New Report Summarizes Display Rumors for Future Apple Devices

Apple is shaking up the display market with a multitude of upcoming product debuts and enhancements, according to Korean site ET News. The site summarizes several known product rumors that will impact display manufacturers, including larger iPhone and iPads, an OLED iWatch, and IGZO displays for its MacBook lineup...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

Court: Samsung execs told terms of secret Nokia-Apple deal

Samsung executives might have been able to access patent-licensing terms between Apple and Nokia, despite rules disallowing such access.

Foss Patents' Florian Mueller on Thursday published court documents filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday that suggest Samsung might have been inappropriately given access to a patent-licensing deal between Apple and Nokia...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Samsung Again Caught Inflating Benchmarking Scores, Phil Schiller Calls 'Shenanigans'

Like it did with its Galaxy S 4 smartphone, Samsung has once again been caught artificially increasing CPU speeds on its Galaxy Note 3 phone when benchmark apps are running, reports Ars Technica.

Samsung uses special code inside its operating system to identify benchmarking apps by name to boost CPU clock speeds and prevent CPU cores from entering low-power modes. As a result, Ars discovered, Galaxy Note 3 benchmarks report CPU performance roughly 20 percent faster than most apps will experience on the device...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

BlackBerry to go private at $9 per share? Not so fast

Fairfax Financial might not take BlackBerry private for $9 per share after all.

Analysts speaking to All Things Digital in interviews published on Tuesday said that the chance of BlackBerry going private for $9 a share -- or $4.7 billion -- seems unlikely. In fact, Fairfax Financial could come in as low as $5 per share.

"I would think Fairfax would want a lower bid if they're the only one at the table looking to buy it," Ironfire Capital founder Eric Jackson told All Things Digital. "After seeing their earnings, I think a price between $5 and $7 is more likely than $9..."

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Intel to buy security software startup for $20M

Intel has agreed to buy a security software startup for $20 million, boosting its capabilities outside of its core processor business. 

The Santa Clara, Calif., chip giant has reached a deal to acquire Sensory Networks, spokesmen from the two companies confirmed to CNET on Tuesday. Both declined to provide deal terms, but Intel said revenue contributions from the acquisition are not material to the company. The Sydney Morning Herald, which earlier reported the news, said Intel will pay about $20 million for the startup...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Is Apples Touch ID Secure

Earlier today I posted a video on the Geekanoids Channel, which essentially was meant to be a bit of fun. However, on looking over the claims Apple made during their Keynote announcement of this technology, their video highlighting it and their website, it has made me question just how secure Touch ID is.

Essentially, this new technology is meant to provide iPhone 5s users a way of securing their device, which can then only be unlocked by their fingerprint(s). Supposedly much more secure than a password.
During the keynote presentation, Phil Schiller said that the sensor scans through the the LIVE layers of your skin. This was also highlighted during their video presentation on the feature, which adds that the sensor essentially takes a "high resolution image of your fingerprint from the sub-epidermal layers of your skin".

From the various claims, I would imagine many people, like myself, were convinced this offers a very high level of security. The words "Live Layers" surely mean that the finger unlocking the iPhone 5s has to be on a living person and not an inanimate object. Surely Apple had thought of this. According to Apple, Touch ID only works by taking a high resolution images of the "sub-epidermal layers of your skin". If this is the case, why does the technology get fooled by a hotdog (aka wiener, sausage, frankfurter)? Surely, the hotdogs that I purchased from the supermarket to make my video were not alive! They certainly were not barking, mooing, or clucking. If such manufactured objects can be used to fool the system, then surely identical objects could be used to unlock multiple devices. I can see it not being long before Touch ID is truly hacked and cracked.

I have brought this to Apples attention, giving them the right to reply, in the hope they will further explain the technology. If we get a reponse, the update will be published here.

Resetting Network Settings May Fix iMessages Not Working in iOS 7

Since the release of iOS 7 earlier this month, a number of users have been complaining about issues with iMessages failing to be sent or received from their iOS devices. 

While Apple's iMessage service has suffered from occasional outages, including a minor one documented on the company's System Status page earlier today, some users have been complaining of multi-day outages on their devices, suggesting that something more than a simple service problem may be occurring. Anecdotal reports have indicated that the issue may have worsened with last week's release of iOS 7.0.2, but reports of problems do date further back than that...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

Apple Once Again Taking Extended Thanksgiving Break as Tim Cook Applauds Employees' Work

As it is has done in past years, Apple is once again giving its corporate employees the entire week of Thanksgiving week off with pay, offering additional vacation days of Monday, November 25 through Wednesday, November 27 beyond the typical Thursday-Friday holiday period. 

Retail and customer support employees will not have the week off as those divisions will need to continue operating, but they will be able to take their extra days off at staggered times. International teams will also be able to take their extra time off at times more convenient for their schedules...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

Engineers write programming language to help build synthetic DNA

Chemical reaction networks make up an old language of equations that detail how chemicals behave together. Now engineers at the University of Washington are taking this language into the 21st century with a computer program for chemistry that can help direct the movement of synthetic molecules.

This standardized set of instructions on how to "program" how DNA molecules interact in a test tube or cell could pave the way for smart drug delivery systems and disease detectors at the cellular level, the researchers report this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Apple's Maps Team Hiring Web UI Designer for 'New Secret Project'

Apple today posted a new job listing seeking a Maps Web User Interface Designer to "design, develop, and maintain complex front-end code for a new secret project." 

While the job listing briefly mentions Maps, it appears that the position could have a broader web development focus. According to the posting, the designer would join a small team that is working on an advanced web platform that will be the backbone of many future Apple services...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

A Closer Look at Apple's A7 Chip from the iPhone 5s

The analysis identifies the CPU portion of the chip as being at the lower left of the image, with the quad-core graphics located at lower right. Previous work by AnandTech has identified the graphics as Imagination Technologies' PowerVR G6430 configuration, a member of the new "Rogue" series of GPUs from the company...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours