Benedict Cumberbat in the series 'sherlock'

Ever since the BBC produced hit ‘Sherlock‘ series debuted, it has got major critical acclaim from all around the world.

The season 2 finale titled,’The Reichenbach Fall‘ ended with a cliffhanger as Sherlock‘s nemesis Moriarty blew his own brains out and Sherlock had to kill himself or risk his three closest friends being assassinated. Sherlock jumped off the building watched by Watson leaping from the roof, he was later seen by his shaken-up friend bloodied, dead on the concrete with no pulse.

Steven Moffat

In an interview with the guardian Series creater/writer Steven Moffat says, “There is a clue everybody’s missed, so many people theorising about Sherlock’s death online – and they missed it! We’ve worked out how Sherlock survives, and actually shot part of what really happened. It all makes sense.” In this, he argues, he and co-writer Mark Gatiss have gone one better than Doyle. “He cheated outrageously. He has Watson deduce that Holmes fell off a waterfall. But there was no body. And it only means one thing in a detective show when there’s no body.” That the victim survived. So you set yourself the test of killing off Sherlock, putting his corpse in plain view and then bringing him back from the dead to watch his own funeral? “Yes. We had to have Holmes dying in Watson’s arms – and get away with that, which we have.” But how?

Sherlock will be back for a third series of three 90-minute episodes, hopefully before the year is out”

The question now is how on Earth are Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss going to get out of this one?

Dr. Watson clearly was out of site to the landing spot

The clues? Watson didn’t see Sherlock actually hit the floor. Watson was struck by a cyclist and knocked to the ground while running to Holmes’s corpse. Sherlock told Molly that he needed her. Sherlock was very specific about where Watson needed to stand when making his ‘last phone call’ to him.

Here are some of the most popular theories on how Sherlock faked his death.

The bike hit Watson

The bike:

Watson being hit by the bike on his way to Sherlock’s body could have been the biggest clue of all. Was the cyclist someone we know? Were they hired by Sherlock? Did they carry some Baskerville drug in their basket, which made Watson more suggestible to the idea of a dead Sherlock?

If they were involved in the cover-up, what was their role? The biker would have given Holmes extra time and possibly even have given Watson a light concussion, but he still saw his friend’s cold and bloodied body with his own eyes on the pavement.

The rubbish truck

The rubbish truck?

A brief glimpse of a rubbish truck is what many people have been clinging on to after watching ‘The Fall’. Did Sherlock make a soft landing on the vehicle and then use the extra time from John’s bike accident to mock himself up as dead or use a dummy body? It seems like the easiest explanation, but is it the right one?

Mycroft:

Could Mycroft really have been stupid enough to leak all that information to Moriarty or was he plotting with Holmes all along? Or maybe he felt guilty about his error and helped his brother with the suicide trick. Mycroft would have had the power and resources to help his sibling pull off the fake suicide, hold off John and ensure that Sherlock’s death was properly covered by all the papers to keep everyone safe. Was Mycroft upset in those final scenes or relieved?

Molly Hooper:

Holmes told the bumbling Molly that he needed her and we very much doubt this was a sexual come-on from Holmes. Could Holmes have persuaded Molly to help him? Her access to corpses and medical knowledge could have been very useful. Or maybe it was Molly on the bike? Or was that Mycroft? Or even Irene Adler? Our brain hurts.

Moriarty is not dead:

Moriarty is not dead:

Moriarty might not be dead. No blood from the mouth, no brain matter, no burns, just blood on the ground. Sherlock never checked the body, never even came close and nobody else knew he was up there.

Sherlock impersonator/ Mask

Imposter Holmes that clearly kidnapped the children. ‘Gretel’ reacted very badly when she met Sherlock for the first time implying that she was kidnapped by someone who appeared identical to him

The Squash Ball

Pulse in wrist stopped by simple act of placing squash ball, which he was playing with before, in armpit and lying on said arm.

What is your theory? Which theory of the above you agree with? Have your say in the comments.

[source guardian, digitalspy]

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Anti SOPA and PIPA Banner

If you were paying attention this week, you probably have noticed that on Wednesday, January 18th, few Websites, Wikipedia, Reddit, Google and Microsoft have gone blackout trying to stop the infamous controversial SOPA and PIPA Acts. The blackout has worked and both acts placed on hold indefinitely.

As reported by Reuters, Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee saying his panel would delay action on similar legislation until there is wider agreement on the issue:

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

“The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

Its nice to see how effective was the Internet protest.

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Join the Strike against SOPA and PIPA Banner

Today, Wikipedia, along with others like Mozilla and Google, is joining the virtual strike against Internet censorship to raise awareness of US Congress legislation that could fundamentally alter the Internet we know.

This harmful legislation, Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate, will be voted on as early as January 24th in the Senate.

Wikipedia has blacked out their web site in protest. But what if you were in need for that urgently? There are several methods to use and access Wikipedia during the SOPA blackout:

1. Use Mac OS X’s built-in Dictionary app
2. Disabling Javascript

For Safari:

• Open Safari Preferences/options
• Click on “Advanced” and check the box next to “Show Develop menu in menu bar”
• Pull down the “Develop” menu and select “Disable Javascript”
• Load Wikipedia and browse as usual

For Chrome:

• Open Google Chrome’s Preferences/options
• Click on “Under the Hood” and then “Content Settings”
• Find Javascript then click “Manage Exceptions”
• Type “en.wikipedia.org” into the box and pull down the contextual menu, selecting “Block”
• Load Wikipedia as usual

Why should you join the fight against SOPA to stop internet censorship? What makes this legislation so bad? Here is the catch:

• Communication platforms – from YouTube to Facebook to Amazon – could be shut down if a single rights holder alleges a violation.
• It would make the Web less stable and less secure.
• Social networking sites, like Twitter or Facebook, could be forced to track and control user behavior, stunting innovation and undermining free expression.
• Your Internet provider could be required to inspect all of your traffic and browsing.

