geekosystem

All these Internet-enabled phones and other gadgets that seem to hit the market on a daily basis really are a double-edged sword. While we're connected to more people and places than we ever could have imagined and have more entertainment options than we probably need, this technology can sometimes cause us to become withdrawn or rely on it for otherwise simple tasks that we can easily do ourselves. As a result of this dilemma, parents can be understandably hesitant to purchase smartphones and the like for their children. Not wanting her child to become an unsocial techie, a woman named Janell Burley Hofmann bought her 13-year-old son Gregory an iPhone as a Christmas present. "Gee, thanks, Mom," you can hear little Gregory delightfully say, but that was before Mrs. Hofmann went biblical and blindsided her son with a litany of 18 commandment-like responsibilities to be mindful of now that he has a new phone, possibly resulting in a not so jolly Christmas morning for either of them.

When you're cruising around the web, you usually don't devote much thought to what operating system you're on. As long as your browser is working fine, who cares? Orbitz cares, for one, and you might want to start caring too. Turns out Orbitz treats Mac and Window users differently; they show Mac users the more expensive rooms.

If you can't go a day without bolstering your knowledge of malware prevalence, step out off that ledge, for Sophos has just the informational tidbits you've been seeking. Researchers at the firm have found that one in five Macs contain Windows malware, and one in thirty-six Macs contain Mac malware.

Though Macs aren't exactly less vulnerable to viruses as Windows computers, they've always experienced less -- mostly because there were a lot less people using Macs, thus a lot less people making viruses to infect them. Not too long ago, news broke that a malicious OS X virus spread around the digital tubes, infecting over half a million computers. Now, only a little over a week later, we get news that another OSX Trojan is circulating around our digital domain.

So, you've just gotten your hands on Mac's newly released OS X Lion and you couldn't be more thrilled? Well, sorry to rain on your parade, but it would appear Apple has a problem. Not just a "well I don't like this one specific feature, blah, blah" problem, but an actual security flaw in the software that allows automatically stored passwords to be easily extracted from a sleeping computer. According to Passware, a software provider, the latest edition of their password cracking forensic suite Passware Kit Forensic v11 can extract Mac OS X Lion user login passwords from the computer's memory in a matter of minutes. The vulnerability occurs when the computer is in sleep mode. Passwords that are stored in the computer's memory can be extracted using Passware's software, which captures the computer's memory via a FireWire connection and thus the passwords.

For students headed back to school, particularly the college bound in the market for a new computer, Apple is poised to be the brand of choice. Apple's promotional Back-To-School campaign offers shoppers a $100 gift card for iTunes with the purchase of a new Mac, and its a pretty enticing incentive. Research firm Global Equities complied some statistics that show that approximately 80% of incoming students plan to go Apple. According to Global Equities, Apple's off to a strong start in the back-to-school market beating Microsoft 8 to 2. The data also show that more students enrolled in exclusively online universities, like Phoenix Online, choose Apple, which is an emerging trend. With a strong showing it seems that transitioning to the gift card from previous campaigns that included a free iPod hasn't hurt Apple. (via The Next Web)

A lot of exciting information about the next iteration of Apple's operating system, OS X Lion, was released during WWDC this year -- particularly that it will be available for only $29 -- but a neat feature that wasn't discussed in depth is that Lion will allow unauthorized users to boot into "browser only" mode. Dubbed "Restart to Safari," the mode will allow users to do exactly that, restart the computer into a mode that only provides access to the web browser and prevents users from having access to personal files.

The mode is most likely intended for kiosks and schools, and it probably isn't 100% safe, as any hacker will say, the easiest way to gain unauthorized access to a computer is to actually have the computer in front of you, but for average computer users, the mode should keep personal files and settings safe.

Lion is expected to hit during July, and only be available through the Mac App Store for the aforementioned $29 price tag.

(via Mac Rumors)

Despite the breathless coverage we, and other outlets, have provided for iCloud, there were other things talked about during today WWDC 2011 keynote speech. Today, Apple outlined some key features we can expect to see in OS X Lion and iOS 5. Though iCloud will bridge iOS and OS X devices, those platforms are seeing some major changes in their own right. Read on after the break to see what changes we can expect in the latest versions of Apple's mobile and desktop operating systems.

Macs! PCs! One of them is better than the other in some ways! (Awaits flamewar.)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming: The folks at crowdsourced decision-making site Hunch have crunched the numbers on close to 400,000 participating users to paint differing portraits of Mac and PC users. Their results, assembled in the infographic below, back up some Mac/PC user stereotypes while upsetting others, though it's worth pointing out that being the sort of early-adopting hipcat who regularly uses Hunch may be a more salient characteristic than what kind of computer one uses to do it.

(Sticky Comics via UFUNK)

One day after the launch of the Mac App Store, the above graphic--which can be seen on Apple's website--takes on a whole new meaning: The Mac App Store has been cracked, allowing users to pirate any app found in the store after installing a crack called "Kickback." Read on past the jump for details.

The Mac App Store launched earlier today, bringing the relative ease and slight addictiveness of obtaining programs the iOS way to Apple's computers, finally allowing OS X users to nickel-and-dime our e-wallets to death the way all those iPhone and iPad users get to. Upon browsing the store, in the midst of the obligatory litany of throw-away games and limited demos masquerading as free games lies a decent amount of extremely worthwhile and critically acclaimed games -- something most platforms don't generally accomplish at launch.

If Three Guys and a Podcast's report holds true, the next iteration of the MacBook Pro will release in April 2011, featuring solid-state drives, and will dispense with optical drives, like the recent version of the MacBook Air. It is also speculated that the new MacBooks may feature Intel's Light Peak optical cabling, which is supposed to be a universal bus to replace various buses, such as SATA, USB, HDMI, PCI Express and FireWire.

Yesterday, Apple rolled out the previously iPhone- and iPod Touch-only FaceTime videochat software to Mac computer users; however, as the German blog MacNotes has discovered, the current beta version of FaceTime for Mac has a security hole that could leave some users' Apple ID accounts compromised. Given that this could be used by an interloper to change the FaceTime user's password, locking them out of their own Apple account, as well as make purchases from the iTunes store, this is cause for concern.

Apple's Back to the Mac announcement is scheduled to begin at 1pm EDT: While some details of the announcement appear to have leaked via Apple's forums, including a new MacBook Air, iLife '11, and a possible mystery product, no one yet knows for certain what's in store. It seems pretty likely that the announcement will tease a new version of Mac OS X, tentatively known as "Lion" to the blogosphere thanks to the promotional picture Apple sent out last week (left); however, it's unclear whether that'd be ready to go on people's computers anytime soon or would merely be a sneak peek, consistent with Apple's schedule of releasing the past three updates two years apart each; then again, the rules may be different now. Update: We've written a comprehensive roundup of all the big announcements this afternoon.