First off I'll admit I have a Geek crush on all things Apple, but the since the release of the iPad 2 their hypnotic affect on my mind has been waning. I was hoping a new AppleTV would quell some of that but alas I and many like were not so fortunate.

iOS6

What we did get was a great inside look into the upcoming iOS 6. Touting over 200 additions and updates, iOS 6 is the newest software for the company's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. It entered beta stage today with its release to developers. End users should see the official update land sometime in the fall, most likely to coincide with a new iPhone.

Here are some of the new features:

• Apple is telling Google to “go scratch” with a brand new Maps app. The 3D, vector based maps look gorgeous, and finally include turn-by-turn directions.
• Siri get’s smarter – Ask her about a sports score, movies, or restaurant and our favorite faceless voice has an opinion.
• Baked in Facebook-finally – Here is another one that has been inexplicably missing, Facebook access and sharing across the board. Now you can share photos, videos, and any other inane thoughts that pop into your head.
• Share your photo streams with specific, controlled groups. If you don’t like to share too much on Facebook you can now share different photostreams with different people. Nice.
• Passbook let’s you keep your boarding passes, loyalty card, movie tickets, and more on your phone. Your wallet just got lighter.
• FaceTime over cellular networks. No more Skype for you!
• Brand new mail client with a slew of features like attaching images right in an email (another finallymoment)
• Brand new phone app with the ability to reply to calls with text messages, etc… Some handy stuff here, nothing earth shattering.

All in all pretty nice. Siri will also be available on all of the “New iPads”… meaning not iPad 1 or 2.

MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Next is the major hardware update. Sure apple tweaked all the MacBook Pro models but none as much as the much drooled over MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The new MacBook Pro, though not as thin as a MacBook Air, which also got a refresh, is much thinner, lighter, and power packed than it’s predecessor. Only .71? thick and 4 pounds this MacBook Pro will finally fit easily into your bag, and with a 7 hour battery life you may actually be able to leave your charger at home. Add in a crystal clear Retina Display, and this thing looks like an absolute winner. The new model also boasts up to 750 megs of solid state memory, meaning even the workhorse MacBook Pro is ditching the hard drive. It looks absolutely stunning, though starting at $2100 it is firmly in the premium notebook category, MacBook Pro’s have always been premium equipment.

OSX Mountain Lion

Apple also showcased some of the new features in OSX Mountain Lion. The latest version of OS X, will offer as many as 200 new features, including many more cloud services. Apple's iCloud service already boasts 125 million registered users, according to the company. Applications like mail, contacts, calendar, Messages, Reminders, and Notes will all sync up, along with a new feature dubbed "Documents in the Cloud," which can sync documents from Pages, Keynote, Preview, and TextEdit. Mountain Lion will be available in the Mac App Store in July for $19.99.

Besides it was classic Science Fiction writers who made us all aware of the harmful affects us humans could have on our planet, thus forcing us to "seek out new worlds and civilizations." So we want to do our part for Earth Day, too. After all, Earth’s the only planet we’ve got — for the time being, anyway.

So just why is it important for us geeks to be concerned? Mainly because of our fascination with technology and everything that is new and shiny. We demand, no crave, the newest and best of everything, hardly giving time for what we have to be used to its full potential.

The problem is that technology demands a certain level of exploitation when it comes to the environment. Metal alloys that are building blocks of tech devices are harnessed from the earth’s bounty. One of the most important components that any business, whether IT or non-tech, is energy. This is the food that fuels day-to-day operations. But there is no such thing as an unlimited resource, and our use of natural resources shouldn’t be a one-way street.

One way we can help curb our CO2 impact on the planet is to limit our Google searches. According to Google, each search uses roughly 0.0003 kWh of energy, or 1 kJ. The human body uses 8000 kJ a day of energy from food, so a Google search will use about the equivalent of 10 seconds of human energy. In relation to automobile use, a Google search creates 0.2 grams of CO2 emissions, that’s not a whole lot considering driving one mile produces the same amount of emissions as 1000s of Google searches. So if you willing to sacrifice you daily drives or seak out alternative means of transportation, you can feel good about sitting inside and searching Google all day.

Earth Day was started back on April 22nd, 1970, when 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. The idea behind Earth Day came from founder Gaylord Nelson after witnessing the impact of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Since then Earth Day has evolved into a global phenomenon that brings everyone together to think about the Earth’s needs and what we can do to help.

