personal jurisdiction" grounds. This stings, and you retreat to your lair.
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February Patch Tuesday: three 0-days fixed
After a quiet January Patch Tuesday, Microsoft will be issuing 12 updates fixing 22 vulnerabilities for February's Patch Tuesday. These patches will update Windows, Internet Explorer, and the Visio diagramming software.Three bulletins, including the Internet Explorer patch, earn the most severe "Critical" rating. The remaining nine, including the Visio fix, earn a still significant "Important" score. All bar three of the fixes will require a reboot.
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The earliest stars may not have been emo loners
"Let there be light." The dark ages of the Universe ended when the first stars began their nuclear fusion of hydrogen, giving off heat and light about 100 million years after the Big Bang. Current understanding of these Population III—or low metal—stars is that they evolved and lived a solitary life or, at most, as part of a distant binary system. New simulations reported in this week's edition of Sciencexpress, however, suggest that the gas clouds that birthed these early stars were gravitationally unstable and produced tight clusters of stars that would live their short lives together.No direct observational evidence of Pop III stars has been found to date. The information we have about them and their behavior has come exclusively from simulation and theoretical work. Previous work has found that, as atomic hydrogen was pulled into dark matter minihalos, it would form molecular hydrogen and coalesce into a gas cloud—ripe for the formation of primordial stars—with a mass of around 1000 solar masses.
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WiFi users guard their own networks, happy to use others
Raise your hand if you've ever tried to connect to a neighbor's WiFi network in an emergency (or even by accident). If we were in the same place, about a third of the room would have their hands up, according to a survey conducted by wireless industry group Wi-Fi Alliance. This is despite the fact that many of you know to keep your own networks locked down—so much so that even giving out your password to friends feels like a risky venture. Wi-Fi Alliance interviewed 1,054 Americans over the age of 18 about their WiFi practices during the month of December 2010 and found that 32 percent tried to connect to a WiFi network that wasn't theirs. That's up from just 18 percent in December of 2008, showing that in just two years, the number of people trolling for open WiFi networks almost doubled. This is undoubtedly thanks to the growing popularity of laptops and mobile devices that can connect to WiFi—now, you can connect to other people's networks even when you're out and about, and not just at home.
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Electrical current to the brain can get people to think different
What does it take to think different? Changes in the activity of the anterior temporal lobes, if a new study has it right. Thinking the same is actually very useful, since we can use existing mental frameworks to rapidly solve typical problems. But, on occasion, we're faced with an atypical problem, one where our past problem solving techniques don't apply, and we need to think of a new way of doing things. At those moments, applying a small electric current to the temporal lobes might just do the trick. Although having a toolbox of problem-solving techniques can be very valuable, the authors describe how it can make us a prisoner of our past experience. When faced with a simple task, we sometimes keep trying to use one of our existing tools, even if it's the wrong one for the job.
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Half of Verizon smartphone users mulling switch to iPhone
Results of a uSamp survey of AT&T and Verizon customers conducted last week reveals that 54 percent of current Android and BlackBerry users on Verizon's network are likely to switch to a Verizon-compatible iPhone 4 by the time the device launches next week on February 10. That same survey suggested that as many as 26 percent of current AT&T iPhone users could switch to Verizon next week as well. The news comes just as Verizon reported blowing well past previous records set for first-day handset sales in less than a day of preorder availability.uSamp's data is derived from a "highly profiled panel" of over 700 smartphone users currently on AT&T or Verizon conducted between January 28 and January 31 (before current Verizon customers were allowed to preorder online February 3). Among Verizon customers with an Android or BlackBerry device, one quarter are "very likely" to switch to the iPhone 4 on launch, while another 29 percent are "somewhat likely." In particular, two-thirds of BlackBerry users were either very or somewhat likely to switch, according to survey respondents.
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