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Apple Education Event

Apple has managed an upcoming event on this Thursday, January 19th. In which the giant company will reveal its latest plans in digital textbooks through the iBookstore. Some speculated Apple will make the digital books publishing more attractive to authors — think “GarageBand for eBooks.”

Apple is said to be working with major publishers since June. McGraw-Hill is one of them. According to The Wall Street Journal:

McGraw-Hill Cos., Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are among the education-publishing companies most likely affected by an Apple textbook announcement. The companies have experimented with interactive approaches, such as allowing students to take quizzes as they read and hear audio for foreign-language study, but many digital textbooks have looked a lot like their physical counterparts.

McGraw-Hill has been working with Apple on its announcement since June, a person familiar with the matter said. It wasn’t known whether Pearson and Houghton Mifflin also would participate.

According to Ars Technica’s, Apple will unveil “GarageBand for eBooks” on January 19th.

At the same time, however, authoring standards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simple as running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand.

Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday.

Steve Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson that he wanted to revolutionize textbooks and make them digital and interactive. We are about to see that vision come true.

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New Year’s Resolutions Visual Guide

Via Visual.ly

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John Carter

Disney has released the official trailer as well as three new banners for the upcoming sci-fi film John Carter. The movie based on the classic novel Princess of Mars.

The movie stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church, and Willem Dafoe.

Official Synopsis:

From Academy Award(R)-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes “John Carter”–a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). “John Carter” is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

The movie is set to be released on March 9th 2012.

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Microsoft's Tellme vs Apple's Siri

Microsoft’s chief strategy and research officer Craig Mundie talked to Forbes about the company’s kinect and when asked about Siri, he said that Siri was nothing special, and Microsoft’s own voice capabilities have been around for over a year. Siri is all about good marketing nothing else:

People are infatuated with Apple announcing it. It’s good marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could argue that Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows Phones for more than a year, since Windows Phone 7 was introduced.

This is what Microsoft execs usually say when challenged with a tech by their competitors:

you can pick ‘em up and say ‘text Eric’ and say what you wanna say and it transcribes it. You can query anything through Bing by just saying the words. I mean, all that’s already there. Fully functional, been there for a year.

This is not the first time, we all know when Steve Ballmer slammed the original iPhone back in 2007 and touted it as being overpriced and not appealing to business for the lack of a keyboard.

Jason from techau ran a test and put a video comparison between Microsoftt’s Tellme and Apple’s Siri. Watch the video below. The results speak for themselves:

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Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Speaking to the latest issue of Official PlayStation Magazine, Hideo Kojima head of Kojima Productions, said the latest Metal Gear Solid title, Rising, might not appeal to fans of the series’ signature stealth gameplay but it “shouldn’t be a problem” for “those willing to try new things.”

“If somebody thinks ‘I love Snake’ and just really wants traditional stealth gameplay and that experience, then it may be hard to get into Rising,” Kojima said.

“But for people who are more open and willing to try new things, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

With Metal Gear Solid: Rising, they’re taking the Metal Gear Solid 4 approach to creating Raiden.

“Raiden in MGS4 was received very well, and I wanted to keep going with that direction in Rising. The people who liked him in 4 will like him in this, but it’s a personal preference.

“The character in the game is supposed to equal the player, so if you want to introduce things to a new recruit, you have to learn how to interact with that world along with the character. If we had Snake [in MGS 2] he was this old, experienced veteran and there would’ve been a disconnect with the [new] players. So that’s why we brought in Raiden.”

Metal Gear Solid: Rising coming for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC.

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"Snake was supposed to die"

Hideo Kojima has confirmed in a interview with the Official PlayStation Magazine that Metal Gear Solid 5 is a reality, and that he will be in charge of the game’s development. More info will be revealed by Kojima in the December issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine. This will be the first time in the 16-year history of Official PlayStation Magazine a developer will grace the magazines’ cover.

Hideo Kojima on the cover of Official PlayStation Magazine

The developer will also talk about the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Rising and his desire to kill off series protagonist Solid Snake. In Kojima’s own words, “Snake was supposed to die“.

Previously, Kojima Productions has confirmed that Yuji Korekado is the new producer of Metal Gear Solid: Rising, replacing Shigenobu Matsuyama. More game details to be revealed in the upcoming VGA.

The December issue of Official PlayStation Magazine will be available November 29th.

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God of War IV‘s release date may have been leaked. New Zealand retailer MightyApe has listed the game with an estimated release date of September 28, 2012.

A job listing previously discovered on recruitment site Creative Heads has revealed that that the game may be in development, and this listing only adds fuel to the fire. According to the listing, the title is in the “military/combat” genre, and the person chosen for the position will start “immediately.”

The job is with Sony’s Santa Monica studio, which is responsible for developing all three previous God of War console titles. Since the portable God of War installments have been developed by Ready At Dawn Studios, Sony Santa Monica’s involvement could mean that the in-development title is God of War IV.

“Join the GOW team,” the listing reads. “The Santa Monica Studio is an open and creative environment, where we strive to make the best games in the industry. Join us as we embark on our next project.”

For now, Sony hasn’t confirmed that the game is in development and the release date is only a rumor.

[via IGN]

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has broken the franchise’s own sales record by reportedly selling 9.3 million copies in the first 24 hours eliminating its predecessor Call of Duty: Black Ops that sold over 7 million copies in its first 24 hours. MW3 is now the highest selling game of all time.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 breaks sales records

A reported 1.5 million people queued at midnight globally to get their hands on Modern Warfare 3, with a total of 9.3 million copies sold on the first day. The Xbox 360 version sees around a 54% share, meaning it’s the first game on one platform to pass 5 million on its first day. The PlayStation 3 version held 42%, which is around the 4 million mark. Both day ones are only slightly behind Black Ops entire first week sales. The PC version and the Wii version held the remaining 4%, which is around 370,000 units.

