Apple tech support helped hacker access Honan’s account

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Mat Honan:

I know how it was done now. Confirmed with both the hacker and Apple. It wasn’t password related. They got in via Apple tech support and some clever social engineering that let them bypass security questions.

The good news is the hacker didn’t brute-force the password. The bad news… yeah.

Hacked. Hard

Written by

Mat Honan:

At 4:50 PM, someone got into my iCloud account, reset the password and sent the confirmation message about the reset to the trash. My password was a 7 digit alphanumeric that I didn’t use elsewhere. When I set it up, years and years ago, that seemed pretty secure at the time. But it’s not. Especially given that I’ve been using it for, well, years and years. My guess is they used brute force to get the password (see update) and then reset it to do the damage to my devices.

I’ve known Mat for a lot of years and he’s a really smart guy. This should be a lesson to all of us.

Steve Jobs was receptive to a 7-inch iPad

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Eric Slivka at Mac Rumors has a number of links from yesterday’s testimony at the Samsung trial that indicate Steve Jobs was receptive to the idea of Apple making a 7-inch iPad.

Samsung lawyers break court rules again

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In the sworn declaration, Mr. Stretch admits to having “brought five Samsung prospective witnesses, accompanied by two interpreters, and three Samsung in-house attorneys, to see the Ceremonial Courtroom on the afternoon of August 2, 2012”.

Using the right tool

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John Kirk for Techpinions:

I do not ask silly questions, like whether a tablet is a consumption device. I do not ask whether a phone or a tablet does “real” work. I do not obsess on the exceptionally rare times when I may use my phone as a tablet, my tablet as a notebook or my notebook as a tablet. Instead, I simply use the right tool at the right time.

That’s exactly what I do.

Apple’s Schiller to Samsung: ‘you’re stealing all the value we’ve created’

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“[Copying] creates a huge problem in marketing on many levels. We market our product as the hero and how distinctive it is, how consistent we’ve kept it over time,” said Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, as he was questioned by Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny. “Now when someone comes up with a product that copies that design and copies that marketing, then customers can get confused on whose product is whose… If you steal [the way the iPhone looks] you’re stealing all the value we’ve created.”

Sounds like Schiller did a great job in court today.

EA sues Zynga

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The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claims Zynga’s recently released Facebook game “The Ville” willfully and intentionally “copied and misappropriated the original and distinctive expressive elements of the Sims Social.

Sounds like Samsung designers are working for Zynga.

Health benefits of a beard

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“The longer hair provides a higher UPF at the smaller SZA, but the difference between the protection provided by the longer hair compared with the shorter hair reduces with increasing SZA. Protection from UVR is provided by the facial hair; however, it is not very high, particularly at the higher SZA.”

In other words, you bastards are going to die a miserable death, while I live forever.

Creating a menu in CSS3

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The navigation of a website is one of the most fundamental aspects to make or break a user’s experience. Instead of loading your menu down with individual images or sprites, why not do the entire thing in CSS3?

Microsoft ditches ‘Metro’ now using ‘Windows 8-style UI’

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But sources are telling us that this is coming to an abrupt end after the company’s Legal and Corporate Affairs team sent out a memo banning the word “Metro.” LCA’s memo reportedly says that Microsoft has been threatened with legal action for infringing on “Metro” trademarks held by German retailer Metro AG.From now on, the new terminology that Microsoft is using is “Windows 8-style UI” when talking about Windows 8 applications, and “New User Interface” when talking about the company’s full product line-up.

That’s totally going to catch on.

Losing $440 million in 30 minutes

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Talk about a bad day. In the mother of all computer glitches, market-making firm Knight Capital Group (KCG) lost $440 million in 30 minutes on Aug. 1 when its trading software went, to use the technical term, kablooey.

Wow, now that’s a software glitch.

Apple seeks sanctions against Samsung

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Apple’s lawyer William Lee on Samsung releasing evidence to the press:

“Mr. Quinn’s declaration does not adress two of the Court’s questions: who drafted the statement and who released it,” Lee wrote. “Samsung’s multiple references to the jury in its statement make plain its intent that the jurors in our case learn of arguments the Court has excluded through the press.”

Microsoft Surface will be the next Zune

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“We expect the Surface pads to have a similar impact on the PC industry as the Zune did in portable music players,” commented Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling.

If someone said that about my product, I’d just kill it and close the company.

Faint praise

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Fraser Speirs:

I feel like I can’t help damning the Nexus 7 with faint praise. It’s a nicely built tablet, that’s fast enough and has a workable OS. It has a good browser and some good built-in first-party apps. As a general-purpose device it’s hobbled by a small keyboard. It lacks a cellular networking option and a rear camera. As a reading device – possibly its strongest suit – it’s let down by poor font rendering and a sub-retina display.

Sony Q1 profit plummets 77%

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Sony on Thursday reported its results for the first fiscal quarter of 2012. The struggling Japan-based consumer electronics giant posted $79 million in operating profit for its June quarter, down 77% from the same quarter one year earlier. Analysts were expecting nearly triple the income Sony reported

Brutal.

RIM is still in business

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Research In Motion today launched the new 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with built-in support for cellular networks.

Who new RIM was still in business.

Apple regains worldwide lead in PC shipments

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Global PC shipments rose 12 percent in the second quarter of 2012 compared to the same period a year ago, according to a new report from market research firm Canalys. Leading the way is Apple, which regained the top spot from HP. […]

Nokia releases pink nail polish

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This hot pink Nokia Lumia polish is designed to match the pink version of the Lumia 900 which was recently introduced in the U.S., via AT&T.

Yeah, everything is just fine at Nokia.

This is why Apple needs to stop Samsung and Google from copying them

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Fender did not pursue the Strat-clone manufacturers in court; and then after attempting to trademark the iconic Statocaster contours decades later, a court ruled in 2009 that “the body shapes were generic and that consumers do not solely associate these shapes with Fender Musical Instruments Corporation”. The ruling went so far as to say “in the case of the [Stratocaster] body outline, this configuration is so common that it is depicted as a generic electric guitar in a dictionary.”

Protect your property from thieves or lose the rights to it.