But what exactly is it that we geeks can do? Unfortunately computers and technology are a major part of our daily lives and the manufacturing and use of these items are also a major contributor to our waste stream and energy consumption. Take a moment to read the tips below to help reduce your impact on the environment (and save some cash in the process!).

Reduce Energy Consumption

1) Did you know that approximately 40% of the energy used for home electronics is consumed while these devices are turned off or idling? When not in use for extended periods, switch your computer OFF and unplug it. Despite popular belief, powering your computer on and off daily will not harm your computer.

2) Configure your power saving options for energy savings when your computer is temporarily not in use. For example, set your computer to put your monitor to sleep, spin down your hard drives.

3) If you’re going to use a screen saver, use a blank (black) screen – animated screen savers just consume more electricity.

4) Don’t forget your EXTRAS! Turn off your power-hungry printer, speakers, monitor, and any other hardware that is sucking up energy when not being used.

Reduce Paper Waste

1) First and foremost, ask yourself: Do I really need to print this? While some paper gets recycled, it is still the largest component of the waste stream that ends up in landfills. Do Earth a favor by saving trees.

2) If you are printing from the web, there are several easy to use tools that will help you remove stuff like ads and images before printing, which saves ink and paper. Here are a few: Aardvark (firefox extension), GreenPrint (also works with Office) and PrintWhatYouLike.

3) If you have a bunch of one-sided print-outs that you no longer need, contribute them to the scrap paper box located on the counter of the library service desk. Use both sides of paper before recycling.

Reuse and Recycle Hardware

1) Before purchasing a new computer, consider upgrading hardware in your current machine. Some extra memory or a new hard drive may be all you need to restore life to your current system.

2) As time goes by, your machine may suffer from software bloat. All the updates, installing of software, applications running in the background that you don’t really need clog up your machine up and slow down its performance, which in turn increases electricity consumption. Consider doing a reinstallation of Windows and your software. A lean machine will sip less electricity and perform much better.

3) When you do replace your computer, donate or recycle it.

4) Better yet recycle cardboard, cans, and bottles as game terrain. While you may already recycle we're sure the efforts are only somewhat effective due to the resources required to gather the recyclable materials, separate them, and do the actual recycling. So why not be a true geek and find a new way to reuse them. With a little creativity, a pair of scissors, some paint and some glue, and you can create some nifty terrain for a miniatures campaign, or maybe work into a custom display for your prized action figures.

Conserve around the house

1) Install a programmable thermostat in your home. It’s really simple, not that expensive, and is pretty well guaranteed to save energy, and to reduce your utility bills drastically. While getting the programming just right to keep your family comfortable can be a hassle, the chance to do some experimentation has never made us turn away from anything.

2) Buy and use an energy-saving surge protector / power strip. These devices act like regular old surge protectors, but with an added feature to help eliminate “phantom power” waste. “Phantom power” is the little bit of power many devices draw even when they’re switched off. Go for extra geek points and get the Belkin BG108000-04 with a remote control.

3) Install solar panels on your roof. Of course this will only work if you get a decent amount of sun. Solar energy can really reduce the amount of electricity you draw from your utility company. The only downside is that solar panels aren’t quite efficient enough yet so you’re unlikely to see a drastic difference (especially in winter). But then again why let perfectly good energy going to waste?

4) Find and fix air leaks in your home. Houses, especially older houses, tend to have a lot of little air leaks. While one leak isn’t too bad, a lot can be a huge energy drain. If you’re looking for an excuse to get a new gadget then this one serves a double whammy. With a Black & Decker Leak Detector, you can use a piece of technology to help save some money.

By following just a few of these tips every day, we can all help make an impact on our Earth.

Jailbreaking allows any application to be installed and facilitates operating system, user interface, and system-level tweaks, including installing an SSH client to remotely access the iOS device’s file system. Some iOS jailbreaks have been released less than a day after Apple pushed an operating system update. But the latest one for the A5 process has taken longer than usual.

To assist in exploiting the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, the Chronic Dev Team used a utility called “CDevReporter” to collect the crash reports for both devices. Within a week of releasing this utility they had more than ten million reports flooding in. This allowed the team to crowd source the process of discovering new vulnerabilities for A5 devices, or the act of transforming standard bugs uncovered during a normal device’s operation into potential attack vectors for full jailbreak exploits.