As a whole, Modern Warfare 3 is up 33% over Black Ops’ first day sales, and a whopping 55% up on the previous Modern Warfare. the US and the UK combined account for 7 million, which is just over 75%. According to VGChartz:

Call of Duty day one sales

Early data suggests first week sales are on course for around 12 to 13.5 million. With just over 87 million Call of Duty games already sold on home consoles and PC this generation, by the end of this week the Call of Duty franchise will have sold over 100 million games this generation.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Here’s what everyone had to say about the game:

• OXM UK: 9/10 – Like it or not, it’s heartening to know that the most popular game on the Xbox 360 is also one of the best.
• Edge: 9/10 – Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare trilogy stands as this generation’s defining FPS series – and Modern Warfare 3 is an emphatic, feature-packed and sometimes stunning final act.
• OXM: 9.5 – When everything here is this well-executed and offers so many enduring thrills, it’s hard to knock it too much. MW3 absolutely delivers.
• GamesRadar: 9/10 – If you’re looking for a new kind of shooter, look elsewhere. Modern Warfare 3 succeeds by doing more – much, much, much more – of what’s always worked spectacularly for the series. We still can’t get enough.
• Guardian: 5/5 – The Infinity Ward engine is far from cutting edge – the overall look of the game has not moved on enormously since MW2. But the vision, the choreography, the sense of scale and detail – they are awe-inspiring at times.
• Telegraph: 5/5 – Modern Warfare 3 is a shining example of refinement and improvement. It’s familiar, sure, but here familiarity doesn’t breed contempt, just respect and reward for those who’ve dedicated so much time to the series. And for new players, it’s the perfect starting point, more accommodating and encompassing than ever.
• AusGamers: 9.6/10 – Don’t go hating on this because it’s Call of Duty. This is Modern Warfare 3 – the final chapter in an epic tale, and part of a series that changed the first-person shooter landscape forever. It’s an absolutely solid title, the best entry in the series and something that should keep you playing for some time to come. More than worth the investment.
• Destructoid: 9.5/10 – Whether you like what it does is a matter of personal taste, but the skill and experience brought to the table is hard to refute. Modern Warfare 3 gets it done, and it gets it done damn well.
• GameTrailers: 9.3/10 – If you’re expecting a huge departure from what’s come before you’ll be disappointed, but fans will get exactly what they’re looking for. World War III shouldn’t be this fun.
• 1UP: A- – I’m glad to say the multiplayer remains addicting and is more balanced than ever.
• VideoGamer: 9/10 – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 doesn’t do anything new, but it also doesn’t do anything wrong. For better or worse, this is a slick and well-metered trio of modes that make an entertaining package, but Sledgehammer Games and Infinity Ward are simply looking to augment previous games rather than expand the series into pastures new
• Joystiq: 4.5/5 – Modern Warfare 3 is a great Call of Duty game, just as every other entry in the franchise is a great Call of Duty game. However, it shares more than quality with its predecessors – it, like its forefathers, leaves you waiting for something perfect.
• IGN: 9/10 – Despite its flaws, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 takes the fantastic series we’ve come to love over the years and iterates on it with great success. The multiplayer is hands-down the best it has ever been, with more features, more modes and a ton of new levels and ways to interact via Call of Duty Elite. The singleplayer campaign and Spec Ops mode add value to the overall package, creating something that may not be perfect, but is too damn addicting to pass up.
• GameInformer: 9/10 – When it comes down to it, Modern Warfare 3 meets expectations. The core elements of multiplayer and the campaign remain fundamentally unchanged, but the game serves as a great example of how many subtle tweaks can add up to an improved overall product.
• GameSpot: 8.5/10 – This is some of the best online shooter action around, and with the daunting challenges of Spec Ops and the exciting, globe-trotting campaign, Modern Warfare 3 stands tall as another great descendant of the game that changed a generation.
• GiantBomb: 4/5 – Modern Warfare 3 feels split between the great excitement of its time-tested multiplayer and the feeling that this whole style of game has just gotten old.
• Eurogamer: 8/10 – That the single-player story brings the Modern Warfare saga to a fairly definitive end is, then, cause for celebration. Whatever next year’s entry brings, some measure of reinvention will be essential. For now, its exuberant blend of testicular bravado and blockbuster gloss ensures that Call of Duty retains its crown as the shooter genre’s biggest, boldest rollercoaster ride for at least one more year.

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Siri has finally made its way to the iPhone 4

Developer Steven Troughton-Smith had successfully ported the Siri onto the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch. The video provided below not only shows the Siri functionality on an iPhone 4, but is in depth and shows a side-to-side comparison against the iPhone 4S. In addition, the video shows the Siri Dictation in action.

iPhone 4S jailbreak was the key to make the port working successfully on iPhone 4. 9to5mac’s Mark Gurman has brought this story and an got exclusive interview about the port with the developer:

Mark: Where do you go from here with the port?

Steven: At this point it’s all about confirming this works across devices, making it reproducible (we got it working on two devices today), and documenting everything. It does require files from an iPhone 4S which aren’t ours to distribute, and it also requires a validation token from the iPhone 4S that has to be pulled live from a jailbroken iPhone 4S, and it’s about a 20-step process right now.

Mark: In its current state, is the port 100% functional, is there anything you would like to see work better?

Steven: Yes, it seems to be 100% functional. I’m working on the rough edges, but everything that works on the iPhone 4S seems to work here.

Mark: Do you ever see Siri showing up in Cydia (or another jailbreak store) for non natively supported devices?

Steven: No, I could not be a part of that. I have no doubts that others will package this up and distribute it quasi-illegally, or try and sell it to people. I am only interested in the technology and making it work; proving that it works and works well on the iPhone 4 and other devices.

Mark: So, you also got Siri working on the fourth-generation iPod touch, how is that working out?

Steven: We got chpwn’s iPod touch up and running with Siri after proving it works on my iPhone 4. Unfortunately the microphone on the iPod is nowhere near as good as the iPhone – you will notice that the Siri level meter hardly moves when you talk to it. While it does work, you have to speak loudly and clearly to the iPod.

Mark: How long did porting take you, what was the “I got it” moment?

Steven: Basically, I already had everything I needed to make it work. I had spent a lot of time mapping out in my head exactly how Siri works on the iPhone. All I needed was access to a jailbroken iPhone 4S to put my hunch to the test. It literally took no longer than 10 minutes to put all the pieces in place and perform our first test on my iPhone 4, and it was an instant success.

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Watch Microsoft’s Vision of the Post PC Era

Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go.

The future is amazing, and Microsoft has video to prove it. Watch the clip below:

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Samsung caught again copying Apple

Official Samsung website for Galaxy Player 50 has a slightly modified version of the Apple iOS Maps app, directly taken from a 2008 screenshot of iPhone Maps app. Apparently, Samsung doesn’t know (or care) that although the Apple’s Maps app uses Google maps data, the user interface is designed and copyrighted by Apple since 2007.

• Check out Samsung’s 2011 knockoff at: http://www.samsung.com/galaxyplayer50/ (removed)
• Direct image URL: http://www.samsung.com/galaxyplayer50/img/img_gms.gif

No wonder Apple wins injunction in Australia and Germany. Fandroid drones, what excuses do you have now? Still think Samsung using Apple’s App Store and Safari icons is an “accident”?

Samsung using Apple’s App Store and Safari icons in their stores

This isn’t the first time a rival to Apple has used their artwork. Recently we’ve had Samsung using icons from Apple’s App Store in the backdrop of their in-store displays, a move which once again led to much embarrassment for the firm fighting a legal battle claiming they’re copying Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Note: Samsung took the page down.

[Discovered by @raruler]

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Apple Q4 2011 financial results

Apple has announced some interesting numbers in their Q4 2011 financial results / earnings call. Below you’ll find the prominent numbers.

1. $28.7 billion in Q4 revenue
2. $6.62 billion in Q4 net profit
3. $7.05 per diluted share
4. 17.1 million iPhones sold in Q4
5. 11.12 million iPads sold in Q4
6. 6.6 million iPod sales sold in Q4
7. 18 billion App Store downloads
8. 180 million iBookstore downloads
9. 6 million Lion downloads, since its release this summer
10. 4.89 million Macs sold in Q4
11. $10.7 million average revenue per Apple Store
12. $108 billion in revenue for fiscal year, 66% growth over FY10
13. 77.5 million Apple Store visits in Q4
14. 16% of Apple’s revenue came from China
15. 500,000 apps available on the App Store, available in 23 countries
16. Apple has $81.6 billion cash available
17. 13% of Apple’s revenue from retail
18. iPhone sales up 21% year over year
19. 93% of Fortune 500 deploying or testing iPhones
20. Apple set a $37 billion guidance for fiscal Q1 (holiday)
21. 16 billion songs downloaded from iTunes
22. iPad 2 available in 90 countries
23. 34.82 million iOS device sold in Q4
24. 357 Apple Stores world-wide
25. $3.6 billion in revenue from Apple Stores
26. iPod still has >70% share in U.S. 10 years after introduced
27. Apple plans to add 40 new Apple Stores next Q, 3/4 outside of U.S.
28. All five stores combined in China have the most traffic
29. iPhone 4S available in 7 countries, 22 more on their way
30. 30 new Apple stores were added in Q4

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Abdulfattah 'John' Jandali, left, reached out to biological son Steve Jobs but the two never met.

Mr. Abdulfattah “John” Jandali, 80 years old and general manager of the Boomtown casino in the barren hills outside Reno, Nevada, presides over a staff of around 450 casino workers and is praised by his colleagues for his quiet leadership style and a marketing savvy. Walking the floor on Friday, he was stopped by an employee who thanked him for reinstalling $5 dollar slot machines. Mr. Jandali shook his hand, then sat down at the casino’s Chinese noodle joint to eat the salmon special, as he does many days.

“I can’t take credit for my children’s success,” said Mr. Jandali, who is also the father of the celebrated novelist Mona Simpson. Mr. Jobs was put up for adoption as a baby. Mr. Jandali said he had almost no contact with him and also has a strained relationship with Ms. Simpson.

Mr. Jandali’s close friends say the estrangement with his children has been a source of great sadness over the years. He kept the fact of his famous offspring private from even those closest to him for fear of being perceived as someone seeking to ride their coattails.

“To me it felt like his whole life this (estrangement) is something he regretted and he wished he made different decisions or wished there was a different result,” said Keith Henson, a general manager of L’Auberge Lake Charles, a casino in Louisiana. Mr. Henson said he found out only three years ago that Mr. Jandali had fathered Mr. Jobs even though Mr. Henson was mentored by Mr. Jandali at Boomtown and was the best man at his third wedding.

The recent decline in Mr. Jobs’s health attracted notice to Mr. Jandali, which he said he finds uncomfortable. Mr. Jandali agreed to be interviewed at the casino’s noodle restaurant, only after saying he didn’t think his story was interesting enough to warrant the attention.