While jailbreaking is legal in many countries, including the United States, Apple continues to issue statements saying that jailbreaking a device could void its warranty. Starting with iOS 4.2.1 in late 2010, Apple excised an API that had been built to detect whether an iPhone was jailbroken in efforts to help detect such devices.

Besides possibly voiding your Apple warranty what are the downside to jailbreaking? Well you could be out of luck getting help for your iPhone 4S or iPad 2 if some part of the device’s software or hardware go buggy. If you don`t want to loose those great changes you made to your device then you`ll be stuck waiting when future iOS updates are released, as you won’t want to install Apple’s update without first verifying that your jailbreak will still be able to function.

For people who do jailbreak their iOS devices, you should look into altering the device’s root password. Apple ships every iPhone and iPad with a root and mobile account, but they both share the same password "alpine." With a jailbroken device with SSH installed they could be remotely accessed and hacked by attackers, if they can determine the root password.

You can download the Mac-only jailbreak utility (for now) over at greenpois0n.com.

Digital locker services FileSonic, FileServe, and others have stopped allowing users to share the files they upload with others in order to keep them out of the possible backlash from the closure of Megaupload. The “cyberlockers" provided by these companies allow people to upload files that can be shared or downloaded by others. Normally the files are available for a limited period of time but premium customers do have the option for their files to stay online permanently.

The limited amount of time that the uploaded files are available is what leads copyright infringers and pirates to use these "cyberlockers," as they can move files around without the need for a physical storage space.

Currently Filesonic states on its website that, “All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally,” meaning you can no longer download any file you didn’t personally add to the service.

Some of the popularity of these file sharing sites were the perks. Most offered some type of affiliate program where the file sharer would earn money for getting other people to download the files that you upload to the site. While this would be good for a website to earn some extra cash in lieu of hosting the files themselves this, this ultimately lead to pirates getting paid to share illegal content with as may people as possible.

As with the ability to share files most sites have also removed their affiliate programs in efforts to show that they are valiantly fighting internet piracy in efforts to avoid the same fate as Megaupload.

Othersites instead of changing their core function have blocked all U.S. IP addresses, which essentially blocks all U.S. users from visiting or using the site, while others simply are standing firm saying they don`t incentivize file sharing thus keeping piracy low.

Until we see what becomes of this latest battle in the war on file sharing, no site may be safe. While the most average user may be unaware of what these sites are, they were among the most popular/trafficked sites in the world. According to Alexa, FileServe has a global ranking of 132 and FileSonic has a global ranking of 166. These rankings show that the file sharing either legally or illegally is one of the more popular things to do on the internet.

His Stop SOPA code is an simple HTML file you can you use to easily replace the homepage of your site with a black screen and an anti-SOPA message that’s revealed by using the cursor as a flashlight.

The code is entirely in the public domain, with no attribution required, so you can feel free to use it without fear of violating any copyrights.

[mashable]

The 2012 CES officially gets underway tonight with Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer taking the center stage for Keynote address. 2012 marks Microsoft's last year at CES so this keynote should be worth checking out. The keynote is scheduled to happen on Monday, January 09, 2012 at 6:30 p.m in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ballmer will deliver a pre-show keynote address that can be watched live online. The live video streams can be watched on Microsoft’s official channels including their Facebook page and webcast page.

This years CES should provide us with lots of new items in the mobile space. We can expect to see lots of companies showing off LTE capable phones as well as new versions with Ice Cream Sandwich and Windows Phone Mango. Also expect to see the new class of SuperPhone, those with the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor allowing for up to quad-core processing and enhanced 3D graphics.

We should expect to see new tablets as well with Ice Cream Sandwich and the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. Look for most new tablets to come in a various amount of sizes with most running Honeycomb and being upgradable to Ice Cream Sandwich later this year. We could also see some new hybrid tablets similar to the Galaxy Note and the Asus Transformer Prime.

Even though Microsoft's Keynote is scheduled for tonight I do not expect to see much in way of a Windows 8 preview as they will be holding that off for their own developer conference later this year. But we might be able to see Nokia's Windows 8 Tablet that they have been rumored to be putting a lot of time and money into.

The big feature at this years CES is the Ultrabook.. These notebooks that are a step above the failed netbooks yet not as powerful as a full fledged laptop are poised to steel the show. We can expect anywhere from 30-50 different models with most trying to take a page from Apple's Macbook Air. The main question will be if retailers can find the right price point.

Vehicles will also have a large part with the automobile retailers looking to gain some of the tech buzz that has made owning a phone or tablet more important than a car to most. Look for new advances with in-dash media and navigation and general technological enhancements to be shown off.