With crinkled eyes and white hair surrounding a balding head, Mr. Jandali has a physical resemblance to Mr. Jobs. A side table in his office prominently features a framed publicity shot of Ms. Simpson that Mr. Jandali said he downloaded from the Internet.

He said he learned of Mr. Jobs’s death on Wednesday at the office, when a stranger called to offer condolences. He quickly hung up the phone.

“It was not a shock,” Mr. Jandali said. “Basically all you feel is sadness.”

Mr. Jandali only learned around 2005 that Mr. Jobs was his biological son. He doesn’t remember how he heard, but he said the news was “a major shock.”

After that, Mr. Jandali began watching online videos of Mr. Jobs’s famous keynote speeches launching Apple products. He emailed a few times in the past year after becoming aware of Mr. Jobs’s failing health.

“I don’t know why I emailed,” Mr. Jandali said. “I guess because I felt bad when I heard about the health situation. He had his life and I had my life, and we were not in contact. If I talked to him, I don’t know what I would have said to him.”

After hearing of Mr. Jobs’s death Mr. Jandali called Ms. Simpson, who he said didn’t respond. He stared at pictures that were saturating news web sites online of Mr. Jobs in his 20s and 30s.

“That was exactly how I looked,” he said.

Mr. Jandali said he also read the speech last week that Mr. Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005 in which the Apple chief reflected on life and death and told the story of his adoption.

“My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student … She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates,” Mr. Jobs said in the speech.

Mr. Jobs, who was born in San Francisco in 1955, said in the speech that in fact his birth mother finally agreed that he be adopted by Paul Jobs, a high-school dropout who became a machinist, and Clara Jobs, who never graduated from college. He grew up near San Francisco. While Mr. Jobs has acknowledged he had a relationship with his birth mother and sister, he didn’t publicly discuss Mr. Jandali.

People who know Mr. Jandali say he shares the intellectual capacity and instinct for understanding of consumer desires as his son, albeit in a different context. Yet unlike Mr. Jobs, a showman famous for wowing crowds with new products, Mr. Jandali prefers to remain in the background, he and others say.

“He’s a great influencer on those around him,” said Anthony Sanfilippo, chief executive of Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., which owns Boomtown. Mr. Sanfilippo promoted Mr. Jandali to general manager of the casino from head of hospitality around a year ago. “He is really the opposite of a showman because he would always put the light on others to take the stage. He understands what guests like and what they are willing to pay for.”

Mr. Jandali said he was never very technologically savvy. But he does consider himself an early adopter. His first and only computers have been Apple products—he has both a laptop and a desktop at home—and he purchased every iPhone model as soon as it came out, along with an iPad. He maintains Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“You have to use all the tools available to you,” he said. “It’s stupid not to.”

Mr. Jandali said he was born and raised in Syria’s third largest city, Homs, to a prominent family that owned villages and vast amounts of land outside the city, where workers tended wheat and cotton to enrich his family.

His father, he said, stressed education to his three sons, of which Mr. Jandali is the youngest. Mr. Jandali planned to become a diplomat in Syria. In 1952 came to the U.S., enrolling a year later to get his PhD in political science at the University of Wisconsin. His emphasis was on how Middle Eastern countries could emerge from colonialism. University records show he was awarded his doctorate in 1956 with a dissertation entitled “United Nations Efforts to Set Standards for National Independence.”

While a student in Madison, he became romantically involved with Joanne Schieble, a graduate student in speech therapy from Green Bay. Ms. Schieble, now known as Joanne Simpson, became pregnant in 1954 but her father didn’t approve of the relationship, Mr. Jandali said.

Ms. Simpson went to San Francisco for a few months to get away while she was pregnant. She eventually put her son, Mr. Jobs, up for adoption.

Ms. Simpson returned to Madison and soon after, her father died, enabling Ms. Simpson and Mr. Jandali to marry. After he graduated they moved to Syria but by then the government was in transition, disrupting his plans to become a diplomat. Instead, he said, he managed an oil refinery. Ms. Simpson was unhappy in Syria and moved back to Green Bay, he said, where she gave birth to their second child, Mona.

Mr. Jandali said he returned and began to teach at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There and later at other universities, he didn’t publish beyond a few articles in Arab-language newspapers. (The University of Wisconsin doesn’t have a record of Mr. Jandali being employed as professor but he might have taught classes, said John Coleman, the current chair of the political-science department.)

A few years later Mr. Jandali and Ms. Simpson divorced, and she later remarried. Mr. Jandali wasn’t involved in the younger Ms. Simpson’s life when she was growing up, according to both Mr. Jandali and a person close to the family. “He abandoned the family” and was “for the most part unreachable,” that person said.

As an adult, Mr. Jobs found and contacted Joanne Simpson and forged a relationship with her, as well as with Mona. Joanne Simpson couldn’t be reached for comment.

Mona Simpson in 1993 penned a novel, “The Lost Father,” about a protagonist searching for a father she never knew. Mr. Jandali read the book and recognized himself in the father character.

“The way I look at it, it’s her way of venting, and it’s OK,” Mr. Jandali said. “She’s entitled to that. It’s the price to pay for not being there for your child when you’re a father. Even though I don’t see her, I love her dearly.”

According to the University of Wisconsin, where he got his PhD, Mr. Jandali was affiliated with a number of universities around the country. Around 1968, he said, he taught in the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno. However, his time there was brief and he left in 1970, according to university records. By that point he already owned a restaurant in Reno, where he would sometimes treat faculty members, recalled Joe Crowley, a former Reno colleague who went on to become president of the university.

He married a woman who worked in real estate and had grown children, Mr. Jandali said. He bought a bankrupt French restaurant in Reno and later sold it for a profit, he said, before joining a major casino in Las Vegas to run a restaurant. He became head of food and beverage in 1999 for Boomtown.

In 2006, widowed, Mr. Jandali remarried and now lives on a cul-de-sac in a gated Reno suburban community. He constantly reads books, usually on his iPad, he and others say, and he has outlined several fiction and nonfiction books that he hopes to finish writing if he retires.

But on Friday he was more focused on the casino’s affairs, including the next day’s “Super Spin Saturday” promotion, when casino-goers have the chance to win up to $400,000 by spinning a giant wheel.

Finishing lunch, he walked out of the Chinese restaurant, past tables printed with silhouettes of gun-slinging cowboys and by gamblers playing video poker machines. As he left, Mr. Jandali waved the iPhone in his hand. “They produce the best,” he said quietly. “Steve Jobs was a genius.”

[source: WSJ]
[Image credit: Max Whittaker/Prime for The Wall Street Journal ; WireImage]

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Samsung, with a great timing, you know how to time this Samsung, don’t you? Just a day after the disappointing iPhone 4S announcement yesterday, comes a teaser of what looks like the Samsung Nexus Prime. with a tagline “Something BIG is coming,” and both the Samsung and Google logos at the end of the clip.

The device is said to have 4.6” display 720 x 1280 pixels. the new Samsung Nexus Prime will probably make a debut at CTIA in San Diego October 11th, and it promises to be big.

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This morning Facebook announced Timeline, a look at everything that has ever happened in your Facebook lifespan. It’s like a story book of your life. Although the feature has been announced, it is not yet available to the public – only developers can get access.

Things to consider:

• You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.
• Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days. My timeline was automatically hard-set to go public on September 29th.
• It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline
• You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account.

How to enable it:

Step 1: Log in to Facebook.

Step 2: You will need to enable developer mode if you haven’t already. Simply type “Developer” in the search box and click on the top result.

Step 3: Go to the developer app, which can be found here should Facebook not automatically redirect you.

Step 4: Create a new app (don’t fret, nobody will be able to see it), and give it a name and namespace (no CAPS allowed with the namespace).

Step 5: Once that’s done, click on the “Get Started using open graph” under the “Open Graph” header.

Step 6: You will then be asked to create a test action for your app, like “read” a “book”.

Step 7: Next, you’ll be met with a config page of your selected action. Navigate through that page and the next three pages of settings.

Step 8: Once you have gone through the last page and hit “Save and Finish”, after a couple of minutes, an invite to try Timeline should appear at the top of your homescreen.

Click it, and you will be met with a page which seemingly covers every story of your Facebook life since the day you joined. Enjoy!

[via TechCrunch]

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So innovative and unique! A cool viral marketing for the upcoming Steven Soderbergh‘s Contagion movie. A real life cool billboard made of Bacteria and fungi. Check out the video below from Warner Bros. Toronto.

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As reported  by CNET, it appears Apple may have lost another unreleased iPhone model in a bar, this time at the Cava22 in San Francisco. The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco’s Mission district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

You may recall last year’s loss of an iPhone 4 prototype, which was lost by an Apple employee and sold to Gizmodo. This year’s lost phone seems to have taken a more mundane path: it was taken from a Mexican restaurant and bar and may have been sold on Craigslist for $200. Still unclear are details about the device, what version of the iOS operating system it was running, and what it looks like.

Apple electronically traced the phone to a two-floor, single-family home in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, according to the source.

When San Francisco police and Apple’s investigators visited the house, they spoke with a man in his twenties who acknowledged being at Cava 22 on the night the device went missing. But he denied knowing anything about the phone. The man gave police permission to search the house, and they found nothing, the source said.

iPhone 5 is expected to launch this September / early October.

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Here’s a cool piece of artwork by Richard Sargent called Where’s Wall-E, and it’s basically featuring a huge crowd of robots from movies, television and more. Can you find WALL-E among them? If you give up you can check the answer in the first comment. Now you can click on the image to enlarge.

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Cupertino city has released full details and plans fro Apple’s 20,000 plus person Spaceship that was announced by Steve Jobs on June 7th, days after WWDC.

Jobs called the new building “a spaceship” and said Apple will use its experience in building retail store masterpieces to construct this “architectural landmark”.  Parking underneath, the building would perhaps be used for events like the WWDC – Jobs mentioned that it would have a large auditorium and a single cafeteria [below] that could seat 3,000 at a time.

The plan was greenlit in a statement by Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong that states “there is no chance we are saying no” to the new Apple campus

You can check the whole plans here:

• View this document on Scribd, Intro
• View this document on Scribd, Site Plan/Landscaping
• View this document on Scribd, Floor Plans
• View this document on Scribd, Renderings

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Hacker group Anonymous, which has been responsible for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, Sony, News Corp, hacked into Iran‘s government emails, possibly the IMF, Anders Breivik’s Twitter account, and much more, has a new target in its crosshairs: Facebook. The hackers have set the date for Facebook’s demise as November 5, 2011. The reason? Ironically, they’re worried about privacy.

Citing privacy concerns and the difficulty involved in deleting a Facebook account, Anonymous hopes to “kill Facebook,”. Anonymous leadership disowned Operation Facebook on Twitter.

So, only some Anonymous members are involved. This isn’t the first time Anonymous has spoken out against social networks. After Google removed Anonymous’ Gmail and Google+ accounts, Anonymous pledged to create its own social network, called AnonPlus.

The full text of the announcement, made on YouTube and reported by Village Voice, is below:

DATE: November 5, 2011.TARGET: https://facebook.com

Press:
Twitter : https://twitter.com/OP_Facebook

http://piratepad.net/YCPcpwrl09

Irc.Anonops.Li #OpFaceBook
Message:

Attention citizens of the world,

We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows:
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.

Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.

Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your “privacy” settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you “delete” your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more “private” is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family. http://www.physorg.com/news170614271.html

http://itgrunts.com/2010/10/07/facebook-steals-numbers-and-data-from-your-iph….