While TV's were the large elephant in the room at CES last year look for them still to make a splash with even larger screens at a fraction of last years prices. OLED TV with their large screens and thin sizes should take a large share of the buzz. We might also get to see a revised Google TV to try to take back some of their bad press from last years launch and to compete with the likes of Boxee and Roku.

Of course there will be cameras and video recorders on display with 12MP and full 1080P video being the hot button spec wise.

Stay tunes to DayOldStubble.com for daily updates on the days best announcements and watch for our inaugural Best of CES 2012 Show where we will run down the best to come from this years show.

Cubelets are magnetic blocks that can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. You can build robots that drive around on a tabletop, respond to light, sound, and temperature, and have surprisingly lifelike behavior. But instead of programming that behavior, you snap the cubelets together and watch the behavior emerge like with a flock of birds or a swarm of bees.

Each cubelet in the kit has different equipment on board and a different default behavior. There are Sense Blocks that act like our eyes and ears, Action blocks, and Think blocks. Just like with people, the senses are the inputs to the system.

If you have an extra $160 laying around you can get your own first 6-piece kit. While a tad high I`m sure they are fun to play with and will reduce in price once demand increases.

[Cubelets]

Why not be pro-active and keep this from happening. Even if your not a tech wizard simply taking the time to run maintenance on the machine or asking an IT professional to assess your computer and make recommendations can improve the function of the computer and reduce stress over the slowing down or freezing of applications.

Depending on the platform you use (PC or Mac), each have different procedures to each task but all get the same results. Simply preforming these few tasks and anyone can clean out their computers and keep them running optimally.

• Free disk space: One of the first steps is to take inventory of what you have saved on the computer and delete extraneous or unused program files and other items. Delete optional factory-installed components that you don't use as well. Check out files that you have personally saved and get rid of old things, especially photos, videos and other data that takes up a lot of space. Temporary Internet files take up a lot of space because the browser caches each page you visit for faster access at another time. Removing these temporary files can make your computer run more quickly.
• Update software: Both Mac and PC platforms have routine updates that are recommended for the operating system and the programs installed. Some software errors may be remedied by the updating of applications when indicated.
• Use spyware and virus protection: Visiting the Internet opens you up to contamination by any virus or spyware software contained on that site and through downloads you may do. Protection products will locate errant files on the hard drive and notify you for deletion.
• Back up files to external sources: Having your full photo and video compilation stored on your computer may be convenient, but what will happen should the hard drive become damaged and data not recoverable? Protecting yourself by keeping backups of important files and information can prove a saving grace should anything happen to the computer down the line.
• Inspect start-up items: Certain applications can be designated to launch with start-up, and this can bog down the machine and cause sluggishness. If speed issues are behind the clean-out, consider modifying the number of applications that you have in the start-up menu.
• Monitor activity: There may be something that is hogging your processor or using a lot of RAM. By seeing what is being used on the machine and when, you can make adjustments.

While not every tip will be applicable to your particular situation, it is important to realize that a computer is a machine and it will need maintenance. Also, as technology advances at light speed, it will be necessary to keep up with the proper updates that will enable the computer to work at full capacity. If you can keep up with your computer than it will keep up with you.

Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw said the company would no longer make a keynote presentation or host a booth after the one scheduled for January. For years Microsoft has been the main attraction using the keynote to try to upstage Apple's normal January event.

Lately though the early timeline has not aligned with Microsofts product deadlines and they have been rehashing past products and slightly teasing new ones. In 2011 the recapped existing products and only announced the upcoming Windows 8, while keeping details on the operating systems features secret until their own Build conference in September.

Microsoft has said they will partake in CES going forward but in a much smaller way, mainly for making business deals and connections. While Apple and Google have avoided taking part in CES all together it appears others are looking to do the same. Motorola Mobility has already canceled its conference for the upcoming show.

The cost of having such a large presence at the event compared to how easy it is to be missed in the huge onslaught of announcements made during CES has companies looking for smaller, individual events where they can control attention and hype. It seems people are trying to take a page from Apple whom for years has brought the tech industry to a still leading up to any one of it's famous keynotes.

While Microsoft has decided to pull out after 2012 this in no way means the end of CES. The Consumer Electronics Association said that they have already received interest for Microsoft's old booth space and I am sure one if not others will look to jump into that keynote spot as well.