You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in. Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.

The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It’s unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don’t understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them “for their own good” while they then make millions off of you. When a service is “free,” it really means they’re making money off of you and your information.

Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook . Engaged.

This is our world now. We exist without nationality, without religious bias. We have the right to not be surveilled, not be stalked, and not be used for profit. We have the right to not live as slaves.

We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us

“Kill Facebook for the sake of your own privacy” — doesn’t that sound strange, coming from people who routinely steal private information as they please? But this echoes the manifesto of a related group, LulzSec, whose nihilistic perspective on the state of the Internet kind of made sense. An excerpt:

Do you think every hacker announces everything they’ve hacked? We certainly haven’t, and we’re damn sure others are playing the silent game. Do you feel safe with your Facebook accounts, your Google Mail accounts, your Skype accounts? What makes you think a hacker isn’t silently sitting inside all of these right now, sniping out individual people, or perhaps selling them off? You are a peon to these people. A toy. A string of characters with a value.This is what you should be fearful of, not us releasing things publicly, but the fact that someone hasn’t released something publicly.

Will Anonymous be able to successfully lay waste to Mark Zuckerberg‘s fortress? This is set to be the Internet showdown of the year.

What is expected actually, is that Facebook would not be “destroyed,” per se. What’s more likely to happen is a DDoS (denial of service) attack on Facebook which could, if successful, prevent users from reaching the site for anywhere from minutes to hours.

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Apple, the $347 billion maker of iPhones and iPads became, although briefly, the most valuable company in the US when it passed Exxon Mobil yesterday. It lasted a few hours until the market put Exxon back on top. Is it a hint at brighter future for Apple?

According to NYtimes, Robert Cyran doesn’t understand why Apple isn’t headed straight towards hitting the $1 Trillion mark.

Apple’s sales have been surging 80 percent a year, and its profit faster. What’s more, it trades roughly in line with the growing stock market — and at less than half the price-to-earnings multiple it fetched in 2006, when revenue growth was much slower. Apple now trades at about 11 times estimated earnings for the fiscal year ending September 2012. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is valued at about 10 times next year’s profit. But Apple’s sales growth is nearly 10 times faster than that of the average company. Apple also holds $76 billion of cash and investments.

So, what’s the deal?

Put Apple on the same P/E multiple it traded on in 2006, and it would be worth almost $900 billion. A premium for today’s faster growth could get it to $1 trillion. Apple can’t be so cheap just because Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive, is in bad health.

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There’s still a few weeks in which talk about what new features will drive the future iPhone 5. Here is a great collection by Jonny Evans who sums up a good amount of features and specifications rumored or said to be included in the upcoming iPhone 5.

Poker face

The fifth-generation iPhone (iPhone 5, or, possibly, the iPhone 4S) is a very important release. Not only will it be a major attempt by which Apple hopes to consolidate its lead on the smartphone biz, but it is also likely to spark renewed competitive peaks within that business.

The game is Apple’s to lose: it now dominates both by revenue and model sales. With that in mind here’s the current speculation, roughly in order of likelihood:

1Ghz Dual-core A5 processor

There have been some reports that production has been delayed by problems with heat dissipation on the new models. It’s impossible to say if that’s true, but Apple does seem likely to pop its most recent A-series processor inside its new phone.

What does this mean? It means the new iPhone will be blazingly fast — twice as fast as the previous version and with up to nine times the graphics processing power, if the iPad 2 improvements be seen as guide.

iOS 5 inside

Apple has been very busy working on iOS 5, which, among other things, will offer support for the new ‘Find My Mac’ feature I predicted last May. And will also integrate tightly with iCloud for a computing anywhere style experience.

A better camera

Omnivision made waves this week with news that it has produced camera modules that are 20 percent thinner than before. The new iPhone is expected to boast an 8-megapixel Omnivision camera with an improved LED flash system. The front camera is also expected to improve.

Bigger screen

Replacement of the mechanical Home button with a capacitive controller could enable Apple to equip the iPhone 5 with a bigger 3.7-inch (or, perhaps, 4-inch) display.

Better speakers

Apple continues to improve the speakers it places inside its mobile devices. You’ll be able to drown out those tinny phones the kids at the back of the bus use with these.

World class

The iPhone 5 is expected to host a combined hybrid GSM/CDMA radio possibly by qualcomm. This means you’ll be able to use one device on most available networks. This also means you can expect iPhone 5 to hit Verizon and AT&T simultaneously, and to reach CDMA networks (such as those in China) pretty soon after Apple’s manufacturers begin to meet US demand.

Screen resolution, RAM, storage

1,280-x-720px Retina Display, 367ppi. 512MB RAM and available in models equipped with up to 64GB storage

Thinner, too

That’s right, the new iPhone’s expected to be thinner — given Omnivision’s news and potential use of a Thunderbolt connector, it could be considerably thinner. (10 percent?)

A teardrop phone

All those purported leaked case designs suggest that the new iPhone will have a teardrop-style chassis, thicker at one end than another.

Voice Control

The new iPhone will boast voice control using an app called Assistant. This will let you speak your music requests, send texts and make Facetime calls. Based on Siri, it will also make simple requests, for example, “Where’s my nearest Starbuck’s?”.

Wireless Sync

This has been confirmed as a feature within iOS 5. You won’t need a computer in the post PC smartphone era.

Available in September

That’s the deal following news that Pegatron has secured orders to deliver 10 million units of iPhone 5, beginning in September.

Bluetooth 4 and/or NFC support

Apple has been working away at NFC for several years, but it is possible the company will instead choose to implement Bluetooth 4, which includes some specifications which could theoretically support secure payments.

iPhone HD — TV on demand

The iPhone 5 will support Full HD, just like the iPad. AirPlay movies to your Apple TV, or connect it to an HDTV for a high-res viewing experience. (And don’t get me started on those shiny new TV streaming services claims).

No LTE 4G phone

The sad truth here is that while LTE is much-discussed, it hasn’t really seen wide deployment globally at this time. This means that there isn’t yet a sufficiently wide market to justify the expense of including support for the standard in this edition of the phone.

I’m predicting LTE in the next-generation, when networks in key markets (eg., the UK) have upgraded their infrastructure to support the new standard.

A new antenna

Apple will not repeat antenna-gate. Jobs was not happy — recall the subsequent resignation of Mr Papermaster? Be prepared for a metal, rather than a glass back to the new device.

A nice price

I’m expecting the new device to come in at approximately the same price as the current models, though this will be tempered by local taxation changes and any unpredictable scarcity in component supply.

An iPhone nano?

I’m the biggest proponent of this device. Apple’s gone enigmatic on the matter.

RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky met with Apple this week, and writes, “Apple’s primary criterion for launching a lower-end iPhone is an innovative, category-killer experience.”

That’s neither a yes or a no, and is a response which will keep competitors guessing, I suspect. Wait and see.

Apple Maps?

Perhaps next year. Or the C3 Technologies?

And Smart Covers

Will the iPhone 5 have its own set of Smart Covers?

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You are familiar with your current mapping services when it comes to Google Maps, Bing Maps or Google Earth, But a new technology will let you get beyond that and the Swedish company behind it thinks you actually deserve more and… seriously.

Enter mind-blowing 3D mapping technology from Swedish startup C3 Technologies, the company that showcased their 3D maps on iPad at the CES show. Unlike your Ma and Pa’s maps, C3 Technologies calculates the terrain and buildings directly from aerial images. The approach takes into account the positions and angles of the cameras that took aerial images in order to give each pixel its geographical position with very high accuracy.

When we say high precision, we mean it hundred percent because C3 maps incorporate recently declassified missile targeting technology by Saab, a well-known Swedish aerospace company. As a result of all this, you get military-grade, pixel-perfect realistic representation of the terrain that can be rotated and paned around to a stunning effect. And at CES, they showed off 3D view of San Francisco running surprisingly smoothly on an iPad, see above

In addition to 3D maps, C3 also makes awesome street level imagery captured using “an advanced multiple camera system with overlapping viewing angles to capture the entire surroundings in stereo.” Topping it all off are incredible interior views of restaurants, hotels and other points of interest that can be found along the street.

Don’t you think that would be amazing if this was chosen as the maps to power the upcoming iPhone 5?!

Update:

C3 Technologies was acquired in July and the buyer is a western company and currently kept secret. Certainly the big players such as Apple, Microsoft and Google are the prime candidates.

As noted by macrumors, Apple is a good fit for the company, as they have already admitted to be working on their own turn-by-turn direction GPS service, and we’ve also found evidence that they have licensed map data from a number of companies. It would also reduce their dependance on Google’s mapping solution which presently is used on iOS devices. Apple previously purchased mapping company Placebase and has been aggressively hiring for their Geo Team to take Maps to the “next level”.

[via brightsideofnews]

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From the massive leaks back when the iPhone 4 was leaked totally before it debuted, we learned a lot, actually its becoming more easy to get our hands on whats Apple is preparing for us in the future. iPhone 5 as iPhone 4 before is being tested by different people and it might be hidden with iPhone 4 like case shell. We are over a month before launch, and Apple has acknowledged that they real world test this way in the past, think, Gray Powell, however. Last evening, a tipster sent the guys at 9to5mac a picture (above) of what he thinks is the iPhone 5.

The tipster has an iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 and what he saw was like nothing he’s ever seen. He said it would fit perfectly into the case below.

This iPhone appears thinner than the current iPhone 4 but also wider. The edges are rounded metal like the edges of a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 but could still function as an antenna. The back is a curved/tapered glass or plastic.

Tapered design and wider edge to edge screen were rumored a lot as well as a bigger home screen that could be capacitive and gestures-driven touch.

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We knew this was going to happen: Google Books, Amazon Kindle, Nook in the latest releases, they’ve pulled out the link to external Stores directly and adhere to Apple in-app purchases only. Apple you win for sure

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The entire world has been patiently awaiting the arrival of a Facebook iPad app. This however is just about to change. As discovered by some folks on Twitter and confirmed by TechCrunch, the new Facebook iPad app is ready and actually already out there. Indeed, Facebook did develop the app and placed it inside its code already, but hasn’t simply activated it. Just a few lines of code to change can however make it happen.

Hidden in the code of Facebook’s iPhone app is the code for something else. Something everyone has been waiting over a year for. The iPad app.

The gist of the trick is a modification to make inside the Facebook app discovered by AeroEchelon on Twitter:

If you change the UIDeviceFamily to 2 for iPhone on the Facebook app you get an iPad version!

You can make apps iPad compatible without pixelation and 2x button and also you can make the app support all 4 orientations. Here is how:

1.  Navigate to the app you want to make compatible in /var/mobile/Applications
2.  Open the info.plist in the applications main folder
3.  Add the follow:

<key>UIDeviceFamily</key>
<array>
<integer>1</integer>
<integer>2</integer>
</array>

4. Respring and then you should have a nice iPad size app

iClarified has a full step by step guide on how to achieve just that. It’s actually the same technique that has been long used to force iPhone-only apps to run in full screen on the iPad.

Update #1:

Facebook has blocked access to iPad version

Update #2:

You can re-enable Facebook’s iPad app by doing this:

• Download Facebook app
• Open Cydia and install FaceForward [a free tweak available under BigBoss repo]
  

[via appadvice]

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